The Grinder Whirs

Their blood red shirts read “Meat is Murder” and they marched in a large circle under their picket signs. The news cameras followed them, picking out the dumbest, dirtiest or most vehement picketer for interviews. The picketers screamed filth into the camera, pointed at my butcher shop and showed terrible photos of the inside of a slaughterhouse.

“Idiots.” I tell Marco, one of my regulars. “I don't even slaughter here. I just cut the meat.”

Marco shrugged. “I'm telling you man. It doesn't matter. As soon as you decided to offer exotic meats, you knew to expect a shit storm. People don't mind a butcher but you singled yourself out.”

“I thought it would be good for business and it was.”

Marco and I watched a young woman on TV with her green ponytail. She gestured dramatically toward the shop and camera and declared War several times. Crazy broad.

Marco put his beer down and wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve. “Well they say the only bad news is no news. This media circus gets your business and your new menu options some exposure.”

I look up at the new whiteboard in the corner. It listed all the new meat options, things like: antelope, buffalo, alligator, kangaroo, pheasant, venison, turtle, and much more. The sportsmen love it. The new options have been selling out fast and it made my butchershop one-of-a-kind in the area but it had also attracted the attention of all sorts of animal-rights extremists. All the meat was humanely and legally attained but try telling that to them.

The shop's business had slowed down somewhat due to the picket line but enough people wanted to try the new products that I was still turning a nice profit. Marco was gone and I closed the shop. I'd taken to wearing a bright red rain slicker when I walk to my truck now because the picket line had a habit of throwing buckets of fake blood on me as I left the building.

No picket line tonight though. Odd but I appreciated the silence. What I didn't appreciate was the way my truck refused to start or the masked man who stepped out of the shadows lining the streets. In one hand he held a small bag of spark plugs and he held a large gutting knife in the other. I sat in stunned silence, staring at him which provided his partner time to sneak up and tap the window with the barrel of a very large revolver. I step out calmly.

“You can have it. The truck, the wallet, whatever.” I put my hands up and try to stay calm. I've been mugged before and I survived that.

“Shut up.” The mugger says. The voice is too high though, feminine. I catch a green hair sticking out from the bottom of the ski mask.

Oh shit.

“You're that girl from -”

She swings the revolver into my head and I fall. I'm numb and barely conscious. I taste blood and asphalt. I hear murmuring and feel myself being moved. I can feel my hands and feet being bound, my mouth is gagged. When I come to I'm back in the butcher shop, facing my own meat grinder.

The masked man with the knife is no longer masked. The girl has also removed her mask and is talking to me. “So you think you can take the meat from innocent animals? You think you have the right to take the life of another being? Well that makes you lower than an animal, you scum. So we're going to show you the pain you caused. You'll know the suffering of these beautiful animals you've murdered.”

The girl nods and the man moves up with the knife. He takes my ears first. I scream. I thrash. I bite at the rag in my mouth. I cry and scream again. I watch as he drops both ears into the grinder. My nose soon follows. I feel the knife scrape my gums and teeth as they strip my cheeks to nothing and drop the meat in the grinder. They shave my forehead of skin too and scalp me. They leave my eyes. Of course they do. I want shock to take me. I want bloodloss to free me. Neither comes.

The grinder whirs and my flesh forms a nice hunk of ground beef. They cut my clothes off and shave the flesh off my arms and chest and legs. The grinder whirs. They chop my dick off. The grinder whirs. They remove my gag and quickly take my tongue, teeth and lips. The grinder whirs. My fingers and toes go next. The grinder whirs.

Please let me die. I just want to die.

The hunk of ground me is quite substantial now. It's bloody and covered in hair and tooth shards. They stay silent as they shove it into my own gaping mouth until I can no longer swallow or breath. I choke and gag and blackness finally takes me.