The Feeders

7 - The Fifth Tank

I rarely ever go into Salem's room. It's full of nerd things that don't really interest me. School books (some of which he was never assigned and just picked up anyway), old science projects, new science projects, microscopes, computer stuff, some things I don't even know what to call. He's very particular about his things. As I've witnessed many times, touching almost anything in there could cause his usually calm demeanor to fly right out the window. If that's not enough to make me want to stay away, there's also his pets. Lizards, mice, snakes, spiders. Snake is where I draw the line.

To his room is where he leads me. We pause at his open door, where his dry eraser board still says, "Don't knock, experimenting," from the last time he holed up inside doing something brainy.

"Before we go in, remember not to touch-"

"Anything," I finish for him, my hands raise in surrender. "I know, I know."

"And remember that they can't get to you."

The snakes? I think . My body tenses. I want to ask for an extra minute to prepare myself, but my throat is tightening with anticipation. He is already twisting the knob. A slow creak, then a view of his bedroom. Straight ahead sits his writing desk with notes and books covering the top. Pages of text books marked on, scribbles everywhere. His laptop and more books are on his unmade bed to the left. I don't try to read his small, curly cursive notes, because I probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

The point of the room that grips my attention foremost is his pet shelf. It's just some boards he and dad nailed to the east side wall. Four thick boards that stretch horizontally from north to south. Two, five, and ten gallon sized tanks sit atop the shelves to house his creepies and his crawlies. I can see Arnie, his chameleon, sitting on a branch in his tank. The other lizards on the top shelf, the spiders on the second, the snakes on the fourth....but instead of the mice on the third, I see only sheets.

Salem is fussing with his window blinds, trying to shut each section perfectly. I turn back to the third shelf. Curiosity tickles at my brain. I need to know what is under those sheets. That need rises above my caution. I step forward, reach out toward the first sheet-

"Jan!" Salem yelps. He rushes forward, pushing me back. "Do not touch. You could knock it over. Please, just stand there and don't move. Don't even breathe. They can sense it."

"What?" I say. "Okay, Salem, this is a little ridic-u-lous. . . ."

Salem had ripped the sheets off of and I want to scream. The mice in the first tank are fine, but that's where normality ends. I want to shout at him to back away, because the moment the second sheet rises, the mouse in the second cage starts throwing itself at the glass. Leaping, scratching, snapping, growling like a rabid dog. A macabre pile of little bones lay about its lair. The mouse next to it is hissing and screeching. It's leaning up against the glass, but not fighting it. Only a few bones are in its tank. In the next tank, the mouse is laying silently, as if dead or sick. In the fifth--which is worst of all--the mouse is clearly dead, but it's still standing. It's milky-white eyes are staring as it sniffs the air. It's fur is patchy and dull. It's paws rotted, it's ears shriveling.

I gasp and back away.

"Salem..." I say, my voice--just higher than a whisper--coming out in cracks. "What did you do?"

"I had to test," he says.

I laugh mirthlessly. "Test? This is torture."

"No, well, I mean, yes. It is. But I have to see what's happening. Don't you see?" Salem's voice was pleading. "It's for them. For mom and dad. I have to know what's happening to them...what's going to happen to them."

"What do you mean? That mom and dad will be like him?" I point an unsteady finger at the fifth gage, where the dead, rotting mouse lives.

"Yes and no," Salem says.

I can sense his apologetic tone, but I can't process it, not while he's telling me something like this. Not while I'm actually facing the fact that my parents could very well rot before a cure is made. But what does he mean by yes and no?

"What-what do you mean?" I ask outright.

"Yes, they will get like that...if they don't eat."

I'm looking at the rotted mouse. Watching it's eerie, slow movements. Picturing mom and dad with their ears withering away. With their hair falling out and their skin falling off.

"No..."

"Yes," Salem says. "But there's hope, Jan."

I snap my gaze to him, desperate. I need that hope now more than ever.

"This Sick guy," he points to the second cage, "He's eaten. A lot. Probably too much. It has made him crazy and extremely ravenous. This girl here beside him, she's eaten some. She looks normal, but her actions are still that of a Sick One. But this one here," he moves over to the fourth, "it's eaten only another Sick One. I left them in the tank together to see if they would turn on each other if no other source was available."

I found that alarming. The Sick Ones will attack each other if they have no other choice. So if mom and dad get loose, but can't figure out how to get out of the basement to find healthy humans to attack...they may attack each other.

"This one," Salem says, moving onto the fifth tank, "Hasn't ate anything. He's rotting away quickly. The girl in the third, she was like this, but I fed her. It perked her right back up. Fur grew back, eyes came back to focus-"

"What are you feeding them, Salem?" I ask.

"It seems they need to consume their own species in order to rejuvenate..."

"You're feeding them your other mice?" My face twists.

"In the name of science, yes," Salem says. "For mom and dad."

"Wait, so what you're saying is....if we don't want mom and dad to rot like the living mouse corpse in that tank, we're going to have to feed them something of the same species?"

"Yes."

"You're telling me they need to eat people?"

"To put it simply," Salem says, and he gives me a look that says even he isn't ready to hear himself say his next word. "Yes."