Gallows Humour | Watty's 2023

The Kidney

Blood coagulated on the shiny table lip. A tendril stretched toward the floor, drawing itself longer and thinner and thinner and longer. A bulb at its end swirled and weighed it lower yet. Until the spider-silk-thin tendril snapped and landed with a plip on True's boot.

Their body burned.

Vomit—Cal's—cooled in the corner. Plates made of covers Eliza had torn off hardback books sat before each member of the new alliance. Dark crimson slabs lay on the plates, oozing red from spongy meat.

They'd eaten kidney once or twice. Cow kidney. Their's looked a little different. Smoother, a darker shade of red.

Big Valdivia dropped her face into her hands.

"Now," Dr. Allsaint tutted, but trailed off, the light in his eerie pale eyes glazing over. True figured their gaze was pretty glazed, too. Same reason, different side of the coin.

Valdivia's shoulders began to tremble, and Cal, the only normal one of them, rubbed her hunched back and murmured something that made her shake her head.

"She can never know this happened." Her voice carried the same sound as wind shuddering through fragile autumn leaves. True watched her, Cal watched her. Eliza watched her, pouting. After a long and miraculously quiet moment, Valdivia straightened, cleared her throat.

"Well, what are we waiting for..."

Eliza's pout transformed into a soulless grin. She leaned across the table, her hand stamping into the lake of cooling blood. Grabbing Valdivia by the wrist, she yanked her hand into the blood, too. Held it there. Beside Eliza, the doctor roused enough to huff and place his red-caked hand in the puddle as well. Radio nudged True, placed its hand in the blood. Ah, not the madwoman's cruel joke, then. True stuck their hand in, Cal followed suit.

Lukewarm, sticky blood squelched in the spaces between their fingers, filled up the grooves and cracked calluses. Years of burials, soaking in the blood. When this was over there would be a year's worth new corpses to dig graves for.

They eyed the hunk of kidney. They would prefer to be burned.

A scuffle at the end of the table dredged up their waning attention. Cal mushed Jonesy's hand into the blood. Jonesy recoiled in an instant, but it was enough for the shadow dwellers.

"Bon Appetit to a new alliance," she proclaimed, and popped her hunk of kidney into her mouth.

True moved slow. Didn't mean to, it was just hard to move. Or think. Kidney, wet, smooth. Felt like sponge, or solidified mashed potatoes. Brought it to their lips, stomach churned. Static in the head. This was wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong—

It tasted of iron and bitterness, and slid jelly-like down the back of their gullet.

Dark red smudged the corner of Radio's mouth. That was the first time they'd ever seen it eat. It looked as gone as True felt. It met their stare. Rubbed at the smudge robotically. Then its eyes focused. With twitching lips, it lifted both hands, and mimed eating a corncob.

True snorted. That shithead. A laugh creeped out of them. High-pitched, breathless, vocal cords fried from screaming. Radio's shoulders started to shake. They cackled harder. It hurt to laugh, scorched them from stomach to throat. They choked, spit out a glob of mucus and blood. Threw their head back, tears ran down their cheeks. Dissolved into hysterics.

Blood warmed their side. And they laughed. And the burn raged like wildfire up their body. And they laughed until all that was left was dark and void.