Intimate Strangers

By Abigail Friedman

Everyone's entitled to a last meal, whatever they want; it's there, somewhere, in the law.

They come to his cell, not the hunter, not the one who tracked him, pounding feet and panting breath and the baying of hounds through woods at midnight--he's never trusted midnight--not him, but the ones who hide behind billy clubs and semi-automatics, who don't know the romance of leaf and bough and bark and bite. They come, and they call him to his feet, voices harsh behind the safety of bars, and they ask him what he wants to eat.

"Little Red," he says, because it's true, he can almost still feel her on his tongue, the tang of blood and the pull of muscle against his teeth, her screams ringing in his ears and he had to hurry, hurry, because underneath the screaming was the fall of boots against the ground outside, already. Hurry, grab some random clothes and run and he'd only had a hint of how she tasted.

"Little Red," he says, but they growl and raise their clubs. It doesn't scare him, that, not like the dogs and the soft steps on dirt and shrub, the breaking of twigs from behind him, so he grins.

"No little kiddies for me to munch on?"

In a cell nearby an old woman laughs. "Gingerbread," she cackles, "apples and spinning wheels and gingerbread boys."

The grandmother tasted good too. The old ones don't always, years of using muscles make them lean, like free ranging cattle driven from Nevada to the shore. But this one, this one lived in a little house, by herself, and the most exercise she had was tending flowers. This one was plump and juicy, and he sank into her, filled his mouth with her, ate and ate, and her vocal chords gave out long before Red's. There's nothing left of her, now. Just a pile of bones for burial, shrunken hands and skin and a sundress spattered with blood. There's no meal left for him there.

He shrugs, and licks his lips, and tells them "Pig."

It's not the same thing at all, of course, and they'll probably cook it--the meat tastes of death that way, of brick ovens and fire and not at all of straw and sticks and squealing in the forest. It's a different story entirely, but he has to put on a show for the telly and it's something to rip to pieces before they kill him.

Lethal injection, he thinks, or is it the chair? Something running through his system, poisons, electricy, and he rubs his thigh where the bullet left a scar, and longs for the cover of branches, the smell of a fellow hunter in his nose, and the knowledge of death, quick and sharp, with the pull of a trigger and kiss of iron.

He is not meant for this.

"Three pigs," he tells them, "raw," and hugs his hunger to him like a bone. When the meal comes, he thinks, he'll palm the knife, slit his veins in the moonlight, and lap at his blood as he falls asleep. He was caught in a trap once before, ready to chew off his ankle, and this is no different. Better to die his way, a flash of metal, life bleeding away, than let them steal it from him.

He is not their prey, to be hunted, and mercy is over-rated.

"Shall I wake you in a century?" asks the crone. "I can do it. Rub the dirt away and clear your airways, push the breath inside you again. Fancy a kiss, little boy?"

He bares his teeth, a howl rising in his throat, but it isn't time for that just yet. The pack is waiting outside, circling, at the edge of the forest, and the moon will be full tonight.

"When I kiss people," he tells her, "they don't come back to life."

He licks his lips, and thinks of Little Red.