The prompt cards for this are “dinner with the family” and “butcher.”
I guess trigger warnings for dead babies and cannibalism if that’s a turn off for you.
If it’s a turn on for you, that’s not really good, but… enjoy?
“You never sit and have a nice meal with your family anymore,” his wife complained often. It was a busy season for him as a butcher, and he welcomed the work. It was how he helped put that dinner on the table. There were the families that bought cows and hired him to cut and ground the meat so that they could freeze and use it through the year. There were hunters that did the same. On top of the usual labor of running his own small retail business, sometimes he came home late and exhausted. Despite how hard working he was, she always complained.
It had been that way the night before also. He hadn’t really meant for anything to happen, but he was tired, and hardly responsive to her usual complaints, and she had become physical. She had pushed him, actually pushed him, while screaming in his face, and he had angrily pushed her back in retaliation. The baby had been on her hip through all of it, and she full just right to crush the poor thing – there was a brief terrified cry that cut off to an almost sickening silence.
When they both realized what had happened… it was instant grief, and instant blame. Why had she even tried to start a physical altercation when she was holding their child? Why had he even pushed back? He practically saw red as she screamed and wailed and laid the blame solely at his feet, and before he really understood what he was doing, could really stop what was happening… her face had turned a sickly purple as she gasped and fought for oxygen in his grip.
For a brief moment, he realized he should stop. If he stopped, she’d be able to breathe again, and it’d all be just fine. But the baby was still dead, and nothing would be okay again. Instead, he tightened his grip, held tight to her neck and throttled until she passed out, and for several long moments after that.
He sat panting at the exertion and adrenaline, staring at both of the bodies as a blind panic overtook him. What was he going to do? How was he going to get rid of them so no one knew?
It was an entire night of very hard work. Luckily, there was little blood splatter at the house – he tossed some of her belongings and some of the child’s things into a suitcase with her wallet and smashed her phone to bits to put in with it as well. He would dispose of those later, some small indication that maybe she had packed and left him. She’d never had her own vehicle because she didn’t like driving, so he didn’t have the headache of hiding a car that could be traced. When her friends and family came looking, all he’d have to do is morosely tell them that she took the kid and left – he vaguely knew that she complained about him constantly. The only thing that would stand out as strange to them was that she hadn’t gone to them… but certainly he could shrug that off and angrily say that he had no clue where or who she had gone to.
He took the bodies in to his shop, and he did the job he knew to do best. The bones might be problematic – he’d have to store those separately and figure out a way to dispose of them discreetly. But that still left all the properly cut and ground meat.
He sat down to dinner the next night, absently poking at the meatballs he had made for his spaghetti, slathered in a homemade meat based sauce, wondering what it would taste like. His stomach turned at the thought, but at the same time he couldn’t leave the evidence for long. He’d have to work through all of it over the next month. Eventually, someone might want to investigate what he had in his freezers, and there could be nothing left by the time they came searching.
He popped a whole meatball into his mouth and chewed, finding it to be surprisingly delicious. A funny thought popped into his head, and he laughed as he continued to eat. He was finally enjoying a nice dinner with his family.
mehryment 