Chapter 5: A Craving for Gouda

Chapter 5: A Craving for Gouda

The scream died in Reagan’s throat, a strangled, silent thing that left her shaking in the sterile light of her bathroom. She slapped her phone face down on the counter as if to unsee the grotesque wiggle of the pink growth on her back. Leaning over the sink, she splashed cold water on her face, again and again, the rhythmic slap of water against skin a desperate attempt to ground herself.

It was just a muscle spasm. A trick of the light. A hallucination brought on by trauma and lack of sleep. She repeated the rationalizations like a prayer, but they were hollow words against the profound, physical certainty that something was growing inside her, a parasite wearing her own skin. Her body, the only thing that had ever been truly hers, was now occupied territory.

Sleep was impossible. Reagan paced the small confines of her apartment, a prisoner in her own home. Every mundane detail was suddenly alien and hostile. The low, electric hum of the refrigerator, a sound she normally never noticed, was a deafening drone that vibrated in her teeth. The steady drip... drip... drip... of the kitchen faucet she’d been meaning to fix was no longer a minor annoyance; it was a percussive torture, each drop landing with the concussive force of a hammer blow in her skull.

She pressed her hands over her ears, but the sounds were inside her now. She could hear the faint scuttling of a spider in the wall vents, the whisper of air currents moving through the room. Her senses were screaming, overloaded by a world that had become too loud, too bright, too much.

Beneath the sensory assault, another feeling was growing. A gnawing emptiness in her stomach that was more than just hunger. It was a primal, desperate need, a craving so intense it eclipsed her fear. It wasn't for anything specific at first, just a demanding, hollow ache. But then, a scent cut through the cacophony. From the sealed refrigerator, through the layers of plastic and cardboard, she could smell it. Sharp, salty, slightly pungent.

Cheese.

The thought wasn't her own. It arrived fully formed, a command from the new, unwelcome passenger in her body. The craving sharpened, focusing with terrifying precision. Not just any cheese. Not the bland American singles or the pre-shredded cheddar. She needed Gouda. Smoked Gouda. The block she’d bought on a whim last week and forgotten about.

The need was a physical force. It propelled her to the kitchen, her movements jerky and graceless. She tore open the refrigerator door, her eyes scanning the contents with a predator’s focus, bypassing the leftover pasta and the wilted salad greens. Her hand shot out, grabbing the vacuum-sealed wedge of cheese. Her fingers, clumsy and trembling, fumbled with the plastic wrap. A frustrated, guttural sound escaped her lips—a noise she didn't recognize as her own.

Giving up on finesse, she tore the package open with her teeth, the plastic ripping with a satisfying shriek. She didn’t bother with a knife or a plate. She lifted the wedge to her mouth and bit into it, the waxy rind cracking, the smoky, creamy cheese flooding her senses. It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. She devoured it like a starving animal, crouched on the linoleum floor of her kitchen, heedless of the crumbs falling on her bare legs. The numbness in her lip was gone, replaced by a tingling sensitivity that registered every salty, fatty nuance of the cheese.

When it was gone, she was left panting, the ghost of the flavor on her tongue. The gnawing emptiness had receded, replaced by a strange, temporary calm. She looked down at her hands, slick with the oils from the cheese. Who was this person? Who was this creature that knelt on her kitchen floor, tearing into food like a wild thing?

She caught her reflection in the dark screen of the oven door. The greying of her hair seemed more pronounced, a stark silver frost creeping down from her scalp. Her eyes were wide and dark, the pupils blown wide even in the dim light. They looked like the eyes of a nocturnal creature.

Her phone buzzed on the bathroom counter, the vibration a jarring intrusion into her altered state. She flinched, her newly sensitive ears ringing with the sound. It buzzed again. Dragging herself to her feet, she went to see who would be calling at this hour.

The screen lit up with a name that sent a jolt of ice and fire through her veins: NIKKI.

She stared at it, her thumb hovering over the green icon. Mr. Henderson's voice echoed in her head: Don't talk to each other about the incident. It was a corporate policy meant to prevent lawsuits, but right now it felt like a quarantine protocol. A rule to keep the sickness from being named.

She answered.

"Reagan?" Nikki’s voice was a high-pitched, panicked whisper, thin and crackling with static that wasn't from the phone line. "Reagan, are you there? I know we're not supposed to call, but—"

"Nikki, what's wrong?" Reagan asked, her own voice hoarse.

"Something's happening to me," Nikki cried, a sob catching in her throat. "I can't… I can't turn it off. The sounds. My neighbor's TV, I can hear every word through the wall. The pipes are groaning like they're screaming at me. And my tongue… everything tastes like metal. Like I’ve been licking a battery."

Reagan sank onto the edge of the bathtub, the cold porcelain a shock against her skin. It wasn't just her. The relief was a punch to the gut, immediately followed by a tidal wave of terror. This was real. This was happening to them both.

"My hair," Reagan said, the words falling out before she could stop them. "It's turning grey."

"Mine too!" Nikki gasped. "And my skin… it feels so tight. And Reagan… I'm so, so hungry. All the time. But everything I eat tastes like ash."

The confirmation was a cold, hard stone in Reagan's stomach. The same heightened senses. The same insatiable hunger. The Progenitor Strain, as the vet's secret files would later name it, was at work in both of them. Their bodies were battlegrounds, and they were losing.

"What do we do?" Nikki whimpered. "We have to tell someone."

"Who, Nikki? Who do we tell?" Reagan countered, the old pragmatism fighting through the new animal instincts. "We go to a hospital, they'll lock us in an isolation ward. We're contaminated. Evidence."

Before Nikki could reply, the call-waiting beeped in Reagan’s ear. She pulled the phone away from her face to look at the screen. Her blood turned to ice.

The incoming call was from JAMIE.

"Nikki, hold on," Reagan said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Jamie's calling me."

She switched over, a sense of profound dread settling over her. Jamie, the strong one. The grounded one. The one who had wielded the mallet with such brutal finality.

"Jamie?"

The line was filled with a wall of static and a sound like wet, ragged breathing. For a moment, she thought the call had dropped.

"…R-Reagan…?"

The voice was unrecognizable. It was a low, guttural rasp, as if the words were being forced through a throat filled with gravel and phlegm. It was distorted, stretched, barely human. The sound sent a primal shiver of fear down Reagan’s spine, a fear that the part of her that craved Gouda recognized on an instinctive level.

"Jamie? Is that you? What's happening?"

There was a long pause on the other end, filled only by that awful, wet breathing. Reagan could picture Jamie in their apartment, crouched in the dark, phone clutched in a hand that was maybe no longer a hand. The transformation was further along for them. Faster. More violent. A horrific premonition of her own future.

Then, the distorted voice spoke again, a single word whispered with an agonizing, drawn-out hunger that was a thousand times more terrifying than any scream.

"Hhhhuuuunnnnngrrrryyyy…"

The line went dead.

Reagan stared at her phone, the silence roaring in her ears. She switched back to Nikki's call.

"Reagan? What did they say? Are they okay?"

Reagan couldn't speak. The endpoint of their transformation wasn't just a physical change. It was annihilation of the self. It was being hollowed out and replaced by a single, driving impulse. Jamie wasn’t just feeling hungry. Jamie was hungry.

"Nikki," Reagan finally managed to say, her voice trembling but clear with a terrifying new purpose. "We have to find out what this is. We have to find the source. Before there's nothing left of us to save."