His fingers were fat and greasy with the oils of the fries he was eating. His face was hollow, yet full in a way it was hard to comprehend.
There was an air of cruel disgust to the man, one unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I’d had jobs working for dirty and rundown fast food places before, and I’d seen my share of wild- but this, this man.
Well, he wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before.
But it wasn’t the way he looked like, no, his pale eyes, yellowed skin and meaty look was common of those who feasted upon the flesh of genetically modified meats. No, it was the way he ate the meal.
It was like he was swallowing the burgers he had ordered, taking large bites and clumsily swallowing the meal, not bothering to chew on it with teeth I imagined to be a sharp as knives.
And then there were the condiments. He kept opening sauces, mustard, tomato. He kept adding salt, pepper, chili- as if the mess wasn’t enough already. And all, one by one, he gulped it down, his lips making obscene noises that quite frankly- disturbed me.
“You’re staring, Jamie,” I heard my boss, Pamela, say.
“What?” I puzzled, not realizing I was staring directly at the glutton feasting on his meal. “What?” I repeated, as if I hadn’t heard her say it once.
“Jamie, you’re staring,” she reiterated, a sharp tone in her voice this time.
I realized I was and shrewdly apologized to my boss. It was like I was entranced by the way the man was eating, by the sheer horror of his lips smacking, crumbs falling, moist fluids spraying and-
I decided it was better not to think about it.
“Who is that guy?” I asked. “Why does he… eat like that?”
“Dunno,” Pam replied. “He came in here about two months ago. Ever since then, he’s been here every now and again, eating.”
Just my luck. Of course some weirdo shows up the third day I find myself a job.
Well, I wouldn’t say it’s a job, really- not a proper one. Working at McDonalds is hardly a job, but I needed some money, and the place was the first one I’d found.
“Why?” I managed. “Why does he eat so much?”
“Nobody knows,” Pam confessed. “He eats so much of the food here we call him something, actually.”
“What?”
“The Hungry Man,” she laughed.
I didn’t find it funny. I laughed along anyway. Deep down, I felt a sense of uneasiness, a sense of despair, a sense of utter confusion. I stared at my phone instead of the man, playing a game of Word Hunt with my brother, Alex.
I was in the middle of finally winning against him when I heard a shuffling of feet, and I looked up- and nearly yelped to see none other than the Hungry Man right in front of me.
He was even worse up close.
Beads of drooling sweat trailed down his forehead, making their way down to his cheeks, where an uneven beard lay, which was disgusting, tangled, and plain gross. Bits and pieces of meat were stuck inside it, meat that reeked like it was days-old, instead of the ‘fresh’ McDonald’s meal he’d just eaten.
“Um,” I stuttered, “what do you need, Mr…?”
When he spoke, I nearly retched in horror. “I would like,” he clumsily mumbled, revealing flesh, bones, and something brown and sticky that definitely hadn’t been inside the meal Pam had served him before, “three Grand Macs, and whatever soda you have back there. And it’s Beelz. That is who I am. And I am very hungry.”
“I’ll get your meal as s-soon as possible.”
He patiently waited while I went to the back and asked one of my coworkers to get the meal, all while trying to remove the sickly sweet smell of his breath from my lungs.
Soon, I turned back to face the man, and handed over the quickly put meal, facing his rancid air once again. Was it his breath that caused the air to stink like carrion? Or was it something else- his entire flesh, emitting a beastly and gluttonous odor.
I couldn’t tell.
“We hope you enjoy your meal,” I cheerfully quoted.
The man smiled once again, revealing rows of dirty teeth too horrible for me to describe. Some were still functionable, yet some were chipped, broken, and seemed to have bits and pieces of flesh embedded inside them.
I hoped he wouldn’t enjoy his meal. I hoped he would leave and never come back.
As he turned back to his seat- which had an awfully colored puddle covering it, I noticed how his body sagged, trailing behind as the man strolled clumsily to his seat.
It was almost as if they were merely bags of meat lazily strapped to his body, bags full of flesh and bones that were attachments, as if they would drop at the slightest touch, or gale of a wind.
Every instinct inside me told me that this man was wrong somehow. No human should have looked like that. There was just something wrong with the way he looked- I couldn’t tell if it was the array of dirtied teeth, or the ogling way he eyed me, or the flesh that looked like bags of meat rather than a human person- but something was wrong.
And yet, I couldn’t find a logical reason to verify my instincts.
My brother Alex always told me I relied on logic too much, that one day, there would come a time I’d have to use my natural instincts- follow my gut, follow my brain. Fight or flight- that stuff.
I watched, disturbed as flies surrounded the man, almost as if he was a decomposing carcass. They landed on him, yet he didn’t seem to notice.
The man that didn’t seem like a man slowly raised a hand and grasped the first of the three burgers. Clumsily, the man dropped it, sending a shocked yet uncaring expression on his face.
It fell on the floor, which was already dirty from the crumbs he’d made from eating earlier. It looked more unsanitary than any other part of the dirty McDonald’s, as if there was something that couldn’t be cleaned from the place he sat.
The Hungry Man took the unclean thing that was the burger from the ground, and as he took it up, his eyes met mine, and then, he stared at me as a… smile appeared on his face- and for a second, his teeth were wrong.
They weren’t chipped, they weren’t broken- no, instead, they were stained canine teeth, rows and rows of them. He continued to stare at me with this uncanny hunger in his eyes as he lifted the burger up, picked up a small packet of mustard- placed it into the burger-
And ate it.
I saw it enter his mouth, and the knife-sharp teeth chew once, twice- and the man which wasn’t a man- but a gluttonous thing inside a man swallow the burger. I saw the meat and breads fall down his throat, but it didn’t look right at all.
The man coughed, once, twice- but never broke his stare at me. His eyes looked hungry- hungry for flesh. Hungry for blood. Hungry for- me.
“I told you not to stare, Jamie,” Pam scolded. I didn’t listen. I had to stare at the thing that wasn’t a man yet at was the same time. I had to watch. And he had to stare back- because if I took my eyes off for even a second- I was scared of what I’d see next. “Jamie!”
I think this is what my brother meant when he told me a fight or flight situation would come up one day.
I felt cold hands on my shoulder, and was spun around by Pamela. I was shaken out of my trance, and for a moment, I forgot all about the Hungry Man, and what he was doing.
“Sorry, sorry,” I apologized. “He was staring at me and he ate that and-”
“It’s okay,” Pam assured. “Listen, we’re closing up soon- can you stay here while I close up everything else?”
“Okay,” I murmured.
But… that couldn’t have been right. It was nowhere near closing time the last time I’d checked- and yet, now the clock read 10:48 PM, which was for sure more than an hour more than the last time I’d checked.
Had I been staring at the man for that long?
Pam went off to go close up. Meanwhile, I heard a loud and inconsiderate retch and a burp, coming straight from the man. The customers around him seemed to edge away, being just as disgusted by his form as I was.
By 10:55 everyone but the man had left. We closed at 11, yet the man was still there, still in a pile of his juices, fluids, and crumbs of meat and bread all around him. He was chewing on the final remnants of the last burger now, making obscene noises that were surely loud enough for the store next door to hear.
And when he was done, he let out a belch that I swore made the air seem dead and rancid.
10:58.
This meant I’d have to ask him to leave myself. I wondered if Pam was going to be back soon. Usually, it took a while for Pam to be back, and at times like these, it was expected of me to remove the customers.
In this case, customer.
“Sir,” I called, walking over. I had forgotten the man’s name, but I swore it was Bee… something. It meant something as I read his sweat-drenched t-shirt, which had his name on it, but it was obscured by a piece of ignored, fly-swarmed meat. “It’s time for you to leave.”
He slammed the table with a hand, scaring me. It also revealed his name- Beelz Bubbins. I was sure it meant something- I just couldn’t figure out what. “I’m not finished yet.”
“Um, you don’t seem to have any food remaining,” I hesitated. “Can you please handle payment.”
“I said,” the man repeated. He practically shook the table as he rammed a fist into it, “I’m not finished yet.”
And in a second, I saw that there was something wrong with the way he looked. His face was like that of a beast in the wilderness, his teeth were sharper than anything I’d ever seen, and there was a truly voracious look in his eyes.
“Sir-”
“I’m still hungry!” he growled.
I stepped back. No, I ran back. I ran back to the counter and to my radio, alerting Pam of the situation.
Behind me, I heard a sickening crunch of flesh and bone, and I turned back to see something that would be etched into my memory forever.
The man- the thing that wasn’t a man had an arm up, and it was gnawing- no, devouring it. Blood poured out of the meaty limb, pus and a liquid I can’t seem to describe oozing out as the thing ate, chewing on recently fattened flesh.
I threw up that moment, and when I looked back up, I saw that the man had devoured half his arm- in some places, right down to bone.
I saw white against red as the man bit down, removing another chunk of flesh and practically- no, literally swallowing it down his throat. With every bite, more blood leaked out, more fluids, more everything.
He was not in pain as his jaw and rows of teeth seemed to wrap itself around the bone, and then snapping down, all while staring directly at me, a smile forming as the bone snapped, making a noise I hope to never hear again.
“S-sir,” I gasped. I didn’t know what to do. What could anyone do? “Can you please s-stop? Please.”
“I am full now,” the man replied, smiling. A hand lay on the floor. The man stopped forward. I was too shocked to move.
I was scared.
The man continued trudging on, and yet I still found myself in the same tile, unmoving. I could only watch as he reached a fisted arm out towards me and-
“Now, listen here,” he whispered, mere inches away from me. His breath stank like a dying animal and distinct flashes of blood. “I want you to do something for me.”
“W-what?” I meekly responded.
He laughed.
And with that, he turned, and left, leaving a trail of flesh and blood as he walked out of the window, into the night.