The Morbid Chronicling of Grim Happenings; case #247
Dead Dining
Somewhere over a hundred garbage hills and a dozen oil wells, beyond a river of waste and a road of rot, in an odious castle filled with a despicable smell, our dreadful story begins. The trees are dead where they stand and the birds are all fled from fear of this place. The mailman no longer delivers to the front gate, having lost the nerve to even approach the shadow of such a sinister place.
Before more of the setting is revealed, it should be said that there was once quite a pleasant child who was a darling to behold, but time is a mysterious wonder that changes all in one way or another. This child was no exception, and in many ways, time changed her. No longer a dear doll to her long dead parents, this girl is indeed a woman with the most odd of obsessions.
The clock chimes half past five in the land of Trell when the green-eyed woman sits herself down before an array of food that would sicken any sane person. Vulture guts stuffed with poppies and caterpillars, mushrooms drizzled in tar, tiger tails and snakeheads all adorn her table that night. She is but a single woman, her waist the size of toothpick’s, devouring it all with a smile stretched wide across her pretty face. The woman's name is Benny Skoul. With a wealth that rivaled the Queen of England's it is rumored that she once used to go after the most delicious foods of the world, but at the end what she ended up desiring was the world's most gruesome of dishes.
A new cook comes to her large mansion in complete and blissful ignorance, never suspecting the terror he has plunged himself into. He soon learns.
"You dare to feed one such as myself such simplistic dishes. Have you no reverence, for your lady?" she shouts, throwing away the apples that aren't poisoned. Nothing so normal or safe would suite a woman like her. She wanted gruesome foods!
She has the same cook gut her a trout and throw out the fish, leaving only guts and bones for her to chew. She swallows and smiles a small smile, thinking that it is good, but not nearly filling enough. She complains quite rudely and the cook leaves her in a huff, his kitchen a mess. She can hear his rants as he descends into the lower chambers of her bleak and lonesome castle and is pricked at the heart.
“A horse could better suite her quirks. Why should someone of my caliber toil for that monstrosity? Back in France they never treated me like this!”
Benny grabs a loose curl colored silver and wraps it around her finger, pouting to herself. "Who is he to say such a thing to me?" she asks the empty walls. “I pay him well enough, don’t I? The villagers supply him with enough to work with, in place of their taxes don’t they? Why just last week from the bog they brought me a drowned rat the size of a carriage!” She picked up a dried rabbit foot without its hair and sucks its toes one by one before devouring it whole. “You would think with all the ingredients I own he could prepare the best, but noooooo… How hideously normal his meals were, I must say.”
She exhaled loudly, slouching in her seat before spotting something a boy was carrying out to the back. Her eyes lit up with delight at the sight. “Ho there, discard those treasures not, but bring them here to me.”
Her servants come into the living room with chairs and stools they were about to throw out, but she eats them all, loving the moldy flavor of their wood. No one bothers to be amazed anymore, since her eating habits were as old as they were unbreakable.
To be sure, being the witch who devours everything in the world, who is never full, and never satisfied, was a dreadful curse to endure. Of course she had been under the enchantment ever since she could remember, so there was no helping it for her, especially not now when she had learned to enjoy it.
Somewhere in the back of her rusted memory she recalled the curse and how it came to be. She had been young and so dreadfully naive when she wandered from the family grounds into the vineyard of a neighboring wizard. Bored she began to eat his grapes, spitting out and tearing down the ones she didn’t like. When the wizard returned home he found his treasured vineyard trampled and defiled, angering him more than any insult ever could. Ever since then Benny had been cursed for a good forty-nine years now, to eat so disgustingly.
The winter withers into itself and recedes till it is green and fresh with life across the once bare hills. Spring has arrived and with it, the beginning of the fiftieth year of Benny’s curse. Who knew what the reason may be, but the servants and hired help were a buzz with the suddenly sharp and demanding manner of their mistress that seemed much more brutal that usual. Nothing seemed to satisfy her these days and she would often end her days crying herself to sleep on an empty stomach that growled at her all night long, very much like a vengeful spirit. The taxes on the once happy villagers were raised and more demands were placed for exotic and dangerous foods. Rotten sharks no longer satisfied her, and in their place she demanded whales; the bigger the better. Woods were no longer limited to polished and proper furniture, but now she desired whole trees; roots, leaves, branches and all. Before the spring came, she had always been able to fill after some time of eating-if only for a few hours, but now there was no end in sight.
Soon it is too much for the cooks to handle. They had put up with her high and mighty behavior and odd tenancies for too long. Several left in the night, too afraid to face her on their own, but one so dared to approach her. He asked for his pay and permission to leave but she refused him both. He grew angry with her and threatened to leave with or without the pay-taking all his cooking talent away with him. At his words she grew so frightened she threw herself on him and beat him against the stone floor, screaming at him to reconsider. It took quite some time for her to notice that he was dead. Any normal human would, and rightfully should, feel remorse and regret for any such actions that lead to murder. But, Benny, as you should know dearest reader, was not normal.
When she beheld the blood all she saw was sauce from red peppers, and when she gazed upon his still warm flesh, dotted with freckles, she was reminded of exotic seasonings. She thought to herself he was quite a handsome man who was sure to look good upon a salad of green, or alongside a serving of African fire ants. So that night there was an extra special dish that no one else knew about, with red hair now limp, sitting a top a pile of metal and lettuce. She was very happy with her dinner, and so sad when it was over, so instead of just eating the dishes she went for 'seconds.'
“Little busy girl, don’t bother with the rubbish and just come here,” she called. She grabbed the arm of the youngest one there, a poor girl cleaning away the dishes. Benny’s eyes were dancing with glee as she hugged the human, her whisper unheard by anyone else. "What do you taste like?"
And that night she feasted and feasted and for a few more nights she feasted. First the remaining cooks, and then the servants, the maids who didn't know anything came next. Sly as a fox she lied and excused the disappearances as nothing whenever the question arose, picking them off one by one. Of course they suspected something, but no one did anything about it until it was too late. She caught the last chambermaid in the great hall banging on the cold wood of the sealed off front door, crying about how there was nowhere to run to and no escape before being swallowed whole. And then just when Benny thought they were all gone, she found the gardener hiding under her roses. He was tastier with the thorns burnt black by the summer sun.
As the months went by, the mansion became empty till there was no one left. When she called out, begging for food, there was no one there to answer her. Somehow she managed by herself, gobbling up everything in sight until the house was all but one a handful of gnawed on rooms. By the time winter came Benny was in so much pain. What a cursed wretch she would call herself in her non-existent halls. What a horror it was to be the woman who would devour everything in the world. The worst of it was that she had already devoured almost everything there was to consume. Almost nothing remained for her to try anew.
“Almost...?” she thought to herself, her salty tears stilling on her cheeks. She looked at her own right hand and silently smiled. "There is still something I haven't eaten," she chuckled, licking her lips and then her fingers. It was Benny's last gruesome meal. The ingredients were, I am loathed to admit, herself. The body that devoured every food on the planet was eaten, and no one will ever know the taste of it.
Fin
Comments and critiques are much appreciated for my first published story on Wattpad. And yes, the music did inspire the story, in case anyone was wondering.