Ogre
Baby
The first time I saw a dead human, there were only eight of us
smalls and I was just learning to stagger about on my new legs. The big ogre
had slung the dead human over his back, so that he had to stoop down low to
come into the cave, and we all ran to see what he had caught. He wasn't called
"Tribe" yet, but just Big, the biggest of us, the one who brought
food.
Grinning proudly, he pulled the dead human from his back and slammed
it down onto the floor for us all to see. The human juice was red, not black
like ours. "Real meat!" he said, especially to me, the newest, who
hadn't seen something like that before. "The only real meat!"
He used his long curved claws to rip a hole in the human's belly and
started pulling out the soft guts, shoving them into his mouth with both hands.
The reek made me feel sick and hungry at the same time. My mouth filled with
water, even though I knew I wouldn't get any food because I was the smallest
and all the others were crowding closer, whining and slobbering. Hoog elbowed
me in the face and Dross stepped hard on one of my feet.
"Meat!" they cheered and
begged. "Real meat!"
One of the older ones asked,
"New baby?"
Big looked up with his mouth leaking
red human juice and said, "No, this is old meat. Need fresh for new
baby."
While he was distracted, two of the
smalls grabbed meat, and there was a loud crack as one of them, Croak, snapped
off one of the dead human's hands. Big roared with rage and batted him away so
hard that he hit the cave wall and slumped down, asleep or dead. Nip scampered
out of range, with inside human meat dangling from his teeth.
"My meat! You smalls wait till
I say!"
Big picked up the human hand and
stuffed it into his mouth. The other smalls had scattered and I got a chance to
edge closer, careful to keep my hands to myself. The human was shaped much like
us, except where Big and Croak had ripped him, but the only hair he had was on
top of his head. He was turning grey from lying around dead. His arms and legs
were spindly compared to ours, and with that and the hairlessness he looked
puny, more helpless than a dead deer. He had a belt with weapons, a sword that
was a tiny model of Big's and a knife, but they hadn't done him much good.
The other smalls began to creep
back, pushing me out of the way. Big belched and suddenly crooked a fat finger
at me to come closer. "You! Gerl!"
The others fell back and let me
through.
"Heart meat." He held out
the red drippy thing he'd just been snacking on. "Eat. Get strong."
Keep an eye on the blog for more excerpts from Issue 7. And if you'd like to pick up a copy, we'll be launching the issue at Kafein on October 5th. Check out the Facebook event for more information.
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