GUTTED

It started with the frogs.

I noticed them after a severe downpour that Winter.

Frogs were being squashed on the roads. Squashed flat till their innards popped out.

I saw the first one in my driveway. It was large and green and ... still alive. I was gutted as unfortunately the frog was.  Its entrails were outside of its body in what looked like a wet bag. For a split second I entertained the ridiculous thought that I could simply tuck them back in, sew up its belly and send it on its merry way back to the pond.

I scooped it up with a spade and placed the frog gently in a flowerbed. I had wrestled with the morality of killing it or leaving it and decided that I shouldn't play God and left it to nature and the doom of the wild night. The whole thing did leave me shaken as I cannot stand to see animal suffering and I remained torn about my inaction for days.

The death of the thing reminded me of Seamus Heaney's 'gross bellied frogs' in his famous poem. Worse, my apathy might have alerted his 'great slime kings' and I shuddered.

Weeks passed and I forgot about it after a while until one day I saw another flattened frog in the drive. This one was smaller and unquestionably dead, its guts completely splattered. Then I saw another one near where I worked and another one near the bakers where I get my lunchtime sandwich.

Now this was odd I thought. More than odd. I was seeing burst frogs on the streets allover the place as if ponds were spewing them out pancaked and they were landing where I walked.

Being a keen nature lover I wanted to understand this phenomenon and maybe even give a talk on the subject at the Naturalists' Club, which I had recently joined. My husband Blut thought I was daft. He had little interest in wildlife. Just the supernatural and cooking. He would boil a ghost if he could.

"Numbles, I just don't know what you see in all those smelly bugs. You wouldn't find me poking around in the dirt. Give me a turkey to cook, giblets and all, any day!"

Blut had always called me Numbles, ever since I'd met him two years ago now. He'd been in the library reading a book about orphanages. It was what we had in common from the start. We were both orphans. Connected to none.

We fell in love. Blut adored to cook and I loved to eat his sumptuous meals. His favourite food group was offal: liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, tripe, heart and toungue. He stopped short at brains, joking that too much thought had gone into them already to think about cooking them.

I'd never really eaten that much offal before. Of course I'd eaten meat but I'd just never really come across the other yukky bits. I'd never really consumed as much food at all till I met Blut. He said he just wanted more of me to love.

Blut once even scraped up some roadkill on a country lane. He said it was fresh and shouldn't be wasted. All fur and bone and gunk; he took it home, prepared the thing, cooked it up. 

He said it was hare but I'm not so sure. It could have been fox or badger for all I know. Disgusted with myself, I actually enjoyed it. Blut said it was his role in life to make me the best pluck as he called it.

Not long after eating the thing I was walking down a rain-soaked street in the city. It was early March and Spring was crowning. I heard a plop on the wet cross-roads as if something had landed with a clout. Then I heard another one and another. Stooping under my umbrella I peered at where I'd heard the sound and to my astonishment I saw that it was a bird. Noticing the crested head I realised that it was a skylark, that herald of Spring sunshine. Then I heard the songs.

The traffic lights turned to red and the cars stopped. I could hear the songs clearly. Being a naturalist I instinctively looked up. What I saw made my mind reel with bewilderment. Hundreds of skylarks were congregating in the rain-filled sky above the road I was standing on. They were all singing vigorously and hovering furiously in one spot as if impaled. I thought their little lungs would burst from their mouths.

To my horror the larks began to fall from the sky and drop onto the soaked tarmac, where they landed with a sickening splat. Almost immediately the lights turned to green and dozens of cars and trucks surged forwards from both directions and drove over the larks, flopping and slapping on the wet road. They were all crushed like beetles and their innards fanned out everywhere, maps of blue and grey tissues, the watery surface turning red with bird blood.

I gagged and was sick in the gutter. 

There must have been well over a hundred skylarks involved and I could think of no rational explanation for what had happened. Nauseous and upset I stumbled home. Blut made me a hot drink and suggested that what I'd seen was more supernatural than natural and that I should record anything else I saw like that so he could take a look.

After the larks Blut seemed genuinely excited by the prospect of me seeing more 'supernatural phenomena' and asked me to keep him posted.

Life carried on as normal for a while until the visit to the aquarium. I had wanted to see the new exhibit, the Amazonian Manatee, for ages. Blut came along too.

It was a Saturday and despite the threat of Spring sleet Blut and I were enjoying the sea cow lazily curling around the depths of its pool. We had a ring-side seat in front of the huge glass window. The water itself was outdoors but we were inside watching the graceful beautiful creature.

Suddenly the heaven's opened and the sky turned dark. A torrential hailstorm had begun and the surface of the manatee's pool began to get hammered. The water seemed as if it was boiling and the manatee became agitated. It peered up at the commotion.

It was then that we noticed the leeches. 

They emerged from the tropical plants at the side and pulsed slowly but surely towards the animal. More and more appeared until hundreds of leeches were heading upwards like an army of lips.

They attached to the distraught manatee at once and began to suck. Within seconds their bodies were filling with the creature's blood and growing bigger. The things didn't stop and the helpless sea cow writhed in agony as hundreds of them drained it of life, which was decanting into the distending leeches at a horrific rate.

The suction of their combined radula was too much for the manatee's weakened belly and with a final shriek of torment it burst open. The leeches filled to horrifically huge sizes with its disgorging guts. 

I screamed as if I was watching a vision of hell and buried my face into Blut's chest. I could not watch any longer. He simply stared at the terrible scene.

The shapeless animal, now completely dead, drifted to the bottom of the tank, a limp hollowed disemboweled bag. The legion of engorged leeches floated to the hail-lashed surface and bobbed like sacks. First one, then another, then another - they all began to disgorge their gory contents into the water and within a couple of minutes the top was a deep ooze of intestines, fat and bile.

The horror at the aquarium left me traumatised and I retreated completely into myself. I simply could not understand what was happening. I had stumbled into a nightmare and was scared to go out. I was sick to the stomach.

Blut was a rock. He said it was pure chance that these things were happening. A dose of bad luck that would quickly pass. He kept telling me. I took time off work and Blut looked after me, feeding me, massaging my tummy and keeping me warm in bed.

At the end of my first month off work he asked me if I would like to visit a friend of his.

"She's a an old friend and we go back a long way. I've known her since grammar school days. She's a sort of Queen actually. Of noble blood actually. It'll do you good to get out and meet someone interesting and new. We can sit in her house and drink tea".

Despite still being afraid of things, it sounded surprisingly safe and pleasant so we set off arm in arm taking along a bottle of red. The evening was dark and misty and when we arrived at the house it was swathed in fog.

The detached building was pointy with an unusual tower on its flank. It looked like a gothic castle in the jaundiced gassy air. Blut knocked and the door opened. We were greeted by an incredibly tall, elegant and ancient lady. 

She was dressed in a red velvet evening gown and her long white hair was tied up into a large bun, which was pinned with an impressive metal spike. Her face was primeval with a large pursed mouth daubed in black lip-gloss. Her big eyes were like petri dishes but for me the most striking feature were her fingers.

They were long and thin. So long. Twice as long as a normal persons and tipped with ridiculously sharp nails, which were more like talons than anything. They gave the impression of crabs at the end of her arms. Skin crabs.

There was an unpleasant smell coming off her; a mixture of lilacs and hung game. I thought of butchery and funerals.

"Blut. How nice to see you my dear. And you've brought your young lady I see. How very sweet. Please come inside". Her voice was a whisper, a snake grating over the desert.....and her accent; it was so strange. Foreign perhaps. Eastern European maybe.

We entered the dark place were we were offered green tea.

"Its good for the digestion my dear, hot and cleansing. An enema in a cup you might say."

I thought the analogy most unsavoury but simply put it down to the old lady's eccentricity. We walked into a larger gloomier room where the tea was waiting on a tray. I was sure I saw someone small and crooked, holding a jar of what looked like frogs, passing through a side door but couldn't be sure. 

I shrugged it off but the whole house and its creepy owner did seem otherworldly and I was astonished that Blut knew this woman at all.

Sitting down I looked round the room through the murk. I began to notice trays everywhere. There were large trays on the floor and smaller trays resting on sideboards. 

The trays were punctuated with jars and bowls. I couldn't see their contents fully in the gloom but the glint of a liquids was apparent.

Blut and I were also sat on chairs in what appeared to be a huge shallow tray as well. I wondered if the whole place was riddled with leaks and rain had been pouring in for years.

"Blut tells me you've been plagued by some unexpected experiences of late my dear. How did you feel?"

Surprised that Blut had told her anything personal about me I said that I had been upset and confused.

"Were you frightened?"

"Yes."

"That's good. You've done well Blut".

"Thank you M'am."

I was dumbfounded by this exchange and asked what on earth they were talking about. I put down my tea.

"What do you mean, Blut has done well?"

The old crone stood up to her full height, her sinewy fingers wriggling at the end of her velvet sleeves.

"Forgive me my dear. I haven't explained a thing have I. Blut has been getting you ready you see. He's been fattening you up and guiding you to my, lets say, little pranks and yes, so that you would become frightened. Indeed, the more frightened the better actually. It tenderises the offal!"

"Blut, what is she saying? For God's sake tell me what she's talking about?"

Blut had stood and gone behind the back of my armchair. He was massaging my shoulders slowly but with increasing pressure.

"Don't worry Numbles, everything will be revealed shortly," he replied and to my horror both he and the old lady began to chuckle.

I'd had enough and began to stand. Blut pushed me back down violently and grabbed me in a bear hug from behind. I screamed into the room of trays but no-one was listening.

The old woman came closer and removed the long spike from her hair. She smiled her black-gloss grimace and pricked me on the temple with the tip of the spike. I was immediately paralysed, unable to move a muscle.

"Let me introduce myself dear. I am Viscera, Satan's Haruspex, his Queen of Entrails!"

"Blut is my trusted familiar and he shall be richly rewarded for bringing you to me this night."

"My Arch-Lord requires me to divine his coming; to find the sooth in the guts of those without parents each two years that pass. He waits in Hell for my mancy you see, my best fingering."

She unbuttoned my top with her crabs' legs and exposed my plump belly. I was afraid now, more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Exposed and trapped I began to laugh hysterically as the terrible hair pin was positioned just below the cross of my brassiere. 

One edge of the cursed thing was razor sharp. It began to draw a red line - first down, then swiftly across - my bare abdomen. She stepped back.

The line quickly opened up and blood gushed with sickening force. I screamed. My innards followed and they slopped out in steaming links sliding across the shiny floor. I shrieked with indescribable pain and stared in disbelief at the violation of my young body.

"Excellent deary, excellent! A tremendous set of tender pluck; such a mirrored sheen to be proud of too and a lovely pallet of blues and purples. What a treat. And now to work!" she exclaimed towering over the carnage.

She knelt down; her velvet dress draped in the blood slicking round her knees. She stared at me with the upmost cruelty before hefting my insides and vigorously rubbing her face in them. I screamed in agony. She looked up again smiling, her face basted in my warm blood, her black lipstick smeared across her cheeks.

She then poked her long left index fingernail deep into my innards, displayed like a dinner in front of her. She began flicking intestines and pushing bowels to find the perfect pattern for her master.

"Good, good, good! Lucifer will be so pleased with this, you auger well. So well my dear. This was a fine disembowelment, a rare bowling indeed, one which portends a visit from He himself. You are honoured truly!" the Haruspex enthused, licking bile from the iridescent liver still connected to my body.

"We shall have to keep her alive for our Lord, Blut. Lie her down in her tray with the prize sweeties just so. Her own blood and some meat gobbets will sustain her till Leviathan hears of this orphan's grand pile."

And so I am laid out in the vessel, gutted like a school frog, defiled and desecrated, where I have waited now for days, wracked by unfathomable pain and where I have written my story with my own finger in the blood pooled around me in the tray. No-one misses me but there maybe others.

Today He who will end me comes, so take heed for the sake of your life. Beware Viscera, the Haruspex, Queen of Entrails ..............