Haunted Organic (2014 Watty Award Winner)

Seven: Plucked (Part 2)

SEVEN - Plucked (Part 2)

A blast of cold air smacked Emerald in the face.

"What is this place?"

It's a cooler," Josie said. "The store must keep its meat here so it won't go rotten."

"Here," Josie said, handing her a black coat hanging near the entrance. "Put it on, the butchers use these coats when they come into the cooler to work with the meat."

The two bundled themselves in the quilted jackets and walked into the cooler. It wasn't freezing, but it was colder than what was comfortable, exactly like standing in a gigantic refrigerator. They shined their beams along the room, until Josie found a small switch and flipped it. The cooler room glowed and flickered an eery blue from an overhead fluorescent. It was dim, but enough to see clearly. They switched off their headlamps.

The shelves of the cooler were chock full of meat, lamb necks, and rib, loin and sirloin chops. Shanks piled up in high pyramids. There were boxes of stew meat, beef, pork and veal, boxes of bones, a bathtub with nothing but chicken livers, and another bathtub of fat waiting to be rendered. It was pale and jiggly, like a tub of snot. There were strings of sausages hanging from the ceiling. One whole shelf was dedicated to nothing but the heads of butchered animals.

Josie walked over to inspect them. A cow head looked directly back at him, its eyes were glassy, empty. Just heads lying in a heap.

Josie touched the snout of a pig head. It was cold and leathery and rubbery.

He thought the heads were both gross and cool.

He turned to walk away, and banged into something.

And that something was obviously pissed about it, because it came back at him and whacked him across the cheek. Out of the corner of his eye he could see it was large and dangerous, although he had no idea what it was. It came at him again, and smacked him hard across the face.

He was thrown back, but he tried to reclaim his brain, get his bearings, but before he could steady himself, the thing, all yellow and slimy, slapped him hard him across the cheeks, sending him flying backwards.

He righted himself and charged at the yellow thing, but before he could kick it or hit, it sailed at him and whacked him hard on the head.

It hurt. He almost fell over.

"Ack!!...Get off me, get off me!"

The thing kept coming at him, swinging closer and closer each time he smacked it away. It was relentless. And it was wet, spewing blood and juices every time it hit him. Josie flailed at the thing, his arms were flying fast in the air, trying to hit the thing before it hit him again.

"Get off me!"

He fought harder, swinging his body faster and faster at the slimy thing.

Until he heard laughing. Emerald laughing.

Josie stopped long enough to see Emerald recording him on her iphone and giggling. A dead chicken swung in deep circles close to his head. It was then that he realized he had been fighting a dead chicken that had been tied by its feet, dangling from hooks in the ceiling. He looked around and saw dozens of them, and ducks and geese, all strung up, gutted and de-feathered. Guts and entrails had been piled into stinking buckets on the floor.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to vomit from the meat stench or the embarrassment of having fought a dead chicken and lost.

Emerald snapped her iPhone case closed, with a big satisfied smile.