Junior tossed aside the bloody tool and carefully handled my strip of flesh. It wobbled and flopped in his hands. It had weight to it. I fought with everything I had not to throw up. I was dizzy, nauseous and my head spun.

In the killer’s hands was about a six-inch-by-three-inch-wide flap of my leg. There was a matching-shaped wound on my thigh that glistened and bled.

I could hardly think. I craned my neck and tried to talk, but I was squeezing my teeth so hard I couldn’t part them.

Then I got it out, “Now what, Junior?”

“Gonna cook and eat this here people steak,” he said staring at the flesh jiggling in his hands.

“Cook it?” I spat. “You some kind of sissy?”

This upset Junior. He almost dropped the bloody slab on the dirty floor.

“What’d you mean?” he asked raising his chin defiantly.

“I mean, everybody knows when you cook people you lose all the goodness.” I could hardly speak.

All I wanted to do was scream. All I wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs and break Junior’s skull open. I pictured myself beating him with a pipe, choking him with my hands, strangling the life out of him. I could almost feel his throat in my hands.

The cannibal was looking at his meat, my skin. He looked as though he was genuinely concerned with what I told him.

“Really?” he asked.

“That’s what I heard.”

Junior grabbed a plate from a shelf and slapped the slab of bloody flesh onto it for further examination. Behind him was a gas stove which he glanced at in between looking at me and once or twice at the Hugheses who listened to me and continued to play possum even when they heard me yell.

Between the concussion, the bleeding wound, and the near overdose, I was hanging on by a thread and I began to doubt my plan would even work. And to boot, it looked like the crazy motherfucker wasn’t going to play along.

Junior poked at the hairy, bloody slab. “You sure, ’cuz Paw always taught me to cook what I eat.”

I nodded, trying in vain to hide the pain. “The heat makes the soul leave the meat.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I had no clue.

Junior thought about it for half a second then placed the dish down and walked to a drawer. He opened it and took out, to my relief, a fork and knife. It was time to eat and time to see if I’d save the day or become the day’s special.