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'Food for thought.'
The rain hit hard on that dark may night; the summer had arrived but it only lingered now and then, failing to bring the radiant sunshine that had always seemed to be taken for granted. There was a difference in the air that evening, a sense that a storm was brewing, yes in summer - but I knew my instinct was right. I was wandering about the surrounding hills when I heard a sound – I approached the vicinity of the sound and found a young boy, wounded. It seemed that he had slipped and fell upon a protruding branch from the bough of a fallen tree, but the rain had soaked him right through and could cause pneumonia if it wasn’t caught fast.
“I’ll help ya boy,” I said.
“Thanks, mister, I'm so grateful to you.” – I had noticed that his accent was not from round our parts. I picked him up and brought him down from the hills, to the family outhouse.

“Ma, Pa, Grandma, Grandpa, look what I found on the mountain!”
“My word…he’s hurt,” said Grandma, “Peter, just bring him in and lay him out on the couch.”
Well I did, and the whole family proceeded to make him feel as comfortable they could. We asked him about how he ended up in our hills and where his family where. It seemed that a whole heap of poor folk had moved onto our land and had done so without the family’s permission.
“We must pay a visit to your folks,” said Grandma, “as we are neighbours after all.”

The young boy’s wounds were seen to and he was feeling a whole lot better. Just then Grandma took her best kitchen knife and lifted the boy’s head. She then slit his throat from ear to ear and put a sheet of plastic below it (she didn’t want to ruin her couch).

The family took the blood-drained torso into the kitchen so that mother could skewer the carcass and prepare it properly. I must admit that those good-for-nothings taste damn fine with the proper herbs and spices mixed in the stew pot. Mother was an expert at cooking human meat; she was also excellent at catching them herself. She would pretend to be a piece of dirty old hag just looking to have some fun, and before they knew what was going on, Ma would have them sliced up pretty good.

After dinner, Pa announced that someone should go up and suss out that community that had made themselves at home over the hills. Once we knew their numbers then we could start planning what to do. Jim Fosworth, the local general store owner, would pay a pretty penny for all that meat; that is provided he didn’t know that it was human meat. They could literally make a killing with this haul.

My younger brother, Ollie, looked troubled and so said what was on his mind, “Won’t Jim be a little suspicious about where we done got all that meat from?”
“We’ll just have to say that we had a secret little herd on the other side of the hills,” said Pa.

Grandma knew the exact recipe for making human meat taste like beef, she had picked it up from the Chaplin sisters who, when going through hard times, had to eat their dead father. They didn’t care much for the taste and by sheer accident found a way of making the meat taste like beef. It’s a recipe that had got our family out of a load of hard times and troubles, to such an extent that we all feel indebted to those two women. A lot of people will tell you that human flesh tastes like pork - well that's just not true. With the right treatments as laid out in the ingenious recipe of the Chaplins, there just ain't no way to tell it apart from the real thing. In fact, it's better than the real thing.

“If we can pull this off we should send a couple to the Chaplins, they’d be delighted, I’d bet!” I said.
“Sure thing son, if we pull it off,” said Pa.
“There ya go again, ‘IF’, that’s a nasty word in the mouth of youth today! Where’s your gumption, eh? Where’s your balls!” bellowed Grandpa,
“Why I remember taking on four dirty trespassers by myself in my youth – beat them all to death with my bare hands!”
“You sure did Grandpa...But they was tied up and couldn’t move a muscle!”
“A technicality my boy, a technicality.”

The wind blew hard outside, blasting against the doorframe and the porch beams; causing them to shudder and squeak. The clouds overhead, were apocalyptic and foreboding, it looked like rain but you couldn’t tell exactly. I was about to set out on my scouting mission. I may not have gone to war like my older brother Paul did, but I was a damn fine tracker and scout when it came to deer; and deer by all accounts were a hell of a lot smarter than what I had to find.

I reached the summit of the highest of the surrounding hills by dark. The plan was to approach in the night and check out numbers by matching tents and fires. If I had have been spotted going up in the daytime the element of surprise would be lost and we would have to resolve to killing them one at a time. That would be a lot more difficult, as there would be questions asked and the law would be informed of the disappearances. Our family would never be implicated in anything like that so long as we cleaned up our tracks and made sure that nothing could point to us. After every cannibal meal, Grandma would take all our clothes from us that night and scrub them - leaving them to soak until the next morning. That would remove all the traces of blood we might have had on our clothes. She was a smart woman, Grandma. While scouting around the side behind some dense bushes I began to take note of the fires and tents. My estimations arrived at approximately 25 people. Mostly adults, which would be harder to kill, but I loved the challenge of it all. Later that night when I got back to the house, we all had a good long talk on how we proposed to carry this thing out.
“We need a rock solid plan, so that we can win without too much fuss,” said Pa.
“I remember thinking, when I beat those four men, how much easier and quicker it would have been to use my buckshot shotgun. Wish I did,” Grandpa said whilst inspecting his knuckles.
I then thought I should get the motivation going, “I think I should go into town and get some provisions and ammunition. We are going to need more than we have here at least!”
“Son,” said Pa, “I think you’ve got something there.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Ollie.

The next morning I was awoken to the sound, touch and smell of Ollie. First, came his roar of “Get up! We have to go into town”, then came the shoving and shaking so that I would wake up faster, and then lastly when I was more awake and my senses came to me, I got a downwind gust of sweat and last fortnight’s underwear, right in the face. Needless to say I was not happy. I grabbed hold of the book that lay by my bedside, it was a rather large book of Shakespeare's, which was a compendium of plays and threw it straight at Ollie’s face. The sound that followed was so loud; it was as if he himself had dropped to the floor. I was most pleased.
“I’ll tell Pa,” he said while rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“See if I care,” I replied, “worst that can happen to me is I get a telling off. However, you’ll have to change your clothes and take a God damn bath!”
Ollie was so taken aback that I almost felt I’d done him an injury, what with all the talk of baths and fine clean clothes. He was compelled to believe that the insects of this world had it in for him in a big way.

Two years previous, during the summer, Ollie was out tracking rabbits when he stumbled on a wasp nest. There he met with a ferocious attack from the wasps. The huge mandibles protruding from the flying creatures were all he could recall after his recovery from the attack. The wasps had stung him repeatedly, leaving him unconscious and near death. A couple of weeks after his recovery he torched that very same wasp nest; we had not done so ourselves as we believed that Ollie would want that opportunity himself. After that Ollie was adamant that no insect was ever going to get the better of him again. He had read in one of my books that insects could be repelled by strong, human, body odour, which is the reason that the rotten swine does not wash. Every month the other brothers and I catch Ollie and throw him in the pond out back, as it is the closest thing to a bath we can get him into.
After breakfast we got some money together and went out to ready the truck for the trip into town. The truck needed a bit of attention now and again on account of parts that Pa just refused to have replaced; he said that there was nothing wrong with the parts and they would last a few more years before they would be altogether useless. Well I just hated that truck; the amount of times it embarrassed me when it broke down in town. Suzie Mitchell, a right smashing piece, would often look disdainfully as I chugged past; I could only look her in the eye after a few days had gone by, and my shame forgotten. Even the rust was beginning to fall off. We eventually got the bitch to start, and headed straight for the General store. Jim Fosworth was there as always and he greeted us with the usual chit-chat. “How’s your Pa, Peter?” he said.
“Just fine thanks Mr. Fosworth,”
I was careful not to be nervous about what I was going to ask him, “say do you happen to have much ammunition for Pa’s Winchester?”
“Sure do, how much will you be needing; shooting deer?” he watched Ollie fiddling nervously with his shirt.
Rubbing his sweated palms into the already sweat-soaked shirt.
“Ollie is so nervous,” I said quickly, “Grandpa and I challenged him to a bet and then Grandma and Ma got in on the act too.”
I was thankful for my quick imagination; “It’s now blown into a full competition with rules…”
“What’s the competition, Peter?” Said Jim with genuine interest.
“Why target practice – and we need a lot of ammunition for it. Maybe you’d like to put a wager on Ollie against Grandpa?”

“What, against your Grandpa, I think I’ll keep out of this one,” he replied, as he turned to fetch the ammunition.
We carried eight boxes of ammunition from the store to the truck. Each box had twenty shells, which made for a lot of shooting. On carrying out the last box Ike wished us well in our wagers and said only a fool would bet against Grandpa. Before I got in to start the truck I tipped a howdy to Mrs Emery who works as a clerk in the bank; she was a very nice lady, but for some reason I began to wonder what she would taste like. She disappeared into Jim's store and I then focused my mind back on the plan. It was going to be a long day, and night.

* That evening, as the moon settled in its usual spot – for that time of year anyway – the whole family began to ready themselves for a good night’s work. The wind was howling madly and the porch creaked with increasing frequency; outside the trees swayed majestically to the tune of Mother Nature. How I loved those wild windy nights; nothing mattered on nights like that. Life was simple, and you believed it to be simple. How simple would it be if the world’s population was controlled by digesting your fellow man; no hunger, no overcrowding. We packed all our supplies in the dilapidated old truck and set off up the old road that led to the hills. In the truck were, Grandpa (he was such a good shot and had such a cool head that we had to bring him along), Pa (no need to say anything here), Ollie and myself. Paul was still in the army and Gerard was in college in St. Louis. Pa wasn’t planning on using a gun – his favourite weapon of choice was an old wartime machete that he owned. I was quite looking forward to seeing Pa in action.

The women were all at home sewing, knitting and prepping the recipe for all the potential beef that would be brought home. Ma was thinking about the new dresses she would get with the money from the ‘beef’; she stood paused by the ironing board glancing down at an old worn dress she had on the board and thought - you’re for the fire when I get my new dresses. Grandma, on the other hand, was just dying to get her choppers sunk into the tenderest meat she could; she licked her lips and then, when the thought finally left her, she continued knitting and rocking in her chair.

When we reached our destination (only barely, the truck nearly gave up half way), I noticed that it was the very same spot I had picked up the young injured boy - God that was a fine meal. The clearing, as I remembered it, was only minutes away. We got out of the car and Grandpa began to scout ahead through the trees to the north.
“You young’uns stay put ya hear, I’m gonna see what up the clearing,” he said as he disappeared into the night.
Five minutes later we heard rustling in the trees and Grandpa came hurrying out of the trees gasping for breath; he had ran all the way back.
“What’s up Grandpa?” we all seemed to say at once.
“Those miserable bastards!” he bellowed.
He then broke down and sobbed, “They’re gonna pay.”

Grandpa proceeded to give a full account of his reconnaissance and what we learned was most distressing. They had killed Margaret.
Within our heard of cattle we had our favourites, most cows were just for milking, some for occasional killing; however there was another kind of cow, a cow that was considered old enough to be part of the family. Margaret was such a cow; we all loved her. She would come up to the front porch sometimes and ‘Moo’ for Grandpa to come out and give her some attention; he loved that old cow.
Apparently they had only just brought her back from our herd so poor Grandpa had witnessed her execution from afar. Had he brought his gun, he would have begun the killing without us.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Grandpa looked up at everyone and said, “Let’s kill ‘em all.”
We prepared ourselves, steadied the nervous excitement and proceeded through the wood. We started in a slow trot and worked our way up to running full speed through the bush growth. In the clearing, the community of 25 or so were cutting up bits off poor Margaret and roasting her over the fire. We halted at the edge of the clearing – hiding from view. Nobody noticed us, as they were clearly more interested in stuffing their mouths with our family cow. Immediately it began.
We started to aim right in the middle so that the buckshot would incapacitate more than one person per shot. We pulled our triggers in unison. Ollie and I had Winchesters; one shot from that rifle knocked the wind right out of the victim. The bodies started to drop and all the adults were frozen for a few moments. They had no idea where the shooting was coming from so they simply ran in all directions; surprisingly they most ran towards us and were promptly filled with Grandpa’s buckshot.
Grandpa was like a man possessed; he had killed several in the first few moments and was able to re-load a shotgun faster than anyone I know. He concentrated his infallible aim on all the adults that been holding pieces of Margaret. They surely were paying for their error. They all ran around in terror like headless chickens just waiting for death to claim them.
The sky above clapped with thunder and the heavens opened up and began pelting down heavy rain. The adrenaline was pumping through all of us.
Pa shouted, “Cover me, I’m going after the stragglers.”
He leaped up and sped forward with the machete raised above his head; raindrops dripped from the end of the machete, although soon it would be dripping red. Some children were huddled together at the side of the clearing, clearly in shock from watching their parents slaughtered. Pa got right behind them and began to chop down with shocking ferociously. We could see him with one foot placed on the back of one of the children and both hands clasped around the machete handle; he was prying the machete from the collar bone were it was wedged, using his foot for leverage.

After much more bloodshed, all the adults were dead or dying; they could not run away and leave the children so they all stayed, and died. All during the night we packed up all the bodies and got the women to transport them back down to the house for holding in the cellar. The air-cutting blade of Pa’s machete silenced the whimpering wounded, as it fell upon them from a deathly height.

Before morning all the bodies had been transported; it took only three trips to carry all the bodies. We were exhausted from the whole ordeal.

A day later we had decided to put on a barbecue and invite some people along to enjoy the feast. The turnout was fabulous; all the prominent people of the area were there by noon, and still we had a good deal more to arrive. What a day it was, the sun was alone in the sky – not a cloud in sight – and all the local kids were playing and fighting to get more of the delicious ‘beef’. Reverend Emery came over and approached me with some of our fresh meat on a plate and some half chewed in his mouth.
“Hmm…Uhhh…Whar did you find ‘hiss helicious beef?” he said while drooling spittle down his chin.
“We imported it,” I replied.
“From where may I ask?” he said, waiting patiently for answer.
“I don’t know. Never got a chance to ask them, it all happened so quick,” I said.
I then began to laugh and couldn’t stop – the Reverend on the other hand looked bewildered and missed the joke entirely.

A few miles away, a young boy came from out of the trees and stumbled onto the main road. His name was Josh and he was thirteen years old. He was covered in rags and had a large gash across his right thigh. He was very weak and delirious with fever from the storm, the night before last. He saw a large old house with a picket fence all round and a small, white, gate. He limped to the gate and made his way into the garden and up towards the front door. He rapped on the heavy oak door with the soft side of his closed fist whilst leaning against the doorframe. An elderly lady opened the door,
“Oh. My goodness…what happened to you?”
She brought him through immediately and sat him down in a chair. She boiled some water and got him out of his clothes. He lay on the settee as neither he nor the old lady had the strength to carry him upstairs.
“What’s you name son?”
“Josh,” he replied followed by a string of coughing.
“What happened?”
“Bad men came at us, Ma’am,” he said, “they wanted to kill us all. Shooting and killing they were. My Ma and Pa are dead now…” He began to cry.
“Don’t you worry you poor little thing,” she cradled his head in her arms and comforted him.
“I’ll call somebody immediately,” she said as she reached for the telephone.
“Hello Operator…"

Meanwhile, back a few miles or so down the road at the barbecue the meat and beer were flowing. Pa was over with Jim Fosworth talking business; no doubt negotiating a good price for the remaining stock of beef we had just imported. It was then that Betty called me inside to tell me something.

I came outside and in a loud voice said; “The Chaplins have just called. They’re coming over with the best side of beef you’ve ever tasted!”