The Killing League

20.

The Butcher

Business had never been better. In the last few years, people had grown more and more concerned about chemicals, additives and preservatives in their meat. Organic food had never been hotter. Thanks to clever positioning, Skittlecorn Meats was seeing nearly double-digit growth every six months.

Ray Skittlecorn got a kick out of the whole thing. He hadn’t so much chosen his profession as it had chosen him. That moment in sixth grade, the first dissection in Zoology class he’d nearly shot a wad into his Fruit of the Looms. Maybe it had a little bit to do with his dissection partner, Lori Tolke, whose sixth grade breasts were large, perfect orbs pressed against the soft cloth of her Kmart t-shirt. But even then Roy Skittlecorn knew it had even more to do with slicing up something that had just been alive. Killing and then dismantling the frog was one of the most pivotal moments in his life.

And now, as he unlocked the back door to Skittlecorn Meats, he was amused by the compliments he received regarding his prophetic vision for the future of the food industry.

Truth was, he had no vision. He liked to kill things and cut them up, plain and simple. Being a butcher had always been the perfect answer.

He stepped inside his shop and disabled the alarm. He turned on the lights, activated the master power switch for his equipment. The cutting room was his sanctuary, second only to the small, home workshop he kept behind a locked door in his basement.

He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Something suddenly didn’t feel right. His eyes slowly canvassed the prep room and he saw nothing unusual. But still, he felt something strange inside him, a vague sense of unease.

He pushed his way through the double doors into the front of the shop where he served his customers.

He had been right, he thought, as he stopped.

Someone had been here.

Roy Skittlecorn looked at the pig head placed on top of the glass display case. It faced him directly, positioned that way for maximum effect, he knew instinctively. It was the kind of thing he himself would have done.

He walked directly to the display. He knew there was nothing else to worry about. The intruder had been here to do just this. And this alone.

Before he plucked the beautiful and delicate envelope from the pig’s mouth, he had a feeling that there was more to this than some kind of prank.

The front of the card read:

The Butcher.

Inside, he read:

Mr. Roy Skittlecorn,

Good news, oh Maestro of Meat! Based on your exquisite skill slicing and dicing meat (both animal and human) you have been selected as a competitor in The Killing League. Attached are your travel instructions and ticket. If you choose not to participate, your local police chief will be quite surprised to find out that his steaks aren’t exactly as organic as he would like to believe! I look forward to meeting you and congratulating you on your nice work. It’s all been very WELL DONE (so to speak — ha!)

Sincerely,

The Commissioner

Roy Skittlecorn took the envelope and note to the cutting room and fed it into the power shredder.

He would play this game, he clearly had to. But at some point, he was going to find this Commissioner, and show him just how good he was at what he did.

He wondered how clever the Commissioner would feel when he was hanging from one of Ray Skittlecorn’s stainless steel meat hooks.