MEAT
a horror short
I am amazed and pleasantly surprised you are awake. I haven’t had the opportunity in which a person in your situation and a person in mine are able to converse. Please don’t fight or scream. You know in your heart that I am in complete control.
No, I wouldn’t say I’m crazy. But then again most people would find my action most abhorrent. As I mentioned, I am quite elated that you are awake. You don’t know how much I wanted to converse and perhaps explain myself. All these years I’ve hidden myself in the darkness, the abyss. Speaking with you feels as if my chains have been broken and my cell door shattered. Such relief!
Yes, you may say that I will enjoy telling you the extent of my actions. But the enjoyment and relief doesn’t purely stem from pride and ego. They come from the shedding of my falsehoods and masks; to be truly me. To be naked; free from the smiles and acknowledged nods when all I want to do is devour the hunk of greeting meat. But I see my lips mouth the word hello and my tiny facial muscles contracting in such a way to perfectly imitate friendliness. And when they pass me, they waft a hanging sweet, pungent, and delicious odor, akin to the thick air of a smoke house. The hunger rises and crescendos at the back of my mouth where acidity mixes with salvia. In my mental prison, I tell myself I would soon satiate but not now, not now, not now. I wanted to scream! I wanted to scream, “I see you underneath the tailored wool grey three piece suit! I see underneath your manicured, polished skin! I see your muscles contracting and relaxing, connecting bones by the way of crunchy tendons! I will devour you!” My mental cell shook and my body shuddered. I stay in the darkness until the time was appropriate.
Yes? Oh, why am I the way I am? I don’t know. Born with it perhaps? I remember playing flag football when I was around seven years old. I had some natural athletic talent, even though I was quite diminutive during my prepubescence. It was not until my body matured did I fully realize my skills as an athlete. You already know about my college football exploits, so I won’t bother you with all that familiar cocktail chit chat. I played running back, but at that age it seemed all the children were running backs. We didn’t follow our coach’s well thought out, intricate plays. Balls were haphazardly tossed or handed away, and most of us ran erratically to the goal line. In one particular game, a semi-final playoff game against the reigning football champions, I was nearly unstoppable. With the football tucked underneath my arm, I darted and weaved through the opposing team’s defense and scored on every possession. Their fingertips brushed against my flag but were unable to grab my flag. Like I said, I had some natural talent. Sounds familiar you say? Oh that’s right. At times I fool myself. The frustration built among the opposing players and coach. Their frustrations with me bled into the field and their play. Instead of grabbing flags, they grabbed shirts, tripped players, and eventually culminated into breaking my nose. As like numerous times during the early plays of the game, I adeptly snaked through the opposing team’s defenders but then suddenly I felt a sudden impact and my feet abruptly lifted from the ground. Their linebacker and safety had tackled me and smashed me to the ground. My face exploded onto the grass. Blood gushed from my nose and mouth. I stumbled onto my feet like a preserving drunkard. The torrential rivers of blood streamed down my chin, my neck, and my mouth. I tasted my blood and I was enthralled by the taste; a sweetness with almost a hint of cinnamon drank from a tin cup. As the blood from my nose flowed, I slightly tilted my head back and opened my mouth to let more in, unaware of the oddness of what I was doing or the stares of the confused or shocked parents and players. Not until my parents became aware of the strangeness of their son drinking his own blood did they come rushing to my side. “Son! Son!” They exclaimed. “Are you alright?” They shouted. “What are you doing?” They whispered. They pressed a folded towel over my face, grabbed my arm and escorted me off the field. I heard my parents remark, “Oh he must have hit his head really hard. Those boys should be ashamed; tackling our poor boy in flag football! Something should be done about them. Suspension at the least. We may consider pressing criminal charges against those nasty boys. Oh look at him, he’s so confused. It might be all that loss of blood too. We should take him to the hospital.”
Was I embarrassed? No. I’m positive my parents were. In my father’s tan Mercedes 300, on the way home from the game, my parents shouted at each other or at me, I am uncertain, about the embarrassment we’d face in our North Shore neighborhood. I couldn’t pay much attention to the argument because I was preoccupied with rubbing my tongue on the remnants of my blood on my gums and teeth, and stealthily licking the dried blood around my lips. From that day on, I felt such a deep craving. Did the taste of my blood trigger something primal? Did the pain and the blood jolt me from some suburban stupor? Or maybe, I simply enjoyed the taste? I don’t know the answer, and ultimately, the answer didn’t matter to me because these questions of why were secondary to the immediate and tangible craving and hunger that clouded my thoughts. At times, when the craving hit and I couldn’t fight the urge, I’d discreetly bit my inner cheek. The bite was hard enough to draw blood, and I’d suck and lick this cut. I’ve tried on several occasions to eat raw beef but alas it was bland, and it didn’t satiate the craving and hunger. The craving and hunger grew and the smells of my classmates were overwhelming. Imagine not eating for weeks and being surrounded by seared steaks and sizzling bacon. My classmates’ chatters were converging into a singular word, EAT. People began to look and sound like bleating sheep or mooing cows. I couldn’t see them as people and my control of my hunger took the utmost energy. It became almost unmanageable. But I did come to find a solution; I withdrew into myself. I built mental prisons where I’d dwell. I became so withdrawn that I saw my limbs and lips move with full consciousness and awareness. I moved and observed from the emptiness between my muscle and skin, the gaps between my tissues, and the synapses of my neurons. I became disembodied, a ghost that haunted a body that moved in harmonious step with American excellence. He was my perfect flesh and blood automaton that hid me from scrutiny. I watched as my classmates questioned and gossiped why my body went to prom with a shy, crooked nosed girl with a squeaky cough from calculus class. They ultimately concluded that he was a saint. I watched as my body stacked football and wrestling trophies and medals onto his neatly organized wooden desk that appeared antiquated but was in fact mass produced with purposeful wear and tear. I watched as my body received acceptance to one of those Ivy League universities. I watched as my body chose to attend a Big Ten university on a football scholarship and his father parading him around his corporate hierarchs like a prized race horse on sale. I watched as my body crossed a makeshift outdoor platform during high school graduation in amid of cheers. Through all these events I watched with a bit of curiosity and no more care or concern than watching a dull documentary about robotic arms assembling a sedan. The barriers I built didn’t last. It would occasionally crumble and I would reconcile with my body in drank blood and devoured flesh.
The first time I re-converged with my body was when I was a freshman in college and the catalyst was named Barbara Winters. What’s that? Oh it was Weathers? That’s right, Barbara Weathers. You went to the same college, you say? Ah yes. I do sometimes become confused. It’s so hard to track. I believe the college newspaper called Barbara, “The missing Barbie.” She had blond hair that tumbled in curls just above her slim shoulder, large breasts that accentuated an already tiny waist and full buttocks. At first glance, her face would have been considered perfect as well. Her nose gently sloped to a perfect rounded tip. Her cheekbones and large rounded blue eyes masterfully crafted to be in such proportion and symmetry. But with closer examination, you could see that she covered her three right pockmarks with foundation that perfectly matched her skin tone. And even closer inspection, you would notice that when she smiled the left corner of her mouth would rise higher than the other, giving her an either bored or an aloof expression. And even further observation, you would see that Barbara would briefly touch a faint scar at the hindered corner of her mouth. I looked even further, underneath the skin, and I saw the right zygomaticus major deformed. The right muscle, unlike its straight and full counterpart, was thin and crooked and barely attached to the orbicularis oris, the lip muscle. It seemed it would have snapped with a hard smack.
My body didn’t notice these details as Barbara spoke to me at one of the fraternity parties. She laughed as my mouth regurgitated old jokes used on earlier flings. She drunkenly hugged my waist and giggled. My arm wrapped around her slim shoulders and was tickled by her faux emerald chandelier earring. My hand lifted a red silo cup with cheap beer to my mouth and it poured its slightly warm effervescent contents into my mouth. The beer passed behind my tongue and my pharynx drew it into my esophagus. It then traveled down to my stomach where my bloodstream absorbed the alcohol. My heart pumped the alcohol along with erthrocytes, leukocytes, thrombocytes, and free floating nutrients and radicals throughout my body and brain. I saw the alcohol break against and erode the particular part of my brain where the construct of my mental prison was built. I slowly had begun to re-connect and merge with my body. The colors became brighter, the sounds became sharper and louder, and oh my dear old friend, the smell. The smell of the drunken dancing college students swelled and washed over me like a summer Pacific wave. And Barbara! She smelled of over ripened peaches but much deeper and heavier. I drew her closer to drink in her odor. I stared at the pulsating vessels by her and observed her pharyngeal constrictor muscles move as she drank her beer. My stare lingered a little too long. She asked if anything was wrong. I responded, “Nothing. Let’s get out of here.” Barbara smiled crookedly.
Please stop shaking. I’ve told you that I’m in control. I apologize if I destroyed something between you and Barbara. Barbara and I moved through the sea of students and left the fraternity house and onto its back porch. The back of the house was adjacent to a small upland forest made primarily of oak trees. She hesitantly agreed to my suggestion to cross the forest and gave into innocent faith that of my words, believing me that the route would be quicker to my apartment and traversing it under the bright full moon would be somehow hauntingly romantic. So with my arms around Barbara’s tiny waist we plunged into the fall forest. The moon illuminated the forest floor in a wash of a milky glow. I could still hear the revelry from the fraternity house — the thumping of the music and hooting and hollering. The noise from the fraternity house became fainter as we moved deeper into the forest. We stopped at a shallow creek. It shimmered as the moonlight reflected or refracted off the water rolling over the pebbles and small stones. Barbara’s initial reluctance resurfaced, and she asked to go back to the party. I suggested that we continue but she refused and began to walk back. Her smell! Her wonderful smell! It was thicker and heavier now. It flooded into every orifice and cavity of my body and mind. It filled my stomach and caused constricting pain. As she moved away, I grabbed her wrist and jerked her back towards me. She nearly tumbled off her feet but quickly regained her footing. She opened her mouth to scream but I swung my right open palm and struck her jaw, severing her jaw muscle. A faint cry came from her. I yanked her closer. I yanked her delicate neck to my gaping mouth, and I snapped my jaw into her. The flesh was more intoxicating than the blood I tasted when I was younger and far more flavorful. Barbara fell and I fell on top of her. I took large bites from her neck, sometimes chewing, most times swallowing large chunks of meat. I tore open her shirt and skin with my hands and teeth. I ate her muscle tissue, fat, and organs. I slurped the pooled blood in her nearly emptied body cavity — cradled in her back ribs and intercostal muscles. As I ingested her, I felt my blood vessels throb between my muscle fibers, the smell of the rotting leaves weighed heavily, the creek’s babbles became louder, and I heard the faint howls of the campus stray dogs. I was me! Untruth cleansed and stripped away, revealing my true nature and the fulfillment of it.
Monster? Hahaha. After I finished feeding, Barbara was a pile of clothing, partially eaten flesh, and gnawed bones, indiscernible to her living self. I stripped off my clothing and shoes and washed myself in the cold creek. I followed the creek up against the current. The trees thinned and I saw street lights. The creek led me to the backside of a strip mall that abutted it. I removed my wallet and I buried my bloody clothing and shoes in an overfilled dumpster of rotten vegetables and discarded Chinese food. In a different dumpster a block away, I threw my wallet in it. I stepped out from the darkness of the strip mall and into the orange illuminated street naked. I screamed in the best slurred voice I could muster, “Streeeeeaaakinggg!” And I ran down the street. The police did find me and escorted the star student athlete who was incomprehensibly “drunk” back to his campus apartment, leaving him with a few admonishments that were mostly related to football. I am sure you have heard the rest of Barbara’s story. Two weeks after Barbara’s disappearance, amorous students stumbled upon Barbara’s carcass. The police came to the conclusion that she, while highly intoxicated, had been attacked by viscous stray dogs. The police’s theory was confirmed when a stray dog was shot and dissected. Once they sliced its stomach, the coroner found rotting human flesh and one of Barbara’s chandelier earrings.
Yes. I guess you can say I was lucky. I was inexperienced and I attribute my carelessness to the raging pent-up hunger. I knew the hunger will overcome me again. Out of self-preservation, I voluntarily withdrew and re-entered my mental prison. However, this prison I created had a trapdoor. When I chose to re-emerge, I slipped through the trapdoor and slid back and became reunited with my unaware body. So I bide my time, observing the world behind this wall of flesh that is and isn’t mine. When sufficiently hungry and the moment was opportune, I seized my rightful body back, and I hunted.
Have you heard that when traditional livestock is frightened at the time of slaughter, their fright ruins the meat? A possible reason being is that the fight or flight stress hormones cascade a reaction that somehow alters the flesh for the worse. I testify that this fact is true and it applies to humans as well. Mauling and eating people not only increased the risk of being apprehended by the authorities but the meat had a tinge that was palatable but unappealing — almost an iodine like flavor. I guess Barbara was an exception but my palate may have been distorted, a person’s firsts always seem to be. I discovered drugging and then butchering an unconscious person prevented the fear response from tainting the meat and reduced the risk of being caught or injured. I slipped sedatives in drinks or used a rag soaked with chloroform and a benzodiazepine like diazepam to render the person unconscious or at least manageable. Of course, I would transport them to my secret workshop where I’d break them down to cuts that would be indistinguishable from cuts from traditional meat. Remarkably the principles of butchering a pig can translate. Maybe we could see that workshop? No? Oh well. That decision may be out of your control.
There were times where I’d break into people’s homes and take them from their comforts and perceived safety. I know. I know. Careless, right? But the journey and effort make the end far more delicious, no? People heard rustling or sounds coming from the darkness of their house but they, in most occasions, dismissed them and formulated reasons to allay their fear and the reality that danger had entered their sanctuary. Why it was the wind! It was the carelessly placed keys that fell onto the floor! The floor, it always gets creaky when the weather changes! A wife pled for the husband to check on the nagging worrisome noise, and he remarked the silliness of the request, but he dutifully and reluctantly arose to investigate. The grumbling husband shuffled through the hallway, his eyes partially closed and his head down. From a darkened room, I grabbed him and muffled his shouts with a cloth soaked in chemicals. When I entered the master bedroom, she was asleep, breathing deeply as if her body knew the impending danger but her mind so frightened of the futile truth, it had shut her down. I stood over her for a few minutes, watching her sleep. Their royal purple bed sheet covered most of her, except for her freckled right shoulder. Her hands were wrapped around by the sheet. The floor creaked softly as I adjusted my weight from one leg to the other. She drew in the sheet until it was underneath her chin. She stirred a little and then a little more. She seemed to be debating whether to acknowledge the truth — to acknowledge it would somehow elicit her demise and to not, would somehow allow her to live a little longer. After some time of stirring, she finally acknowledged me and groggily asked what the noise was. I don’t answer. The danger, her body had instinctively known, finally reached her mind and she realized for a brief moment that she was in severe danger. But before she was able to react, she fell asleep again with a wet chemical soaked cloth over her face.
Do I feel bad? After eating many people, I came to the most obvious conclusion of our existence — that we are just meat, walking and talking meat. Most of us fool ourselves that we are more than that mooing cow or bleating sheep. Why do we? Because we can build elaborate artifices that scream we are more than this flesh that is rotting minute by minute? This absurdity is all around us! Observe our positions as masters of finance and industry. You recall Phillip? Who could forget Phillip? The only person in our circle other than us who could be considered humanity’s prime exemplar — chiseled physique slipped into a perfectly trimmed expensive suit, an account brimming so that any consumables could be his at his whim or desire, and lauded for building small empires that were to be monuments of his existence. When I devoured him, I made him watch as I tore his calf with my teeth and slowly ate the rest of his legs. The taste was compromised a bit but it was well worth observing his agonizing realization of the horrible truth and his hubris releasing from his throat with every scream. Don’t be disgusted. Others ate him as well, although unknowingly. The people at the dinner party praised my cooking and deliciousness of the carpaccio made with lemon, olive oil, slivers of parmesan and truffles, and thinly shaved meat from Phillip’s oblique muscles. Disappointingly, the mere eating of Phillip’s flesh did not awaken the people at the dinner party. They continued to live their lie and build upon it.
You don’t believe me? You hold onto the specialness of your existence? Don’t you see the truth when you become ill? As the putrid humors leak from the orifices of your sickened body, you become horrified and repulsed. Why? Because it offends your ego and your hubris with tangible truth. It demonstrates you are nothing more than a maggot filled roadkill, a dog eaten by parasitic worms, or the mass of uncontrollably growing ball of flesh that will choke its own maker to death. You are nothing but meat! I will show you that you are fiction. I will show you.
Where should we begin? The eyes? No, we would need them. The tongue? No, we would need it. Ah! The fingers! Not all is necessary. I have a filet knife. Maybe I can flay and filet them? But they don’t have much meat. They’re much fattier than you think. How about if I nibble a little bit? First, let me remove those nails. Where are the pliers? Ah, here they are. Hold still. Ooooooo. That is painful. The next finger now . . . .
________________________
Brendan Rizzo yawned before he exited the elevator and stepped into a spacious hallway of the top floor of one of the tallest residential towers in the city. As he exited, his brown canvas tool bag that once held numerous wrenches, drivers, screws, and nails but now held cleaning supplies and a pair of thick rubber gloves bumped against the elevator door. The hallway had black carpeting designed with intricate intertwined white rectangles and simple half cylindrical sconces hanging from the grey wallpapered walls. Rizzo thought of dropping his bag and falling asleep on the soft carpeting, especially being that he just finished his graveyard shift as a janitor. But he sluggishly continued his walk to the penthouse at the end of the hall.
The housing crash decimated the construction jobs that sustained Rizzo since he graduated high school. Around the same time of the crash, Rizzo’s girlfriend, a lanky redheaded waitress at a Broadway musical kitsch diner who had dreams of being a dress designer, gave birth to a slightly underweight but remarkably happy infant. Rizzo, a son of proud, poor Italian immigrants who refused help of any kind, did what was necessary to make any income — he was handyman, a horrible cook at the diner, and eventually a janitor who also cleaned homes.
Cleaning homes wasn’t that bad Rizzo thought as he shuffled to the penthouse. While he cleaned homes, he’d fantasize that the homes and all their wonderful contents were his. And he’d fantasize what his life would be. As he dusted the wooden desk made from salvaged pine, he’d imagine his feet on top of it while he leaned back in a black leather chair. He’d imagine his girlfriend sneaking behind him and startling him when she wrapped her thin arms around his neck. She’d give him a tender kiss behind his right ear with her lips that were chilled from the winter winds. As he wiped the marble countertop with a blue sponge and hand washed the numerous knives with “green” dish soap, he’d imagine that he was cleaning after a Thanksgiving dinner where furious arguments between her girlfriend’s parents, the exuberant laughter of his drunk brother, and his father’s sermons of the great Italians from Caesar to Joe DiMaggio were muted by the potential shriek of an awoken sleeping infant. As he sprayed cleanser and wiped down a silver framed antique floor mirror found in the palatial foyer, he’d imagine himself in front of that mirror, tying a black bowtie onto a tuxedo dress shirt with a button placket. He’d imagine grasping his new bride’s hand while his other hand laid softly on the fine embroidery found at the lower back of her wedding dress. He’d imagine them dancing their first dance in the great hall and hearing the claps of his black patent leather shoes and her heels on the marble tiles echoing off the fan vaulted ceiling.
Rizzo arrived in front of the penthouse door. He laid his bag on the floor and rummaged in his pocket until he found the key. He inserted the key into the door lock and yawned again before opening the penthouse door. Rizzo observed that the pine desk from the study was moved in front of the French floor mirror and a person sitting in the black leather chair was slumped over the desk. “Mr. Janus?” Rizzo asked. “Mr. Janus?” Rizzo asked louder. Rizzo entered the penthouse and cautiously approached the apparently unconscious figure. He gasped when he saw what was on the desk. There were various knives, splatters of dried blood, two loose nails near bloody pliers, and Mr. Janus’ splayed left hand. Mr. Janus’ left pinky and ring fingers had no flesh on them. They were just bone and bit of connective tendon, as if something cleanly sucked off the skin, fat, and muscle from them. Rizzo shook Mr. Janus. “Mr. Janus! Mr. Janus! Are you alright?!” Rizzo shook him with more force. Mr. Janus stirred and his eyes fluttered opened. “I … I … please help,” croaked Mr. Janus. Rizzo sprinted to the open kitchen and flung open one of the lower cupboards near the double copper sink. He grabbed several dish towels and ran back to Mr. Janus. Rizzo gently lifted Mr. Janus’ left hand and tenderly wrapped it with the kitchen towels. “Please … please help,” muttered Mr. Janus. Rizzo dug into his pocket and took out his cell phone. He nervously dialed 9-1-1. “He’s … he’s still here … please,” pled Mr. Janus. Rizzo quickly scanned the penthouse and realized because of his haste to help Mr. Janus, he didn’t consider that whoever mutilated Mr. Janus’ hand could be still in the penthouse. Shit, thought Rizzo. “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” The dispatcher calmly asked.
Rizzo saw Mr. Janus still slumped over the desk and the morning sunlight flooding into the penthouse through the floor to ceiling windows. The light shimmered off the floor mirror in front of the desk. Rizzo saw his reflection. Rizzo was surprised at how old he looked. When did he get all those white hairs, Rizzo wondered. When did his skin begin to lose its tautness questioned Rizzo. No, that person in the mirror was not me, he hesitantly tried to conclude. In the reflection, he, to his surprise, saw that Mr. Janus had his head up, and he was staring at him. Mr. Janus, as always, looked amazingly youthful. His deep blue eyes twinkled. He was smiling widely and wildly, showing both the upper and bottom rows of brilliantly polished teeth. They were perfect except there were specks of flesh between them.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
