The fertilizer factory ground along––lofty senseless. Stout brick, steel smokestacks, windowless facades. Through the back squealing animals trotted. Children and their families from every corner of the town heard the daily death cries as their throats were cut, their still twitching bodies drained of blood, and their heads lopped off. All perpetrated by steel blades via the blood-stained hands of residents of the town. A town who knew sylvan beauty, townsfolk who knew the value of their world, and the glinting factory steel that knew nothing but slicing.

***

A dense sea of smoke hovering around the factory fell in dainty yet weighted streams, shading it slightly and billowing out to enclose even the fence. And out of the sea stepped a man. He waved his hand in front of his face, and the smoke wafted away from his eyes, although the scent of it still clung to his clothes and skin. Restaurateur, entrepreneur, the town’s chef (some would argue one of the best chefs in the entire Midwest of the United States): Karl Johan Ragnarsson. He walked along the fence until he reached the forest behind the factory. He had no intention of getting any closer. The only ones who walked past the fence and into the factory were those who worked there, and when the sun set, they returned to their homes and shut their doors––windows closed, blinds pulled down.

From the wagon he wheeled behind him, Ragnar pulled out a Springfield rifle. A smooth 30.06, it could zip a bullet straight through the skull of a 550-pound black bear with ease. Ragnar trekked into the forest, past the vines and tallgrass and gnarly trees. Suddenly, he stopped, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and fired it into the air. The bang rang throughout the entire forest, for miles around. Then he walked further into the forest. Eventually, he pushed through a series of interwoven branches into a circular clearing. He walked along the outline of the circle, jabbing the point of the rifle into some of the bushes. Then the rifle hit against something hard. Kneeling down and pushing the leaves apart, he found the sacrifice. It was still fresh. He closed his eyes and caressed the body. Then he scraped down the body’s skin with his fingernails. He picked the skin from under his fingernails and placed it on his tongue and closed his mouth. It was mushy, slightly salty. Probably from the dried sweat, he thought. But he felt one or two grains in the mush, and he rolled them over his tongue and chewed them, slowly. They were hard, slightly sharp at some points, but smooth. Like bone.

Ragnar slowly stood up, still pensive, and raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired into the air once more. Then he dragged the carcass into the middle of the clearing. Pulling out a knife, he gathered what he needed. Fifteen minutes later, he lugged it in his arms all the way to the wagon he had pulled to the edge of the forest. Dumping it in, he shouldered his rifle and headed towards the town.

Five minutes later, entering the border of town, Karl kept his head down as he passed the shacks where the meat packers lived. Cracked, threadbare wood was the only comfort they could afford. He walked past until he reached the heart of the town. A young, muscular man called out to him from the open window of a newly-painted yellow house.

“Just did the hunting, Ragnar? Got it in two shots today, huh! You sure you don’t need some shootin’ lesson from yours truly?”

“Johnny, all I ask is you come down in a couple of hours or so, and I’ll have a nice steaming bowl of deer soup for you! And the only reason I shot twice was ‘cause I got twice the game.”

Johnny chuckled. “Looking forward to it!” He closed the window.

Karl kept walking, when he heard Johnny call out again.

“Forgot to mention, I got some new herbs for you.” He ran out of his house and placed a bundle of leafy, bright-green plants into Karl’s hand. “Some basil for you, my good sir! Very, very, very nice flavor for that soup. Yep, nice freshness!” He grinned at Karl’s face.

Karl smiled back. “Thanks, man. I’ll make sure the town knows who gave these to me when they eat tomorrow’s special.”

Johnny’s grin widened, and then he bolted back into the house.

Soon, Karl had stopped in front of his restaurant. Ragnar’s Solace he had called it, after his other name and his grandfather. Pulling to the back, he lifted the carcass from his wagon and disappeared through the back door. Half-an-hour later, Karl stepped out of the back room into the front of the dining area.

But instead of his usual customers, he was greeted with black and white, suit and tie, cuffs and jacket, and lapels and gelled hair. And in front of all of that glinted a badge.

“USDA federal office, Niell Lastern. Nice to meet you Mr. Ragnarsson. I’m here on business to examine the purity and safety of your food.”

“Hey there, officer. No problem. But I assure you that there’s nothing wrong with my food.”

“Well, we have to perform an inspection just to make sure that your food is safe for human consumption. You see, that factory over there,” he pointed behind him without turning his head around, “has had some worrying reports of impure food and unsanitary conditions. And since you are in the vicinity, we are required to check your food store as a precaution. So please, if you can lead me to your storage area, I will execute an inspection.”

“Have you checked the factory?”

“We will do that next. Now, please lead me to your food store.”

“Why didn’t you check them first?”

“We want to test the limits of the outbreak,” he said in a straight voice. “Now I ask you again to lead me to your food store.”

Karl didn’t move. His shoulders tensed. His frigid stare burrowed into the officer’s eyes.

And then he stepped aside and exposed the back door to the officer. He looked around the room and saw the eyes of every customer tracking the officer. Karl relaxed. He followed the officer to the back, and waited in an empty corner of the storage room while the officer checked everything. Meat and vegetables filled every available shelf space, which took up the entire room. The officer, pulling on latex gloves, examined every object, including the bundle. At that point, he halted. A few seconds passed. And then he turned around, glanced at Karl, muttered a thank you, and quickly left the back room. As Karl followed him out, he saw the officer pushing through the front door. Karl then looked around the dining room, his customers’ eyes slowly turning from the front door to him. He sighed.

Five minutes later, five men entered the room, each of them dressed in a beige trench coat with a suit and tie underneath. Each of them held a pistol, which they pointed at him. First they ushered all the customers out of the restaurant. And then they turned to Karl.

“Karl Johan Ragnarsson, you are under arrest for cannibalism and serving human material to the public. On your knees, slowly raise your hands above your head, and turn your palms towards me, fingers fully extended.”

And then Ragnar began to talk, in a whisper.

“My grandfather was a proud Swede when he arrived in the United States! He had dignity and pride. Diligence composed every cell of his body, and experience lined every square inch of his bones. But then he went to work for the fertilizer plant, here. Every day he was engulfed in a vortex of powdered bone and cartilage. Do you know––”

The officer interrupted, jutting the point of his gun forward. “Sir, on your knees, hands above your head, palms towards me, fingers fully extended––”

“Do you know when I met him on his deathbed, accompanying him during those last, sad minutes of his life, I scratched his shoulder and discovered not just dead skin cells under my fingernails but grains of fertilizer. So do not lecture me about the purity of my food, or the content of my food, or the source of my food. Anything that anybody eats in my restaurant is basically half animal anyway. That fertilizer is ingrained in all of those workers’ bones.”

He smiled.

“You are feds, right? Then, let me apprise you of our source material. Our source material is those folks that the factory over there toss into that cloud of fertilizer production and then toss out into the forest behind for the wolves to eat. I am simply a tool of nature, and you want to arrest me while the problem lies in that vortex of smoke across town?” He turned his gaze to the USDA officer. “You call yourselves the officers of purity in this country, ‘The People’s Department’ President Lincoln called you when he founded you.”

He scoffed.

“You kill the people of this town with your ignorance. They don’t love you. And let me tell you, they won’t love it when you shut down their favorite restaurant in the town. Cannibalism? Doesn’t matter to these folks. Plus, I only use the bones, not the meat. That’s for the forest’s customers. Now...”

The officer walked forward. “Okay, that’s enough, you monster. Get your stomach to the floor––”

Karl grabbed the bowl of soup behind him.

“Chicken noodle soup, sir?”

He splashed the boiling soup on the closest officer. He cried out in pain, and then swung his pistol up blindly. The officers never heard the restaurant door swing open as the townsfolk stepped forward as one mass to earn the next few days’ meals.

***

The next morning, Karl returned from his morning trek to the forest.

As he walked into the eating area, Johnny turned around from his seat at the counter. “My special, special, special man Ragnar, let’s get some of that new soup in this stomach!”

Karl smiled and immediately turned back around into the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a steaming bowl of yellowish broth with big chunks of lean, stringy, brown meat, thick, wide noodles, and large leaves of basil.

“Fresh caught meat and that basil you gave me. Let me know what you think! Part of it is your work, anyway.” Karl grinned.

Johnny took five rapid spoonfuls. Chewed, paused, and swallowed. “Hey, why does it taste kind of different from the usual?”

“Oh, just some new game I found. I’ll use it up in a week or two. Especially with the way this town eats up my soup, I might just be out-a-stock by the end of the lunch rush! That’s all the time I can stay stocked with you all, only a couple of hours before dem full bellies walk outta my store with my soup. And that’s the way I hope it always is, Johnny.”

Johnny grinned and ate some more. Slurping up a piece of meat, he said, “Those feds didn’t give you too much trouble, did they? We sure got them. Feds oughta know they don't have any place in our little town.” He paused, “There wasn’t any truth to that whole human meat thing those feds were talkin’ ‘bout, right? They were just tryna’ get you, right, them nasty feds? They were just targeting us small-towners and not them big sharks out in that nasty factory? Right, Ragnar? Just us small-towners over them big sharks?”

Karl furrowed his brows in consternation. “Of course, Johnny! You know I hunt my own meat in the forest. You and everybody else hear my shots every morning, after all. Now them feds, I suspect they’ll come back again, but we’ll worry about that later. Right now, you just enjoy your meal.”

Johnny smiled warmly, and then an innocent question popped into his eyes. “Right, right. So what’d you do with them bodies? Of the feds. You said something about taking them away, and you wouldn’t even let us help you with it.”

Karl smiled even brighter. “That’s ‘cause I couldn’t bear to take anymore of your time! Just dumped ‘em carcasses near the factory. Won’t miss them among the other bodies the factory dumps there, right?”

Johnny’s thought about it for a minute, and then his eyes cleared and swelled with brightness. “Right, Ragnar, right! Damn that dang factory, big shark hiding and terrorizing and murdering in a sea of smoke, damn ‘em, you right Ragnar! You know we wouldn’t let them close down your business here, right? You’re the only one holding us all together, that’s what I see with my two eyes here and always.”

“I’m absolutely sure, Johnny. That’s why I do this all. Thanks-”

“Naw, thank you, Ragnar.”

Karl walked into the back room, and grabbed a human thigh bone from the bundle and added it to the brewing pot. Time to make more of today’s deer and basil special, just like he had promised Johnny. This town had to eat something after all, and it was Ragnar’s job to keep them all fed. To keep them all strong.