Roger shook his head. “I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject.”
Hatcher sighed and gave him a defeated look. “Talk to her first. Get her input. Maybe she’ll alleviate your worries.” He sat forward and gave him an intense look. “Or maybe she’s on the same page as you are and you both want the risk minimized.”
“What then?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Dr. McAlester paced his small stateroom, nervous energy coursing through his veins. “I should have stood up to them.” He stopped at the mirror again and glared at his reflection. “You’re a grown assed man for shit’s sake. You don’t have to take their bullying.”
He watched as the veins in his forehead pulsed. He recognized the anger painted across his features and he felt his anxiety grow. “There’s no reason for you to put up with that kind of shit anymore. You aren’t some eighty pound weakling with zits.” His finger poked at his reflection.
He remembered the man stabbing at his sternum and his anger grew more intense. “I should have grabbed that damned digit and snapped it off. Let’s see how tough his is when he can’t use his fucking hand!” He threw the first thing he grabbed at the mirror and watched as the stainless steel sheet buckled, a dent forming along the middle.
He stepped away and tried to control his breathing. He squeezed his eyes shut and ground his teeth together, forcing his anger back into the shadows of his mind. “You are better than this, Kevin.” He panted heavily, trying to oxygenate his brain and force his heart rate to slow. “Don’t lower yourself to their level.”
A bang at the door snapped his head up. “What the fuck are you doing in there?” A deep voice asked from the hallway.
Kevin felt his anger flare again as he turned to the door. “None of your goddam business!” he grabbed a coffee mug and threw it at the door. “Mind your own fucking business!”
The banging continued. “Open the door you nitwit!” He could almost see the asshole outside kicking the bottom of the door.
Kevin’s anger raged as he stormed the few short paces to the stateroom door. He pulled the door open and glared at the large, uniformed man facing him. “GO. AWAY!”
The soldier stared at the tiny man with the veins bulging in his neck, screaming at him. He inhaled deeply and forced himself to lower his voice. “Lookit, asshole…I don’t give two shits what you do when you’re in your own room. But when you start yelling to yourself and banging on the goddam walls, that shit keeps me awake.” He stepped forward and tried to look intimidating. “That shit don’t fly with me, pencil neck. I gotta be on watch in four hours and if I don’t get my sleep, I get cranky. You wouldn’t like me when I’m cranky.”
He reached out to push the smaller man and nearly yipped when Kevin grabbed his arm and pulled him into his stateroom.
Kevin didn’t think. He simply reacted. Thirty years of cowering and being picked on boiled to the surface as he climbed the larger man’s chest and sank his teeth deeply into the crook of his neck.
With one hand, Dr. McAlester reached for the soldier’s mouth, covering his screams with his palm while his other arm flailed outward, slamming the door of this stateroom shut. He tore a large chunk of flesh loose from the soldier’s neck and spat it aside.
He didn’t know why he went for the softer, wetter stuff below the surface, but Kevin soon found his face buried in the wound, his teeth rending more flesh from his struggling would-be bully.
He honestly didn’t notice when the man quit moving and lay prone across his stateroom floor. He was too busy filling himself.
Simon watched as his new “gang” tore chunks and limbs from Pipe Guy. He wasn’t even disturbed when they began to eat the pieces. He did, however, feel something in his gut turn when a filthy hand held out a chunk of something in front of his face.
Simon leaned back and tried to examine the bloody hunk of flesh being offered. It could have been a kidney or a spleen. Maybe a piece of a lung?
His eyes followed the hand up and saw the hopeful look on the woman’s face, her mouth covered in blood. Simon tried to give her a kind smile before he shook his head.
She pushed the bloody offering closer and he leaned away from it. Whatever she was offering, she really wanted him to have it. Simon shook his head again and pushed the bloody meat back toward her.
She seemed to grow taller and thrust the organ back at him, her face almost becoming angry. Simon kicked his legs off the check-in desk and dropped to his feet. He snatched the aviators from his face and glared back at her.
For a split moment, he could almost see that she was probably once quite pretty. Now, with her thin, ghostly skin hanging off of her bones and her hair mostly gone, she was a pale specter of what she’d once been.
Simon squared his shoulders, preparing to shove the woman back into the crowd that was wallowing on the carpet, removing all evidence of his kill, when he realized, they were all watching him. His eyes caught each of them staring at him and he was truly confused.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” Well, that was what he tried to say. It was unintelligible to his own ears. The woman stepped back in front of him and thrust the meat into his face.
Simon leaned back again and stared, his eyes blinking in the darkness. Now that he had the blood smeared sunglasses removed, he realized, she was offering Pipe Guy’s heart.
Without realizing it, Simon reached up and took the organ from her hand. It was still warm in his fingers and he found himself watching the others as they
