Der Metzgermeister

[Abbadon]

December of 2002, two months after Abigail White turned sixteen, the story of the “Rotenburg Cannibal”, or perhaps his more internationally famous name of Der Metzgermeister, hit the papers after Armin Meiwes, the aforementioned cannibal, was arrested and charged in the death and consumption of a man hereby referred to simply as Herr Brandes.

At the time, Abigail was living in Frankfurt with her mother, Doctor Beringer, as per the negotiated agreement of the divorce between her and her former husband, Professor White of Mississauga, Ontario. She had always been a strange child, quiet and pleasant, but with an insatiable, and often morbid, curiosity. This only increased with age.

More than once, the desiccated corpses of small mammals had been found near their home in Canada, easily blamed on a feral predator, though less easy to explain was the neighbor’s cat that had been found placed back in its yard, thoroughly dissected by an amateur’s hand. The child had been punished accordingly and her parents had kept a more watchful eye on her interests.

The divorce had changed things. Abigail was given more freedom as both parents fought and buried themselves back in their work. Then she was moved overseas to live in a place she had only visited a few times as a little girl.

When Abigail had hit puberty, she had rocketed past the generally accepted period of awkward adolescence, straight into more mature beauty, something that did not go unnoticed by her classmates. She experimented with boys, and girls, as well as drugs and drinking. Anything someone her age could get into, she did it, all with the innocent expression and convincing lie to get herself out of trouble.

In Germany, she took great advantage of pretending to be a hapless foreigner, despite her fluency in the language, her doe eyed expression of confusion caught them all hook, line, and sinker. She was never without an escort, without a date, never alone. She charmed everyone in her path.

And when, at sixteen, she read the story of The Cannibal and Herr Brandes, she was captivated. The easy acceptance that the latter had acquiesced to the former’s advertisement (the specifics had even been included, schlacten). Her mother had, with mild disgust, spoken to a colleague about the paraphiliacs and their illnesses. Herr Brandes had responded to an advertisement specifically calling for a man to be killed. They had consumed his flesh together. A sickness to the mother, but an inspiration to her daughter.

It took days of careful planning, diagrams sketched in a journal her mother had given as a birthday present. Would a knife to carve beef do the same to man? Should she harvest from a meat hook, drain his blood, powder his bones? She would need a place to store him, of course. Her mother would question a sudden surplus of meat that she had not purchased, organs that they did not eat.

The night Abigail picked was clear, the stars twinkling dully against the light of the city as her victim, her prey, walked with her, her hand cradled at his elbow. She had coerced him, a classmate, to walk her home after a study date with their peers. She leaned closer into his frame, gazing up at him from beneath her eyelashes. He blushed a pretty pink and swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing with the force. He was nervous and hormone addled and his bewilderment with her attention would work brilliantly.

“Abigail…” He started, confusion written over his face as she turned them down the wrong street, towards warehouses. She simply smiled coyly and squeezed his arm. That seemed to be enough for him for now. The prospect of getting anywhere with her was enough to dismantle his common sense.

They walked farther from the sounds of a city free falling into nightlife, into the shadows of an alleyway where she had cleverly hidden her supplies the evening before. She spied the bag over his shoulder as he backed her against the wall, insistently, sloppily, kissing at her mouth. He fumbled out words, praising her beauty, how lucky he was, how good he could make her feel. She allowed it for a moment longer than strictly necessary, his hand clumsily grasping at her breast.

Her own hand rose to grasp the back of his neck gently, turning him to where she could scoop the knife from its perch and cleanly slit his throat. The warmth of it sprayed her face and the wall until she was tipping him, letting it pour into a bucket. Her father had taken her on hunting trips as a child and she knew to drain before dressing.

That was the night she committed her first, but certainly not her last, murder. And it was also the night she decided that after trying a variety of ways, and with much respect to Herr Meiwes, she was not a cannibal.

But she was a butcher.