* * * * *
Chuck wasted no time returning to the slaughter once Marie left his cubicle.
The shadows lengthened as nightfall approached. Chuck would need to work with a haste he had hoped to avoid to be prepared to attract the attention of those eyes that blinked from within the trees. His knuckles stiffened late in the day. The pain would soon course again through his blood, and Chuck hated to consider how the discomfort would shake his hands as he wielded the knife and cleaver. He prayed his old hands would not prevent him from slaughtering that lamb with the skill he believed his sacrifice demanded. He still valued the old skills, and in the end, he hoped a job performed well would earn him some final pride.
It had been Chuck's custom, when he had been a younger butcher, to gather as much of the drained blood as he could. He had felt it disgraceful when he first wielded his tools to let an ounce of blood go to waste. But now, Chuck did not bother to clean any of the lamb's fluids from the ground. He let the blood rest wherever it spilled. He was not sure how best to attract that creature he knew lurked in the trees. He hoped the color, and the stench, of spilled blood would help pull the attention of those yellow, blinking eyes.
Though aged, Chuck's hands had not forgotten their skill. His sharp knife moved easily as Chuck skinned the lamb. Chuck flicked the blade in his wrist before pulling the organs from the carcass. He unravelled the lamb's removed intestines and stretched them from that red-stained patch of ground behind his cubicle to the gray, barren tree line. Chuck swooned as the pain pulsated through his frame. His throbbing hands fought to grasp the cleaver as he split the lamb carcass in half along its spine. He slowed to chop those halves into smaller saddles, to separate again those pieces into the prime cuts he once smiled to place upon the deli counter.
He bit his bottom lip and focussed through the pain. He did not sip from the bottle of vodka he had brought out with his cleaver and knife. He did not cloud his concentration with liquor. He wielded his blades proficiently. No matter that the pain pounded in his bones and swelled his organs until his shirt was drenched with sweat, Chuck completed his slaughter before nightfall robbed him of needed light.
Cicadas hummed in the trees. Old Town turned quiet as its residents retreated into their small and plastic homes. Streetlights winked into glow and illuminated the streets.
Chuck finished his slaughter before any Administrator arrived to stop him. His offering was made before anyone knocked upon his door to confiscate his sharp blades and install him into one of the hospital's machines. He had finished his bloody work before the Administrators and their machine could profit any further from his pain.
He smiled.
Chuck had succeeded in the butcher of his lamb, and in the end, his freedom would not be liquidated to cover any of his sickness's debts.
The smell of blood hung heavily in the air.
The trees rustled. Chuck peered into their dark, and those glowing, yellow eyes returned his gaze. Shadows shifted and gathered around those eyes. Chuck held his breath a heartbeat before that creature in the woods growled and hissed. The cicadas in the trees turned silent. Chuck did not retreat from the carcass and the blood of his work. A great shriek from the trees rebounded off of the nearby, plastic cubicles, and black, wide wings took to the sky with a swoosh. Chuck craned his neck upward and grinned to see the black feathers of that giant of a bald, carrion bird shroud the sky's twinkling stars. A wild cry from above scraped through Chuck's mind as those yellow eyes descended upon what was offered.
In the end, Chuck would choose what creature would feed upon his sickness. In the end, Chuck defended that freedom.
He didn't feel the least bit selfish.