Hamburger

Mark nodded to Officer Lickies as they passed each other and entered the freezer, snapping the door shut behind him. He looked to Donte, then to Delonte, then to the man they held naked and shivering between them. Two steps and he was over Jack's kneeling form, looking down into his watering eyes and chattering teeth.

"Vengeance is mine-"

"What did I do?"

"You lied to me-"

"About what?"

"About what you're in here for-"

"I told you the truth-"

Mark flicked his wrist to his left, then made his way to his right, to the cutlery rack, as Donte and Delonte heaved the fat man onto the stainless steel table. Selecting his favorite filet knife, which he had honed to an imperceptible razor sharpness the day before, he began to giggle as he approached the mottled body sprawled out before him on the same table on which he was used to cutting vegetables and fruits every afternoon. He placed the tip of the knife at the top of Jack's sternum-

"Okay, okay, I did it. I'm sorry. I fucked him, that little kid-"

"Too late, you fucking pig-" And Mark grabbed a frozen apple from the bin overhead, sliced it in two with a twist of his wrist, and shoved one half into Jack's resisting mouth until the man's choking subsided and it disappeared into his chubby cheeks. The other half he gave to Donte, who casually took a bite.

Without another thought, he traced a careful line from Jack's neck to his orange pubic hair with the knife, the subcutaneous fat no hindrance, his eyes widening as he watched the writhing torso open itself up in a smooth trail of congealing blood, a river freezing before it had a chance to flow. Then he re-traced the rivulet, pressing harder, Jack's muffled moans rhythmic and calming him further as he reached inside the man's belly and inched his fingers up to the man's driving heart, the incision around his wrist tight and hot like a virgin cunt around a swollen cock.

"I think I've got a boner," said Mark, as he squeezed the heart until his thumb and fingers met in a warm lake of goo, Jack's body rising for a brief second, then slamming lifeless onto the table, bits of apple spilling from between his lips with his last pants. "He's done."

Mark removed his hand and wiped it on Jack's hairy, bloated belly. Then set about taking him apart, piece by piece, sliver by sliver, with the assortment of knives, saws, and cleavers on the rack behind. As he removed each part, dictating his actions to his friends like a surgeon, he gave it to Donte, who put it through the industrial, motorized meat grinder over and over, bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and organ a mish mash of powdery, fleshy Play-doh.

As they finished up - wiping and disinfecting the table and tools, forming perfect circular patties with their uncovered palms - the freezer door popped open. Ned Bongo, the short, bald, humorless Italian who ran the kitchen - and was serving consecutive life sentences for eating his two children in church - entered and looked from Mark to the pan of meat patties with his bulging eyes.

"Very good," said Ed, nodding. "The barbecue tomorrow is going to be a runaway success!"