The Hungry and the Damned

(originally published on Facebook, 2011)

Deep in the woods around an isolated southern town, there lived a large family struggling to survive. They were eleven people, two parents and nine children, crammed into a small trailer with their morale worsening by the day. There used to be twelve children but three of them died due to being born addicted to meth. The parents, careless people who cared more about themselves than their children, spent most of their days drinking, beating their children, and making their drug of choice. Formerly, they were hunters but the meth labs made most of the animals stay away from the woods. The children, malnourished, badly bruised, and in need of a bath, never went to school. Since there were no social services around, they more or less didn't exist. They were unable to go to food pantries since their parents saw those as handouts for lazy people. This was the Boone family and the hole that they were in was about to get much deeper.

One night, the children were locked in their one room like Holocaust victims fighting to survive. The evening was cold, the trailer had no heat, and the children's clothes were threadbare. The kids huddled up to each other for warmth. Sixteen year-old Scott and fifteen year-old Nancy were in one group, thirteen year-old twins Ash and Karen huddled up to another, eleven year-old Paul, and ten-year Ron huddled up together and eight year-old Christy, six year-old Mikayla and five year-old Grace got together. During the night, Karen died in her sleep from hunger. At 5'4", Karen only weighed 52 pounds and hadn't eaten in six days. She, like the other kids, had survived on mostly bugs and sticks for the past three months. The next morning, Jerry, their father woke the children up in his loud and angry tone. As the children woke up, Ash tried to wake up Karen but failed to do so. Jerry cleared the room and started kicking Karen's corpse. When he realized that she was dead, Jerry carried her body outside and began a bonfire. His wife, Martha, asked Jerry what was going on. Jerry said that Karen died and that they needed the meat. Martha, her brain cells mostly killed by the meth and alcohol and fearing Jerry's anger, assisted. After Karen was cooked, she was split into several pieces and put onto whatever plates they could find. Martha, repeating what Jerry told her to say, told the children the bad news and good news. The bad news was that Karen left to find work. But the good news was that they managed to kill a deer and that they would have something to eat that day. Without thinking, the children dug in and enjoyed the stringy but satisfying taste of underweight human flesh.

Later that day, Paul was suffering a stomachache. After spending so long without food, he had overindulged and was near bursting. Jerry saw what was going on and began to yell at him for being lazy. He began beating Paul with a baseball bat and ended up bursting his stomach, killing him. The same routine with Karen happened with Paul and he became dinner. Jerry's lie to Martha and the other seven children was that Paul went hunting for a rare deer. The lie was outlandish but the children weren't allowed to question him. That night, the remaining children wondered about what happened to Karen and Paul. Nancy said that whatever happened to them, they were lucky to leave home. The next morning, the remaining children felt groggy from the meals and slowly got up. Grace was still sleeping as Jerry came in to wake her up. For some reason, Jerry had an axe and as soon as you could say "salted or unsalted", the poor girl was beheaded. With the other children wondering what happened to Grace, Scott mentioned how puzzling it was that their parents had suddenly gotten all this meat. There were no animals in the woods and their parents couldn't have possibly stolen it. Also, what their dad had told them came off as complete and utter bullshit. Scott may have not made it past the fourth grade but he knew something was up. No one else believed Scott in his belief that their dad killed their siblings and the rest decided to eat Grace in peace. Scott passed on the meal. Jerry told him that you will eat or else. Scott told his father, "Or else what, are you going to eat me too?" Jerry told Scott that was the last straw and he got out a Smith and Wesson, loaded it and shot Scott twice in the head. Jerry then told the other kids to keep eating or else that would happen to them.

Scared shitless, the surviving children, Nancy, Ash, Ron, Christy and Mikayla feared for their lives. Forcing themselves to be good, they listened to everything that Jerry said. They spent the next few nights quiet and still while Jerry and Martha shot up on the drug that led to their downfall. But sooner or later, hunger struck in. Jerry began snatching the children up one by one, killing them while the rest were asleep and serving them up the next day. With fewer people to feed, there were leftovers that would help Jerry and Martha live for a little while. Jerry was even starting to develop a slight paunch. A week later, only Jerry and Martha remained. With an IQ below the rate of a normal, functioning human, Martha thought nothing of the disappearance of her children while Jerry liked having the quiet. But nothing would be fully satisfying for Jerry without the thought of Martha being out of the equation. One night, with the meat supply running low, Jerry brutally murdered Martha in their bed. He left the body lying in the bed as he sat in his living room shooting up while taking a swig of a Keystone Light/Mountain Dew/blood cocktail. The next morning, he cooked her up and saved the rest for later.

One month past and the smell of rotting flesh overpowered the trailer. Maggots, bugs and rats began to take over the trailer and Jerry seems to prefer the company of the pests to his own family. While putting a needle into his vein for his regular fix, he accidentally let some blood spout out from one of his many track marks. He began to suck out the blood and soon realized how good it tasted. He then got out a revolver and shot off his big toe. Tying some cloth on his foot, he cooked the toe. When finished, he ate the toe and came to the realization that he tasted delicious. Deciding that his future laid in self-cannibalism, Jerry began cutting off his own limbs and cooking them. Toes for breakfast, ears for lunch, an entire hand for dinner, whatever body parts he could find. After about a week, Jerry only had a head, one arm and his upper body left. Unable to shoot up or even move, Jerry's taste for people got the end of him. He died eleven days later from hunger, the same way that his daughter Karen died a few months earlier. His body would not be discovered until two years later when a logging company discovered the trailer and the rancid smell.

Millions of people suffer every day being among the hungry and the poor. For Jerry Boone, he was hungry for a peaceful life away from his suffering family but was poor in sense for deciding that cannibalism was the way out. I guess addictive drugs cause you to make bad decisions. Jerry Boone's bad decisions turned a killer into his own victim.