The New Hunger Read Online Free PDF

gives her goosebumps, and she makes a note to skip it on her way back. She never thought she’d be out of touch with youth culture by age sixteen. The darkness came so abruptly her tastes never had a chance to adjust, and now it all just scares her. She retreats into the past, to the records Auntie Shirley used to play while they built Legos in the living room. Some Ella or Billie or Frank would be nice right now, despite Addis’s protests. There are worse feelings than boredom.
    She pushes into the women’s restroom and leans against the sink, fighting for composure. She looks in the mirror at her tired red eyes. She sees a large mound in the corner of the room, heaving slowly under a tablecloth.
    • • •
     
    “Addis, get your stuff.”
    “Wha a left">t?”
    “We’re leaving.”
    “But I’m not done eat—”
    “ Addis !”
    He looks up at her, startled.
    “Get your stuff.”
    Addis grabs his NPR tote bag and stuffs his hatchet in next to a few Ziploc bags of leftover food. Nora takes his hand and marches toward the elevator.
    “What’s going on?”
    “There’s something in the bathroom.”
    “Something?”
    “Something or someone.”
    “Someone bad?”
    “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
    “But what if it’s someone good?”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    She drags her brother into the elevator and presses the lobby button. The elevator drops, pushing stomach bile into her throat.
    “But I thought that’s why we’re walking around! I thought we’re trying to find people who can help us.”
    “This person can’t help us.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because they’re lying on the floor under a bloody tablecloth.”
    “Are they hurt?”
    “At least.”
    “Then shouldn’t we help them ?”
    Nora pauses. She looks at her brother. It’s a strange feeling, being judged by a child. He’s seven years old; where the hell did he get a moral compass? Certainly not from his parents. Not even from her. She supposes there must be people in the world who stick to their principles, who always do the right thing, but they are few and far between, especially now. Where does a child get an idea as unnatural as goodness?
    The elevator reaches the bottom. Addis watches Nora hopefully. She sighs and presses the restaurant’s floor. They ascend.

 
    The silver Tahoe is low on gas. Julie can hear her father muttering about it every few minutes, scanning the surrounding landscape for likely filling stations. Eventually, on some obscure cue, he takes an exit into what appears to be a primeval forest. There are no signs advertising food or gas or civilization of any kind, but after a few miles a tiny truck stop appears, halfway hidden in the trees. Most of the city stations are drained dry. To find gas or anything else of value anymore, they have to look where no one else would think to. They have to turn logic backward and trust intuition, a skill Julie was surprised to find in Colonel John Grigio’s stern repertoire.
    “Does Dad have super smell?” she asks her mother as they watch him hook the hand-pump into the station’s diesel reservoir.
    “What?”
    “How’d he know there was gas out here?”
    “I don’t know. He’s just smart that way.” She watches her husband work the pump, filling the first of six plastic gas cans. “You have to appreciate that,” she says in a quieter voice that Julie can barely hear. “If nothing else, the man’s certainly capable.”
    The sickly sweet, rotten-apricot smell of chemically preserved fuel floods the air, and Julie watches her mother press a fold of her dress against her nose as a filter. A white dress, pulled in at the waist by a bright red sash. She doesntheret t seem to care that the hem is brown with dirt and engine grease, that there are small rips all over it revealing bare skin. The dress is pretty, so she wears it. Julie loves her for that, even though she herself is wearing Carhartt jeans and a grey t-shirt.
    “I have to pee,” she