Page 64 of So Thirsty

The feeling in my throat is getting harder to ignore, morphing from discomfort to pain. It’s taking over. I’m in danger of its monopolizing my body, my thoughts.

The onset of panic makes me feel like I’m trying to breathe inside of a plastic bag. I can’t do anything about it except resist. Pretend the resistance isn’t futile.

I push myself to stand, walk over to the ledge where the hill drops off. There’s no fence. One misstep and it’d be a long, long fall. A hard landing.

I brace myself, bend my knees, lean forward, prepare for a scream I’m too shy for. I swallow it down and bury my head in my hands.

And I wonder…if I’m not screaming…then who is?

21

I run up the path and discover there’s now another car in the parking lot of the rest stop. A truck. There’s no one inside it. There’s no one around. There’s no more screaming. No more sound. I don’t know exactly what situation I’m about to stumble upon, but I have a pretty good idea.

I try the women’s room. There’s a smear of blood on one of the sinks, spatter on the mirror above it. I walk up to the sink, run my finger through the blood, and put it in my mouth, just to taste it, as if it’s frosting on a cake and I’m an impatient child. I hate myself for it.

There are a few drips leading out of the bathroom, like breadcrumbs into a wicked forest. I follow them around the side of the building, to the back, where I find Naomi on top of this mountain of a man, annihilating his neck.

She picks her head up only after I call her name for the third time.

“Sloane,” she says, her voice tremulous and thin. “Where were you? Where were you? He came…he followed me into the bathroom. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t want it. He tried to…he gave me no choice.”

The man lets out a gurgled cry.

I’m not totally convinced she’s telling me the truth, but the truth is irrelevant at the moment; there’s a man bleeding.

“Um…”

“Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see him pull up?”

“I…I didn’t. I was over…What did you do, Nay?”

“Do you not believe me?” she says, vexed. “It was self-defense.”

“Okay,” I say, getting closer so I can see the wound. It’s a red abyss. There are distinct teeth marks, ribbons of skin. He had a neck tattoo, but there’s no telling what of. He’s a puzzle with warped pieces. It’s brutal, and I know in the dark of my heart, we’re not leaving this one alive. “What did you do to him?”

“What I had to! You’re not listening.”

She’s wrong. I am listening. Blood gushes from his wound onto the ground, going to waste, and I hear it whispering to me. Calling me to it.

“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” I ask, closing my eyes and holding my own neck, as if my weak little hands can contain the thirst.

Naomi spits skin out of her mouth. “I fucking hope so.”

The man’s lips flap. He convulses, blood spewing from his maw as he attempts to speak. I lean over, attempting to listen.

“Cu—” he says. “Cunt.”

With that, I’m on him. I’m drinking. Chugging. Jubilant. He kicks his feet at first. He breathes until he doesn’t. And the taste is heaven—better and better and better and better, the blood so deliciously warm until suddenly it goes cold because he’s gone cold.

“They taste a little different when they’re dead,” I hear myself say. “But still good. There’s plenty left, if you want it.”

Naomi takes me up on the offer, takes my place at his neck, and I lean against the back wall of the restroom, gawk at the world’s soft edges. I feel so light, so magnificently untethered. I wonder if I might float away.

“Woof,” Naomi says, wiping her mouth on the man’s shirt. “I think I have brain freeze.”

I’m not sure how much time passes, but eventually I come back down to earth, and the edges are sharp, and I’ve killed someone.

I’ve got some of his skin stuck in my teeth.