I Hated My Son For Being ‘Cold’ At His Mother’s Funeral. Then I Read His Diary and Realized The Meat In My Stew Wasn’t Beef.

PART 1

Chapter 1: The Hunger

The funeral was a blur of gray skies and black umbrellas, but the only thing I could focus on was the gnawing, burning hole in my stomach.

It wasn’t grief. It was hunger.

My wife, Elena, had been in the ground for an hour. People were crying. Her sister was wailing. And my son, Lucas? He was checking his watch.

He stood by the grave, hands in the pockets of his oversized hoodie, staring at a squirrel running up an oak tree. He looked bored. He looked like he was waiting for a bus, not saying goodbye to the woman who birthed him.

“Lucas,” I hissed, leaning heavily on my cane. “Show some respect.”

He turned to me. His eyes were flat. Dead. “I’m watching the protein,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, turning back to the squirrel.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to shake him until he cried. But I was too weak.

Ever since the accident—the one that crushed Elena’s side of the car and left me in a coma for three weeks—I had been changing. The doctors called it “post-traumatic stress manifesting physically.” They said my rapid weight loss was depression. They said the sensitivity to light was neurological.

They didn’t explain the hunger.

It started as a craving for rare steak. Then, cooked meat made me vomit. By the time we got home from the hospital, I couldn’t eat anything from the pantry. Bread tasted like sawdust. Vegetables tasted like rot.

I was starving to death. I could see my ribs. My skin had taken on a grayish, sickly pallor.

But Lucas… Lucas took charge.

He was seventeen, but he acted like a prison warden. He took over the kitchen. He locked the basement.

“I’ll handle the food, Dad,” he said the night after the funeral.

He brought me a bowl of stew. It was thick, dark red, and smelled… metallic. Copper and iron.

“Eat,” he said.

I took a spoonful. The moment the meat hit my tongue, the pain in my stomach vanished. It was ecstasy. I devoured the bowl in seconds.

“What is this?” I asked, wiping my mouth. “It’s delicious.”

“Venison,” Lucas said. He didn’t make eye contact. He was looking at my hands, which were trembling. “I got it from a guy at school.”

“It’s good,” I sighed, feeling strength return to my limbs. “Make more.”

For the next two months, that stew was the only thing keeping me alive. And for two months, my hatred for my son grew.

He became a ghost in the house. He slept in the basement. He stopped showering regularly—he always smelled of bleach and antiseptic. He started limping, dragging his left leg, but refused to see a doctor.

“I slipped on the ice,” he lied. It was September. There was no ice.

He was hiding something. Drugs, I assumed. He was selling things to buy the “venison.” He was numb, detached, a sociopath.

I sat in my armchair, watching him limp through the hallway, his face pale and sweaty.

“You disgust me,” I whispered to the empty room. “Your mother dies, and you turn into a junkie.”

I decided I was done. I was going to kick him out. He was eighteen in a month. He could figure it out.

I waited until he left for his “supply run.” I watched his beat-up Honda Civic pull out of the driveway.

Then, I grabbed my cane and headed for his room.

Chapter 2: The Butcher’s Log

Lucas’s bedroom was upstairs. Climbing the steps left me winded, despite the “venison” I had for lunch.

I pushed his door open.

It was sparse. He had sold his PlayStation. He had sold his TV. The room contained a bed, a desk, and a strange, lingering smell of rubbing alcohol and… something sweet. Like old flowers.

I tore the room apart. I pulled the drawers out. I checked under the rug. I was looking for needles. For cash. For proof that he was the failure I thought he was.

I found nothing.

I sat on the bed, frustrated. My hand brushed against something hard under the mattress.

I lifted the corner of the mattress.

Taped to the underside of the box spring was a thick, leather-bound journal.

I ripped it free.

“The drug log,” I muttered, flipping it open.

It wasn’t a drug log.

The first page was dated June 12th. The day I woke up from my coma.

June 12th: Dad woke up. He’s different. His eyes are yellow in the dark. He bit the nurse when she tried to change his IV. The doctor didn’t see it, but I did. He swallowed the piece of skin.

I froze. I didn’t remember that.

June 15th: They sent him home. He can’t eat. He’s dying. He screams at night. Not from pain. From hunger. He keeps looking at the cat.

June 18th: The cat is missing. Dad has blood under his fingernails. He says he shaved and cut himself. He didn’t shave. He ate Mr. Whiskers. I found the collar in the trash.

My stomach churned. I loved that cat. It ran away… didn’t it?

June 20th: He needs meat. Fresh meat. Not from the store. It has to be warm. I tried to catch a raccoon. It bit me. I killed it. I boiled it. Dad ate it. He stopped shaking.

I flipped forward, my hands trembling violently. The entries became more erratic. Stained with dark droplets.

July 4th: Animals aren’t enough. He’s getting stronger. He broke the bathroom door handle off. He looked at me today. He looked at my neck. He was drooling. He doesn’t know. He thinks he’s sick. He’s not sick. He’s turning.

July 10th: I can’t find any more strays. The neighbors are asking questions. Dad is starving again. He tried to bite his own arm.

July 11th: I made a decision. Mom told me to take care of him. She said, “Look after your father, Lucas.” I used the numbing cream I stole from the vet clinic. I used the garden shears. It took three tries to get the pinky toe off. I put it in the stew. He ate it. He smiled. He told me I was a good cook.

I gagged. I dropped the book on the bed and clamped my hand over my mouth.

My toe.

I looked at the date. July 11th. That was the day the “venison” stew started.

I grabbed the book again. I had to know. I flipped to August.

August 2nd: The toe wasn’t enough meat. It only lasted a day. I took the other one. Walking is hard.

August 15th: He needs more mass. Muscle. I took a slice from my thigh today. There was so much blood. I passed out. I burned the meat a little, but he didn’t notice. He called me lazy for sleeping all day.

I stared at the words. He called me lazy.

I remembered that day. I had yelled at him for napping on the couch while the dishes were piled up. I had called him a useless waste of space.

He had just carved a piece of his own leg off to feed me.

I flipped to the most recent entries. The handwriting was shaky. Weak.

October 10th: I’m running out of safe spots to cut. My legs are a mess. Infection is setting in on the left calf. I smell like rot. Dad thinks it’s lack of hygiene. He hates me. It’s better if he hates me. If he knew what he was eating, he’d starve himself. I can’t let him die. He’s all I have left.

October 15th (Today): He threw the bowl at the wall this morning. Said he was sick of “scraps.” He wants a feast. I don’t have a choice. I can’t walk on the left leg anymore anyway. I’m going to take the foot. The whole foot. It should last him a week. Maybe by then, I’ll figure out how to cure him.

I read the last line again. I’m going to take the foot.

I looked at the time on my phone. 6:45 PM.

He was at the “store.”

He wasn’t at the store.

I heard the garage door rumble open downstairs.

I heard the car engine cut off.

Then, silence.

No footsteps.

Usually, I heard him walking. Limping.

Then, a sound. A soft thump… drag… thump.

He was using crutches. Or crawling.

And then, the smell hit me.

It wafted up the stairs. The smell of copper. The smell of iron. The smell of slow-cooked meat.

He was cooking.

“Dad?”

His voice floated up the stairs. It was weak. Threadbare.

“Dad, are you hungry?”

I looked at the diary. I looked at the window.

I was a monster. Not because of the hunger. But because I had let my son carve himself into pieces to keep me warm.

I stood up. I had to stop him. I had to stop him from serving the bowl.

But as I stood, the hunger hit me.

It was a physical blow. A cramp that doubled me over. My mouth watered. My pupils dilated. The smell of the cooking meat downstairs wasn’t horrifying.

It was intoxicating.

My body wanted to go downstairs and eat. My mind wanted to scream.

I gripped the doorframe.

Thump. Drag. Thump.

He was coming up the stairs.

“Dad? I made it special tonight. A big portion.”

I looked at the lock on the door.

I could lock it. I could starve. I could save him.

Or I could open it.

The doorknob turned.

Here is Part 2 of the story.

PART 2

Chapter 3: The Feast

The doorknob turned slowly, the brass mechanism clicking like the chamber of a gun.

I wanted to shout, to tell him to stay back, but my throat was constricted by the thick, hot saliva of anticipation. The smell coming from the other side of the door was overwhelming. It triggered a primal response in my brain that drowned out the horror.

The door creaked open.

Lucas stood there. Or rather, he leaned there.

He was propped up on a pair of old wooden crutches I hadn’t seen since I broke my ankle ten years ago. His face was gray, covered in a sheen of cold sweat. His lips were chapped and white.

But it was his left leg that drew my eyes.

His jeans were cut off at the knee. Below that, there was… nothing. Just a heavy, blood-soaked bandage wrapped around a stump where his calf and foot used to be. The bandage was fresh; bright red blood was already seeping through the gauze.

In his right hand, balancing precariously, was a serving tray. On it sat a steaming bowl of the thick, red stew.

“Dad?” he whispered, his eyes darting around the trashed room. He saw the overturned drawers. He saw the diary in my hand.

He froze. The tray rattled, the spoon clinking against the porcelain.

“You found it,” he said. His voice wasn’t angry. It was resigned.

“Lucas,” I choked out, tears finally spilling down my face. “What have you done?”

He didn’t answer. He hobbled forward, wincing with every movement. He set the tray down on the desk with a trembling hand.

“Eat,” he said softly. “It’s getting cold. You know you don’t like it cold.”

“I’m not eating that!” I screamed, backing away until I hit the wall. “That’s… that’s you. That’s your foot, Lucas!”

“It’s protein,” he said, his voice flat. “It’s what you need. Look at you, Dad. You’re shaking. Your eyes are turning yellow again.”

I looked in the mirror above his dresser. He was right. My irises were glowing with a sickly, bioluminescent hue. My veins stood out black against my gray skin.

“I’m a monster,” I whispered.

“No,” Lucas said firmly. He maneuvered his crutches to turn and face me. “You’re sick. It’s a virus. Or a parasite. Whatever was in that other car… whatever crawled out of the wreckage and bit you before the ambulance came… it changed you.”

He took a step toward me.

“But you’re still my dad,” he said. “You taught me how to throw a curveball. You stayed up all night with me when I had the flu. You took care of me. Now it’s my turn.”

“By feeding me your own body?” I sobbed. “Lucas, look at yourself! You’re chopping yourself apart!”

“It grows back,” he lied.

“Don’t lie to me!” I roared. The sound wasn’t human. It was a guttural growl that vibrated in my chest.

The smell of the stew wafted toward me. Savory. Rich. Necessary.

My stomach cramped so hard I doubled over.

“Just eat, Dad,” Lucas pleaded, pushing the tray toward me. “Please. If you don’t, you’ll go feral. You remember what happened with the mailman? You almost broke through the glass.”

I looked at the bowl. I looked at my son’s bandaged stump.

I hated myself. I wanted to die.

But the hunger was stronger than love. Stronger than shame.

I grabbed the bowl. I didn’t use the spoon. I drank it. I shoveled the chunks of meat into my mouth with my fingers, swallowing them whole. I cried while I ate. I gagged on my own sobs, but I couldn’t stop.

Lucas just watched. He didn’t look away. He stood there, leaning on his crutches, watching his father devour his flesh with a look of infinite, heartbreaking sadness.

Chapter 4: The Cage

When the bowl was empty, the clarity returned. The yellow faded from my vision. The shaking stopped.

I sat on the floor, the empty bowl between my legs, covered in broth and shame.

Lucas sat on the edge of the bed. He looked exhausted.

“How much is left?” I asked. My voice was quiet. Human again.

Lucas looked at his leg. “Of me? Or the food?”

“Lucas…”

“I have the thigh left,” he said clinically, as if discussing inventory at a grocery store. “And the right leg. The arms are tricky because I need them to cook and clean. I figure… I figure I can keep you going for another three months. If I pace it.”

“No,” I said, struggling to my feet. “No more. This ends tonight.”

“It can’t end,” Lucas said. “If you stop eating, you don’t just die, Dad. You change. You become… something else. Something hungry.”

“Then let me die,” I said. “Call the police. Tell them I’m dangerous. Tell them to put a bullet in my head.”

Lucas shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a key. “I promised Mom.”

He held up the key.

“She saw it, Dad. Before she died. In the wreckage.”

“Saw what?”

“The thing that bit you,” Lucas whispered. “She was trapped in the passenger seat. She saw it crawl onto you. She saw it burrow into your neck. Her last words to me… when the paramedics pulled me out… she grabbed my shirt and said, ‘Don’t let them kill him. He’s still in there. Save him.'”

He gripped the key tight.

“I’m saving you,” he said.

“This isn’t saving me!” I yelled, gesturing to his missing leg. “This is destroying you!”

“It’s temporary,” he insisted, his eyes wide and manic. “I’m researching. I’m close to a cure. I found a forum online. Other people… other survivors. They say high doses of silver nitrate might work. Or blood transfusions.”

“Lucas, look at me,” I said, stepping closer. “I just ate your foot. There is no cure for this.”

I reached for the door handle.

“I’m leaving,” I said. “I’m going to walk into the woods and I’m going to keep walking until I starve or freeze.”

I turned the knob.

It was locked. From the outside.

I frowned. “Lucas, unlock the door.”

He didn’t move. He sat on the bed, clutching the key.

“No,” he said.

“Lucas, give me the key.”

“I can’t let you leave, Dad.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not full,” he said softly.

I paused. He was right. The bowl was big, but the hunger… it was already scratching at the back of my throat. It was a bottomless pit.

“And,” Lucas continued, his voice trembling, “I locked the other doors. The exterior doors. The windows are nailed shut. I did it while you were sleeping yesterday.”

“You… you trapped us in here?”

“I trapped you in here,” he corrected. “To protect the world from you. And to protect you from them.”

“Them?”

“The people who would kill you,” he said. “The government. The military. If they find out what you are, they’ll dissect you. I won’t let them.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, my voice rising. “You chop yourself up until there’s nothing left? Then what? Then I eat you alive?”

Lucas looked down at his hands.

“I did the math,” he whispered. “By the time I run out of… parts… I’ll be dead from blood loss anyway. So it won’t hurt when you finish me.”

I stared at him. My son. My beautiful, broken, insane son. He had planned his own suicide by slow-motion cannibalism just to keep his father breathing for a few more weeks.

I couldn’t let that happen.

I looked at the window. It was second story. Nailed shut.

I looked at Lucas. He was weak. He had crutches.

I was strong. The meat made me unnaturally strong.

I lunged for him.

Chapter 5: The Last Supper

I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted the key.

I tackled him onto the bed. He screamed as his stump hit the mattress.

“Give it to me!” I yelled, grabbing his wrist.

“No! Dad, stop!”

He fought back with surprising strength. He jammed his thumb into my eye. I roared and pinned his arms down.

“Lucas, let me go! I have to leave before I hurt you!”

“You’re hurting me now!” he cried.

I looked down. My hand was gripping his arm. His left arm. The fleshy part of his bicep.

And then, it happened.

The smell.

His sweat. His blood pumping through the vein under my thumb.

The hunger snapped the leash.

The rational part of my brain—the father part—screamed NO!

But the monster part—the gray thing that lived in my stomach—took over.

My mouth opened. My jaw unhinged with a wet pop. Rows of sharp, serrated teeth descended from my gums.

I lowered my head toward his arm.

“Dad!” Lucas screamed. “Dad, it’s me! It’s Lucas!”

I couldn’t stop. I was drooling onto his shirt. I was going to take a bite. Just a taste. Just a little bit…

BANG.

The sound was deafening in the small room.

Pain exploded in my shoulder.

I flew backward, crashing into the desk. The lamp shattered.

I looked up, clutching my shoulder. Black blood was oozing between my fingers.

Lucas was sitting up on the bed. In his hand, shaking violently, was my service pistol. The one I kept in the nightstand safe.

He had shot me.

“Stay back,” he sobbed, aiming the gun at my head. “Stay back, Dad.”

I looked at the wound. It was healing. Before my eyes, the skin was knitting together. The bullet pushed itself out and clattered onto the floor.

“It doesn’t work,” I whispered. “Bullets don’t work.”

Lucas stared at the gun, then at me. His face crumpled.

“I can’t kill you,” he wept. “I can’t do it.”

He turned the gun.

He put the barrel in his own mouth.

“NO!” I screamed.

I moved faster than humanly possible. I crossed the room in a blur.

I slapped the gun out of his hand. It fired into the ceiling, plaster raining down on us.

I grabbed him by the shoulders. He was sobbing, hysterical.

“Listen to me!” I shook him. “Listen!”

The hunger was roaring now. Being this close to him… it was agony. I had to end this.

“You have the key,” I said, my voice guttural.

“Yes,” he gasped.

“Unlock the basement,” I commanded.

“What?”

“The basement,” I said. “It has the steel storm door. The one with the deadbolt on the outside.”

He looked at me, confusion warring with fear.

“You’re going to lock me in there,” I said. “And you’re never going to open it.”

“But… you’ll starve.”

“No,” I said, looking at the diary lying on the floor. “I won’t.”

I picked up the diary. I ripped out the pages. All the pages where he described the “stew.”

“I’m going to change,” I said. “Like you said. I’m going to turn into the thing completely.”

“Dad, no…”

“And when I do,” I said, staring into his eyes, “I won’t be your father anymore. I’ll just be a hungry animal.”

I grabbed the tray with the empty bowl.

“Now move,” I growled. “Before I eat your face.”

He scrambled up on his crutches. He unlocked the bedroom door.

We went into the hallway.

He unlocked the basement door.

I looked down into the darkness. It smelled of mold and cold earth.

“Dad,” Lucas whispered.

I turned to him. I wanted to hug him. But I couldn’t risk it.

“You did good, kid,” I said. “You took care of me. Now go. Leave the house. Burn it down if you have to. But don’t ever come down those stairs.”

I stepped into the dark.

Lucas stood at the top of the stairs, silhouetted by the hall light.

“I love you, Dad,” he said.

“Goodbye, Lucas.”

I closed the door.

I heard the heavy deadbolt slide home. Click.

Then I heard him dragging a chair over to wedge it under the handle.

I was alone.

I walked down the stairs. I sat on the cold concrete floor.

The hunger was consuming me. My vision went red. My bones began to crack and reshape.

I looked at my hand. The fingers were elongating. Claws were pushing through the nail beds.

I wasn’t going to starve.

Because I wasn’t alone in the basement.

In the corner, huddled in the darkness, I saw eyes.

Rats. Hundreds of them.

And in the far corner… the old chest freezer.

The one full of real venison from my last hunting trip two years ago.

It wouldn’t be as good as Lucas. But it would buy me time.

Time to dig.

I looked at the dirt floor.

I smiled, my mouth full of needle-teeth.

I would dig my way out. Not to eat my son. But to hunt the thing that made me.

Here is the final part of the story.

PART 3

Chapter 6: The Burrow

The darkness of the basement was absolute, but to my new eyes, it was awash in shades of violet and gray. I could see the heat signatures of the spiders in the rafters. I could hear the heartbeat of a mouse in the insulation three rooms away.

I sat cross-legged on the cold concrete, the chest freezer open beside me.

The hunger was a physical weight, a second skeleton pushing against my skin. It demanded warmth. It demanded blood.

I looked at the frozen venison. Blocks of meat wrapped in white butcher paper, dated two years ago. Rock hard. Freezer-burned.

I grabbed a package. I didn’t unwrap it. I bit through the paper and the frozen meat with a sound like a gunshot. My teeth—new, serrated, shifting like rows of shark teeth—sheared through the bone-hard block effortlessly.

It was cold. It hurt my throat. But it settled the fire in my stomach for a moment.

I ate it all. Fifty pounds of frozen deer. Then the ice cream. Then the bags of frozen peas.

It wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

But it gave me energy.

I looked at my hands. The skin had split, shedding like a snake, revealing a tough, slate-gray hide underneath. My fingernails were gone, replaced by thick, black talons curved for digging.

I looked at the ceiling.

I could hear him.

Thump… drag… thump.

Lucas was upstairs. He was pacing the kitchen. I heard him crying. I heard the clink of a bottle—whiskey? Or maybe pain pills for his leg.

“I’m sorry, kid,” I rasped. My voice sounded like grinding stones. I had lost the ability to modulate volume.

I couldn’t stay. If I stayed, I would eventually break that door down. The smell of his fresh wound—the amputation site—was drifting down through the floorboards. It smelled like gourmet vanilla to me. It was driving me insane.

I had to go down.

I crawled to the corner of the basement, where the sump pump pit was dug into the foundation. It was the weak point.

I jammed my claws into the concrete edge. It crumbled like dry cake.

I began to dig.

It was instinct. I wasn’t thinking about leverage or angles. My body just knew how to move earth. I tore through the clay, the rocks, the roots. I tunneled at a forty-five-degree angle, aiming away from the house, aiming for the woods.

Dirt filled my mouth, but it didn’t taste bad. It tasted of minerals and worms and deep, old things.

I dug for hours. Or maybe minutes. Time was slippery now.

I broke through into open air.

I wasn’t outside. I had breached an old storm drain. A concrete pipe running parallel to the street.

I pulled myself out of the hole, shaking the dirt from my gray scales.

I was out.

I took a breath.

The night air rushed into my expanded lungs. It was an explosion of information.

I smelled the neighbor’s dog (fear, arthritis). I smelled the exhaust of a car three miles away. I smelled the ozone of a coming storm.

And then, I smelled It.

Underneath the mundane scents of suburbia, there was a ribbon of rot. A sour, cloying stench of infection.

It was the same smell I had smelled on myself for months. But this was older. Stronger.

It was the smell of the thing that made me.

Lucas was right. Something had crawled out of the wreckage that night. And it was still out there.

I let out a low hiss.

The hunger shifted. It wasn’t just for meat anymore.

It was for vengeance.

Chapter 7: The Alpha

I moved through the storm drain, my spine fluid and elongated. I wasn’t walking; I was flowing. My limp was gone. My pain was gone. I felt powerful.

The scent led me toward the river. Toward the old industrial park where the chemical plant used to be. It was a dead zone. No people. Just rust and weeds.

A perfect nesting ground.

I emerged from the pipe near the riverbank. The moon was full, painting the world in silver.

I crouched in the tall grass.

There, in the center of the abandoned railyard, was a train car. A rusted boxcar, tipped on its side.

The smell of rot was pouring out of it.

And bones.

Piles of bones were scattered around the entrance. Deer. Coyotes. A few that looked disturbingly human.

I crept closer. My claws made no sound on the gravel.

A growl rumbled from the boxcar.

It knew I was there.

A figure emerged.

It was massive. At least eight feet tall. It stood on two legs, but its posture was hunched, ape-like. Its skin was black, slick with oil or slime. Its head was a nightmare—no eyes, just a mouth that split the skull in half, filled with needle-teeth.

It was the Alpha.

It hissed at me, a sound that vibrated in my teeth. It was challenging me. This was its territory.

I didn’t hiss back. I remembered my wife. I remembered the car crash. I remembered my son cutting off his own foot to keep me from becoming this.

I didn’t want dominance. I wanted extermination.

I charged.

The Alpha was stronger, but I was faster. And I had something it didn’t. I had human rage.

We collided with a sound like wet thunder.

It swiped at me, its claws tearing deep gouges in my chest. I didn’t feel pain. I felt cold fury.

I slammed my shoulder into its midsection, driving it back against the rusted metal of the train. It roared and bit down on my shoulder—the same shoulder Lucas had shot.

My flesh tore, but I jammed my claws into its ribs. I felt them snap.

We rolled in the dirt, a tangle of limbs and teeth. It was brutal. Primal.

It tried to pin me, its weight crushing the air from my lungs. It was drooling acidic saliva onto my face.

Lucas, I thought. I have to finish this so he’s safe.

I stopped fighting the weight. I let it think it had won. I went limp.

The Alpha roared in triumph, raising both claws for a killing strike.

In that split second, I lunged upward. Not at its chest. At its throat.

My jaws clamped onto its windpipe.

I bit down.

The taste was vile—rotten meat and battery acid. But I didn’t let go. I thrashed my head, tearing, ripping.

The Alpha gurgled. It clawed at my back, desperate now.

I twisted my body and pulled.

There was a wet tear. A snap.

The Alpha went still.

I spat the chunk of flesh onto the gravel.

The monster collapsed, twitching. Black blood pooled around it, soaking into the earth.

I stood over it, heaving. My chest was shredded. My arm was hanging uselessly.

But the smell… the rot… was fading.

I looked at the carcass. The hunger flared.

I needed to heal. I needed to regenerate.

I looked back toward the town. Toward my house.

I couldn’t go back. Not like this.

I looked at the Alpha.

It was meat.

I began to eat.

Chapter 8: The Guardian

Six Months Later.

The snow is falling in Ohio again. It covers everything. It makes the world look clean.

I am sitting in the high branches of an old oak tree, overlooking the backyard of my house.

The house looks different. The windows are repaired. The lawn is tidy.

The back door opens.

Lucas walks out.

He looks good. He’s gained weight. His color is back.

He’s walking with a cane, but he moves well. The prosthetic leg—a sleek, carbon-fiber model—peeks out from the cuff of his jeans.

He is carrying a bowl.

He walks to the edge of the woods. He sets the bowl down on a flat rock.

It’s stew. Beef stew. I can smell the beef. It’s store-bought. High quality.

He stands there for a moment, looking into the trees. He doesn’t see me. My skin has changed again. It shifts color now, blending with the bark and the shadows. I am a part of the landscape.

“I know you’re out there, Dad,” he whispers.

My hearing is sharp enough to catch it over the wind.

“I found the tunnel,” he says. “I filled it in. But I left the vent open.”

He reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out the leather-bound diary.

He holds it up.

“I started a new one,” he says. “For me. To remember.”

He smiles. It’s a sad smile, but it’s real.

“Thanks for the deer,” he adds.

He gestures to the front porch.

Yesterday, I left a ten-point buck on the porch. Clean kill. Neck snap. No bite marks. I wanted him to have the meat. He needs the protein to build muscle on that leg.

“I’m going to college next week,” Lucas says to the trees. “Ohio State. Pre-med. I figure… I figure if I could keep you alive with a saw and a slow cooker, maybe I can be a decent surgeon.”

He laughs. A cloud of vapor rises in the cold air.

“I’m not selling the house,” he says. “I’ll come back on weekends. I’ll leave the food on the rock.”

He wipes his eye with the back of his hand.

“I miss you, Dad.”

He turns and walks back to the house. The prosthetic clicks softly on the frozen ground.

I watch him go inside. I watch the lights turn on. I see him sit at the kitchen table, open a textbook, and start to study.

I am not the man I was. I am a nightmare of gray skin and hunger. I live in the deep woods. I sleep in caves. I hunt the things that go bump in the night so they don’t bump into my son.

But as I watch him, I feel something warm in my chest. Something that has nothing to do with the stew waiting on the rock.

I am a monster.

But I am a father first.

And God help anyone who touches my boy.

I drop down from the tree, silent as falling snow. I walk to the rock. I pick up the bowl.

It’s still warm.

I eat.

(THE END)