HUM by Dan Hawley (book club reads .TXT) 📗

of cold sweat from her lip as it quivered. The liquid darkened her mask. Finally—click.

1:47 a.m.—Subject returns to bed.

Amanda stared at the monitor silently. The odd little boy, now balled up on the bed, was neatly tucked under the blankets with a thumb in his mouth. “There’s no way,” Amanda said finally with a rush of exhaled air.

“What?”

This time Jerry looked over. Concern wracked his face as he did. Amanda was as pale as snow and shivering like she was sitting in a pile of it. “Mandy?”

Jerry got up so fast his chair wheeled back into a filing cabinet, knocking over some recording equipment that rested on top. At once, he was beside her. He knelt and spun her chair so she was facing him.

For a moment, her eyes just stared into the nothingness above Jerry’s head, her breath sharp and halted. The beads of cold sweat had joined together, making her skin gleam in the light of the monitor. “Mandy!?”

Jerry grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. It was like a scene from an old movie where the helpless female is catatonic and the strong male lead tries to bring her to her senses.

It was all he could think to do. It seemed to work.

Amanda’s far-off eyes blinked once, then again. Then she focused and allowed them to fall and meet Jerry’s concerned gaze.

“Jerry,” she said, grabbing his sweater with both hands. Jerry’s eyes grew wild with fear and surprise.

“What!? What, I’m here, what!?” he almost screamed, right in her face.

She blinked again and spoke calmly, “Call Dr. Luu.”

CHAPTER 25

Samantha was snoring quietly on the couch beside Jason as he surfed aimlessly through the tv channels, unable to find anything that would hold his attention. Distract him, in fact. He was starting to doze, though, eyes heavy from lack of sleep and the morning’s stress.

Someone won a trip to Hawaii on The Price Is Right. Who the hell was traveling right now anyway? Jason thought. Stupid bastards, spreading COVID around like it’s no big deal. How many people were dead in the U.S. now? A hundred thousand? Maybe a hundred and fifty. That’s a lot of dead people in a few short months. This thing was serious, regardless of what the tin hat wearing conspiracy theorists said. He flipped over to an infomercial selling exercise equipment. The all-in-one machine that can fit in any home gym could do it all, apparently. The buff spokesperson and his sexy, scantily clad assistant demonstrated how easy the equipment was to use and pay for in three easy payments.

Jason frowned and absentmindedly grabbed at his belly fat as he contemplated his physical fitness.

No room for a home gym here, he thought. But I really do need to start working out again. Tomorrow maybe. I’ll get up early and at least do some bodyweight stuff, maybe go for a run at lunch.

He had never been this lazy in his life. Tired and lethargic, constantly sapped of all energy.

Gravity pulled at his weak eyelids as he stared at the television. Some cooking show was on now with a portly older woman talking to the camera—something about selecting the perfect victim.

What? No, that couldn’t be right.

The perfect cut of meat, she said.

Jason’s head dipped slowly as sleep threatened to come. He blinked and muted the tv; this lady was talking crazy.

The camera now focused in on the woman’s hands as she handled a large shoulder of beef. She flipped the thick, red muscle over in her hands, poking it and massaging oil into the flesh. The oil intensified the color of the meat into deep crimson, and the shoulder glistened in the studio lights.

Jason’s stomach turned and a queasy feeling brewed in his guts. Still, he watched on.

In the muted silence, behind the snoring beside him and the traffic sounds far away, was a familiar sound, teasing his eardrums, pulsing against his brain. The hum throbbed in his temples as he watched Chef Portly Pants addressing the camera once again. Her once pristine white chef coat was now a mess of dark blood around her thick midsection. The large butcher’s knife in her right hand was coated with pieces of flesh and dripped crimson. The camera zoomed in slowly, closing in on her round face. Her teeth were bared and savage, her light-blue eyes crazed and bloodshot. What was she saying?

Jason’s dazed eyes followed her mouth as it moved, the hum pulsing behind the walls and in his mind. Wah wah, wah wah.

Her mouth was now following the slow pulse of the hum.

Muh wah, muh wah.

Jason’s eyes slowly blinked as he relaxed into the coming sleep.

“Muh wah,” she said, in perfect time with the hum. Her eyes were intense and unchanging, staring at Jason. Her jaw opened and closed, and somehow her shrill and raspy voice now merged with the hum in sickening harmony, distantly screaming, “Mur dah! mur der!”

Finally Jason’s eyes closed and his body went limp as he tumbled into the dark abyss of a fitful slumber.

* * *

Samantha’s eyes flew open to the sound of rapid clacking as her phone vibrated against the wooden tabletop. She grabbed it quickly in a half daze. It was her mom. Samantha looked at the screen longingly, craving to talk with her mother; to hear the familiar sound of home. But she let the call go to voicemail. She listened quietly, hearing only the sounds of their apartment. Jason’s steady, quiet breaths as he slept sitting up, his head tilted back against the cushion of the couch at an uncomfortable-looking angle, the tv remote gripped loosely in his hand.

Behind that was another familiar sound.

Something unrelenting. Incessant.

The canvas upon which all other sounds were painted. The hum.

Samantha’s eyes moved from the peaceful-looking Jason to her phone, which notified her of a new voicemail. She needed to talk to her parents; she needed to hear their voices and feel their love. She wanted to tell them about the baby but