Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror (33 page)

“Excuse me? What’s all the same?”

“Meat, wherever it comes from. Human legs are the same as cow’s legs, or pig’s legs, or goat’s legs. For Christ’s sake, it’s all protein.”

I pointed to a tiny arm protruding from the mess on the production-line. “That’s a baby. That’s a human baby. That’s just
protein
?”

Mr. Le Renges rubbed his forehead as if he couldn’t understand what I was talking about. “You ate one of your burgers. You know how good they taste.”

“Look at this stuff!” I shouted at him, and now three or four cutters turned around and began to give me less-than-friendly stares. “This is shit! This is total and utter shit! You can’t feed people on dead cattle and dead babies and amputated legs!”

“Oh, yes?” he challenged me. “And why the hell not? Do you really think this is any worse than the crap they serve up at all of the franchise restaurants? They serve up diseased dairy cows, full of worms and flukes and all kinds of shit. At least a human leg won’t have
e-coli
infection. At least an aborted baby won’t be full of steroids.”

“You don’t think there’s any moral dimension here?” I shouted back. “Look at this! For Christ’s sake! We’re talking cannibalism here!”

Mr. Le Renges drew back his hair with his hand, and inadvertently exposed his bald patch. “The major fast-food companies source their meat at the cheapest possible outlets. How do you think I compete? I don’t
buy
my meat. The sources I use, they pay me to take the meat away. Hospitals, farms, auto repair shops, abortion clinics. They’ve all got excess protein they don’t know what to do with. So BioGlean comes around and relieves them of everything they don’t know how to get rid of, and Tony’s Gourmet Burgers recycles it.”

“You’re sick, Mr. Le Renges.”

“Not sick, John. Not at all. Just practical. You ate human flesh in that piece of hamburger I offered you, and did you suffer any ill effects? No. Of course not. In fact I see Tony’s Gourmet Burgers as the pioneers of really decent food.”

While we were talking, the production-line had stopped, and a small crowd of cutters and gutters had gathered around us, all carrying cleavers and boning-knives.

“You won’t get any of these men to say a word against me,” said Mr. Le Renges. “They get paid twice as much as any other slaughterhousemen in Maine; or in any other state, believe me. They don’t kill anybody, ever. They simply cut up meat, whatever it is, and they do a damn fine job.”

I walked across to one of the huge stainless steel vats in which the meat was minced into glistening pink gloop. The men began to circle closer, and I was beginning to get seriously concerned that I might end up as pink gloop, too.

“You realize I’m going to have to report this to the police and the USDA,” I warned Mr. Le Renges, even though my voice was about two octaves above normal.

“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Le Renges.

“So what are you going to do? You’re going to have me gutted and minced up like the rest of this stuff?”

Mr. Le Renges smiled and shook his head; and it was at that moment that the slaughterman who had been taking his dog for a walk came onto the killing floor, with the hellbeast still straining at its leash.

“If any of my men were to touch you, John, that would be homicide, wouldn’t it? But if Cerberus slipped its collar and went for you—what could I do? He’s a very powerful dog, after all. And if I had twenty or thirty eye-witnesses to swear that you provoked him …”

The Presa Canario was pulling so hard at its leash that it was practically choking, and its claws were sliding on the bloody metal floor. You never saw such a hideous brindled collection of teeth and muscle in your whole life, and its eyes reflected the light as if it had been caught in a flash photograph.

“Kevin, unclip his collar,” said Mr. Le Renges.

“This is not a good idea,” I cautioned him. “If anything happens to me, I have friends here who know where I am and what I’ve been doing.”

“Kevin,” Mr. Le Renges repeated, unimpressed.

The slaughterman leaned forward and unclipped the Presa Canario’s collar. It bounded forward, snarling, and I took a step back until my rear end was pressed against the stainless steel vat. There was no place else to go.

“Now,
kill
!” shouted Mr. Le Renges, and stiffly pointed his arm at me.

The dog lowered its head almost to the floor and bunched up its shoulder-muscles. Strings of saliva swung from its jowls, and its cock suddenly appeared, red and pointed, as if the idea of tearing my throat out was actually turning it on.

I lifted my left arm to protect myself. I mean, I could live without a left arm, but not without a throat. It was then that I had a sudden flashback. I remembered when I was a kid, when I was thin and runty and terrified of dogs. My father had given me a packet of dog treats to take to school, so that if I was threatened by a dog I could offer it something to appease it. “Always remember that, kid. Dogs prefer food to children, every time. Food is easier to eat.”

I reached into the vat behind me and scooped out a huge handful of pink gloop. It felt disgusting … soft and fatty, and it dripped. I held it toward the Presa Canario and said, “Here, Cerberus! You want something to eat? Try some of this!”

The dog stared up at me with those red reflective eyes as if I were mad. Its black lips rolled back and it bared its teeth and snarled like a massed chorus of death-rattles.

I took a step closer, still holding out the heap of gloop, praying that the dog wouldn’t take a bite at it and take off my fingers as well. But the Presa Canario lifted its head and sniffed at the meat with deep suspicion.

“
Kill
, Cerberus, you stupid mutt!” shouted Mr. Le Renges.

I took another step toward it, and then another. “Here, boy. Supper.”

The dog turned its head away. I pushed the gloop closer and closer but it wouldn’t take it, didn’t even want to sniff it.

I turned to Mr. Le Renges. “There you are … even a dog won’t eat your burgers.”

Mr. Le Renges snatched the dog’s leash from the slaughterman. He went up to the animal and whipped it across the snout, once, twice, three times. “You pathetic disobedient piece of shit!”

Mistake. The dog didn’t want to go near me and my handful of gloop, but it was still an attack dog. It let out a bark that was almost a roar and sprang at Mr. Le Renges in utter fury. It knocked him back onto the floor and sank its teeth into his forehead. He screamed, and tried to beat it off. But it jerked its head furiously from side to side, and with each jerk it pulled more and more skin away.

Right in front of us, with a noise like somebody trying to rip up a pillowcase, the dog tore his face off, exposing his bloodied, wildly-popping eyes, the soggy black cavity of his nostrils, his grinning lipless teeth.

He was still screaming and gargling when three of the slaughter-men pulled the dog away. Strong as they were, even they couldn’t hold it, and it twisted away from them and trotted off to the other side of the killing floor, with Mr. Le Renges’ face dangling from its jaws like a slippery latex mask.

I turned to the slaughtermen. They were too shocked to speak. One of them dropped his knife, and then the others did, too, until they rang like bells.

* * *

I stayed in Calais long enough for Nils to finish fixing my car and to make a statement to the sandy-haired police officer. The weather was beginning to grow colder and I wanted to get back to the warmth of Louisiana, not to mention the rare beef muffelettas with gravy and onion strings.

Velma lent me the money to pay for my auto repairs and the Calais Motor Inn waived all charges because they said I was so public spirited. I was even on the front page of
The Quoddy Whirlpool.
There was a picture of the mayor whacking me on the back, under the banner headline HAMBURGER HERO.

Velma came out to say goodbye on the morning I left. It was crisp and cold and the leaves were rattling across the parking-lot.

“Maybe I should come with you,” she said.

I shook my head. “You got vision, Velma. You can see the thin man inside me and that’s the man you like. But I’m never going to be thin, ever. The poboys call and my stomach always listens.”

The last I saw of her, she was shading her eyes against the sun, and I have to admit that I was sorry to leave her behind. I’ve never been back to Calais since and I doubt if I ever will. I don’t even know if Tony’s Gourmet Burgers is still there. If it is, though, and you’re tempted to stop in and order one, remember there’s always a risk that any burger you buy from Tony Le Renges
is
people.

“Ecstasy” was first published in
Master/Slave
, edited by Thomas Roche and published by Venus Books in 2004.

‡

Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick writes and edits in the horror, dark fantasy, mystery and erotica genres. She has published 18 novels, including the popular 4-book
Power of the Blood
vampire series. A unique reprinting (in slipcase) of her seven novel erotic horror series
The Darker Passions
(writing as Amarantha Knight) is available from MHB Press.

Some of her roughly 200 published short stories have worked their way into 5 short story collections. You can read a few of her recent pieces in
Blood Lite, Blood Lite 2—Overbite
(both Pocket Books),
Hellbound Hearts
(Pocket Books),
The Bleeding Edge
(Dark Discoveries),
The Living Dead
and
By Blood We Live
(both Night Shade Books),
Don Juan and Men
(MLR Press),
Vampires: Dracula and the Undead Legions
(Moonstone Books),
The Bitten Word
(Newcon Press),
Campus Chills
(Stark Publishing),
Darkness on the Edge
(PS Publishing),
Vampires: The Recent Undead
(Prime Books),
Best New Vampire Tales #1
and
Best New Zombie Tales #3
(both from Books of the Dead Press). Upcoming stories will appear in
The Moonstone Book of Zombies
and
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women
.

She has also written one non-fiction book
The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined
(St. Martin’s Press), and has edited ten anthologies, the latest (from Edge SF&F Publishing) being a horror/dark fantasy anthology
Tesseracts Thirteen
(co-edited with David Morrell, 2009),
Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead
(www.vampires-evolve.com , 2010),
Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead
(August 2011). A new anthology is in the works.

For Brainstorm Comics, she scripted three of her short stories in
VampErotica
#5, 6, and 13 and these comics and stories combine with interviews to create the graphic novel
Nancy Kilpatrick’s Vampyre Theater
, out in 2011. You can find out the latest about Nancy on her webpage www.nancykilpatrick.com and follow her on facebook.

† † †

Ecstasy came out of my perception of how far some people will go
to be loved.

The world, it seems, is bound for hell. You grip the hand basket tighter, holding onto your life.

This is the first time you have come for him, and that unnerves you. With luck you will find him. With more luck, you won’t. Either way, intuition implies you are not in a good position, despite what you now believe.

Everywhere you turn, white light assaults your eyes as if it were the white-light tunnel of death instead of moonlight glinting knife blade sharp off snow. Harsh air forces you to pull inward, shrinking back to yourself, shriveling, becoming smaller to hide from the cold. Nowhere you have been was the environment this inhospitable to human survival, although you realize other places on the planet are worse. Still, you haven’t been there and, in the midst of this trauma your cells suffer in anticipation of freezing to death, speculation seems pointless.

You have searched this city for hours with this lanky sexy prostitute by your side. Together you visited places where Kevin has been seen. Inquiries here, there, his identity verified by photo, all painting a fresh trail, or so your companion assures you. “Listen, Fran,” Didi said at the last transvestite bookstore, your name on his crimson lips sounding far too intimate, “we’ll find him. There are only so many places a broken boy can hide.” That was many hours ago. Between then and now: dozens of taxi rides taken, club entrance fees paid, drinks bought in bars, seedy hotel clerks questioned, meals eaten and coffees drunk in greasy-spoons and diners frequented by she-males as Kevin likes to identify himself. You are not naive; this world is not the one you glide through ordinarily, yet it is not entirely alien. So many personas, each in its own way demanding love and acceptance. How you envy their seduction techniques; how they terrify you.

The last club was in the middle of a ghetto and as you left it, once again, you congratulated yourself that you only paid this pretty hustler a fraction of the promised money—he will make efforts to keep you unharmed to get the rest. “Listen, sweetie, taxis won’t answer calls to this neighborhood we’re going,” Didi assured you. “We’ll hike it. Just you and me, romping through the snow!” Said with a Madonna toss-ofthe-head and a devilish sparkle to almond-eyes. That he plays with you, laughs at your expense does not bother you. Since long before Kevin’s treatments began, before his breasts swelled and his voice rose an octave and his body hair thinned, all of it leading to “the change” as he calls it, you have been to hell and back many times. Nothing bothers you anymore. Except for one thing. The nightmare.

This northern city’s mean winter streets leave you hopeless. Life does not exist here in the dead of a cold night. No one sane walks around at 3 a.m. The last vehicle to pass inspired a fantasy of jumping in front of the bumper and pleading with the driver, “Take me home! I just want to go home!” But there is no home, not anymore. Mother is gone. Father was too often there. Kevin is all you have. You do not even care that your baby brother is becoming your baby sister. You just want to find him before, as the nightmare leaves you feeling, things have gone too far.