HALLOWEEN WRITING CONTEST - Piggy's Palace

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Image Credits: Pixabay

Piggy's Palace

I knew the police did not regard me as a reliable witness. I could see the officers judging eyes staring at my track marks and gaunt appearance, as I tried to hide my rotten teeth as much as possible. I was embarrassed by the scabs on my body and my "meth-mouth." I hated that I looked twice my real age of twenty-three. The RCMP knew me well, for my numerous arrests for prostitution on the lower east side. I nervously shuffled in my seat, trying to make my skirt seem longer and less revealing, as I waited for the officers to take my report. The drugs made me twitchy, and I tried my best to hide it. The information I had for them was a matter of life or death in my opinion.

"You again Cecile, what trouble have got your self into this time?Not getting on with your pimp, or was it a John?" said Officer Steele.

I take a deep breath and start to tell the officers about a farm outside the city. I had been to many wild parties at this place before, and it had a nickname among the girls on the street as the "Piggy Palace". Two brothers owned this farm and would host large parties, charging admission, which included services from prostitutes in exchange for drugs. Sometimes these drug-fueled parties would last for days.

The RCMP new of the farm, as they had visited for several minor incidents in the past, but no charges ever made it past the wastebasket. The farm, an operating pork plant, was isolated enough not to get complaints from neighbours.

"So what about it Cecile, what have you got for us, that we don't already know? Stop wasting our time; we have law-abiding citizens to attend to," the cop said in an aggravated tone.

I begin to cry now, as I continue my story, the best I can in my drug-induced state. I explain that I had been sleeping with one of the brothers, on an off for a year or so, and I would often stay for days at the farm because I think I was his favourite, and well, he gave me drugs. I saw him today in the barn; he didn't see me, but what I saw scared me to death. Through the barn door, I could see him butchering a woman's body on a meat hook, just like a pig. He was stripping the skin off with a knife to reveal the yellow fatty tissue beneath. I slipped away without anyone noticing, and came here. I was shaking, not from just the meth, but from the shock of what I had seen. I looked up, waiting for a response from the Officers.

"It's a pork farm, Cecile, what you saw was likely a pig, not a woman," said Officer Steele indignantly, "go back to the streets Cecile; you are delusional and high on drugs."

I plead with the Officers to at the very least check it out. They finally agreed, but somehow I think it was just to get me out of their office. Feeling worthless, I head back to the city and my downward spiral of funding my addiction as a sex worker.

Years pass. Numerous women disappear, and rumours circulate amongst the community of addicts and sex workers about the "Piggy Palace". More reports like Cecile's start to come in, evidence mounting, the RCMP finally get a warrant to search the property, not expecting too much.

Officer Steele is leading the investigation and is one of the first to enter the property. His group starts searching the main house on the farm. In one of the bedrooms, he finds closets stuffed with woman's clothing of various sizes. In the master bedroom, a large wooden box containing ID's, jewellery and wallets for thirty-two different woman. Alarmingly, Officer Steele recognises the face of Cecile from the interview several years back, on a BC ID card.

One of the outbuildings converted into a sort of torture chamber from your worst nightmare. The woman here would have been sexually abused, tortured and mutilated. He kept a video collection of his abuse, in a safe that needed to be welded open.
In the centre of the room, a sex chair with bindings, the walls covered with instruments for torture and sodomy.

The findings become more terrible as the crew searches the grounds of the farm. A deep freeze full of women's heads. Glass jars with human eyeballs preserved for prosperity in formaldehyde. Evidence of human remains discovered in the wood chipper and the pig feed. All from a farm supplying organic pork to the local community. Officer Steele, wretches as he imagines the scope of these horrific crimes.

The entire property becomes a major crime scene for many months. Every last inch of the property sifted through. In all, the remains of fifty-two people found. All thirty-two of the woman on the ID's, identified through DNA evidence. Sadly, only a few of them were even reported missing in the first place.

The brothers were both arrested on the spot, and eventually sentenced to life in prison. The brother's, now in their sixties will not be spending any part of their life outside the jail.

The memory of the interview with Cecile haunts Officer Steele's dreams. He couldn't help but feel a certain level of responsibility, that he did not look past her drug addiction and prostitution and take her words seriously, recognising that she was someone's sister, daughter and mother.

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@braveheart29 xx

This was for a writing contest by @honeydue found here .

Note: This is entirely a fictional story, however, there is a serial killer; Willie Pickton that went undetected on his pig farm for many years, who is very real. I was thinking of him as I wrote this story.