Into the hole

This is a tester to see if this idea has any interest in it. Please read and leave your comments. I will update you if there is any interest in this story. I plan on this book to be 100k words over 50 chapters about 2k words each. I have a plot and a story. I am just about finished up with Why the Gods? and the Ed and Erust arc and I wanted to change stories when I finished that. I know cultivation novels seem to be the most popular but I have very little experience writing that and I enjoy just telling what comes to my head. This was what I thought of next.

Dim pools of light on the stairs made it almost harder to navigate. Two people were dragging a carcass down the stairs into a storage area for fresh meat. The sound of steps on the old wooden stairs was interrupted by heavy breathing and occasional curses.

"Why do you have to have the cold storage down here. These stairs go on forever..." The first voice was female and came out between haggard breaths.

"Because the earth down here stays 40 to 50 degrees and is cheaper than having to keep two freezers running. Propane is expensive." A rough male voice came out between deep breaths.

The stairs ran down into the earth where the natural temperature stabilized. It was perfect for vegetables and meat. And seeing as how this was under a bar and brothel it worked out perfectly. Anything to save on expenses.

"Why did I have to help you with this." The female voice bordered on whining.

"You found it you help me get it down here," A short pause happened before, "Watch your head. Light socket"

A hand reached up and pushed the bulb out of the way. It swung in the stairwell as they moved down past it.

The male voice belonged to a broad-shouldered man wearing a leather apron. He had dark black hair and dark-colored eyes. His skin was tan and his clothes were nothing fancy. He was the owner of the bar, Ramon Lonzes. The woman helping him carrying the free meat into the basement was the muscle of the brothel and the oldest working girl he had. The house mom was older but she was out of the game.

Ramon was 6 foot 2 and the girl was easily 5 foot 4. Because of this Ramon took the lead and had the end going down the stairs first. This meant they could carry the dead weight almost evenly. The woman sighed and shifted her hands. Her name was Elizabeth but everyone called her Liz.

If you saw her standing outside you might assume she was a boy. She wore old brown clothes, work pants, and a button-up farm shirt. She had dark brown hair that was cut short around the sides with her curls only sitting on the top. Her face was porcelain white with a bridge of freckles across the nose. The only sign that she could handle herself was on the right leg of her pants. You could see the crease where a holster had been buckled around her thigh.

"Why does this always happen to us?" She moaned and took another step down the stairwell.

"You gonna complain about what we feed the customers?" Ramon said gritting his teeth and trying not to fall down the stairs.

"No, it pays the bills. But still, why me?"

Ramon snorted. "You found it and killed it. Cradle to the grave. You make the meat, you help me bring it down here. When the hunters come back down the mountain with fish and deer I make them haul it down here too or they get paid less at the bar."

She shook her head and shifted her hands again. The trip took them about 50 feet underground and dumped them out in an old salt mine. Much of what used to be Kansas had salt mines running all over the place. Corn, livestock, and salt were the old trusty exports in this part of the world. One remaining old work highway was recognized as going from the old east coast to the west. The bar was situated on the route and was the last place to sleep and eat before you started the climb into the mountains.

With the fall of the old United States after the final civil war Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska had formed the plain states. They controlled grain and beef, and also the only passes between the east and west. They bordered up to the St. Louis port and all the way to the border of the Rocky Mountain ranges. It made their location perfect for visitors. Besides no one moved to the plains for prosperity unless you were in their line of work.

Finally, they got to the bottom of the stairs and they both grunted as they put the dead weight down on the floor. Ramon put his hands on his knees to force his body back into a standing position. As he did he could feel his spine lining back up.

"Oh, that feels better. Help me tie up the feet so I can get it ready to butcher." He tossed a rope to Liz. She caught it in mid-air and nodded.

She looped the rope around the feet and then tied a double knot. She pulled to make sure it was tight before giving Ramon a thumbs up.

In the ceiling, a block and chain hung from an old Iron trellis. This part of the salt mine was still as it had been before. Chains were hung where they used them to help haul salt from the walls back to the main shaft and up to the surface. The entrance had collapsed long ago so this branch was probably the most secure place anything could be taken. There was no threat of intruders breaking in and stealing a meal.

Ramon pulled the chain and slowly the corpse started to rise into the air. He set the lock when it was upside down and then moved the body over to a pit for blood. He pulled a knife from off the wall and removed the blade from its leather sheath. He grabbed the head and slit the neck from ear to ear. Blood poured from the neck and ran down into the pan. He needed to drain the fluids out before they began to pool and spoil the meat.

Liz adjusted the light and walked over next to Ramon. She had never watched Ramon when he was butchering. The whole thing made her squeamish. She wondered what kind of life he had lived that made this easier. She had no problem shooting anything. You did what you have to to survive. But hunting had never been her thing. She could gut a fish but anything bigger made her squeamish.

Ramon started cutting right above the rib cage to get his finger in and pull the stomach away from the intestines. He wanted to avoid damaging the guts and spoiling the meat by having the stomach juices contaminate all the good meat.

She looked up at the corpse and shook her head. "Too bad we can't cut that off and hang it outside as a warning."

Ramon smiled and quickly reached up and grabbed the corpse's dick and balls. With one swift movement, he cut them both off and tossed them at her. They weren't that large but bigger than most and they landed on the ground with a wet slap.

"If you want to broadcast what happened go for it. But I don't want the Law-men in my bar." Ramon returned to the corpse and started making cuts into the gut and up to the groin. The intestines slowly started to slide out as they were exposed.

Ramon pulled a hose off the wall and turned on the faucet. He washed off the insides before tieing the guts up with twine to contain their contents. The liver was full of white spots showing off the condition. "Well, no gizzard meats." Ramon sighed and cut it out and tossed it to the side.

"I couldn't help it. He was being too rough with that girl and was going to break her. She told him no and that's when we stop. The rules are posted on the wall at the top of the stairs." Liz crossed her arms and turned away. She left the member laying on the ground.

"Did you have to kill him though?" Ramon sighed, the sounds of meat hitting a table carried on until she heard the sound of a saw being pulled off the wall. He was bout to cut the chest open so he could remove the lungs and heart.

"Completely accidental," She said with a sigh. "He fell the stairs neck first and broke it. I planned to just throw him out after I roughed him up. I mean it's not the first time this had happened."

"Won't be the last either." Ramon resigned himself to the task at hand while he kept cutting through the cartilage and into the bone.

"You think anyone will ask questions?"

"The regulars know better than to ask what happens to those who get thrown out. It's lawmen I worry about. I recognize this one. He was on a wanted poster a few years ago. I just hope that someone assumes he died and lets it be. That way I can get rid of the corpse correctly."

Ramon turned around and held a large bucket full of guts and innards in one hand. An air shaft was 10 feet from where he stood. He stood next to it and poured the guts down the hole into the area below him. The shaft went down over 200 feet into a shaft further down where old nuclear waste was stored. During the 1950s and later the old government had stored their nuclear testing waste in old abandoned salt mines all through the old plains states.

If anyone made it down there to collect the leftovers they would die from radiation poisoning before they ever made it back to the surface. It was the perfect hiding spot. Thankfully the radiation wasn't bad enough that the air shaft posed any long-term health problems. Most days Ramon kept it blocked up just in case. Today it was open because he had been butchering wild boar earlier.

"Well I do what I have to to protect our family," he walked back over to the table and looked at the man hanging from the rafters.

"I will cut him up, destroy the head, hands, and feet. I will skin him to remove any tattoos and the rest of him, well that goes in the special. Travelers will take care of the rest. I just need to get him bringing. If he isn't in the cure before too long the meat will spoil."

Liz shook her head and laughed. "It's a good thing the locals know to eat the fish. I mean we have actual boars around here but where do they think the bacon comes from? Those men coming down from the trip through the mountains just don't care do they?"

Ramon shook his head. "Longpork Hotel. Last hot meal, cold bed, and fresh bacon before you cross the Rockies."

Liz headed back towards the door up into the bar section of the hotel. "You need me for anything else?"

Ramon shook his head. He would be busy for the next few hours. He only had so long before he was having to shove a whole corpse down a ventilation shaft. "No, go, man, the bar and keep an eye on the girls. I will be up later tonight."

"Have it your way. Telilah wanted to thank you for this." Liz smiled at him. She knew that Ramon was aware of how much the girls appreciated his way of running things. But Liz enjoyed watching him blow it off.

"Tell her I won't tolerate that in my hotel. What she does in her room has always been her business. Now go before the afternoon crowd drinks all the hooch while no one is looking."