Meat

I kill another one. Fuck, they taste good. I fling my crossbow across my shoulder and pull out my machete. Glacevin meat’s like butter melting on your tongue. The key, of course, is to do this before they change. It must be when they’re still in human form. Look for birthmarks. You don’t want to end up killing an innocent person.

How did I get into this business? Well, it all started when I was young. Inside a supermarket of all places.

Want to hear a story? It goes a little something like this.

*****

I can’t see anything. My hand could be an inch from my nose, and I wouldn’t even know it. Elbows and other limbs bang into mysterious foreign objects. Where am I? I... wait. Did I fall asleep in a broom closet? I search for a way out. I hear noises from far away. How long have I been out? My knuckles collide with something round and hard. A doorknob! I grip its cold, sticky surface. It twists. This relic of a door creaks as I open it gingerly.

It’s Mega-Mart alright. Only empty.

Gone are the legions of families shifting up and down aisles. Gone is the incoherent voice announcing the latest deals and the location of lost toddlers. Gone are the clerks making their mechanical movements to mark the price of canned peaches. Gone is the essence of human activity.

I am alone.

“Hello!” I shout.

Silence.

“Kenny Gordon’s breath smells like a fart!”

Silence. I giggle at what I said.

I am indeed alone. Not only that, I turn to see in addition to the lack of life, the lights are off. It’s been long dark outside.

I am trapped inside a large supermarket. No adults, no teachers telling me what to do, no classmates taunting my every action. I am bursting with enthusiasm. Time to go wild.

The last thing I remember is Kenny Gordon, a kid from school, chasing me. He chased me for what seemed like eons. I don’t know, my legs are short. Any distance is too far for me. He seemed interested in a rare coin I brought to school that day. My grandpa gave it to me. It’s the only fancy thing I own.  He always takes my cheap, shitty things, but I didn’t want to give him this. We ran through the store, knocking over displays and old ladies. I outran him. I thought I did. I felt a blunt object crash against the back of my head. Everything went dark, I dreamed a pathetic dream, and I woke up.

If this were a movie, this would be, as I heard explained on TV, the montage. My shenanigans began like this:

-I pounded my fist into a cake and licked icing. It’s pure ecstasy.

-Boxes of open cereal boxes surrounded me. I double-dipped for samples. Huge mess.

-I ran up and down aisles screaming. I use my outside voice inside.

-I took loaves of bread and drop several scoops of ice cream in them. A literal ice cream sandwich.

-I unzipped my pants to pee all over the cardboard display of Mega-Mart’s Mark Meerkat mascot. No reason. Its stupid bow tie bothers me.

-I used a broom as a bat and knocked over soup cans.

Shouts echo through the store. They don’t belong to me. This is where the montage ends. I freeze and panic. My heart races. Breathing rate increases. I shift my body every which way and not a human being in sight. Shouts come again. This interruption of my blossoming teenage rebellion appeared to originate from the opposite end of the store. Wow, it is so loud. Is someone dying or something? A broom still resides in my hands. The screams are cutting into my fun. I had to see if it was worth interrupting my fun, right?

*****

Darkness fills Mega-Mart all except for one location; the butcher shop. The front displays pork, chicken, and other meats with discounted labels. Behind the counter, deep inside, blood smears the floor. The liquid life force of copious barn animals scream in muted pain from the dull blades and human hands built through thousands of years of evolution to create and destroy. Unfortunately, the latter often reigns supreme.

Two men in blood caked aprons hold large kitchen knives. One man goes by the name of Merle. Around sixty, greasy shoulder length salt and pepper hair, a gold chain shines against his thick chest hair attempting to break free from his yellow sweat stained wife-beater. He adjusts a gaudy ring on his right middle finger. His partner in crime, Sammy, stands next to him. Sammy’s around fifty, tweaker thin, his Adam’s apple far too large for his giraffe neck. He towers over Merle, but his twitchy demeanor suggests he isn’t the boss of this operation. Merle lights a match under his chin and smokes. That’s a boss.

Cowering up against the refrigeration area are two homeless men. Gus is roughly forty but could pass for fifty. His jeans are faded and full of holes. He doesn’t wear shoes. Teeth are beyond repair. His buddy, Cliff, wears only cut-off sweatpants and a basketball jersey. His skin has the same consistency as a leather sofa. The two men are handcuffed. Faces are bruised up. Oddly enough, Gus and Cliff have birthmarks. Gus on his left cheek, Cliff on his right. The birthmarks look like tiny red hands.

“Yous gotta hack ‘em up, Sammy,” Merle says. He clenches the tiny cross on his gold chain. “It’s almost time.”

Sammy’s sweat drips from his over-sized Adam’s apple. His knife hand trembles.

“I can’t do ‘em both on my own,” he says. “One could turn.”

Tick. Tick. Goes the clock on the wall. It reads 11:57 pm. The homeless men are in tears. Cliff gets his hands in prayer position. Gus keeps his head down.

“We ain’t hurt no one. Secret’s safe, honest,” Cliff says. He begs for his life.

“Three minutes,” Merle says. “Git da meat.”

Did that old guy just say meat? THEIR MEAT?!

Sammy clears his throat and creeps toward Cliff. The handcuffed man continues to beg and plea for this rail-thin butcher to stop. Cliff’s companion remains staring at the ground, lost in a maze of thoughts.

Tick. Tick. 11:58pm.

“Goin’ turn soon. Hurry da fuck up,” Merle says as he scratches his thick chest hair.

“I’m just a man! I ain’t nuthin’ spe--”

SLASH!

Sammy’s knife, his painter’s brush, elegantly glides against Cliff’s neck. This could be due to my shock, but the blade moves in slow motion. The tip taps into the left side of Cliff’s neck, sinks in, skates across to the right, and ejects. Blood bursts out. It’s a garden hose on a hot summer afternoon. Gus does not react. The blood of his friend stains his jeans.

TING!

The broom fell from my hands. Oh shit. I conceal myself in darkness before these men could take notice of my existence.

Sammy drags Cliff’s lifeless body toward a meat grinder. He places his knife on a table and picks up a large ax. Sammy takes a deep breath, lifts it up, and slams it down. Goodbye Cliff’s left arm. He repeats his action and it’s farewell to the right arm. Sammy picks up the left arm and stuffs it in the meat grinder. The machine chokes down its meal of flesh and bone and spits out human ground beef. Merle scoops it up, places it on a tray, wraps it, and puts a clearance sticker on it.

Human meat for sale at Mega-Mart?!?!

I want to hurl. I want to hurl and not stop. This act of cruelty that serves as my reason for life-long therapy causes me to get distracted and step out from my sanctuary of shadow. Out in the open, I clumsily bump into a bunch of crap. Maybe they didn’t see me.

Wrong. Dead wrong.

Sammy drops his reduced priced human ground beef. Merle glares in my direction. Gus, the emotionally distant bum, at long last looks up. He cackles, springs up, and makes a run for it. All color drains from Merle’s face. I think he might puke. Gross.

“Get it before it turns!” Merle says hoarsely.

Turns to what? Turns to meat for some naive family to chow down on for Sunday dinner? Turns to a hero to save me and get a medal from the Sheriff? Whatever the case may be, it’s my time to haul ass. Sammy picks up his knife. Merle barks orders at his lanky goon. They move. The chase is on!

*****

We don’t have cable at home. They cost money and my folks can’t be bothered on this luxury. Instead, we are likely the lone family in America that still owns a VCR. Two of the tapes we own are Home Alone and 3 Ninjas. From these movies, I learned that adults are stupid and kids are geniuses with traps, and no one dies like in those R-rated movies I heard so much about. I put my 90s children’s entertainment knowledge to the test.

I go small at first. I grab an armful of soup cans to toss on the floor. Predictably, Sammy does not see me do this and slips on several. He goes down. Easy. Merle is nowhere in sight.

Now in a new aisle, I grab chocolate syrup and other sweet and sticky substances to spread all over the ground. If you can figure out the point of this, congratulations, you’re brilliant. A cold hand brushes against the back of my neck. I scream. The cold hand silences me. It’s Gus.

“Shut it, kid. You don’t want them to spot us,” he says quietly. His fingernails look tarred from excessive nicotine use. His wrists are handcuffed.

“Take me to knives, champ. You wanna save me, don’t ya?” he says.

“Why are those guys--”

“No time, get a move on,” he says.

KURPLUNK!

Sammy is down. He can’t seem to get up. Thank you VHS classics.

We march on. As we approach the end of the aisle to reach the kitchen area, which I think might be about three aisles away to the right, but I don’t know. Not something I pay attention to, though now I wish I did. Slimeball Merle blocks our path.

Tick. Tick. 11:59pm.

He checks his watch. A wince and a gulp follow. Merle grips the handle of his knife. He squints. Greasy hair obscures his field of vision. He does not take his sight off Gus. I panic at the size of his knife. Gus looks as bored and disengaged like I do in math class.

“You ain’t got a mark. No threat t’me,” Merle says as he stares me down. Mark? What mark? He moves closer.

“Glacevins taste good, but when they turn--”

Before Merle can finish, he lunges his knife at Gus. Gus blocks any vital organ area with his arms. All of his new cuts make me feel sick. I can’t let Merle kill this guy, whoever or whatever a Glacevin is. Without a weapon in sight, I do what any vertically challenged child would does: I give him a swift kick to the balls.

Merle drops his knife. Gus is down. He grips his arms tight. I don’t know how to dress wounds. Shouldn’t have slept in health class. All I can do is comfort the poor man, but Merle won’t have any of that. He grabs hold of my collar and gives me a shake.

“Sammy! Da fuck are ya? Deal wid dis lil shithead!” Merle says. For an old guy, his grip is tight. Gus continues to bleed. The pounding of Sammy’s feet echo through the store.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

12:00am. Midnight.

Merle’s watch goes silent.

The sound of Sammy’s feet cease.

Merle loosens his grip. I look up to see his eyes have expanded. You would think he just had an encounter with a ghost. He takes a step back. I hear laughs. Gus?

Gus no longer grips his wounded arms. He gets up and laughs. His teeth gross me out, I wish he would just stop laughing. The blood on his arm evaporates! What the fuck?! His stomach growls.

“Hunger. Meat,” Gus says. His voice now deep and raspy.

“Sammy! 12 gauge! Move yer ass!” Merle says. His voice ever so hoarse.

The echoing of Sammy’s feet resumes.

Gus presses his hands to the sides of his face. His eyes turn pearly white. Jagged fingernails dig into skin and peels it off! In lieu of blood, flesh, or any other image one would find in a middle school science textbook, are scales. Blue scales.

Sammy’s heavy breathing and forceful steps imply he’s getting closer.

Gus peels off more skin. His fingers grow several more inches, and nails turn to talons. He stretches and increases in height. His skin body suit rests by his feet, well, three large toes with even longer talons. His blue scaly face forms a snout. Gus looks more blue crocodile than human. His vacant eyes meet Merle’s.  I pinch myself. Yep, this is happening.

“C’mon, feller. Izza gag. Just horsin’--”

HACK!

A long, narrow, amphibious tongue ejects from Gus’ mouth. Like a fist, it smashes into Merle’s nose; shattering it. The tongue goes through the back of Merle’s head, back inside, swirls around, and back out with a human brain attached to its tip. Gus swallows the brain whole.  Merle’s Picasso art piece face, along with his lifeless body, plops by my feet. I scream.

“Brain. Child brain,” Gus says. His deep voice makes every syllable vibrate.

My life would flash before my eyes, but it’s too pathetic for the montage treatment.

BOOM!

A bullet blasts the shit out of reduced merchandise. Glacevin Gus turns.

CLICK.

Sammy reloads. His hands shake.

BOOM!

Another blast and another miss. Yeah, I tell myself I won’t live to see my thirteenth birthday. Time to plan my escape. Nice knowing you, Sammy. I do perhaps five inches of a little baby run until---

HACK! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

 I cease movement due to the violent eruption of Sammy’s voice-box. Turning around should not be an option, but my youthful curiosity gets the best of me.

The hazardous tongue strikes again. It wraps around Sammy’s left arm. A tight squeeze creates a cloud of purple smoke. The odor of burnt flesh lingers. I vomit a little in my mouth. His arm falls off, an eruption of blood follows. Gus’ tongue swings off Sammy’s stump and attaches itself to his right shoulder. The 12 gauge flies up in the air and heads to my direction. It lands by my feet. Sammy dissolves to a skeleton in front of my eyes. Gus eats his former captor.

I grab the firearm. My whole body can’t stop shaking. An actual gun in my hand. Not the BB my dad uses to shoot beer bottles, but a tool that can kill a deer or something. I shake more at the obnoxiously loud swallowing noise. Gus finishes his dinner. He laughs a raspy smokers laugh. I’m his next course.

The Glacevin inches toward me. He clears his throat, it expands much like that of a bullfrog anticipating the arrival of insects on a summer’s night. I aim, but my trigger finger freezes. I’m a total chickenshit.

He knocks me down!

Talons swing. My shirt rips. It breaks the skin. Blood oozes as I fall in slow motion. The gun flies out of my hands. We’re face-to-face. His breath, ever so foul, burns the hairs of my nostrils.

“Child brain. Makes me--”

BAM!

Holy shit! What was that?!

Gus chokes. The gun went off as it hit the floor. A stray bullet made an exodus from its barrel and blasts a hole in Gus’ neck. Yellow blood erupts and drains from his body. The creature’s eyes go from a virginal white to Easter pink. Foam decorates his mouth, and the once terrifying creature falls.

The ground does not shake. The store does not spin. It only feels that way in my mind as I see two dead human bodies and a huge reptile. Blood of varying colors and organs smear all across the once pristine floor. I wouldn’t want to be part of the morning clean-up crew.

I get up and search for anything to smash through a window or front entrance to get away from all of this. No one’s ever going to believe I was here, must less shot a monster. One thing I can guarantee is that when I see Kenny I won’t be running. He’ll run from me.

*****

Unfortunately for Kenny, he didn’t run from me. Big mistake on his part. After my last confrontation with him, I had to be sent away. A good thing for me. I can devote all my time and energy to hunting these things...these...Glacevins.  Glacevins are my life. My obsession. My nourishment. Butcher shops beware. Don’t even try to run.

Author’s Biography

Zac Hestand got bitten by the writing bug when he took a creative writing class in his senior year of high school and has been creating in some form since. He gave his first public reading with the short story, American Dream, at the 2007 Far West American and Popular Culture Association Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Zac is a former features writer for Film Inquiry and has had pieces appear in Entropy and filmcriticismjournal.org. His published fiction includes SKIN, put out by Scarlet Leaf Review, and The Rat, released by Everyday Fiction. He's currently delving into the world of audio drama with the six-episode sci-fi/horror series The Invaders. He received his BA in Film from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, MA in English from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, and his MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. He currently lives in Ulsan, South Korea where he teaches English.