I competed on "The Chopping Block" - a live reality TV cooking competition. I was lucky to escape with my life...

“Remember to smile. The people at home don’t want to see frowning faces, okay?”

“Got it.”

The woman marched quickly away, saying something into her headset, then glancing down at the clipboard in her hand. Lights were shining hot on my face, cameras pointed at me, and I felt myself sweating. Warm drips of it ran down my cheeks but I was too afraid to wipe them away.

Suddenly the host walked onto the stage. A slim, short kid with slicked-back blond hair in a dark suit who appeared no more than twenty years old, if not younger. He ignored us and looked at the cameras, checking to make sure everything was ready, as if he was the one running the whole show.

Finally, when everything was set, he glanced back at us and gave a quick show-stopping smile. His pearly-white teeth sparkled in the bright lights, his eyes dark as night but glimmering with intelligence.

“All set, folks?”

We nodded nervously. I quickly looked at my two competitors. A tall, athletic man named Dan, who ran a catering company, and a woman named Susan who was a private chef. Being the executive chef at a well-respected restaurant, I felt confident in my chances to win the cooking battle against the two of them. I had twenty years of experience and a culinary school education under my belt.

Of course I had no idea what I was in for. None of us did. Not yet.

The bright lights shone in my eyes obscuring my vision and I heard someone begin to count down.

“OKAY EVERYBODY, WE ARE LIVE in FIVE, four,” the woman stopped counting out loud and only her fingers could be seen in the glare, held up and letting us know how long until the cameras started to roll. Three, two, one. She pointed at the host who spoke his opening lines seamlessly and with practiced efficiency.

“Hello everyone and welcome to – THE CHOPPING BLOCK! The only LIVE TV cooking competition of its kind. I’m your host, Elttil Natas. And, as always, our judge is the one, the only, Bub Beelze! You folks at home know how the game works! There’s only two rounds and our competitors will receive a mystery cauldron full of ingredients and will be forced to make a dish using each item. Then we’ll be tasting each and every dish to find out who’s gonna be ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK!”

He turned and looked at us with his showman’s grin. I was slightly surprised this ego-maniac hadn’t arranged for a studio audience – it seemed like just the show for that sort of thing. Cheesy and over the top.

“Ready contestants!?”

We nodded our heads excitedly, still not knowing what was coming. We would find out soon, though. One by one.

“Okay! Bring down the cauldrons!”

Three massive cauldrons were lowered from the ceiling by ropes until they settled to the floor.

I tried to smile and not think about the cameras pointed at me, the lights shining hot on me from the ceiling, and the audience watching at home. Not that I had ever seen or heard of this show before, but I guessed that a lot of people probably watched it.

Dan, Susan, and I began to open the cauldron lids. One by one our faces turned sour and we grimaced and looked at each other with confused disgust.

“What is that!?” I exclaimed. I couldn’t help it. The black pot was full of blood and indeterminate organs. I guessed they were from a pig or a cow, but I wasn’t really sure. The size of them wasn’t quite right for either. Venison, maybe? I wondered. But no, it wasn’t that either.

The clock was ticking so I didn’t think about it too much. I had worked with offal before, so I just dug my hands in and grabbed each of the four slippery blood-soaked organs and ran over to the sink with them.

Maybe this was a Halloween episode they were filming in advance, I thought to myself – that would explain the cauldrons and the blood-soaked innards. I just wished they had said something because it had caught me off guard. But then the other two contestants looked uncertain as well. They were still working up the courage to examine the cuts more carefully, poking at the bloody bits with their fingers and making faces.

The thought occurred to me again that I might win this competition. I just couldn’t afford to get cocky.

After rinsing off the organs in the sink I got a better look at them. It was a heart and a liver as well as a pair of kidneys. Still unable to determine which species of creature they came from, I decided to just wing it and sautee the liver and kidneys, then process them to make a spread for a tartine. There wasn’t a lot of time for anything else.

The round ended with a loud buzzer and I felt pretty confident, having a decent-looking dish to present. This fact was not lost on the host of the show. Elttil Natas looked at us one by one and scoffed at everyone’s dish but mine. The other two were not particularly well-plated, I hate to say. Still, Dan managed to make a passable flat bread and Susan prepared a hand-made pasta, although I could tell she struggled with the time constraints. Her ravioli had exploded in the boiling water, resulting in her filling being mostly lost.

“Okay, time for judging!” The host took our plates and went back behind a black curtain which was set off to the side. I presumed it was where the judge sat, but it was odd that we didn’t get to meet him.

About ten minutes later the host came back with one covered plate in his hand.

“Okay, time to find out who’s on the chopping block tonight!”

He lifted the dome revealing Susan’s exploded ravioli. I saw her cover her face with her hand in shame.

“Sorry, Susan. Bub thought your ravioli was well-cooked. But unfortunately we both found it salty, and your filling, sadly, did not make the plate. For those reasons, you have been selected for the chopping block.”

“I understand, thank you for the opportunity,” she said, and went over to shake his hand.

“Please exit behind the black curtain,” the young host said, looking sympathetic. “Be well.”

We took a break after that for half an hour before moving on, so that we could drink some water and use the restroom if needed.

The next round began and the cauldrons were lowered down once again and Dan and I set to work grabbing ingredients from them. This time it was small pieces of meat that looked freshly carved and bloody, floating in a sanguineous bath at the bottom of the cauldron.

“Bub and I are still hungry!” said the host enthusiastically. “Make us a nice, filling entrée this round!”

We set to work and I fulfilled his request, creating a hamburger from the strange-looking bits of meat. It was quite lean, so I added a hunk of beef fat from the fridge for the perfect 70/30 meat/fat ratio. Then I formed the patties with my hands. The smell was so strange – not lamb or beef, not pork or venison. It wasn’t goat or emu, I had tried those as well and was fairly certain this was a meat I had never eaten before. I nibbled on the cooked pieces, tasting it for seasoning. I just hoped we would find out what it was at the end of the show, since I was pretty curious to be honest.

The time expired and the buzzer went off once again.

“Time’s up! Bring your dishes forward and prepare to be judged by Bub!”

Leaving our plates on the table provided, we stepped back and waited. Instead of taking the dishes back to the judge, this time we heard him coming out to us.

Heavy footsteps came thudding louder and louder from behind the curtain and my heart began to beat fast and hard in my chest as I felt an impending sense of doom and dread overcome me. The curtains rippled and ruffled in the wind as if something immense was moving behind them.

And then I saw him. Saw it.

The thing which came out from behind the black curtain was huge and dark, covered in tendrils of smoke and steam which moved in and out of it and all around it, making it seem not entirely real. And yet flies buzzed around it and swarmed alongside it, as if one with the beast.

“Welcome our famous judge, everybody! Prince of Demons, Lord of the Order of the Flies, Bub Beelze!”

“It’s Beelzebub, you little twerp,” the shadowy demon creature’s voice was like broken glass scraping across a chalkboard, like an avalanche colliding with freight train during a thunder storm. It felt like hearing it would make me go deaf.

“Don’t you talk to me like that. I’ll tell dad!”

“Ugh, you would too. Little daddy’s boy.”

“What?”

“Nothing, forget it. Let’s just eat Susan, she looks delicious.”

Dan and I stood staring, jaws hanging open, watching as the two demons ate our food. That was obviously what they were. And even worse I realized now that we had unwittingly prepared our former co-contestant and served her up to them as burgers and stew.

“Why are you doing this!?” I screamed at them. “And who would watch this!?”

The host replied with his mouth full while chewing Susan stew.

“First of all, everybody in hell loves this show! It’s in its five hundred and eighth season. And to answer your first question – why? Listen to yourself! We’re demons. It’s what we do. Y’know, just trying to make the world a little bit more evil, one person at a time. You’ll never recover from this. And hey, who knows, maybe you’ll infect a few more people with the inevitable darkness that will fester inside you.”

The shadow monster chuckled under its breath.

“This burger is delicious, by the way. You win by a long-shot.”

I did a mental fist pump despite the situation. I had won the competition. Even if it was orchestrated by demons and the mystery box items were human remains.

I had still won. That’s gotta be worth something, right?

Turns out that something was my life.

The winner of “Chopping Block” is the only one who is allowed to leave the game show. The runner-up is dismembered and used for the appetizer round the next day.

“What are you gonna do with your winnings?” the human-looking demon asked as he was letting me out the door. The ten thousand dollars they had given me felt more like blood money now. A bribe.

But I didn’t want to find out what they would do if I told anyone, so I vowed to keep my mouth shut.

“I’m not sure,” I said, stepping out onto the sidewalk. “Maybe I’ll open a restaurant. A burger place. I’ve always been really good at making burgers.”

“You definitely should, Bob. If you do, I’ll stop by, that’s for damn sure.”

I turned around and started to walk away.

“Oh, and Bob,” he called after me.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget about our tournament of champions next month. Can’t wait to see what you come up with for that! You’re gonna have way stiffer competition next time, though. Good luck!”

He slammed the door shut and left me standing in the street, stunned and terrified.

I would have to do it all over again next month…

Anybody have any good recipes?

TCC