 |
|||
|
|
6. The Slaughter
Gradually the dinner guests, or members, or clients — or whoever they are — become bored with the exhibition and wander away to refill their glasses and find some other amusement. The rotunda becomes eerily quiet. There are no more groping hands, no more painful tugs at the fishhook, no more leering and laughing at her naked helplessness. There's no more transparent talk in a dozen incomprehensible languages about how beautiful she is, and how exciting it will be to see her put to death, butchered and eaten.
There are only twelve frightened young women, immersed in silence, awaiting their final moment of life.
Her feet really hurt from standing in these damned high heels. She has been shifting her weight from foot to foot to help alleviate the pain, but it's becoming unbearable. Yet she must bear it.
Two other girls are unable to hold back their bladders, but this time there is no retribution, no punishment by cattle prod. An attendant simply mops it up, washes off the piss-dampened legs and disappears. From this Lili surmises that the exhibition is over and no further guests will be visiting the rotunda. Time is rapidly running out.
The double doors open and a group of guards enter carrying choker chains on leashes. Lili is one of the first to be released from her stocks, but her wrists are immediately cuffed behind her again and the choke collar slipped over her head and around her neck. To her relief, the shoes and the gag are removed. She's led out of the rotunda on bare feet through a series of rooms filled with segments of the same gala crowd she has so recently entertained with her body. The rooms are elegant, each with a bar to help keep the hungry rascals merry. Her sensitive soles tread on wood, then thick carpet, then tiles, then more carpet.
Suddenly she is outside, in a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by walls and balconies, but open above to blue sky dazzled by the sun as it approaches its daily apogee. Long tables project toward the center from three corners of the rectangular yard, each sheltered under an awning with burgundy and white stripes. In the fourth corner there's a platform with a structure that looks for all the world like a soccer goal: a cross bar between two vertical posts. The center of the court yard features an iron roasting pit, low flames already licking through red hot coals. On the wall opposite her and those to her left and right are tall, shallow cages with thick, flat metal bars. They stand side by side in sets of three. Her guard yanks on the leash, pulling her toward the far cage on the left hand wall. Bits of debris scattered about on the tiled floor of the courtyard dig painfully into her soft feet, eliciting winces and small noises in her throat.
"What's the matter, there?" her guard says, the first person to talk to her since she got off the plane! "Rough on your little footsies, is it?"
"Yes, Sir," she says politely, mindful of the prod clipped to his belt.
"Well don't worry about it," he says. "Our guests won't be eating your feet. Those will just get tossed in the incinerator with the rest of the junk parts."
"The junk parts," she repeats, trying to get her mind around the casual dismissal of her body.
"Yeah. Head, hands, feet, bones, guts — all that shit."
"I've kind of grown fond of . . . all that shit," she says, immediately chastising herself for tempting his anger? Why doesn't she just shut up? She doesn't need another dose of pain.
But he just laughs. "Well, you'll have some time to kiss them all goodbye. Lights out for you will be about 4:30."
"What time is it now?" She doesn't want to know!
"Coming up on 10:30. You'll be able to watch the first nine girls prepared and roasted, see how it's done. It's quite interesting, really. In fact, you'll be practically right on top of Table One for the first seating. Get a real good view of how you're gonna be carved up and served later on, right at that same table."
They reach the cage. A small sign with the number 6 has been bolted to the top. The cage is about half a foot taller than her five foot five, barely wider than her shoulders and no more than a foot deep. The entire front side opens up on hinges. The guard removes her handcuffs and shoves her backwards into it, slamming the door and locking it with a heavy padlock. The cage is so tight she can hardly move. The guard cuffs her wrists to the sides.
"That's in case you get an attack of modesty, to keep you from covering up your good bits. The customers like to fondle the merchandise and we like to please our customers. We'll let you hang out here without a gag, but the first time you sass a customer, in it goes. Along with a jolt of this up your twat." He taps the prod.
She keeps silent, hoping to avoid the humiliation of a fawning response. But it is not to be. He puts his hand on the prod and leans close to her face.
"What do you say, bitchmeat?"
"Yes, Sir. I'll be good. I won't sass anyone."
"Fucking A, you won't," he says, and strolls back to escort another girl to her cage.
When all nine cages are filled, three other sets of doors swing open and the courtyard is quickly packed with expectant diners, many of them well into their cups. As the guard predicted, they circulate past the caged girls administering a variety of pokes and pinches through the widely spaced strips of steel. Lili is well beyond outrage and humiliation at this point. She simply endures it as the least of her problems.
Then through the same door by which she was dragged into the courtyard, three of her fellow prisoners are led in to cheers from the well-oiled crowd. All three were on Lili's flight across the Atlantic. All three are very attractive, but two have a little too much padding in the thighs. The third could be a fashion model with her rail thin body, long skinny legs and small breasts; but in the flesh and stripped to the buff she suffers in comparison with her more voluptuous sisters. Lili hates herself for thinking in such terms, but this choice of initial victims seems to bear out what she was told, that they are saving "the best for last."
The girls are led on to the corner platform with the out-of-place soccer goal. Unwilling to challenge the cattle prods of the guards, they allow themselves to be gagged and have their hands tied in front of them. Three hooks are hanging from ropes thrown over the cross bar and are inserted under the ropes between their wrists. Guards pulling on the other end of the ropes quickly hoist them up, leaving them dangling a foot off the floor of the platform. Ropes are tied from their ankles to eye bolts, spreading their legs.
The three white-smocked female attendants appear with bottles and plastic tubing. Squatting in front of the hanging girls, they wet one end of the tubing in their mouths for lubrication and proceed to twist and push them up into the urethras of the girls, ignoring the grimaces they're causing. In the next moment pee is draining from all three girls into the bottles. As the last yellow drops drip from the emptied bladders, the attendants pull out the catheters, pick up the filled bottles and leave through a red steel door.
As they leave, the guards untie the ropes from the ankles of the hanging girls. Working now work in pairs, one guard grabs the girl's legs and holds them up while his partner wraps wire around her ankles. She's then taken down from the hook and stood upright on the platform. Her wrists are untied, but her arms are quickly placed behind her back, one forearm laid over the other, and bound together with wire. Next, one of the guards picks her up, like a husband about to carry his bride over a threshold, while his partner inserts the hook between her ankles and under the wire. Once again she is hauled up to the cross bar, this time by the feet. When all three girls are hanging head down, a second horizontal bar is put in place at about the level of their knees. Their legs are roped tightly to the bar to keep them facing forward.
The attendants reappear through the red door with cordless clippers and shavers. All visible hair is removed from the hanging girls — scalp, eyebrows and pubis. They look much less feminine now. Less human. More like upside down manikins. The piles of hair under their heads are swept up and replaced by large metal bowls.
Two men in formal attire appear from the midst of the crowd and step in front of the three girls. One holds an inverted top hat which he is shaking vigorously. In a strong voice the other man calls for attention.
"Damen und Herren. Madams et monsieurs. Ladies and gentlemen." He makes an announcement, first in German, then French, ending with English. "The drawing to select the first three Swordbearers of Isis will now take place."
The man with the hat holds it above head level so neither can see into it. The speaker reaches up with his right hand; it disappears over the brim and comes back up holding a slip of paper. He reads what's written on the paper and makes another announcement in German. The assembled diners glance around at each other. No one responds.
He does it again in English: "The Society of Isis is pleased to announce that the first winner of the lottery for this sacrifice is number three-hundred-seventy-four." Still only expectant looks from the crowd.
He repeats it in French. The instant he finishes the number a woman throws her hand up, screaming in glee, "C'est moi! C'est moi!"
The other diners congratulate her as she works her way to the first girl hanging from the crossbar.
The process begins again, calling the second winner, then the third, until all three winners are in place beside the three sacrificial offerings.
Two men and a woman in white chef outfits emerge from the same red door used by the attendants and take up positions next to the inverted girls. One of the male chefs begins helping the three lottery winners into long green smocks and disposable gloves. As he does this, the other male chef steps forward. There's some kind of insignia on his white jacket. Lili Primrose assumes he must be the head chef. He pulls a marker from his apron pocket and makes two marks on the necks of all three girls. Lili recognizes the locations of the marks from her biology class days. They identify the spots where the main arteries supplying blood to the head come closest to the skin. She tries to remember the names of the arteries, but cannot. For some reason she is absurdly disconcerted by this hole in her memory, as though she were about to fail a test.
The female chef hands him a tablet and he steps forward to read from it. (Like Moses on the mountain, thinks Lili. Or Charlton Heston pretending to be Moses.) He reads it first in German, then French, then English.
"Members and guests of the Society of Isis, we welcome you to the M ä dchenbraten and to the celebration of our beloved Goddess. It is to the glory of Isis that we offer and dedicate the first of our sacrifices on this day. May the blood of these three young maidens and the roasting of their flesh be acceptable in her sight, that she may grant us health and prosperity. Let us, in turn, honor her bounteous favors by using our health to enjoy the full pleasures of our bodies, and our prosperity to seek those pleasures in abundance."
Meaning, Lili thinks to herself, come back and lavish your wealth on another slaughter. Nothing like a self-serving invocation.
The Chef produces a tube from his breast pocket, uncaps it and pulls out a silvery instrument that looks, to Lili, like an Exacto knife. No, it's a scalpel with a small pointed blade. He holds it aloft like a torch and shouts, "Das Schwert aus Isis!"
The crowd shouts back: "DAS SCHWERT AUS ISIS!"
With a dramatic flourish he passes the scalpel, handle first, to the woman and whispers something in her ear. She nods and holds it high, as he did.
"Heil Isis!" she cries.
"HEIL ISIS!" the crowd roars.
Then she turns, pushes the point of the small blade into the end of one of the marks on the girl's throat and draws it the length of the mark, looking surprised at how easily it slid through the flesh.
A geyser of blood erupts from the wound and splashes off the side of the girl's face. More blood spurts out behind it creating a widening river that cascades over the shelf of her chin, flows to the top of her shaved head and trickles into the open bowl beneath.
The woman with the scalpel backs away, her face white. She seems to be appalled at what she has wrought. Maybe she hadn't anticipated so much blood from such a little cut. It has drenched her glove and splattered all over her sleeve and the front of her smock. The head chef notes her distress and carefully removes the scalpel from her hand. At the same time a guard materializes at her elbow and quickly steers her to the nearest chair. The chef completes her unfinished task by slicing through the mark on the opposite side of the girl's neck. A new stream of blood pulses out of the second cut, painting the other side of her face red. The stream splashing into the bowl briefly becomes a cataract, then slows to a rapid pattering of drops. Aside from a twitch each time the knife bit into her throat, the girl has remained motionless. Only her eyes and her irregular breathing betray her terror at the approach of death. Gradually her breathing slows, shudders, then ceases altogether. Her eyes are still open but register only emptiness.
Lili does not want to watch this, does not want to stare at the girl's lifeless eyes, but she cannot help herself. Any more than she can stop trying to remember the damned name of the arteries.
The head chef has passed the knife to the man who has won the privilege of dispatching the middle girl, the tall thin one with the fashion model face. But she has been watching the death of her neighbor and is frantic with terror, wriggling like an eel on a hook, shouting muffled pleas into her gag, crying. The bearer of the Sword of Isis is at a loss. How can he hit such a lively target without making a mess of it. The chef standing behind the thrashing girl solves his problem by grabbing her ears and holding her head steady. She is in such pain from the grip on her ears that she doesn't even realize her throat has been cut until the chef releases her and blood flows over her face.
I won't do that! Lili tells herself. I won't struggle so they can add that further indignity to my death. Yet it's important that she display her contempt for these monsters. But how? She can't give them the finger because her arms will be wired together behind her. She can't spit at them because she'll be gagged. Damn them to hell!
The ritual repeats a third time. When that girl is dead, the guards take down the bodies and lay them out on steel tables. The three chefs spring into action. They slit open the abdomens and systematically eviscerate the carcasses, handing the long ropes of intestines and other internal organs to the assistants who drop them into a plastic garbage container on wheels. The kidneys and livers are placed in covered pans to be cooked separately. The chefs make a show of pouring olive oil and wine into large mixing bowls, then adding crushed or chopped apricots, lemons, oranges, cloves, parsley, garlic and onions. They stir the mixture and apply it to the inside of the stomach cavities with a paint brush.
The next step is to slide the carcasses up the tables so that the heads are hanging off the end. The assistants wash off the blood and sew up the eye lids. (This, Lili guesses, is so if the eyeballs split in the heat of the fire, it won't create an unappetizing mess. Her stomach lurches at the thought.) The pointed end of a thick iron skewer is threaded between the wired-up ankles of each girl and pushed upward between the legs to where it can be inserted into her vagina. It's then slowly pushed and twisted up through her body and neck until, thanks to the angle of the head off the end of the table, it emerges easily from her mouth. A short metal cross bar is bolted to the skewer under each girl's knees and her legs are firmly wired to it. This well keep her from slipping on the spit as it's turned.
Meanwhile, the assistant cooks arrive with a basket of stuffing which the chefs pack into the open abdomens before sewing them up. Aluminum foil is wired in place over the heads to keep the faces from charring, and pinned over the vulva to prevent overcooking of the tender flesh there. Lili remembers that some of the discussions in the rotunda as the crowd swirled among the previewed entrees, revolved around discussions of the price and preferred seasonings for "crispy cunt."
Two guards pick up the ends of the skewers and place them on trestles so the bodies can be turned while the chefs baste them with the same mixture they applied to the body cavity. When the chefs are satisfied with the basting, another wire is wound around the upper bodies to keep the arms — still wired together forearm to forearm — from flopping away from the bodies as they're turned on the spits.
The preparations finished, three pair of guards carry the carcasses to the roasting pit where the skewers are set into grooves in the sides. The "pit" is actually a square cast iron enclosure about seven feet to a side where gas jets feed a carefully controlled flame beneath a mesh grid covered with glowing coals. Hand cranks are added at one end of the spits so they can be periodically turned and locked in place. The chefs and the assistant cooks turn the spits every ten seconds or so, basting the steaming carcasses with long handled brushes.
For the next two hours Lili's mind replays the horrendous scene over and over. She tries not to look directly at the three females as they slowly roast over the pit; she tries not to notice their skin turn from pink to red to bronze as they are turned and basted. But her eyes keep returning inexorably to this preview of her own future.
In a way, she is thankful that another misery is becoming a serious distraction. Hours of standing in the cramped embrace of the metal cage has turned into an agony. The flat metal bars of the cage floor are cutting into her feet. Having been standing most of the day on exhibit in the rotunda and now here, she is tortured by pain in her back and legs. The brief moments of relief she can achieve by slumping downward jams her knees against the cruel bars, leaving them bruised and sore.
The courtyard, which had largely emptied as the first set of diners wandered off to find new amusements while waiting for the four o'clock seating, is beginning to fill again. This crowd is even less sober and more noisily crude than the last batch. More hands squeeze her breasts and twist her nipples. More fingers force their way into the sensitive channel between her legs, tender and bleeding from the ravages of countless fingernails. Two couples, well past the inhibitions of sobriety, openly grope each other under their clothes as they grope her through the bars. A man whose face is a mass of old acne scars opens his fly and masturbates as he fingers her pussy and presses his face against the bars to suck on a nipple. He's still sober enough, she notes, to avoid the one with the fishhook.
Too bad.
Most of the crowd's attention is focused on the three cages against the wall directly opposite her. Two of the women occupying those cages were on the plane with her: an exotic Latino beauty with full sensual lips and a lush figure; and a tall girl with light brown hair, sad green eyes and elegantly shaped limbs. The third is one of the gorgeous blondes from their first stop near Amsterdam. The reason for the attention they're receiving is soon chillingly clear. As if by magic, guards suddenly appear at all three cages and begin unlocking them. At the same time all the doors to the courtyard are closed and attended by more guards. It's time for the next sacrifice.
The three victims are led to the preparation area without handcuffs or shackles. Their only restraint is the silver choke collar by which the guards lead them. But of course, there's no need to restrain them. Every possible escape route is blocked and every free man and woman in this courtyard has a vital interest in making sure none of the captives leave this place alive. Lili despises these people and what they're doing, yet her body responds to the erotic overtones of the scene: three starkly nude females, on their way to execution, being pulled on leashes between two lines of fully clothed spectators.
The ritual begins again.
The wrists are bound, the victims strung up, their bladders drained.
The invocation is read, bloodlust incited.
DAS SCHWERT AUS ISIS!
Lady Luck selects the three who will cut the throats of the sacrificial maidens.
They're hanging upside down, now, from a hook between their wired ankles. Luscious offerings for the Goddess. Waiting. Terrified. Two of them crying. Forearms wired together behind them. Bodies newly shorn of hair. Nothing left to be singed in the fire.
"Heil Isis!"
"HEIL ISIS!"
Blood gushing, pumped by frightened, racing hearts through the opening in the slashed arteries, coursing down clear young skin into the waiting bowls.
Lovely young corpses, heads tilted back so the skewers can exit through open mouths. Pretty lips sucking on hard iron, the pointed end wet with gore from drilling a passage that began where life itself begins.
Lily watches the spits carrying the three stuffed and basted girls set in place over the roasting pit, their skin glistening with the first coat of oil and spices. A hand tightens over her right beast, but she's thoroughly numbed to such abuse and pays no attention. She's transfixed by a scene she's compelled, against her will, to watch.
Until he speaks.
"Hi, darlin.' You ready for your turn?"
She recognizes the voice of the pleasant faced man from the airplane but won't look at him.
"Are we ever ready to be murdered?" she asks, surprised that she has enough passion left to provoke him.
"Best not to dwell on it," he says. "Think happy thoughts. Like, what did you do before your new career as a main course?"
"You bastard."
"Hey, don't get pissy with me. I'm not the one who kidnaped you, then sold you. I would never have sold anyone as pretty as you to this place, for these creeps to eat."
"But you don't mind eating my leftovers yourself, now that I'm here."
"Exactly. You're here and there's no way out of it. So why not? But don't blame me for putting you here."
"You kept me on the plane!"
"Excuse me! Several Isis employees kept you on the plane, not just me. Not to mention the Atlantic Ocean."
"You could have done something !"
"You think so? If I had tried to save you then, or at any time, including now, I would be dead. Isis is a powerful organization and takes care of its enemies in uncomplicated ways. I prefer not to be dead. I should think you could empathize with that, given your current situation."
"Bullshit! You could have blown the whistle on these people a long time ago. Instead you chose . . . you choose to work with them and help murder young women. And EAT them, for God's sake!"
"I refer to my previous answer."
"Bastard!"
"Watch you mouth. You seem to forget I carry a cattle prod."
Lili takes a deep breath and says nothing for a few moments. "There are at least a couple hundred people in this place," she says, keeping her voice low and even. "How can it stay a secret? I don't know German law, but I'm sure it doesn't permit the slaughter and cannibalism of innocent women. All it should take to stop all this is one anonymous phone call to the police."
"Should, but won't. The answer to your question, lovely nameless lady, is that the top authorities in Munich as well as at the highest levels of the national government are paid-up members of Isis. A lot of them are right here at the M ä dchenbraten and one or two may soon be digging their forks into you. Think that might give me pause? You bet your soon-to-be-cooked ass it does! So let's cut the fantasy crap and get back to my original question. What were you? What did you do?"
"My name, whether you want it or not, is Lily Primrose and I'm a teacher. Grades three through five."
"You were a teacher. Wow. Intelligent and tasty. What a combination! Most of the females who come through here can't tell a verb from their elbow."
"Why do you keep putting me in the past. I'm still alive and I'm still a teacher."
"No, honeycakes. You're meat. And your life was over the minute you were abducted. It would've been nice if your kidnaper had sold you to me as a fuck toy. I'd have kept you around for a while as my own personal pussy to play with. But he didn't. He sold you to Isis as meat. So we both have to suck up our disappointment and deal with it. Right?"
"You son of a b. . ." She stops herself as his hand touches the cattle prod on his belt. She looks away, biting her lower lip.
"I know," he says softly. "I'm a bastard. And I'd love to talk with you further, Miss Lili Primrose, but duty calls elsewhere. It's almost time to . . ." He sighed. "Listen, I'm really sorry I can't be your white knight and save you from . . . from all this. But I can't. I wish it were otherwise." He looks away for a moment, starts to say something more, then suddenly walks off.
Now she's alone. Alone to face all this.
Eternity drags by. The first six girls continue to roast, the chefs constantly checking them, turning them, bringing them slowly to epicurean perfection. The courtyard air is filled with the aroma of cooking meat and spices. A little like lamb, she muses, disgusted with herself at the thought. Endless, faceless tormentors continue the painful violations of her body. She doesn't care any more. She almost welcomes the distraction from the greater agony of her confinement in the cage. And the horrors battering her mind.
Horrors that come to life again for the third time as the doors bang shut and guards approach the three cages on the wall to her left. She recognizes only one of these three as they file past at the end of their silver leashes. The first is one of the blondes from Amsterdam. The second is Indian, exquisitely beautiful and very young. The third girl reminds her of an actress. Who? It comes to her as the girl is strung up by her wrists for the catheter. Meg Ryan. Now if only she could remember the name of the damned arteries!
She turns her head away as the three are hauled up by their ankles. She closes her eyes. She can't watch this time. Bad enough that she can't shut out the sounds.
Damen und Herren . . . the drawing to select the Swordbearers of Isis . . . pleased to announce the first winner. . . May the blood of these three maidens and the roasting of their flesh . . . Das Schwert aus Isis!
HEIL ISIS!
She weeps. Her eyelids cannot black out the vision of three more beautiful girls hung by their feet like sheep in a slaughterhouse, watching their young lives draining into bowls.
She loses track of time. She doesn't want to know the time. She tries not to think about time. When she opens her eyes again the third set of sacrifices are over the fire pit and on their way to the bronze stage. Nine young women are now roasting there. Three to go. One more seating. Her seating.
|
|
|