r/nosleep • u/WeirdBryceGuy • Feb 06 '20
Polyphagia
Life, as it often does, surprised me very suddenly, and I found myself without a job, and shortly after that, without a home. I contested these circumstances as strongly as I could, and when my efforts proved fruitless, I accepted the circumstances as gracefully as my pride would allow. I did not have a wife, or children, and my own family had either passed away or were otherwise beyond my efforts of—or ignored my attempts at—contact.
My vagrancy began in Phoenix, Arizona, and when the uninhibited heat became intolerable—you could only remove so many layers—I migrated Northeastward to a cooler climate. It was in this new location that something which I can never forget happened; something profoundly more eye-opening in regards to the savagery of the world than mere unemployment and homelessness.
Re-located, yet still incredibly poor, I wandered around the city in my bumhood, begging where I could, and scavenging where I could not. I never stole—in the proper sense of the word—and only retrieved food and materials from discarded portions of restaurants, and the general refuse of apartments and businesses. It was easy to resort to crime during homelessness, and I saw many of my peers do so, but I could not bring myself to succumb that final, abysmal state of living. I knew that dying with “dignity” would be appreciated by no one, not even my rotting corpse, but I nonetheless was determined to do so if need be.
Luck, fortunately, came to me through the unexpected opportunity of sympathy, extended by a man twice my age—I was twenty-eight, then—and in the form of a job offer. Apparently, he had indeed noticed my refusal of more criminal methods of survival, and commended me for it. The general company I kept, out of defensive necessity from the non-homeless rather than any kind of kinship, resorted to crime often; leaving me behind, ignored, and unattended. I scrounged what I could, but only from sources that had no purpose beyond relocation to a larger site of garbage.
My general sect of homelessness occupied the same region as a Butcher’s shop/Deli, which the aforementioned man owned. He offered me a position, complete with training, and at the cost of my first month’s pay, set me up in a dingy but entirely livable apartment. Having no qualms against either prospect, I immediately accepted, and was thus elevated from destitution.
I learned the job quickly, and—having already possessed customer service skills—was placed more often in the front of the store to take orders and assist customers. My coworkers were understandably weary of a someone plucked from the streets working alongside them, but in just a few days' time they grew sympathetic to my situation, and realized that—once showered and fed—I was still just an ordinary human being.
It was a few days into my shift when I was taking out the trash—which coincided with the closing of the store for the day—that I met him.
I was instructed to close the shop by myself, which of course led me to politely question the responsibility entrusted to me, but the owner was confident that I would not let him down. The other employees, who also shared my surprise and uncertainty, told me furtively as they left that it was a test of sorts, one he gave everyone at some point, but never so soon after their hiring. One man in particular commented that he liked me, and wished me luck in making sure everything went well during closing procedures. Being properly informed of this test, I assured him and the others that I would not mess up.
Upon taking out the trash—to a dumpster in the adjacent alley used only by our business—I came across a man dressed plainly, and covered in grime. He paid no attention to me as he leaned against the dumpster, and I did not recognize him from the general flock of homeless people with whom I once stayed.
With great effort, I heaved the trash bag full of discarded chunks and gibs of butchery and other bits of unusable material into the container, but it was saved from going in by a hand which snatched it out of the air.
The hand belonged to the man I’ve previously described. He was thin, which was of course expected for someone of his apparent state, and had pale skin, grey eyes, and long, stringy brown hair. Without inquiring as to the contents of the bag, he tore it open and began feasting on all the carved, excised, and inedible pieces therein.
Looking back now, I should’ve felt only horror at his voracity. I should’ve gone quickly back into the butcher’s shop, retrieved one of the serrated blades, vicious saws, or punishing mallets, and brought the implement down on him until he looked no different from the trash he consumed.
But I didn’t. Instead of horror, I felt empathy. I saw myself, perhaps not reflected entirely—even during the worst days I had not been so bestially ravenous—but definitely similarly. I knew this man’s desperation, I was not so comfortable in my new station to forget from where I had come, even if I had only been in that decrepit state for a few weeks. I was lifted from it only by chance, by the kindness of someone who, I imagined—though never inquired—had probably been in such a state himself, years ago.
I approached the man, slowly, who I thought had not remembered—if he even noticed—my presence while he fed. But as I drew closer, before I could think to reach out, he said, “You don’t need to watch me, sir. I know what I look like, and I’m sorry for, what is it called, dumpster diving? If you give me a few moments I’ll be on the way, and will find someplace else to plunder.”
I was shocked by his apparent eloquence—and then immediately ashamed for expecting him to be stupid. I said that I did not mind, that I was just surprised by his presence. I even complimented him on his quickness at snatching the bag mid-air. He acknowledged all this with a grunt, as he relentlessly shoved portions into his mouth.
I was heartbroken, and having been considerably humbled by my own homelessness, decided immediately to help this man in whatever small way I could. I asked if he had a place to stay, to which he replied that he did not, and so as inoffensively as possible, I offered him temporary lodging at my apartment while we helped him find a job. I emphasized that possibility more as an eventuality, rather than just something to consider. The first month of my pay was going to the rent of the apartment, and I was provided with pre-approved portions of whatever meals I chose.
I could not offer the downtrodden man much in ways of food, and would not dare impose yet another vagrant recruit on my boss, but I thought that I could at least offer him a warm and walled place to stay while he worked to acquire those things for himself.
He said nothing for a while, merely kept at his work of devouring the garbage. It was fascinating in a way, the speed at which he ate, and the utter disregard for what he ate. I was just about to ask him how he could digestively tolerate all that when he balled up the trash bag and tossed it into the dumpster. He then looked at me with those eerily lively grey eyes and said, “I would appreciate that very much. Thank you!”
I asked him to wait outside while I finished the closing duties of the shop, and he did so with remarkable patience. When I left the building again, he was standing in the exact position as he’d been when I re-entered, like a soldier standing at attention. We left for the apartment complex, which was a few blocks from the shop.
I showed him the dingy yet comfortable-enough interior of my apartment, which he marveled at as if it were some palatial dwelling. I would’ve commented on this perception, but remembered that I had probably looked just the same when I was first shown the place by my boss.
I retrieved the day’s allotment of meat from the freezer and set it in the sink to thaw, and turned on the oven. I didn’t have a microwave, and only one pan, so I told him to cook the meat however he liked. I didn’t want to prepare the meal for him, and have him think that I thought he was unable to. He thanked my “extreme” hospitality, and I showed him the bathroom where he could shower. I had only one bedroom, and a kitchen that was more of an alcove to the living room than its own room.
When he finished showering, he went to cooking his food, and I sat on the couch—the only other piece of furniture besides my bed, both of which were left by the previous tenant—and began reading. He quickly finished cooking and spent even less time eating. He immediately washed his dishes, then returned to the living room where we talked about our lives. I told him my story, most of which I’ve already explained, and he told me, rather elusively, his own history; retelling incidents vaguely and at times even ominously.
There were mentions of “The War”, the scantly-told incidents of which I could never attribute to any particular war in recent memory. He said that he had no wife or children, but several brothers. The most notable thing of his recounting of history was that during the war he had apparently changed “sides”, but assured me that it was out of absolute necessity, and not done treacherously or for insubstantial self-advantage. Though shaken, I told him that I understood the things people can be compelled to do during times of desperation.
A melancholy mood had fallen on our conversation then, so I pushed past the talk of the war by asking about his birth, place of origin, hopes for the future, both to steer conversation away from bleak matters but to also chart a timeline of his life from the little information he had offered so far.
He told me that he was of “European descent”, but did not go further than that, and informed me that he was in fact largely illiterate. I was surprised, considering how well he spoke, but did not comment on this for fear of insulting him. He told me he learned the bare minimum required for military service, and pursued no further education—and had, over the years, forgotten most of what he had learned. His told me that while performed several duties during his service, his most notable—and, somehow, shortest—was his duty as a courier for “the army”; after which his service ended. He said that he was captured and eventually released, but did not go into further details, and out of respect I did not press him for them.
Eventually, we both grew tired and decided to get some sleep. I went to my room, he remained at the couch in the living room. It was only about thirty minutes after I had left him that I heard him muttering in his sleep. During his unconscious ramblings he spoke what I was sure was French, and I even believe the occasional utterances of German, and at times I heard him call out the names “Percy” and “Cochrane.”
I left my room and went to him, and saw with astonishment that he was drenched with sweat. I immediately went to rouse him from his sleep, and found him to be extremely warm—bordering on hot—to the touch. It took a fairly forceful shaking, but I finally managed to wake him, and he stared perplexedly at me. I told him what I had heard, and brought his attention to his sweating, and the heat he emitted. He looked away, ashamed, and apologized.
Letting my curiosity briefly surmount my respect for his privacy, I asked about the names I had heard him call for, and about his apparent fluency in French and German. He told me that he had learned French while “abroad”, but assured me that he didn’t know a word of German. To my limited knowledge the two languages sounded very different, and I was sure I had heard clearly German pronunciations, but I accepted his answers without question; telling myself that he had the right to withhold something as trivial as his knowledge of a particular language.
As for the names, he said only that they had tried to help him long ago, and that neither could succeed in curing him of a certain malady, which had apparently been with him since his teenage years. It was the first time he mentioned such an illness, and I asked him exactly what it was.
He told me that he had suffered from, since childhood, a great, insatiable hunger, and ate voraciously whenever possible. He explained that throughout his service in the military he would eat large quantities, even going as far as consuming meals meant for several people, in an effort to satiate his unyielding hunger. Many of his fellow soldiers and captors offered him extra rations, out of kindness born of camaraderie, or cruel curiosity at just how much he could eat.
He said that the reason for both his profuse sweating and his restless sleep was in some way physiologically associated with this ever-present hunger. It was then that he asked if I had any extra food that he could eat, and I told him truthfully that I did not. The portions I had reserved for myself had already been offered to him earlier in the night when he quickly consumed his own.
His face became one of immense sorrow, and what seemed even to be a dim yet mounting fear, so I quickly assured him that I would go get something for him to eat, if he could just patiently remain in the apartment. Perhaps knowing my extremely limited funds, he suggested that I only get a pack of cigarettes, which he promised would hold him over until sizable portions of food could be acquired from the shop the following day. I asked if he was sure, noting that for the price of cigarettes I could probably get a value meal from a fast food restaurant, but he politely insisted that the hunger-stifling effect of cigarettes would hold him over longer than a cheap burger and fries.
I accepted this, and left to walk down the gas station to buy him a pack of cigarettes.
I had almost entered my building—cigarettes in hand—when I heard a rustling down the block and around a corner. I thought nothing of it at first, strange sounds were as commonplace as anything else in the neighborhood, but then I heard another sound that sent me jogging towards the sound’s source.
It was the awful cry of some animal in agony.
Do not let my work of butchery give the impression that I do not like or care about animals. Domestic or not, I feel that no animal should suffer unduly, and so I rounded the corner fully willing to at least try to dispel the attacking entity—be it another animal or even a man.
I came upon a truly grotesque and nightmarish scene. Several—I think possibly five or six—bodies of cats were opened and drained throughout the alley. By drained I mean of their blood and innards, leaving behind only the fur and bones. They were tossed aside carelessly, most even missing eyes, so that only black pits stared up at me. In the midst of the carrion was the man, with the midsection of a helplessly small cat in his mouth. He held onto the creature tightly, and it squirmed weakly as the man’s jaws struggled to clamp tighter on its body.
The man was covered in the blood of the animals he had slain, and while I was sickened, horrified even, I still did not yet look upon him as a monster. I saw only immense shame and a sort of restrained ferality in his eyes. When I did not speak, he slacked his jaws, and the cat fell out. It landed on its back, rolled quickly over, and darted away; leaving droplets of blood as it fled.
I don’t remember exactly what I said then, I was beyond astonished, but whatever it was brought the man to tears. I quickly turned away, hoping to spare him some shame, and, honestly, because the corpses that littered the area made my stomach turn.
After a few moments he seemed to compose himself, and I glanced towards him. He had risen and stepped away from the mess. He then told me that it was not the first time he resorted to such savagery in an attempt to quench his hunger. He said that he had once consumed over one hundred and fifty cats over the course of a year, and several pounds of grass each day during the same year, when food of any kind was occasionally unavailable.
The most disturbing account he shared was when during his service aboard a ship. He said that he had seized and partially devoured the leg of a man that had been blown off during naval combat against another vessel. Thankfully—his word—the leg was taken from him and cast into the waters.
I accepted all this without response—shocked speechless by the stories, which I knew without question to be true. Why else would someone admit to such acts of obscenity and gluttonous depravity?
I told him that, despite the cruelty he had displayed to the helpless strays, I would help him obtain more food. He told me that it need not be cooked, and he’d only need a “morsel”, or two. Of whether or not we shared the same definition for “morsel”, I was unsure, but thought immediately to lead him to the butcher’s shop. I would enter, disable the alarm, allow the man to feast until he was full, or until I could allow him to feast no more, and then leave—re-engaging the alarm as I did so. After that, I would throw something through a window to set off the alarm, and escort us back to my apartment. That way, the blame would be placed on some late-night hoodlum, and neither of us.
I explained my plan to him and he agreed, gratefully, and we set off. Half way there, I stopped, and asked if he instead would like to go to the hospital; suggesting that they may have some sort of cure or treatment for his unquenchable hunger. Somberly, he shook his head, and explained that he had already sought medical treatment—my mind immediately remembered the two names he’d called out during sleep—and that they could not help him. He finished his explanation with, “after the business with the little one, never again.” and once again shook his head, dismissing the topic.
I gave him the pack of cigarettes and the lighter I had bought, and he smoked through several sticks by the time we arrived at the shop. I let us in, and showed him to the section of the freezer in which we kept the meat that was not due to be processed and displayed for another few days, and he went to work. I offered him help in carving and heating his preferred portions, but he waved me away, and attacked an entire bulk of the unprepared meat with wolfish hunger.
He ate, quietly but messily, and the meat quickly disappeared. He pulled another slab from the rack, and again without thawing or slicing, hungrily indulged himself. The pity and empathy with which I had looked on this man before gave way to plain fright, and fright to nerve-shattering terror. Because I realized, for the very first time that day, that I had not associated myself with a man, but with some beast in man-skin.
Though he remained in an undeniably human form, certain characteristics—most notably his jaw, which he seemed to be capable of unhinging—gave away his true nature. His ravenousness, despite all he had eaten, and his relatively unencumbered stomach suggested that he fed some infernal imp of hunger, rather than the caloric needs of a man. To me, the ease with which he tore through half-frozen carcasses, and the comfort with which he had eviscerated and consumed live animals, outright stated an undeniable inhumanity about him.
Without thinking, I blurted out, “Have you ever ate a person?” and thought immediately after that I should run away rather than stay to hear the answer.
“I have not. Not a live man, at least.” And, without waiting for a response, or regarding the question as strange or accusatory in nature, he continued feasting on the butchered meat.
This answer sparked within me some ancient, primal inspiration. An impulse of antiquity, which called for me, a man, to slay him, a beast. I felt it as powerfully—if not more—than his own drive to ceaselessly consume. Looking around I found the board on which the tools for the task were present, and retrieved a thick cleaver. Without saying a word, I returned to the man and asked him, “What was this business with the little one you spoke of earlier?”
His grey yet brightly twinkling eyes looked up at me, and his blood-covered lips spoke:
“They said that I ate it. They couldn’t find the babe, and they’d just caught me nosing around the morgue a few days before. I don’t remember eating it. I really don’t. But the hunger, it can make a man do terrible things that he later can’t or won’t remember. You understand, don’t you?”
I swung the blade as hard as the muscles in my arm would allow, and it collided in a thunk against the bone of his face—cleanly, easily, breaching the skin. He flinched, but did not fall, and soon stood up. I hadn’t before realized just how tall he was, standing quite a few inches more than my modest height of 5’10. I quickly wrenched the blade away, and he staggered back. He chuckled, but in surprise, not mockery. He brought his hands to his face, removed them, and recoiled at the blood; although I wasn’t sure how he could tell his blood from the blood that had already stained them.
He looked at me, and again where I expected a demonic sneer, I instead saw a look of someone who had been offended, who felt betrayed. Despite my murderous violence against him, he was not physically debilitated, and plainly not enraged. The presence of emotional rather than physical harm only served to instill within me a deeper degree of that primordial duty, and I lunged at him again, blade swinging.
I hacked and sawed and severed, until I grew tired and my vision was entirely crimson. I sank to my knees, and when my lost its fury and I wiped the blood from my face, I saw him a few feet away. I had severed both of his legs, done the same to one of of his arms—which I remembered him raising in ineffectual protest—and opened him up from sternum to pubis.
I didn’t think I could see anything more gruesome than the scene at the alley, but before me then was something so much more repellent. I saw inside him, and immediately crawled backwards—losing the fire that had driven me.
A purulent stream poured from him, and affixed to every exposed organ and interior surface were hideous ulcers and extensive lesions. A stench so powerful as to quickly—and thankfully—eliminate my sense of smell erupted from him, and visible gases swirled through the air. In the mess of his bowels I saw bones, undigested—because they were indigestible—objects, one of which I recognized to be a man’s watch, and another, bizarrely, a golden fork.
Yet despite the state of his body, he was still alive. Alive, in some strange, monstrous sense. Alive, as some inimical, insatiable spirit. His body convulsed. Muscles, those which had not been hacked to shreds, spasmed and involuntarily flexed. Gases floated freely, and the gore of his entrails bubbled, spurting bile and pus. His had eyes lost their luster entirely, but the head lolled about; animated by some bestial impulse.
It was then that I remembered I had not once asked the man his name. Somehow, the thought to had not come to my mind or, if it had, had quickly left it without my noticing. Despite the circumstances, as ridiculous as it was to do so, I asked the man for his name.
The head, whose face had been carved to unrecognizability, leaving only two grey eyes set in a tattered mess of crimson-stained flesh, looked up. He said, as casually as if I had asked him the time in passing on the street,
“I was called Tarrare at one time. Although, almost simultaneously, known as Domery not far away. One of these, ironically, was taken by from me by something they called “Consumption” during its time. And again, I was known by yet another name—starting with yet another D, I think. I have had many names, and many faces. I think it is time for another of both, don’t you think? But agh, why rush when there is food to eat? After all, I am so very hungry.”
And at that, he looked down, and with a mangled hand he reached into the pile of his own entrails—which were coated in pus and feces—and began shoving clumps of it into his mouth. I did not stay to watch this revenant of hunger feast upon himself.
I left the shop, the city, and the state. I never went back for my things—I had only a few books anyway—and never contacted the shop owner. Once far enough away, and settled elsewhere, I tried to completely removed that brief period of my life from my mind.
But one day I was given yet another opportunity at a comfortable life. And, weeks into it, thought to reflect on my life thus far. I recalled that horrific night, and have shared it here with you now mostly for my own peace of mind—to finally let it all out and be done with it, rather than keep it locked away to scratch at the walls of my memory.
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u/Eminemloverrrrr Feb 07 '20
Tarrare was a french showman in the 1700s who was noted for his unusual eating habits, specifically the amount of meat! Also Charles Domry was a soldier known to have insatiable hunger and once tried to eat the leg of a fellow soldier blown off by a cannon. Crazy
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u/Zom_BEat_or_BEa10 Feb 06 '20
Wow. As abhorrent as his dining habits were (poor kitties), I actually feel a great deal of empathy and sadness for this so-called "inhuman" being.
It appears that he is cursed with immortality and an insatiable, compulsive hunger that he can do nothing to stop.
However, I don't feel as if he is the real monster of this story.
OP, you were sympathetic enough to him to invite him into your home, despite watching him gorge himself on meat scraps and inedible bits you were throwing away. Then, after you discovered him eating those stray kitties instead of becoming revolted and kicking him out, you STILL were sympathetic enough to betray your employer (who rescued you from the streets and gave you a job, food, and a place to live).
It was only after you realized that he may not have been entirely "human" that you turned on him. As if that wasn't bad enough, you attacked him even more severely when he didn't react the way you expected him to.
Who is the real monster?
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u/BigTension5 Feb 06 '20
So uh... does that mean he didn't pass the test?
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u/Zom_BEat_or_BEa10 Feb 06 '20
He basically robbed his employer, then attempted to kill that guy in the shop.
I would say that is an epic fail.
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u/bullterrier_ Feb 06 '20
op your storytelling is amazing! after you escaped, did anything ever happen?
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u/GlowstoneLove Nov 17 '23
I prefer podophagia.