The Hunger

by Alma Katsu

It was untrustworthy, that snow: It hid crevices, steep drop-offs. Snow kept secrets.

She’d known plenty of women like Harriet over the years, women who looked as if their faces had been slowly compressed between the pages of a Bible, all pinched and narrow.

In this, at least, his grandfather had been correct. Evil was invisible, and it was everywhere.

Something’s stalking the wagon train.

“They told me about a demon—a spirit that is very restless, very hungry. It has become many. They have taken on the skins of the men they have consumed.”

Spirits prowling the woods, dressed as men. My name is Legion, for we are many. Mark 5:9.

“Then the Lord must be mightily displeased with you, because he has led you into the valley of death. Make peace with your Lord before it is too late, because the hungry ones are coming for you.”

Hope, Tamsen realized, could be a very dangerous thing, especially when dealt to desperate hands.

“Na’it are never satisfied. Na’it want everything. Kill everything.”

She knew she didn’t have to remind him. They already were trapped.

The mills of God grind slowly, yet grind exceedingly fine.

Had the devil followed her all this way? Or maybe the devil was in her, and had been since the day she was born. Maybe it was the devil who was keeping her alive.

Love was not meant for everyone.

“Maybe it takes one demon to keep the others away.”

“Lucifer had been an angel first. I always remembered that.”

Reed once thought that love was akin to passion, but he saw now that it was something different entirely; that it was, perhaps, a kind of faith.