Ominous

Just a Little Salt

My name is Larry J. Stell, and I ate my wife.

I don't mean that in a...romantic way. I literally ate her. In fact, after I ate her, I ate my fourteen-year-old son Greg. He was a bit bony, but it was a good meal. I was in the middle of cleaning up when that pretentious bastard goody-two-shoes FBI Agent Garfield Harrington arrested me. Oh, I'm not mad at Garfield for arresting me. I'm not your stereotypical, cartoonish killer. Garfield is just...a pretentious bastard.

"Okay Mr. Stell," said Garfield, wearing his fancy little suit, holding his fancy little pen and writing on a fancy little piece of paper. "Tell me exactly what you did to your wife and son."

"I killed them," I replied.

"Yes, I know that," Garfield said.

"So why'd you ask?"

Garfield sighed. "Okay then, let me rephrase my statement. Tell me how and why you killed your wife and son."

"Finally, a specific question." I thought this moron was a trained FBI Agent. Don't agents know how to ask the proper questions?

"It was around 9:20 in the evening, the weather was nice, low humidity, and clear skies. I came home from work with an empty stomach. I didn't have any money to buy some food. So I went inside, expecting to smell something amazing cooking in the oven. I smelled something alright, but it smelled like crap."

Garfield wrote something on his piece of paper. "So...you killed them because...your wife made a bad dinner?"

What's with this guy? "No, you idiot," I said. "I wasn't finished."

Garfield pursed his lips. "Very well. Go ahead."

"Thank you. As I was saying, the dinner smelled like crap. I told my wife bluntly and honestly. That's what a good relationship needs, right? Honesty. Anyways, she got mad. Really mad. She started yelling, screaming, throwing childish insults, and so on. I got mad back. We fought for a while and then, eventually, we came to an agreement. She told me she'd make me a grilled cheese seasoned with garlic salt and some paprika. It's a very good grilled cheese, you should try it sometime."

"Anyways, after that, we apologized. I went upstairs to get in my pajamas and shave. Then my wife, whose name is Helen, as you should know, came up with the grilled cheese. And let me tell you, it smelled really good. I ate the grilled cheese, then brushed my teeth, and crawled into bed. Helen joined eventually. She fell asleep quite quickly. But me, however, I lay awake. Starving. I was so, so starving. And Helen was wearing that wonderful perfume. Romance Rosé Eau de Parfum from Ralph Lauren. It made her smell so amazing."

"So--and this is where things get interesting--I took her arm and smelled it. Like the good lookin' guys do in the romance movies. I smelled her arm, from the wrist all the way up to the elbow. Then on back down. Then back up. Then back down, and so on. After a few minutes, minutes which felt like hours, I sunk my teeth into her."

I saw Garfield go pale. I absolutely loved that. I made the oh-so-brave FBI Agent scared.

"She stirred, and then she woke up with a yelp. She screamed at me and tried to hit me, but I was too quick. I punched her in the jaw. And I did it again. Again. Again. And again. Then I grabbed a pillow, got on top of her, and held the pillow on her face. I had no idea how strong she was. She writhed around, hitting me feebly. But I was stronger. I broke both of her arms and then continued smothering her. A minute or two passed and...well, she was twitched real fast. It scared me a little, honestly."

Garfield was now as pale as a ghost. No, he was as pale as the piece of paper he was writing on.

I continued telling my story. "After she stopped twitching, I bit her arm again. I ripped a decent mouthful of flesh out. It tasted like...like pennies and...and raw beef. Of course, you've never tasted raw beef before. It's pretty good, you should try it. Anyway, I took a bite out of Helen's arm. Some blood squirted into my face, and all over the bedsheet. I thought Helen would freak, but I remembered. I killed her. I took several more bites until my teeth scraped against some slick bone and tendons."

Garfield looked like he was about to cry.

"And let me tell you, Mr. Harrington. She tasted so, so, so good! It was crazy. Like, eating Helen was the most sensational thing that has ever happened to me! You know that feeling you have when you haven't eaten all day, and then you get to eat a delicious meatloaf or something like that? Eating Helen felt like that, but a million times better!"

"About an hour later, I'd eaten most of her arms, except for the shoulders. I'd taken some bites out of her head, too. Not the best part to eat, however. I also took a few bites out of her stomach, and good god let me tell you, Garfield, it was delicious. Now here's a fun detail: I chewed on her stomach so much it actually...popped. Her insides were still very warm. I hate the food from her stomach and I think I also ate her spleen or some other weird organ."

"After another hour, I decided to eat my son. He was a piece of shit, anyways. I busted into his room without knocking, and let me tell you, he screamed. It was like music to my ears. But he put up a fight, though. He managed to call you guys, which I found fuckin' annoying. I managed to bash his little acne-infested face in and eat his arms, legs, and his eyeballs before you bastards came in."

Garfield looked like he was about to throw up. He sighed and rubbed his fear-filled eyes and tapped his pen on his fancy paper. He took a few deep breaths, trying to repent his nausea. Then he looked at me and asked, "Anything else you want to say?"

I shrugged. "I would've liked just a little salt."

* * * *

Larry J. Stell was sentenced to death on April 12th, 1991, three weeks after he killed and ate his family and after a long, long trial. But on the day Larry Stell was to be executed, he somehow managed to escape his cell with only a pencil and a hairclip.

Larry J. Stell was last seen sitting at a gas station in Wisconsin, on the 7th of June, 2019, according to witnesses, asking a gas station attendant if he to come over as his friend for dinner.