Prey for the Wicked

By: A. D Sparks 

  The first time I ate human flesh was for my 27th birthday. I became aware of the idea after hearing a story about how some guys in Germany met up online and one said: 

“ I have the funniest craving! Some human meat would really just hit the spot right about now.”

And then some other guy popped online and said: 

“Well gosh-darn-it, what great timing! I sure would like to be eaten.”

   So they met up, and the first guy killed the other, and stored him in his freezer, and slowly ate him. Obviously, he was eventually caught, otherwise we would never have heard the story. 

But I was inspired by this man’s, admittedly stupid, actions. 

    I met some random guy on some dating app or other. I picked him because he said he didn’t drink or do drugs (which I figured would sour the meat) and he wasn’t too big; that was it. I wasn’t the strongest, at that point in life, and I thought that if I could find someone a bit smaller, it would be less of an issue; hopefully more of an annoyance than anything. Looking back now, I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to find a female victim, but one could argue that I wasn’t well then. I’m not sure I’m well now, but I am better. 

He came over to my house, without asking any sort of question that could’ve saved him— something like “hey, this is a house in the middle of 30 acres of land, should I call someone— anyone— and let them know where I am?” or even a “why is this room covered in plastic?”. Either of those questions alongside a quick jog back to his car could’ve saved him. But I got lucky.

The second time I didn’t get lucky, I got better— at planning; at attacking; at dismembering; at dumping the evidence— I got better at it all, and then I got better at everything else. 

After my first time, I felt more alive than I had in months. I didn’t feel the weight that had been pressing slowly against my chest, the metal bands that wrapped around my brain matter, slowly pushing my neurons out of place and leaving missing spaces in my consciousness. I had energy. Seriously, I started running again. Like, who even likes running?

For the next couple of years it was a steady flow of people, in and out of my life; my house; and my kitchen. I stopped buying meat altogether, I just started getting it for myself, like a badass, modern hunter-gatherer. I still bought condiments and things to cook with, but that was it— everything else I found for myself. I was saving a ton of money on groceries and I felt great— for the time at least; but during the “then” I had no idea that I would feel like this now. I guess my life became segregated. I had the beginning of my life, where I merely existed in the world. I floated through experiences, I existed in my own circle of apathy. 

Then, came my 27th birthday, and I entered the phase I now call the “then”. Everything before that mattered so little that I didn’t talk about it, didn’t think about it, I never even named it; It was like I had erased the entirety of the first 27 years of me. Everything that had happened before, now just… hadn’t. It was my favourite of the segment of my life. It kind of felt like a life on its own, maybe even a collection of lives. Maybe that’s where the energy came from. Like some natives believed—that by eating them I absorbed their power; their life; their energy. Either way, it was something that worked for me. It wasn’t some kind of medication or naturopathic treatment that left me feeling even worse than before. There was no bargaining— no “Hey kid, take this pill and you’ll get to trade in all those pesky little feelings that sit on top of your brain, spending all day jumping around and squishing down the flesh inside your skull; all that could be gone and instead you can have… A whole new brand of terrible!”

No, it wasn’t like that; like taking pills to cure a cold and those very same pills, that cured you of one thing, then turned around and gave you cancer, then everyone around you said that at least you didn’t have a cold anymore.

The last meal of my “then” years, came when I was almost 30. I was feeling so much better that I could actually go outside— more than that, actually go places—and I found him at a bar. He was the only one in the bar who wasn’t drinking anything (which at the time should’ve been a sign) and I walked up to him, tossing my newly glossy, golden locks over one shoulder, and stared up at him. All he did was look down at me and smile, his lips glued together, but spread quickly over his cheeks, his whole face warmed from the cold, marbleized face it had been before me. Perhaps, if I had been better adjusted, I would’ve looked at that face and thought how that was a face a girl could fall in love with, settle down, have kids; a face like that could’ve saved someone better than I. Instead I was thinking of how I could best cook those delicious looking pecks, what seasonings I’d use— I always did love a good mix of cumin and garlic salt, add a nice pad of butter. If I’d been focused on him, I would’ve known— I would’ve looked him in the eyes and seen him gazing at my shoulders the same way I was gazing at him— like a meal; like prey. 

I think what saved me was his curiosity. I was something many people would be curious of. Why was I so insistent on going back to my place; why didn’t I take a single sip of the drink he bought me; why did I want to leave so quickly; why had I instinctively placed my hand against his throat the first time he kissed me, then slightly dug my fingertips into his flesh, like I was trying to mark the blood that rushed under it with the tips of my fingers. 

In a way I was curious too— sometimes as to what he’d taste like, why he didn’t do anything when I grabbed his throat— but never in the way it mattered. I was never curious as to why he didn’t mind any of my, as I prefer to call them, “eccentricities”, I never asked the question of who he was, and that was the one question that could’ve saved me. 

And as my back slammed into the deep blue walls that I’d slammed a baker's dozen of men into before me, and I slipped the syringe of ketamine out of my bag, I didn’t notice the slightest pause he gave with the near-silent slicing of the tip of the syringe as it scraped across the hard plastic lid that kept it safely in my purse, like a dog’s ears perk up when someone blows a dog whistle. 

I didn’t feel the teeth against my neck until it was too late. 

As soon as his teeth hit my throat, I froze for a moment. I had the sudden feeling of my power— my energy, my life— being taken and I responded quickly, violently. I grabbed the dark flowing hair and yanked, before using all the strength I had left and slamming my needle into his throat.

I guess this frozen state that I exist in now is best described as my now phase— not that I’ll ever had a past or future again— I’m merely back to existing, occupying a space in time, cursed to never move outside of the immediate occurrences around me.

I was never one to waste, so when I awoke to the man on my kitchen floor, the white honeycomb tiles with the slight spattering of crimson blood, ensnaring the same dark hair I’d earlier grabbed, and circling his head in a devilish halo, I slid open my drawer and grabbed my knife out of the drawer. Cautiously, moving around him, I took my knife to his arm, and slowly dragged it across the alabaster flesh. Gently, at first, peeling back the skin to reveal the white fatty tissue that cowers just beneath the skin then, a few seconds later, the ivory cavern filled with crimson. As I stared into the pooling of his blood, I forgot to ask two final questions: Why was he bleeding if he supposed to be dead and what kind of disease makes someone’s blood turn black?