A few people from the audience made shrieking sounds. One lady started walking toward the exit, holding her hand over her mouth.
“Is this why you decided to go vegan?” the girl said.
“I don't put a label on what I do,” he answered.
“But is it?”
After a moment, he said, “Yes. I stopped eating animals after I saw what I saw. Wouldn't you?”
“I'm not sure I understand what you mean?” the girl said.
“I think I'm done.”
The camera panned to the interviewer. “We'll be right back after these quick messages,” she said.
She turned to him. “You have a contract with us. You are not done.”
“To hell with the contract,” he said. “I will not be questioned about my life choices on live television. I thought we agreed, no talk about the diet. That's not why I came on this show. I didn’t come here to talk about myself.”
“What would you like to talk about?” The camera was already rolling, she had missed the signal.
“Let's talk about humanity,” he said. “Let's talk about the world we live in now.”
“Okay. Though I'm not sure how this relates to the Coheelee Cannibals.”
“I saw humans treated like livestock. I saw what humans are capable of that summer. I saw pure evil, and it wasn't from some demonic entity. And I was sitting in the hallway before this interview thinking, it isn't getting any better. People kill each other for no reason. People treat each other terribly every day, spewing hate every chance they get. Do you know that I watched you yell at a homeless man today on your way inside the building?”
“Excuse me?”
“And then, in your little segment before I came out here, you were begging the audience for donations for some huge organization. The CEO of that company is a millionaire and we're giving them millions of dollars while ignoring our fellow man in our hometowns.”
“You can't say that,” she said, looking towards her producer. The producer made the 'keep rolling' sign.
“He's not going to tell you to stop. It's all about ratings. Everything everyone does is for their own gain, that's my point. Even churches are guilty of this.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Hell, I don’t even know.” Maybe he was regretting that drink a little too much. “You know what, you’re right. Let’s talk about my diet. You want those details, don’t you? Ratings. Because that’s all ratings are, right? Meat. That’s what you are. Meat. That’s what I am. Meat.” He could feel the drink getting heavier in his stomach, his words slurring slightly, but he didn’t care to stop. “That’s what they are too. Meat.” He pointed out to the crowd, even as they trained their cameras on him. “That’s what they don’t understand. Ultimately, if there is one thing I’ve learned in my lifetime, it’s the inconvenient truth that we humans are nothing more than meat.
We’re all just tamer animals.”
THE END
August 2016-August 2017
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I was seventeen years old. I had a friend who worked at the same skating rink/pizza place that I did. He was constantly berated and made fun of for being a vegetarian. He would always just smile, laugh it off, and go about his day. One day I asked him, “So, why are you a vegetarian? Why wouldn’t you eat meat?” And he said he really didn’t like to talk about it, so I dropped it. A couple months later, he said, “Do you still want to know why I’m a vegetarian?” And of course, I said yeah, because I thought he was crazy, missing out on so many foods. So, he says, “I was in the army. I was stationed in the middle-east, and you know that smell, when you drive by barbecue places?” I nodded, and he says, “Well, piles of burning human bodies smell exactly like that.”
I don’t tell you this to make you feel a certain way. You see, when I began writing Tamer Animals, I was indeed vegan. Initially, I felt like the story would go in a different direction, but I throttled it back a bit and it naturally fell into its own thing. In the genre of horror, you find that, much like the opening line of the novel, it’s dangerous business stepping out your front door. After the craziness of The Variant, I wanted to write something more grounded in reality. Something with grit. I admit I was really digging No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and Sheriff Paul Stanton was heavily inspired by that story. But more than that, was the album and song of the same name by the band Other Lives. That line, we’re just tamer animals, we’re the same as animals really hit a nerve with me, and I mean in more ways than one, just like the double meaning in the book. I will say this about the big cannibalism reveal: it’s there to support a story about real people dealing with real issues in their everyday life. You have homophobia, racism, violence, malice, and all-around hatred occurring in every city, every day, and it’s not getting better. This book formed in my head as a metaphor for how violent we are towards animals. It ended as a realization that we’re not any better to each other. I hope you enjoyed this book. If you did, do me a huge favor and rate it on Amazon and Goodreads. Also, if you enjoyed it, check out my other books, The Variant and Candy. And while you’re at it, check out more from Bloodshot Books, they’re all fantastic.
Until next time,
Justin
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin M. Woodward is an author from Headland, Alabama. He lives with his wife and two small boys, Nathan and Lucas. Writing since 2015, Tamer Animals is his third full-length novel. You can keep up with him on social media, and on www.justinmwoodward.com
Follow him on his social media accounts:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/justinmwoodward
Instagram: www.instagram.com/justinmwoodward
Facebook: www.facebook.com/justinmwoodwardfiction
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READ UNTIL YOU BLEED
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
STANTON
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Tamer Animals Page 16
