The Beasts of Acherontac

Acherontac was a coastal village with warm, breezy summers, warm, breezy winters, and other seasons different only in name. I say ‘was’ because it’s no longer a coastal village. What it is now I will explain through a brief tale that, as peculiar as it may sound, is entirely true.

As a place of predominately higher class folk, Acherontac was not a place of wanting, of need, of disparity, or any kind of thing commonly attributed to places of greater density and lower incomes. The particulars to the kind of folk in the village, or the town, or whatever classification it may have had, are unimportant. They were a happy bunch, and through the convenience of small town simplicity, everyone knew everyone.

Early one morning, it was a weekday, past the fashionable and elaborate houses on one of the vibrant, sunny, tree-lined roads sped a green convertible, its top down, the handsome driver’s sleek black hair blowing in the wind.

“Another beautiful day,” said the driver. “Like all days. Sunshine, ocean breeze, palm tree smells, beached sea shells. Glory, glory, glory!” And  he smiled like he smiled every day. “But something does distinguish this day from all others.” But because he was talking only to himself, he didn’t bother to elaborate on what set this day apart from the others.

He pounded his foot on the brake, and the car skidded to a halt no more than a foot from a slow crawling turtle, making its way from one side of the road to the other. The driver jumped out, and hurried to the wee beast.

“Let me help you! Here!” He picked up the creature, a beautiful color of blooming sprouts and mossy creek beds, hard, stoic, and unafraid. As he carried the magnificent turtle to the grass at the edge of a woodland across the street, he cocked his head, bent over, his ear to the shell, and spoke. “Come again?” In a moment he looked to the modest house on the other side of the street, to see a young, limber man climbing into his car.

It was no fancy automobile, unexceptional in every way, the preferred vehicle of a regular man who, himself, was considerably unexceptional except for his exceptionally low income, a distinguishing feature in Acherontac.

“Him?” muttered the black-haired gentleman, looking at the turtle. “He’s the one?” He turned again to the man, who was already in his car, on his way to work. “I know him. That’s Francis Vanosdale. He works where I work! Fantastic!” And he set the turtle down, hopped back in his convertible, and was on his way.

Francis Vanosdale worked as a cook at Cuyler Biscuit High School. Although not highly trained in the culinary discipline, he made a competent griller and roaster under the apprenticeship of higher ranking cafeteria chefs. Unlike other schools in Francis’s little town, the high school had its own fishery, butchery, and fresh produce section. Students feasting on delicacies like squid and shark were not unheard of in this coastal town high school.

While walking from his car to the school, Francis was accosted by a bumblebee that swerved by his head, then hovered maliciously before him.

            “Then I will walk around you,” said Francis, not in the mood to play.

            But the bumblebee hovered defiantly, courageous in the face of a man a hundred thousand times its mass, moving to cut off Francis’s path.

            “I, too, will stand my ground.” Francis pulled out his car keys, jingled them, and grimaced at the bee. He could see there was no way out of this.

            A second bumblebee joined the first. What had seemed a joke now seemed a situation worth worry.

            “Are you the clothed guardian of the beasts?” asked the first bee. The voice, as one might expect, was tinted with the rattle of a bee’s buzz, but with an articulation not often attributed to animals.

            Francis shook his head. “Absolutely not. I don’t know what that is.”

            “He looks the part,” said the second bee, moving up and down as he hovered.

            “Why do you talk? You are bees.”

            “Bees talk like everything else talks. Stop with the questions and answer ours.”

            “I answered you. I’m no guardian of any beasts.”

            The bees looked at one another, an act very difficult to notice because of their tiny heads, then back at Francis.

            “I’m going to sting you,” said the first bee, “but don’t be alarmed. Not the sort of sting that would kill me, or harm you. Just a prick. When you’re ready to play your part, come back to us.” And the bee flew at Francis, who swung at it, ran from it, and finally fell to the ground two feet from the front door of the school, before a sudden prick pierced his forearm.

            “We’ll be around,” said the bee, as it flew away. The other followed.

            Francis rubbed his arm, stood up, and walked inside.

“Francis,” clamored a big pink woman with a hairnet, as the chap entered the cafeteria. “You work in butchery today. It’s your big day, sailor. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds just fine, Margy,” he answered, his arm throbbing. He didn’t care for being called sailor, but in a coastal town, a sailor was a hero. He knew it was a compliment, or at the least, a term of endearment. He would tolerate it. The butchery! He’d looked forward to this day for some time. 

“Come back, let me show you how to butcher these things. Gotta get you sharp and quick on this butchery thing so’s for tomorrow night’s big thing. You know, with the parents.” Margy took Francis into the butchery and spent the morning training him to be the finest butcher in the cafeteria, cutting up animals of all shapes and sizes. As he practiced his meat-cutting through the day, he was given ample time to let his mind wander and wonder, softly massaging thoughts and ponderings that he could not entertain in busier hours. To his own curiosity, Francis found that he wasn’t at all perplexed by the bumblebees who spoke to him outside, and found it only to be a strange confirmation of something he’d always suspected: beasts must communicate, somehow.

Noontime rolled in, and with it, lunch. The cafeteria filled with teenagers of all shapes and sizes, boy and girl, short and tall, such a diversity of color and culture, and cliques of every kind. As Francis worked away in the butchery, slicing meat from the bones of recently killed animals, fresh for the students of Cuyler Biscuit High School, he gazed out the wide butchery window into the open cafeteria, and observed the young academics, listened to their learned conversations, explored their tiny worlds from his vantage point. Having perfected the art of butchery in a single morning, such was his talent with food craft, he was able to lend his mind to the goings on of the many pupils before him, as some awaited their meals, and others stuffed their faces, and almost all spent the hour chatting up storms of adolescent ideation.

“Pastor Pete’s sermon was something else, wasn’t it?” said Farrah, a blonde girl of fifteen, gleeful with her friends at the far corner table. “Chapter twenty-six of Leviticus always gets me!”

“Verse twenty-nine is such a chiller!” cried Hooten, a puritan boy with no shortage of charm and moral fortitude. “But the whole book is one of the finest in the Bible.”

Only a few tables away was a clique of tough looking sophomores and juniors in camouflaged pants and camouflaged hats discussing deer they’d shot over the weekend. A ten point buck, one of them! Josh, a boy of woodland upbringing with a heart for hunting, bit into his deer-steak sandwich. “Still bloody!” he was heard to yell with a laugh. “Teeth like knives, like bullets through skin!”

Brody, Josh’s best friend, highest mate, most honored colleague, shared his five best dead animal jokes with the table, each being met with roars of laughter.

The boys exchanged photos of their latest kills, and admired the bloody work of their peers. Each boy’s pose in each photo was a sign of masculine power unquestionable.

“This is a safe space,” said a shrieking girl’s voice on the other side of the cafeteria. She was surrounded by six more girls, each with a glow in the eyes and a furl at the mouth exemplary of youthful angst, most of them with short, dyed hair, some with makeup splashed freely over their cheeks and eyelids. “Say whatever you want to get off your chest, Isabella.”

“Thanks Angelle,” said a red-haired girl of seventeen. She rolled her eyes and spoke slowly a tale of unwanted sexual attention from a male classmate in third period Economics. Her eyes became wet as she explained her self-conscious imprisonment in his sexual glare, how he non-verbally, non-physically, but psychologically, via a simple stare, brought her to her knees, and simultaneously, to tears. She warned her girlfriends the story would be full of potential triggers, and that all who might break into cold sweats or seizures at the mere suggestion of eye-rape should close off their ears to the horrific meat of her story.

            Cries of “creep!” and “you’re safe, sister,” and “someone gut that fucker!” exploded from feminine mouths around her, in shows of support and rage and social justice etiquette. At least two remarks about sexism and the patriarchy were heard to come from the same mouths, and Angelle hugged Isabella to comfort her in her time of shock.

            “I know that boy,” said a girl named Shryla. “He continues to refer to me as a ‘she’, instead of ‘he’, as I am rightfully addressed.” Although Shryla was a girl, with all the biological evidence to verify it, she identified, on some mythic level, as a boy, and preferred the appropriately gendered pronoun. No one knew this, of course, besides her immediate group of friends within her feminist circle. And no one cared, except her immediate group of friends in her feminist circle, because it was irrelevant. But for the rest of the lunch period the group raised their voices with fervent tone to protest the use of words, to verbally fight the collage of –isms being perpetrated to their constant dismay, and to mourn a world that existed outside their safe space fiction of ideological purity.

            Francis watched the teenagers in the cafeteria, the many young bodies and minds dragged through the paltry tribulations of late childhood, cursed with hormones and neurons that knew not how to handle the slow trot to adulthood. He continued to cut the lifeless animals before him, his head a thoughtless void. He looked on.

            “He hung up and never called back!” complained a brown-haired girl of eighteen, Jossette, a senior whose stories of romantic drama were rivaled only by her stories of violence and behavioral disorders. She sat with her group of popular friends at a large round table in the center of the cafeteria. “Just ‘cause Anthony was on my bed and Timber was in my bathroom, Hitty wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with me for the rest of the night!” Her stories certainly were compelling tales of drama on par with the most watched soap operas of the day, and her friends hung on every word, as their lunches were enriched by the flavor and fervor of Jossette’s talk.

            “The woman was an icon of individualism, not of socialism or communism,” squeaked a lad of eighteen a few tables away, named Tord, president of the school’s Communists and Socialists Club, and a self-confirmed intellectual of the highest degree. “What she pushed for, what she fought for, was not for the dictatorship of the proletariat. She was a devout capitalist and a pig. Bourgeois through and through. Against democratic centralism entirely, and should be regarded as an enemy.”

            Glasses of milk and orange juice were raised in cheers and agreement to Tord’s intellectually stimulating analysis of someone Francis would never care about.

            What Francis found himself caring about was that not a soul in the cafeteria was mentioning the school-wide field trip taking place the very next day. A trip to Washington D.C. for all Freshman through Seniors! What a thrill! Francis remembered his own field trip to Washington D.C., and while he hated it at the time, he looked back on it fondly with warm memories. These children, thought he, are not appreciative of this opportunity for travel and exposure to the nation’s history! What Francis would have given to be a teen again, to be in their positions, with no honest or important cares in the world, with the sense of entitlement and selfishness flowing heavily through every avenue of his life.

            The insipid talk from every corner and table of the cafeteria lulled Francis into his daily daze. The cesspool of humanity, he thought, is found in the high school. Mine was no different. All base humankind dwells here, lays barely active below a residue of drudgery. But these are only children, he reflected. Kids will be kids. Someday they’ll grow old and hate themselves for what they were.

            Francis cut his misanthropy short with a quick reminder of his place in the world and his serving a higher calling. It is not that he considered butchery, or food preparation, to be a higher calling, but he thought that feeding school children had an admirable, humble, almost saintly quality to it. And saintly qualities, I now reveal, were things Francis was fond of. For Francis, see, as a boy, was a Christian. And though it would be a stretch to call him presently religious, he was at least appreciative of these religious ideas instilled in him early on. It would be an even further stretch to say he was a man of strong faith, because he had very little of it. And in some stories which romanticize religion, or the faith of a man, this is seen as a very important point in a character, and as an obstacle to overcome, as though lack of faith were a flaw. In Francis’s case, this weak and barely-present thread of religious faith was no flaw, but a necessary attribute so that the story I am telling might unfold precisely as it did.

            The black-haired gentleman we encountered earlier in the story made his way into the cafeteria about halfway through the lunch period. He smiled as he walked, for he was a man of great status in the school, looked up to by all not only because his incredible posture elevated him many inches over most adolescent heads, but because he was genuinely charming and intelligent and fun to be around in the right circumstances, despite his simultaneously imposing and sometimes confusing nature. This sort of awe and admiration is not typically reserved for guidance counselors, but for gym teachers, principals, softball coaches, and the rare home –ec teacher.

            “Francis!” said the black-haired stallion of a man, his voice a pitch-perfect representation of what Francis thought angels might sound like. “I saw you this morning! On your way to work. Meant to say hello, but gosh darnit, you’d already hopped in your car and driven off!”

            “Oh, Mr. Toilink. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you! What would you like today?”

            “You know me, the usual. And it’s alright, Mr. Vanosdale. I’d like to talk to you later, if that’s alright.”

            Francis was, by now, serving food to those in line with their trays, and he scooped potatoes, carrots, peas, and assorted fruits onto the black-haired man’s tray. “That’s alright with me. When is good for you?”

            “How about right after sixth period?”

            Francis nodded, and offered the man a slice of ham. The man laughed, waved his hands, shook his head, and joked with Francis, before finally taking his tray to eat his delicious vegetables and fruits.

            The rest of the day moved forward without a hitch, without a drop of interesting things or events worth reporting, so let us jump forward to right after sixth period, where things once more become interesting and worth talking about.

            “Francis!” exclaimed Mr. Toilink, as Francis walked into his office. “Sit down, sit down! Good to see you, glad you could make it, really excited to speak with you.”

            Francis sat, and crossed his legs as he knew to do when speaking to a distinguished gentleman.

            “I asked you here because, oh--” Mr. Toilink looked at his watch. “I have another meeting in just a few moments. And depending upon your answers here, I might like you to join me there.”

            “Sure. Whatever you--”

            But Mr. Toilink was in no mood to waste time. “Francis Vanosdale, I’ve asked you hear to—and I’m going to cut to the chase, as they say in idioms—to ask you if you’ve ever considered devil worship, the praise and hailing of Satan, dark lord, purveyor of truth. Be honest with me.”

            Befuddled, confused, most of all worried, Francis shook his head, eyes wide in horror, and said, “No! No, certainly not! Who says I have?”

            “No one, don’t you worry. I’m simply asking if you’ve considered it. And if not, then, if you would consider considering it. For me. For us.”

            “For you? And who?”

            “Primarily for them. For, eh… the beasts. Well, once you agree to it, or rather, once you consider it, then I can let you meet the beasts to see if you’d be open to helping them out. Helping us out.”

            Francis didn’t know what to make of any of this. “I don’t know what to make of any of this,” he said.

            “Right. Understood. I thought this might be the case. So, it looks like I’ve got to get to that other meeting. Would you mind coming?”

            “A meeting with—with the beasts?”

            “Haha! No, sir. Just the other teachers. We have meetings like this every week. Godawful, they are. So, I take it that you are a religious man, Francis.”

            “Not entirely, though I do believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and--”

            “Yes, I thought as much. What if I could convince you that’s all rubbish, a waste of time, and that there was, indeed, a better path to take, that was more fulfilling and spiritual and in harmony with nature and the cosmic everything?”

            “It would take something awfully impressive to convince me, although I admit my faith isn’t the strongest.”

            His faith isn’t the strongest, repeated Mr. Toilink, in his mind’s ear. This was music to his mind’s ears. “Very good! Come with me. The faculty are of course meeting to discuss the school trip to Washington D.C. tomorrow. It’s imperative that I pull you to the right side before this trip.”

            And so, Francis joined the black-haired gentleman at the faculty meeting, wherein the Washington D.C. trip was discussed at length. Many in the room seemed pleased for the field trip to be right around the corner, as it meant they had a week off work. Others were less pleased, since they would chaperone the trip, overseeing the multitude of teens in heat for four days in Washington D.C., a task they had pulled short straws for. But all seemed appreciative of the opportunity this field trip granted not only to the students, but, as some considered more important, to the parents of said students. Smiles and chuckles were shared around the room, hinting at fabulous goings-on in the day to come. Francis was not let in on what this fabulous going-on might be, but found that he didn’t care. The pink woman in the cafeteria had mentioned something about ‘tomorrow night’s big thing.’ But this was not at the front of Francis’s mind. 

A woman of elderly face and ancient voice spoke up, curtailing the conversation from one of minorly important interest, to one of only personal interest, to herself. As her story carried on, Francis wondered why he’d been pulled in here. He looked at Mr. Toilink who was still smiling, and, when their eyes met, Toilink gave him a thumbs-up. This let Francis know things were still going well, which was not his opinion of things.

            By the end of the old woman’s tale—an utterly unrepeatable story of her first trip to Washington D.C. in 1933, so full of futility and impossibility that most wondered at the authenticity of many details—the room was in something of a fit of discussion over why no one had stopped her talking forty minutes earlier.

            When one daring man, Principal Gallhofter, questioned the old woman as to the authenticity of her tale, she stood up and begged to be presented with a Bible so that she could swear on it to her story’s truthfulness. Francis noticed that this seemingly uninteresting development had excited Mr. Toilink, who improved his already nearly flawless posture, and lit up in the cheeks with a smile that was contagious like the gravest of plagues.

            “Gimme that Bible,” said the old woman. Francis knew not what she taught in the school, but he thought her class must be wretched.

            As soon as she had sworn on the Bible that no detail of her story was false, and that everything she had spent nearly an hour telling was true, Mr. Toilink stood from his chair. He faced Francis as he walked toward the old woman.

            “Let me show you something interesting,” he said, seeming to address the whole room. “You might find it remarkable.”

            He took the Bible from the old woman as she sat down, and placed his hand upon it.

            “Someone do the oath thing. The thing you just said for her. Do it.”

            “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” asked Principal Gallhofter.

            “I do.”

            “What is your full name?” This had been asked of the old woman as well, and it merely served to established a basis of trust in the oath-taker and the oath-giver, to show that things were working as they should, and that the Holy Book was keeping everyone in line with honesty. But Mr. Toilink’s reply was unexpected.

            “Flamboyant Felicity,” he said.

            The room was aghast, for everyone present knew for a fact the man’s name to be Bard Toilink. Hands covered mouths, eyes split wide, few fainted, and mutterings of dismay were heard all around.

            “See that?” said the black-haired Bard.

            “Good lord…” said the principal, and it is safe to say this was the sentiment shared by everyone in the room that day.

            “I lied under oath. Remarkable, isn’t it? It can be done by anyone.” Bard looked piercingly into Francis’s eyes, and smiled with contagion. “So clearly have my contradictions to lawful and holy expectations ruined everything mankind has ever held sacred that it would surprise me if any shred of faith remains among you.”

            Bard’s discovery and evidence stood up to scrutiny, and none were able to find a hole in his presentation. Instead, a gaping hole was found in the oldest practice and tradition of Acherontac’s legal system. Understandably, many were worried. Even more serious was the hole this act of defiance drilled into the theoretical power of God the Almighty. “So help you God!” The final words of the oath, signaling severe punishment to any who lie. And yet, not a lash upon Bard Toilink had been brushed by any hint of punishment or danger. He stood defiantly before the faculty, unharmed by the genocidal hand of God.

            As witness to an act he agreed was remarkable, and yet, impossible according to what he knew of holy and human law, Francis’s faith was vanquished. As all Christians are taught from birth, he was aware of the duality of gods, of the god of light and Heaven, and the god of darkness and Hell. Knowing now of Yahweh’s feebleness and worthlessness, he was left with but one choice. He turned then, in that dark moment of doubt and questioning, to a sinister form in the deep of his mind. Primeval nature tore itself free inside his spirit, and coursed through his veins, his cells, his loins. Deeper passions arose within him, and as holy light was eclipsed from his pure heart, he found himself lured to the worship of a deity named Lucifer. As sudden as the shadow falls upon Transylvania, all was right in Francis’s mind. Black blood filled his heart.

            It was raining as Francis walked to his car outside the school, and Bard approached him, holding an umbrella.

            “Vanosdale, my man! How you doing?”

            Francis, soaked, turned to the black-haired Bard. “I lie defeated before you. All that I believed has been crushed into dust, and you now hold dominion over me, dark lord.”

            “Oh stop it! I’m no dark lord. Don’t act like I did any of that. You weren’t one so bogged down by this religion stuff, anyway. Not the strongest faith, you said. I’m just a helper. A guy to bring you to where you belong. You don’t know it, but you’re The One we need.”

            “We? The beasts?”

            “Yes! Yes! Francis, you’re sharp. I saw the Luciferion light shining from within you the first day I met you. Now it’s brighter than ever.”

            “I’m really very wet right now, and I’d like to know what all this is about so that I can go home and take a bath.”

            Bard held his umbrella over Francis and apologized for his thoughtlessness. “I’ll tell you what this is all about and bore you to death, or I’ll show you and really get you excited.”

            “I don’t have time for you to show me anything else. I really must be going. I have to be back here very early in the morning.”

            It was then the same two bumblebees from the morning showed up, unaffected by the downpour, bumbling their words to Francis.

            “You are the clothed guardian of the beasts!” said one. “Didn't I tell you?”

           The other agreed, still floating up and down like a bouncing ball. “You certainly are! Welcome aboard!”

            “He’s well on his way, little ones,” said Bard. “But the boy could probably use the proper encouragement, don’t you think?”

            “Oh yes, oh yes!” the first bumblebee cried. “Follow us!” And he and his comrade bee flew away, much faster than Francis was willing to walk. But it was of no matter to him, for he wished only to go home.

            “I really don’t want to,” he said.

            “Trust me!” Bard interjected. “If it’s all for nothing, then fine. I’ll give you eighteen dollars tomorrow.”

            For eighteen dollars Francis could buy at least one thing he liked, he was sure. He agreed, and with Bard at his side, and an umbrella above his head, he followed the bees.

            They led him into the thick forest behind the school, a deep wood of megacosm, slick greenery glistening with raindrops, where the living heart of primal individuality pumped with heavy rhythm. Francis found the aspect awe-inspiring, a magnificent splendor he could not take in fast enough. Every drop of rain, every living thing he found surrounding him, began to affect him. Soon the forest seemed to present to Francis an auditorium of vines and branches, which, as he walked into it, closed upon him, encircling him as Venus on a fly.

            The bumblebees sat perched atop a prehistoric looking tree, and a rabbit, a deer, a bear, an assortment of birds, a congregation of reptiles, a mass of bugs and spiders approached young Francis in his captivity.

            “I’ll stand over here,” said Bard, holding his umbrella above him just feet away. He smiled at Francis, though it seemed he had never really stopped.

            “This will be short,” said the deer.

            A caterpillar crawled into Francis’s nose, a frog climbed into his left ear, and a snake so long it could tie its body around a flagpole and still have room to play jump-rope with unknowing children slithered into his right ear.

            The vines tightened around Francis’s body and plugged his mouth. With that, the very spirit of the forest, of the sky, and of the sea swept into Francis and overtook his mind, his emotions, his senses, and his entire awareness.

            For seconds that seemed like days, he was wrought with a dread unmatched in humanity save those unfortunate victims of holocausts, those victims of slavery, those victims of grave injustice and massacre.

            The claustrophobic reality of beasts in dire and unnatural conditions became a cave around Francis, a dark vestibule to torture, where parts of his body were carved out, his senses doubled over in agony, and hairs were plucked from him, marks were burned into him, and lacerations covered him. Unable to scream, unable to breathe, unable to cry, to moan, to move, to think, to quell thirst or hunger, Francis was helpless, experiencing nature’s unmitigated phantasm as changed and deformed and ruined through the plague-wielding acts of a “chosen race.” His body boiled, and he wished he could free himself, or that he could at least cry out for death.  His lungs imploded with suffocation, his mouth burned with the sting of fire, his throat sizzled with the melting of acid.

            He wanted to close his eyes, but they were held open by unseen forces as he watched his own body devoured by the “chosen race,” and he was aware of every strike and cut and burn and poke applied to him. His bones were used as tools, his flesh turned into a tent, his eyeballs turned into glue, his organs divided and used for entertainment. Further scenes and sensations of unspeakable horror befell him before the very umbra of nature released him from its grasp.

            On hands and knees, Francis spit and coughed and cried into the forest floor, cursing what he had seen and felt. The caterpillar fell from his nose, the frog and snake crawled out of his ears. Bard still stood, umbrella overhead, smiling. The rain now made no difference to Francis, so covered in dirt and the raw sewage of memory was he. But he found himself unharmed, whole, without scar or burn or pain. And it was then he looked up from the forest floor at the creatures surrounding him, and whispered, “I want to go home.”

            Go home he did, and for the rest of the evening he suffered great episodes of shattering philosophy, ruined pride, and became a thing unlike the thing he had so long been. He was new. And he fell asleep with ease.

            Francis awoke after three hours with seething hatred. The intensity of his hatred combined with his inability to chain it down into a manageable rumble kept him awake for hours. As he lied in bed he focused his burning ire on the singular entity responsible for such feelings, and pictured wanton acts of violence against the entity, seeing with vivid clarity the cruelty he could one day commit. The grandeur and beauty of these acts thrilled Francis as no thought ever had. Sleep would not return. The shape and the name of this entity was at first nothing but an obscure cloud. Over the next sleepless hours, this cloud took the shape of something concrete, and assumed the name ‘humanity.’

            Fatigued and anxious, Francis paced his bedroom. The sun would not be up for hours. The way the moonlight cast shadows through his windows reminded him of childhood night terrors, as he would lie frozen in bed, delta sleep interrupted, and stare helplessly at shapes of darkness dancing along his wall, invisible arms holding him to his bed. These shapes, now, though he understood their nature, were ominous, augural horrors pulled from the mind to the floor and the wall. Slowly crept the moon toward the horizon while he watched the shadows change. The creeping transformation of each shadow into some new thing painted an infinite canvass of dread where neurons lived and died. Overwrought and restless, Francis left his home. He returned to the woods behind the school.

            In the moonlit growth of trees and leaves and vines, a skunk lied curled in a ball. It awoke, and spoke to Francis.

            “We knew you’d return to us. We’ve been so very hungry.”

            The deer and the rabbit from before appeared, out of a dense patch of trees. “So very nice to see you, Francis,” said the deer. “With our treaties we have all begun to starve. Have you returned to help us?”

            Before Francis could answer, a human voice flew through the foliage. And human voices were very distinct from animal voices, since animal voices, you would be right to conjecture, sound nothing like that of a human being.

            “Yes! Good man, Francis!” It was Bard. He stomped through some rocks and fallen leaves, approaching Francis. “I followed you. Hope you don’t mind. I knew you’d come back this way, so I waited. We’re very glad you’ve come. I take it Apollyon’s guiding hand brought you back.”

            “Who is Apollyon?” asked Francis.

            “The destroyer, the angel of the bottomless pit. You might call him Satan. You know how God has three manifestations, as Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost? Well, Satan, see, takes many forms, too. Apollyon is one.”

            The buzzing wings of bumblebees could be heard behind Francis, and he turned to see the two comrades had come to greet him.

            “The treaty our deer friend spoke of,” said the first bee, “is a treaty of nature. For you see, all we beasts of the wild, small and large, have come to this agreement.”

            The second bee spoke. “For centuries it has been so that your chosen race, as they think of themselves, have been the true enemy of us all.”

            Somehow Francis knew this without being told. If it was the guiding hand of Apollyon that informed him, some light of knowledge from the bottomless pit, he did not know.

            “We have allied ourselves against the common enemy of beast,” said the rabbit. “Mankind.”

            Bard was smiling bigger than ever, and although its contagious nature had never before caused a smile to take form on Francis’s face, the young Vanosdale found himself drawn to smile at the prospect here shared with him.

            “The deity of man of course has but one true enemy,” said Bard. “The deity of beasts. Satan, Lucifer, the prince of darkness. Call him what you will, he is the spirit of truth.”

            Again, Francis found that he knew this without being told. Whether it was the King of Abaddon himself planting the knowledge in his mind, he could no clearer say than if it was the Mephistopheles spirit pushing him into glorious rays of kingly wisdom. He simply knew it to be true.

            “War was declared long ago, between humankind and animalkind,” said the skunk. “But we did not declare it. We sat by, as victims to the onslaught. We suffered this torture as ‘lesser beings’, for the great benefit of humanity.”

“But with you on the right side,” said Bard, “the beasts can fight back. This is your time to shine. You are the bringer of justice; He Who Restores Balance.”

“The daily shipment of carcasses will arrive at Cuyler Biscuit High School in a few hours,” said the first bumblebee. “As the butcher and chef, you will hold dominion over our fallen comrades. But we, here, with the spirit of the forest, grant unto thee a Luciferion magic so fathomless in its efficacy that you will at first find it unreal. But it is very real, and you will use it as the Dark Prince tells you. You will know… You will know when, and you will know how…”

“That is to be the last shipment of carcasses,” said Bard. “Forever. And don’t worry. We will help you with everything. This isn’t a one-man job. Though you are most assuredly The One, no one expects you to do it alone.”

To his surprise, Francis was not bothered by anything said by Bard or the animals, for he knew these things to be true with a deeper certainty than he knew anything else. Despite the grim nature of what things might come, he felt a sense of importance. “I am ready to work,” he said.

Knives in hand, Francis stood before a table piled high with animal carcasses. The butchery was cold, as it had to be every morning to preserve the meat, and the sun peaked in through the cafeteria windows. The pink lady got to work taking inventory of the food shipment that had arrived moments earlier.

“Kids are gonna want breakfast before they load the buses to D.C.” she said, keeping a very close eye on the number of lunch trays stacked for early morning feasts. “Cut up them pigs and goats. The girls and I’ll get to work on the spices and the produce.”

The pink lady finished counting trays, and three other cafeteria cooks, each as old and as large as the pink one, prepared other foods for the young boys and girls of Cuyler Biscuit High. Francis eyed the animal corpses, thoughtfully.

“Morning Barb,” said Bard, walking through the cafeteria, toward the butchery, a smile on his face.

“Morning Bard,” said the pink lady, stacking lemons and oranges and apples and uncountable varieties of fruits upon fruits to feed young mouths.

“Francis, hello,” he said, entering the butchery. “My, what a stack of friends we have here.” He looked the goats and pigs and other animals up and down, his smile faded, but quickly returned as he turned to face Francis. “Let us begin, shall we?”

“Bard, you can’t be in there,” said the pink lady. “Chefs only!”

“Oh Barb, I’m afraid you’ll have to come pull me out,” Bard said, in a playful sort of way that no one else in the room was jiving with, on account of it being so early. He gave a thumbs up to Francis, and giggled.

“I mean it,” she said. “Get out. Francis has work to do. We got kids to feed this  morning. You know that!”

Bard winked at Francis.

            An hour later, students began pouring into the cafeteria,  chattering storms of gossip and opinions and emotions, filling up the tables to await the early morning breakfast and departure. It was a sea of yawns and tired eyes to Francis and Bard. There was even a hint of excitement in the faces of these young ones, perhaps finally able to appreciate what enlightening sights the field trip had in store.

            “They’re almost all here,” said Bard, helping Francis sharpen the knives. “Another ten minutes or so and they’ll start screaming for breakfast. The buses are scheduled to leave in half an hour, give or take, so everyone will be here shortly.”

            “Where are the teachers?” asked Francis. “They should be here.”

            “The teachers not going on the trip are at home. They get most of the week off, you understand. They’re hosting the big event tonight.”

            “Big--?”

            “And the other teachers, the ones going on the trip, they’re in the teacher’s lounge getting liquored up, or what have you. They won’t be showing up in here until it’s time for the buses to load. All is fine!”

            “You said something about a big event tonight.”

            “Right. Oh, that’s a very important event. It’s for the parents of the students. You’ll see. You’ll be there.”

            Francis said no more, and continued sharpening knives and other tools.

            “You remember the bee telling you about that fathomless Luciferion magic?”

            “I do.”

            “It’s about time you start using it.”

            Questionless and confident in his aspect, Francis knew instinctively what to do to initiate the blasphemous ritual. He laid the animal carcasses side by side and closed his eyes, chanting a muffled slew of primordial sounds decipherable by no one.

            A timeless energy—as meaningless as that term may seem, I assure you it is filled with puzzling significance—engulfed the butchery, and the cold became colder. A ghastly ectoplasm emerged from every animal corpse, like fire from a row of candles, reaching high to the ceiling in the room of death and festering decay. Roaring, crying spirits of slaughter merged seamlessly, fluidly, as a tornado beset by ancient misery and hatred tears through collectives of life and hope, sparing none. This occurred over a period of seconds, though timeless as it was, this duration could in no way be estimated by Francis or Bard, as the law of time forfeits itself in the shadow of Satanic providence.

            Phantasms swirled out of the butchery, into the cafeteria, spreading like wasps among the children. All entrances and exits were sealed by megaton strength, and as the situation became more bewildering, the students screamed, scattered, ran to the exits to no avail, as carcass-like entities swooped down to attack each child where they stood. As you can imagine, a scene so frightening put many students into shock, all were in tears or squirming in convulsive terror on the floor, their arms waving to fight off the overpowering spirits. The spirits were not to be stopped, and with malevolent intent, pierced the children on the legs with ghostly teeth and phantom claws, bringing every young person to the ground. Unable to run or walk, the students crawled desperately toward the doors, windows, and any exit imaginable to such young and unlearned minds. But the animal spirits left no student unharmed, and reeled them into a collection of incapacitated, screaming beings, all too aware of the danger they were in. Once fully disabled, the spirits put the children to sleep. A small student body though  it was, the process took considerable time. As the last petrified teenager was rendered unconscious, the doors were tried from outside. The teachers had arrived.

            “No worries,” said Bard. “We’ve got this under control.” He walked into the cafeteria with the swirling spirits of death close behind.

           

             The buses were called off, and the school was quiet except for the dark cafeteria, now filled with awakening, naked teenagers strapped to tables. Over the last few hours, Francis and Bard had expanded the butchery into the lunch room, for need of space.

            “They’re full of the preservative,” cried Bard, from the far side of the cafeteria.

            “What’s the preservative for?” Francis asked, setting out the knives and tools at the front of the cafeteria, where the butchery faced everything.

            “It keeps them alive and fresh, see. In the event something goes wrong, it prolongs their life. It also makes them weak. Difficult to move, to talk, to do anything. But oh, they can hear, they can see, they can feel it!”

            “Splendid!” Francis yelled.

            The students were arranged by grade level, as the men knew no better way to organize such a massive group of people. The freshmen boys and girls, naked as all others, were tied to the first six tables. Sophomores to the eight tables in the back. Juniors were strapped to a row of ten tables up front, and the seniors were crammed onto seven tables lining the far wall. Weakened by the preservative, none were able to express the true depth of their horror with screams or cries, but dampened whines and whimpers jumped from every table.

            “Hundreds of them!” Bard said, joining Francis at the front of the room. “Look at this! All naked and clean and fresh as can be.”

            The floor was inch-deep in cold water, the aftermath of Bard spraying down the students after their clothes were cut from them, to clean any impurities from their skin.

            “It’s time I begin,” said Francis, picking up two knives. He went to the tables of freshmen and got to work.

            It was difficult to cut the boys the same as the girls, because of the inconvenience of the penis being at the bottom of the torso. So the first step was to cut the penis from each boy, and where the bloody stump gushed forth a red waterfall, the knife could be inserted, so, as with the girls, a long slit up the stomach and torso could be made. With the girls, the hooked searing blade was simply inserted into the vagina, and a few sawing, tugging, rough movements allowed Francis to carve them up to the sternum. Blood spilled into the water on the floor as he cut intensely at freshman penises, sawed away at freshman vaginas, and opened up each student for further preparation.

            Hooten, the young Christian boy with a penchant for Leviticus, teared up as his penis was removed, and Francis made a few false starts while trying to carve him open, a result of him having so little experience butchering human beings. But after three or four bad starts, he got the hang of it, and rather enjoyed it as an artform.

            Farrah, the young Christian girl thrilled by sermons, trembled all over as her guts were exposed and the flesh and small layer of fat of her abdomen were spread wide. As Francis cut at her fingers and toes, he admired the smallness of female hands in comparison to male hands. He used Hooten and Farrah as specimens of fifteen year olds, the early stages of puberty, and found the differences between the two rather fascinating.

            Bard stood by, watching Francis’s workmanship with glee and incredible interest, like a young boy watching a butcher cut a hog or a lamb. He noted particulars about each student, such as Hooten’s flabby frame, and excessive fat around his stomach, and Farrah’s skinny legs not containing as much muscle or meat as he would expect a healthy girl to have. To him, and to Francis, it was a sign of a girl highly concerned with appearance.

            The butchery moved to the sophomores. Francis pierced ligaments in Josh the deer hunter’s legs, and admired the shape of his butt with Bard, who found amusement in holding a lighter beneath it until skin began to sizzle. Josh felt it all, and his screams were only internal.

            Shryla, the she who fancied herself a he, was an interesting specimen. Her spine, Bard noted, was flimsy, as if to indicate a fearful, timid personality, a young one devoid of courage. Bard could only speculate as to the implications of the spine’s qualities, and as the girl was very clearly crying the whole time Francis cut her, Bard felt his assumptions were correct. There’s no honor in crying, he noted.

            Josh’s best friend Brody was among the juniors, and his feet were severed entirely, like a few others, so that the bizarreness of stumped legs could be observed by the two men who had never seen such a thing in person. His hands were cut off and placed where his feet should have been, a thing Francis and Bard laughed at, but soon became tired of.

            Among the junior girls were Angelle and Isabella, two feminists with short dyed hair and multiple piercings. Francis cut under their breasts to compare and contrast the density in their breast meats, which was a task assuredly more interesting than it sounds. Bard commented on the barely different arrangement of guts inside Angelle’s body when compared to Isabella’s, which the two pondered over for some time, cutting little pieces off of each to taste and to examine more closely. Red fountains of life spilled down the girls, mixed with the blood of others, and joined the lake on the floor of the cafeteria. Intestines and stomachs and livers, Francis decided, were not pretty to look at. So horrified did the girls look in the face that Francis almost felt sympathy in their favor, before recalling the ectoplasm-covered animal corpses rotting in the butchery. Sympathy and food did not make peaceful bedfellows.

            The seniors were last. With age they had gained the privilege of anticipation. Fifteen year olds responded differently to pain and being cut open than did sixteen year olds, found the two servants of Satan. More fearful and prone to shock they were, though the sixteen year olds were not much better. Plenty of them defecated on themselves, like the freshmen, and urinated uncontrollably, like the juniors. It was a safe assumption, Bard had at one point said, that terror and shock manifest themselves in basically the same ways for all young people. It was time to see if the seniors, some of them eighteen years old and tiptoeing into adulthood, would be any different.

            Tord, the proud leader of the Cuyler Biscuit communists and socialists, reacted just about like the others, with obvious horror unable to be fully expressed, sadness and hopeless despair twirling at the surface, within a body too fragile and weak to express it. Bard’s opinion was that this kind of inner sense of defeat created more delicious meat.

            Jossette the gossiping popular girl passed out momentarily as her private parts were gashed and slashed, a not uncommon thing. But she awoke to more horror as parts of her body were held before her twisted, soaked face, and her eyes quickly ran out of tears. Luckily the preservatives would keep her alive in the event of dehydration. Bard took a hammer to her guts, to compare the tenderizing process of ultimate depressive awareness of defeat and demise present in all the other students, to the tenderizing process of brute force that would be present only in Jossette and a few others. An inquisitive man must know these things.

            Always eager to learn in an unconventional way, Bard took it upon himself to examine closely the cut up bodies of white boys and girls, black boys and girls, Hispanic boys and girls, Indian boys and girls, and the few Oriental boys and girls. The cultural diversity of Acherontac being what it was, Cuyler Biscuit High School was an exemplary place of acceptance, and interesting people. What Bard found compelling in his brief but intensive examination of heads, bones, skin, organs, muscles, and limbs was that there seemed to be so much similarity between the races. Sure, a few structural differences popped up here and there, merely superficial aspects of beings not defined by the surface, but by the inside. And happy was he to find that the insides were all very much the same. If ever Bard heard a racist speak unfavorably of people of color or of foreign birth, he would know to strike down the person, and to explain with a wealth of experience that races all share the same physical architecture, and are each as beautiful inside and out as the rest. He was thankful to find indicators of equality in the gore around him.

            “I must say I’ve never been so excited!” Bard cried, smiling more gallantly than ever. “What a trip!”

            Francis was smiling too, and felt on top of the world. Before them lied hundreds of finely carved human teenagers, fresh and ready for the kitchen. Tears and blood and sweat and other fluids of hundreds of young people soaked the feet of the two devil-worshiping gentlemen, who had never been happier than at this moment. Proud products of hard work had never looked so satisfying. Muffled, weak sobs, and tortured, piercing cries dulled by incapacitated muscles wafted through the cafeteria like chamber music.

The long held idea of human superiority and higher worth over those of the animal kingdom, a falsity perpetuated by the morality of the corrupt cult of God, laid in ruins and pitiable annihilation on cafeteria tables. For here, in Cuyler Biscuit High School, the first phase in the conquering of humanity was underway. A “chosen race” responsible for the extinction of countless species, the self-worshiping utilization of creatures as thoughtless tools, a race so caught up in the idea of propagation and progress at any and all costs, regardless of its onslaught against other life, now lied hopelessly at the hands of forces greater than man could hope to know. The restoration of balance was on the horizon.

            It is worth mentioning the skulls of each boy and girl were cut open just enough to grant Francis and Bard a peak at the young, undeveloped brains, still ripe, still growing and tenderizing into what, in different circumstances, would become adults. Bard, always the romantic, found the brains of the students to be poetic in their beauty, as porcelain sculptures of intellectual genesis.

Like the young, smooth, milky soft skin of the students, the brains were immature things of youthful potential and simplicity, alluding to the simple times and worriless ages of the teens. Although these particular brains and these particular bodies would not go on to do anything further in the world, they were representative of the brains and bodies of other boys and girls of high school age;  the bodies and brains of young people feeling, for the first time, puppy-love in a starry-eyed teen romance; the bodies and brains of hopeful seniors ready to move away from home to find work, or to continue their education; the bodies and brains of sixteen year olds given the keys to their first car, to blast out into the world as free beings unchained in the night; the bodies and brains of people still coming to terms with their growing, changing shells, their delicate emotions, and their unrivaled sense of invincibility.

            The students’ faces were each contorted in ways that had Francis and Bard questioning whether the looks were due more to horror and helpless realization of their doom, or to immense pain.

An avid smiler proud of his own teeth, Bard asked Francis to remove the teeth of some of the students, the ones with the whitest, straightest teeth, so he could use them for important purposes. Francis cut away the gums of Farrah, of Jossette, of Josh, of Isabella, and of other students in all grades, and hammered away at their jaws and teeth, jabbed them with knives, and sliced their roots, filling an entire bucket with tiny white teeth, stained many shades of red.

            “Suppose I’ll need to clean these up,” remarked Bard, a little disappointed at the sloppy job Francis had done. But he was understanding, with the knowledge that Francis had no experience removing the teeth of creatures.

            Francis thought the sight of toothless teenagers with the looks of prolonged suffering upon their faces was about the strangest thing he’d ever seen. He didn’t want to bother Bard with his opinion, so he kept it to himself. But he was sure Bard would agree. The philosophies of toothless smiles, and this perhaps also applies to toothless looks of anguish, were rich in mystery to Francis. Not being much of a philosopher without some strong prodding and encouragement, he avoided dwelling on the juxtaposition of a mouth twisted into some great emotion, without the teeth to deliver the full impact of feeling. Nor would he try to interpret the incompleteness of the self and the role it played in personal expression. But he knew on some level it was an interesting thing for those who were tickled by ideas.

            Bard entered the butchery and turned on the lights. Sprawled across the floor were the corpses of the teachers and faculty of Cuyler Biscuit High School who had been present that morning. Flies flew in perfect clouds around the smorgasbord of death, and Bard realized it must be getting late. Peering outside, he saw the sun hanging over the horizon, ready to dip its fiery feet into the first cool moments of darkness. “Goodness,” he puffed. “Better start cleaning up.”

He rinsed the teeth, and took them to the back of the butchery, to a large walk-in freezer. Inside the freezer were the stiff, frozen bodies of the pink lady and her cafeteria coworkers, their throats slit. They hung from hooks like pork ready to cook. “Ladies, don’t let me forget about these.” He placed the bucket on the ground and returned to the butchery.

            “Time to clean up, Francis. Took us longer than expected. We’ve got a few hours.”

            Francis was bringing the knives back into the butchery, and took a drink of water. A long day of cutting meat and bone gets anyone tired, all butchers know. Being so new to the job, Francis was easily fatigued. But through excitement and a monumental sense of purpose, he pushed himself and accomplished great things. Now the real fun could begin. After they cleaned up.

            The 12^th Symphony of Vagn Holmboe blasted from the speakers in the gymnasium hours later, after the sun had fallen and the moon had risen. Parents of students thought departed for Washington D.C. flooded the gymnasium, spirits soaring and laughter uncontrollable. The big event had begun. Francis and Bard stood by the gymnasium’s stage, with a few other members of the Cuyler Biscuit faculty. Bard was all smiles, as usual. When the clock struck 8, the music was turned down, though still audible so people of good taste could listen. Bard cleared his throat and stepped forward to a microphone.

            “Hello parents!” he said, and was met with a cheering greeting more energetic than is typical of the parents of high schoolers. But with their antagonizing children gone, they found they could muster excitement and joy from corners of their hearts long thought dead.

            “I’m happy to welcome each and every one of you to Cuyler Biscuit High School’s first ever Studentless Body Parent’s Night!”

            Roars of applause broke through the gym. The faculty smiled and nodded, and Francis, being only a school chef, had no idea what was happening.

            “But as far as happiness goes, I have no doubt each of you are happier than even I, or the rest of Cuyler Biscuit High’s faculty, for a night of irresponsible joy awaits you as our honorable guests! Do not take this to mean we are not thrilled beyond the reach of the stars at your joining us, but take it to mean the splendor that awaits all of you far surpasses the splendor most can know. This is our way of thanking you for blessing us with your beautiful children each and every day. We reach out to you, from teachers to parents, to create a bond of trust and communication. Raising children is no easy job. Responsibility lies both on parents and teachers to make sure these kids grow up the best they can. And in an effort to gain your trust and your appreciation, let the night commence!”

            The parents stood from the bleachers and rushed to the gym floor as the lights dimmed, and the music changed from Symphony #12 of Vagn Holmboe to Etude #12 by Frederic Chopin.

            “Get back to the cafeteria and start cooking,” Bard said, returning to Francis’s side. “They’ll be in here for a good hour and a half, maybe two hours. They’ll be hungry, and we promised them a fantastic meal.”

            “What’s happening?” asked Francis, curiosity nagging at his walls.

            “A grown-ups gathering for people who are hungry for more than just food.” Bard winked, and his smile had by now burned itself into Francis’s mind so that he (Francis) never knew if it was truly there or he simply saw it like a ghost of the eyes, always present. “They’re getting busy, now. Maybe watch for a little while, but really, you must get back to the cafeteria. Dinner must be served!”

            Francis remained for a few minutes longer, and watched the parents, aging from late 30’s to mid-50’s undress under soft, dim lighting, to beautiful music. Comfortable looking mats covered the gym floor, and men and women lied down on them, some fully naked, some wearing only skimpy undergarments, and embraced in sexual congress. What started as one-on-one sex among hundreds of couples slowly turned to small group fornication, as if watching a film of cell division in reverse, until all men and all women were joined in a shapeless spread of fuck and suck, touch and poke, squeeze and tease. Fat and thin, small and large, bald and beautiful, the parents were a mass of sweaty limbs and pleasured moans, boastful grunts, and powerful squeals that could indicate either severe agony or immeasurable pleasure.

            Certain that sex was almost as fun as it looked, but turned off by body shapes he couldn’t stomach, Francis made his departure. Cooking always set him right.

            Bard and the faculty watched the parents, low lighting complementing the nude clusterfuck. If all parent-teacher conferences could only be this successful, thought some of the teachers, we would be getting raises.

            The cafeteria floor was dry and spotless. A party of highly perceptive individuals with magnifying glasses for eyes would have been unable to guess the room had been a scene of suffering and gore just hours earlier, so immaculate and clean it was. Maybe a thoughtful reader would say to this that of course no one with eyes of magnifying glasses would notice signs of carnage in the cafeteria, for magnifying glasses have such short focal lengths that they are of no use as the eyeballs of living beings. This reader would be correct. Even with regular eyeballs and a keen attention to detail, then, no observer would suspect the cafeteria having been used for the nightmarish purposes for which it had been so recently used.

            Candles illuminated every table, and soft overhead bulbs cast a cozy brownish-orange light over the cafeteria, a flavor of color that seemed to be constructed by the hands of feuding gods at the same moment, to appease and comfort their human worshipers in times of conflict. Nametags sat before every chair, lending an air of classiness and sophistication to the place. Francis stood in the unlit butchery, eyes peering into the empty cafeteria. Muffled murmurs chirped behind him.

            A light rumble was audible beyond the cafeteria doors, as voices and footsteps grew closer. The doors flew open to a stampede of parents, re-dressed, sweaty, and lively in voice and candor, carrying themselves like starved hyenas to their marked spots among the tables. The stench of post-sexual carnage was sweaty and pungent, wafting through the romantic lighting of the cafeteria as invisible indicators of debauchery.

            With the parents came the Cuyler Biscuit faculty, Bard among them, smiles stretching for miles, eyes radiant with satisfaction. The night’s business seemed to be going well. As the parents took their seats and their conversations became dull ocean waves, Bard walked to the front of the cafeteria, a microphone in his hand.

            “You will note a nametag in front of you, dear parents. If the name is not yours, please move to find your seat. There will be more time for socializing and mixing as the night grows old, but for now it is our wish everyone is in the right spot.”

            A few married couples stood to move to new tables, lured by the small folded papers with their names. Brief commotion commenced, chuckles were had, and squinted eyes under soft light finally led all to where they belonged. As they settled in, Bard continued.

            “Tonight’s dinner will be served in four courses. The final course, dessert, is a surprise, and we ask that as it is served, everyone leaves it alone until all have been served.”

           Francis eyed the faculty. There were a few teachers he didn’t know, the gym teacher, and an assortment of eager up-and-comers climbing the ladders of public school academia. Were they, too, in on this devilish plot? None seemed to hide devious knowledge behind their eyes. If they weren’t in on it, how would Bard deal with them? With the help of those ghastly animal spirits? With Francis’s help? He hoped not. He had his hands full.

            As the first notes of some obscure piece by Sergey Rachmaninov emanated through the cafeteria, Bard came to the butchery. Long tables of carefully prepared entrees spread across the kitchen.

            “Beautiful looking food,” he said. “The rest of the faculty will help me serve our guests. They’ve asked about the lunch ladies, but I told them they got cold feet.”

            Francis nodded and said he would keep the rest of the prepared food warm and fresh for the parents.

            “Get it? Cold feet. Because they’re in the freezer.” Bard never liked a joke to go to waste.

            “Oh, I suppose I get it. Yes. Heh.” Francis returned to the butchery. “Don’t bring the teachers back here, you know.”

            “Of course not! I know, I know!” Bard took some plates and ran out to the cafeteria, past the teachers entering the kitchen to help.

            Like trained waiters at the finest of  establishments, the teachers served plates of warm, lavishly prepared entrees to the parents, who were mystified by mysterious looking food sprinkled with spices and sauces and bordered by garnishes. Whatever was on these plates, it looked delicious.

            Muffled murmurs chirped more feverishly behind Francis while he stood in the butchery, awaiting the parents’ first bites. When everyone was served, according to their nametags, the parents sank their teeth into the moist, flavor-filled meats before them. Chewing mouths impatiently sang their praises of the food.

            “My God, it’s delicious!” proclaimed Jossette’s father, with his mouth full. “What is this?”

            Two tables away, the mother of young Communist Tord told her husband just how the meat made her feel. “Never had anything like this, Georgeo. Succulent meat that falls right off the, what’s this, the bone? Must be. Never seen a bone like this! God! Is your mouth as wet as mine right now? Lord, that’s some sweet sauce. Never knew what hungry like the wolf meant until now, Georgeo!”

            The parents seemed thrilled, and more and more expressions of enjoyment erupted from every table, inquiring as to what the meat was, and why none of them had ever had it before now.

            Francis turned to face the murmuring voices behind him. Though the butchery was dark, his dilated eyes made out the hanging, mutilated bodies of the hundreds of students of Cuyler Biscuit High School. Preservatives slowly pumping through them via an external, quiet machine set up in the corner, the students had been stripped of their skin, their hands and feet removed, and their bleeding, crippled bodies hung by hooks and wires from the ceiling. They were kept alive, breathing, seeing, fully aware of every nerve’s sensations, hearing every sound, but unable to move or speak. Moaned murmurs were the extent of their vocal capabilities. Hung like they were, they were given a panoramic view out the butchery’s wide window of the cafeteria, and of their parents, sitting merrily at their tables, chewing frantically at the mysterious meat from the mysterious bones. They tore it eagerly, hungry for more, admiring it as they ate. It need hardly be said, but will be said anyway, that this meat so enthusiastically eaten, was the meat of the children. Cuyler Biscuit High School’s students watched their own parents eat the meat of their hands and feet.

            After admiring his own work for some short passage of time, Francis began laying out the plates for the next course in the meal.

            “They love it, Francis!” said Bard, rushing into the kitchen to bring in the second course. The teachers packed into the kitchen and carried out plates to the names specified on each plate, as before. The parents’ cravings were met with the sultry second course, glistening under white and red sauces.

            “Unbelievable!” cried Hooten’s mother. “I wish there was more of this. Sad it’s such a petite little treat!” said his father.

            “I can’t believe how tender and flavorful it is,” said Farrah’s father, sitting with his wife at the same table as Hooten’s parents. “But why is ours different than yours?”

            Hooten’s father examined what Farrah’s parents had on their plate, and noticed it was quite different in shape and texture. “May I try it?”

            “Of course!” cried Farrah’s mother.

            “And try ours!” said Hooten’s mother.

            Wondrous flavors were traded and shared by all in the room to many grins of satisfaction.

            A grin of satisfaction fell over Francis’s face as well, and he continued butchering the hanging student bodies. He spoke to them while he worked, telling them they made fine meals for their parents, and should be proud of themselves, for this was the greatest contribution any of them could ever hope to offer.

            Josh’s parents, who were fine friends with Brody’s parents, commiserated over their displeasure at having received such small portions for the second course, but assured themselves all would be fixed with the next course.

            And the next course did certainly liven up the room, as platters of neatly arranged meats and juices and garnishes slid before every parent.

            “Glory be!” exclaimed Isabella’s cis-gendered, able-bodied, heteronormative parents, whom she resented.  They slurped the juicy, stringy parts up with the saucy, runny parts. Isabella gazed at them from beyond the butchery window, mourning everything in the world that she could mourn. Death could not come fast enough.

            Angelle’s single mother chopped at the slabs of tender meat on her plate and scooped them into her mouth with loud, gurgling, tongue-heavy noise. Angelle would have been embarrassed in other circumstances. But hanging with a hook in her back, most of her body ravaged into useless ligaments and bones and juices, she could only gawk with gutless horror at her mother’s spectacle.

            Shryla’s parents became romantic using their strand of meat, mimicking a scene from Lady and the Tramp, as though this fleshy piece were a spaghetti noodle. The white and red sauces that spilled down their faces were the source of much laughter and merriment at their table. The entire cafeteria had by now come to resemble an orgy not of sex, but of food, for now that the sexual spirit had been fed in sweaty vigor, the spirit of hunger opened its gaping maw to be satiated by soft, juicy meats.

            Francis took his blade to his final work, while Bard and the teachers served red wine to the parents, the spirits to rest their hungering stomachs. At this moment it might be asked, by the same perceptive reader who inquired about magnifying glasses for eyes, how so much food was able to be prepared by one man, in such a short period of time. Food that I assure the reader was fancifully prepared and served. I would address this question by referring the reader to the timeless energy I spoke of earlier, the same timeless energy that engulfed the butchery and summoned beastly spirits from the corpses in front of Francis. This same energy, the energy that caused time to forfeit all its laws under the shadow of the beast, was present throughout the night, imbued within Francis. What might take fifty men hours to prepare and accomplish was doable by Francis in a fraction of the time. Luciferion magic had its perks.

            “Parents,” announced Bard, taking the microphone once more. “The fourth course is upon us, and as I asked you at the beginning of the night, I shall remind you to please not touch the metal lid over your plate until all parents have been served. We wish to have  everyone open their desserts at the same time! Cheers to all!”

            Merriment had its way with the crowd, and laughter, boisterous spirits, and conversation carried on under brownish-orange mood lighting, and the smell of lavish cuisine. The sound of Francis’s hectic hacking and frantic work within the butchery was drowned out by the music, by now some string quartet piece by Giuseppe Verdi.

Midnight was around the corner, but not a fatigued eye battered in the cocktail lounge atmosphere of the cafeteria, that night. The teachers served the covered plates to the parents, and the curious, excited adults talked about their children, but also about themselves, as should be common at such social events.

Francis rested in the kitchen, looking at his well-fed customers. It was his hope they would appreciate the work he’d put into every one of their meals, and the artistic flavor he had adorned each plate and bowl with. Bard took the microphone at the front of the cafeteria, and without wasting a moment, got right to it.

“Parents! The final course is here! Dessert is served. I now ask each of you to, on the count of three, remove the lid from your plates to see what our marvelous chef, Mr. Francis Vanosdale, has spent all night preparing for you, along with the rest of the food you’ve eaten tonight. One. Two. And… Three!”

The pop and ding of lids coming off hot plates clamored through the cafeteria, immediately followed by gasps and screams and cries of absolute horror. For below each lid was the head of the child belonging to each parent. With great care, the plates had been delivered to the right parent, as all the plates earlier in the night had been. The well fed parents now stared into the disembodied faces of their dead children, lifeless eyes looking back.

Chairs slid, and people stumbled over the floor, over the tables, as ravenous terror gripped every parent in the room, each crying and screaming, wanting to escape.

“The first course,” continued Bard, seemingly unfazed by the chaotic reactions before him, “was the meet of the hands and feet of your dear children. You’ve never seen bones like that, I assure you! Slathered in sauces of semen, blood, urine, pus. The second course, as you might by now have guessed, were the genitals! Your sons’ penises, your daughter’s vaginas! So different in shape, texture, and taste they all are. It’s good you shared! So very good. And the same sauces were there. You may have noticed the signature taste of bone marrow stuffed inside the treat. The third course--” by now the angry mob of sickened, puking parents had crowded close to Bard, some with chairs in their hands as weapons. “The third course,” he repeated, over the confused yelling of adults, “was a platter of organs from right inside your dear, sweet child’s torso. Tasty! Some muscle was thrown in, of course. For those of you with fatter children, you must have noticed a good helping of lardy mass on your plates!”

As the crowd closed in on Bard, a translucent wall of beastly ghosts formed before him, keeping the roaring, shouting parents at bay.

“Oh, and the candles upon your tables that kept your places lit and moody. Those candles were made from your children’s fat! Incredible what we can do with the full body! And I of course need not explain dessert, as I assume that was fairly obvious.”

The teacher stood with shaking hands and wide, white eyes in the wake of the scene. Francis decided they had not been in on any of this, and wondered, now, what would come of them. At this point, he was as much on his seat as anyone could be.

“The swirling wall around  me is merely for my protection, dear parents. I know you wish me harm. But now that you are all filled with the meats of your offspring, it is time for the real feast to begin!”

The doors to the outside flew open, and animals stampeded into the cafeteria. The doors on the other side, the doors leading to the rest of the school, flew open to reveal more hungry beasts. Bears, deer, horses, rabbits, birds, snakes, bugs, cows, pigs, foxes, wolves, coyotes, hyenas, turtles, frogs, creatures large and small, reptile, amphibian, mammal, bird, many of which don’t even eat meat in the wild, converged on the screaming parents, tore into them with claws, hooves, teeth, beaks, tongues, and ripped flesh and hair and nail from the body, throwing the bloodied clothing to the side. Francis threw his hands over his ears as the piercing cries of lamenting adult humans echoed off the cafeteria walls. The music was no longer audible under such hysteria and violence.

The small animals were held up by the larger ones, given the first feastings on the human beings. The teachers, too, were dug into by hungry beasts, and despite their pleading to Bard, had the life torn from them in slow, agonizing jabs, bites, pokes, and drags.

During the slaughter of the parents, Francis dragged out the remains of the children, brown and red skeletons with meat and tendon here and there hanging from the bones, and watched as the animals feasted on young and old alike, human carcasses littering the cafeteria floor.

Some animals dragged bodies out of the cafeteria, and the larger birds flew out with them.

“These fellows will take some food to our friends in the sea,” explained Bard, sitting down beside Francis. “Sharks and squid and whales and dolphins and octopuses and of course the other fish must all have a full feast of humanity. The meat of man is the meat of evolution, the lifeforce of progress. Without a heft serving of man, how is a species to thrive?”

“A few hundred people doesn’t seem enough to feed them for very long,” said Francis, breathless, covered in blood. The smacking jaws and tongues of feasting animals was like a symphony around him.

“You’re right about that. This isn’t the end. Acherontac has thousands of inhabitants! Small town, sure. But enough humanity here to feed the animals in the vicinity for a very long time.”

“And what about us?”

“Well, what about us? We help, of course. Isn't that grand?” Bard lit up, slapped his hands together, and looked to the animals with a satisfied smirk on his face.

Francis liked the sound of that. “They say God works in mysterious ways. But right now it seems that the devil works--”

Bard cut him off. Smiling and shaking his head, he put an arm on Francis. “The devil. Satan. Apollyon. Whatever you call him, he’s no evil beast of the deep. He’s not so much a real entity that guides the hand as he is a concept. He doesn’t exist, but in here.” And Bard pointed to Francis’s chest, his finger poking right where the heart was.

            After the ravaging of Cuyler Biscuit High School, Francis and Bard helped the animals feast on other residents of Acherontac wherever and whenever a feast could be had. Breaking into homes, capturing people on their ways to work or school, getting them in the vulnerable time of sleep, these and many more complicated methods, found the two gentlemen, were suitable for slaughter. The phantasms of dead beasts served Francis in his efforts to prepare food for the hungry living beasts, and Bard’s charm with people, complemented by his dazzling mastery of social interaction, allowed him to orchestrate a great number of scenarios much like the one just described at Cuyler Biscuit High School. Citizens of Acherontac became aware of the danger in their town, though knew not its nature nor from where it came. Police were unable to do much but arrest a few scapegoats, permitting the people to feel safe until the bloodletting continued. Fear nested within the hearts of all residents, and they watched in helpless abandon as their neighbors, their friends, their family were plucked away from the hands of life, until the shadow of death loomed over them.

             As Acherontac moved from bustling village of plenty and prosperity into a dismal dystopia of human death, the abandoned homes and office buildings and schools and shops became standing monuments to extinction. No stones mark the dead in Acherontac. The only graves one will find, if making a trip out that way, are smeared piles of feces left by well-fed animals who learned the true worth of humankind.

The End