Page 4 of Meating Dalton

Darkness pressing in on all sides, choking the life from my lungs.

Blindly, I stumble toward the container of golden liquid, snatching up a funnel in the other hand.

“Please,” Mr. Black weeps, sounding like the bitch that bleated like a fucking sheep during the funeral. If Deaton and Rhys hadn’t hemmed me in on both sides, I’d have found her after the burial and granted her wish of seeing Charles again.

“Quit whining. You’re giving me a headache and I can’t decide what side dish you’d go better with. How do you feel about mashed potatoes and gravy?” I ask nonchalantly, forcing my breathing to calm. We’ve barely gotten started.

His wrinkled, turtle neck swivels left and right, the movement agitating the rest of his body. Blood drips in a steady trail, pooling beneath the chair. Licking my lips, I walk back toward my prey. Maybe if he used his brain to tell me what I want to know, he could save himself some pain. He doesn’t know he’s already dead.

Dead man walking, Mr. Black. Say hi to Death for me.

“Listen. I googled recipes. And the consensus is you need something acidic to tenderize meat. The pH of urine is between four and eight. So I figured I’d save money by using mine.” Jacobson folds in on himself, surrendering to deep, wracking sobs. Maybe if Samantha paid more attention to my tears, I’d have more sympathy for the crying of others.

His weeping is fucking with the vibe Bach is setting. Classical music, tenderizing meat, getting answers to long sought after questions. It should be a great fucking night. I should feel euphoric instead of edgy, body twitching with a whirlpool of emotions. Giving up on untangling the thread of bundled feelings, I sink into what I do best.

Meat meet hunter. Let’s make dinner.

“Well, looks like we’re doing this the hard way.” It’s his only warning before I transfer the funnel to under my arm, slip another blade free and use it pin his testicles to the chair. The scream he releases would make a soprano jealous. I use the opportunity of his mouth being gaped open to shove the funnel nearly to the back of his fucking throat. While he’s gagging around it, I pour the acrid liquid into the funnel.

His body convulses, and I jerk back in time for him to vomit all over his lap. Tears, snot, and blood mingle into a nasty stench, curdling my appetite. Fuck eating him. He’s going to be barbecue for some wild animals.

“Morgan Daniels,” he croaks from a raw and probably burning throat. My head tilts, silently urging him to spill the rest of the tale everyone thinks is best kept from me.

“Her father tasked me with managing her conservatorship. She was gravely, mentally ill. And pregnant with twins. I thought it was a mercy letting her keep just one. Charles and Samantha tried for years to conceive…” The rest of his raspy words slip through my ear canals and back out.

Twins. Only kept one.

The world spins, the opposite of a funhouse mirror. I’m the fucking clown in this circus. The one given away.

I don’t remember acting. My mind just blanks and I’m suddenly staring into the grisly, brutally shredded chest cavity of Jacobson Black, letting two knives slip from limp fingers. Red tints everything.

Sinking to the floor, surrounded by piss, vomit and blood, I can’t help but think this is the biggest fuck you from the universe. My own chest feels just as ravaged as Mr. Black’s. I did nothing to deserve this.

“I’m not your mother! Quit calling me that, abomination!” Herwords filter through my brain on a loop.

Pick one. Keep one.

Maybe Samantha was right and Morgan Daniels sensed it when she held my twin to her breast, letting Jacobson ferry me away. I hope they’re all still living. My only regret tonight is killing Mr. Black before I could get a location from him. But rest assured, Daniels’ family.

I’m fucking coming for you.

* * *

Burnt flesh saturates the air, snaking down my nostrils to cause a Texas sized migraine. Or maybe that’s from carting the one hundred plus pound carcass of Jacobson Black from the trunk of one of the cars I inherited from my father’s passing to the woods surrounding Rhys’ cabin. The ex-navy seal enjoys living outside the boundaries of society.

And I like taking advantage of the seclusion to burn bodies behind my cousin’s home. It’s a win-win for everyone. He doesn’t mind the smell and he’s probably out managing his bar.

Twigs snap under heavy footsteps and I don’t turn around, watching the flames lick at Mr. Black’s corpse, consuming his meat to feed the hungry fire. Shapes dance and writhe in the mesmerizing light, lulling me from the thoughts taunting my brain.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Deaton says, smoke spilling from his mouth to float in my line of sight. The fucker is going to choke and die on a cigarette one day. I can’t summon any remorse over the potential demise. He made his coffin, fully prepared to lie in it when his time comes.

I hope I’m aslaissez-fairewhen it’s my turn to meet the reaper. For now, Death doesn’t bother me. It’s an everyday occurrence, a sentence I mete out to others. I wasn’t even present when Charles’ heart gave out, cock at half mast inside his young mistress.

Is she really a mistress if his wife has been dead for over five years?

“Tell me what’s going through your head, Zac. Cause whoever the fuck you’re burning smells fucking awful.” I bark out a weak laugh, tears stinging my eyes. Deaton’s right. Jacobson smells like fetid meat. Not even wolves would want to dine on his cold flesh once the flames die down.

I didn’t even get to marinate him in pig’s blood. He died too quickly, frail body giving out beneath my flurry of strikes, sharp metal tearing through tender flesh. The memory superimposes itself in my mind, but I still barely recall slipping the knives from their sheaths.

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