In The Falling Light (31 page)

Before the scent of money called out to her
so strongly, she’d thought to become a clinical psychologist
specializing in the kind of mental instability which led to
disorders like anthropophagy. Deanna made a little snorting sound
into her cosmo. A headshrinker for headshrinkers. That brought on a
tiny giggle. The whole idea was both repulsive and darkly
attractive, and the fact she had been secretly dating her aby-psych
professor at the time – who thought the study of cannibalism was
just
fascinating
– nudged her in that direction. Her dorm
mates warned her not to leave her grisly research photos lying
around, her friends didn’t want to even
hear
the word
cannibal, and her parents were distraught over the idea that their
daughter was going to throw away her high-priced education on a
bunch of whackos. Deanna did the paper, got an ‘A,’ broke up with
the professor shortly after the semester ended, and did not become
a psychologist. It wasn’t that the field or the research wasn’t
intriguing, but she decided not too many of them wore Dolce Gabbana
or had private bungalows in St. Martin.

Four incidents of cannibalism in a week, and
the news would have everyone believe it was the start of a zombie
apocalypse. It reminded her of the zombie flash mobs which popped
up in San Francisco on occasion, thousands of people in makeup and
bloody clothes shuffling through the streets and dining in sidewalk
cafes. Ridiculous. But there was nothing even a little amusing
about Scotty, and what he had done. Thinking about him brought her
to the verge of tears again, so she drained her glass and motioned
for another. Peter was swift and efficient, both in his delivery
and retreat.

Cannibalism – and society’s abhorrence of it
- was an old story, and few people other than those who had
actually studied it knew just how old. The Roman god Saturn was
said to have devoured his own son. The bible spoke of it during the
sieges of Samaria and Jerusalem. It was reported during the Holy
Crusades, and Pope Innocent IV, seeing its widespread prevalence
during the famines in Europe, declared it a sin deserving to be
punished by force of arms. Shakespeare addressed it in
Titus
Andronicus
, and the native Algonquin people’s Wendigo was said
to be a malevolent, cannibalistic spirit. Many of the indigenous
people of the Pacific, Polynesia and Meso-America indulged in it as
part of religious and cultural celebrations. The Aghoris of
Northern India, a splinter sect of Hinduism, believed consuming
human flesh gave both physical and spiritual benefits, which
eventually led to supernatural powers and immortality. Its place in
the world ran from the Romans to Hansel and Gretel, from Borneo to
Hannibal Lecter.

None of them, however, fit the profile of a
smart, successful 21
^st
century urban executive who had
filed his teeth and tried to eat a bum face-first. Scotty had lost
his mind, and gone native. Deanna finished her second, and Peter
quietly replaced it without her asking.

At Yale she had learned cannibalism wasn’t
just something from the old world, and it was often found to have
starvation as its root cause. From 1609-1610, there were reports of
several Jamestown colonists eating the flesh of both the dead and
the living, and one man was burned alive after confessing to
killing, salting and eating his pregnant wife. In 1820 the whaling
ship Essex was sunk by a sperm whale, and its captain and surviving
crew spent ninety days at sea in a small, open whaling launch,
dining on each another one by one until only two men remained.
Their rescuers found the pair sucking marrow from femur bones, eyes
locked and refusing to look away from the other. That event was
Melville’s inspiration for
Moby Dick.
Hunger was blamed for
instances of cannibalism within the Donner Party, Flight 571 in the
Andes, during the siege of Leningrad, the Great Chinese Famine of
’58-’61, and for the five American fliers who were captured and
eaten by starving Japanese troops in 1945. The offenders were
subsequently tried for war crimes and hanged.

Deanna turned in her seat, drink in hand,
and looked out at the private room with its expensive but tasteful
décor and subdued lighting, only a scattering of patrons at the
tables, each with a personal waiter hovering nearby. On one wall
hung close to a hundred photos of celebrities and high-profile
politicians posing with chefs and bartenders and maitre Ds, all of
them members. Scotty had come here with her on several occasions,
and he loved the place. She had sponsored him, and remembered
warmly how impressed he had been, both with the club and with her
and the people she knew. It made her sad, and she started wondering
if he’d meant more to her than she thought. She turned back to the
bar, glancing at a small clock next to a bottle of Grey Goose,
surprised to see she’d been here for two hours already.

Peter appeared. “Another, Ms. Sansone?”

She pursed her lips. “If I don’t get
something else in my stomach you’re going to have to pour me into a
cab. I’ll take it at a table.”

Peter motioned, and Dimitri appeared beside
her, guiding her to a corner seat. She settled in, feeling the
cosmos, as a fresh drink appeared. “I’ll bring around a menu in a
few minutes, Ms. Sansone.” She was feeling a little better, and
knew the pink concoction was the reason. Still, she forced herself
to take smaller sips.

Scotty. In the times they’d come here
together they had never sat at this table, and that was at least a
small relief. Suddenly she wondered if he had ever come here
without her. He was a member, after all, and they had no strings.
Had he sat in this room with another woman, enjoying the fine
dining and each other’s company before retreating to a hotel suite
for dessert? She was surprised to find herself feeling a tinge of
jealousy, and again wondered what he had meant to her. Deanna
remembered his touch, the heat of their bodies together, and felt a
flush which didn’t come from the cosmo.

Then the image of him crouched naked in an
alley with sharpened teeth and bloody face reared before her, and
she shook her head sharply. That wasn’t the man she had known, and
it reminded her there were motivations for cannibalism which went
beyond hunger.

Politics and anthropophagy went hand in
hand. Throughout the age of colonialism, accusations of cannibalism
had been used to demonize indigenous people – whether it was true
or not – and justify their destruction. Certain island kings were
selected for their culinary prowess, and a few Central African
leaders had used it to demonstrate their ferocity and dominion over
their subjects, as with Idi Amin in Uganda, though it was never
proven and he was never held to account for it.

Scotty, though, seemed to fall into the last
category; mental illness. Again, despite the media’s attempt to
depict the recent spate of incidents as “increasing at an alarming
rate,” cannibalism was nothing new in the modern age, and popped up
in all sorts of places, like Australia, Venezuela, the Ukraine and
Germany. There were American serial killers like Albert Fish in the
20’s and 30’s, and Jeffery Dahmer in the 90’s. In 2003 rap artist
Big Lurch ate a friend while under the influence of PCP. A London
man ate an acquaintance in 2004 just days after being questioned
and released in an unrelated murder case. In 2007 a Turkish man
stored human remains in his fridge and fed them to his unknowing
parents. 2008 saw a man who was sleeping on a moving Greyhound near
Toronto, killed and partially eaten by another passenger while the
other riders dozed around them. As recently as 2011, in separate
events in Pakistan, Slovakia, Brazil and Haiti, modern cannibals
were caught selling the meat of their victims at local markets
cooked into pastries and pies.

Someone approached her table, rousing her
from her ruminations. “Deanna?”

She looked up to see a well-dressed, slender
man with dark hair. He had started out doing stand-up, and then
gone on to be a raging success with a sitcom which shared his last
name, one of the first comics in the industry to start pulling down
a million dollars per episode. “Oh, hi!” She rose and gave him a
kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t see you here.”

He smiled. “You looked lost in thought.”

“Are you in town for a show?” She knew he
lived between LA and New York.

“Yeah, two nights over at Cobb’s. If you
want to swing by I’ll leave tickets at the window.”

She nodded, knowing she wouldn’t. His face
turned somber. “I’m sorry to hear about Scotty. Everyone liked
him.”

She thanked the comedian and they exchanged
a few awkward pleasantries, then he touched her on the arm and made
his exit. Deanna looked around the room. It was no real surprise
that he’d heard, they likely all had. The members list of Society
wasn’t all that large, and this was big news. She felt like crying
again and drained her cocktail. Peter brought over another, and
Dimitri quietly set a leather-backed menu on her table, murmuring
that he’d be by when she was ready.

For most, whether forced into it by
starvation or those isolated acts of madmen, consuming human flesh
just made people sick, similar to a moderate to serious case of
food poisoning. It generally passed without further effect,
although it would be even more severe these days, as it was
believed the modern diet was so filled with chemicals and additives
that human meat was just short of toxic.

Deanna supposed it depended on the chef. She
giggled unexpectedly, loud enough to make a few of the dining
room’s patrons look over, and she hid behind her fresh cosmo. She
was getting loopy.

The real risk came from
Kuru,
an
incurable degenerative neurological disorder caused by the prions
found in humans. This was the risk for long-term cannibals, and
could take anywhere from five to twenty years before the onset of
symptoms. Body tremors were a classic example, and as the fatal
disorder entered its final twelve months, a victim often began to
experience increasing weakness and inability to stand, slurred
speech and mental instability. Tribal people called it the
Laughing Sickness
due to the afflicted person’s pathologic
bursts of laughter.

She opened the menu as Dimitri arrived,
standing patiently nearby with his hands folded.

Is that what happened to Scotty? Had his
diet led to a fast onset of
Kuru
, and driven him mad? Was
that what the members of The Society had to look forward to? Her
right hand trembled ever so slightly as she held the menu, and
Dimitri pretended not to notice. Inside was a pair of fine
parchment pages in script, the entries all without prices.
If
you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
And the cuisine here was
expensive indeed. Clipped to the upper right corner was the daily
special, a photo of the Vietnamese boy she’d seen outside being
pulled into a doorway by his mother.

She tapped the picture. “I’ll try the
veal.”

“Excellent, Ms. Sansone.” Dimitri tucked the
menu under one arm and disappeared into the kitchen.

Deanna sipped her cosmo and let out another
unexpected giggle, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. Nothing
to worry about. It was all about the chef, and she could afford the
very best. Everyone at Society could.

This wasn’t working out as planned. Not at
all.

Should have kept the cow, he thought.

Smooth porcelain walls rose about him on all
sides, and he was unable to scale them, even after he’d shucked off
his boots and tried it with bare feet. He kept sliding back to the
center of the bowl. Still, he tried again, getting a short run at
the wall, charging up, lunging, hoping to catch a grip on the
rim.

Over a foot short, again, and he tumbled
back to the center. The metal bar running up his back and hidden
beneath his clothes gave him a sharp jab. Jack let out a cry that
was part frustration and part fear. He wouldn’t have many more
chances.

As he eyed the sheer white walls – and the
wood beamed ceiling impossibly high above – he cursed himself once
more. What had he been thinking? Just a simple trip to market, sell
the cow, any idiot could do it.

Stupid peddler. Stupid trade.

The bowl shook as the footsteps returned,
throwing Jack onto his bottom. A moment later an enormous face
filled the space above the bowl, eyes with heavy lids, a broad flat
nose over thick, pouting lips.

The face rumbled, “Fee, Fi…”

“Oh, shut
up!”
Jack screamed,
scrambled to his feet and shaking a finger at his captor. “Just let
me go and I’m out of here! Won’t trouble you again!” His voice was
raw. Could the beast hear him up there? Did it even understand?

This should have been a no-brainer. A little
climbing, a little creeping, nick some gold while the big bastard
was sleeping. But he’d barely circled the room before it snatched
him up and dropped him in this goddamn bowl.

“Fee, Fi…”

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Jack, then his
annoyance turned to fear as he saw a huge thumb and forefinger
reaching into the bowl. He backed away as far as his confines would
allow, fumbling behind him, pulling the long piece of metal from
its hiding place. It was the only thing he’d been able to grab
before being grabbed himself. Jack planted his feet and held the
giant sewing needle like a spear before him.

…Fo, Fum,” said the beast, but suddenly the
little snack struck out with something, something
sharp!
A
bellow of pain erupted from its gap-toothed mouth and it jerked
back its wounded hand, yanking the needle from Jack’s grip. It
howled in agony, the little piece of steel imbedded in a
cuticle.

“That’s what you get!” Jack shouted.