It was a dark and stormy night. The New York air was unusually numbing as the rain pelted from the sky like shards of glass. The grimy streets threatened to warp and break every time a raindrop splattered across its scarred face. Nothing could be heard over the screaming of the rain and the groaning of the thunder. Lightning flashed, and for a second the black streets of Manhattan were illuminated as if with a burst of fire. The gloomy windows of Buchman’s Butchers revealed the bloody carcass of a cow, its ruby blood dripping along with the rain. Although no human presence resided in the Bucher shop, and all was silent within its walls, something seemed to be alive, waiting. Like the lightning, something seemed to be lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. The cow carcass swayed slightly in the dark, suspended only by a rope and some metal clothespins, threatening to slip-threatening to fall. Thunder crashed upon the small, empty shop, and at that exact moment, anyone standing outside the shop, peering curiously into the foggy windows, would’ve jumped back in horror. They would’ve let loose a shriek and, hopefully, run far, far away from the little store, never to journey there in the dark again. For in the dark, one does not understand what is fake and what is real. They would shake their heads, disbelieving of what they had seen occur through the murky Bucher’s windows…disbelieving of the blood they had seen drip lazily from the carcass. They would rub their tiny eyes, wondering if the carcass they had seen fall, and splatter, only held up by a measly rope and rusty clothespins, really had existed. If the large, hungry rats, who flourish in the dark dampness of the underground, really and truly had crawled out from inside the walls and nibbled the carcass. One would wonder whether they should call the police or the doctor when they saw the carcass, being devoured by the rats, inch its way closer and closer to the window, towards them. One would end up calling the doctor when they saw that the cow carcass really wasn’t a cow carcass at all, but a human torso, attached to a human head. One would faint at the sight of it again, clawing at the window, rats scampering over its thin, skeletal ribs…out if its dark, gaping eyes. One would wonder whether they were next.




And one would never visit Buchman’s Butcher’s in the dark, unknown night ever again.