The Devil's Hour Presents, "Meat for the Beast"

“You will not die soon. James Connors of Missouri. You will die last!”

The raucous music comes to a crashing halt and the soft sounds of a haunted night start to waft from your stereo. The trees sway; a night bird calls from somewhere in the dark. You start to believe that someone is screaming. Someone too far to save but close enough to make you feel that you might just be in danger. 

“That was Hawthorne Heights worrying that we might not make it out alive in their song, ‘Dissolve and Decay.’

“Of course, we won’t, and who wants to.”

A breathy voice over the growing sounds of nightmare darkness, “You are listening to Helena Pretorius, and you know what that chill up your spine means.”

The low sounds of maniacal laughter drift through your speakers. Growing louder, growing closer.   

“It means that something has shifted. That we have stepped off the path and into the darkest part of the wood. You check your watch just to see some light in the pitch of this place. You find that your phone is dead and know that it can only mean one thing.”

The scream is so loud, so close, that you want to run to the window. Could that have only come from your speakers? You reach over and turn the volume down. Your family can’t know that you are up at this hour. They can’t bear witness to the thing that you have stayed up to be a part of. The unholy séance drifts through the speakers and into your all-too-willing mind.   

“That’s right, My Nasties.” Says Helena. “We have entered The Devil’s Hour, and it is time for a story.” 

A beat and two of dead air.

The thought crosses your mind that the signal is gone. This is A.M. radio, after all. A station that you have only read about online. Only listened to in snippets, snagged in the dark of night, and posted on social media sites. 

You have worked for this night, found your grandfather’s old radio, twisting the dial around the 666 kHz frequency until the dark music clued you into the fact that you had found the door to the twisted universe of The Devil’s Hour.

“Our story tonight is an old one. A dark epistolary tale of war, death, and a monster that feeds on fear and hatred. Our story has a dark message. That we are all… Meat for the Beast!”

TRANSCRIPT OF A LETTER FOUND APRIL 12, 1985, IN AN ESTATE AUCTION NEAR THE TOWN OF ST. CHARLES, MO.

January 20, 1863

Dearest Henry,

I sit down to write and address this letter to you in the hope that you will spare our long-suffering and angelic mother, who, when I last saw her, was frail of body but mighty of spirit. 

I believe that the story I will tell herein and the fate of her son, like the three that have passed before me, will not sit well on her overly burdened soul. I fear that this will fracture her soul and may steal what is left of her earthly form. 

You should thank merciful God, Little Brother, that you are too young to be pulled into this cruel and damnable war. 

The need for secession felt great at the outset, and men who could speak stronger and more convincing words than I dropped tales of injustice and resistance that would have enticed the staunchest abolitionist to set aside what he thought of the negroes plight and pick up his rifle for what we now call the South. 

Missouri has never been the South, Henry. I see that now as I wish I would have seen it then. We are slaveholders and farmers, not city people like the northeast Yankee, yet, we are not to be counted among the rich Virginian or these glory hounds of Tennessee. I may have signed up with the Army of East Tennessee, but I wore Missouri on my clothes and skin and kept a handful of homeland dirt in my pocket. The men around me knew I answered to Missouri as easily as to Connors, and many only knew me by the name of our great state.

Men pointed me out as distinct from the slack-jawed rabble around me, and I learned quickly that I was not a Southern man. 

Steven, may he rest in peace, knew this and said as much. But, he could not convince Jed, Percy, or me to stand aside and let the tide of war wage around us. 

Damn the Home Guard and every Lincoln lover in our state for the deaths of our righteous and good brothers. 

I trust that they are all in the arms of the heavenly father and that our papa is there with them. Though it was their memories that bid me join under Major General Kirby Smith and follow him into the great Army of Tennessee, I fear that the final resting place of my soul will be a hotter abode as far from heaven as the South is from our beloved home.

By the time you receive this letter, news of the battle near Murfreesboro has reached your door. My last letter, from near Christmas, told of the great welcome General Bragg and all of the troops received when we met there to spend out the month of December. The pleasantries of that letter, the dances, and feasts, are gone now, replaced by the cold, bloody reality of this harsh earth and what lies above and below it.

I showed myself well on the battlefield. You can tell your future children that their uncle was a brave and honorable man at Stones River. That he shot many blues, but never in the back or through treachery.  

I was never a treacherous man before the Beast came for me. I had never done anything to damn my soul until I saw its eyes and knew that there was no salvation.

I skip ahead as my mind wanders, brother. Forgive me my fight with time and chaos.  

You will have to look to someone else for a full account of the bloody encounter that took place in the woods and fields surrounding the fair city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  

All I can quickly say is that we lost many, and I believe that the Union lost three for every one of ours. Yet, those Blues are like the ants that we would torment as children. You fill one hole, and they pour out another.  

On the fourth day of the battle, we were less in number but strong in resolve. General Bragg heard that the Union were receiving reinforcements and bid us march south and away. It was an honorable withdrawal and I place no blame on him for what happened next.

In the march to Tullahoma, I was tasked with the job of rear scout. I and four other non-wounded men took five of the few mounts that were left after the battle and moved off to the west of the main forces.

It is common to worry about the pursuit of an enemy, and we were tasked with making sure that Rosecrans and his boys were staying back. I was of the mind that they were properly whipped, and the reinforcements that were on the wind would not be quick enough to catch our movements. Yet, and thank God for it, I have never been placed in a position where my thoughts or ideas amounted to a hill of beans.

We spent the first day riding back toward the Stones River and west, more in an effort to forage for food or game than to actually find a following enemy.

That night we camped near a small creek in a vast wooded area that seemed to go on forever to the west.

The men, in case you ever feel the need to contact the army or their families, were: 

Boyd Reynolds of Millersburg, Tenn. He was betrothed to an older school mistress in his hometown and read us poetry that she would send him with her letters.

Gregory Franklin of Brentwood, Tenn. A no good scoundrel who was quick with an insult or a curse. Some men of the company swore he was a horse thief, but he had never done time for any crime.

Tom Ashwood of Murfreesboro, who lamented the abandonment of his dear city as if it was his mother or his true love. Ashwood was a dear friend and one to have when stationed in his fair city. We had spent many a night out on the town with him showing us the best places to drink or chase skirts. 

And, Rich Fields of parts unknown, though many say he was born on the streets of London. Rich was an actor with a traveling show before he signed up for the war. You should have heard him sing.  

He led us as we faced off against those Blues at the beginning of the Murfreesboro mess. I remember hearing his voice as he belted the refrain from “Home Sweet Home,” and thinking of fair Missouri. Many of our number cried at the sounds of two armies, tied together by as much as pushed them apart, squalling about the love of hearth and home.  

One commented that he wished all wars could be fought with talent rather than bloodshed, and yet another said that his talent was the shedding of blood. Such was the unbridled talk of soldiers on the edge of violence and death.

These are the type of men I sat down to sup with on that cold night. We huddled over the fire with our blankets tight around us and talked of the events of the last few days.  

Franklin was in a foul mood and spoke of the end of everything. “I had me a dream,” he ranted as we passed around the beans and meager bits of a rabbit that Reynolds had caught in the bush. “In the dream, death was a looming figure. A creature that stood near me on the battlefield.”

Franklin stood and lifted his hands like a fire and brimstone preacher. “In this nightmare, my courage was more than it would be now. I walked towar’ the Beast, for a beast it was, shrouded in darkness. As I got closer, I could see the dark red gore crusting its body.”  

He rubbed his hands down his sides as if he was covering himself in the blood he spoke of. I shuddered and pulled my blanket closer around me. 

“Shut your lying mouth, horse thief or I’ll gladly shut it for you!” called out Ashwood, and I could hear in his voice that he was as chilled as I.

“I asked it,” Franklin continued without even hesitating at Ashwood’s warning. “I asked it what was the mean’en a war?”  

“Ha!” barked Fields nervously. “You have a question for death, and you ask it something that no one….”

“He answered!!” Franklin screamed, more like a wild animal than a man. There was fear in his voice and in my spine as well.  

“Dammit, Man!” Someone shouted back as we all sat frozen by his scream.

Franklin stepped back from the fire and brought his hand across his body to take us all in. “Death raised one large arm covered in thick black hair and swept it across the men gathered. His voice was so deep, I knowed I could never make you understand what it sounded like. It vibrated like what an earthquake feels like. Like a loss of control, of falling in a pit with no bottom.”

Franklin paused for a moment, and I could feel the tension around the fire.

“What the hell did it say, man?” I asked.

“Meat!” It said. Franklin held his head proud like he was a prophet being told the secrets of the dark universe. “You are all Meat.”  

Franklin looked down at all of us. “Then he turned his head toward me, and I saw the white tusks jutting out from his huge mouth. His eyes had a fire in them that would consume me, but I could not look away. He looked at me and his mouth opened for speech once more. ‘War provides meat for the Beast!’”

We fell into nervous but relieved laughter at Franklin’s ludicrous ravings.  

He smiled weakly as he sat back down and took his turn at the food. “That’s when I woke. I woke to a playing of the bands and the feeling of a spook or omen. Something telling me I’d fall in the coming fight, but here I am. The Blues seemed to ignore me. As many that died, and I killed my share, but never even felt as much as a bullet breaks the air around me.” Franklin shook his head, seeming like a man lost, “Never a one.”

“You are just like the rest of us, Franklin.” Fields began to philosophize. “The dream clearly means you fear death and are searching for meaning in what you see as a war without real reasons.”

“I know reasons, Fields!” Franklin fired back. “I don’t doubt the great cause of the South and the place of the slave like many a ya….”

“Watch that mouth, Horse Thief!” Ashwood interrupted, drawing his long hunting knife out for emphasis. “We can always say a ‘skirmish’ with the enemy left one of our number dead.”

“Put the knife away and calm it down, Gentlemen,” I said in as soft a tone as I could muster. “If we keep yelling, we’ll have a real skirmish with Blues. It’s a wonder you weren’t heard clean north at Stones River.”

With that, the camp fell into an uncomfortable silence. We moved quickly to ready ourselves for the morrow. Watches were decided and I, being chosen for the last watch of the night, went to my bedroll.

I tried my best to pray and place my thoughts on home and family, but I wondered if the spectre of death was going to make an appearance in my dreams as well. 

I awoke to the screams of horses in the night. A death knell that was swirling above me. I started to rise just as a huge weight was dropped on my lower body. 

The screams erupted again, and I saw that one of the horses was right on top of me. Somehow, it had fallen across my legs, pinning me in my bedroll. 

I pushed upwards and felt the horse try to rise up off of me. Then, it let out another heart-gripping scream. I thought in that moment that I would give anything to stop that horse from throwing another noise into the night.  

No sooner did the thought cross my mind when I felt the brush of something large go past my head in the dark, and the horse’s screams were cut short as its head was severed from its body.

Blood and gore gushed into my face, and I had to fight for air, feeling as if I was drowning in a sea of salty, thick liquid.  

I could move my arms and quickly wiped at my face to get as much of the grume as I could away from my mouth, nose, and eyes. As quickly as the waterfall of blood began, it trickled down to a slow and steady stream.  

In the chaos, I could not see the landscape around me. I was on my back with my head toward the dying fire. The horse pinned me to the ground, and I was not able to push upwards.  

I paused for a moment to get my bearing and heard a slow crunching and slurping sound coming from the other side of the fire pit. This was not in my line of sight, being past the top of my head.  

I maneuvered the best I could to try and glimpse the events that were making such a visceral sucking and crunch. It was as if a man was slurping his soup and eating chicken bones at the same time.  

My head cranked around just enough to see a black image silhouetted by the moon. I saw the top part first, which looked like two limbs of a tree blowing recklessly in a violent wind. The two limbs moved quickly and erratically, though I felt not the slightest breeze.

Moving down the image, where the two limbs met the main body, there was a strange connection as if the limbs did not sprout from a tree but were falling slowly into a large black shape.  

I craned my head more, and I fully understood what was happening before my eyes.  

A creature. Something black and larger than any bear we had ever hunted with Pa and our dear brothers stood on the other side of the fire pit.  

It loomed over the campsite, standing at least eight feet tall. It had its large face raised to the sky and in its gaping and gnashing maw was what was left of a man. The slurping sound I had heard was the slick blood of one of my companions being sucked down this beast’s throat. The cracking was the breaking of his bones by the creature’s humongous teeth. Only the legs stuck out from the mouth and miraculously still kicked into the sky, trying to run in air and going nowhere but slowly down the Beast’s gullet.  

I thought of the dream and knew it for the omen that it surely was. I started to recite the prayer that our mother taught us to pray before we turned out the lantern each night, “If I die before I wake….”

Hands grabbing my arms brought me to reality, and I tried to punch out at whatever companions ran alongside the Beast.  

“Dammit, Missouri!” I heard Ashwood whisper, and I silently thanked God as I stopped my fussing and opened my eyes.  

“We’re gonna pull you out from under there,” Fields said as he and Ashwood each grabbed a blood covered arm and tried their best to get a grip.  

It seemed like forever, but I slowly slid out from under the Beast’s little prison of dead horse flesh and quickly found my feet under me.

I quickly looked back at the Beast, just in time for it to finish its meal, and slowly turn its gaze upon the three men who were too stunned to run away or attack.  

Illuminated by the fire, I could now see its full form. The thing was black as pitch and the light seemed to hit the barrier of its being. Yet, one could make out the large form of legs that brought the creature’s waist up near my shoulder. Its arms were elongated and hung almost to the ground. It was as broad as a man is tall, and the head rested on very little neck. The whole of its body was covered in midnight black fur, and blood caked detritus from the wood.  

It's head! God, Henry! Its face was the face of a demon. It was unlike any creature I have ever witnessed before. Deep yellow eyes in a face like a wolf, but altogether more human. There was thought behind the creature’s dark orbs, and I remembered Franklin’s ranting that it spoke to him. Yet, jutting from the creature’s maw were ferocious canines and two large shiny white tusks that jutted up toward the eyes. Each tusk was as big as a man’s hunting knife, and they looked twice as deadly.   

It took a step toward us, and I was fully prepared to hear words spill out from the Beast, but only the low growl of a predator who sees cowering prey escaped its lips.  

The Beast moved to step around the fire, and still we were rooted to the same spot. I feared that I would stand there and let it kill me. I had almost resigned myself to fate when Franklin came out of the darkness with his rifle.

Franklin let out a war cry, and his shot went into the creature’s middle just before he drove the bayonet home.  

Not even the guttural scream of the Beast brought us to our senses, and we stood dumbfounded as the creature backhanded Franklin to the ground and shoved one large clawed hand into the meat of his stomach.

Franklin’s flesh tore like cloth, and the hand came back out holding gore covered innards and intestine.  

To Franklin’s credit, he rolled away and stood up screaming, “Move, Soldiers!” to the rest of us, who were wasting his sacrifice by staying immobile.

The Beast grabbed the man from behind and proceeded to tie him to the closest tree with the chords that made up the insides of Franklin’s body. The creature kept wrapping them around the man and the trunk over and over again as if it really feared he would somehow untangle his guts and run away.

Franklin’s feet kicked at the Beast the whole time, and his anguished screams finally broke the rest of us out of our stunned ineptitude.  

Ashwood grabbed my arm and pulled me quickly into the woods and away.  

No one spoke as the three of us ran full bore through the dark woods. The high and almost full moon somewhat lit our way as we pushed hard to the north.

We ran for what seemed like hours. Finally, Ashwood paused ahead of me and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. Just as I reached his spot, he vomited up his dinner onto the leaf covered ground.  

Thank God we were all trained to sleep with our clothes and boots on, or we would be naked to the world. Ashwood was smart enough to grab up his rifle, and Fields had his revolver, a weapon highly prized and bought with his own money, but I was empty handed save my hunting knife and gumption.  

Of course, we saw what gumption and a rifle got poor Franklin.  

“Our Father,” I heard Fields whispering a prayer as we all stood for a moment to collect our breath and thoughts.  

I silently joined him as we stood, trying to hear any movement coming from the woods around us.  

A shrieking scream broke the silence from back toward the south. Though the screech was almost human, we broke quickly back into our frantic run, knowing too well that it was the Beast.

The three of us, used to marching most of the day and night, kept a strong pace.  

“There… hasn’t….” Ashwood tried to spit out as we moved. “Been … another howl … since the first.”  

He was asking for a chance to slow our pace without the disgrace of actually saying it.  Fields and I obliged.  

We slowed to a brisk walk as the night wore on. The moon was high, and there were still some hours before dawn.  

“What is this thing?” Fields spat out as we stopped for a drink at a slow running stream.  

“Hell, if I know,” Ashwood replied. “My Granddad always said we should not be pushing westward. That there were creatures that we Europeans pushed out when we settled here.”

“That’s hogwash!” Fields fussed. “Indians were living on this land for hundreds of years before we got here. They would a….”

“The Indians know all about it,” Ashwood countered. “Granddad said there are legends in many of the tribes. Dammit, I should have listened closer to his stories!”

“Well…” Fields continued, but I shut him out. My mind was falling back and remembering the dream I was having just before I opened my eyes to this waking nightmare.  

Though I had prayed not to dream of the Beast, the creature was waiting there as soon as I drifted off. I was walking the battlefield of Stones River. Bodies were thrown about everywhere, and the ground was muddy with the blood of the dead around me.  

I looked up to see the creature from Franklin’s ranting. The creature that I knew so well now. It stood in the middle of the death. It towered over the battlefield like a dark scarecrow, and I noticed that vultures and scavenger birds perched on its broad black shoulders.  

As Franklin before me, I was not scared in the dream. I approached the creature with the need to speak to it. As I got closer, I could see saliva gushing from its maw like a river. As it looked out at the bodies of Blue and Grey boys, its only thought was one of food and fresh meat.  

Before I could speak, it raised its head and broke the silence. “Ask your question, Manflesh.”

I found in the dream that I knew exactly what to say to this monstrosity. “You told Franklin that we were all meat.” I started, and the creature shook its great head.

“Meat for the Beast!” It replied harshly, and the carrion birds took flight off as if its mere voice could steal their lives. 

I stepped back at the recitation of the words that Franklin had screamed into the fire. 

“Ask your question,” The Beast repeated.

I noticed that the gap between us had lessened as we conversed, and I could have reached out my hand and touched the blood matted blackness of the creature’s fur. I spoke in a hushed tone, lowering my eyes to avoid seeing the gallons of liquid falling from its great maw.

“Will you…”

My mind was pushed back to the present by Field’s panicked scream. I saw he was looking up into the trees, and I turned my gaze just as the huge shape of the Beast fell in among us.  

Huge black paws closed around Ashwood’s body and lifted him from the ground. Ashwood’s screams filled the night as the creature grabbed his legs with one large hand and his body with the other. Ashwood’s rifle dropped to the ground unfired and his life balanced on the knife’s edge.

The despair of my friend spurred me to action, and I pulled the hunting knife from my belt. I ran in quick and shoved the knife deep into the black fur-covered meat of the monster’s leg.  

The creature howled and jerked away from me, taking my knife with it. Even through the pain, it kept a hold on Ashwood, and suddenly I found myself being knocked backward as the Beast swung Ashwood’s still live body, like a club, full into me.  

Fields quickly pulled me to my feet as the monster turned its attention back to Ashwood. It viciously pulled on both ends of Ashwood, and the big man’s legs broke away from his body with an ungodly ripping and a “SPOP!” 

Both legs pulled out of the sockets of his hips, and the flesh had torn away, much of it staying with the upper body so that long pieces of white bone stuck out of the gore at the top of each leg.  

Ashwood’s cries were cut short when the Beast slammed the top half of his body into the ground and shoved the legs, bones first, into his chest. This pinned Ashwood to the ground, and for a moment, he tried desperately to pull his own legs from his upper torso. Thank God the bones had been driven deep, and Ashwood’s agony came to a quick end.

As this unfolded, Fields shoved me hard and told me to run. He then swept Ashwood’s rifle up and proceeded to move toward the creature with the gun at the ready.  

It was in that moment that the last visage of my earlier dream came crashing into my mind like a wild boar pushing through the rough brush.

I could not face the creature as the question fell cold and fearful from my lips, “Will you spare me… will I be spared?”

The black demon laughed then, showering me with hot saliva and the smell of old blood.  

It reached down a hand and cupped my shaking face in its large paw, lifting my eyes past the sword-like tusks until all I could see was the huge ape-like face floating inches from mine.

“All feed the Beast, James Connors.” It chuckled darkly, blowing the breath of a thousand digested corpses into my choking lungs.  

He then brought his face in until our noses were almost touching, and the tusks framed my face, keeping me from turning away.

“Yet, I will promise you this, Brave Meat.” It continued. “You will not die soon. James Connors of Missouri, you will die last.”

That is when I awoke to one of my companions dying. Coming out of the memory, I saw that another one was stepping forward to make me the last. 

Fields was quick with the bayonet and caught the creature in the throat with his first jab. Hot blood flowed from the wound, and the Beast was pushed back. Fields pulled the trigger, and the rifle went off directly into the Beast’s face. The monster riled in pain, and a vicious scream broke into the night. Blood and gore flew from the creature’s face as it yanked the rifle away from Fields and, seemingly more angered than hurt from the damage it had endured, moved forward. Quick as a cat, Fields jumped back out of reach and pulled his revolver.  

“Run,” He screamed as he fired the first shot at the advancing shape. “God blast it! Someone has to bloody survive!” He continued as he fired his second and third.  

I was away before the next shot rang out, moving quickly north with the sounds of gunfire and the angry roar of the Beast behind me. I heard a final shot and then dead silence.  

I pray that Fields’ final shot was turned on his own chin, and he denied the Beast the pleasure of another kill. I like to believe that Fields was the only man to ever hurt the Beast, both physically and by stealing its victory. I want to believe that he left the corpse of Fields where it fell. That he had escaped becoming meat for the Beast.  

I ran on through the woods for what had to be hours, only slowing to a trot when my exhaustion started to make me worry that I would fall dead as the over-taxed horses we saw at the cross-country race a few years back.  

As soon as I slowed, I could feel the Beast right behind me. It was about to fulfill its omen from my dark dream. My friends and companions were all dead. It promised that I would be last. 

I began to feel myself give in, thinking that I was only prolonging the inevitable. Better to face the creature and die like a man. To try my best to deny the monster its little victories as Fields had done. 

It was then that I heard a small commotion from the northwest and saw light that could only be from a cook fire. 

My rush north had led me back toward the Blues. I must have been moving closer to a scouting camp. One that was sent south from the main forces to patrol and make sure we were not turning back for a renewed attack.  

My mind raced as I continued forward. I should turn back to the east and lead the damnable monster away from the camp.  

Out of all the moments that had happened to that point and have happened since, it was this one that I know damned my soul. It was this choice that took a righteous young boy from Missouri and turned him into a scoundrel. Many would say that the Beast drove me to it, yet many a good man had stood up to the creature and died for his principles.  

I have no doubt that Ashwood and Fields are in the bosom of God at this very moment. I like to think that Franklin and poor Tom Reynolds are there as well.  

Yet, I know that I will never see those pearly gates or walk those streets of gold.

I know because the voices of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, the voice of my good and kind conscience, were all drowned out by the demonic baritone of the Beast’s dark prophecy, “You will not die soon. James Connors of Missouri. You will die last!”

Hearing this, I turned fully in the direction of the Union camp and was spurred on by a new and grim determination.  

I burst into their camp, blood and sweat covered, with my hands up and a smile on my face. The division that greeted me was at least thirty men strong.  

A young soldier checked me for weapons and, finding that I had none, bid me walk toward the center of the camp. We were near the center when the screaming started. Looking back toward the south, one could see bodies being thrown about by a huge and ominous black shape. 

As my guard turned to see the cause of the alarm, I stepped forward and, placing my hands on his head, twisted until the neck quickly snapped.  

No one noticed me as the men moved forward and fired round after round into the rampaging creature.  

I collected the boy’s rifle and revolver, stole a horse from the line, and was away before the demon had time to kill everything between us.

That was two weeks ago. I have abandoned war, land, and family in my desperate fight to stay alive. 

I am far to the west now, holed up in a small hunting cabin with a French trapper and his African wife. The trapper has lent me paper and pen in order that I might write my family before I move on. Please, do not try and find me here. I leave on the morrow and will not return this way.   

One would think that the sounds of the screams and gunshots, the aroma of death that permeates a place where senseless, bloody violence is occurring, would drive a man insane.  

However, the game of war long ago stripped me of red dreams of battlefield death or the need to relive even that unholy night in the woods.  

No, my dreams are filled with the black Beast. It whispers to me as it cradles me in the darkness. It tells me of our pact of blood and bellows laughter at the ignorance of my plea for mercy from death itself.  

It murmurs of the people it has tasted and the ones that it will take next. It lectures me on my new role in the world and promises that it will catch up to me in due time. 

I know that my hosts here will soon be consumed by the beast. It has detailed the delights it will take in the devouring of the woman and the child that she does not even know she is caring.  

I now fully understand that everyone I come in contact with, everyone that crosses my path, line up in front of me at the Beast’s banquet table. It is a power that I am burdened with and one that I hope my movement to the west will help alleviate.

Yet, I find that I am still too much of a coward to face the creature, and so others must die in my place.  

Now, you see why I cannot come home, and no one must come after me. I am as dead as our dear brothers.

Tell mother as much and give her many grandchildren to replace the wayward children that she lost to war and outrage.

I must away, the Beast moves ever closer, and it must not catch me idle.

Always and ever, your loving brother,

James G. Connors 

“Meat for the Beast” first appeared in a slightly different form in the June/July 2015 edition of the now sadly defunct Encounters Magazine.

The image used in the header for this episode is A Quantrill Raid Captured a Hotel in Free-State Kansas For a Day This photo is under the CC0 / Public Domain License.

Read more about The Battle of Stones River

Check out Hawthorne Heights’ “Dissolve and Decay.”