It was always cheaper for me to get meat from my local butchers. Surprisingly cheap compared to other butchers and supermarkets but I always assumed that was because I lived near the country side and not in a major city. My local butchers only accepted change, coins, whatever you would call them- it made it alot easier for the homeless and they would even cook it for you for free. They were always great for a conversation, they even once told me about their Piggy Bank collection- the fact they were handmade and they even sold them for 100s, even 1000s if it was a special request.
Despite being so kind, they had rules. The sign outside the door read ‘no children, no pets’. They claimed it was because they were too loud and scared his pigs, or that children (specifically teenagers) were stealing meat. With it being so cheap I never understood why.
People stopped going to the butchers as much after everyone was forced to stay indoors. The policy was set in place once people were noticing children going missing, it was years ago so they assumed they ran away from home as they couldnt prove otherwise. Missing kids faces plastered on the front of milk cartons, a new one every week. I didnt think much of it, nobody did- not even the police. Conspiracy theories began to rise, maybe it’s the police? Monsters? Or maybe a serial kidnapper? Every theory was less likely than the last, but no one expected the real reason. Where the children actually went.
News swiftly spread. 4 teenage boys tried breaking into the butchers home to steal meat. Apparently the door was just wide open almost like an invitation. 4 went that day, only 1 came back home. He sobbed and told his parents that the butcher killed them, locked them in their house and chased them around calling them their ‘little piggies’ whilst singing over and over again ‘little pig, little pig let me come in…’ and would knock on every door. The teenager timed the knocks and made a break for it when the knocks were at the furthest point, hearing the butcher scream after him as he ran. The butcher didnt follow him because that would incriminate them. If the police investigated the butcher could say it was self defence, I knew they would probably get away with it. That was the last I heard of it before the papers were released to the public.
The papers werent as censored back then as they are now, the images still haunt my every waking moment. The title ‘Human Piggy Banks’ haunted me enough, but my eyes etched towards the pictures and I wish I would have slammed the paper shut and tossed it in the bin but my curiosity got the better of me. Images, of the missing children- pig snouts sewn where their noses once was, their heads shaved and ears clipped to look similar to a pigs, an curly tail protruding from their lower back and their hands and feet were weighted down with black ceramic in the shape of pig trotters My eyes bulged and my jaw opened wide in horror as I looked at the scene before me, that was only the first picture. My eyes became drawn to the 2nd image. In the 1st image their mouths and eyes were melted shut, the 2nd image showed that once they were cut back open coins began to fall out, no intensities, no bones, no flesh, no blood- they were filled to the brim with coins. Pig skin sewn into them like patchwork to replace rotting skin, some had more than others.
There was one last image, the one that made my stomach turn and my face drain of colour. The meat grinder, packed full of the innards of his victims- mixed with pork to keep the pork like flavour. Not all of the missing children were identified, some of them were still missing- including the teenagers. It didnt take the police long to find the addresses of the people the butcher sold them to. The part that shocked me the most was that these special requests were released soon after, they didnt ask for a specific age, or height, weight, race- no. They named the children. They asked for the children by name. Turned out the butcher had a way of anonymously printing pictures of the children into phone books in certain parts of England along with their names. Theres was one thing in the paper that scared me the most, one small sentence. ‘The whereabouts of The Butcher are unknown.’