The Experiment

The Starving Experiment

As we stand leaning against the damp wall, Rick looks between us again and says, “It’s either her or me. Trust me, Kayla, you don’t want to go after me.”

Rick’s words barely make it to my ears; the only thought running through my mind is how my stomach aches and rumbles for something to eat. I swallow hard and grip the revolver for comfort.

I know he’s right, that I need to choose. Unfortunately, my mind is so foggy I can’t see the best choice.

Trying to decide, I look between the two. Rebecca is still sitting huddled up in the corner, muttering to herself. Her ratty brown hair covers most of her face, but I can see her blue eyes between the strands. She is looking at us as if we are predators and she’s prey.

When I look over to Rick, he pleads with me, “Please, Kayla, we’re going to get married. We just need to get out of this.”

I flinch at the sight of him. A black beard has started to grow on his gaunt face. I’ve never seen him with facial hair before. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see the man I was going to marry. Maybe if I kill him, I could pretend he is someone different than the man I’ve been in a relationship with for six years.

“Please, I can take the gun from you and do it myself.” His watery green eyes plead with me, but all I feel is disgust. I know he’s just as hungry as I am, but I can’t bring myself to care.

“I don’t know what to do.” My own grating voice makes me cringe. A wave of hunger rushes through my body, momentarily debilitating my thoughts. I find myself doubling over in pain, falling onto the wet, stone floor. Rick mutters something I don’t care enough to hear and walks over to Rebecca.

My eyes fall to the locked iron door again as my stomach twists. I stare at it and feel as though it’s staring back. I scoff at my stupidity. We’ve pushed, slammed, and pounded on that door for the past days, weeks, months. It never budges.

I allow myself to get comfortable and hold the revolver closer to my body for comfort. I’ve found the best way to keep it close is by shoving it under my shirt and crossing my arms over it. If either of those two want to take it from me, they would have to pry it from my cold, dead arms.

Tilting my head back, I gaze up at the wet wooden boards that make up the ceiling of this prison. The soaked, sagging wood slowly drips all around the room, and one drop slaps my cheek. Opening my dry lips, I stick my tongue out to catch one of the drops of water. This is something that has become a habit now to stay alive. It took us a long while to resort to drinking the unknown liquid that drips into our small cell. Thankfully, none of us has died from it yet.

I count each second of the hours that drip by, but boredom slowly brings me back to sleep. My dreams repeat the image of that day, weeks or maybe months ago. The day we were taken.

I giggle at Rick’s lewd joke from the passenger seat of my car. Rebecca grumbles from the back seat, “Could you guys be a little less annoying, please?”

“Never,” Rick answers.

I laugh again.

We pull into a small-town gas station for a bathroom break. We’ve been on the road for a few hours now, and it will be a while until we arrive at our hotel for the week. It was my idea to visit Alberta, Canada, for the northern lights. I brought both my fiancé and best friend with me; it’s never a boring trip if they both come along.

We all climb out of the cramped car and stretch before walking into the station. The owner directs us to the bathroom outside at the back of the store. He hands Rick the key and leaves us to it. Of course, Rick gets first dibs, so Rebecca and I wait outside. The chill makes me shiver, and Rebecca grabs me to wrap her blanket around both of us.

“I hate the cold, warm me up, Woman,” she says.

I giggle but don’t push her away.

Then I hear footsteps crunching the gravel coming from the front of the gas station. I simply assume it’s another driver coming to use the bathroom. They round the corner, and I’m caught off guard, firstly noticing the ski mask on his face. But when my eyes fall to the gun in his hand, my pulse skyrockets.

The man walks up behind Rebecca, and before I can get a word out, a sharp crackling sound hits my ears. Rebecca falls to the ground.

“Rick!” I yell.

It dawns on me that I should run, but the man stops me easily, grabbing a fistful of my hair. I scream again, tears escaping my eyes. It all happened so quickly. The last thing I see before I’m tased and my muscles go slack is Rick popping out of the bathroom, pants half on, a shocked look covering his face.

A stomach cramp pulls me from my sleep, and I grunt through the pain. My heart aches at the realization that I should have been paying more attention. I let my guard down and my friends down. It was all my fault. The panic that started in my chest rises into my throat. I eat air to trick myself into calming down. Squinting my eyes open, my heart races at what’s across from me. A group of shadowed people stand next to the door. All thoughts of hunger and failure forgotten, I jump up to sit.

“Help!” I yell. But when I open my eyes fully, they’ve disappeared. I lean my head back against the wall in defeat. A tear escapes my eye, and I lick it away when it reaches the crease of my mouth. My stomach moans at the small taste of salt and grime, begging for more.

To try and distract myself, I let my eyes find Rebecca again. She’s lying in the same spot she was earlier, eyes wide as she stares at me, “you’re crazy, you’re crazy,” she whispers to no one in particular. I search for Rick next, having a hard time finding him in the dark room. I finally see him sitting a few feet away from me, head tilted to catch the ceiling drops.

Annoyance rushes through my mind at the sight, making me dizzy. Distain for the way Rick has been pushing everything onto me swirls into my foggy thoughts. When we first woke up in this small room, he was too scared to touch the single revolver lying in the middle of the room. That’s when I learned he hadn’t ever fired a gun before. He then suggested shooting the four cameras that hang from the ceiling, like the ricochet couldn’t kill one of us. I was the one who had to try to knock down the door, I was the first one to try the ceiling water, and I was the one to catch the cockroach that squeezed through the bricks. I can’t believe I shared that damn roach with him.

Creak. Everyone’s head snaps forward at the sound. Thud, thud, thud, thud. Footsteps echo on the planks above us. When I look up, light shines down through the slats of wood. I make a split-second decision and scream out, “Help! Hey! Please!”

I jump to my feet and yell as loud as I can. The footsteps have stopped, and I know they are right above me. I yell and I plead.

“Please, Help! We are…” A hand slaps over my mouth. I whip my head down to stare at the person in front of me. Rick holds the back of my head in one hand, my mouth in the other, clamping down so hard it hurts.

“Shut up! They might hurt us!” Rick says.

My stomach grumbles, and a fire stirs in my gut. I push the barrel of the revolver into his stomach, and his face blanches when he realizes his mistake. Easily enough, he lets go, backing away. Keeping the gun pointed at Rick, I start again, “Help! Please!” but when I look up, the light is off.

Rick grumbles under his breath, “You are damn lucky they didn’t come for us, Kayla.”

My foggy mind lashes out, and I yell back, “I wanted them to come for us! Want to know why, you idiot? They would’ve had to open the door. They are the only ones who can open it. You need to leave the thinking to me because every time you speak, you fuck shit up.”

Rick doesn’t seem convinced, but he has enough sense to turn around and go back to sulking in his corner. I huff and drop back down to the floor, trying to simmer down and use my brain again. I stare longingly at the ceiling, waiting for the light to turn back on, for any sound to hit my ears again. My eyes burn.

I try my hardest to think through our situation, though my mind is still fuzzy. When we first woke up here, questions plagued me. I wondered where we are, why we were taken, what the cameras are for, and what the gun is for. But as the hours dragged on, I lost the ability to care. I stopped caring about the uncomfortable floor or the smell from the corner we use as a toilet. I even stopped caring about how we would get out of here.

Food has taken over my thoughts. It didn’t take long to realize someone needs to die to feed the others, or we will all die from hunger instead. So, the only thought occupying my mind is who it will be.

If I kill Rick, he’s bigger and will feed both Rebecca and me for longer. That is, if raw human flesh doesn’t poison us. I’m not sure how that works, I suppose. I trip and stutter over my thoughts again, trying to get back on track. Absentmindedly, I scratch my arm with the barrel of the pistol, skin flakes falling to a puddle on the floor.

If I kill Rebecca, we’ll still have food. It’s the same both ways. But Rick would hog the meat, I bet. He will believe he’s bigger and better, so he deserves more. I look at Rebecca and note her muttering to herself, shaking on the floor. She might not even eat at all. Maybe I should kill her because she’s obviously lost it.

I wince at the way I’ve scratched my arm raw. Looking down, I again notice the skin flakes that float in the puddle. I stare at them for a moment before my mouth waters. Without a second thought, I get down on my hands and knees and slurp up the skin flake soup.

The dirt gets stuck between my teeth, and the slime coats my throat, but I can’t stop myself. I’ve drunk the whole puddle, but I don’t stop. Bigger pebbles and greasy rocks start to find their way into my mouth, my greed not allowing me to stop. I keep swallowing, even when I need to take a breath, I keep going. Eventually, my body forces me to breathe. Instead of air entering my lungs, however, a stone chokes my throat. I gag, hard. Before I know it, vomit pours over the floor. The rocks, the skin flake soup, all the drops of sludgy water come rushing out of my stomach. It spills over my hands, and I can’t stop now that I’ve started. My stomach cramps and tries to push more out. I dry heave repeatedly before finally, my body stops punishing me.

Throat raw, stomach burning, I slowly crawl backwards, away from the contents of my stomach that now coat the floor. Both Rebecca and Rick are staring at me. Rick’s face is scrunched up as he looks at me with desperation. Glancing between me and the vomit, he slowly gets on his hands and knees.

I mutter out to Rick, “God, I can’t do this now.” Please let me rest, let this end.

He either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t listen. He focuses all his attention on me, pleading with his eyes. I wrap my arms around my knees, gripping the pistol tighter. He slowly crawls towards me, jeans wiping through a portion of my vomit. He doesn’t notice.

“Kayla,” his breath caresses the side of my face; it reeks of rot. “Kayla, give me the gun. We need to eat. I’ll share her, I promise.”

I barely have the energy to scowl back at him before simply falling into the fetal position on the floor when another nauseating wave of hunger hits me.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he says.

The endearment makes me shiver. He is the one with the most body fat, and somehow, he’s the one begging.

He nudges my side with his elbow, “Kayla.”

Somehow, I always end up wearing the damn pants in this relationship. I pull up the gun, aiming it straight at his chest, “shut up.”

His hands fly up, and he scootches away again. His cowardice only stokes the fire, pumping it through my veins.

“What, Sweetheart?” I tease, a slow smile spreading across my face. “I needed to empty my stomach to make room for you.”

Then, before I can change my mind, I cock the revolver and pull the trigger, aiming right at his stupid face. I miss. Fear clutches my chest in a vice grip as he tries to crawl towards me, a scowl on his face. I guess he found a backbone.

“How dare you, Kayla!” he grates out.

Before he can make it back to me, I cock it and pull the trigger again, and again, and again. Rick falls to the floor without another sound. I tilt closer, trying to get a better look before a whimper sounds on the other side of the room.

I turn to find Rebecca huddled up in the far corner, arms wrapped around her legs.

“Want a snack, Rebecca?” I ask.

“Crazy, crazy, crazy…” she continues to mutter to herself.

I roll my eyes, turning back to Rick, now lying in a pool of blood. I crawl closer, finding that only one of my bullets hit him, right through his eye. Despite my excitement about the food, nausea rolls through me again at the sight. Thankfully, nothing else comes up.

I turn back to Rick, trying to decide what to eat first. Unfortunately, I can’t focus because I hear Rebecca losing her mind behind me.

“Crazy, crazy, crazy…” Rebecca has gotten louder, and her voice grates against my ears. It makes me cringe as she goes on and on.

“Rebecca!” I screech at her, “Shut up!”

She doesn’t. So, I pick the revolver back up and start crawling towards her.

“Crazy, crazy, CRAZY…” she just gets louder.

I’m right next to her now, in her tear-soaked face. “Shut up, SHUT UP!” I wave the revolver around, and it just gets worse and worse. Her voice is filling me with a dread I can’t explain. When the gun goes off, I flinch, and Rebecca stops talking.

I freeze for a moment before letting out a sigh at the quiet relief. It’s all my fault that they are dead, and I don’t mind it one bit. The realization that I could have killed them both a long time ago makes me scoff. I really shouldn’t have dealt with their obnoxious presence for that long. They should be grateful I waited.

Then, another grating sound fills my ears and makes me jump. Turning, I screech at the sight. The large iron door is open, light streaming in, hurting my eyes. A single man stands at the entrance.

A gruff voice sounds out, “Come with me, we have questions to ask you.” He then turns and gestures for me to leave the room.

My face twists in confusion; the notion that I leave now is ridiculous. The door doesn’t change anything about what I need, what I did. Crawling over to Rick again, I let this strange man watch as I lean down towards Rick’s face and lick his cheek, getting a taste of whatever the white stuff from his eye is. Thinking of it as ranch dressing, I savor the flavor as it slips down my throat, erasing the burn from vomiting earlier. I’ve worked for this meal. So, I don’t care where I am, who he is, why I’m here, or what is going on. I need one thing right now, and I can’t guarantee there is any of it outside of this room.

When the strange man raises his gun, I barely notice. But I certainly notice when the bullet thumps into my chest. I fall back to the floor, eyes facing the ceiling. Still, the emptiness in my stomach gnaws on me, as if it’s trying to reach into my soul. I open my mouth, hoping for one more drop of water before the darkness swallows me.