My parents owned a meat shop in a small town. They only opened on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Days they weren't working, my parents would go out to a farm to do some extra work since well, we really needed the money. The only job I really had as far as helping was taking out the trash far away form where we lived. We lived out in the country so no dumpster trucks came this far. My parents didn't have the wood for burning the trash.

Even though we lived in a small town we often had a fair amount of customers.

"Keeps a roof over our heads." My dad always says.

"Kimberly! Time to empty out the trash." He yelled at me from downstairs.

I had been in my room drawing some pictures. I'm sure the trash could wait five more minutes.

Only two minutes passed. Before I knew it my dad was knocking on my front door. Just banging on it. "Kimberly!"

I ran to open it because by this point he was about to bang the door now.

"What pa!" I yelled.

His face turned red. I knew I wasn't suppose to yell at him but, he couldn't wait five minutes? He slapped me nice across the face. I was use to this by now, let me tell you.

"I told you to take out that damn trash. It's starting to stink! Get the God damn truck and get the hell out of here. Now!" He said walking away.

***

I loaded all the heavy trash bags onto the truck. Bags full of animal skins, bones, fluid, and all kinds of yucky stuff that girls don't like to touch or smell. I never actually touch the animal stuff, my dad always had the bags ready but touching the bag felt weird. The smell was unbearable, so much I always wore a mask. It didn't help much but it did somewhat.

After everything was loaded, I started on my forty minute drive. Would you believe twenty minutes into the drive my dad called me screaming me to change directions and drive to the OTHER dump on the farther end of town. It was an hour away! No way in hell I was going back there. I told my dad okay but I wasn't really going to go there. I didn't have the gas anyways. He'd understand.

To my surprise when I got to the dump there were police there, unbagging trash bags. Trash bags that looked just like ours. A cop car waved me down and asked to talk. I stopped the car. When I let down the window, he leaned on it looking at me.

"Hey uh, yer here emptying yer trash?" He asked.

"Yeah." I said.

"Mind if we take a look inside of it?" He asked.

I smiled. "Sure, but it isn't a pleasant smell. Just animal skins and bones sir." I told him.

"Animals? Yer parents the butchers of the town, huh?" He asked.

"Yes, indeed they are." I said.

He stared at me for a moment. "Wait here, please."

The officer talked to a few other officers and I literally wait for like 20 minutes while they check out the bags in my car, made phone calls and etc. I got out and asked them what's the problem? What they told me shocked me. They asked if I had any idea about what they had discovered in the bags. I told them I've never unloaded the bags.

***

My parents were arrested for selling human meat to people. That's right. The cops found human remains in the bags. My parent's were murdering people, selling their body parts, hiding it along with the animal meat they sold. I was just taking out their trash. I found out they were wanted a long time ago. That's why they never drove anywhere and I did all the driving.

This was all a shock to me. I guess it explained why I never like mom's food. It was always so salty. So...unfamiliar.