The Hunger

by Alma Katsu

Something flickered across them, and she felt suddenly embarrassed by the way she’d been staring at him. She was so used to watching people, to being ignored. It was unsettling now to be seen back.

Even in the thick cover of the woods, there was little birdsong. It was as if the lush growth were a painted setpiece, a convincing impression of life built out of sawdust and paint.

Stanton had heard of men unhinged by the wilderness, by too many years fighting the dark encroachment of the natural world. He wondered whether Hastings had simply come undone. But despite his filth and the way his hands trembled, Hastings didn’t seem crazy. Terrified, yes. Crazy, no.

She seemed altered to him suddenly, no less beautiful but smaller somehow, like a flame narrowed by lack of oxygen.

The mountains that had looked like distant hieroglyphs, ragged tears in the sleek shell of blue sky, now seemed far closer. He could make out snow-capped peaks, valleys already frozen over with ice that never melted. He had to hurry.

She’d thought she’d understood what had plagued him but was beginning to see that the secrets of Charles Stanton’s past were layered over one another, folded in on themselves, and unfolding still, into the future.

She finally stopped crying—the tears left tiny tracks through her wind-chapped skin, and she seemed to him like a painting in danger of blurring until its true form became lost forever.

When her mother tried to force her into the tent, she screamed and pulled away, bolting for the woods, her long dark hair streaming wildly behind her like a wave good-bye.