Meet The Meat Read online

  This is the moment, I think. The moment when she starts with the hysterical babbling.

  “I’m sorry, the meat startled me. I assumed it was dead. Dinner usually is.”

  Her reaction amuses me.

  “Yeah, I guess so. I subscribe to the Japanese school of cookery. Alive is fresher. Just wait until you taste it, you’re going to love it.”

  She blanches and I feel a rush of disappointment. If this is all an act I’m gonna be so mad, I’m not gonna be responsible for what I do to her…

  “Well, it looks lovely.”

  I’m suspicious. Her eyes, pale complexion and trembling body say otherwise.

  I take a sip of my wine and she does the same. I have to admit, I’m sulking a little. I don’t want to fall into one of my black moods. I can be a bit of a wanker when I’m upset, and I don’t want to hurt Eve.

  “You have a lovely home Thomas, are we still in the city? You must have a really good job to afford a place like this if we are.”

  “We’re on the outskirts,” I say, feeling my impending black mood lift slightly. “I used to live here with my mum, but she passed away quite recently. I’ve been kind of lonely since she’s gone.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I get lonely too sometimes. What do you do for work?”

  I haven’t been asked that question for so long I’m genuinely taken aback. The women that come here don’t normally ask stuff like that. And it’s not like I get out much and socialise much so I don’t often hear it.

  “Money’s never been an issue for me and mum. Mum was loaded.”

  I neglect to tell her how. That she poisoned my very rich dad when I was very young so me and her could be together. Together together, if you catch my drift, but that’s another story. Me and Mum were close and I miss her a lot.

  “Oh. I wish I could say the same about my financial situation. I hate my job, it makes me feel like all those years studying were a complete waste of time.”

  “Well, you never have to worry about work again because I’m going to look after you from now on.”

  “That’s so kind Thomas, I’m so lucky to have you, it’s such a weight off my mind.”

  My first reaction is to think she’s being sarcastic. But she sounds so sweet I want to believe her.

  “It’s just you and me from now on. Shall I carve the meat?”

  I turn my attention to the meat. Like I say, I have laid out the torso joint on its back on a silver platter. It is twitching a bit but the eyes are closed and it is only moaning softly. It appears to be slipping in and out of consciousness. Of course, I have cut out the tongue and frozen it; the tongue is quite a delicacy. There is an apple in the meat’s mouth. I have nailed it to a cheek. It annoys me when the meat spits out the garnish. Between the twitching, blackened stumps of its legs I have stuffed it. I find that raw onions and garlic inserted into the rectum and vagina subtly flavour the meat. I haven’t made a marinade, but sometimes I like to smear the surface of the meat with my own special recipe marinade sauce before I cook it.

  Eve isn’t saying much. She’s got that funny look again, a bit green round the gills, if you know what I mean. I’m beginning to doubt her. Oh well, I figure I’ll soon find out if she’s playing me when I dish up dinner.

  “How do you like your steak? Rare, medium or well done?”

  Her mouth opens and closes silently, like a landed fish. I sigh.

  “Look, Eve, I put a lot of effort into dinner, the least you can do is try it. I didn’t have you pegged as the small minded type.”

  I stand over the meat, brandishing the carving knife in one hand and the blowtorch in the other.

  I ponder where to cut it. The breast can be nice, if they are carrying a bit of extra fat, that is. But if they’re not, the flesh there can get a bit stringy and chewy because of the mammary glands. This meat is pretty flat chested, so I discard that idea. The rump is always good, but in my humble opinion the tastiest cut is the fillet, just like it is in a cow.

  I position the knife at the sweet spot on the fleshy curve just above the hip bone and below the waist.

  I make the first cut, drawing the knife towards the spine. The blackened stumps gyrate comically. Blood spills out the gash, pooling in the silver platter. Instantly I blowtorch the cut. It’s a bit tricky, I have to be careful not to sear my fingers. The carving knife is super sharp and glides through the flesh. My aim is to remove a nice fillet steak, cooking it as I go.

  It only takes a few seconds and I have procured a perfect fillet steak for Eve. I pick up the nearest plate and slide the steak onto it, placing the knife and the blowtorch by the side of the silver platter as I do so.

  “There you are,” I say, swapping out the plate I hold for her empty one. “I hope you don’t mind rare, but trust me, it’s the only way to eat it...”

  I don’t get to finish my sentence. It would appear that Eve doesn’t like my cooking. I have to admit, she has completely caught me off guard and I’m momentarily thrown.

  She lunges for me, and in that split second I realise what she had really been doing when I’d left the room. Her intention had not been to pour us some wine, it was to take one of the many long nails I had next to the power tool. She must’ve been sitting on it the entire time, waiting for her moment.

  She flies at me with a war cry, landing on top of me so that we both tumble to the floor. I feel the most amazingly sharp, paralysing pain in my chest and realise she has stabbed me in the left shoulder with the nail. She has gone for my heart but the silly cow has missed by a long way.

  In more ways than one after this, I concede. As I lay there in a haze of pain, I realise there is no more me and Eve. It’s so over.

  She is straddling me, her fingers clawing at the nail in my chest, trying to deepen the wound, I suspect.

  This is her mistake. She should’ve kneed me in the balls, or grabbed a weapon off the table, or strangled me, or something. Anything but claw at the nail head like such a girl.

  Despite the pain I’m in, I experience no difficulty in throwing her off me and rolling on top of her. I’m a lot stronger than I look, must be all the dismembering I do.

  “You stupid bitch!” I shout into her face. “What did you go and do that for?”

  She doesn’t say anything, she just starts screaming and kicking like they all eventually do. I pin her wrists above her head and glare down at her.

  “We were going to be so good together, Eve. Why did you have to go and ruin it? All you had to do was eat your fucking dinner, is that really so much to ask?”

  Snot bubbles in her nose, and I wonder why I’ve never noticed before how ugly she is. The screaming is really starting to get on my wick. I place my hands around her neck and squeeze. Her eyes bulge and her face goes crimson and puffy. She shuts up a bit, seeing as she is now close to passing out.

  I am so mad at her for ruining the romantic mood that I don’t even want to have sex with her anymore. I hold her by the shoulders, lift her up, then bash her head against the floor. I only have to do it once and she’s out cold.

  Calmly I sit back down. I’m starving. No point in letting dinner go cold. I’ll deal with Eve afterwards.

  Except she isn’t Eve anymore. All she is to me now is a lump of meat.

  I guess my quest for true love continues.

  One Week Later:

  Sally stirs in her sleep and I watch her. She is so beautiful. All I want to do is reach out and brush the short, bleached blonde hair out of her eyes. I want to kiss those full, pink lips, the same lips that have tormented my thoughts and dreams for so long…

  Sally’s eyes open. They are wide with terrified confusion. She struggles to sit up. But of course, she can’t.

  “Hush,” I say to her, “don’t exert yourself, just try to relax.”

  “Who are you? Where am I?”

  The usual questions. Predictable. Disappointing.

  But I don’t have time for that now. I have to go downstairs to prepare the meat.
>
  Thank you for reading, dear reader. Here is the introduction and the first chapter of SUFFER HARD: AN EXTREME HORROR NOVELLA.

  DESCRIPTION: Four university students are on holiday in Cornwall. On the recommendation of the proprietor of the B and B they’re staying at, they decide to do the fifteen mile, cliff top hike to the village of Hanow.

  Unfortunately, more than a pub lunch lies in wait. The people of Hanow are seriously messed up. They like to do terrible things to tourists…

  WARNING: Sam West pulls no punches. This is extreme horror in the tradition of the hardest of the hardcore authors. If you enjoy a hefty dose of sleaze, cannibalism, murder and depravity, you’re in the right place. If you don’t, DO NOT buy this book. You WILL be offended.

  INTRODUCTION BY SAM WEST: I love extreme horror. The chances are you do too, seeing as your reading this foreword. I wanted to write a novella that played homage to a vast array of my favourite horror films that I simply don’t have the space to list here. Such as Texas Chainsaw, Hills Have Eyes, the first Wrong Turn and anything Nightmare on Elm Street, even the TV series from the 80s. Seriously, I love Freddy Kruger that much. In my humble opinion, horror should be fun. I don’t mean laugh out loud funny, I mean entertaining.

  Above all, you should have a good time, morals be damned. Because good horror, be it a book or a film, is a moral waste ground. It is a shameless exploration of our deepest, darkest fears. And let’s face it, our deeply buried, sadomasochistic desires. The second a moral message is inserted the whole thing deflates like an old party balloon and you, the reader or film goer, end up feeling dirty and cheated.

  Can you remember the reasoning behind the banning of A Clockwork Orange back in the 70s? It wasn’t because the film was violent and people got murdered and women got raped, it was because the film was violent and the perpetrators were having a good time doing it. And that, to me, is what horror is all about. Personally, when I write horror I leave my morality, my principles, and my fundamental human decency at the door. The gleefully malicious, sick and twisted side of me rocks up and do you know what? I have an absolute ball.

  I love writing this shit. I relish every last drop of blood that flows through these virtual pages, I savour the snap of breaking bones and the blood curdling cries of the tortured…

  I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  CHAPTER ONE.

  “Are you seriously fucking telling me I’ve trekked fifteen fucking miles for this?”

  “Doesn’t look too bad to me,” Craig said, not believing it for a second.

  Beth had a point, but all the same. He’d just about had it with her moaning. This was supposed to be fun.

  Note to self, he thought. Next time I invite a girl I hardly know on holiday with me, don’t. I don’t care how fucking hot she is…

  “Why don’t those two ever wait for us? They’re always like a hundred miles in front.”

  Maybe it’s because they’re sick of listening to you moan, and because there are slugs that move faster than you, Craig thought, but didn’t say.

  “Come on, they’ve stopped, they’re waiting for us to catch up.”

  Jessie and Tim had stopped at the fork in the path. Straight ahead the winding, cliff top trail continued into the far distance. Left led down into the village of Hanow.

  Above, the sky threatened rain. It had been bright sunshine five minutes ago but now the wind stirred the surrounding foliage and the sea churned angrily against the high, rocky cliff face. Jessie and Tim stood still, their bright blue, pull on macs flapping around their bodies.

  “Jeez, what a dump,” Beth moaned.

  Craig had to admit, the village wasn’t quite what he had been expecting. As far as he could see, it consisted of three tumbledown cottages. That was it.

  Jessie threw him a smile as they approached and Craig’s stomach gave a little lurch. Even after a fifteen mile trek she still looked as fresh as when they had first set off this morning. She positively glowed with happiness at being out in the great open.

  Why oh why did she have to be his best mate’s girl? Maybe, if he looked more like Tim, then he would be with her instead. Tim was over six foot, broad shouldered, and in possession of dark, film star looks. Craig was too short, too blonde and too average. OK, so some chicks dug his boyish charms, but Jessie wasn’t one of them.

  And there he was, stuck with Beth the moaning ninny.

  “Pub must be down there somewhere,” Tim said. “I could murder a pint.”

  They walked in pairs down the narrow, gravel road. Of the three cottages, one was boarded up. Thick planks of wood were nailed haphazardly over the windows. But the thing that struck Craig as odd was that the planks were on the inside.

  “Bit strange this,” Tim called to Craig over his shoulder. “The old guy in the B and B said it was a village. Doesn’t look much like a village to me.”

  “Yeah,” Craig agreed, “I thought there’d be a shitload of holiday cottages here at least.”

  “Who cares, I’m starving, and my feet are killing me. If there aren’t any buses that go from this shithole back to Penzance I’m going to fucking kill you all,” Beth moaned.

  Oh, shut up, Craig thought.

  But Beth irritating him wasn’t at the forefront of his mind. Tim’s words were. He was right. Why would the old fart that had the B and B describe this place as a village when it blatantly wasn’t?

  It was just a bit weird. It made him uneasy, but he couldn’t say why.

  The road veered off to the left, taking them down into the heart of the village. If it could be called that. Craig figured it must be the centre because the pub was here. Just a pub. Nothing else. Nothing else except for wilderness, that is.

  “See, there’s a pub,” he said to Beth. “How bad can it be?”

  She just glared at him.

  Craig noticed that her mascara had run and her foundation had settled into orange patches on her skin. He wondered why she had bothered with makeup in the first place. Jessie hadn’t. But then, Jessie didn’t wear much of the stuff in the first place. Jessie didn’t need to. Beth, on the other hand, wouldn’t be seen dead without a full face of porn-staresque slap.

  “It’s so pretty,” Jessie sighed. “I wish I lived in a place like this.”

  “You’re kidding me right?” Beth grumbled. “I’d rather fucking die.”

  That can be arranged, Craig thought uncharitably, then immediately felt guilty. He figured he was just tired and hungry. And fucking desperate for a pint.

  They stopped in front of the pub. It was a long, squat building. The faded sign nailed to the stone wall proclaimed it to be ‘The Dirty Swallow.’

  “Let’s hope they’re still doing lunch,” Tim said, pushing open the single door. “Or they serve dinner early.”

  “Amen to that,” Beth said, hot on his tail.

  Jessie, however, didn’t move. She stood staring up at the pub sign, her pale eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

  “What’s the matter?” Craig asked.

  She turned to look at him and he felt his heart kick. She really was quite beautiful, even if not in an obvious way. Her jaw was too square and her pale lashed, grey eyes were too far set above the slightly too long nose to be considered conventionally beautiful. But to Craig, she was perfect. Absently she brushed a strand of natural, pale blonde hair off her equally pale forehead that had escaped the hairband.

  “It’s a funny name for a pub, don’t you think,” she said, turning her attention back to the sign.

  Craig shrugged. “I guess.”

  “I don’t know, it’s just, strange.” She grinned. “Hey, ignore me, shall we go in?”

  Craig felt the first raindrop land in his eye.

  “After you,” he said, holding open the door for her.

  It was dark inside. Once Craig’s eyes adjusted he took in his new surroundings. Everything inside was wood. Black wood. The floor, the bar, the long tables and benches, even the ceiling.

/>   Tim and Beth were already at the bar.

  The four of them were the only customers in there.

  “Do you have a wine list?” Beth was asking the old lady behind the chest height bar.

  Craig cringed.

  Oh Jeez Louise…

  The old woman shook her head. When Craig drew closer he realised she wasn’t that old. She was stooped, and had obviously dyed blonde hair pulled up in a bun. On second glance she looked nearer fifty than eighty. Her mouth looked sunken from lack of front teeth, maybe that was what made her look so ancient.

  “Well, I’ll have a pint of bitter. Better make that two,” Tim said, nodding towards Craig. “Jessie? What would you like?”

  “Just an orange juice thanks.”

  “Me too,” Beth added. “With a double vodka, seeing as the staff here wouldn’t know a decent wine if it came up and bit them on the…”

  “Beth!” Craig snapped. “Come and sit down with me, let Tim bring the drinks over.”

  Craig was mad at her. Why couldn’t she behave like Jessie? He hadn’t known she was this bad.

  Well, he hardly knew her at all, not really. All he knew was she liked having her tits sucked when she rode him, she took her coffee black and she listened to the kind of crappy, boy band pop music that made him want to kill himself.

  Shit, he should’ve dumped her for that alone, not invited her away on holiday with them. But Tim had kept on and on with the, ‘you gotta bring someone.’ So he had.

  What a huge fucking mistake.

  “I’ve got blisters on my fucking blisters,” she moaned, kicking off a brown walking boot to massage her foot.

  He studied her face. How did he ever think she was cute? Her features were all scrunched up, kind of reminding him of a gerbil. Her nose was short and snub, her eyes small and close set and her mouth narrow. Her chin was weak and without makeup, or in this case, with smudged makeup, she was amazingly plain. Her roots needed doing too, he duly noted. There was a dark line along the parting of her long blonde hair.