5 - The Meat Locker

 The meat locker, which was what most of the people who worked at the zoo called the enormous refrigerator and freezer units that held the zoo's meat fodder, and the building that housed them, was very chilly. Even the white walled butchering room, with its stainless steel sinks and counters, was brisk enough that Jasmin could see her breath.

 "Good, you're here." came the terse greeting from the woman who, judging from her stern expression and no nonsense attitude, must be the manager in charge of the meat locker. She was standing behind a large steel table, sharp knife held casually in one hand, with a nude and restrained girl laying out face up before her on the slightly tilted surface.

 "Tammy?" Jasmin asked, as she stepped into the cold, starkly lit interior of the butchering room.

 "Yes." Tammy replied. "And you're the girl Ted sent over to help me out. Jasmin, right?"

 "Yeah." Jasmin answered, nodding affirmatively, even as she shivered and broke out into gooseflesh.

 "Jeez, it's cold in here.." Cindy stated, as she followed Jasmin into the room.

 "It's necessary." Tammy replied, shortly. "And you're Cindy, right?"

 Cindy just nodded and hugged herself, running her hands up and down her her own suddenly shivering arms.

 "Good, we can get started then." Tammy stated. "Jasmin, how much experience do you have butchering animals?"

 "Umm.. none?" Jasmin answered, hesitantly.

 "Ugh.. Of course." Tammy replied, her tone disgusted, as she rolled her eyes. "Well, you'll just have to learn by watching and doing, then. Strip your girl, then tie her down to one of the butchering tables, just like mine is. Make sure her head is on the downhill side, and hanging over the edge a bit."

 "O-okay.."

 With help from Cindy herself, Jasmin got the girl undressed, up on one of the large tables, and then bound to it, hand and foot to each corner, more or less like the other girl was.

 "Good." Tammy stated, as Jasmin finished. "Now, get an apron on, or your clothes will be a mess for the rest of the day, and come over here and watch what I do."

 Jasmin pulled an apron off a hook on the wall and donned it, then moved to stand next to Tammy. The slightly older, yet still fit and trim woman, who looked to be somewhere in her mid thirties or early forties, nodded to her, then started explaining what they would be doing.

 "Taken all together, the calorie demands of the zoo's carnivores and omnivores mean that we go through three or four hundred pounds of meat each day." Tammy said, waving her knife around slightly for emphasis. "Since Ted's bright idea to switch from feeding our critters on goats, pigs, or chickens to you girls, we've been saving hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a day. Which is great for the zoo."

 "But, that means we're going through you all pretty fast. Which, in turn, also means that I, instead of simply buying cheap, low grade meat in bulk like I used to, now have to spend half my day slaughtering and parting out girls, just to keep up with demand." she continued, sounding mildly put out. "And, I'm tired of doing it all by myself.."

 "So, that's why you're here. Watch me, learn, then apply what you learn on Cindy over there." Tammy finished, pointing her knife vaguely in the direction of the pretty, dark skinned girl.

 "Jeez.." Cindy commented, gulping slightly and looking a bit nervous, from where she lay helpless on her table.

 "Okay." Jasmin said, after fortifying herself with a deep breath. "Show me what to do."

 "Well, first thing's first." Tammy said, as she moved around to the end of the table. "You've got to take off the head."

 The girl on the table between Jasmin and Tammy, who seemed just as nervous as Cindy was, if not more so, whimpered a little when Tammy said this. She squirmed slightly against her restraints, which caused the smooth muscles of her slim shoulders and lean torso to stand out attractively.

 She was, as Ted had said she would be, a natural redhead. Her hair was just a shade too dark to be called ginger, but was still very vivid, especially in the bright white light of the overhead florescent bulbs. Her skin was pale and virtually flawless, with scarcely a freckle or mole to be seen. She couldn't be called skinny, though, so much as just naturally lean, with slim, graceful arms, a narrow chest and waist, and long, coltish legs. Contrasting against the rest of her litheness was her chest, which was, as Ted had described, pretty darn amazing. Her breasts were large, full, and plump, and, despite their size, somehow managed to retain a large measure of pert perkiness, with well defined pink areola and large, erect nipples that looked very, very suckable.

 She was, in short, utterly gorgeous. She was so pretty that it seemed almost a waste for her to end up here, in the meat locker, Jasmin thought. Surely, if she had to be food for some animal at the zoo, she would be better utilized as a live feeder, rather than as mere anonymous chunks of meat, right?

 Tammy apparently didn't think so, because she reached down, grabbed the girl's chin with her free hand, and pulled back on it firmly, revealing a throat that was, just like the rest of her, slim and graceful. Then, with a glance up at Jasmin to make sure that she was watching, Tammy unceremoniously drew her knife across the skin just under the girl's jaw, cutting deep.

 "Guh-Glurk..!" was the only noise the redhead made as Tammy did this, before she began spasming and squirming fiercely against her restraints.

 "And that's why we bind them down.." Tammy said, as she held on to the girl's chin with her hand. "Normally, we might wait until she's settled down a bit before proceeding, but we're in a bit of a hurry, so.."

 Tammy then ran her knife, which seemed like it must be very, very sharp to Jasmin, all the way around the top of the struggling and choking girl's neck. She did this several times, making her circular cut deeper and deeper with each pass, until finally Jasmin could hear the scrap of steel on bone.

 "There we go.." Tammy said, as she set her knife aside.

 The girl, despite the fact that her head was the next best thing to completely severed from the rest of her body, still gurgled and twitched feebly against her restraints, and her eyes were rolling wildly and fearfully back and forth between Tammy and Jasmin.

 "..and now, we just.." Tammy said under her breath, as she brought her other hand, the one not holding the girl's chin, around to cradle the back of her head. "..twist."

 With a low grunt and a sudden flexing of the muscles of her shoulders and arms, Tammy jerked the girl's whole head around to one side, twisting it savagely. The bones and tendons of the girl's neck made a loud, sharp cracking sound, which then led into grisly, squelchy crunching as the butcher woman then twisted the head trapped between her hands back in the opposite direction.

 The girl's beautiful body gave one final, mighty spasm as her neck was snapped, then fell limp, with only small, involuntary muscle twitching at the ends of her arms and legs as the sole remaining signs of life, and even those quickly tapered off into nothing.

 Tammy blew out a breath, then dropped the girl's head. It clanged against the edge of the table, hanging down at an unnatural and unsettling angle. Only a few small scraps of flesh and sinew still connected it to its former body, which Tammy quickly sliced through with one final pass of her knife. Then, holding the girl's now completely severed head by its long, lovely, and now blood spattered red hair, she lifted it up and away. With scarcely a glance at it, she absently handed it over to Jasmin, who, surprised by this, barely managed to keep from dropping it on the floor.

 "Put it in the bin, with the others." Tammy instructed, with a glance toward the door to the walk in refrigerator. "It's just inside. You can't miss it."

 Jasmin, after looking back and forth between Tammy and the severed head now dangling from her grip by its hair, gulped and nodded. As she walked over to the large metal door, she glanced back at Cindy, who had watched the whole short, brutal affair, and was now looking rather more pale than she had before.

 "J-jeez.." Cindy breathed, her voice trembling, from where she was restrained on her own butchering table.

 There was indeed a large bin just inside of the refrigerator, which had at least a dozen more girl heads carelessly piled in it. Jasmin carefully lay the head of the girl, whose name she realized she hadn't yet learned, and now probably never would, gently atop the pile. Her face had gone slack, and she looked oddly peaceful, despite the panicked expression of pain and fear her features had born only a few moments ago.

 Looking up from the pile of discarded heads, Jasmin glanced around the large refrigerated room she found herself in. All along the wire shelves, and hanging from large meat hooks set in rows from the ceiling, were butchered bits of girl. The shelves were full of tubs of calves, thighs, and arms, with each limb piece showing raw and bloody meat at each end, where it had been separated from the rest of its original body at the joints. Headless torsos, most of which were missing their breasts for some reason, dangled from the hooks in the ceiling, and there was even another large bin, like the one for the heads, that housed a sizable pile of small, feminine severed hands and feet.

 Perhaps most disturbing of all, however, was the row of breasts, all carefully line up and arranged with their nipples facing upwards, that ranged down the middle shelf of one long wall. Someone, presumably Tammy, had taken the time to sort them from largest to smallest. Why, Jasmin didn't care to guess.

 The display of soft, curved female flesh was particularly incongruous with the cold, bare metal shelving and walls of the interior of the stark, brightly lit refrigerator.

 Jasmin, her own nipples poking up through the fabric of her polo due to the cold, shuddered at the sight, and she was very, very glad that her own fate wasn't to end up in this chilly room, crudely disassembled and laying out in pieces like this.

 "Now, we've got to let her body drain for a few minutes." Tammy said, when Jasmin returned from the refrigerator. She was at one of the sinks, rinsing her knife clean, before giving it a few strokes across a whetstone. "So why don't you start on your girl, while I watch."

 "Okay.. I'll try." Jasmin said, her unsteady tone betraying her lack of surety.

 "It's not difficult girl." Tammy said, gruffly but not unkindly, as she leaned back against the edge of the sink, after handing Jasmin her knife. "No different than slaughtering a goat. I'm sure you'll do fine."

 "What.. what do you plan to do with all the heads?" Jasmin asked, as she moved to stand before Cindy, who had started trembling violently, and not just from the cold.

 "We haven't figured out anything, yet." Tammy replied, as she held up one hand and absently inspected her nails. "We might end up tossing them out. They're mostly just bone and teeth, anyway. We wouldn't want something to chip a fang while gnawing on one, would we?"

 "Jeezz.." muttered Cindy, with closed eyes and a little shudder.

 "Hmm.." Jasmin mused, with a little frown, as she stroked Cindy's cheek reassuringly with her fingertips. "That seems like a bit of a waste, though.."

 "Eh, it isn't like we'll be running short of meat any time soon.." Tammy replied nonchalantly, with a shrug.

 "Still.." Jasmin said. "Maybe we could feed them to some of the larger animals over in my department? A lot of them could swallow a head down whole.. Perhaps the alligators? We could even sell them to the customers, so they could toss them into the 'gator pit themselves.. Ten dollars a head. It wouldn't be a large profit, but it would be something.."

 "Oh, jeez!" Cindy repeated, whimpering at the thought.

 "That's a decent idea. You might mention it to Ted, after we're done here." Tammy replied, nodding. "Now, are you just gonna stand there talking, or are you going to cut off that girl's head?"

 "Okay, okay.." Jasmin replied, blushing slightly. "I'm just a little nervous about it, that's all. I've never done anything like this, before.."

 "Y-you're nervous?!" Cindy exclaimed, choking a little in surprise. "You've.. you've got to be kidding me! How do you think I feel about it!"

 "Well, you knew something like this was going to happen eventually, didn't you?" Jasmin asked, her tone reasonable. "I mean, they explained it all when they hired us.."

 "What? Are you serious?" Cindy replied, sounding aggrieved. "You sound just like Clare. You must be one of the new girls, who just got hired and knew what they were getting into. I've been here for nearly a year, and until last week, I'd only ever worked in the gift shop. They never mentioned anything like this in the job description when I was hired!"

 "Oh, well.." Jasmin said, faintly. "..at least it's all for a good cause, right?"

 Cindy just snorted disbelievingly, then rolled her eyes.

 "Jeez, if I hadn't needed this job so badly, I would've quit already, BEFORE I fed my poor nipples to a couple of gross, giant bugs!" Cindy grumped. "But my rent isn't going to pay itself.."

 "Well, I suppose you won't have to worry about your rent anymore, at least." Jasmin replied, trying to reassure the girl. "Are you ready?"

 "I.. I guess.." Cindy sighed, with a fearful look at the knife Jasmin was holding. "Just.. just be gentle, alright?"

 Jasmin didn't reply, but patted Cindy's cheek with her free hand consolingly. Then, taking the trembling girl's chin firmly in hand, as she had seen Tammy do, Jasmin steeled herself to cut off her first head.

 She, quite predictably, made rather a mess of it. Her first cut across Cindy's throat wasn't clean, and not deep enough by half. It took her several more hasty swipes with her blade to finally cut deep enough to fully silence the girl's shocked squeals of pain, which had quickly filled the small room and were loud enough to make even Tammy flinch.

 Then, when she tried to slice through the rest of the struggling and squirming girl's neck, she kept fumbling and dropping the knife, due to the copious amounts of slick blood now coating its handle. Finally, though, she managed to hack a ragged ring all the way around Cindy's neck, down to her vertebrae. She set her knife aside and made to snap the girl's head off, as she had seen Tammy do, only to find that it was much harder than the older woman had made it look.

 In the end, she didn't manage to firmly twist the girl's head until her neck broke cleanly, so much as she slowly and haltingly unscrewed it from her body, with the hideous sounds of grinding and crunching ligaments and cartilage to accompany her efforts. After the second or third rotation, enough bone and tendon had broken that Jasmin was finally, finally able to saw Cindy's head completely off with her by now much duller and blunted knife.

 Breathing hard, splattered liberally with blood, and quite embarrassed at how badly she had screwed up her first attempt at girl butchery, Jasmin held up the severed head to look at it. Thankfully, the agonized and betrayed expression that Cindy had been shooting at her during the entire fiasco was already sliding off into blank slackness, and she, like the redhead before her, soon looked rather peaceful, as if she were just in a relaxed doze.

 "Well, I suppose you managed.." Tammy said, with an amused snort.

 The older woman had watched her struggle, offering no advise and just shaking her head in frank disbelief at what she had been witnessing, for the entire duration of Jasmin's attempt.

 "Ugh.." Jasmin gagged, horrified. "That.. that was awful!"

 "Yep, pretty bad." Tammy confirmed, chuckling darkly. "Don't worry about it. You'll do better next time, I'm sure."

 "..N-next time?" Jasmin asked, hopelessly.

 "Oh, yeah. We've got four or five more girls to get through today." Tammy confirmed. "And, after what I just saw, YOU are going to be the one to take off each of their heads. You definitely need the practice."

 Jasmin only whimpered, her shoulders slumping.

 "None of that." Tammy ordered. "Now, go dump that head. I'm going show you how we part out a girl's body next."

 Thankfully, working with girl meat that was already dead was much easier, both physically and emotionally, than making that meat dead in the first place. After re-sharpening her knife, Tammy showed Jasmin how to separate the limbs at each joint, and, soon enough, the bodies of both headless girls were reduced to a pair of torsos and a loose pile of parts.

 "Do.. do we have to gut them..?" Jasmin asked, a bit warily, as she eyed the limbless and headless torsos, which were by far the largest bits of girl left on the butchering tables.

 "Nope." Tammy replied easily, patting the flat, lean tummy of the torso before her. "The bigger carnivores, which is what these will go to, like the taste of intestines and all the other internal organs. The only thing we need to do is slice off their breasts."

 "How come?" Jasmin asked, as she watched the older woman casually grab one of the former redhead's large breasts and, with only a few easy strokes of her knife, cut it free.

 "They're good to slice up into smaller strips, for the littler animals." Tammy replied absently, as she held the severed globe of female flesh up high by its pink nipple, and poked around with her knife in the raw underside of the fresh cut. "Huh, I really expected these have implants, but I think they were completely natural. Some girls just have all the luck.."

 "So, do the limbs parts need to be broken down further too, or are they fine as they are?" Jasmin inquired, as she sliced off what was left of Cindy's breasts. She had peeked under the gauze that had covered where the girl's nipples had been, and, after seeing the raw, ruined flesh where a giant spider and a giant centipede had apparently had their breakfasts earlier in the day, was doubly glad that she hadn't been assigned to the bug house when she'd been hired.

 "Limb pieces are fine as is." Tammy said, as she took off the ex-redhead's other breast, and set it aside along with its mate. "The medium sized animals, things like skunks, foxes, raccoons, and badgers, make pretty short work of them."

 "So, we're done, then?" Jasmin asked, as she surveyed the remains of the two girls she and Tammy had butchered.

 "With these two, yes." Tammy confirmed. "All that's left is to store the meat in the fridge. I'll do that while you go get the next two girls. You'll probably want to wash up a bit, before you go, though. You've got a lot of blood on you.."

 Jasmin looked down at her gore splattered clothes and sighed, then did as she was told.

 "Well.." she thought to herself. "Only four or five more to go.."

 --

 Thankfully, the rest of Jasmin's time with Tammy at the meat locker went much more smoothly. She learned from her disastrous first attempt to cut a girl's head off, and managed to take off the rest of the girls' heads much more quickly and cleanly. In fact, by the fifth and final girl, she thought that she might be nearly as good at it as Tammy was. Not as fast, certainly, but her movements were much more practiced and confident, now.

 She returned to the reptile and amphibian house just before closing, to find that Ted had already sent Bethany and Susan home about an hour earlier.

 "They've got a big day, tomorrow." Ted said, by way of explanation, after he had welcomed her back. "I want them rested up and looking their best."

 "A big day? What do you mean?" Jasmin asked, as she picked at a spot of blood still stuck to her uniform polo.

 "Goliath and David." Ted said simply, beaming. "I've decided to move up the switch in their feeder animals to this week, rather than next. Our live feedings have been drawing in such large crowds that it's more than worth the inconvenience to the personnel scheduling."

 "Ohh.." Jasmin replied, comprehension dawning. "So, Bethany and Susan are going to feed them tomorrow, then?"

 "Yep, it should be great! I'll bet it'll bring in loads of people to watch!" he said, enthusiastically. "Though I feel kind of silly, now, having spent so much time training those two today. Ah, well.. I guess I'll have you still, at least until Sunday."

 "..Yeah, until Sunday.." Jasmin said, with a little flutter in her stomach, as she looked over her shoulder into Jimmy's terrarium, spying the giant frog resting comfortably on his rock, like usual. "Are you going to send me over to help Tammy again, tomorrow?"

 "Yeah.." Ted said, suddenly frowning. "Dang, I'd forgotten about that. I'd said that I would lend you to her every afternoon for the rest of the week.."

 "Well, maybe I can get Namela to send me your replacement a little early." he continued, thoughtfully. "That'd give me a chance to get her trained up properly, before Sunday rolls around.."

 "Anyway, I'm going to head on home now, too." Ted said, as he stood up and began walking away. "Make sure you lock up, before you leave!"

 Jasmin sighed, completely unsurprised. Ted made her close every night. Still, it meant that she had a chance to collect her thoughts, almost alone in the zoo as it was closing down for the day.

 She turned to regard Jimmy, and as she stared at him, that little flutter in her belly returned. Perhaps it was helping to butcher all those girls with Tammy, or maybe it was seeing a girl's nipples be gnawed on by insects, or maybe it was even how she had watched Alicia finally fade away completely the night before, but suddenly Sunday, and her dinner date with Jimmy, seemed much more real, and much closer, than it had ever felt before.

 She thought she understood now why Alicia had started to become so distracted and nervous, the closer her scheduled feeding day a gotten.

 "..Sunday." she murmured aloud, looking at the bulge, which had shrunk visibly since the day before, that was all that remained of Alicia, deep inside of Jimmy's stomach.

6 - Susan and Bethany's Turns (Thursday)

 Susan, Ted had decided, would go to Goliath, the enormous saltwater crocodile. Mostly because she was a little taller and heavier than Bethany, and Ted thought that Goliath would be able to make better use of the extra calories than David would.

 Goliath's feeding took place nearly first thing in the morning, and drew, despite the early hour, quite a crowd. Unfortunately for all those people, however, the big croc's first live feeding proved to be something of an anticlimax.

 A nude Susan had let herself into the extra large terrarium, which served as Goliath's home, and walked, her strides confident, even if her expression was a bit apprehensive, over to the muddy edge of the murky pool which dominated the center of the habitat. After giving a brief wave of acknowledgement to the audience watching in the viewing room, she'd just stood there for a moment, shuffling her feet and fidgeting nervously with her hands, staring out across the surface of the water. Goliath had been concealed beneath that surface, out of sight to both Susan and the audience, and everyone, including Jasmin and Bethany, who'd both been watching along with all the others, had obviously been wondering how long it would take him to notice Susan. And, of course, just what he would do with her when he did.

 After about thirty seconds, just when the audience's building tension had become thick enough to feel in the air, the giant crocodile had exploded out of the pond. Water had sprayed everywhere, displaced by the rapid movements of the enormous reptile's scaled body, as he'd lunged up out of the depths at Susan. His huge, saw toothed jaws had closed around the girl's legs at the knees, snapping shut on her soft flesh viciously. And then, with no further ado, Goliath had quickly pulled her back into and under the water with him, submerging them both in the impenetrable murk of his pond.

 A few splashes and bubbles on the surface had indicated the spot where he had apparently come to rest on the bottom, with his squirming prize still held firmly between his strong jaws. Even these had stopped after only a few more moments, and, as the waves that were rippling back and forth across the top of the pond slowly died away, it had become almost impossible to tell that anything had just happened at all.

 The only signs that had been left of Susan, who hadn't even had enough time for a surprised scream, were a set of small, shallow furrows at the edge of the pond, where her grasping fingertips had dragged through the mud as she was pulled down the bank. Just those faint marks, and a slowly blossoming, dark red stain, visible even against the muddy green brown color of the water, that marked where Goliath was no doubt beginning to devour his scheduled weekly meal.

 The entire live feeding had taken less than a minute. Or, if one counted only the brief moment when Goliath had been visible to the audience, as he'd snapped up his victim, scarcely a handful of seconds.

 "Wow, folks.." Ted said, nearly at a loss for words. "I guess Goliath knows what he wants!"

 A smattering of polite applause greeted this, though there was an undercurrent of disappointed muttering running through the crowd of people watching as well, which Ted picked up on.

 "Now, I know that was over a bit more quickly than any of us expected, but don't fret!" Ted said, smiling genially at the audience. "We've got another live feeding scheduled in only an hour!"

 "I'm sure our Komodo dragon will be much more inclined to put on a good show!" he finished, giving the crowd a wink. "She's a bit fussy, and likes to take her time when she eats. So, make sure to stick around and see it!"

 "Dang.." Jasmin muttered, as she pressed forward through the dispersing crowd, to get a better look into Goliath's terrarium. "That didn't take long.."

 "Y-yeah.." gulped Bethany, who reluctantly followed her.

 "It's too bad no one can see anything." Ted commented, as both girls neared him. "It really put a damper on the crowd's enthusiasm. I wonder if there's anything we can do about that for next week.."

 "Maybe lower the water level?" Jasmin suggested, as she bent forward and peered through the thick glass. "Or have whoever is feeding him stand back a bit further from the edge of his pond, so he has to climb out of it to get to her?"

 "Hmm.." mused Ted, as he stood looking into Goliath's habitat, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. "Those're pretty good ideas, Jasmin. I think we can manage them without too much trouble. Thanks."

 "Well, I'm going to go get set up for David's feeding." Ted said, turning away, obviously dismissing Goliath, and meal he was currently engaged in eating, from his mind. "You two can get back to your regular duties, for now."

 "But, I'll need you in an hour or so, Anita." he called back over his shoulder at Bethany, as he walked away. "Don't forget!"

 "F-forget?" Bethany asked, blowing an exasperated breath up at her bangs. "How could I forget?! And, I wish he would remember my name, just once! That wasn't even the same one as last time."

 "Ah, that's just Ted being Ted." Jasmin said, patting the girl on the shoulder. "Don't mind him. How are you feeling? Getting nervous?"

 Bethany shot Jasmin a look that was hard to decipher, then turned back to look into Goliath's terrarium again, folding her arms across her slim chest protectively as she did so.

 "Well, I wasn't before.." Bethany said, after a moment's silence, with a nod in the direction of the widening red stain on the surface of the crocodile's pond. "..but after seeing that.. Yeah, I guess I am, a little."

 "I mean, I know they explained it all when we started here. That it was a big part of the reason why they were hiring so many of us in the first place, but still.." she continued, her tone thoughtful. "I guess hearing someone talk about it just isn't the same as seeing it happen with your own eyes."

 "Well, at least you won't have to worry about it after another hour or so." Jasmin said, reasonably. "It'll all be over, one way or another, by then."

 "Yeah, that's true." Bethany replied, brightening a bit. "I think the waiting might be worse than anything else, you know?"

 "Yeah.." Jasmin replied, glancing over her shoulder at Jimmy's terrarium, on the opposite side of the viewing room. "Yeah, I know."

 "Well, I just hope it doesn't hurt too much." Bethany said, before tossing her hair back and taking a deep breath. "Anyway, I guess I'd better get some work done, while I still can."

 --

 "Oh, there she goes! That was a close one!" Ted commented loudly, chuckling cheerfully, as he, Jasmin, and a large crowd of zoo goers watched Bethany scamper frantically around in David's habitat, the small, nude girl barely avoiding another snap of the big lizard's jaws.

 "I told Angie to run around a bit, to act frightened and scared." Ted said to Jasmin, out of the corner of his mouth, as the crowd yelled and cheered. "So David has to work for it a bit, you know? Make her chase her lunch down, rather than just standing there and letting her have it. That way, the audience gets to see a good show."

 Jasmin glanced up at Ted skeptically, one eyebrow raised, but said nothing. It didn't seem to her that Bethany was having to do very much acting.

 Of course, considering what the girl was locked in a relatively small area with, Jasmin didn't think she herself would have had to do much acting, either, had she been in Bethany's place. The big female Komodo dragon wasn't nearly as large as Goliath, but still had to weigh nearly twice what Bethany did, and possibly more. In addition to her size, the economy sized lizard was just plain ornery and mean, even when she wasn't grumpy from being woken up from a nap under her lamp, as she obviously was now.

 "Ouch!" Ted exclaimed, in mock sympathy, for the crowd's benefit. "I think David might have her, this time!"

 Bethany had moved just a fraction of a second too late, zigging when she should have zagged, and the dragon had managed to clamp its slavering jaws around one of her shapely calves. The cry of shock the girl uttered at this quickly morphed into a pained wail, as David began jerking and twisting her head and neck back and forth, yanking viciously on the girl's trapped leg.

 Bethany was knocked on her rump by this rough treatment, but, rather than give in quietly, she began beating and kicking at David's nose and head with the heel of her other foot, clearly desperate to escape.

 "Oh, play nicely now, girl!" Ted called, his voice amused. From his tone, he obviously didn't think that the small, nude young woman, who couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds, was any serious threat to the big dragon.

 Somehow, Bethany's efforts paid off, and she managed to yank her leg free from David's mouth, though it looked like it cost her a large measure of flesh and skin to do it. She scrambled up and away, with the dragon in close pursuit, and the chase was, once again, back on.

 The girl was at a disadvantage now, though, and it seemed that both she and the dragon knew it. She hobbled, as quickly as she could on her injured leg, over to the exit to David's habitat, only to find that Ted had locked the door behind her when she'd entered, a few minutes earlier.

 "Hah, you're not going to get away that easily, girl!" Ted called out, chuckling as she banged frantically on the sealed exit.

 The rest of the watching crowd, except Jasmin, laughed and jeered goodnaturedly along with him.

 Bethany, realizing that she couldn't escape the way she'd come in, reversed her course, only to find the hissing Komodo dragon blocking her path. Instead of trying to skirt past to one side or the other of the angry lizard, the girl, clearly panicking, decided to try to jump over it entirely.

 She was mostly successful, clearing the surprised lizard's snapping jaws by a hair's breadth, but landed poorly. Her injured leg seemed unable to take her weight, and it gave out beneath her, making her fall on her side to the ground once again.

 She immediately flipped herself over onto her back, and, with her bare bottom scraping roughly against the ground, crawled and scrabbled backwards away from David as quickly as she could.

 Her quickest, however, wasn't quick enough.

 David charged forward, jaws open wide, directly at the girl. Somehow, Bethany managed to parry the lizard's first lunging bite, kicking out with her good leg and knocking the dragon's head to one side. However, this left her unable to scoot any farther backwards, as her injured leg was clearly almost useless by this point. In addition, with her good leg now out of position after her desperate parry, she was completely helpless and vulnerable to the big dragon's next lunge.

 With a furious hiss, David struck, plunging downward between Bethany's spread legs, clamping her mouth around the girl's pelvis. The wickedly sharp teeth of the lizard's lower jaw drove upward into the skin and flesh of Bethany's bottom, even as their counterparts in the upper jaw sank into tender meat of her lower belly, bringing the girl's flight to a sudden halt.

 For a moment, both predator and prey were almost perfectly still. Bethany, her eyes wide and disbelieving, was gazing down in horror at the head of her pursuer, whose nose was resting just below her navel. David, on the other hand, seemed to need a moment to breath and gather herself, now that she'd finally caught up with and captured her quarry.

 Then the moment passed, and David bit down, hard, causing Bethany to issue a shrill scream as her flesh was pierced and crushed by strong reptilian teeth and jaws.

 The big Komodo dragon then proceeded to start jerking its head back and forth, as it had done earlier when it had a hold on Bethany's leg. This whipped the girl's lower body, the pelvis of which was trapped between the lizard's jaws, back and forth along with it. Each sharp movement was clearly agony to the screaming and pleading girl, whose futile and impotent struggles against the actions of her captor were completely ignored.

 Finally, with a horrendous crunching crack, which was clearly audible even through the thick terrarium glass, Bethany's pelvis broke, crushed to pieces between David's strong jaws. The girl's yells of pain stopped as well, perhaps because the she simply couldn't express the agony she was in with mere words and sound anymore.

 Bethany, her eyes rolling wildly, and her arms still feebly flailing and scraping at the ground behind her in a vain attempt to escape, was then unceremoniously dropped from David's jaws, back onto the ground. Her legs flopped out wide, bonelessly, now utterly useless without a pelvis to support them.

 The huge lizard crouched over the sobbing and crying girl, looking down victoriously at her broken form, then bent to begin eating its well earned meal.

 Bethany tried to push David's nose away from her ruined flesh, but her hands and arms were weak with shock, and the dragon simply brushed past them to sink its teeth directly into her vulnerable sex. At this, the girl found her voice once again, and she let out an anguished wail as, after several rough jerks by the dragon, her womanhood was brutally torn from her body.

 The shreds of meat proved to be only a mere appetizer for the Komodo dragon, who snapped them up and swallowed them with a casual flick of its head. It licked its bloody jaws with its forked tongue, seeming to savor the taste of Bethany's flesh for a few moments, then leaned in to take another bite, apparently eager for more of her flesh.

 "Well, this is turning out much better than Goliath's feeding did." Ted commented to Jasmin, his tone both happy and a bit smug. "I knew it was a good idea to give them Samantha and Angie today, instead of next week."

 Jasmin, whose mouth had gone a bit dry as she'd watched Bethany lose her battle for survival against the Komodo dragon, could only nod her head in stunned agreement. Despite the horrible agony the girl was having to endure as David continued to tear into her helpless body, it was clear that the audience was, on the whole, enjoying the spectacle quite a bit. Oh, there was the occasional person, usually a young woman like herself or Bethany, who looked a little green at seeing so much feminine blood and gore, but most, even the rest of the other girls, were pretty enthusiastic about what they were seeing.

 Many were holding up their phones, recording images and video of the big Komodo dragon as it pushed its nose deep into Bethany's innards, ballooning her abdomen up as it dug for more morsels of her flesh. The lizard's effort were so insistent and aggressive that she was slowly pushing the girl's ruined body around in her habitat, leaving a bloody trail of shredded meat and gobbets of intestines and organs behind her.

 Bethany's agonies only came to an end when David pushed and ate all the way up into the girl's rib cage. The Komodo dragon dug deep into the flailing girl, and then ripped out what looked like a still beating and fluttering heart, which finally stilled her continuing, utterly futile efforts to push the big lizard away from her mutilated torso.

 "Well, it looks like that's it for this live feeding." Ted said a few moments later to the audience, as Bethany's head and shoulders fell backward, flopping limply against the ground. "Thank you all for coming. Please feel free to stay and watch David finish her meal, if you like. If you're interested in seeing something like this again, the zoo has live feedings scheduled for every day of the week, now. Usually at least one every morning and afternoon."

 "The reptile house's next scheduled live feeding event will be this Sunday!" he continued. "You'll be able to see our giant frog, Jimmy, do what he does best then! I hope you all can make it!"

 "That went well." Ted commented, as the crowd began to disperse, before he turned to Jasmin. "Go ahead and take lunch, why don't you? Then, get on over to the meat locker and give Tammy whatever help she needs."

 "Oh, and after you've done that.." Ted said, as he turned to look at David, who seemed content to keep gnawing and tearing at the body of their former coworker. "..make sure to clean up David's habitat, won't you? I know no one's supposed to go in there with her alone, but she'll probably be full and sleeping off her meal by the time you get back. You should be perfectly safe."

 "Well, safe enough, anyway." he amended, as he watched David rip a particularly large chunk of flesh out of the upper part of one of Bethany's inner thighs.

 "Okay." Jasmin replied, finally pulling her gaze away from the sight of Komodo dragon feeding. "Umm.. Just out of curiosity, what're you going to be doing?"

 "Oh, I'm just about to go collect the new girls." Ted said, happily. "Namela promised me four! That means I'll have replacements for everyone, including you, plus a spare! We're all going to spend the whole afternoon together, getting their training basics out of the way."

 Jasmin watched Ted stride off, to go get the girls who would replace the now eaten Susan and Bethany, as well as herself.

 She wondered how she'd feel, meeting the girl who would be taking her place after Sunday.

7 - On the Way, to Sun Day (Thursday, Friday, Saturday)

 Unfortunately, at least as far as Ted's ability to remember names was concerned, three of the new girls all had names starting with the same letter. Lara was the odd girl out, but, equally unfortunately, her name was close enough to Sarah's that Ted managed to mix them up anyway. Then there was Stacy, whose name was unique enough, at least in their little grouping, that Ted was able to remember it correctly almost fifty percent of the time.

 Susan's would have been worst of all, since she had the exact same name as the OTHER Susan who, just a little earlier that morning, had been eaten by Goliath, but Ted had never been able to remember the first Susan's name anyway. Jasmin mentally dubbed the new girl "Susan II", just to keep everything straight in her own mind, at least.

 Jasmin's work with Tammy had gone much more quickly that afternoon than it had the previous one, owing at least partially to her own growing skill and speed at butchering the girls the stern woman sent her out to collect. That meant that she was able to return to the reptile house a little sooner, which meant that she got to meet all the new girls before they went home for the day.

 "Oh, I don't mind at all." Stacy told her, during a little break from the group training session. "Actually, I think it's kind of exciting! I mean, just think of it! Gobbled down by an animal! How cool is that?"

 The girl, as Jasmin was learning, clearly didn't mind the thought of what her eventual fate would be, now that she was employed by the zoo. In fact, she had actually applied only AFTER she had seen a video a friend had taken, of Alicia being swallowed down by Jimmy last Sunday.

 "I mean, wow!" the girl burbled on, when Ted had paused the group in front of Jimmy's terrarium to explain about his life cycle, temperature and moisture needs, and feeding habits. "You can still see some of her in his stomach, awesome! In the video, it looked like she was still moving around, even several minutes after she'd been eaten. I wonder how long she lasted inside of him?"

 Jasmin had a feeling that telling the girl would have resulted in even more excited, inane chatter, so decided to keep that information to herself.

 In contrast to Stacy's eager enthusiasm, Lara seemed much less happy to be where she was, doing what she was doing.

 "I'm only here because Daddy threatened to cut me off if I didn't get a job." the willowy, raven haired girl pouted, when Ted was looking the other direction. "Honestly, if I had any choice in the matter, I wouldn't be anywhere near this zoo at all. I don't even particularly like animals very much, but it was this or a fast food restaurant, so.."

 Sarah and Susan II, on the other hand, were clearly here just because they needed the money the job would pay.

 "I needed SOMETHING over summer break." Sarah stated, shrugging her shoulders, and tossing her long, silky blonde hair to one side. "They keep raising tuition, and financial aid only goes so far, you know.. I considered working at a strip club, at first. A lot of girls do to get through college, but I really wasn't comfortable with the idea. This job doesn't pay nearly as well as that one would have, but it seems a lot less yucky, somehow.."

 "This is the only place that would hire me." Susan II said, simply. "Everywhere else drug tests.."

 "You.. you do drugs?" Stacy asked, wide eyed, as if Susan II had just declared that she was guilty of war crimes.

 "No, I just love poppy seed muffins." Susan II replied, shrugging, as a dreamy, hungry expression crossed her face. "They're just soo good. I can't resist. I have one every day for breakfast."

 "Stupid false positives.." she added a moment later, kicking absently at the ground, as her hungry expression shifted to one of annoyance.

 --

 "So, did you really already feed two girls to the animals here, today?" Stacy asked, excitedly, when the topic came up a little later.

 "Yes. Goliath and David's live feedings were this morning." Jasmin confirmed for the girl. "Actually, if you peek into David's terrarium, you can probably still see what's left of Bethany. Which reminds me, I'm going to need to go clean that up, before I leave."

 "Ugh, gross.." Lara commented, with a little shudder, as all the girls looked into David's habitat.

 Bethany's torso and thighs were nearly stripped down to the bone, but the rest of the girl seemed more or less untouched. David had pushed the girl's body over into the corner, right near the exit, while she had been feeding on it. The Komodo dragon herself was dead asleep on her rock, under her heat lamp, looking very full and content after her large meal of soft and tender girl flesh.

 "Yeah, you're right.." Stacy agreed, looking uncharacteristically serious. "I don't think I'd want to be eaten by that one.. I wonder if we can request what animal gets us..? I'd really prefer for Jimmy to have me, when my time comes."

 "Well, you can always just ask Ted." Jasmin replied, shrugging. "I don't think he cares much, one way or the other."

 "Hmm.. maybe I'll do that." Stacy replied, thoughtfully.

 "Well, girls, it was nice to meet you, but I guess I'd better get in there and clean up Bethany." Jasmin said, waving to all four of her new coworkers, who were just about to leave for the day. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

 --

 "Good news, everyone!" Stacy bubbled excitedly, as she hurried up to Jasmin and the rest of the girls the next morning. "I just got done talking with Ted! He says I can feed Jimmy the Sunday after next, if I want!"

 "Umm.. Congratulations?" Lara said, before rolling her eyes. "Though, I don't see why you're so thrilled that you're gonna be frog poop."

 "Hah!" Stacy giggled, pointing back at the other girl. "Well, it's better than being lizard poop, which is what you're going to be! Ted says you're going to David next Thursday."

 Lara just crossed her arms and frowned at this.

 "Did Ted say what the rest of us will be doing?" Susan II asked of the excited girl, looking curious.

 "Yep. Jasmin's feeding Jimmy this Sunday, of course. He says she's been on his schedule for weeks, now." Stacy replied. "And you're going to feed Goliath, also on Thursday. Ted says he hopes you'll do a better job of it than the last girl, though. Apparently it wasn't very interesting to watch."

 "And me?" Sarah asked, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

 "You're just a spare." Stacy said, shrugging apologetically. "Though, Ted says he might give you to Samson, if he seems like he's hungry enough sometime in the next week or two."

 "Oh. Which one is Samson, again?"

 "He's the big snake, just down a bit from Jimmy." Stacy replied, pointing. "He's actually pretty neat, too. He would have been my second choice, after Jimmy."

 "Say, do you think Ted's gay?" Stacy asked suddenly, derailing the conversation completely.

 "W-what?" Sarah asked, sputtering a little. "I.. I don't know. Why do you ask?"

 "Well.." Stacy drew out, blushing a little and looking sheepish. "It's just that I was trying to flirt with him a little bit. I thought it might help to, you know.. persuade him to change his mind, if he wanted to feed me to something other than Jimmy. I was being totally obvious about it, too, but I don't think he noticed me doing it, at all!

 "Actually, he really didn't seem to care who fed what animal, just that they all got fed by someone in the end." Stacy said, picking at her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Then he started talking about attendance numbers, and the other managers, and all these meetings he was going to go to next week, and all sorts of other boring stuff like that.. It was very strange."

 Jasmin just snorted, amused at the confused looks on all the other girl's faces.

 "What?" Stacy asked, blankly.

 "Ted isn't gay.." Jasmin said, laughing. "He's promosexual."

 "P.. Promosexual..?" Lara replied, looking at Jasmin strangely. "What on earth is that?"

 "It means that the only thing he's interested in is promotions!" Jasmin stated, before breaking out into giggles. "S-sorry girls, but you haven't got a chance!"

 The other four girls just looked at her like she was being very weird, or perhaps a little crazy. A couple did giggle a bit, though, in the end.

 Oh, well, Jasmin thought. It was probably like that old saying went..

 You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it sure helps!

 --

 Sometime later that day, Jimmy regurgitated what was left of Alicia.

 Jasmin noticed the small pile of bones in front of his rock just before closing, and, after most everyone else had left, went in to clean them up. Just as she had done for Trina's, a week previously.

 She was kneeling before Jimmy, who, like always, regarded her with mostly casual indifference (although he seemed slightly more interested in her than usual, now that his stomach was empty again), and gathering up the clean, if slimy bones. That was when she came across a small glint of metal. Frowning, she pushed aside a couple of acid scoured and thinned ribs to reveal a glittering steel bar, with rounded beads on each end, about the length of the last knuckle of her pink finger.

 It was a piercing. Apparently, it was Alicia's. Or had been, at least.

 Jasmin's frown deepened, as she pondered the little bit of metal in her palm. She couldn't remember Alicia having any piercings. Had she been hiding it somewhere out of sight, in her tongue perhaps? Or maybe somewhere else, a little more private?

 The thought made her feel a bit funny, and her stomach fluttered once again. Here was a little bit of Alicia, which, even more than her scattered bones, marked that she had once been a living, breathing, intelligent young woman, with her own desires and feelings. At some point in the past, the girl'd had a bit of her anatomy pierced, perhaps as a little bit of teenage rebellion, or perhaps for the sheer thrill of it, or perhaps even at the request of a lover.

 And now, all that was left of that moment, of her intentions and feelings at the time, whatever they had been, was the short section of thick, sturdy wire between her fingers. The flesh that had held the piercing was gone, melted and absorbed by the digestive tract of the large amphibian before her, but the piercing remained, a little testament to the fact that she had existed.

 Jasmin almost kept the barbell, when she was dumping Alicia's bones into the garbage. She even considered getting a piercing of her own, so she could wear the little metal bit of Alicia on Sunday, when Jasmin herself would follow in the other girl's footsteps. It seemed appropriate, somehow, like a small, personal tribute to the girl.

 Then, after a moment's reconsideration, Jasmin tossed the piercing into the garbage along with the rest of Alicia.

 While Alicia had been a living, vital young woman, who was no doubt passionate about her ideas and beliefs, none of that had mattered. They hadn't mattered because, more than any of those other things, Alicia had been something else. Her hopes and dreams for the future, her industriousness and dedication to her work, her wit, charm, caring, and intelligence, all mattered not, because, in the end, the fact that she had been a young woman was far less important than the fact that she was, in the right circumstances, also just food.

 And, food didn't need a tribute, however small. It didn't need to be remembered or cherished. It merely served its purpose, and was then discarded.

 Jasmin left the zoo for the day shortly thereafter, wondering who it would be next week, disposing of her own bare and empty bones. The fluttering of her stomach continued all the way home.

 --

 "Hmm.." Tammy murmured the next day, Saturday, as she and Jasmin were finishing up parting out the last two girls for the day. "We're still a little short on meat.. The girls today were all on the skinny side, I'm afraid."

 "Is that going to be a problem?" Jasmin asked, as she sliced a smaller than usual breast off a thin, and honestly kind of bony, headless girl's torso.

 "Not a huge one, really, but the other managers get grouchy if I can't get them the amount of meat they've requested.." Tammy replied, frowning, before looking over at Jasmin suddenly, as if just realizing she was there. "Oh.. Hey, you wouldn't mind doing me a favor, would you?"

 "What favor?" Jasmin asked, as she sliced off the scrawny torso's other small breast.

 "Can I butcher you?" Tammy asked, her tone hopeful. "That'd put me above my quota for today, and still leave me with a bit of extra wiggle room for tomorrow, too."

 "Uh, sorry.." Jasmin replied, shaking her head, suddenly very glad that Ted had specifically warned her off against something like this. "But Ted told me that I wasn't to let myself get butchered. He needs me for a live feeding tomorrow."

 "Damn.." Tammy stated, before shrugging. "Oh, well. I guess those guys will all just have to make due with what they get.."

 --

 Jasmin had just returned from her daily afternoon chore of assisting Tammy, and was sitting in the main viewing room of the reptile house, snacking on a granola bar on her break, when Sarah called out to her.

 "Hey, Jasmin?" Sarah asked, poking her blonde head around a corner. "Could you come help me for a moment?"

 "Sure, what do you need?" Jasmin answered, as she got up and followed the girl, who led her out to the 'gator pit, just behind the reptile house proper.

 "Do we have any more heads?" Sarah asked, as she stopped by a small family, consisting of a mother and her two daughters, who were standing next to the pit, looking down into it.

 Jasmin's idea about selling the heads of the girls who had been butchered for their meat had gone over well with Ted, and he'd implemented it the very next day. Apparently, it was proving rather popular with the zoo's patrons, many of whom seemed to love the idea of being able to feed one of the zoo's dozen or so hungry alligators themselves.

 "Was the noggin bin in the meat locker refrigerator empty?" Jasmin replied, surprised. "There were three or four in there last I saw, less than half an hour ago."

 "I sold all those." Sarah stated. "A big tour group just came through, and they all wanted to let their kids toss in a head."

 "I'm still one short, though." she added, gesturing to the family standing next to her.

 "Well, if the bin is empty, then I guess we're out." Jasmin said, shrugging.

 "Are we? Dang, they were really hoping to be able to toss another one in.." Sarah said, frowning. "Are you sure there aren't any more? There's got to be an extra head around here somewhere.."

 "Well.." Jasmin replied, drawing out the word thoughtfully, as she looked at the family next to Sarah.

 "My oldest got to throw one in, already." the mother said, motioning towards the larger of the two girls, who looked like she might be in her mid to late teens. "But my little Cora wants to do it, too."

 The girl in question, an absolutely adorable little girl who couldn't have been more than six or seven, looked up hopefully at Jasmin.

 "You know.." Jasmin said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully and shifting her gaze back to Sarah. "I think I just might be able to come up with a head for you, now that I think about it.."

 "Really?" Sarah asked, smiling and sounding relieved. "That's great! Where?"

 "Follow me, and we'll go get it." Jasmin said, as she turned to walk away.

 "Okay!" Sarah agreed, before she turned to address the little girl and her mother. "Wait right here, okay? We'll be back with a head for you in a few minutes."

 Then Sarah turned back around and hurried after Jasmin, who was walking purposefully towards the meat locker.

 --

 "Here's your head!" Jasmin stated, when she returned a couple of minutes later.

 She presented the severed head, which was still dripping a little, to the little girl, who squealed in delight.

 "Oh, thank you, Miss Zoo Lady!" Cora said, as she took the head from Jasmin, holding it carefully by its long, blonde hair. "I can't wait to see the 'gaties eat it. I bet they're super hungry!"

 "Yes, thank you very much." the girl's mother repeated, even as she handed over a ten dollar bill to Jasmin. "I must say, our visit here today really has been a delight. All of your staff are so very accommodating.. It's quite nice. We'll have to come back again, soon."

 "Well, we try to hire only the best." Jasmin said, shrugging and smiling faintly.

 "Really?" the woman asked, looking interested. "Are you hiring now?"

 "Yes." Jasmin stated, nodding. "Management has been pretty busy lately, trying to fill a lot of empty positions."

 "High turnover rate?" the woman asked, curiously.

 "We do seem to go through a lot of girls, these days." Jasmin answered, agreeably.

 "Hmm.. That's good to know." the woman said, thoughtfully.

 "My oldest here.." she continued, laying a hand on her teenaged daughter's shoulder. "Is going to need a job for the summer, before she goes off to college."

 "It'd be nice to have her working somewhere close.." the woman finished, beaming. "A place where we could even visit her, and watch her at work!"

 "Well, stop by the main office on your way out." Jasmin said. "I'm sure they'd be happy to give you an application."

 "Thank you." the woman replied. "Maybe we'll do just that."

 As Jasmin walked away from the little family, the younger daughter, with the help of her older sister, flung the head her mother had bought for her into the 'gator pit.

 "Oh, they're fighting over it!" she giggled, as she stared down into the wide, shallow pool of alligator infested water through the iron fence. "Cool!"

 Jasmin smiled and chuckled to herself, pleased. She'd solved two problems at once. Tammy had been happy at the unexpected, but very welcome batch of meat Jasmin had brought her. Also, seeing the little girl cheerfully chattering away with her mother and sister, while they all watched the alligators wrestle for the head they'd just tossed them, was definitely something that would put a smile on anyone's face.

 She just hoped that Ted wouldn't be too cross with her, for using up his spare girl without asking first.