One Man's Meat Is Another Man's... Treat

Long John they called him, the old hobo who lived behind the grocery store. They called him this because of his heavy build and the fact that he was taller than most other men who lived in the town of Mirror Breeze. The pirate reference might also come of the fact that he had lost an eye and always wore a eye-patch. Of course, the fact that his name was John also had a part to play in this. But John didn't care much about being called this, he saw it as some sort of respect. Most people of his kind were never called by their name, never asked what it was either. Not that his good mood didn't have something to do with that, as everyone in the town liked John, or at least didn't mistreat him or curse at his very presence, as was the situation for some of his more grumpy and aggressive hobo friends. Long John, while he didn't exactly enjoy his life and situation, he made the best of it, which is something you probably can't even say about the best among us. But again, his friendly way of being and his welcoming smile helped him out. Every day he could just walk into the grocery store he lived behind, and he'd be given any expired or soon-to-be expired articles of food and drink he could find. And he did this for every breakfast and dinner.1

When Long John awoke on this particular day, he was shocked to find the clock outside the grocery store to be almost noon. Every day he expected to be, and usually was, woken by the early traffic at six or seven in the morning, when people left for work and school. Even at the weekends this used to happen, sometimes even earlier than the rest of the week. But now, this Wednesday, there was no traffic. Long John stepped out into the empty streets, his mind felt clear after all the rest, but his stomach felt even emptier than normal, so he decided to go into the store to check for outdated food again. It usually took him ten or fifteen minutes to find something suitable, but sometimes he put some things aside if he found too much of it, or more outdated stuff than he could eat in a single day. He'd done this the day before, and so he knew exactly where he was going. He just walked on in, didn't pay too much attention to the three people he could see in the corner of his eye, and then picked up a box of crackers and a bottle of beer that had both passed their expiration date earlier that week. He'd hidden them both under a particular bag of vegetables that were rarely ever touched, and that even he didn't bother take for his own dinner, but rather bring outside to give his friends on the rare occasion when any of these extraordinarily long lasting bags would reach the date of their expiration. Now that he had his food, he felt ready to face the day, and turned around to walk on out again.2

Upon turning around, Long John came to think about the lack of traffic, and it was only then that he noticed the fact that there were no-one behind the counter, and that the only three customers he'd seen hadn't moved since he'd walked in. He walked over to the closest of them, a woman dressed in a large fur coat, a local rich lady that he'd often seen around, as her son went to school just a block away from the store. She was facing away from him, so when his attention-seeking coughs didn't make her turn around, he lay his hand upon her shoulder and turned her around.
"Excuse me, but can you be so kind as to tell me what's going o..." Long John was interrupted in his question when the lady immediately jumped onto him as he had turned her around. The jump made him fall, and she was now on top of him. Her jaws snatched for his face, she was trying to bite him. The only thing resembling this that Long John had ever seen, was the behaviour of a rabid dog he'd once had to kill when it attacked him in a park, way back when he was much younger. The woman's eyes were red and her face was angry and bruised. There was blood all over the front of her coat, and there were blisters and scars upon the hands that tried to break free of Long Johns iron grip that kept them from tearing his throat apart. He found himself having to use violence to keep the woman off him, after he had for almost a minute tried to shout for help. He kicked the woman off him, and got up. She came right back at him, mouth and nails ready to attack again. Long John did what he felt he had to do, he rammed the can of beer with all his might into the woman's gaping mouth. Long John, being the strong man he was, didn't intend to break the rabid woman's jaw and a bunch of her teeth, but it was merely a side effect to his brute strength. Strength he hadn't needed for years. The blow made the woman fall bloodied to the floor, her face now filled with blood and running wet with beer colored red. But she was about to get up again, more rage in her eyes this time, and strangely also, hunger. Long John noticed this just before he brought his boot down onto the woman's face, hearing further cracks and creaking of her skull. But now she stopped moving, blood pouring out of her ears as if her head had been a big bag of tomato juice. By now, Long John was seriously worried. What would happen to him now? He didn't want to go back to jail, neither did he want to be on the run. And how come no one reacted upon the fact that he had just been attacked, in the middle of daylight, by a rich fashionable lady, in a grocery store? The two other people in the store had disappeared by now, unnoticed by Long John as the fight had gone on. Now he saw no-one, and heard no-one, but his own reflection in the dead lady's blood and the sound of his own heartbeat.3

Long John went over to the register, behind which he knew there'd be a shotgun. He jumped over the counter and as he landed on the floor, he slipped on something wet and fell head first into the floor. He cursed the fact that he didn't just walk around the counter instead of jumping across it, as he stood up to look for the shotgun. Upon opening his eyes however, he found more than he'd bargained for. The floor, and now his entire coat, was colored dark red by the blood of the shop-keeper. Over the dead shopkeeper was one of the people he'd seen upon entering, now eating of the pulled out entrails of the shop-keeper. Blood-filled face and even hungrier eyes than the lady in fur, the eating one didn't even look up from his meal as Long John picked up the already loaded shotgun from just next to the in-the-process-of-being-eaten corpse. Without thinking for too long, Long John put the shotgun to the face of the man-eater, then pulled the trigger. The blast sent the cannibalizing man flying across the room, his head not being able to join the flight. Long Johns face was splattered with flesh and blood, and so was much of the store. Long John didn't quite understand this obsession with human flesh, but something about it intrigued him, it was quite beyond his understanding. He wiped some of the cannibals flesh off his face with a finger, then placed it onto his tongue. He really made time to taste it, to chew the chunk properly and really feel its essence before he swallowed it. 4

For all these years, Long John had lived behind the grocery store. His every meal had been expired or very soon-to-be expired food and drink, and a chill went through his spine when he realized that he'd been eating trash for all these years. Trash and filth, that had been his life and his meals, but now he realized that the most exquisite of all meats and flavors had forever been right next to him. People, that was. He sat down by the half-eaten corpse of the shop-keeper, and decided to have a taste there too. Even the entrails tasted so good, so extremely good. And the warm blood that ran down from his mouth just topped it all off so very well. But his feast was interrupted, the woman with the beer-can lodged in her mouth had stood up from the floor and was now headed towards Long John. Long John was no doctor, but he had even listened for hear heartbeats after he'd crushed her skull, and there had been none. She was dead, that was for sure. But now she came over, slowly towards him. He pointed the shotgun at her and told her to get lost, but she didn't even seem to hear him. He was about to pull the trigger, when she just suddenly knelt down a few feet from him. She knelt down by the shop-keepers corpse, took a piece of his flesh in her hand, then brought it up to her mouth. She seemed to have forgotten her encounter with Long John, and now accepted his presence, but she also seemed to have forgotten the fact that she had a beer-can in her mouth, blocking the entry-point for the flesh in her hand. Long John reached out and pulled out the can, after which the woman picked up more flesh and began to eat it with her broken teeth and barely moving jaw. Long John took a piece of flesh too, and stood up as he ate it. Outside he could see a few people now, slowing moving all of them. All of then bloodied, some of them most definitely dead. Some lay on the ground, not moving at all, being eaten.5

A society of cannibals, dead cannibals. More accepting of Long John than the community had ever been. His bloodied appearance and taste for flesh made him able to mingle with them, to blend in. Long John was pleased now, more so than ever before. Hobo no more, an equal at last.