They’re Eating the Pets

This is my dog, London. Look at that ear hair! Look at his cute little Grinch feet. LOOK! lol

The mayor didn’t know if the chill that ran down his spine was from the air conditioning or the body-cam footage he watched.

On the screen a woman ran through the streets of his city on all fours, jaw unhinged enough to fit the cat's carcass in her mouth. The camera followed her behind a house covered in political signs and flags. There she rested on her haunches and began ripping meat and sinew from its body. The creature let out a howl of pain.

Oh god, he thought as bile rose into his mouth, it’s still alive.

The camera panned around showing the bodies of other animals: raccoons and opossums but mostly dogs and cats. Maggots wriggled and danced a macabre ballet in their corpses.

He couldn’t hold it any longer and the vomit bubbled out cascading down his front.

His assistant handed him a towel. She had warned him it was graphic. He wondered how she could stomach it but supposed it was because she’d seen the footage once already.

He closed the laptop and looked at the woman sitting on the other side of his desk.

She looked like any middle-aged woman with her choppy inverted bob, chunky highlights, and a red T-shirt that proclaimed ‘F*CK YOUR FEELINGS’ across the front. That’s where the normalcy stopped. Her eyes were wide and crazy, showing too much of their sensitive white meat. Around her mouth was dried gore smeared chin to nose and ear to ear.

Behind her stood the officer whose footage they’d just seen. He watched her closely, with one hand resting on the butt of his gun.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” The mayor asked the mad woman.

She sucked on her teeth, savoring the blood dried there before answering. “Weren’t me.”

“We saw you.”

“Weren’t me. It was Haitians.”

The mayor looked at the other two, silently asking if they could believe the gall of this woman.

“Sir,” Said his assistant, “I feel I should remind you that while here legally, the Haitian citizens can’t vote for you in the upcoming election. Also, miss Raythum -“

“Call me Karen.” The mad woman said.

“Karen, then. Her cult -“

“It’s not a cult!”

“Organization, then. It has a strong presence in the community. They would be upset if one of their members were jailed. Especially for something so heinous.”

The mayor nodded. “Alright, we’ll say Haitians are eating the pets.”

Karen fell into a coughing fit that shot a wet chunk of cat flesh onto the desk.

The mayor grimaced as he felt new vomit coming up.

Karen snatched the phlegmy fur-covered meat from the desk as if afraid the others would take it and shoved it in her mouth. She shared a smile with her co-conspirators as she picked a bit of gristle out of her teeth.