Window

By Carie Juettner

The window was open just enough to let in the cool night air. It swam across her listless body and stirred the stench of rot that hung in the small space. She inhaled deeply and stretched her arms, feeling the weight of the heavy chains that wound around her wrists and attached to the thick metal rings bolted to the floor beneath the bed. She’d seen them, once, when she was first brought here. The last day she stood upright. The last day she clasped her hands together. The last day she had a view of anything except the padded ceiling, the padded wall, the one small window which was now open a crack. She pulled her hands toward each other. They stopped, as they always did, more than a foot away, like two long-distance lovers separated by a world who didn’t approve. They longed for each other. The nails on her dry fingers were doing their best, but they had a long way to grow before they touched.

Was this a feeding day? She couldn’t remember. Starvation had become a trial, then a game. Now it was just a habit. She tried to remember when she’d last been fed. She looked for signs. Her stomach was empty, but her stomach was always empty. Her mind was still alert, no hallucinations or dizziness. Maybe it hadn’t been long. Yes, they must have been here recently. That’s probably when they opened the window, though she didn’t remember it.

She looked again through the glass. Hazy gray sky. One tree branch. Green leaves. It looked like spring. The cool breeze tingled where it touched her flaky skin. She closed her eyes and stretched her neck to the right. When she opened them again, she saw color. Blinking, turning her head as far as possible, she saw a painting on the wall. She’d never noticed it before. In the scene, a young woman kneeled on a blue rug, playing with a small child.  She was smiling, and the child—a boy with brown curls—looked up at her with large, loving eyes. In his hands, he held wooden blocks, one red and one green.

When had they hung this painting on the wall? The same time they opened the window? She wanted to ask. Wanted to know why they were offering her a breeze, placing art within her view. But it would be a while before they came again. She’d just eaten, probably. Because she wasn’t dizzy and she wasn’t hungry. She would just have to wait.

What if…? Her mind spun with other ideas. Maybe the painting had always been there and she’d never noticed it, never turned her head that far. Maybe her chains had loosened. The idea gripped her with the possibilities, and she closed her eyes to steady herself. Then she looked again at the picture.

The child, she realized now, was her child. She felt his warm gaze upon her. She remembered the feel of his soft, plump skin. Oh, how she wished she could touch it again.

Instinctively, she reached her hands toward each other, and… they met. Her fingers grasped each other, hugging, caressing, holding on. Her red nails gleamed in the light of the candles on the small wooden table beneath the photograph of her and her son, the flames flickering in the breeze from the open window through which birdsong could be heard in the oak tree that towered beneath the crisp blue sky.

A smile stretched her lips, and a tear squeezed itself from her left eye, sliding leisurely over the smooth apple of her cheek. Her stomach was full. Her heart was full. Her hands were free.

She was happy.

A clank and a thud and a rumble of steel sounded from behind her. A muffled voice said, “Feeding time.” Then a figure came into view. A man clad head to toe in thick leather and clunky armor extended a tray toward her. On the tray rested a human brain.

 “Time to eat, girl. Don’t be a pain today, okay?” The voice emerged from behind the leather mask.

Eat it? He wants me to eat a brain? “No!” she screamed, but the sound that came from her throat was a guttural growl. She tried to push the tray away, but the chains stopped her. The chains. Where did they come from? They hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Help me!” she yelled, but the words were unintelligible. Then, while her mind tried to make sense of what was happening, her dry, cracked right hand moved of its own accord, snatching the brain from the tray, stuffing it hungrily into her reaching, straining mouth. She sobbed and growled as the room spun, and she devoured the juicy pink meat.

“Good girl,” the voice said. “That should hold you for a while. I’ll try to come a little sooner with the next one. We wouldn’t want you to wait too long between meals and go feral. That stage can’t be any more fun for you than it is for us.”

As she swallowed the last bite and felt the growls subside into purring grunts, she looked to see if he’d left the window open.

But there was no window. Just padded walls and a padded ceiling and the chains that kept her hands from meeting. And the knowledge, sharp and raw, that she’d been here a long time, would be here even longer, and every time she got close to grasping the part of her that was still alive, they fed the monster inside her, strengthening the zombie and subduing her humanity once more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carie Juettner is a teacher, poet, and short story author in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in Nature Futures, Daily Science Fiction, and Tales to Terrify. Carie was born on Halloween and grew up telling ghost stories by the campfire and watching The Twilight Zone. When she’s not writing or grading papers, she can be found walking her dog or reading a book with her cat on her lap.

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