Michael Bray - Feed

‘What are you doing? Why are you attacking me?’ he grunted, keeping his eye on the knife blade.

Liam blinked, and then a moment of clarity banished the voice and its commands back to where it lived. He understood then that a mistake had been made, a misunderstanding which had almost led to him trying to kill another human being. With such a sobering thought at the forefront of his mind, whatever had taken over him was gone. He rolled off towards the water, then scrambled back towards the body of Nash. Tyler sat up, breathing heavily as he looked at the overturned inflatable. ‘That was all the water we had. What are we supposed to do now? What the hell did you attack me for?’

Liam stared at him, a skinny wretch, a blood-smeared shell of the healthy man who he had first met in the bar. ‘I thought you wanted to take it from me,’ he grunted.

‘Take what?’ Tyler said, even though he suspected he knew the answer.

The food. Liam was protecting his food.

‘I was wrong. I understand that now. There is enough for us both,’ Liam said, hopping back over his father’s corpse and crouching again by the arm he had already cut a slice from. ‘Try some. It’s really not that bad. Look, I’ll show you.’

Tyler stared, horrified and sickened as Liam cut another strip of flesh from his father’s forearm. He held it up, showing it to Tyler by the light of the moon. ‘Have you ever had sushi? It helps to just pretend that’s what it is.’ He slipped the sliver of flesh into his mouth, the wet sound of his chewing incredibly loud. He gagged once, then swallowed it down.

‘What’s happened to you?’ Tyler said, not expecting a response.

‘Don’t you get it? We have to live. I’m not ready to die yet. This is the way it has to be.’

‘Without water, we’re fucked anyway. You realise that, right?’

Liam glared at him, then looked away. Tyler watched as he cut another slice of flesh off his father. This time, he didn’t even flinch as he swallowed it. ‘You’ll see. You might have already given up, but I haven’t. I’ll survive this. I guarantee it.’

The next day was explosively hot and Nash had started to spoil. His flesh was bloating and starting to crack, and every time the breeze rushed over the island, Tyler was hit with the sour rot smell. He hadn’t slept, the combination of fear and his overactive brain making such a thing impossible to do. He had sat and watched as Liam had systematically eaten his father. By sunrise, the arm had been stripped down to the bone and Liam had moved on to the uninjured leg. As Tyler watched, he cut a slice of calf free and popped it into his mouth, resting one hand on his father’s bloated stomach. The two men locked eyes across the rock beach.

‘You sure you don’t want some? It’s starting to spoil,’ Liam said between noisy chews.

Tyler couldn’t help but notice how the terminology had changed. It seemed Liam no longer saw Nash as a person. Just food. Tyler would have said something, but he was too exhausted. He was sure he could feel his body wasting away and was almost envious of Liam who was rapidly regaining his vitality.

‘You really should eat something,’ Liam added. He grinned, his teeth bloody and covered with lumps of stringy flesh. ‘Seriously, you’ll feel better.’

‘Where did you get the scalpel?’ Tyler asked, the simple act of speaking taking a herculean effort.

Liam didn’t answer at first. He simply chewed, hands and mouth caked in dried blood. ‘Found a medkit from the boat washed up round the back of the island. Had all this stuff inside. Bandages. Antiseptic. The works. That’s what I tried to explain, but you didn’t understand.’

‘There’s nothing to understand.’

‘I prayed for this. I asked for a sign, some proof that this was how it was meant to go down then boom. The kit washes up with everything I needed. I was going to ask Dad about the leg, to explain to him why it had to come off and that we had the equipment to make sure he survived. Only I was too late. At first, I was upset, but then it occurred to me.’

‘What did?’

‘That his death was a sign too. Some higher power.’

‘You don’t strike me as the religious type.’

‘I’m not saying it was God. I’m not even sure if I believe in that stuff, but you have to admit it. Something has worked in our favour so far.’

Tyler laughed. He couldn’t stop himself. It came out more as a series of dry coughs.

‘What is it? What’s so funny?’

‘Worked in our favour? We are almost killed by a giant prehistoric shark, end up shipwrecked on a fucking rock with no food, you turn psycho and decide to eat your dead father, then to top it off, we lose all our fresh water. Oh yeah, someone is really looking out for us.’

‘This is what we have to do to survive. There is no choice.’

Tyler struggled to his feet, feeling dizzy. ‘And how do we do that? Swim for it? Call a taxi? How does what you’re doing help us? Fucking look at it out there there’s nothing…’ He stopped speaking, sure he was hallucinating. There was a glimmer on the horizon, a white speck which he was certain wasn’t there before. Forgetting all about Liam, he walked to the edge of the rock, cupping his eyes against the sun. He saw it again, a metallic glint on the horizon.

‘Fuck, it’s a boat, there’s a damn boat out there!’ Tyler shrieked, not caring as adrenaline surged through him. He leapt and waved his arms, shouting even though it was unlikely they would be seen. ‘Come on, help me signal for it,’ he bellowed over his shoulder. Liam, however, just sat there and stared, looking from the horizon, to Tyler, then to the bloated remains of his father. His mind was filled with static, like a radio struggling to find a signal. Nothing made sense to him anymore nothing was rational or seemed ordinary. The life he once had, the life before, was gone. It seemed like something he could never get back even if they were rescued. That was when it reappeared, the monster inside, the voice free to speak as it chose without medication to dull it. It told him what was necessary, what the implications were if he didn’t act. He knew in some distant, detached way that what he was being told was wrong, but also that things had already gone too far for him to ever recover from. He listened as the inner voice told him what he had to do and how to do it, and that the decision he was about to make was the best one under the circumstances. He tightened his grip on the scalpel, then lurched to his feet and tackled Tyler from behind, pitching him forward onto the hard rocks, his upper half landing in the water. Liam grabbed the back of Tyler’s head and pushed it under the water, waiting for him to die. Just like the voice had told him to.

II

Captain Adam Carrington might have missed the call for help if not sailing upon the debris field. He and his three-man crew had been leaning overboard the hundred and twenty-foot vessel, visually scanning the floating debris for anything that may be salvageable. His men knew of the legends of the area about the monster shark which supposedly roamed the waters, and to see the floating debris field had initially spooked them. It was only by chance as Carrington was scanning the landscape with his binoculars that he saw the man on the rock outcrop waving his arms. It was clear to him that they were once passengers on the boat which was now floating around their hull and it made him uneasy. The forty-five-year-old skipper lowered the binoculars and turned to his crew.

‘Get in the Zodiac and go bring them in.’

‘We’re too far out. Can’t you get closer?’ said Benton, a grizzled man of fifty with leathery skin who had spent more of his life at sea than on land said. He had seen it all, and yet his pale blue eyes glimmered with fear. ‘I don’t like it out here.’