Contents
All Rotting Meat
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
About The Author
All Rotting Meat
By Eve Maleham
Chapter One
Human Flesh Five Feet Away
The stake brushed past his shoulder and scraped across the wall behind him. Seeing an opportunity, Banes grabbed the hunter’s arm and bend it backwards. The man screamed, the wooden stake clattered to the ground as his eyes grew large until there was a definite snap of broken bones and the scream rose to a high howl.
Banes ran on, his skin blazing with pain, but it would see be a several more hours before the bright Californian sun would set. He hoped that the amulet would hold up until then.
There was the roar of a car engine behind him, from over his shoulder Banes glanced to see a scarlet Sixties Chevy eating up the road behind him. He couldn’t deny that American hunters had style. There was the blare of horns from the few other drivers on the road, but really no need to panic. They were deep in suburbs of Los Angeles on a sleepy Tuesday afternoon, there was barely anyone around. Banes vaulted over a chain-wire fence into someone’s back garden, leaving a spotty trail of blood behind. When they had believed that he was a human they had tried to shoot him dead, which hadn’t worked. Bullets weren’t too dangerous for him, he could feel the flesh in his back, thigh, and shoulders already healing from the most recent wounds, but it had hurt and was now slowing him down.
He heard the Chevy’s engine drone off in the distance as he leapt over fences and walls, along with the sound of motorbikes. It seemed like half the hunters on the continent were after him. He found himself running through a small dirt pathway which ran between the back of a row of houses. He always found suburbs to be a particularly ugly place, dripping with artificial ooze and the south-west in general filled itself with some particularly disgusting neighbourhoods. Boxy low houses painted dull beiges and oranges in faux Spanish styles, the deserts dust and green lawns in a constant battle. A motorbike shot down the path towards him, the lancer on the back aiming a stake at him. Banes startled and jumped up a cinderblock wall just as the large spear-like stake hit the ground where he had been moments before. He crashed through an overgrown hedge on the other side, the branches snagging on his clothes. Banes picked himself off the ground and shot through the garden to the side gate around the house back onto the main road. The Chevy swung into view around the corner. He didn’t stop running. He dashed across the street through another side gate, another garden of dry brown grass. An old man in a lawn chair yelled at him as Banes ran through, jumping over another fence and into another garden. The drone of engine was loud and building up around him. The sun burnt his skin, his wounds were throbbing, and his lungs began to ache for oxygen. There was a loud bang, and something hard hit his calf, a warmth began to spread. He didn’t have to look down to see that someone had shot him again.
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’
His leg began to drag a little. He stumbled back out onto the street and began to run again, cursing the repetitive layout of suburbia. Dogs were barking furiously at the noise and from behind his sunglasses he could see a few residents gingerly peer out from behind their binds and curtains. At least he didn’t cut for a particularly recognisable figure with his glasses masking his scarlet and yellow eyes and a beanie hat covering his main of crimson hair. The most anyone would be able to tell was that he was a twenty or thirtysomething white man wearing a black leather jacket over an outrageous Hawaiian shirt. If anyone looked closer they might have been able to see that he was covered in jewellery as well.
He thought back doubling back to the airport again where he barely got to the check-in desk before the hunters had found him. The hunt had been going on for two days now. The drone of engines grew dangerously loud. Banes kicked down a front door and dove into a house just as three bikes cut around the corner. A border collie was set in a frenzied attack, stood firm and barking at him but he could tell that otherwise the house was empty. Banes seized the dog by the collar and pulled it over to the kitchen where grabbed a knife and opened the back door which lead into the garden. There was a wire-fence surrounding the garden and a small gate which lead onto the back alley. Hastily, Banes opened the gate and dragged the dog forward. With his heart in his mouth, Banes dug the knife into the dog’s side. The dog screamed, a heart-grating high whine. With precious seconds ticking away Banes watched until the blood was running down the dog’s leg onto the ground. He let go of the collar. The dog shot off down the alley, a spotty trail of blood behind it. Banes quickly retreated back to the house, making sure that he was bleeding over the spots already bled on. He hid himself behind the kitchen door as three hunters thundered through the house. The first two shot through the kitchen, following the trail of blood. Banes clutched the knife. He could feel the weight on the floorboards shifting, hear the hunters breathe, their heartbeat. The hunter came past the door. Banes could see every freckle on his boyish face, every individual strand of his mousy-brown hair and his pale skin growing taunt as he drove the knife into the man’s neck. Banes’s mouth watered as rich, hot blood flooded out. The hunter gasped, blood bubbling up over his lips, his eyes bugled. Banes clamped down on the man’s shoulders and bit down hard into his neck. The man moaned, his body limp, his eyes glassy. Outside he could hear the sound of engines beginning to grow fainter. With a sigh, Banes began to feed.
Blood tasted fantastic, clean and fresh. It tasted better than anything else in the world. The sharp, rich tang in his mouth, the thickness of it over his tongue. It turned every atom in his body to honey. It turned stars into supernovas and made every single worry fall away. It felt better than a perfect orgasm. Better than anything else in the world.
With pain, he stopped before he was anywhere near sated after biting out several chunks of flesh to fill him up. The squelching wet sounds of air escaping from bloody meat. The corpse of the man dropped to the floor, there was a gaping crimson bloody mess where his neck and parts of his shoulders had been. Banes went over and washed his face at the sink then looked around the room. The kitchen was covered in blood.
‘Ah fuck.’
Los Angeles was done and coupled with what happened in Minnesota he would have to leave America. He slipped the knife into his belt. He hoped that the hunters had moved on, but the police would be swarming before long. He needed to get to Candice’s house.
He pulled his hat down further over his head and set off from the house at a brisk pace, the sound of any engine spooking him. He walked until he came to a strip mall where he divided his remaining cash and spend some of it on supplies including bleach, a bucket, rope, several rolls of clingfilm, rubber gloves, a set of kitchen knives and a rucksack to hold it all. After he swapped out his beanie hat for a baseball cap, his circular reflecting sunglasses for massive aviator shades, and the blood-stained Hawaiian shirt for a plain, white one he went next door to a Starbucks and got a large iced coffee. Candice would only welcome visitors if they brought her dinner
.
It was never hard to find a victim. People who lived on the street were the easiest; a person sleeping in a doorway, a sex worker standing unguarded on the corner. Desperate people leaving job centres, people whose only bed was in a hostel, the elderly who lived alone, poor migrant workers without documentation.
Banes instead headed for a dive bar after first stopping in the motel across the street and paid in cash for a two-night stay and set up the supplies. The bar had none of the edge Banes liked about dives. Instead it was straight-up sad, gloomy and cramped with low ceilings, a cheap, stained carpet, dated furnishing, and the lingering smell of cigarettes and sweat. The same ambiance as a dentist’s office.
Banes put on his leather gloves, showed them his fake drivers’ licence and walked straight over to the bar and took a seat next to a man who stared ahead at nothing who smelt of cheap whiskey. Banes estimated him to be in his late thirties, but he had a weathered, stressed face which prematurely aged him. It wasn’t hard to trick him in into coming back across the road to the motel room. After a drink, double vodka straight with a straw for Banes and a bourbon for the man, Banes learnt that he was called Austin. Austin was originally from Santa Fe, he was slightly chauvinistic, he had inherited his dad’s landscaping company which he drove into the ground, he had two kids who he loved, an ex-wife who had turned out to be a bitch about his financial decisions, and he had just lost a thousand dollars on black jack. After another drink, Banes had steered the conversation into discussing his own demanding fictional girlfriend, then onto his own struggling financial issues.
‘Look,’ Banes said, leaning in closer to Austin after making sure that the barmaid was out of earshot. ‘I came here just to blow off some stream, it’s been a stressful time for me as well, but we’re clearly on the same level here and I think we can help each other out.’
‘What do you mean?’ Austin said.
‘Well,’ Banes said, glancing to check that the barmaid was out of earshot, ‘the economy has been pretty rough, and I’ve been struggling too. I ended up, um, organising a few business arrangements which weren’t to Uncle Sam’s knowledge, you understand what I’m saying? Mostly with a few dealers in Mexico, and mostly in rare gems. Needless to say, they weren’t especially clean gems.’
‘You mean like a blood diamond?’ Austin said.
Banes nodded, ‘yeah. Basically, the dealers would give me the gems and I’d pass them onto legit sellers. But look, I’ve got the IRS breathing down my neck right now, and the FBI right behind them and I need to dump these gems fast and I can’t do it myself without those fuckers coming down on me, you understand? So, Austin, I want to give you some of them and you can sell them on. You said that you brought nice things for your wife, perhaps you had a win and brought her a nice set of diamond jewellery.’
‘She’s my ex-wife now,’ Austin said.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Banes said. ‘You found some of grandma’s jewels in the attic when you were clearing out her house, something like that. Look, Austin, I am pretty fucking desperate here. We’ll split the profits, say sixty-forty?’
‘I’m not sure…’ Austin began.
‘Fine,’ Banes said, ‘you get seventy percent, I don’t care anymore. Even if you sell them badly you can easily get twenty K for them.’
Austin downed the last of his drink and grinned, ‘fuck it, sure. I’m in.’
‘Great!’ Banes said, pocketing the straw he was drinking from. ‘I’m staying in the motel across the street. It’s probably for the best if we move quickly on this, and we should discuss the details in private.’
Austin nodded, ‘you lead the way.’
Banes slapped a bill down on the bar top and led Austin to the motel. He put his baseball cap back on and kept his head down low.
‘You’re a good man, Austin,’ Banes said as he unlocked the room and let Austin step in front of him.
‘You think so?’ Austin said.
‘I know so,’ Banes said. ‘You work so hard for your family.’
‘Well…’ Austin’s voice trailed off as Banes locked the door behind them. The room was dark with the curtains drawn tight across the door. Newspaper covered every inch of the floor and clingfilm was wrapped around every surface. Banes wrapped his arms around Austin’s shoulders, drawing him in close.
‘You’re a good man,’ Banes said, one hand covering Austin’s mouth while the other drove the knife into his neck. ‘You’re a good, good man.’ Blood began to gush out. Banes gave it a quick taste, thankfully his blood was healthy. Austin struggled against him, but his fight was weak. ‘Everything is going to be fine, Austin. You’re a good man and everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. You’re going to be just fine.’
Banes waited until Austin was dead, holding him tightly and whispering comforting things into his ear as he passed. Then he began to butcher the corpse.
* * *
It was a tiring, messy process, doing it in a motel bathroom without any proper equipment. He hung Austin’s body up by his feet on the shower railing and cut the veins around his ankles and wrists, letting the blood drain out into the bucket he had placed under the body. After the bleeding slowed he poured out the blood into three two litre plastic bottles, it was already losing its crimson sheen and turning a burnished brown. He cut off Austin’s feet and hands, wrapped them in clingfilm and put them aside, though after several hacks he resigned from trying to behead the body. With every cut of the knife, the ache in his muscles deepened. Sweat covered his body as he showered Austin’s corpse down and became to flay off the skin in long strips. It was a little like peeling a very large and tender apple filled with juice. Once the skin was removed, he was left with a hanging piece of glistening red meat, Banes began to gut Austin, taking extreme care not to puncture the intestines as he removed his organs. He began to half and quarter the corpse, slicing off large chucks of flesh, nibbling away on bits as he went. He had blunted half the knives he had brought with him and without a saw it was difficult to cut through the body. He ended up snapping off bares of the body with his hands. The worst part was cleaning the intestines. The smell of processing shit was vile and scorched the inside of his nose.
Once he was done, the only recognisable part of Austin remaining was his head, his spine trailing out from the hacked neck. Austin’s face was eerily undamaged, though extremely pale. Banes sighed. He wanted someone to find the head. With a fair bit of hacking, he managed to several the head from the spine.
It was early morning by the time he was ready to leave, having spent the night carefully cleaning every surface in the motel room before he set off for Candice’s house with a heavy duffle bag full of human meat and a rubbish bag full of the remains.
He wandered through the city, vaguely heading into the direction of Candice’s house. He threw the bag of discarded remains and spend cleaning supplies into a dumpster where it would be collected in a few hours, but he struggled for a place to leave the head. In the end he placed the head carefully down on a bench in an empty park. At least Austin’s family wouldn’t believe that he had purposefully abandoned them.
By the time he reached Candice’s house he could barely think with tiredness. She lived in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles; an area full of gated Spanish-style mansions hidden behind neat brick walls. Her house was one of the larger ones, a soft yellow building with a terracotta roof.
Banes flung the duffle bag over the iron gate then clambered over after it. There was a strong possibility that a housekeeper would open the door and he was too fatigued to think of an excuse, so it was to his great relief that Candice Prieto, formerly known as Caedis Tenebrae, opened her own door. She was dressed in a plush dressing gown, but Banes couldn’t be certain whether he had woken up at all. Candice was a woman who always looked supernaturally impeccable regardless of circumstance. Her warm brown hair was sleek, falling in perfect waves to her shoulders, her slight-olive skin was smooth and flawless, and her bright orange eyes were sparkling.
> ‘Cindy!’ Banes said, stepping forward into the hall, ‘you’re a very welcome sight indeed.’
‘Wish I could say the same,’ Candice said, her eyes falling to the duffle bag.
‘You look great.’
‘Again, I wish I could say the same,’ she said. ‘What do you want, Intuneric?’
‘Safe passage out of here,’ he said. Candice rolled her eyes and beckoned for him to follow her through to the kitchen. ‘So…it’s been a while,’ Banes said, as they walked down a hallway lined with photos of her family, ‘how is everyone?’
‘The kids are fine, Noah’s fine, I’m fine,’ she said.
‘Didn’t Noah run for something?’ he asked. ‘How did that go?’
‘It was the Senate and he lost,’ Candice said. ‘I don’t even care about how much money it cost us, I’m just glad it’s over. But as everyone said, it’s still very early in his career.’
‘You’ll be the First Lady someday,’ Banes said.
Candice gave him a hard stare, ‘let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’
They entered her huge, modern kitchen where she poured herself out of large glass of red wine.
‘You want a glass of something?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got some vodka and I think there’s some hand sanitiser or even some anti-freeze under the sink if you want.’
‘God, yeah, I’ll take that,’ he said.
Candice poured a generous measure of anti-freeze into his glass then added a splash in her own.
‘So,’ she said, pointing to the duffle bag, ‘that’s all meat and blood then.’
‘Yep,’ he said, taking a drink.
‘And it’s healthy meat?’ she asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘Very,’ Banes said. ‘A guy called Austin, met him in a casino. He’s quite tasty.’
‘I don’t need to know that, Banes,’ she said. ‘But I’m guessing you did your typical con.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Banes said. ‘Works great for a meal or quick cash, just swap out killing them with them giving you a down payment...or killing them after that.’
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