Posted by Sawney Beane on May 11, 2006 at 21:55:05:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #19
THE DEMONSTRATION
by Sawney Beane
4 January 1995
1,613 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of non-consensual snuff and cannibalism. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story came about very suddenly and was written down quickly. It is flippant and meant to be a brutally humorous story about an automated abattoir salesman. It's cute but not wonderful.
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The enormous contraption that the salesman and his cloying assistant had set up in the centre of my warehouse floor was a gruesome tangle of tubes and wires. Several small Plexiglas windows on the sides of the monster failed to produce a good view of its dark guts. The two men spent most of the morning setting it up and preparing for my free demonstration. They were ready for me when I returned from a leisurely lunch with a client.
The salesman was obviously very experienced. He was a middle-aged man, balding, a bit thick around the waist, and wearing a cheap suit. He did not strike me as particularly intelligent or likable, but he clearly knew his job well. The assistant was an immediate irritation. He was in his mid-twenties, neatly dressed, arrogant, and constantly smirking the MBA smirk. His short, obsessively maintained hair and his power tie distinguished him as a climber of worst sort.
Anyway, the salesman immediately went into his sales pitch, while the assistant watched with an expression on his face that said "I can do better than that." The latter looked at me, and I fixed him with my most piercing icy stare until he blinked.
"Sir," said the salesman, "I personally guarantee that you will not be dissatisfied if you choose to purchase the SlashMaster 6000, the world's most versatile and inexpensive self-contained portable abattoir! The SlashMaster 6000 is the latest word in humane slaughterhouse design."
The salesman flipped a switch on the machine and it sprang to life. The interior was brightly illuminated, and I could see everything through the windows. "Observe the lightning-fast lasers that will dismantle the carcass before it knows it's died." He said this with an insincere smile that I acknowledged politely. "In fact, the SlashMaster 6000 is complete in every sense of the word. Just place the subject in and press the right buttons. You don't even need to pre-wash!" He pushed a button, and the machine's interior was flooded from several internal water nozzles. "All the parts will come out of convenient chutes, which can be attached to conveyor belts leading to packaging operations or downstream processing. We'll even customize your order with packaging equipment to suit your needs. Even the blood is collected in a tank beneath the SlashMaster 6000."
After almost an hour of pointing out special features, the sweating salesman concluded his spiel with the company slogan of SlashMaster Slaughter Devices, Inc.: "Slaughter without bother!" I smiled politely and said a few non-committal things. Then the salesman got down to business. "But I am sure you'd like to see the SlashMaster 6000 in action?"
Before I could reply, the salesman had dispatched the assistant to the truck in which the two had dragged their beast to my door. A few minutes later, he returned with a beautiful woman on his arm. She was the kind of girl you find draped all over the cars at auto shows. Long blonde hair and matching long legs, a perpetual smile, too much makeup, enormous breasts, and a microscopic waist were all cloaked in a tight strapless red dress that came down to her mid-thighs and barely covered her breasts. This was complemented with black stockings and red high-heels. Basically, she was gorgeous.
Within minutes, she had shed her clothing. I was beginning to enjoy this demonstration. She said nothing but danced about a bit for my benefit before lying down on her belly on a sort of metal table that stuck out of one end of the SlashMaster 6000. Her head was pointed away from machine, and her perfect toes were nearly touching the metal gate to the monster's interior. The table was punctured by two rectangular holes. A large one under the girl's chest allowed her breasts to hang freely. A smaller one under her groin appeared to have no use. She smiled pleasantly as the salesman and his assistant strapped her down and pushed a large blue button marked "Initiate".
The girl's little table slid quietly into the machine, and I watched her through one of the little windows. She was completely immobilized by several restraints, but her expression was still completely calm and composed. She did not appear to be drugged in any way. I couldn't figure out how she could approach her imminent slaughter with such serenity. Where did they get this girl?
The salesman smiled as one man to another and asked me, "Would you like to do the honours?" He flipped a big orange lever to the side marked "Female" and indicated a big green button labelled "Dismantle". My hand wavered.
"Wait," I said. "This doesn't demonstrate anything. I'm not likely to be slaughtering willing victims. How does your machine deal with unwilling subjects? I mean, I won't have the luxury of having someone lie calmly on the slaughter-bed."
The salesman smiled nervously, "The SlashMaster 6000 is complete. It can handle unwilling subjects as well as willing ones. In fact, it will even undress them for you." He indicated a big purple button marked "Undress".
"That's the demonstration I'd like to see," I said slyly. "I don't know where you got that lovely martyr, but she won't tell me anything about how good your machine is." I flipped a red switch marked "Abort". The nude model slid back out of the machine on her metal bed. Her facial expression was one of utter confusion. I almost pitied her then. But I unstrapped her and helped her to her feet. She stood next to me awaiting further orders.
"Well, I'd like to accommodate you," said the salesman completely at a loss, "but I'm not sure where we would get such a subject."
"How about him?" I suggested while pointing to the assistant. I was joking, but the salesman seemed to consider it seriously.
Finally, the salesman said, "Sure, we could do that."
The assistant's smirk had become an uneasy smile after my comment. Now it transformed into an unbelieving protest. "Really, you can't do that!"
"Anything for a sale," the salesman said. "All you have to do is snap that cuff around his wrist."
The little weasel was no match for my well-trained physique, and I picked him up bodily and dragged him to the side of the machine. The salesman snapped the cuff around his wrist. I was enjoying this opportunity to scare the excrement out of the little shit. The girl looked on with a blank expression of non-comprehension.
The salesman pressed a black button marked "Immobilize", and robotic arms grabbed the terrified assistant and placed him on the slaughter-table. The straps snapped into place automatically. The assistant was not yet screaming, but he was pleading for his life, and I think he wet himself. "Gonna have to use that wash button," I joked.
The salesman pushed the initiate button, and the assistant slid into the machine. Then the salesman pressed another button marked "Undress". I couldn't see how it happened, but the assistant's clothing seemed to vaporize. Small scraps of material spewed out of the bottom of the machine. Now the bastard was screaming his balls off, and I suddenly realized what the hole under his groin was for.
I had intended to let him up then, but the salesman pressed on. The white button marked "Wash" caused the assistant to be buffeted with powerful jets of water. It looked painful. Then, to my complete surprise, the salesman pressed the green dismantle button.
He talked me through the various steps. "First, the head and pubic hair will be shaved off." And this was done rapidly by a set of lasers that danced around the affected areas. Suddenly, the assistant's screams intensified. I could detect the difference between terror and agony.
"Thought you said this was humane," I said to the salesman.
He looked at the control panel and gave me a sheepish look. Pointing to the big orange lever, he said, "I guess I forgot to switch it to Male." That moment, a chute marked "head hair" began to fill with hair, and another marked "pubic hair" began to fill with short curly black hairs. Into the latter also dropped a bloody set of male external genitalia. I felt a sudden pain in my groin.
The salesman regained his composure and said, "And now the real show begins!"
The interior of the machine filled with blinding coloured laser lights. The assistant's screams stopped abruptly, and all the chutes began to fill with severed body parts. I was close to one marked "Head" and watched as the assistant's head rolled out. He was not wearing his arrogant smile now.
Anyway, after this bloody spectacle, the demonstration ended. I helped the salesman load his monster back onto the truck and sent him and the genuinely confused model away with a promise that I would call when I had decided.
I have no idea what became of that gorgeous girl. She was probably slaughtered at the salesman's next demonstration. Quite a pity, really.
They left the assistant's flesh as a souvenir. I threw an office party, and everyone loved the feast. I've had better, but that's not surprising from the looks of the victim. We'd have had a better meal if I'd let them dismantle the girl, but I really don't regret my decision.
I never called the salesman back and instructed my secretary to put him off when he called me. I'd never really intended to buy his abattoir. It really wasn't my style. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to slaughtering people. I actually enjoy doing it by hand. Still, I couldn't pass up a free demonstration could I?