The Divine Engine

A small path wound its way through the woods of a five-acre lot, a shortcut that would take me within a couple blocks of my house. In the center of the patch of woods there was an old building that used to be a slaughterhouse; some of the old equipment was even still inside. It had been a great party spot for the older kids, and during the day it was usually empty, but not that day. I saw a boy on the second floor, looking down into the rusty old blades of a large meat grinder. There was no power in the building, as the lines had been taken out years ago, but somehow the machine started. Chips of rust flew through the air as the blades started to spin. A rusted metal staircase took me to a catwalk on the second floor. The boy turned and looked at me once before he stepped in. He didn’t even scream.
I remembered seeing his face before, but for the life of me, I could not recall his name. I took the stairs down to the front of the machine where a steaming pile of dark red meat lay in the dirt, chunks of bone and clothing scattered throughout. I heard a sigh and turned, knowing there was someone hidden in the shadows. “Who’s there?” I called out.
“Come, Marcus,” a voice whispered from the shadows, a female voice, another dark woman. She was laid out on a long stainless steel bed, her wrists and feet strapped to pegs. “Set me free,” she whispered.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said.
“If you don’t set me free boy, you will be.”
“No, I think I like you just the way you are.”
“Silence!” the woman screamed. “You will do as I tell you…” she pulled her hands free from the restraints and sat up, “or you will suffer the consequences!” The dark woman reached down and loosened the straps on her ankles. “What is it you fear, Marcus?”
I felt her in my head, digging through my memories.
“You two are not as different as you think. Your minds are remarkably alike.”
“I don’t kill things for fun,” I screamed at the woman, “I don’t murder children!”
She swung her legs off the table and sat, smiling at me. “Yes, Marcus, you do.” She pushed off of the table and stood before me. I was lost in her blackness. The world around me faded and then…
There was a large sack on the ground before me, something inside of it was moving. I looked up at my grandfather’s house and heard the celebration going on inside. It was his seventy-fifth birthday and it would be his last. I thought about throwing the sack in the pond or setting it on fire. Then I thought about an old wood chipper out beyond the barn on the other side of the garden. I whacked the sack a couple of times with a two-by-four until it stopped moving, then hefted it over my shoulder to find the chipper.
I knew that I was ten years old in this memory, but I did not recall this happening. In my reality, I had been inside during Grandpa’s party. The party lasted until eight thirty; that’s when Grandma noticed that Dusty was missing. Dusty was a wiry haired mongrel, somewhere between a terrier and a retriever, ugly as hell but a very sweet dog. He had never been found. This was the work of the dark woman; she was making me live this moment in his time. She had asked me what I feared and here was my answer: what I feared the most was becoming what my other had become.
I pulled the cover off and checked the gas gauge on the old chipper. “We’re in luck boy,” I said to the dog as he flopped about within the canvas sack, “we’ve got gas.” The key was in the chipper, and I reached up and turned it, listening to the gears grind to life. I smiled as the blades whined, singing their song just for me. I reached down and untied the sack, letting Dusty’s head poke out. I re tied the sack around the dog’s neck, just tight enough to keep it from slipping off. I wanted to see the dog’s eyes as it was pulled into the chipper. I hefted the sack and dropped it in, Dusty howled as he was sucked inside, the blades grinding his poor flesh. I heard myself laugh as the dog’s eyes popped and his face fell apart when the blades took it in.