Famished
By Meghan O'Flynn
He looked down. This girl was a poor substitute. The slab of concrete bearing her weight was barely wider than her hips, so it had been no burden to cuff her wrists and ankles to the sturdy wooden pillars beneath. Families had once placed the ashes of their loved ones here for a final goodbye before stuffing them into the wall for all eternity. Now, it was an actual altar, heavy with sacrifice.
Her eyes were unseeing and blank in the dim light. The creamy white of her skin would eventually become translucent as death took over, blending her flesh into the grey stone upon which she lay.
But not yet.
He ran his fingers over her breasts, flattened from years of malnutrition. A roadmap of abused veins ran the length of her arms. Her drooping mouth gaped, a string of drool dripping down her wasted face. Dried tears streaked her cheeks.
He had never understood tears. They seemed all the more appalling in her case as he’d merely finished what she had already been doing to herself. They all tried to deny it, but everyone wanted this. Even the one he hadn’t killed. His neck muscles went rigid, as stony as the altar. He had done everything she had ever asked of him. I would have continued to if she hadn’t gone.
This is for you, cunt.
He trailed his eyes down the girl’s chest to the yawning gorge that had once been her belly. The skin lay peeled back, revealing his prize within the bony cavity.
He touched the stomach, and it slid like a nest of maggots, writhing away from the light. The still-warm jelly that surrounded her innards sucked at his hand. He slid his fingers over the shiny glass exterior of the organ, gripped it gingerly, and pulled. Resistance, then release, as the surrounding tissue gave way. He bent closer and palpated the surface, pinching, prodding until he felt the familiar firmness, the proof that she was just as disgusting as he’d suspected.
Then the scalpel was in his hand, and there was only the dissection, respectful and precise, the taste of iron on his tongue growing stronger with each inhale. His brows knit together in concentration.
Genre: Thriller
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Meghan O'Flynn
Meghan O’Flynn was born in Detroit, Michigan, back when you could yell “De-trout!” and have people cheer.
Biography.
(The Lions used to be good…or so she hears.) Meghan’s early years were spent hidden in her bedroom, devouring book after book from the local public library. When her father became concerned about this, perhaps thinking she was becoming “too serious,” he made her watch Beavis, Butt-Head, and later South Park because, though reading is fun, no one sings like Chef.
After heading off to college at sixteen, Meghan found that Beavis was a better representative of university students than the folks she read about in novels and decided that human nature was just as fascinating as The Hobbit. Psychology became her focus.
After years of working for community-based mental health agencies, schools, and the veteran’s administration, Meghan moved on to private practice. She ultimately became the Clinical Director/President of Clinical Operations for a JCAHO-accredited mental health facility. Though she loved serving the world, her creative side needed more. So she picked up a pen. And she hasn’t put it down since.
Meghan’s novels have been sold worldwide to international acclaim. No matter how dark, every book has a little piece of her in there—writing has always been like bleeding onto a page.
Meghan has since moved on from the frigid tundra that is D-town and now resides in a muggy, mosquito-infested, hope-you-like-frizzy-hair swamp community with her husband, her two wonderful boys, and an enormous English Mastiff named “Stella Bellum Patronus” who is probably laying on Meghan’s feet at this moment. She is working on her next novel between bouts of playing Tetris, having tickle fights, eating good dark chocolate and maybe watching South Park reruns. Because if there’s one thing she’s pretty sure of, it doesn’t pay to be too serious.
Meghan O'Flynn
