My Love Lives in the Sewers

My love lives in the sewers, where the drops fall from the ceiling and echo throughout the tunnels. I visit her as often as I can. I tie a scented cloth around my nose and mouth and then I descend. I can tell where she is from the glow she radiates, from around a corner. 

No one can know about her, for they wouldn’t understand. She is not cruel or vindictive, what she eats she eats to survive. I can hardly fault her for that. But the rest, they do. As if they consume concrete and sustain themselves on smog. Eating is intrinsically an act of hurting, no matter who does it. My love understands this, and so do I. And so I feed her.

I would lie if I said I did it solely to be altruistic, though a romantic part of me wishes to be her knight in shining armour. Her keeper, her servant. The truth is that I find her a thousand times more ravishing now, when ravenous. She was also so restrained before. Salads, sparkling water and no dessert. Now she cannot get enough. She doesn’t even leave the bones. The red on her lips suit her better than the soft pink she used to wear and it gleams when she passes by a sewer drain. 

I think of her all the time, even when I can’t see her. She might be the only one of her kind left. It took almost a decade since the first alarm sounded, but they were all hunted down. One by one. Self defence, everyone agreed on. Murder, I say. They were our family, our friends. What happened is not their fault, and they can’t help needing flesh to live. Everyone thinks my love is dead, if only they knew how she roams below them. They all turned on her so quickly. Like grieving was an obstacle to be done with. How they disgusted me. 

Her sister was the first to go, because I so clearly remembered when my love first turned. Shock on her face, gone far too quickly. Her lips pressed into a thin line, a new, permanent wrinkle in between her brows. We have to kill her. 

My love showed no sign of recognizing who she was feeding on. Yet, I had kept her face intact. I am not a cruel man, and if my love didn’t want to consume her own kin, I would not trick her. But either she no longer knew her sister, or she was too hungry to care. Poor thing. My heart ached for her. There is nothing worse than hunger, as so many throughout history will tell you. I had no choice but to keep feeding her.

When I was all out of family members, I turned to the gates. People are slowly learning that there is a safe haven here, that the extermination is complete. So they travel far and wide, hoping for a chance of a normal life. Those who make it tell us how we are the lucky ones, how there are entire former cities run by the creatures. They can’t feed on each other, so it won’t last, but there are thousands of people who will never make it out. The creatures have sustenance to last them decades. 

The more people hear about our gates, the more food I can bring my love. I lie in wait, just out of sight. If I time it right, no one will ever know there was a refugee about to enter our community. I slit their throat, put a sack over their head and hide them. When night falls, I break curfew and bring them back. I have learned to work in complete darkness. No matter what manhole I throw the body into, my love will be there within minutes. She smells the blood. When she feeds, I watch. I don’t approach her, because I know she can’t control herself. And if she feeds on me, who will keep her alive? I don’t blame her, of course. It’s out of her control. And I enjoy caring for her. It’s reward enough, getting to admire her as she loses herself in gluttony. I believe the turning did something to her vocal chords, tore them as she stretched and twisted. She can’t speak. But she doesn’t have to. I can read her as well as I can read myself. I know when she needs to feed, when she needs to rest, when she needs to hide. She can live a happy life as long as I’m with her. 

I don’t know how much she understands, what the turning did to her mind, but I believe she knows me. I can see it in her eye, a flicker of recognition. It wasn’t there when she consumed her family or her friends, but it’s there for me. It makes my chest swell with love and pride. She knows me, she knows what I’m doing for her. I imagine she’s grateful, in the depths of her thickened mind. I never felt she was grateful before. Sometimes I can’t comprehend that this glorious being is the same woman I woke up next to for years, the woman who burned toast and ironed shirts. I never realized how deeply I had settled for the wretched normalcy of it, but I cannot fault myself. Just look at her now. She turned out to be an investment that paid off handsomely.

We are still married, in the eyes of the church. Till death do us part. It sickens me how many forget that little detail, once their spouse turns. It’s a figurative death, they justify to themselves. I see right through them. My love has never been more alive than she is now. I adore her for it. She reminds me of a rabid dog, concerned only with survival. Is that not the essence of being alive, fighting only to remain so? No one else understands, but I do.