The Butcher Shop

I was walking home from school. The sky was getting darker as the shadow of the clouds

loomed over me. The wind blew harder and dead leaves flew around thumping against the

grubby houses. I’ve been called to the principal office again just because I was drawing on

tables. There was a tiny pebble on the ground so I kicked it to let out my anger.

Suddenly, somewhere around the dark corners of the street, someone yelled in a deep,

booming voice.

“Hey!”

I jumped a bit and jerked my head up. An old man was sitting by the side of the street

staring at me with stern, unsatisfied eyes.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” I said as I realized the tiny pebble had hit the old man. The old man

saw that I was just a kid and his eyes softened.

The man had dirt all over his face and body. He wore an old, ragged, dark blue

button-down shirt and a sweatpant. His long messy hair was shoulder length. He had a big bushy

beard that looked like they haven’t been shaved since ten years ago.

“What’s wrong? Having a bad day?” The old man asked me as I walked over to him.

“Yeah,” I murmured.

“Come here,” the old man said, then patted the old, dusty bench beside him.

I sat next to him and said, “I got called to the principal office again.”

The old man chuckled and asked, “Wanna hear a story? Stories always make me feel

better when I’m little.”

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t have anything to do at home anyways.

 The old man started telling the story. “A few decades ago in this town, there was a

butcher shop. The owner of the shop was a couple. They were very nice and everyone in the

town liked them. The husband lost his left hand when he was chopping meat once. But nobody

cared because their shop has the best meat in the whole town. One year, there was a swine fever

outbreak and people were freaking out about it. So the food hygiene department sent people to

check all the meat in the butcher shops in town. They started at the top of the street and moved

down. They were about to go into this butcher shop when suddenly, out of nowhere, the couples

ran out and blocked the people from going in. The people from the food department explained to

the couples how they have to check all their meat because of the outbreak of swine fever. The

couples still wouldn't move so they stopped trying and went home. They called the police

because they think the couples might be hiding something in their shop. The next day, the police

went to the butcher shop and the couples still wouldn’t move. The police pushed the couples out

of the way and marched in. They looked around and didn’t see anything suspicious. The police

walked past the fridge and smelled something disgusting and weird, so they opened the fridge.

What they saw was unforgettable.”

“What? What did they see?”I stared at the old man curiously, urging him to go on.

“Human body parts. Human flesh, head, arms, legs, all kinds of things filling the fridge to

it’s fullest. Blood was dripping down the side of the refrigerator and some leaked out from the

edge. The policemen’s eyes went wide and their jaws dropped. Before they could react to

anything, the couples started running. The policemen caught the wife, but her husband ran away.

They put her in jail and tried to search for her husband. But they couldn’t find him. A few days

later, the policemen went back to the butcher shop and found a room behind the shop. They
opened the door and was immediately attacked by a gust of rotten stench. The room was stacked

with human flesh. There were rows and rows of hooks nailed onto the wall with human organs

hanging from then. Human bones and skulls piled up a corner of the room. In the middle of the

room was a big wooden table and on it was a dead man with a big butcher knife sticking in his

stomach.”

The old man stopped for a second, then continued.

“The butcher shop was shut down and folks never saw the husband again. But they say he

would wander around the streets telling stories to students on their way home from school, then

suddenly snatching them and take them home. He would chop them up into pieces and send them

to jail to his wife.”

Just then, a gust of wind blew the old man’s long messy hair into his mouth. He raised his

left arm to get the hair out of his mouth.

That’s when I realized the old man doesn’t have a left hand.