Cows by Matthew Stokoe Page A

stood crying by a pile of shredded meat that had been his mother. The mess on the table was unrecognizable, every organ and every piece of flesh had been stripped from the carcass and minced. Many of the bones had been splintered and torn from their holding cartilage, even the skull was open and scooped clean. The face hung from it in a peeled flap of skin, like an inside-out Halloween mask.
    He held Lucy and stroked her hair, whispering reassurance, smiling gleefully to himself over the top of her head because her search through the foulness of the Hagbeast had been fruitless. Now that she had looked inside a human, picked one apart with her own fingers and found nothing, she was more his than ever. This final, unequivocal loss of hope would force her into the hidey-hole of life with him and a child.
    She clung to him all the way back to the bedroom and when he fucked her she held on and didn’t let go until she fell asleep.
    He left her curled in damp sheets, twitching and murmuring unhappily to herself, and lugged the sodden remains of the Hagbeast up to the roof in black plastic garbage bags.
    When he climbed out into the night the city was young again, as it had been during the secret visits of his youth. He stood by the low wall at the edge, drinking it in, caught in its regenerated spell. Neon, distant music, even occasional laughter floated tantalizingly about him.
    He leaned against the wall and looked out over the endless sprawl of buildings. Two bricks fell away and smashed on the empty street below. He felt like a king, like he could command the buildings to tear up their roots and march away if he wished. He was beyond and above it all. Only a week ago the sight of so much living would have crushed him. What had given him this strength?
    Links of conclusion formed chains as he tracked backward through increases of power. He held his breath.
    Cripps was right.
    It had been killing, obviously, that had allowed him to reach this position of self-determination. He killed cows and he was able to start poisoning the Beast. He went further with Gummy and was able to kill her outright. The slaughter sessions had worked.
    He went downstairs and came back with a can of gasoline and Dog’s dead body. Dog had waited all its life for Steven to take payment for a broken back and it was only fitting that the remains of the animal should witness this final destruction. Steven wedged the stiff bloodstained canine between two chimney pots and made sure it had a good view.
    The Hagbeast meat made sucking sounds sliding out of the bags and some of the bones tore holes in the plastic. It took all the gas in the can to set the mess alight.
    Beast barbecue.
    Muscle sizzled, wads of fat caught fire and burned along with the gasoline. Then it all got black and started to smoke and the pile sank in the middle and collapsed in on itself.
    At the end of it all the Hagbeast was a greasy smear on concrete and powdery lines of bone ash lifting on the night breeze. Dog looked so settled that Steven left it where it was between the chimneys, staring with its burst eyes out past the Hagbeast remains to the pretty lights of the city.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

    T he weeks that followed were happy. Lucy recovered from her disappointment at the emptiness of the Hagbeast and buried her horrors under a fevered procession of decorating, fucking, and molding herself to Steven’s vision of life. She watched TV with him late into the night, taking notes and listening carefully as he pointed out particularly relevant scenes and networks of emotion. Together they painted and cleaned the place, destroying every trace of the Hagbeast and the life that had been lived there before. They made a simulacrum of all the perfect family-show houses— Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Cosby Show —so they could live perfectly themselves.
    The flat opened out and breathed again, and the sun changed minutely its course in the sky so the rooms were filled dawn to dusk with its