We Eat the Homeless for Christmas and other Tales of Terror

By Brett Miles

We Eat The Homeless for Christmas and other Tales of Terror is the first installment in my collection of short stories. In the early sixties when I was very young I was plagued by nightmares and my mother's friend who was a shrink told me then that I should write my dreams down and I have. The dreams have not stopped, either have the stories...

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• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483513591

Book preview

9781483513591

Introduction

First and foremost thank you for reading my stories, these nine tales of terror. As always these and every story I write is dedicated to my Aunt Merc, she loved horror and read every one of my stories, the scarier the better, and I can still feel her watching over me as I pen new ones.

Enjoy!

WE EAT THE HOMELESS FOR CHRISTMAS

THE HISTORY

I don’t know when all of this actually started. The year you would say is 2540 something, but we call it the third year of Saltonieus. So many things have changed. The main reason we started eating the Homeless was because of the destruction of the earth’s resources from global warming that had started in the early 1980’s and just continued on and on. Now there are no turkeys, no chickens, no pork, no beef and very little edible fish. The majority of Earth’s population are cannibals. This was just a natural progression. We are not savage head-hunters, we are civilized. We eat the Homeless for Christmas.

The ritual is so old no one really knows how, where or when it started. When Pram-Pram Seeduc, the great, great grandson of Marguerite Stoward the great, great, great, great, great granddaughter of the famous billionaire cook and first woman President Maryanne Thatchell, invented his new recipe; the old problems of the bad aftertaste and sometimes accompanying insanity were wiped away. What was replaced was an incredible Homeless Pie.

Not only were these Homeless Pies safe, their taste was like nothing ever before. The Homeless Pie quickly replaced the mock-mince-meat pie as the dish of the holidays. Some people never acquired a taste for them and some even refused to eat human flesh. Only wealthy people could afford to have such lofty spiritual goals. Mostly everyone else would eat them.

The reason man began to eat man was because life got to a point that the entire populace suffered so hard eleven months out of the year, the people just had to have a special treat to look forward to. Every one was poor, overworked, underpaid and hungry. At Christmas was the only time that there was that promise in the air that everyone’s belly would be full.

For a good 200 years now this has been going on. In one way it was the perfect solution. There were tons of hungry working people and even more people out of work and with no where to live trying to make it in the streets.

Nowadays it is more like the caste system of the Indian culture of the past. If you are born Homeless you will stay that way. You will have your licensed ‘cardboard’ box and be assigned to a certain area. The only moments of freedom, the only time they can leave this area is during the holidays. Basically hunting season, when they open the gates to the Homeless detention areas. Those who have homes just wait until the unfortunate cross the line then they just net them up or talk to them, inviting them for lots of things. People would offer sex and drugs to their soon to be meals, many would accept their fate and die just for that. Sex doesn’t come by very easily in my time. Now I'm sure this sounds totally sick to you as you read this in your year in these young 2000’s, but five hundred years from now or so in this third year of Saltonieus, this is all totally natural.

Pram-Pram’s recipe discovered that the best way to keep the food disease free was to boil the Homeless alive. Now in my time every household has a Pram-Pie-A-Matic; a huge Jacuzzi type cooking tub/pot in the kitchen, many would just use as a hot tub to ease their aching muscles.

45 PIES

He shit a dollar sign in the morning. Wiping his ass and looking down into the bowl was something he had always done. He thought that this must have meant something, in all his forty-something years he had never done that before, shitting a dollar sign that is. It had to be a good omen. As he left the public Homeless washroom this was his thought.

Her name was Poppi and every day since her Daddy left home five years ago she searched for him; searched for him in every eye of every stranger, searched for him in her soul, she always thought that he would return and that he truly loved her. She knew one day that she would find him. Every year that Christmas came she would pray that her Daddy wasn’t Homeless. She prayed that he would not end up in someone’s Holiday pie. She tried to learn every male face in the Homeless Area 6-73p, near the location of her residence. Poppi was only nine so she still lived with the dream and the thought that she would see her Daddy again. Her Daddy was always in her thoughts but as Christmas began to get closer Poppi started concentrating on some other things. The thoughts of her Daddy simmered in the corner of her mind.

His name was Jake Sommers. His marriage had been a disaster. He knew that it should have ended that first week. He should have just jumped on a bus and cut his losses. But no, he believed the propaganda of more jobs coming. More jobs, more food, more water, more virtual reality games. He thought that she did not love him, and thought that she was just using him because he was a big step up from her crazed and domineering family. A move up the social ladder for her is what he thought.

For Susan, call me, Sue Wells-Sommers to remain childless would have been easy. Every morning she should have continued with her birth-suppressant but she did not. At first Sue wanted a child for the benefits that they would receive. But in truth once she actually felt the life swimming inside of her, she was full of unending love for her child, her daughter Poppi.

Their marriage swiftly declined with each month the baby grew. Even though there were some pregnancy benefits there was never enough of anything. Jake’s guilt was crushing him, to see and have his family live like this was immeasurably painful.

He had met his new business partners in the long line for food coupons. Jake overheard the two men having a rather loud discussion about a business deal.

These new V.R.G.17’s are 50 per cent more graphic than the 16’s

All we need is two more credited I.D.’s and we can start production today.

There was no more use of money. Everyone on Earth had a credited I.D. You use this I.D. to purchase your allotments of food, water, fuel and whatever. The amounts in the I.D.’s were regulated with your hours of work. This system at first worked like magic. By your time, 2097, the government started paying out less and less wages for one’s work. What a person would make for one hour of work now needed four.

In this third year of Saltonieus the ratio is insurmountable. Most people just live with the fact that they will forever owe the government.

Computer hackers and con men for centuries had figured out scams to piggyback several I.D’s to one card. As Jake listened to the men he did not realize that he was being hooked into a very old con.

We just need two more. One of them said.

Jake had listened long enough to realize that the payback on his card could be 10,000 points to one. In all actuality it would wipe away his debt and put him up for years.

This con that Jake was soon to be caught up in was being performed by three men. The two that Jake had been listening to and the third was the man that approached with his I.D. card in his hand.

How can you do it? the third man asked so innocently.

He looked at Jake and smiled, I’m so sick of these damn lines.

Jake just nodded his head as he watched the tall man take the I.D. and place it into a palmcorder computer, press a couple of buttons and hand it back.

You done already!? the third man asked unbelievingly.

The majority of citizens I.D.'s were green, notating not much opulence. Jake gasped when he saw that the third man’s I.D. was now beaming bright yellow.

Jake had never seen a yellow card.

He had only heard the stories.

Stories unfortunately that Jake believed.

He handed the men his I.D.

They smiled.

Now you are thinking, they said.

Sue thought that Jake had just ran away. In these times it was much easier to survive as a single man out on your own. She didn’t know that the Watchers (the police of our day) had picked him up as he tried to open their front door with his now ruined and useless I.D. Jake tried to convince them that this was his place; he tried to explain what had just happened to him. They just laughed. They had heard so many similar stories but it always ended up to be a Homeless trying to escape their areas. They relocated him to Area 6-73p, where they were sure he had escaped from. Jake was powerless to resist them plus he didn’t want to be shot by one of their Tazor rifles.

Mrs. Sommers and Poppi continued on with their lives. She told Poppi that her father had left them because he felt so bad that they were poor. Poppi could not quite understand because everyone was poor, poor and hungry. It was only during Christmas time when there were Homeless Pies in abundance did people feel safe, warm and secure.

The funny thing was that it was impossible to save a pie, once you started eating and tasting it, you had to finish the entire thing. People were not sure what ingredient made it so addictive but everyone loved them. The entire Earth’s populace would gorge itself during these holidays. The main three days were Christmas Eve, day and the day after. Every one was full. Every one was satisfied. Lost in our computers files was your history. The happy Christmas of merry, jolly times and Santa were all long ago forgotten. What about the story of the birth of Jesus Christ? As it was ignored in your time during the holidays the story is not even mentioned at all in mine. In fact this third year of Saltonieus will mark the centennial celebration of man’s knowledge and proof that there was no God.

As Jake walked into the morning air he didn’t know what was worse, the stench of the streets or the heavy disinfected washroom he had just left. Jake had been living as a Homeless for five years now. Each year he had been lucky enough to remain alive and uneaten. The first two years he had found an abandoned building infested with low levels of radiation to hide in. One year he was too skinny and last year he had been befriended by one of the members of the S.A.E.O.H. S.A.E.O.H. was a resistance group said to be run and paid for by one of the richest men in existence. Reverend Man Eat No Man. Last year Jake found himself put up in one of their safe houses. He hoped for the same luck this year but had no way of knowing or finding a contact.

Poppi loved Christmas time. She had been dreaming about wolfing down another pie. For the last three years their entire building could only afford about two dozen pies. Last year she and her mom actually got two. Even though no one talked about it anymore Poppi knew what the pies were. She knew what the Pram-Pie-A-Matic was for, even though they used it as a hot tub. Poppi came up with an idea. She thought of it by herself, as others worldwide like her thought of ways to insure themselves of getting their own Homeless person. For the last two years she had heard about the S.A.E.O.H. and Rev. Man Eat No Man. She couldn’t help but see the countless numbers of pamphlets and flyers. She found it impossible to understand why anyone would not want to have a full stomach.

Snow had started to fall early that morning as Poppi walked to the gates of Area 6-73p. She leaned against the fence as the snowflakes kissed her face. She loved the snow, it did not sting the same way like the acid rain that regularly fell. She was looking for a candidate, she had her speech all memorized. She would lie and say she was taking him to a safe house, and then somehow she would have to cook him before her mom returned from her work detail.

Poppi had already filled the Pie-A-Matic with water and started the preliminary preparations for Pram-Pram’s Homeless Pies. It was easy. The machine basically did everything, not like in the old days, now all one had to do was add one or two Homeless. The contraption was futuristic and incredibly horrible. It discarded clothes and whatever in case you had to put them in still dressed. The chopping blades that come out on the bottom crush and mulch the body to perfection.

Poppi tried to catch a few snowflakes with her tongue as she watched and waited and watched. At 7am a loud bell rang throughout the town and every town across the land as the gates and fences to the Homeless areas all opened. The Homeless were free. Free to go directly to whatever person’s offer was the best. Others would just go for walks or with the last credit they had try to see and buy things.

Jake shook his head and rubbed his eyes when he first noticed her. It had been five years but he was sure that it was his daughter; Poppi. He watched her as she looked around the crowd that had slowly started to move. Jake's heart began to pump as she began to walk towards him.

She can’t remember me, Jake thought.

Hi, the cute nine year old girl said, my name is Poppi.

Jake held back his reaction to just grab and hug her and tell her,

I’m your Father!

He didn’t even listen to her spiel until she said the word safe-house.

He followed her down his old street, going home. He did not know how to tell her. He never considered himself in any trouble even though he thought it was strange and unlikely that Sue would use their home as a safe-house. He couldn’t find the words to tell this beautiful child that he was her daddy. All he could think was how much he wanted to hold her.

Their space looked the same as he stood in the middle of the living room; standing in his funky, disheveled clothes. He looked at the pictures of his beautiful wife and daughter on the mantel. There were none of him, this he sadly could understand and it didn’t matter, he looked nothing like his old holo-pics anyway (or so he thought).

Poppi was in the kitchen getting her guest a drink of water. She had Pram-Pram’s Homeless pie recipe out.

Number one it read, If Homeless is unwilling to voluntarily go into water, use sedative (blue vial) one drop per pound, taken with liquid preferably alcohol.

Poppi knew there was no booze in the house and not knowing what the man weighed she poured the entire contents of the blue vial into the glass of ice cold water.

Jake smiled at his daughter as he accepted the water from her.

Thank you Poppi, he said.

He just loved saying her name to her, Poppi.

The water was cold and refreshing. It had been the cleanest water he had drunk in years and even though it left a small rusty aftertaste, it was delicious.

Poppi smiled as he drank it.

Excuse me, she said, I have to use the ladies room.

He smiled and chuckled to himself as he watched her go. He could not believe how happy he was. He felt drunk from the water. His eyes filled with tears. He wiped them looking once again at the holo-pictures of his wife.

You are so damn bleautiffull, he slurred.

He struggled to stand up and get a closer look. The room began to spin.

Poppi heard the crash of the table from the bathroom.

Yes. she said as she pumped her fist one time and smiled.

The man was curled up in a fetal position, spittle hanging from the corner of his mouth. As Poppi stepped over him she noticed he was holding a picture of her mother. She snatched it out of his hands.

Eeww, she said.

One of Poppi’s household duties was to take the trash to the incinerator site. This could only be done bi-weekly so sometimes the loads were big and heavy. With the aid of a small anti-grav unit she could lift ten bags. She used this device to transport the unconscious man from the living room to the kitchen.

The Pie-A-Matic had a scooper attached to its side, all she had to do was place a part of the man on it and the machine would have done the rest. She didn’t