Tastes Like Pork – A Gruesome Gully Novel
Chapter 1
The air was a cool fifty-three degrees in the small cavern where Silas Dawson sat at a massive desk shuffling through the pages of an old black leather-bound book. He’d made the desk years ago from old railroad ties taken from the mine further toward the surface, split in half and held together in three places by thick black-metal bands, supported by four more of the thick wooden ties, one in each corner. He’d made the chair in a similar fashion, with wood planks from old mine supports and more thick metal bands to hold them together, and the legs and arms from bits of old metal left lying around after the mine had closed.
A thin black robe hung over the back of the chair, and he pulled it on over his clothes, buttoning up the front. Silas spent so much time in the cavern that his oilskin pants, gray knit sweater, and black leather hiking boots kept him plenty warm, but the robe was part of the initiation ritual that had been established over a hundred years ago. It did tend to set a somber mood when those coming in or out saw him wearing it.
Two hurricane lamps sat at either end of the desk, their flames flickering softly through the spectacular display of stalagmites and stalactites that peppered the area. Some were slick with moisture as water dripped slowly from them, leaving more minerals behind. Others had long dried and merely maintained their alien aesthetic.
His sister, Beth, would be down shortly to deliver the newest resident of what they called Gruesome Gully. The Gully was a sort of extended purgatory for certain individuals who had committed grave crimes but hadn’t been convicted for whatever reason. The families of the victims requested “disposal” from Beth, and it was her job to research their claim and decide whether or not the accused was guilty. If she found enough evidence to determine guilt, the accused was consigned to Gruesome Gully, to serve out a “life” sentence of torture and abuse by the other inhabitants.
The latest was a woman, one Cassie Albright, who had apparently lured several children to her ranch and then kept them captive to be used as “live food” for her pigs. Beth had grumbled about the research required, as she’d had to look up several summoning spells to make her determination, but in the end, the children’s spirits had confirmed the accusation. And then Beth had found three more children in the cabin and the arm of a fourth in the pen itself.
The Gully was always at capacity with an even one hundred people, so admitting a new person meant the oldest current occupant would be set free. Occupants were released in the same order that they were admitted, so Silas opened the ledger to the first page and ran is finger down the older records, all with red lines drawn through them. Four pages in, he found the next person without a red line: one Timothy Wentworth, cannibal from the early 1900s. Drawing a red line through Wentworth’s name, Silas then turned to the last page of the ledger and added an entry for Ms. Albright. He wrote her name, and ‘kidnapping, feeding children to pigs’ as the reason for entry, and the date, and then he left the ledger open on the desk, turning it around to face the entrance of the cavern. Ms. Albright would have to sign the ledger in blood for the transaction to be complete.
That done, Silas retrieved Wentworth’s file from the cabinet behind him, and laid that open on the desk so he could study for the retribution he would soon mete out. Occupants were immortal for as long as they remained in the Gully. If they decided to leave or if their name was called, their immortality was revoked and they were released. They were given twelve hours to run, and then they were hunted down and killed in the same manner they had killed or otherwise hurt their victims. Silas and his sister Rachel shared in the record-keeping duties, but it was his job to hunt former occupants down after they left and make sure they were properly dispatched.
Soft footsteps echoed ever so slightly outside the chamber, and Silas looked up just in time to see Beth in her matching black robe escorting Ms. Albright into the cavern. The woman looked scared, and rightly so. Being consigned to the Gully was truly a fate worse than death for most, and some occupants had actually chosen to leave early rather than serve out their sentence.
It made no difference to him, as long as retribution was served in the end.
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