The Cutting Season: (Quick Reads 2022) by M. W. Craven

Author:M. W. Craven [Craven, M. W.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2022-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Meat-hook diplomacy

‘Take his hood off,’ someone said.

Poe had been drifting in and out of sleep for around ten minutes. He was freezing, groggy, had a splitting headache and the pain from his balls had spread to his stomach. He was still hanging in the air and he was still spinning round.

But he was alive.

A hand grabbed the sack over his head and yanked it off. He squinted in the harsh light, but after a few moments he risked opening his eyes fully. He had been right. He was in the gang’s meat-packing plant.

He looked up. He was hanging from a meat hook. In his experience, which was limited to bad horror films, anyone hanging from a meat hook was in a dodgy position. Nothing nice happened to people hanging from a meat hook.

He blinked and waited for his eyes to adjust.

The meat-packing plant had two rows of skinned animals. Pigs on one side, cows on the other. Poe was hanging with the pigs. He was close enough to see the slaughterhouse ‘Government Inspected’ stamps on the animals’ haunches and shoulders. He saw the marbled meat and yellow fat, and smelled the iron-rich blood. He was glad Tilly wasn’t here. She had been vegan since she was old enough to say, ‘I’m not eating that.’

Poe had to wait until he had spun round before he could see who had ordered his hood removed.

Fatty Scraps was sitting on a stool, watching him. Poe knew him from the photographs Tilly had found. Fatty was wearing a thick coat and a woollen hat. When Poe faced him, Fatty stood up and approached him. He was so big he walked like a duck. His face looked soft, like warm ice cream, and he had at least three chins. Tattooed tears dripped from the corners of his hooded eyes. His podgy fingers looked like raw sausages. Despite being in a very cold room, his face was beaded with sweat. Poe thought he was the type of man who would be too hot in an igloo.

The man standing next to Fatty Scraps could not have looked more different. He was as thin as wallpaper and as bald as a snooker ball. He was called Pop ’n’ Crisps and he was an original member of the Hole in the Wall Gang. He was Fatty’s right-hand man. From what Poe had read, the man’s parents had named him Pop ’n’ Crisps because that was what he had replied each time they had asked him what he wanted to eat.

‘Do you prefer to be called Fatty or Mr Scraps?’ Poe asked the big man. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the noise of the fridge unit.

‘You are pretty cocky for a man hanging from a meat hook,’ Fatty said.

‘I have been told I’m more annoying than cocky,’ Poe told him.

‘That a fact?’ Fatty said.

‘I’m going to assume you’re not a total moron, Mr Scraps,’ said Poe. ‘And that before you strung me up, you knew who you were stringing up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.