A soft push from behind . . . blindfolded, I stumble forward and try to right myself.

I remember when I was a young boy, not more than eight or nine years old, I would go fishing with my father. He would pull fish out of the old millpond behind the house with the pole Momma gave him for his birthday years before. Poppa would pull the fish out of their home, tear the hooks from their rapidly working mouths, and then snap their backs to stop them from flopping around.

I would stare at their dead, black eyes circled in gold and think how horrible it was to kill them like that. I asked him why we did it.

“Because the greater creature devours the lesser,” he said. “That was the way God intended it, and that is the way it will always be.”

I shuffle forward with the others, the stench of sweat and fear filling my nostrils

Poppa would cut off their heads and slice open their white bellies. Sometimes the girl fish would have eggs in them, and I always felt bad for the babies. I even cried for them sometimes, but Poppa would tousle my hair and tell me, “Kid, don’t worry about them. They are less than us.”

I hear a sob arise from in front of me. Someone is calling to a child.

After gutting them and washing their bodies, he would wrap all but two in cellophane and put them in the freezer. The two that remained were our lunch, and he would fry them in a pan until their skin sizzled and the smell permeated the whole downstairs.

I can feel the panic growing around me. The time is near.

Whenever I would eat the fish with my father, I would drown mine in ketchup. It helped to mask the taste of flesh and helped me to forget that the creature on my plate was alive and swimming less than an hour before.

Someone in front of me tries to run. He pushes past me, but they grab him.

After our meal, we would retire to the back porch that overlooked the pond. He had a beer, me a soda. The water was usually calm, but sometimes there were ducks. They would paddle around and then dip their heads below the surface to chase some tasty morsel. Poppa said they reminded him of kids bobbing for apples on Halloween. I laughed and burped; the taste of flesh surfaced my mouth

Moist hands fumble with my blindfold, removing it. I am in a food factory, just as I knew I would be. The creatures that came to this world a few months ago – I don’t remember their proper name – push us toward the spinning blades.

I remember those lazy days with Poppa, fishing and watching the sun dip behind the mountains. I wouldn’t stop asking questions about the poor fish, but he never grew tired of answering. He would always say, “Kid, it’s because . . .”

The greater creature devours the lesser. That is just the way it goes.

—
©2009 Jason M. Tucker

Jason M. Tucker lives in San Diego, California and is the author of hundreds of published articles, short stories, poems, and other creative type stuff. Recent publications include a story in New Voices in Horror, as well as three short stories in Northern Haunts. Find out what Jason’s up to at www.jasonmtucker.com.

Hannah sat with her back against a large oak, her mind teetering at insanity’s jagged edge. The night air pressed against her naked flesh, but she wasn’t cold. How wonderful would it be, she wondered, to fall into that abyss, a place where it didn’t matter if the world made any sense?

At her feet was a long, shallow hole, newly dug. It confused her. She didn’t know where she was, and she knew very little of whom she was. She had a name. Hannah. Other names came to her. Jerry. Jacob. They were just names.

She found that her limbs were stiff when she tried to move. Slowly, she brought fingers to her chest and touched the still fresh Y-shaped wound that ran from her chest to her navel. A thought came to her. It couldn’t be an autopsy incision, because . . . .

She began to probe the wound, to pull apart the poor stitching and dip her fingers into the gaping cavity beneath. A dull throb rocked her body.

Inside she was empty, completely hollowed out.

No, she thought. The Dead don’t think. The Dead don’t walk.

She reached deeper until her fingers grazed her spine. With no lungs, she couldn’t even scream, so she let her mind do it for her.

A distant light through the forest caught her attention. She stood on stiff legs and began to walk toward it, unsure of what it was and hoping that the source of the light might provide answers. Branches snagged at her hair, briars ripped her dead flesh, as though the forest was trying to stop her. Hannah continued.

Images, like poor quality snapshots, began to flash in her head. Smiling parents, friends and lovers she couldn’t quite recall, all flickered in her mind. Her wedding, her husband Jacob, their son Jerry, all of them flashed before her. Sweet little Jerry, so tiny. Thoughts of the baby warmed her hollow insides.

She came closer to the light and the memory of the crash slammed into her. The winding backwoods roads that led to her in-law’s place in Silver Point, the large rock that shattered the windshield, her screams mingled with the baby’s cries as the car veered off the road; the memories kept coming. The man dressed in dark clothing that came to pull them free of the car before blackness engulfed her. Yes, she remembered him now.

The source of light was coming from a small shack. Hannah could hear movements and sounds coming from within. A child’s cry, her child’s cry.

Hannah shambled to the hovel and climbed the weathered steps to the porch. She made her way to the window, where she could see through the ragged curtains into the shack.

Hanging from chains on the ceiling were the skinned carcasses of many small animals. A rusty color stained the floor from where their life dripped during skinning. On a small wooden table, she could see a heart, lungs, and other organs, all of which were too large to be anything but her own.

A tall, slender man at the rear of the shack was stirring a large kettle that sat atop a wood-burning stove. Nine-month-old Jerry hung naked and upside down from the ceiling, shrieking and wiggling. His powder blue blanket lay neatly folded on the floor.

Rage filled the hollow where her organs once lived. She began to pound on the shack’s thin walls.

The lanky cook turned around, wooden spoon in his hand. His face was not the monster Hannah had expected. He was clean-shaven and his hair was neatly trimmed, but his eyes were predatory. He wiped a hand on the leather apron he wore and licked his lips.

He dropped the spoon into the kettle and picked up a hatchet from an array of bladed tools near the stove.

Hannah watched as he made his way across the blood-caked floor, wanting him to come to her.

“Who’s there?” his voice was small, almost feminine.

Hannah pounded harder on the walls, wanting to get to him, wanting to jab her fingers into his eyes and shut them forever.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.” He started toward the door, hatchet raised.

Jerry cried harder, sending Hannah into a deeper rage. When the man opened the door, Hannah was there. She lunged at him, teeth bared. He opened his mouth to scream, but she latched onto his throat with one of her hands and squeezed. His mouth worked like a gasping fish, and he buried the hatchet into her clavicle.

Hannah hardly noticed.

She took him to the floor, crushing and twisting his windpipe. His eyes turned from those of a predator to frightened prey. With her dirt-encrusted nails, she tore out huge gobs of his flesh, leaving him to twitch and die on the dirty floor.

***

Jerry was still crying when she took him down from the chains. She cradled him in her cold arms and rocked him until he fell asleep.

Though she couldn’t feel it, she was sure the night was cold, even inside the shack. She couldn’t stay there any longer. The un-life that she’d been given – by either vengeful angels or laughing demons – was starting to fade.

She wrapped Jerry in his blanket, tucked him inside her torso to keep him from the wind and the cold, and headed down the dirt driveway from the shack to the road. A car would pass soon enough. She could rest and Jerry could go home.

—
©2009 Jason M. Tucker

Jason M. Tucker lives in San Diego, California and is the author of hundreds of published articles, short stories, poems, and other creative type stuff. Recent publications include a story in New Voices in Horror, as well as three short stories in Northern Haunts. Find out what Jason’s up to at www.jasonmtucker.com.