Taste Disorder

I awoke inside the house. Blood and water still soaked the floors and it was flooded. The elderly man's body, throat torn from my knife wound laid at my right, bloated from the liquid exposure. My clothes were soaked and the water had risen to my neck laid against the wall. I stood up in the shin deep water and walked up the stairs, dizzy. Grabbing the hand rail, I dragged myself up the stairs, looking for the bedroom and clean clothes. I tracked blood and water that soaked into the carpeted stairs, and nearly slipped and fell. When I reached the top of the staircase, I aimed down the hall and back and forth. I decided the check the first right door, and opened to a bedroom.

I scoured the closet for clothing, finding a black work shirt and jeans. I would need a belt, so I opened the top drawer across the room. On the dresser, a photograph. The person looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. I turned to look out the window, hearing sirens and seeing lights down the road. They were close behind. I got changed quickly and wiped my face. I looked back at the photo and fell back in fear. The white face with black eyes stared back at me, locking its empty eyes with mine. I got up and ran down the stairs, tripping down and hitting my head against the floor at the bottom. My nose was already broken. this time I was drowning in my blood as I passed out.

I woke up with a mouthful of blood, the taste on my tongue. A puddle covered my right cheek from where I fell. I couldn't waste time. I shook off the dizziness and ran out the door. The police were just down the hill, no more than two-hundred meters away and gaining. I ran as fast as I could. Down the hills, stepping hard in the grass, blood dripping from my nose. Sticky, syrupy blood streaming down my nostrils and lips, the bittersweet taste falling in my mouth and on my tongue. I choked on my own blood. I broke sweat and tore into the forest. It was at that moment I heard "Stop, or I will shoot!" from behind me. I looked back. They were at the top of the hill already. They didn't stop to check the house, they must've seen me. My mind raced. They were looking down on me, car lights bright against the forest.

I stopped for a moment, caught my breath, and they began to approach. I tore off in the woods and they fired. The sounds thundered in the night and bullets whistled past. I felt something bump my waist, and it was then I tripped. I looked at my hip where the wound hit. The bullet found its way in my hip, right inside my stomach. I was going to die from that if I didn't get it out, but I couldn't get it out myself. I got back up, and the police, with their flashlights, were spreading out. I hid behind a tree with my knife, waiting for one. As the tall, bulky man with the baseball cap circled a tree, I stabbed into his throat and tore, muffling his mouth and grabbing the gun out of his hand as he lost consciousness. I held the gun, claimed my knife and started running again. They had dogs. I could hear the barking. I could hear the patter-patter of one's feet coming ever so closer until... the dog pounced on me, biting right into my arm. The bite was deep, and the police began to surround the area. The dog, a German shepherd, bit hard into my arm. I screamed against it, kicking and thrashing it, but its eyes glowed back at me. Something was wrong. I stabbed into its jaw and it let go. The silhouettes of police circled me. Glowing lights shown on me, I ran with the bleeding arm until a gun stopped in my face. I looked back at him and saw

His rotting features, horrid and unbearable, even worse than any corpse I had seen. His slit cheeks and torn jaw rotting away, teeth falling out, his eyes falling in and his brains falling out his nose. His exposed forehead and blackened eye sockets. He pistol whipped me with the gun and strangled me with his long, rotting hands, his broken fingernails cutting my throat. Whatever teeth remained gnashed as he gripped hard. I struggled for my gun, firing several bullets into his waist. It did nothing, and my eyes began to blur. I lost all air and began to fade. I was losing grip. I stuck my hands into his eye sockets thumbing and grabbing the eyes out. Blood and pus soaked down the empty black sockets and I looked at the bloodshot, yellow cat eyes staring back at me. They turned white as snow and his hands loosened. I gnashed my teeth on them, and he fell off me. The silhouettes surrounded but stopped. One of them quickly tossed me face down and restrained my hands. I passed out from there.

I awoke inside an interrogation room, handcuffed under the table and legs bound to the chair. I paced, looking back at the mirror, where I knew they were watching me. I looked at the camera watching me. It didn't matter. I was already at work, twisting the metal links of the cuffs until they broke. While I was twisting, I paced my eyes around the gray room. I knew eventually someone would come in. Something was ...off, though. It seemed like hours I had waited, them just watching. The door opened, and the lights turned off.

I spoke first. "You can try the routine..."

It didn't respond, it merely stepped in the darkness. I could hear the patter of its feet. Suddenly a light flashed on the table, but only on the table. I could not see the room, nor the mirror, nor the person who was taking a seat. I spoke again. "This won't work. You won't get me to confess."

It didn't answer, but I felt it answer in my mind... I don't want a confession.

Its hands touched the table. At first they were dark, and the light moved towards them. The sight of it...the disfigured, decomposing hands, bones showing and rotting along with the almost green and gray flesh. I looked away, into the dark. ''No, God, no... not again. This isn't real.''

Two long arms, black fingernails but clean hands reached and grabbed my head. I turned the cuffs and felt them twist, but nothing... the hands twisted my head to face the person seated across from me. Her head, her face looked at mine. Beautiful, pale and white. Blackened eyes formed, and her bloodshot eyes with black pupils, jet black, stared back. She moved in closer, and the hands around me tightened. Her face slowly moving to meet mine, Tears of blood streaming down the face. I backed against the seat but the hands pushed me forward. The eyes moved towards mine and as I stared into them, I stared into emptiness. I stared into...

I broke the cuffs and jumped on the table, hitting the being with the chair, still tied to my legs. Gripping its throat, struggling, I bit into its neck and ripped its flesh out with my teeth. As blood gushed from it, I felt forces pulling back, but I kicked forward, ripping her stomach open. I yanked the intestines and organs out with me, with the forces pulling back. I pushed forward again, clawing into the ribs and breaking them. I bit into the veiny white and blue tubes of intestine, pulsating blue veins and oozing blood. I chomped on them, chewing with the taste of calamari in my mouth. I reached in the stomach, tearing open the rectum, exposing it, letting the shit ooze out, and going for the...

The lights flashed back on, and the man I was standing on top of was already dead. Three police had already dragged me off of him and out of the room, and began beating on my broken skull with merciless force. I fell incapacitated and still felt the pounding as my eyes shut.

''She's egging me on. She's the one who did this. She is driving me, It's her. It's all her. She's going to kill me but she's going to make me destroy myself... she's fucking with my head.'' I was thinking, inside the padded room. I was straitjacketed, surgery done on my stomach to remove bullet wounds. My head was covered in bandages from the damage done. I sat, struggling to get up with restrained legs. To no avail. I sat, against the wall. I looked against the wall and remembered tearing apart her uterus, eating what I saw. The child, that I ate. The life I snuffed and fed on.

Against my stomach, I felt kicking. I felt kicking harder and harder. I was screaming at the pain. They have to do something, They have to be watching. I saw the bulges in the jacket, kicking against my stomach. Something crawling up my throat, taking up all room, not letting in any air. I could not breath. something heavy was rising up in my throat, and I felt it lift me like a noose up in the air. I was suffocating, my legs kicking against air, my arms struggling in the jacket. I clawed for my throat but was helpless as I choked. I kicked violently, not being able to do anything. I looked down. She was watching. As my eyes blurred, she reached into my stomach, tearing the body apart. I watched, suffocating, as my body tore open and she gripped my guts, spilling them out on the ground. I couldn't feel it. It just felt like spilling out. There was no pain. Her hands reached up inside my body, ripping through my lungs and grabbing the object caught in my throat.

No... I was losing consciousness. She gently pulled it out, and through my body, my exposed chest, in her gentle, but rotting hands came her baby, grown. She looked at me for a moment, and I dropped, hitting my spilled guts on the floor. I watched, eyesight slowly fading, as the door opened and she slowly walked, cradling her child, into the dark.

I awoke in the cell. It was but a dream, that I wanted to end. I wanted to die. I wanted this to end. This suffering, this nightmare. I hungered. There was nothing to feast on. There was nothing left but... I leaned down to my feet, undoing the shoes with my teeth. I traced around, looking at a faint silhouette at the other end of the room. It began to move its arms, and it left a trail of black where its hands moved. It began to spell out words. This is only the beginning. Kill me...kill me... I snatched the socks and and lifted my foot toward my mouth.