Welcome to episode 40 of Flash Fiction Friday with AB Frank.
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The writing prompt for this week:
Object: Meat
Action: Choose
Genre: Horror
Object Word Association: Flesh, food, farming, breeding, eating, rotting, cooking, butchering, selling.
Action Word Association: Choices, options, alternatives, pick, preferences, decisions, tastes.
Enjoy!
Sullied Carcass
Workbenches were covered in blood spatter. My tools for hacking and cutting were close to hand. I sharpened a meat cleaver while I waited for that morning’s meat delivery.
The carcasses arrived and were suspended from hooks before I butchered them into portions. As I worked through them, slicing and segmenting, I came across the most peculiar of animals.
I certainly hadn’t ordered the unidentified beast, and how it came to be suspended in my butchers was a mystery. I studied it. The meat had the richest red colour, and plenty of it. I sliced myself a sample to take home, as I often do, with the intention of selling the remaining food instead of returning it. I was hooked by the savoury fragrance as it cooked, and the texture as I chewed.
That night, my sleep was broken and restless. Nightmares plagued me and I repeatedly woke sweating. The following day, my urges started. To begin with, I had a need to eat raw meat. After I had submitted to this shameful thought, it progressed to a need to eat the meat of something still living.
I have no doubt that my change came from that strange animal’s sullied carcass. I have kept someone prisoner in the basement of my butchers for the terrible moment an urge arises. I do not know if this nightmare will end before I bring an end to it with the tools I am so accustomed to using on the flesh of animals.
The End
Sullied Carcass