Benny leaned closer still. “Do you recognize me?”
After a long moment, the thing in the cage leaned forward too. Its face underwent a slow process of change. Doubt flickered in its eyes; the lips relaxed over the teeth. It sniffed the air as if trying to identify Benny’s scent. The doubt in its eyes deepened. It bent closer still, and now the lips seemed like they were trying to shape a word.
Benny pushed himself even closer, trying to hear what sound that word carried.
“Huh,” murmured the creature in a rasping croak, “. . . huh . . . hun . . .”
“Go on,” Benny encouraged. “Go ahead. You can do it. Say something. . . .”
The creature rested its forehead against the inside of the bars, and Benny leaned all the way forward.
“. . . hunh . . . hunh . . .”
“What is it?” whispered Benny. “What are you trying to say?”
The creature spoke the word. It came out as a whisper. A full word. Two syllables.
“Hungry!”
Suddenly it lunged at Benny; gray hands shot between the bars and grabbed Benny’s shirt. The creature howled with triumph.
“HUNGRY!”
Wet teeth snapped at him. It jammed its face between the bars, trying to bite him, to tear him.
To feed its hunger.
Benny screamed and flung himself backward, but the creature had him in its powerful hands. The teeth snapped. Saliva that was as cold and dirty as gutter water splashed Benny’s face.
“Hungry . . . hungry . . . hungry!” screamed the thing.
Behind Benny a voice shouted in anger. The soldier, moving too slow and too late. Something whistled through the air above Benny’s head and rang off the bars. A baton, swung by the soldier with crippling force.
The creature jerked backward from a blow that would have smashed its jaw and shattered its teeth.
“No!” bellowed Benny, still caught by the thing’s hands, but squirming, fighting it and swinging his arms up to block the soldier.
“Move, kid!” snarled the guard.
The baton hit the bars again with a deafening caroooom!
Benny bent his knees and forced his foot into the narrow gap between him and the bars, then kicked himself backward. The creature lost one handhold on his shirt, but it grabbed the bar to brace itself so it could pull even harder with the other. Benny kicked out, once, twice, again, slamming his heel into the hand holding the bar, hitting knuckles every time. The creature howled and whipped its hand back from the bars. Its screech of agony tore the air.
Benny’s mind reeled. It can still feel pain.
It was the strangest feeling for Benny. That thought, that bit of truth, was a comfort to him.
If it could still feel pain . . .
It was still alive.
“Out of the way, kid,” roared the soldier, raising his stick again. “I got the son of a—”
Benny kicked once more, and the whole front of his shirt tore away. He collapsed backward against the soldier, hitting his legs so hard the man fell against the concrete wall. Benny sank onto the cold floor, gasping, shuddering with terror.
Inside the cage, the creature clutched its hands to its gray flesh and let out a high, keening cry of pain and frustration.
And of hunger.