Liam stopped, letting the water rush over his feet. ‘If he does, I’ll kill him.’
The voice said nothing, but Liam knew it was smiling wherever in his subconscious it lived.
When he got back to their camp, it was almost total dark. He could see Tyler snoozing by the yellow inflatable, head on his chest. Liam was pleased. It would be easier with him asleep and not aware of what was going on. He moved silently towards where his father’s body still lay. In the glow of the moon, he looked like a shell, the shadows making him appear as a ghoul with black wells where his eyes should have been. Liam touched his father’s head, the rough scar tissue cold to the touch.
‘I hope you understand why I’m doing this,’ he whispered as he brought the knife out. His hands were shaking and he had to focus to steady them. ‘We have to live, we have to survive.’
With his free hand, he grabbed his father’s cold wrist and straightened it, touching the point of the scalpel blade to the meaty part of the forearm. ‘Forgive me.’ Liam said, then he cut.
The blood looked black in the moonlight. Liam cut a strip of flesh from the forearm, the tears streaming freely down his face. His mind was filled with static, the horror of his actions too much to bear, too much for him to handle. He had slipped into autopilot as he cut the lump of flesh loose. He held it in his palm, lip trembling.
‘What’s going on, what are you doing?’ Tyler said, sitting upright.
‘Just stay back, this is nothing to do with you,’ Liam said, the sobs getting heavier. He looked at the lump of flesh in his hand and knew what he had to do. His stomach churned and growled, then, in an event that repulsed him more than he ever anticipated, he started to drool. Thick strands of saliva hung from his chin as he looked at the grisly lump of flesh.
‘Don’t do it; you’ll regret it if you do,’ Tyler said, standing but not approaching. He had seen the scalpel shimmering in the moonlight and wondered dimly in the back of his mind where it had come from.
‘This is my business. I’m so hungry,’ Liam whined as the drool fell to the bloody rocks in front of him. ‘You keep out of it.’
Tyler watched, too stunned to do anything else. Liam lifted the lump of flesh to his mouth, caught between desire and disgust, hunger and repulsion. He was balanced there on a knife edge, when that little voice so silent and sly, whispered in his mind and encouraged him to do it.
Knowing he could delay no longer for fear he would change his mind, he put it in his mouth and started to chew.
Pork gristle sprang to mind, chewy and tough, resistant to his efforts to eat it. He could taste blood, and feel the fine hairs on what was his father’s arm tickling the inside of his mouth as he chewed on the cold, fleshy lump. He badly wanted to spit it out onto the rocks, but he couldn’t do it. The voice in his head wouldn’t let him. He chewed, trying to break up the fleshy lump as tears streamed down his beard-scruffed cheeks. He gagged, thought he was going to vomit, then gagged again but somehow kept control. The voice inside spoke up. Told him to keep chewing, to resist the urge to spit it out. Liam was breathing through his nose, rapid snorts as he came to terms with the decision he’d made. Somehow he managed to swallow, almost bringing it straight back up. He needed water, something to wash the vile taste from his mouth, and so he stood and stumbled towards Tyler, scalpel forgotten and still clutched in one bloody hand.
Misreading Liam’s approach for water as some kind of attack with the scalpel, self-preservation took over and Tyler met the perceived attack. They grappled, Tyler holding the wrist of the hand holding the knife whilst at the same time trying to wrestle Liam to the ground, but the younger man was physically stronger, and with adrenaline surging as a result of what he had just done, was difficult to subdue. Liam, thinking Tyler had attacked without provocation, fought back, the voice in his mind telling him this was now a battle over food, and that Tyler wanted to take it from him. He unleashed a scream of rage and drove Tyler back, the older man losing his footing on the smooth rocks. Knowing he couldn’t risk letting go of Liam and his knife arm, he clung on, both of them crashing to the ground. Tyler hit the edge of the inflatable, flipping it over and spilling the precious remaining water onto the rocks.
‘The water, we lost the water,’ Tyler said, trying to reason with Liam, but there was no way to make him listen. His eyes were wild, feral. He had stopped being a human and had taken on the traits of some kind of monster. Tyler realised how weak he was, and that the physical toll of their struggle was making him tire.
‘What are you doing? Why are you attacking me?’ he grunted, keeping his eye on the knife blade.
Liam blinked, and then a moment of clarity banished the voice and its commands back to where it lived. He understood then that a mistake had been made, a misunderstanding which had almost led to him trying to kill another human being. With such a sobering thought at the forefront of his mind, whatever had taken over him was gone. He rolled off towards the water, then scrambled back towards the body of Nash. Tyler sat up, breathing heavily as he looked at the overturned inflatable. ‘That was all the water we had. What are we supposed to do now? What the hell did you attack me for?’
Liam stared at him, a skinny wretch, a blood-smeared shell of the healthy man who he had first met in the bar. ‘I thought you wanted to take it from me,’ he grunted.
‘Take what?’ Tyler said, even though he suspected he knew the answer.
The food. Liam was protecting his food.
‘I was wrong. I understand that now. There is enough for us both,’ Liam said, hopping back over his father’s corpse and crouching again by the arm he had already cut a slice from. ‘Try some. It’s really not that bad. Look, I’ll show you.’
Tyler stared, horrified and sickened as Liam cut another strip of flesh from his father’s forearm. He held it up, showing it to Tyler by the light of the moon. ‘Have you ever had sushi? It helps to just pretend that’s what it is.’ He slipped the sliver of flesh into his mouth, the wet sound of his chewing incredibly loud. He gagged once, then swallowed it down.
‘What’s happened to you?’ Tyler said, not expecting a response.
‘Don’t you get it? We have to live. I’m not ready to die yet. This is the way it has to be.’
‘Without water, we’re fucked anyway. You realise that, right?’
Liam glared at him, then looked away. Tyler watched as he cut another slice of flesh off his father. This time, he didn’t even flinch as he swallowed it. ‘You’ll see. You might have already given up, but I haven’t. I’ll survive this. I guarantee it.’
Chapter Eleven
The next day was explosively hot and Nash had started to spoil. His flesh was bloating and starting to crack, and every time the breeze rushed over the island, Tyler was hit with the sour rot smell. He hadn’t slept, the combination of fear and his overactive brain making such a thing impossible to do. He had sat and watched as Liam had systematically eaten his father. By sunrise, the arm had been stripped down to the bone and Liam had moved on to the uninjured leg. As Tyler watched, he cut a slice of calf free and popped it into his mouth, resting one hand on his father’s bloated stomach. The two men locked eyes across the rock beach.
‘You sure you don’t want some? It’s starting to spoil,’ Liam said between noisy chews.
Tyler couldn’t help but notice how the terminology had changed. It seemed Liam no longer saw Nash as a person. Just food. Tyler would have said something, but he was too exhausted. He was sure he could feel his body wasting away and was almost envious of Liam who was rapidly regaining his vitality.
‘You really should eat something,’ Liam added. He grinned, his teeth bloody and covered with lumps of stringy flesh. ‘Seriously, you’ll feel better.’