The hungry couple

She was anxious. He had been gone since morning. He had never been away that long before. But times were such. A fortnight ago, a couple had rang their doorbell looking for directions, having lost their way in the vast non-descript countryside and there was no other house in sight. That was the last time they had some fresh food. The couple provided them with enough food to last a week and they had been starving since.

“I’ll go to the city and try to find some food”, said the husband and walked out of the door, famished and desperate. It wasn’t always such. They were a typical family, living a typical life in the suburbs of the city. There was nothing of note to distinguish them from the family next door, or at the end of the lane. They had been to a few, clandestine wild places to satiate their innermost fetishes. But then, which family doesn’t have its own embarrassing secrets.

Something, though, had changed over the past year or so. The sensation was strange and each of them kept it to themselves until they could no longer hold it and confessed to each other. They were surprised to learn that both of them are going through similar condition. They promised each other to not share it with anyone else and tried to ignore it.

They put up a façade for sometime but first the family and then friends, colleagues, the entire world started noticing the changes. Invitations from the social circles decreased, greetings from familiar faces ceased and then one day, he was asked to look for a job somewhere else. That was the first time in her life that she felt hunger pangs. He had then tried to grab some food and run from the store. He was caught; they were declared unfit to inhabit a civilised society and ordered to be put under care. They managed to escape this time around. After treading through the country side for days, surviving on the kindness of a few drivers who pulled over to help, they had come across this isolated house in the wilderness.

They knew that they wouldn’t be accepted in any town or city and so they decided to live there. It was old but intact and the nearest town was only a couple of hours’ walk away. “I got some meat”, declared the husband, breaking her chain of thought. “Now clean it and cut it up while I light the fire.” She hurriedly took the sack from him and thrust her hand inside. It was still alive and started screaming as soon as he saw her. She cut through with one strong, precise swing with the knife, and the head of the boy rolled over the floor, spewing blood all over the place as it went. “Can’t you ever do it cleanly? I’ll have to clean the floor again!” he yelled. “I don’t like the screams. Why don’t you ever kill them yourself?” she retorted and began hacking the limbs off the severed body.