What can someone do who longs to learn the taste of human flesh, but is too nice a person to turn cannibal? That’s the question I answered in “The Last Leg,” published in the 1984 issue of Night Voyages.
Unfortunately, the interior illustration gave away one of the twists of the tale. (Not that I didn’t appreciate the artfulness of Larry Dickison’s image … but I just wish it hadn’t been on the first page.)
I can remember writing this story on index cards that I would shuffle as I rode the F train in New York to and from my day job, a technique that helped me create many stories and survive many commutes.
When I reprinted this story in my collection These Words Are Haunted, I was later told by my proofreader that it sickened him … so I knew I was doing my job.