Chapter 5: Wrongful Hunger

Dinner was a grotesque parody of normalcy.

Neil had prepared what looked like a feast—three different kinds of meat, mashed potatoes, green beans, dinner rolls still warm from the oven. The table was set with their mother's good china, the plates arranged with an almost ritualistic precision that made Liam's skin crawl. It was more food than two people could possibly eat, more food than they'd had in the house when he'd arrived that morning.

"Where did all this come from?" Liam asked, sliding into his chair across from his brother. The smell rising from the platters was rich and savory, but underneath it lurked something else—that same organic wrongness that had been haunting the house since his arrival.

"I had it in the freezer," Neil said, already loading his plate with portions that seemed impossibly large for his skeletal frame. "Been saving it for a special occasion."

"Special occasion?"

"You coming home." Neil's smile didn't reach his eyes. "It's been a long time since I had someone to cook for."

Liam watched in fascination and growing horror as his brother began to eat. Neil didn't just consume the food—he devoured it, tearing at the meat with his teeth, barely chewing before swallowing massive chunks. Grease ran down his chin, and his eyes had taken on a glazed, almost euphoric quality.

"Jesus, Neil. When's the last time you ate?"

"I eat plenty," Neil mumbled around a mouthful of what might have been roast beef. "I eat all the time."

But that was clearly a lie. Despite the voracious appetite Liam was witnessing, Neil remained gaunt to the point of emaciation. His cheekbones jutted out like knife blades, and his wrists were so thin they looked like they might snap under the weight of his fork. It was as if the food was passing through him without providing any nourishment, feeding something else entirely.

Liam picked at his own portion, trying to identify the meat. It was tougher than beef, gamier than pork, with a texture that seemed somehow familiar and deeply wrong at the same time. The flavor was rich but sour, like it had been aged too long or prepared with ingredients that had begun to spoil.

"What kind of meat is this?"

Neil paused in his feeding frenzy, a piece of flesh halfway to his mouth. "Venison. From hunting season."

"This doesn't taste like deer."

"Different cut. From the... the haunches." Neil's explanation came too quickly, and he avoided Liam's eyes as he spoke. "Prepared it special."

Liam set down his fork, his appetite completely gone. Around them, the kitchen felt smaller than it had that morning, the walls pressing in like the sides of a coffin. The single overhead bulb cast harsh shadows that seemed to move independently of their sources, and the smell of the feast was becoming overwhelming.

"I'm not that hungry," Liam said, pushing back from the table.

"You should eat." Neil's voice had taken on an edge of desperation. "You need to keep your strength up. Never know when you might need it."

But Liam was already standing, already backing toward the doorway. Something about the scene was fundamentally wrong—not just the food or Neil's bizarre eating habits, but the entire setup. The careful arrangement of the plates, the ritualistic precision of the serving sizes, the way Neil kept glancing toward the darkened windows as if expecting someone to appear.

As if he was preparing for more than two people.

"I'm going to check on a few things," Liam said. "You go ahead and finish."

Neil nodded, already returning to his meal with renewed intensity. But as Liam left the kitchen, he could feel his brother's eyes following him, tracking his movement with predatory awareness.

The rest of the house felt different in the darkness. Hallways that had been merely run-down in daylight now seemed actively malevolent, filled with shadows that didn't quite match the furniture that cast them. Every creak of the old floorboards sounded like footsteps, every settling groan like whispered conversation.

Liam found himself drawn to the pantry, though he couldn't say why. Maybe it was the memory of Neil's nervous energy that morning, the way he'd hovered near the kitchen doorways like a guard dog protecting his territory. The pantry door stood slightly ajar, revealing a sliver of darkness that seemed deeper than it should have been.

He pushed the door open and fumbled for the light switch. The bare bulb flickered to life, revealing shelves lined with canned goods and dry staples. Normal enough, except for the scratches.

They covered the inside of the door like desperate graffiti—deep gouges in the wood that looked like they'd been made with fingernails or claws. Some were fresh, the wood pale and splintered where it had been torn away. Others were older, darkened with what might have been dried blood or something worse.

The pattern was unmistakable: something had been trapped in here, clawing frantically at the door in an attempt to get out. Or something had been trying to get in, scratching and scraping with increasing desperation until it finally succeeded.

Liam ran his fingers along the deepest gouges, noting how they seemed to follow the grain of the wood. Not random scratches, but deliberate marks made by something with intelligence and purpose. At the bottom of the door, near the floor, the scratches were accompanied by what looked like bite marks—ragged tears in the wood where something had gnawed at the barrier with inhuman persistence.

From the kitchen came the sound of Neil's continued feeding, punctuated by soft moans of satisfaction that made Liam's skin crawl. Whatever his brother was eating, it was providing him with more than simple nourishment. It was giving him pleasure, the kind of deep, primal satisfaction that came from satisfying a hunger that went beyond the physical.

The garage was Liam's next stop, though he dreaded what he might find there. The overhead fluorescent light buzzed and flickered as he made his way through the cluttered space, casting everything in harsh, intermittent illumination. His father's tools hung from pegboard walls like surgical instruments, organized with obsessive precision that spoke to a mind trying desperately to maintain control.

The freezer sat in the far corner, an ancient chest model that hummed with mechanical determination. Liam had noticed it that morning when he'd found the stone box, but hadn't thought to investigate. Now, with his father's recorded confession echoing in his mind and the taste of that strange meat still coating his tongue, he felt compelled to look inside.

The lid opened with a pneumatic hiss, releasing a cloud of frigid air that carried with it a smell that made his eyes water. The interior was mostly empty except for a few frost-covered packages wrapped in butcher paper. But it was the stains that caught his attention—dark patches on the white plastic lining that looked disturbingly familiar.

The same dark substance from the kitchen garbage, the same organic wrongness that had pervaded the house since his arrival. But here it was concentrated, coating the bottom of the freezer in a layer thick enough to see even under the accumulated frost.

Liam grabbed one of the wrapped packages and peeled back the paper. Inside was meat, but not like any he'd ever seen. The color was wrong—too dark, too varied, with streaks of something that might have been fat but had an oily, iridescent quality. And threading through it all were those same fine, grey hairs that had been mixed in with the garbage.

Human hair. He was certain of it now.

The realization hit him like a physical blow. The feast Neil had prepared, the meat he'd been devouring with such obvious pleasure, hadn't come from any animal. It had come from something else entirely, something that had once been human but had been changed, processed, transformed into sustenance for whatever hunger drove his brother's skeletal frame.

From inside the house came a sound that made his blood freeze—Neil's voice, but not speaking to anyone. Singing, in a low, tuneless drone that seemed to vibrate through the walls themselves. The words were indistinct, but the melody was wrong, composed of intervals that human vocal cords shouldn't have been able to produce.

Liam rewrapped the package with shaking hands and closed the freezer. His mind was racing, trying to process what he'd discovered. The scratches in the pantry, the stained freezer, the unidentifiable meat—it all pointed to the same horrifying conclusion. Neil wasn't just hiding a secret about their family's past. He was actively participating in something monstrous, feeding something that required human flesh to survive.

But feeding what? And why?

The answer came to him like a whisper from the darkness of his own subconscious. His father's recorded confession, the story of a baby born from carnage and blood. Hayley, sweet innocent Hayley, who'd been staying with friends while he dealt with their father's affairs. Who'd been born hungry and had never stopped being hungry.

Who'd left her brother behind to tend to her needs while she was away.

The singing from the house had stopped, replaced by the sound of movement—heavy, deliberate footsteps that seemed to shake the building's foundation. Neil was coming to find him, and something in the quality of those footsteps suggested that his brother's patience had finally run out.

Liam backed toward the garage door, his hand fumbling for the light switch. In the sudden darkness that followed, he could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, competing with the approaching footsteps for dominance of the night's soundtrack.

"Liam?" Neil's voice drifted through the darkness, but it sounded different now. Deeper somehow, with harmonics that human vocal cords shouldn't have been able to produce. "Where are you, brother? We need to talk."

But Liam was already moving, slipping out through the garage's side door into the cold embrace of the October night. Behind him, the house blazed with sudden light as every window illuminated at once, casting long rectangles of yellow across the overgrown yard.

In one of those windows, silhouetted against the harsh fluorescent glare, stood a figure that might have been Neil. But the proportions were wrong, the limbs too long, the head cocked at an angle that suggested joints bending in directions they weren't meant to go.

And in the distance, carried on the autumn wind that rustled through the dying trees, Liam could swear he heard the sound of inhuman laughter, high and wild and impossibly hungry.

The feeding was over, but something told him the real feast was just beginning.