What is the difference between a cannibal and a zombie? Free will, the ability to choose whether or not to eat another human being. Being aware of other choices, comparing and contrasting the attributes of each option. Do I eat a steak, or maybe a man’s liver, or do I go healthy and have an apple? A zombie eats out of instinct, the animalistic drive to exterminate its hunger. It doesn’t make a conscious decision about the prey it hunts and devours. It just does it, moving like a biomechanical machine, programmed by an algorithm not of its own creation. A cannibal, on the other hand, relishes the experience of dining on human flesh. For the zombie, it’s a necessity; For the cannibal, it’s a delicacy. Yet, if one is manipulated to have only one choice and that choice is to feast on your fellow, good and kindly neighbors, a narrowing down of options accorded to powerlessness, even with the capacity to know of more ethical alternatives, does that make one a zombie or a cannibal?
I am not a very attractive man. I learned early on as a teenager that I was destined to live a lonely life. Well into my thirties I was still struggling with severe acne, coupled with an early onset of rapid hair loss. My teeth, well, why even try? My stature, barely over five feet. The good lord humbles as he pleases, but I think he poured it on thick with me. Arrogance and pride are not vices I struggle with.
That’s why I was surprised when an attractive young woman took an interest in me. She had long straight black hair, and deep green eyes. Her skin was of a fair complexion but contrasted well with her dark hair. She wore scarlet lipstick that reminded me of wine, wine poured into golden chalices, the wine, as an altar boy, I would watch the priest turn into blood. She was like a color saturated photo, with exaggerated hues of dark and bright. She looked both inviting and ominous.
I worked at a delicatessen, preparing food, slicing meat and cheeses, cleaning and closing, not at all exciting or adventurous, but I enjoyed the stability of my well-known and expected routine. That routine was shattered when I first met Hazel.
She came into the diner with a minute left until closing. I hate last minute customers, and they always seemed to be the pickiest, most dull-brained morons to walk through the door. There’s no such thing as a last-minute customer who is quick and decisive. I had told Larry, my coworker, that he could leave early that night. He was eager to get to his buddy’s house and watch the game. I didn’t mind closing by myself. In fact, sometimes I felt like I got done quicker working alone. I was making good time, almost done,when she walked in.
“Ma’am we’re about to close,” I said without hiding my irritation.
“I’ll help you clean and then you can take me home. I need a ride.”
I was astonished by her brashness.
“A what?”
“A ride. I need a ride home. I’ll work for it.” She started picking up dishes from the tables and moving them to the bar.
“Ma’am…”
“Hazel. Call me Hazel. What’s your name?”
“Ben. I can’t let you do that. I’ll get all this done myself. I’ll give you a ride home, but first let me finish.”
She walked over to me and held out her hand, “Can I have the car keys Ben?”
A few thoughts went through my head, the first being that she was going to steal my car. The second was about how beautiful she was and how I didn’t want to miss a chance to be around her. Foolishly, I handed her the keys.
I cleaned up and closed out the register as fast as I could. I could hear the car idling outside and my stereo blasting at full volume. I walked outside and locked the front door. When I turned to walk towards the car I saw that she was motioning me to come quickly, with a hasty waving gesture.
“I love this song. Come on Ben. Dance with me.”
I got in the car and started driving. She was dancing in her seat, eyes closed, and oblivious to the passing city scape. “Where to? Where do you live?” I could barely hear myself over the music. She didn’t respond, so I raised my voice, “Where do you live?” Still no response. I was getting irritated so I yelled at the top of my voice, “Where in the hell do you live?”
She flipped off the radio. “Don’t ever yell at me Ben. Never yell at me. If we’re going to be together, you can’t yell at me.”
“What? I’m sorry. I’m just trying to find out where you live so I can take you home. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”
“St. Basil’s.”
“The old crazy house. It’s no longer in operation.”
“It was a sanatorium for emotional ills and yes, I live there. That’s the only place I can live at this moment. “
I knew exactly where St. Basil’s was. It looked like a castle with turrets, towers, and arches throughout. The sidewalk had a Roman colonnade encompassing the entire length up to the large wooden entry doors. The architecture lacked consistency; it was an asymmetrical collage of numerous historical styles. It was beautiful, but unsettling. In October, a part of the sanatorium was used for a haunted house attraction.
I pulled up to the fence that surrounded the abandoned property.
“Well, it was nice meeting you. I hope you find a home soon. If you need any help, you know where I work.”
“Come on inside Ben.”
“But that’s trespassing. I don’t want any trouble.”
She reached over, grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and with the other put the car in park. Then she turned the ignition off and quickly jumped out of the car with my keys. There was an obnoxious dinging as the car was indicating that its lights were still on. She ran parallel with the fence for about ten yards and then ducked through an opening. I watched her dart across the lawn and hop through a shattered window.
“Come get me Ben,” a faint voice echoed.
I sat there stunned. This lady was crazy, and I didn’t have any desire to go in there, but she had my keys. I turned the lights off, not because I wanted to, but to put an end to that torturous incessant dinging, that metronome of irritation. The property was dark, but I could see the outline of the building, especially the towers reaching up into the moonlit sky. They seemed taller in the dark and separate from the main building, expanding outward across the property, like a children’s pop-up book. The colonnade resembled a standing row of giants ready to attack. In the dark, the building was alive, perceptions, illusions, and reality striated together in a unity of madness. There was movement everywhere, but nothing moving.
I took out my cell phone and activated the light. I walked through the opening in the fence and made my way to the broken window. It was once a large, insulated window, but now all that was left was the loose-fitting wooden frame, with intermittent shards of triangular glass. I imagined myself walking through the jaws of a large prehistoric shark.
The floor was a checkerboard green and white linoleum. As I walked the floor creaked and I bounced with each step, convinced that at any moment the entire floor was going to fall through to the basement. There was an empty wheelchair in the hallway. I thought I saw it move, but then again, I’ve never owned or had a rocking chair, for the fear of seeing it rock back and forth with no one in it. Just to ease my mind I laid the wheelchair on its side. If it was going to move on its own, it was going to be with some effort.
“Benny.”
I heard her voice coming from the end of the hall and I could see a flicker of light coming through the passageway. I walked past several rooms on each side, each constructed exactly the same: a bed or at least a bed frame, a sink, and a small unreachable window near the top of the wall.
I reached the last room on the right. There were lit candles strewn about the room, mostly on the floor, but two were situated on the sink. Hazel’s clothes were tossed near the opposite wall. She was lying on the bed nude, on her back, propped up on her elbows. On her stomach were my keys.
“Come get your keys Benny.”
She was perfect. An angel in hell, trapped in a filthy, lonely abode. The light flashed across her body, exposing a beauty I had never experienced in my life. I wasn’t a virgin, but I had never been with a woman as gorgeous as her.
I got undressed and climbed on top of her. We began to have sex. She moaned with pleasure but then she started to repeat a startling phrase, something not even remotely akin to sex, “I’m so hungry. I’m so very hungry.” Over and over again she complained about her hunger. Moan and complain. Moan and complain. It was putting me off. I felt guilty. Did she want love, or did she need food? I was making love to a malnourished, homeless woman. How low have I sunk? I stopped and started to get off the bed.
“No. Don’t stop Benny. Please don’t stop.”
I resumed and tried my best to ignore what she was saying. She grabbed my left hand and stuck my index finger in her mouth. She started sucking on my finger. It was weird but better than hearing her complain about an empty stomach. And then she bit down. I heard and felt the bone above my knuckle crack. She cinched down harder as I tried to pull away. The blood began to spill on her breasts. She shook her head and tore away my finger. Blood shot through the air and landed on a candle, extinguishing the flame.
Hazel started eating my severed finger, tearing the flesh from the bone. She was a ravenous wolf devouring her kill quick and efficiently, as if to guard her food. The faster she ate, the quicker she would rid herself of the prospect of another dog stealing her quarry. Her demeanor had changed. She no longer looked young and beautiful. She looked like an elderly lady with a mean disposition. Her hair was now white and thin. The skin on her body hung loose and wrinkled.
I grabbed my clothes, and luckily, the keys were right there. I ran out of the room, not even taking the time to get dressed. I got to the window when I heard her beckoning me to come back.
“Benny, come back. I only needed a little bit. Just a little. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I want to make you immortal. I want you to be with me forever.” I could hear her voice getting louder as she tried to run after me.
My heart was beating fast, and I could taste the bile in my throat. I jumped in my car without any clothes. The sensation of vinyl felt different when you had no clothes on. I started the car and began to back up. I caught a glimpse of her standing in the frame of the window. She was young and beautiful again. It was a charade, but it was irresistible. I found myself at a dead stop, staring at the voluptuous figure who had just eaten my finger.
I forced myself to snap out of it and get the hell out of there. I was bleeding all over myself, so I took my shirt and wrapped it around my finger. I found a convenient place to stop and put on my pants and shoes. How was I going to explain this to the people at the emergency room? Fortunately, they didn’t ask too many questions. I guess they’ve seen it all. A homeless woman biting off a man’s finger is low on the list of exotic occurrences for a nurse in the ER.
The next few weeks were somewhat uneventful. She did hang around outside the delicatessen, but I ignored her the best I could. There were notes left on my windshield, explaining how she loved me and that if I would talk to her, she would explain everything. I wanted to call the police and report her, but I was embarrassed. I had slept with a desperate woman. Additionally, in her notes she had threatened that if I went to the police, she would claim that I had attacked her and she fought back in self-defense. Who would they believe? I honestly didn’t know.
The notes became less frequent and then they stopped altogether. I was relieved that the situation had resolved itself. Maybe she grew tired of me, a boring lad with nothing to offer. Maybe she found some other poor sap to bother. Whatever happened didn’t matter to me as long as she was out of my life. And then, she reappeared.
I had let Larry go home early yet again. She snuck in and hid in the supply closet. I had locked the door after the last customer and when I turned around, there she was with a pistol in her hand.
“Hazel, be cool.”
“Sit down Benny and put your hands behind the chair.”
I did as she commanded. She came over and handcuffed me to the chair.
“Benny, I am over five hundred years old. I know you don’t believe that. You’re too conventional. You live in a routine world and never notice the horror and beauty on the perimeter of reality. I am a cannibal from a long line of cannibals. We are immortal. Our food, human flesh. The Dark God offered himself as sustenance to the first cannibal, the first servant of our lord. To feed on him, is to feed on immortality. To eat his flesh is to live forever. To feed on a divine cannibal is to attain eternal life. We are the Tree of Life. I fed on one, and now I offer you the same gift.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Oh Benny. It’s not that bad. It’s not even an acquired taste. It’s delicious and you get to live forever. Eat of me, and be immortal. I’m hungry, but I don’t abuse it. More than anything though, I’m lonely.”
Hazel walked over behind the bar and grabbed a steak knife. She put the gun down and placed her hand on the table with her fingers splayed out wide. She started sawing off her index finger. She showed no emotions. There were no indications that she was in pain.
“The bone is always difficult.” She turned her hand palm up and begin sawing from that direction. There was blood everywhere, dripping and draining onto the floor. Even though she had cut deep on both sides, the bone was impenetrable. Frustrated, she grabbed the shredded digit with her other hand and began moving the finger back and forth until finally the bone snapped. The finger hung by a single thread of flesh. She bit through it like it was piece of thread and placed the finger neatly in front of me. Her hand was bleeding profusely but in a short time another finger would regenerate. She walked around and uncuffed me from the chair.
“Eat and become immortal. Be with me forever. Only a bite and a swallow will do. You don’t have to consume the entire finger, but my feelings will be hurt if you don’t.” She laughed.
She stood in front of the table, no longer bleeding, sporting a splendid half-grown finger. She stared silently, waiting for a response.
“Take it home with you. Think about it. You don’t have to decide now.”
“What if I choose not to?”
“I’ll know Benny. I’ll feel it. Consume and we’ll be intertwined. One. But, if you don’t, then there will be consequences.”
“What do you mean?”
She gave a slight smile and gave me a stern look, “Eat or be eaten.”
She walked toward the door and at the last moment she turned and spoke, “Oh, by the way, Larry resigned. He’ll need to be replaced.” She walked out the door.
I took the finger- the forbidden fruit- home and placed it on my kitchen table. I stare at it, thinking through my choices and the consequences of not doing as Hazel requested. It is a forced decision, a manipulation of my will, but I see no other option than to do as she commands. I will never identify as a cannibal. I am becoming and always will be an unwilling zombie, devoid of any power to assert my own will. I did not choose through my own volition what I am now about to do. It’s eat or be eaten.