Author's Notes: Written by Trax. This is the story of a man driven to insanity. One of many side stories that co-exist in the "Wasted Songs" universe. These are mostly filler until we can get our regular work out. As always, we hope you enjoy and criticism is always welcomed with an open mind. Please tell us what you think and check out our other work and future works.
The Hunger... the painful, gnawing Hunger the. Hunger that can only be satisfied by Death, by Blood, by Marrow, by Flesh. By sweet, succulent human Flesh. The Hunger wasn't always there. I used to be normal. What is normal now? In a world where people kill to stay alive one more God-forsaken day. Where humans sell humans to other humans for pieces of tin that humans deem worth something. Where you can't even trust your son not to murder you in your sleep because it would make the pain go away… what is normal?
Back before the hunger…some…time ago. I can't remember. Life before the hunger seems like a burr now. All I do is feed kill sleep; I've become a boogeyman, a nightmare. I'm no better than a Yao-Guai or a Super Mutant. But I'm still human, so aren't I better? Aren't my actions justified as survival? How am I different than everyone else? I hide myself. I use a mask, a hockey mask, I drew teeth on it. The teeth I use to rend flesh...
The time before the hunger I was with the robot men. The Brotherhood. Cold very cold Steel. I was lost in the Capitol. No where to go. No where to run. Hiding. Running. Going. We, not I. We were lost.
But I found something. Something to get what the Hunger needed. The Flesh. The Hunger needed it. A knife, a saw, a tool. I was so hungry, he wasn't alive anymore. He told me to kill him. He told me too. He said I should. He knew the Hunger too. But the Hunger chose me. I feasted. And feasted. Then We were found. Not him and me. Me and the Hunger.
They took us home. I was able to control the urges from time to time. The Hunger doesn't always control me. It let's me have a turn sometimes. But after awhile He got tired of waiting and made me His tool as the knife was mine. The knife had teeth too. Teeth stronger than bone. Than veins. Than tendons. The teeth were stronger than mine. I ate that night then ran. My dad couldn't run. I cut his legs off. Lots of meat. I had lots of meat with me. And the knife. I ran to the Wastes. Where the Hunger took me. Raiders. Men, women, children, the all took me. They heard the Hunger too. They gave me clothes. Lots of spikes. Lots of teeth. Showed my flesh. Like a meal for them, my enemies were supposed to eat me. They were supposed to take my Hunger.
I don my mask to hide myself from the truth, to let them know the Hunger is in control, that I'm not there but He is. I really don't want to eat it all. But the Hunger makes me. Makes me shake. Trying to get out of me. He doesn't want to be here either but He is. Sometimes I can be normal.
I have a name. It's not my real name but it's a name I like. Lamron. That's what they call me. Not the Hunger, He calls me His. I have more tools now. Still in my spike armor and my teeth mask. But I've got a shotgun now. It hurts. A lot. It kills them good so my knife can stay sharp but sometimes I use my knife. It has the Hunger too.
We've been wandering for days now. It's hot. Too hot. I'm cooking. Makes the Hunger hurt at night. We saw some Slavers over the hills, they're far away. But we know they're slavers. They travel between here and there and wherever they're going and wherever they've been all the time. But only when we find them. They fell asleep in a house. It was only half a house. They tied the slaves up outside with a dog. The dog wasn't tasty and he was loud. I put on my mask. My hair is spiked now too. A row of it. Like a row of teeth. Of knives. We're monsters at night. I pumped my shotgun. A shell in the barrel ready to end whatever goes in front of it. The dog this time. The slaves woke up but my friends made them quite. Cut out their voices. Then the best part. Killing. Killing the evil ones. Killing the normal ones. They shot at me with rifles and machine guns and shotguns and fire throwers. There were 4 of them. That's almost half a person each if we didn't eat the slaves. We won't eat the dog. We never eat the dog. He doesn't like dog. Only humans. Only what is as evil as Him.
We went in a hole in the wall that led to the kitchen. The one with the machine gun took my knife to his skull, grey and red spewed from the crack in his head. His body fell to the ground twitching as the life escaped him. He was still warm but it wasn't time to eat yet. No, still danger.
I left the kitchen into the living room and saw a man shooting his shotgun out of a window. He was trying to kill my friends. The ones who understand me. The ones who love me. The ones who knew the Hunger. As the Hunger knew me. I raised my shotgun, shouldered it. And pulled the trigger 3 times. Once I missed, shot the wall next to him, then he turned and took a shot to his shoulder so he dropped his gun, and the third one shot his face off. There was nothing left from torso up. I looked. I still had 5 shots left in my magazine. I heard running up stairs. Heavy feet. A man with a lot of meat.
I ducked behind the staircase. A man with a gas tank on his back came running down.
"Jasper! Jasper! Where the fuck did you go man?! We gotta' get the fuck outta' here!"
He looked down and saw what was left of…Jasper. I hate it when I know there name. Makes it too personal. Makes the human in me sad. Hunger doesn't know what sad means. This new victim lifted his hose and it spat fire down into the kitchen killing my friend. Cooked him. Looks like there's more meat tonight. I turned the corner and shot his tank. He blew up. Blew up nice, lots of fire. Knocked me against the wall. I caught fire too, I put it out though. The Hunger makes me not hurt. On the outside. On the inside He is the hurt. I've killed three.
That leaves one more. I stand. Look out the window. I see a man on the ground. He's not my friend. He fell, out of the window. Broke his neck. His rifle was next to him.
So, we started our ritual. We buried the slaves. They didn't do wrong. Just unlucky. Like me but luckier. The dog we left. We don't like dogs. We buried our friend too. Then we made a fire and ate. We cleaned our kills first. Undressed them and laid them out, beheaded them with our knives and saws and hatchets. Put the heads on poles, rebar. Rusty, hard, sharp. We piled there insides, everything, everything the Hunger doesn't want. It only wants lean meat. Clean. Fresh. Delicious.
The fire roared like it was hungry too, like it wanted meat, like flesh. I bit into Jasper's thigh, we couldn't eat the top of him because there was too much shot in him, didn't want to crack our spikes, our knives, our teeth. That night we ate until our bodies were sluggish, we over ate, we became lavish and indulgent of our kill. Then we made a mistake. We sat there, watching the horizons. Knowing that someone would come, there had to be. Right? I mean more raiders? Super mutants? Dogs? Normal people. And they did come but it was without warning. We didn't see it. The hunger might have. That's why He told me to prepare. To take the hearts. Take them to the graves. And eat them. He's never told me to do that before but I listened to him, told me they'd make me indestructible. Invincible. Stronger than him.
I heard the gun shots. The screams. The horror. I heard my friends die one by one as they called my name for help. Told me to cover the rear. Told me to look out for the sniper. Told me to look out for the man with the pointed hat. That man. I ignored them. He was stronger than the Hunger. He saved me. He rescued me. He killed the Hunger. But he also had to kill Lamron. A .44 slug entered my chest from behind me as I gulped down the milky, bloody, tendony, hearts of those I murdered. And this man was no different, he murdered me but it was to kill something far more evil than me. Than him. As I lay there thinking what happened the two men stood in front of me. I felt the Hunger leave me. He left through that gargling, slurping, sucking hole in my chest. The men stood. One in all black with a sniper rifle, the other in the pointed hat.
"That fucking sucks we couldn't save the slaves and dog, Eddy. But they had already killed 'em by the time we knew they started the attack."
"I know, Derringer…I was there…" the man in black took a deep breath. I couldn't. "We're still getting paid right?"
"Yeah, contractor only said, and I quote, 'Tag along with our Slavers and make sure the Raiders that have been killing and eating our teams are taken care of.' He didn't say the Slaves or the Slavers had to live." The man in the pointed hat holstered his revolver. "Get some supplies and we'll head back to the Falls man."
The man in the pointed hat walked off into the dark. The dark… the dark grew closer. It wanted me too. The Hunger was gone and something else wanted me.
The black man knelt down next to me and this is what I heard. I don't know if that's what he said, but it's what I heard,
"All of us live with a piece like you… we can doubt it… we can hide from it our whole lives… or we can live and die like you…but in the end we die…and the rest of us continue to strive on to do what we all have to do now…we kill…we feed…we sleep… until one day we catch that unlucky bullet…"
He took my mask and put it over my face. He knew that the blood soaked crazed lunatic under it wasn't the real me. But that the mask was the real me. The mask became my shield. I closed my eyes as the darkness came over me. It didn't hurt like the Hunger…it didn't hurt…ever again.