Hunger

"That was the last time I heard the Devil's voice," finished Goat, "Except in my nightmares. I went to the nearest church the very next morning and gave myself to Christ. I got baptized two days later and have been trying to redeem myself ever since.


"The cops snatched me up a week later. The waitress died before they could get her to a hospital. I got a life sentence for that. That was five years ago. I never told anyone about this before now. Who would believe me?"


Mikey had been standing on the sink, listening to Goat's story for over an hour. His feet hurt.


"Do you really expect me to believe all that?"


"I can't make you believe anything. The Devil is real. I met him. Now I serve the Lord."


"Yeah, and all it cost you was the girl you say you loved. You left her to torture and death–how do you think God feels about that?"


The vent went quiet. Mikey thought Goat had gotten off the sink, but after a few seconds he answered.

"I have to live with that choice every day. When I stand before God, I will accept His judgment for my actions that night."

"How very noble of you," Mikey sneered, words dripping with acid. "Personally, I think you and Maurice got lit and you dreamed all that shit. You probably caught a bad trip and spazzed on that waitress."

"This wasn't a druggie hallucination!" Goat protested. "This really happened!"

"Whatever. Look," Mikey yawned, "I'm good, dude. It was a nice story, but I'm going to bed."

"I really wish you'd reconsider," Goat said quietly, his voice heavy with regret.

And I bet Felecia wishes you'd reconsidered, you lying douche, Mikey thought angrily. He'd hit his quota of bullshit for one night. He stretched out on his bunk and closed his eyes.

The sound of a cell door cycling open jarred him awake. He sat up, frowning. He wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep, but the lights were still down; there was no prisoner movement allowed after lights out.

A cheerful male voice floated through Mikey's vent. It wasn't Goat's.

"Hey, Chaar-lay," it drawled, "Ever since you got yourself saved you've been shielded from Me. But don't you know that when you speak of the Devil, He's sure to appear?"

Mikey quietly climbed onto the sink. There was a confused sound from Goat as he woke up and tried to make sense of what was going on.

"Wazzat?" Goat said blearily, "Maurice? No, you're not–NOOO!"

His words swiftly turned into an inarticulate scream that drove jagged glass into Mikey's ears. The inhuman shriek that answered it shriveled Mikey's heart.

Recoiling in terror, Mikey's feet barely touched the floor as he retreated to his bunk, dove under the thin blanket and pulled it up over his head. His mind retreated to the simple logic of his childhood: the boogeyman couldn't get him if he stayed under the covers.

The noises continued for a long time: bestial growls; wet sounds, like ripping canvas; bones cracking; and slurps whose purpose Mikey struggled not to visualize. Once, he thought he heard Goat whimper something, it might have been a name.

Merciful silence finally descended. It did not last long. Footsteps approached his cell, the wet slap of bloody bare feet a death knell in his ears. He curled himself into the smallest ball he could and tried in vain to make himself believe that it was all just a bad dream.

His door cycled loudly, the rumbling of a hungry beast. He lay there an eternity, waiting to meet the same grisly fate as Goat.

Nothing happened.

Eternity continued to stretch. Still nothing. Finally, he risked a peek from beneath the sanctuary of his blankets.

A lithe, buxom woman stood naked in his doorway, her lacerated brow still adorned with a thorny crown; her bruised alabaster skin striped with whiplash scars. Her smile was too wide for her mouth and there was fire behind her eyes.

"Hey, Myy-kay," she said in a man's voice, drawing his name out in an all-too-familiar way, "I heard you've been looking for Me. How hungry are you?"