The Hunger by Newton Webb
A Victorian Folk Horror Short Story: Escaping famine in Ireland, Parker faces a choice between life and humanity as he battles disease and dark forces.
Horror Story Compilations
Things That Go Bump In The Night: 62 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Braemoor Incident’, ‘The Tattoo’, ‘Dark Waters’, ‘Of Politeness and Protocol’ and ‘One More Turn’.
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1846, Liverpool
Chapter 1
Parker pulled his threadbare coat tighter as the winter fog rolled off the Mersey River, thick enough to slice. He smothered another cough, picking his way through Liverpool’s maze of streets with his new friend from the ship, Austin. Their cracked and splitting boots splashed through puddles, slipping on the treacherous cobblestones in the dark.
"Mind the step." Despite the muffling fog, Austin’s voice came through clear. The boy moved like a shadow, flitting through the mist. Though the light was poor, he never stumbled, walking with a catlike grace.
A door slammed somewhere ahead. Parker froze, pressing himself against a wet brick wall as heavy footsteps approached.
The beam of a bull's-eye lantern sliced through the mist.
"You there! Stop where you are!"
"This way." Austin tugged Parker’s sleeve, leading him down a narrow alley barely wide enough for their shoulders. Behind them, the police boots thundered on the stones.
They emerged onto a wider street. Parker's lungs, already battered by the cold and damp, burned. Each breath felt like a knife between his ribs. He doubled over, unable to hold back a wracking cough. When he rose, there was blood on the back of his hand.
He caught Austin watching him as he wiped it on his trousers.
“It’s just a cold, that’s all.” Struggling to regain his breath, he brought his coughing under control.
Austin led them deeper into the side streets. Neither of them knew Liverpool, but this wasn’t their first time evading the English constabulary. "Quiet now." Austin's hand rested on Parker’s back, his clammy fingers cool through the wool. Finally, he smirked. "The bluebottles have gone the wrong way."
Parker straightened, wiping his lips with a grimy sleeve. "We need to find work soon. Can't keep sleeping in doorways."
"The shipyards might take on men tomorrow."
"The dockers don’t much like the Irish. I heard there are jobs going in Leeds, on the railways."
A woman's voice rang out from an upper window. "Dirty Paddies! Go back where you came from!"
Something splattered near Parker's feet—a chamber pot’s contents splashing his boots. He stumbled back, bile rising in his throat.
"Come on." Austin's smile was sharp in the gloom. "I know somewhere we can shelter till morning."
Parker followed, too exhausted to question how a boy so young navigated the hostile streets with such confidence—especially as this was supposedly his first time in Liverpool. They had agreed to travel at night until they were somewhere where the police were less likely to lock them up in a workhouse.
They had discussed the workhouses on the ship. Both knew someone lost to the supposedly beneficent system. Free food or not, the workhouses were a death sentence—cramped work conditions, rampant disease, and poor food meant anyone committed wouldn’t last long.
Cautiously, they followed the streets back towards the Mersey.
The fog swallowed them whole—two more ghosts in a city that hated them.
The towpath stretched ahead like a wound through the frost-bitten landscape. Parker's boots crunched along the gravel paths. The canal ran black and silent beside them, its surface glossed with ice near the banks.
Occasionally, they saw other paupers trudging along the path—gaunt figures wrapped in whatever scraps they had salvaged. Parker’s heart ached as he watched a woman singing to a child in her arms. It was too still to be sleeping.
An old man pushed a handcart loaded with what must have been everything he owned in the world.
His chest tightened. He turned away from Austin, coughing into his sleeve until spots danced before his eyes. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
A barge pilot eyed them with naked hostility.
Unlike Parker, who wearily ignored the man, Austin glared back, his expression furious as he focused on the barge, its engine sputtering as it propelled it toward whatever profit awaited.
The wind cut across the water, carrying the smell of wet stone and rotting vegetation. Parker watched a family huddled under a bridge ahead, sharing what might have been bread between them. His own stomach had cramped with hunger days ago.
"Leeds might be different," Parker managed between breaths. "More mills there. More work."
"More people wanting work." Austin kicked a stone into the canal. It skidded across the ice.
They passed another group of travellers heading east, faces hollow with desperation. One man clutched a shovel like a weapon. Parker noticed how Austin watched them, head tilted slightly.
"Something the matter?"
Austin studied them for a few more seconds before they moved on.
The towpath wound on, an endless ribbon of mud and misery. Parker's legs shook with each step, but stopping meant freezing. It meant giving up.
He focused on putting one foot in front of the other, ignoring the muttered curses of those they passed, the suspicious glances, the way people drew their children closer.
Through the bare trees, Parker spotted the flicker of campfires. Smoke rose in thin ribbons against the grey sky. As they drew closer, he saw the shelters—a haphazard mix of canvas tents and wooden lean-tos, tucked into a natural hollow beside the canal.
Strange bundles of twigs and branches, some fashioned like crude dolls, some with circular designs, hung from ropes around the shelters, swaying in the winter wind. More dangled from the surrounding trees, clicking against each other like wind chimes made of bone.
Austin hissed at the sight of them, tugging at Parker’s sleeve. "Let’s go," he muttered, despite the rising sun.
A man emerged from between the shelters, his wild white hair tangled, his beard unkempt. Piercing blue eyes fixed on them with immediate suspicion.
"Keep walking," he said, his voice rough as gravel. "No room here."
Parker’s legs threatened to give way. "Please. We've been walking since Liverpool."
"Harrison," a woman called from one of the shelters. "They're Irish, like us."
"I don't care where they’re from." Harrison's hands worked at his sides, dirt crusted under his nails. "We've too many mouths to feed as it is. I won’t risk the camp by welcoming in a child and his half-dead friend."
"I'm fine. We can work," Parker insisted, fighting to hold back another cough. "Let us help with whatever needs doing."
Harrison snorted. "This is your last warning. Keep moving."
Austin tugged at Parker’s sleeve. "Please, mister, we aren’t welcome here."
"You heard him." Harrison backed away, his hand drifting toward the knife at his belt. He turned to Parker, expression cold. "Take your friend and go. Find shelter elsewhere."
The wind picked up, rattling the twig bundles. Parker watched as Harrison disappeared between the shelters, vanishing into the gloom where other paupers peered out with haunted faces.
Parker’s lungs burned as they trudged through the darkening woods. Each breath sent daggers through his chest, forcing another bout of coughing, but he pressed on. The canal’s black water flowed beside them, silent and indifferent.
Through the bare branches, a hulking shape emerged—an old barn, its weathered boards silver in the fading light. The roof sagged in places, but the walls still stood firm against the wind.
"It’s shelter, at least." Parker pushed against the warped door. It dragged along the dirt floor, resisting, but with enough pressure, it gave way, releasing a musty breath of old hay and decay.
Austin slipped past him into the darkness. "Home sweet home."
Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the roof, casting strange, shifting shadows across the barn’s interior. Rotting hay carpeted the floor, and cobwebs stretched between the ancient beams overhead. In one corner, a pile of mouldering sacks offered some protection from the draught.
Parker sank into the hay, his legs finally giving out. Another violent cough tore through him, and he muffled it in his sleeve, now stained dark with blood.
"You should rest," Austin murmured from the shadows. "I’ll keep watch."
"No need. We’re alone out here."
"Are we?" Austin’s soft laugh echoed off the wooden walls.
Parker arranged the sacks into a makeshift bed, trying to ignore the boy’s words. The hay poked through his thin coat, but exhaustion weighed heavier than discomfort.
"Sleep, Austin," Parker muttered, eyes already closing. "It's been a long day."
The boy settled nearby. Parker listened to the wind whistling through the barn’s countless cracks. Despite the cold, despite the fire in his lungs and the ache in his bones, sleep pulled him under.
Chapter 2
Parker drifted in the darkness. The world shifted, blurred—and suddenly, he was standing among the sleeping bodies in the Irish camp. His boots sank into the mud as he moved between the huddled forms, past dying fires and makeshift shelters.
Moonlight bathed the scene in silver. His hands reached out, independent of his will, toward the strange formations of twigs and stones at the camp’s edge.
His fingers closed around a branch. The wood burned cold against his skin, but he could not stop. One by one, he dismantled the wards, scattering them into the shadows.
Something watched from the darkness beyond the camp—something vast, hungry, and patient.
Parker’s hands moved faster, tearing apart the protective circles. Sweat froze on his brow. He wanted to scream, to warn the sleeping paupers, but his voice no longer belonged to him. It belonged to the thing in the dark.
The last ward crumbled.
In the distance, the thing stirred, and Parker saw—
He woke with a violent coughing fit, hay scratching against his face. The barn creaked around him. Outside, the wind howled through the bare branches.
His hands trembled as he touched his face, searching for mud, for any sign that he had moved. The hay beneath him was undisturbed.
Yet his boots were damp.
Something dark clung to his fingernails.
Parker fell back into uneasy sleep.
The barn dissolved into mist, and he found himself standing in the centre of the refugee camp once more.
Moonlight cast long shadows across the ground, twisting familiar shapes into grotesque forms.
The first body lay sprawled beside a dead fire. An old woman, her throat a red ruin, fingers still clutching a worn rosary. Beyond her, more corpses littered the ground like fallen leaves. Some had tried to run—their bodies pointed toward the canal. Others had died where they slept, caught unaware.
Harrison slumped against a tree, his blue eyes wide and unseeing. Blood stained his beard, his clothes, the protective symbols carved into the bark behind him. His knife lay useless beside his outstretched hand.
Parker jolted awake, his heart hammering against his ribs. The barn’s wooden beams loomed overhead, their edges softened by the pre-dawn gloom. His clothes clung to his skin, damp with sweat despite the winter chill.
Something scratched against his palm. He raised his trembling hands—dirt caked his fingers, dark crescents beneath each nail. Fragments of twigs and leaves scattered across his chest as he sat up.
"Austin?" His voice cracked.
The barn remained silent.
Austin’s belongings were gone. No trace of him remained except for the lingering impression in the hay where he had slept.
A breeze whistled through the gaps in the walls, carrying a stomach-turning stench. Parker pressed his sleeve against his nose, but the foul rot seeped through the fabric.
It smelled like the mass graves outside Belfast.
He stumbled to his feet, hay falling from his clothes. His boots were caked in fresh mud—impossible in the dry barn. The dirt matched what was ground into his skin, still wet despite the hours that had passed since… since…
The memories slipped away like water through his fingers.
He remembered the dream—the pale figures, the carnage. But everything after lying down to sleep was a void.
His legs shook as he staggered to the barn door. The eastern sky had begun to lighten, turning the canal’s surface to dull pewter. In the distance, where the refugee camp should have been, a thick mist clung to the ground.
The stench grew stronger.
Chapter 3
Parker trudged down the muddy towpath, each step an effort against the morning frost. The mist parted before him, revealing the clearing where the camp had stood.
His breath caught in his throat.
The shelters lay in tatters, canvas torn and poles scattered like broken bones. Cold ashes marked where fires had once burned. No bodies. No blood. Only emptiness and decay.
"Oi! You there!"
Heavy boots crunched through frozen grass. Three constables emerged from the fog, led by a broad-shouldered man with a greying beard. His hand gripped his truncheon as he approached.
"Name?" The constable’s eyes narrowed beneath his thick brow.
Parker’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Parker Lobb, sir."
"Constable Matson." The man surveyed the wreckage. "Another lot of your kind tried settling here last week. Came to move them on. Seems they beat us to it." He sniffed the air. "Filthy lot, they are, look at this mess."
Parker blinked.
The paupers had been here yesterday—he had spoken to Harrison O’Toole, seen the strange symbols…
"You folk keep trying to settle here, sponging off hard-working Englishmen like us, but you normally have the sense to clear out before we can chase them off." Matson’s lips curled beneath his beard. "Either follow their lead, lad, or come with us. We’ll find you a workhouse where you can contribute to society."
Parker glanced down at his hands, still dirt-stained.
Fragments of memory swam in his mind—dreams, or something worse.
Where are the bodies?
Had he done something? Something his mind refused to remember?
Matson tapped his truncheon against his palm. "Well?"
The other constables watched, their expressions unreadable.
"Are you moving on, or coming with us?"
Chapter 4
Parker stumbled away from the constables, his boots slipping on the frozen towpath. Each breath was a deep, rattling ache. The canal stretched west, a grey ribbon cutting through the bleak countryside.
He looked at his sleeve. He’d seen this before—in the workhouses, in the cramped ship holds during the crossing. The wasting disease. Consumption.
His fingers traced his hollow cheeks, counted the prominent ribs beneath his shirt. He’d blamed hunger, the endless walking, the cold nights without shelter. But the night sweats, the fever dreams...
A barge drifted past, laden with coal. The bargeman eyed him warily.
"Water?" Parker’s voice cracked. "Please."
The man shook his head. Everyone feared the curse of the Irish—the diseases they carried, the famine they’d supposedly brought upon themselves. Parker watched the barge disappear into the mist.
His legs gave way. He slumped against a gnarled oak, its bare branches clawing at the winter sky. The bark scraped his back as he slid down, leaving him huddled at its roots.
Another cough tore through him. More blood stained his hands.
Memories of the camp swam before him—Harrison’s warnings, the torn bodies. Real or fever dream? His mind fractured like ice on the canal, still refusing to reveal the truth.
He pressed his forehead against his knees, trying to still the world’s spinning. The disease was eating him alive, turning his own body against him. Each breath came shorter than the last.
A shadow fell across his face.
Parker opened his eyes to find Austin perched on a tree branch above him. The sun had fallen—he’d slept through the day.
"You’re dying," Austin said, his voice carrying the same melodic lilt that had once brought comfort. "I could help you."
Parker’s laugh dissolved into wet coughs. "Help me? Why would you do that?"
"Because you helped me," Austin said simply. "You kept me company, looked after me, when no-one else would."
"And you used me to kill those people."
Austin sighed. "I had to. They used old magic." He traced invisible patterns in the air. "But you broke their wards for me. I honestly regret making you do that."
The truth crashed over Parker like ice water. The dreams, the dirt under his fingernails, the torn bodies—all real. He had been Austin’s puppet.
"I can make you like me," Austin murmured, leaning closer, green eyes gleaming. "No more pain."
"No, I reckon I know what you are, boy." Parker was growing weaker. "I don’t blame you for the deaths, plenty of monsters in the world. ‘Sides, I reckon I know enough about starvation to have some understanding. But I couldn’t–wouldn’t feed on others."
"You’d rather die?"
"Die a human."
“You eat animals, what’s the difference?”
Parker was silent for a moment before looking up at the boy. “You asking that question is the difference. I don’t see humans as animals.”
Austin’s face twisted. "I don’t need your permission. I can turn you anyway."
Parker smiled at the threat through blood-stained teeth. "Then I’ll greet the sunrise one last time. Better to burn on my own terms."
Silence stretched between them.
Austin studied him for a long moment. Then he exhaled, almost mournfully. "Fool."
He dropped down from the branch and vanished into the darkness.
Parker laughed then, before a hacking cough overcame him.
Ain’t nothing more human than being a fool.
THE END
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