Consumed- The Complete Works

by Kyle M. Scott

  And punishment.

  They both look at me, their eyes wide with terror. Sheila wears a veil of tears – a widow, unmarried and still unaware of her widowhood. I sense she understands that there will be no salvation granted from the gods – neither the one that resides in the starlit heavens, nor the one who is surveying her from closer climes. I smile at her. Her eyes plead.

  “Edward! What is this!?” she begs. “What are you doing?”

  I decide not to answer. I like these people. I enjoy them. There is nothing I can say that will ease her suffering. Nothing that can make this moment any more perfect. Instead, I focus on her breasts. They jiggle in delicious fashion as she quivers in fear.

  “Please let us go, Edward. We haven’t done anything to you!” she pleads. “Please. I don’t want to die.”

  Curt says nothing. He merely glares at me with furnace eyes, and clutches at his right arm.

  I was correct, he has landed in a rather unfortunate position.

  A jet of blood pumps slowly from around the bone that protrudes from his mangled forearm. His fingers tremble around the perimeter of the brilliant white protrusion, as though it is a foreign thing to him.

  I suppose it is.

  It resembles a small white mountainous island amidst a sea of red and quaking flesh. I find it strangely beautiful.

  Tears fill Curt’s eyes too, but these are tears of another sort. Murderous rage tempered with the insistent pulse of agony. He clutches his forearm tightly, trying to stem the flow of blood that his severed arteries so determinedly pump from his heart to his wound. I wonder if he can hear his heart beat as clearly as I can see its fluctuations. The wound spurts and spits, painting the smooth metal interior of the vat a beautiful, dark crimson. It’s startling.

  Sheila continues her begging. I believe she may have been doing so the whole time I've been studying her partner’s wounds, but I've all but drowned her out. I have little interest in her protestations.

  Only in her screams.

  And they will come shortly.

  Out of nowhere, she jumps upwards, desperately reaching for the vat’s rim. I laugh aloud at her feeble attempts at escape, while my now fully erect penis fights its own battle for escape in my pants.

  “Please!” she weeps openly. “I’ll do anything if you just let us go!”

  I surprise myself by answering. “Anything?”

  “Yes. I’ll suck your dick. I’ll let you fuck me in my ass. Anything! Just please, let us go!”

  “How about if I let you go, and keep Curt?”

  Curt’s head snaps up towards me. Hatred and a feverish bloodlust simmer in his gaze.

  I continue. “Will you let me, as you so eloquently put it, ‘fuck you in the ass’, if I spare only you?”

  Sheila seems to stop in her tracks. She appears to be thinking the matter over.

  Delicious.

  She lowers her head, all hope of bargaining lost. “No,” she whispers.

  “No? My, my...aren’t we the noble girl. Well, there is little left to discuss.”

  “I’ll kill you!” Curt snarls. “I’ll tear your fucking head off your shoulders, you little piece of shit. LET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”

  I shake my head in a gesture of fatherly bemusement.

  Curt reaches up with his one good arm in a ridiculous display of masculinity. His ruined appendage spouts blood like a fountain. His face is already losing color. A sickly pallor taints his handsome features. The specter of death dances behind his dimming eyes.

  He slumps against the smooth circular wall, defeated.

  Sheila – my noble Sheila – spits at me with a refreshing accuracy. Her phlegm spatters me just under my right eye. I gently gather the thick, sticky phlegm on my fingers and lick them clean. My erection throbs in my pants like a big-bass drum.

  “Sheila...Curt. This has been fun. You’re both lovely people, but time is wasting.”

  With that, I stretch my right arm into the shadow just beyond the rim of the vat.

  I pull up the funnel.

  The tube is already thick with the contents within. I have a tap fixed to the nozzle, so as to ensure I miss nothing.

  “There are no happy endings, here,” I say.

  I take aim.

  I turn the tap.

  The boiling oil gushes from the nozzle, hitting Curt straight in his face, cutting off any chance he has to scream. The burning liquid pours down his throat, searing his tongue and immediately burning out his eyes. They melt from their sockets and are blasted into oblivion, mixing with the already bubbling and popping skin of his face. He does try to scream, even as the searing oil cooks his lips to black and his teeth grind and crack in his agony.

  I turn the tap off for a moment, eager to enjoy his torment.

  Sheila is pressed against the far side of the vat, wailing like a child as she watches the oil burn away her man’s beautiful face. This all only takes moments, and he staggers back, clutching at his eye sockets, oblivious to the absence of his eyeballs, it seems. The skin of his face bubbles between his clenching fingers, running down from between his knuckles. Sheila tries to wrap her arms around him, but in his pain-fuelled madness he lashes out at her. The woman he loves catches a clawing hand in her face. It rakes deep furrows across her smooth cheek. She falls back, tasting a pain of her own.

  Curt is mumbling through the devastation of his visage. He sounds much like they all do. He’s no more a man now. He’s a child, hurting and helpless and begging for a quick death which is not about to transpire. He falls to the cold metal floor where he quivers and twitches – shock and agony dehumanizing him in a manner that I find most heartening.

  I grab the nozzle and aim lower, turning the tap once more as I do so.

  His twitching and writhing increase greatly, as the scalding oil coats his sizable member and it rapidly loses all shape and form. His testicles swell and burst like rotten eggs as the liquid eats away at his skin. Curt’s once beautiful and enviable manhood cooks and sizzles in the fat. Hot steam rises from the blistering wound between his legs.

  I lean forward to breathe in the aroma.

  There is no other scent quite like it.

  In that moment, I admonish myself for being so selfish. I have a job to do.

  I sigh to myself, take one last look at Sheila, and point the nozzle to the vats floor.

  I turn it on full power.

  I’m oblivious to Sheila’s ear-piercing wails as the hot fat burns away at her feet and up the soft contours of her calves.

  I see Curt submerge in the hot, devouring oil. He is dead long before he has a chance to drown in the thick, viscous soup, and I find I couldn’t care less.

  My mind is elsewhere, caught in the throes of remembrance.

  I'm travelling back in time to another immolation of sorts.

  The one that started it all.

  I come back to my senses, shocked to find that I've missed the last few minutes of Sheila’s preparation. I’m unsure if the screams that rattle around my head are those of my captive, or of my long-dead mother, come back to haunt my waking thoughts.

  The oil is up to her chin now. Not that she is standing. She has fallen to her knees and is howling like a banshee. Her porcelain skin is a red mass of angry, expanding and bursting boils. The oil itself has co-mingled with bits and pieces from my guests.

  It would make for a fine gravy, were it not so calorific.

  Sheila’s head remains above the oil. She must possess enormous and formidable character to have survived the trauma of her ordeal thus far.

  Such a fine specimen of womanhood.

  Shaking my head in admiration, I climb back down the ladder, get on my hands and knees, and reach under the vat for the stopper located at its centre.

  I pull it out and the oil begins to flow, ever so slowly, down the drain beneath and into forevermore.

  I climb back up in time to see the last of it drain away, leaving my guests high and dry.

  Sheila is still kicking.


  All the better.

  Her ordeal is far from over.

  Its past midnight now, and all the guests are sound asleep, comfortable in the knowledge that they sleep under a safe and watchful sky. The stars sprinkling the night seem to shiver and wane as soft, dark clouds pass over the Pacific moon.

  All is quiet.

  Sheila is well beyond verbal protestation of any kind.

  I use the lever to tilt the vat horizontally, and with no small amount of effort, I lay her blistering, naked form out on the trolley and move her through the basement’s entrance space and into second kitchen, located behind the sliding metal door. The wheels of the trolley emanate a high-pitched squeak as I push her along and I mentally take not that it may be long past time to invest in a new trolley for such a purpose.

  Sheila twitches sporadically as we make the short journey. She reaches towards me with trembling, badly burnt hands in what I can only assume is a gesture of supplication, her pretty fingernails are black as coal. Her eyes roll in her head, the luminous green of her orbs flicker like ethereal candles as she fights to remain conscious. By the halfway mark they have rolled back into her head, resembling boiled eggs pushed into human skin. She still looks beautiful. I wonder if she will remain in this state, but as soon as I complete my thought, her vision returns and those green, emerald wonders plead to me with deafening silence.

  Such a beautiful girl.

  Such a shame.

  I must say, I’m heartened that she has shown as much strength as she has thus far. Her face remains completely unharmed, save for the wounds Curt dealt. The burns she has suffered in the boiling vat reach only as far as an inch or two above her breasts. It makes for a unique and pleasing contrast – the soft, milky hue of her neckline tempered by the angry, bubbling mess below. I pinch her cooking nipples hard, savoring the feel of them as they ooze warm blood.

  I look over the ruined landscape of her body.

  The skin shifts and slides almost imperceptibly as the trolley trundles over the basement’s rough concrete floor, looking as though it may slough off her muscles at any moment like the skin from a cooked chicken. I silently hope that this is not the case.

  Not yet.

  Stopping in front of the metal doors, I pull the lever hard. The dank basement transforms, with a brilliant white light that pours from the kitchen area, chasing away the shadows and betraying the trail of blood that resides in the trolleys wake.

  Huffing at the mess, I push her into the kitchen.

  It is a universe apart from the previous room, and under any circumstances would surely herald an improvement in Sheila’s situation, but she is a smart girl, and even in her shock and agony, her wide, staring eyes speak of her horrified comprehension.

  Out of the frying pan...

  She finds the strength to whip her head around as the florescent bulbs flicker and hum above, and I smile as I watch her fear thunder to new and devastating heights.

  Sheila shakes her head, as though denial of her immediate future can be eradicated by mere will alone.

  Or perhaps by a god.

  But there is no god here.

  There are knives though.

  Blades of all shape and size.

  I like to keep the lower kitchen well stocked for such an occasion.

  As Sheila’s eyes dart over the room’s apparel, her full, red lips quiver in terror.

  Her eyes fixate on the meat-cleaver.

  She whimpers when she sees the grinder.

  The tools of dissection are spotless, all for but one.

  The chainsaw, I am ashamed to say, I have neglected to clean up of late. Small chunks of flesh still cling to its sharp teeth. Blood, black and dried, spatters its blade.

  Warm piss begins to run from between Sheila’s legs, bitter smelling as it pools around her, steaming ever so slightly.

  I lower my face to the hot vapor rising from the trolley and breathe deep.

  I will miss you, Sheila.

  But I will keep a souvenir of our time together.

  I reach for the tray of scalpels, selecting a small one for ease of use.

  She shakes a great deal, but she doesn’t scream, as I remove her face for my own private collection.

  I wish I could keep those beautiful eyes, too, but they look far less handsome when I pluck them from her head. I yank hard on the jellied orbs, snapping them from their stalks as she bucks and thrashes below me.

  I leave them aside for later administrations.

  Her lips I remove with the scalpel, and eat while I work.

  Sheila dies sometime during the preparation. It’s a shame as I was truly enjoying her torment. She was strong and lasted long, but all things die, and at the end we are all food.

  For worms, for fire, or for our betters – only the fates can decide.

  I toy with her corpse only for a little while.

  I have much work to do, this fine summer night.

  An innkeeper’s work is long, and rest is hard to come by.

  At breakfast, Mr. Horne asks me to join him.

  He looks a little worse for wear and I can only wonder at the sights and sounds he has witnessed the previous night.

  Never one to wait, he took to the city while I handled the preparations in the basement. As is his usual manner, he returned early this morning, staggering into the foyer and grinning over the reception desk at me in a drunken leer. It’s been two hours since then and he has had time to freshen up – shower, shave, coax his slick hair into its usual smooth, glistening state – but still he wears the look of someone who has spent the night in a frenzy. Of what manner, I cannot guess, though I can imagine.

  At breakfast, his eyes still burn with that keen intelligence that so struck me on our first meeting, long ago. Though bloodshot and puffy, he emanates a rare intensity that is as unquenchable as it is intimidating.

  On his offer, I tentatively pull up a chair, sighing as my buttocks sink into the soft cushion. It’s been a long, long night, and I’ve yet to sleep.

  I smile my best smile, and wait, as I always do, for his determination.

  Without talking, he reaches for the stainless steel cutlery, and pushes his fork into the delicate meat. A little blood oozes over the forks prongs as he impales his meal. With the knife, he begins to cut, sawing at the morsel with a care and grace befitting a man of his standing.

  More blood, diluted almost to the point of clarity, puddles around his plate, pooling the small island of meat like a red ocean round an island of flesh.

  I lick my lips once, before catching myself and feeling shame at my animalistic behavior.

  Horne cuts himself a hearty slice of meat, and raises the fork to his mouth. I watch intently as it brushes his lips, leaving a tiny trail of red in its wake, and he begins to chew.

  His eyes find mine as he methodically grinds down the meat with his strong, well-defined jaws.

  I hold my breath.

  The moment lasts for an eternity.

  The other guests scattered around the breakfast room go about their business as usual, chatting quietly amongst themselves as they take their fill of our more traditional cuisine – sausages, pancakes, warm tea and toasted bread. They all appear content with their meal, but my concern lies only with the senator and his impeccable taste.

  After endless seconds he smiles, still chewing. His eyes close in rapt pleasure as he swallows the flesh with an audible gulp. The moan he lets out tells me all I need to know, though his words are as music to my ears.

  “It’s delicious,” he moans.

  I worry that the other guests will hear him and ask for the same dish, but my fretting in unfounded, they remain interested only in each other and in the plates before them.

  The senator takes another bite, this time dipping the soft meat in a side dish of sauce – steak Diane - that I have supplied at his behest. He groans again, his eyes rolling back in his head.

  “You have outdone yourself this time, Edward.”

  I fee
l the heat rush to my face. “Thank you, sir. The product was top quality, and I must admit to enjoying the preparation a little more than usual. My wife, however, is to be thanked for the cooking. She truly is something of a wizard in the kitchen.”

  He laughs, “That she is. You must thank her for me, Edward. Let her know that her artistry does not go unnoticed, and neither does her husband’s. You’ve served me well over the years, and none of you have let me down at any time. You always have a way of selecting the finest meats.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I can think of little else to say.

  “Don’t be coy, Edward. You have much to be proud of. Were it not for your fine establishment and your...tastes...I would have to travel overnight by private jet to secure such delicacies. Men of your ilk are few and far between on the west coast. It’s truly a most fortunate occurrence that we met.”

  “That it is, sir.”

  “What’s more, I know I can trust you. And as your taste for the finer things in life is clearly matched by your ferocious hatred for the poor and the unfortunate, you’ll make a valuable member to the society.”

  “You really think so?” I ask, aware that I sound far too giddy to maintain any professional pretence.

  “Absolutely! There’s a whole world of wonders out there, Edward...a whole world of pleasures and practices that can only be engaged by the select few. You have all the characteristics to rise to great heights – the drive, the cruelty, the bloodlust,” he takes another bite, “The depravity.”

  “I do my best.”

  “Then your best is most assuredly good enough. In fact, I think it’s time we brought you a little closer to home.”

  “Sir?” I ask, at a loss as to his meaning.

  “Perhaps it’s time you spread your wings. Leave this inn behind. Let it fall into capable hands. Hands we will supply, of course. Your skills are wasted here. I predict a bright future for you and your Ruth. One that's far from small inns and this...” Senator Horne waves his hand dismissively at the clientele surrounding us. “This rabble.”