Delicious

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By Shadow

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I woke up in a trance and covered in cold sweat. That was the most haunting dream I had ever had. My head was still filled of images of a dark figure looming over my bed, holding a kitchen knife and breathing dejectedly in my face. He had plunged the dagger into my stomach. I had pushed him away, clutching the walls to regain my balance. He thrusted it into me again, this time stabbing my lungs. I collapsed on the floor gasping for air, the final pocket of oxygen penetrating out of my body and then I woke up. I felt lightheaded and like all of the blood had been drained from my body. I looked around to find that my boyfriend was not with me, so I went looking for him. As I stepped into the hallway, I noticed that candles were lit everywhere. But as I walked past, they flickered out as if I was carrying a cold draft.

I sauntered around the cabin, not remembering which room the kitchen was in. Floorboards creaked as I walked past and eerie shadows loomed over me, different furniture seemed to be their own person, each sending off a whisper when I stepped beside them.

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I strode into a room, which turned out to be the kitchen, to find my boyfriend and someone who looked almost identical to him sitting at the dining room table. The only difference I could make out between them was the lumpy scar that went across the other person’s face. It seemed to have gone through his eye because his sclera was a milky white colour.

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They spoke again: “Is it fresh?”

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“Is what fresh?” I answered back, pondering on who this man could be. I was ignored and the conversation continued.

 

“Only the freshest for my brother”, a sentence I had, nor would have ever heard my boyfriend to say. He had only told me he had a brother once... In my dream, he had whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry but he made me do it. My brother made me do it,” before he speared my stomach with the knife.

 

I had soon noticed that there was a light coming from the oven and the humming of the electrics filled the deathly silence. In the oven was a huge carcass of meat and bowls of potatoes and vegetables. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was why I hadn’t been invited to join a family roast.

 

In the corner of the kitchen, a glint of silver caught my eye, a pot was balancing on the stove. It looked as though no one had any intention of eating it time soon.

 

The scarred man screamed, “When will it be ready?!”

 

Both my boyfriend and I cowered at the same time. I rested my hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him, but he shuddered and turned away towards the oven. He muttered an apology under his breath and opened the oven.

The sound of warm air gushed out of the oven and through the kitchen, yet I could not feel it. It seemed like a normal roast dinner, but the meat looked a bit different. In fact, the carcass was one of which I had never seen before, at least one that I had neither seen dead nor cooked.

With a clatter, it was thrown onto the table, the scarred man staring at it with his eyes gleaming and small drops of drool dripping onto the table. He picked up his fork and stabbed the carcass; blood oozed out of it like a bad infection. The knife glinted in the candlelight. The scarred mand picked it up too and plunged it into the carcass, retrieving the animal’s heart.

The scarred man split open the heart and more blood ran down the side of the meat and onto his white plate. He breathed heavily over the top of it and shoved the heart down his throat, swallowing it whole.

 

I whimpered, disgusted by the foulness of his eating; yet again I was not acknowledged.

 

His eyes had widened, and a stupid grin broadened across his face. He chuckled. His chuckle gradually grew into a hysterical fit of laughter and the remaining blood in his mouth seeped through the gaps at the corner of his lips and dripped down his cheeks and onto the table cover. He grabbed the carcass with his bare hand and dumped it onto his small plate. The scarred man clawed at the meat, ripping open the body of the animal, and shoved his head inside of it. He teared of a large chunk of meat and gnawed carnivorously at it.

 

This continued for several minutes, and when it seemed to be over, my boyfriend walked over to the stove, picked up the silver pot and placed it in front of the scarred man. He opened it to reveal a human head. My human head. Then the scarred man spoke.

 

“What was her name?”

 

I stood there in shock not wanting to hear the truth.

 

My boyfriend, my killer replied, guilt sparkling in his eyes. “Emily. Jane. West.”

 

My name...

 

“What a beautiful name for a beautiful meal,” a glint of evil shone in the scarred man’s eyes and his stupid grin broadened across his face yet again.

 

I screamed and cried louder than my body ever could have done. Is this how I had ended my human life, as a meal to a cannibal?

Suddenly, the scarred man stood up, he looked around and smelt the air. He looked like a dog smelling for meat. He walked around with a hunched back and look high and low. He dropped to the floor and crawled to where I was standing. He slowly rose from the ground and smiled his sinister smile. His eyes locked with mine and he spoke in a soft voice.

 

“I know you are there,” he whispered. “And if you were wondering... You were delicious.”