“Don’t!” But Ray was too late.

What spilled out made her scream and stumble back, tripping over her boots and sprawling into Ray, who instinctively moved to break her fall. He managed to catch her, his arms going around her waist, turning her away from the door.

The man who burst into the freezer swung wildly at the air with both fists, his mouth open in a scream, only what was coming out wasn’t a scream exactly, but more of a wordless croak. His face bloomed with red that dripped down his chin and neck and chest like a bloody bib.

Ray pushed Ariana into a corner, out of the way, and turned to face the man.

He was dressed in bright hunter orange, the luminescent color blinding under the bare fluorescents. They both reached for it at the same time—a cleaver buried in the butcher block amid the bloody mass of meat—and the hunter grabbed it first.

“Ray!” Ariana screamed a warning as the cleaver came down in his direction. “He’s going to kill us!”

“No he isn’t.” Ray was breathing hard, but he sounded calm, stepping between the man and Ariana, surprisingly light on his feet, his gaze never leaving the cleaver in the man’s hand. “Stay back!”

Ariana did as she was told, shrinking against a side of beef, cradled by rib bones, trying to make herself as small as possible, overpowered by the smell of meat and her own fear.

“Come on.” Ray gestured, urging the hunter to make a move. The man stood with a deer carcass at his back, the cleaver brandished head-high, his gaze moving wildly from Ray to Ariana.

The hunter took two steps around the butcher block, his eyes on Ariana. He said something unintelligible, snarling, and she whimpered and moved instinctively toward the door. The hunter fixated on her as she edged toward freedom, his eyes bright in his bloodied face, the cleaver still raised, menacing.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ray said, lunging first, his long arms, so beneficial in his basketball days, not failing him, even over the length of the butcher block. He grabbed the collar of the hunter’s coat as the man dove at Ariana, yanking him backward, the weapon coming down, slicing at air and the rubber flaps on the door. The cleaver squealed, gouging the inside of the door all the way to the floor.

The man howled in frustration, twisting and waving his weapon wildly, the motion enough to loosen his coat—and Ray’s grip. The hunter regained his feet, growling at Ariana where she cowered against the inside of the freezer door.

“Please!” she pleaded, looking back at Ray, who was already striding toward them both.

“Get away from my girl!” Ray snarled, this time grabbing the man by his hair.

The hunter swung blindly, the cleaver taking a chunk of metal out of the wall next to Ariana’s head. Ray grabbed the man’s forearm, squeezing, but the weapon didn’t fall.

“Ray! Look out!” Ariana shouted another warning, this time saving Ray’s life—or at least his eyesight—by inches. The hunter now wielded a butcher knife in his other hand, procured from the mass of meat on the butcher block.

Ray grabbed the man’s second wrist, using all of his strength to turn it inward, toward the man’s body, pointing the knife at the hunter’s belly. Before it reached its target, the man let go and the blade clattered to the cement floor.

But he still had the other cleaver. Both men panted, sweating even in the chilled air, their breath turning to steam as they struggled.

Ariana’s eyes fell on something hanging from a nail on the wall beside the freezer—it looked like a meat tenderizer, although it was far bigger than anything in her kitchen. She took it off the nail. It had an impressive heft. Squeezing the rubber grip with both hands, she edged toward Ray and the hunter, both still on their feet and bent over, fighting for possession of the second cleaver.

With sudden, surprising strength, the hunter shoved Ray back, standing in the center of the freezer now with a clean grip on the cleaver.

As he turned to face Ariana and the locked exit, she was already swinging—a downward strike that buried the tiny pyramids of metal on the tenderizing surface a half-inch into the man’s forehead.

The hunter stood for a moment with his head cocked, staring at Ariana as if trying to understand something beyond his comprehension.

The perfect square on the man’s forehead was a deep purple, now turning magenta as the blood began to bubble out of the impression.

She didn’t even see Ray lift the cleaver off the floor.

One hard swing into his neck cut loose an ungodly amount of bright arterial red that sprayed everything like a cracked aerosol can.

The hunter’s knees buckled and he went down hard.

Ariana stared at the rich, red pool of blood expanding all around him.

She and Ray both breathing hard.

She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.

She motioned to the dead man. “He would’ve killed you.”

“Or Luke. I bet he slipped in over the lunch hour. He’d probably planned to hide back there until the shop closed. Kill us after hours in the quiet of the freezer. When the door’s shut, you can’t hear anything. It’s pretty much soundproofed. Perfect place to kill someone when you think about it. “

“I don’t recognize him.” Ariana knelt down beside the dead man.

“Me neither.”

“Ray?” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked closer. “His mouth.”

“You shouldn’t touch him.”

And she didn’t want to, but her curiosity got the better of her.

She pried open the man’s jaw and winced.

“Ariana.”

“Oh God.” She looked up at Ray. “His tongue is gone. Why would his tongue be gone?”

“I don’t know.”

Ariana struggled to her feet.

She was three steps from the open door to the back freezer when Ray grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t go in there,” he said.

“What was this guy doing in your freezer?”

“I have no idea.”

Ray pulled her in close.

“What did you do, Ray?”

He was still holding the cleaver.

She was still holding the tenderizer.

“What did you do?”

“I...”

“What, Ray?”

“You don’t understand.”

She jerked out of his grip and he let her go, saying, “Guess it doesn’t really matter now.”

She stood in the threshold of the back freezer, pushing away the rubber flaps and groping for the light switch.

Found it, flicked it, and as the fluorescents crackled to life, she closed her eyes.

“Oh, Ray.”

A headless body swung from a meat hook in the corner of the room.

A severed leg rested on a tall wooden block, cleanly separated at the joint, a knife embedded above the knee, as if the butcher had been interrupted and had stuck it in there to keep his place.

The thigh was thick, meaty—and hairy—a man’s leg.

That was the only hint that what had been there was once human. Otherwise, it was just meat lining the counter in the corner, sitting in Styrofoam and wrapped in plastic. Cutlets, rump steaks, hand-packed sausages.

Ariana said, “Please tell me you aren’t selling this stuff.”

“Never to you.”

Ray’s equipment might have been old, but his ways were clean and meticulous. The bodies had been butchered with horrible precision, skinned, cut up and processed like so many of the animals these hunters had brought to the shop.

Ariana turned around and faced him. “How long have you been doing this?”

“I don’t know. Years.”

Ariana closed the freezer door.

Ray sighed and eased down slowly onto the floor, as if he could no longer support the weight of everything. He put his head between his knees. She couldn’t hear him crying, only saw the slight movements of his shoulders jerking up and down. He shook his head, saying softly, “I don’t know how. I don’t know how.”

“How what, Ray?”

Ariana sat down beside him.

She put her arm around him.

“Every time some trophy hunter from some other place showed up...”