A Pugnacious Converging of Lollipop-Faced Meat

SEAN KILPATRICK

"You want Baptist?"

"Something more ... exquisite than Baptist. Episcopalian?"

"Is that expensive?"

"Look, if you want Catholic, we can stop at another Cardinal stand."

"Episcopalian is fine, dear."

"They weight the Catholic with cement."

The young couple's car hummed, floating over the remains of ancient highways. The online computer guided them to the nearest Episcopalian restaurant in an open field. It was a soft, dirt landing.

The walk to fortification was long. Man-made hills curved behind the artificial redwoods that lined the path on both sides. Terri tugged Paul's shirttail. Paul grunted, pretending to be annoyed.

"Look at all this nature!" Bacteria prevented Terri from climax and would for the rest of her life. "It's so beautiful!"

"Yeah, yeah." Paul was hung thirty inches.

"Boy, you're such a city slicker! Don't gloom on my organics." She shot him with her fingers. "Fucker."

Terri held her hands out behind her back and Paul gave her his. They jogged together till the path met a towering electrical fence. The two guards readied their bean-bag guns.

"Don't shoot! We love meat!" Terri presented their identification. The shorter guard smiled, approvingly.

"Mr. and Mrs. 693754, enjoy your meal."

Terri giggled.

"And Terri, if you'd like a personal tour of our security bunker and sleeping quarters, just stop by here afterward."

"OK!"

The entrance gates slid quietly open. Terri bounced in. Paul turned, blank, to the short guard and shook his head no. Both guards saw them enter, then slammed the gates shut with sour eyes.

"I haven't been away from TV this long in my life!"

A gift shop further in displayed forty-inch portable televisions for twenty thousand credits. Bionic legs included.

"We could buy a portable. They have fish symbols."

The tip of a bald man's head appeared from behind a purple, shrouded hill.

"Look, the livestock is shaved. We're taking the tour now! Buy your damn TV later." Terri sped up. "Come on! Hey, I could throw a rock from here."

Terri did and the bald head sunk down momentarily. It slowly peeked again.

"Oh! They leave their little priest collars on. How cute!"

A large open field of synthetic grass: wranglers with electric prods herded the livestock in two lines; each disappeared into a long gray building. Priests, priestesses and children, all naked, except collars, shit on one side of the field, a jagged fly-covered mound.

Terri blocked her nose and puked. Red chunks of Catholic splashed into her hair. Paul helped wipe it out and licked his fingers when Terri looked at the herd penises.

Three Wranglers sauntered over. "Identification!"

Paul reached in his pocket. Paul and Terri were immediately grounded and frisked. The Wrangler on Terri shoved his prod in the waist of her tight shorts and tore a seam, above the crotch.

Paul cleared his throat. "There's a bun in the oven, but the oven's not turned on."

"Maybe you don't know how."

"Look in my pants and see."

"The tour is ten thousand credits. Swipe your debit here."

There was a metal slot screwed into the Wrangler's wrist. Terri swiped their card.

"You can go eat! It's through there. No! Through there! That way! That way!"

"Guy was only seven feet tall. I coulda beat him."

Terri laughed at Paul, glanced back at the Wranglers, and winked. "Yeah, right."

In the livestock line, a group of priestesses whispered.

"Well, hatta go ta sleep sometime. I hates breedin'." She stepped out of line and approached the surrounding, low, wooden fence.

"My body belong to god."

Slivers rose from the post and shot through her eyes, hollowing them into two apple-core sockets. Her corpse bounced on the grass. A group of Wranglers fought over the free meat.

The tour hostess smiled, teeth like pearls. "Please queue to receive your goggles, Tactical Splatter Prevention Jackets, and Bioelectronic Odor Blockers, there are no scanners, video phones or cameras allowed inside the Automatic Livestock Termination Facilities. Anti-Convulsive-Digestion-Pills may be purchased for a fee of one-thousand credits. Thank you for your patience. The universe is our altar."

Paul and Terri geared up and entered through a small twelve-foot door. A spiral of blue lasers connected a path to the door on the other side of the first room. The end of the livestock lines was visible through the soft haze of beams. Two groups of Wranglers stood; their prods shook violently on "KILL." A priest took wide steps to them, with his arms around a trembling group of young boys.

"These tender lads wish to go in my place. I am needed to serve the flock, um."

The prod was jammed, hard, into the priest's neck. His eyes melted, his hair smoked, blood streaked his cheeks, and his fingernails curled into bone with ten audible squirts. A thin, black strand of shit dropped with a loud fart and he shot cum three feet.

 The guard yelled, "COCKSUCKER," and removed the prod. The sizzling meat did not fall. Its gums clenched, repeatedly. A Wrangler, wearing asbestos gloves, pushed it over.

"Hook that fuck. Got jizz on my boots."

Terri hadn't watched. Paul turned her in the meats' direction.

"If you think that's bad, don't look up.

A hook from the ceiling glided down. The Wranglers lifted and hung the meat by the roof of its mouth.

"That jaw won't tear, you think? Hey Bill, you think that body will hold?"

"Fuck if I know!"

"Bastard thing." A silicon spider had already extinguished the Wrangler's boots."

The hook went up and dragged it along the ceiling with fifty other hanged, awkward, stiff, dripping bodies. They floated through a high opening to the next room.

"I feel sick."

"Did you buy pills?"

"No, I didn't."

Paul laughed out his nose at Terri.

"You can't even smell anything and you've seen this a hundred times."

"I know, shut up."

Terri spit several times. Paul blushed pink. One bored couple played grab-ass.

The next priest in line trembled to the floor and flopped, madly beating the ground with his arms and legs, spitting white foam.

"Mad Priest! Throw him on the compo heap!"

The group entered the next room, marked "DEEP FRY." A shell of human skin plopped with a squish and crumpled on the ground by Terri. A fold stuck to her shoe and she kicked.

The bodies fed into a cylindrical machine with scissor arms that removed the skin, heads, feet and muscle. Pus, brown fluids, and parts spit out an open drain — a choking mechanical gurgle. The fat was dropped into a series of iron vats, sectioned by the sharp grills inside, and cooked.

"Now, that's appetizing."

Terri punched Paul's shoulder.

Small assembly lines led from the oven holes where thick circles of cooked meat were dressed by employees and set on trays. Five minutes. The tour was over. A feminine foot fell by Paul, spraying blood on his jacket. He moved closer, but Terri saw. They exited the building to open country. A row of stereophonic picnic tables had built-in TVs.

 The trays waited on the window ledge. The customers took their pick. Drinks, on sale for nine-hundred credits, sprayed from a machine on the wall.

Terri and Paul each grabbed a tray.

"Wanna take it home?"

"Sure."

There was an explosion and screams in the distance, white flashes over the rooftop.

"I thought they were shocked when they screamed."

"Probably eco-terrorist vegetarians attacking."

"Yeah, I think it is. What's on TV?"

Terri stretched out on their hoverbed. Paul set the food down next to her and climbed on top. They lapped tongues inside their mouths, loud sucking sounds. She flipped the wall TV to maximum volume. He humped into her and licked her neck. She pushed her hips up against him and yawned. Live on channel two-hundred, smoke and bodies poured from the burning Episcopalian restaurant. She slowly put her hand on the remote.

He whispered, shaking. "Terri? You're beautiful. Terri? You're sexy. Terri? I’ll even ... go down. Can we?"

"What else is on?"

Sean Kilpatrick's writing appears online at The 2nd Hand, Mused Magazine, House of Pain, and Exquisite Corpse.

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