Head Cheese: A Story of Cauliflower, Cruelty, and Carnage

The snow fell in slow, sharp flakes. Shards of comet glass landed on the ground, falling from the sky, glittering against the violet glow of the Fractured Moon.

Quaraun stood beneath the awning of the 1968 VW Bus, his foot long rabbitty ears twitching against the wind. His opulent pink silks shimmered beneath his feathered cloaks, chains of silver draping his shoulders, blood crusting his boots.

“There is blood on my shoes,” Quaraun complained.

Behind him, BoomFuzzy cooked.

“How’d that happen?” BoomFuzzy asked.

“I do not know.”

“Are ya hurt?”

“I do not think so?”

“Is there blood on the ground some where?

“ do not know. I was looking up at the Moon. I must have walked in it somewhere.”

A wood-smoke haze curled through the frozen ruins. The scent was sweet.

Basil.

Rosemary.

Sage.

Roasted carrots.

Boiling cauliflower.

Fresh baked crusty bread.

The smell was heavenly.

BoomFuzzy was chopping carrots and celery to make a lovely sage stuffing.

The faint tinge of iron and ozone. Something was burning.

BoomFuzzy stood shirtless in the steam, muscles gleaming with grease and frost. His kilt hung low. His goggles reflected blue flame as he worked the grill, knives flashing.

The warlord stepped forward. Leather-wrapped, bone-armoured, breath stinking of rot and smoked flesh.

A Human.

Carnivore.

Arrogant.

He slapped a haunch of bloody meat onto the counter.

“Oi! I found the source of the blood!” BoomFuzzy called back to Quaraun. “Got us a butcher in line.” BoomFuzzy turned back to the Human. “What’cha doing slapping this bloody thing on me counter?”

"Pig. Real meat. Worth ten bowls of your rabbit food."

BoomFuzzy froze mid-chop.

"Ya brought pork tae me?" he said softly, voice thick with molasses and menace.

“Of course.”

“Do ya not ken who I am, Laddie?”

“Yeah, I know. You’re that big shot Faerie what thinks him rules the world.”

“I DO rule the world. I am the King of The UnSeelie Court. King of the Realm of Fae. We are the guardians of Nature. Protector of plants and animals.”

“Well, ya ain’t doing yer job right is ya? Didn’t go protecting these pigs here to well did ya?”

“Indeed.”

Quaraun did not speak. He never did when BoomFuzzy went still like that.

The warlord smirked.

"Thought you freaks liked trades. You run a kitchen or not?"

“I do.”

“Well, don’t ya serve what’s fresh?”

BoomFuzzy smiled, showing gold plated teeth. A slow, wide, horrifying grin.

"Aye. We serve what's fresh."

And with one smooth motion, he reached across the counter, grabbed the man by the throat, yanked him bodily over the grill. The cleaver came down once.

Twice.

Skull split.

Spine shucked like a banana.

The man never screamed.

He didn’t have time.

The old Phooka moved too fast.

BoomFuzzy dropped the twitching corpse to the snow.

"Quaraun, Love, yer turn. Fresh brains for me Thullid JellyFish, come and get them, Love."

Quaraun stepped forward silently, glassy-eyed. His bionic gloves whirred softly. His long fingers—gold-plated, precise—peeled the skin from the warlord’s skull like fruit. The Pink Necromancer worked slowly, reverently, exact as a surgeon. He cleaned the bone, polished it.

BoomFuzzy filled it with a creamy mash of cauliflower and sharp cheddar laced with pepper and green parsley. A crack of black salt. A splash of green wine. Then the blowtorch hissed—FSSSHT!—until the top bubbled and browned.

The UnSeelie Court gathered, mouths watering.

BoomFuzzy placed the skull on a ceramic dish, garnished with candied radishes and edible flowers, and set it in the pass-through window of the VW Bus.

A hand-scrawled chalk sign beneath it read:

“Head of the House Special.”

Above the Bus, new decorations flapped in the icy breeze: flayed bodies, stitched open, drained and drying, strung like wind chimes from the awnings.

No one brought meat again.

Quaraun stared at the blood pooling in the snow.

“My foot is sore and aches. Aches and sore. The blood is cold and red. Red and cold. And on my shoes.”

BoomFuzzy wrapped his arms around Quaraun’s shoulders, kissed his ear.
“Ya wan’ his boots, love?”

Quaraun shook his head.

“They smell of bacon. I do not like bacon. I like beets.”

GhoulSpawn poked his sheepish head out from the cargo rig.

“Yo dudes, are we outta nut cheese again or was that, like, the last of it baked into that guy’s face?”

BoomFuzzy grinned.

“Fresh batch comin’. The vegan way.”

quaraun-boomfuzzy-ghoulspawn-art-by-wendy-christine-allen

|Three Wizards and a Lighthouse|

In the year 2525, a comet struck the Moon. Now, in 40th century Maine, Earth is frozen, the Moon is fractured, and UnDead Lobsters are a serious problem. And then there's Quaraun: The Pink Necromancer. Most feared super villain on Earth. Possibly the galaxy. Maybe ever. But all he wants is tea, silk embroidery, and a calm evening in his lighthouse.

BoomFuzzy, the Unicorn Lich King of the UnSeelie Court, is Quaraun's dead husband. Technically dead. Officially terrifying. Unofficially the best baker left in the apocalypse.

GhoulSpawn, their brilliant, baffled companion, fell through time from 1978 and never found the way home. Now he juggles tech repairs, running from zombies, and being madly in love with the two most dangerous men of the apocalypse.

This is a collection of short stories. Quiet ones. Weird ones. Possibly haunted ones. Mostly, it's about what happens when the end of the world knocks… and someone still has to do the laundry.

Follow Quaraun at home in his shape-shifting eldritch Black Tower Lighthouse, as he tries (and fails) to enjoy peace, quiet, and pearls while fending off monsters, memories, and the occasional MerMan.

|Three Wizards and a Lighthouse by Wendy Christine Allen - 101 illustrated short stories available on Kindle, paperback, or hardcover.|

quaraun-boomfuzzy-unnicorn-pink-necromancer-wendy-c-allen-2024-03

quaraun-boomfuzzy-unnicorn-pink-necromancer-wendy-c-allen-2024-03

|Yes, I sold ten million copies of my books… but it’s not as impressive as you think…here’s why|
|Lists of everything - two thousand+ posts, by Wendy Christine Allen on Medium|
|Transgender Characters In Fiction|
|In 2016, after having plastic surgery to reconstruct my face, after the lower half of my nose and upper lip were ripped off in a violent attack, a catholic nun nurse at the hospital gave me a catholic lace prayer mantel veil to wear, because the veil shape hangs down over the sides of my face and the veils shadows hide the scars...|
|Why my motorhome was painted pink|
|I HATE gay haters and here’s why.|
|It is 14 years since my stroke October 21, 2010|
|(Debunking) The GoldenEagle: The World's Most Haunted Car, The history of the real Christine, the car which inspired Stephen King's novel; the hoax of World's Most Haunted Car|
|Do you realize that in 2010, when I first asked for help online, in regards to the death threats being sent via the NaNoWriMo direct messaging system, that: my son had not yet been murdered, a backhoe had not yet driven over my house, my car had not yet been cut in half, and I was not yet crippled by a deranged woman wielding a golf club?|

|EVERYTHING We Are Allowed To Publicly Release About The FBI Investigation Can Be Found HERE aka Full details of the events surrounding my son’s murder and my becoming crippled|
|If you have any information about my son’s murder, please give it to FBI agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 or at his office 1 Middle Street, 4th floor, Portland, Maine|

If you have any information about my son's murder, please give it to FBI agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 or at his office 1 Middle Street, 4th floor, Portland, Maine

|MS Wheelchair Fundraiser - I need an amiability wheelchair-walker mobility aid for MS which costs $1,700; but is not covered by insurance.|

|Support, Donations, Tips, & Subscriptions Page For those looking to help|

wow, this blog is 29 years old! I've been on Blogger 29 years!

I started my blog in 1996. It was BlogSpot back then, Google not only didn't own it yet, Google had not yet been invented. So my Blogger blog is actually older then Google by almost 5 years. And it still has it's original template. You are right about the templates looking from the 1990s. That's because they ARE from the 1990s. My blog is 29 years old, will be 30 years old next year, and I don't remember Blogger adding a single new template in that entire time. The thing about Blogger is this: people go there to read personal daily diary type blogs, fiction blogs, crafting blogs, fanfiction blogs, and mommy blogs... and that's it. If you try to do any sort of SEO or affiliate marketing or spammy advice type blog, and you'll sink like a rock. Blogger has its own algorithm and search features and people who go to Blogger to read blog posts, they are looking for old school 1990s daily personal life updates type of blogs. Aka, if your blog ain't something that ...

EK's Star Log

Search This Blog