by Alan Spencer
"Hand me that other bucket. This one's full."
"Up to fifteen bodies. Almost done."
A pair of the clean up crew were working near his position. If one of them stepped any closer, they'd uncover him. It'd be back to the washing machine for him. Back to the hellish nightmares.
He stayed in his musty hidey hole. His fists were clenched. Fight or flight, he kept thinking. Fight or flight. Fight or flight.
Larry heard the wet plop of thick pieces falling into a container.
"Blew the guy into bits, but you know what? His shoes stayed on."
Plop, plop, plop.
Pieces slopping into a bucket.
"Eighteen bodies."
"There's supposed to be nineteen."
"Well, we're only finding eighteen."
"Recount them."
"Don't tell me we lost another one."
"Who cares? We've got fifty in the machines already. And we've got other people bringing us more. We're never running out."
"It's not the number of bodies."
"I know, it's about their conditioning."
"A person dies once, they fear death again. If they die a hundred times—"
"I know, shut up about it. I get it."
"They get smart. The victims put two and two together. We have to be smarter."
"Look, number nineteen probably got blown up into so many small pieces that we can't find him. Look, here's an ear. That might be a nose over there. Or is it a big toe? There's blood drenching those four trees over there. Angel keeps crafting those homemade explosives. She might've been a tad overzealous this time."
"Shit, maybe you're right."
"I think I am, man."
"Before we jump to any kind of conclusions, let's canvas the area again. If we don't come up with anything, then you're right. Nineteen's gone."
32
Larry shivered. It wasn't the leaves that failed to keep him warm. The earth was wet on his belly and legs. Larry couldn't decide when it'd be safe to uncover himself. Various persons searched the woods for hours, then they up and left. Silence stretched on, and he couldn't stay still anymore. He uncovered himself from the pile, and stretching his arms and legs, he looked around.
Nobody was in sight.
He had to escape the woods, but the traps were everywhere. Larry walked slowly, treading softly. He wasn't sure if he was moving in the direction away from that warehouse or towards safety. The way explosions and bombs were going off, civilization wouldn't be close by. He had a long journey ahead of himself.
Larry treaded through safe terrain. No traps. Nothing going off and obliterating him or sending him into the throes of torturous pain.
He was exhausted, starving, and so weak. He literally felt like every part of him had been run through a beating machine. The further he walked, the more his pain intensified. Every muscle was being wrung out like a wet towel. Then he heard screams, terror filled yawps. He suffered visions of people blowing up, bleeding out, and running, hiding, and crying out for their lives.
Larry landed on his knees. Squeezed his head in his hands, trying to force out the sounds and sights warring in his mind. Something wasn't right. Blood trickled from his nose in black-red gobs. He tasted it in the back of his throat. His midsection burned. He literally felt his insides spin like clothes in a washing machine. Puking up blood. Puking up sudsy water. Puking up half a tongue. Two faded eyeballs. A fingernail wrapped up in long black hairs, like something he'd rescued from a nasty sink drain. Crawling, clawing, he moved ahead on all fours. Flashes of death, of blood being spilled, of horror overwhelming his nerves. By the time the pain subsided, he had lived a hundred deaths. Then it stopped. He was gasping, so out of breath. His ribs were hugging his body to the point he thought they'd snap. Raw inside, burning hot on the outside, Larry was leaning up against a tree to collect himself.
The relief from the pain made him think about his life.
Paula had given him happiness, yes, but everything else he'd done was half-assed. Work, life, passion, none of it had meant a damn thing to him. Only his dad's philosophy, to not put your back into anything. Don't give them the satisfaction of your hard work. Sit on your ass and anchor America down. It was bullshit. He had missed out on a lot in life. It was easy to see this now in his lowest, most deplorable state. If life could get this fucking bad, how good could it be when life was going great? He reached the plateau of pain and misery, but happiness and joy, he had yet to reach that pinnacle.
He fought through his emotions and collected himself. It was night time. Larry was at the edge of the woods. The place wouldn't let him leave, he realized. If he did try to leave, his body would succumb to the pain he endured earlier. His body was somehow connected to the washing machines. His existence depended on those washing machines. It was that deep down inside feeling that convinced him.
He couldn't leave.
If he couldn't leave, what did that mean for him? Stay and eventually be found? Stay, and be chopped into pieces, sent through the machine, and be brought back to life to be murdered again?
Larry stood there shaking his head. He stared out across the bare field at the warehouse.
He finally had a plan.
33
Larry sprinted over to the warehouse. The lights were on inside. He hadn't seen a single person. No guards. Nobody coming or going. He entered the building without any trouble. The washing machines were running their cycles. He looked inside the glass fronts. Hundreds of bodies were hacked up into pieces were spinning in the boxes.
Goddamn.
When he was a worker drone, he had failed to see the building went on beyond the room of washing machines. He stayed low, edging nearer to the north end of the building. The humming and drumming of washing machine cycles covered up any noise he made. It also covered up any noise anybody else made.
A hand covered his mouth. The cold blade of a knife touched his neck.
"I fucking knew it! Nineteen wasn't mist. You weren't fucking mist!"
Barry's "do nothing" mentality had worked for him in the past. That was ancient history now. The old Larry was ancient history too. He would do everything to destroy this operation.
Larry caught the aggressor by surprise. He jabbed his elbow into the man's gut. Then he seized the young punk covered in crazy tattoos by his long hair and slammed his head through the glass of a washing machine. Sudsy water spilled over the younger man who had the eyes of a prolific killer and the frown of a child seeing the world for what it was for the first time—or was it his fear as the body parts in the washing machine reached out to pull him in? A severed hand crawled across the man's head, stepped down his nose, and forced its way into his mouth. It was going down his throat right before another hand yanked his body through the broken glass front.
Larry ran, but not before taking the Colt Python pistol strapped to the man's flailing legs. In his peripheral, the kid's legs kept kicking out the edge of the machine. Blood was spitting out the edge. He watched human intestines squeeze the man's midsection so hard the young man's legs exploded out from the rest of his body.
The pounding against glass, the body parts in the other machines seemed to sense his revolt. They couldn't break free. He wasn't sure if he should release them.
Before thinking too hard, a machine gun prattled. Larry dodged the bullets by rolling forward. More machine gun fire, bullets broke up chunks of the concrete floor. The gunner was careful not to hit any of the machines.
That was the trick. He stayed close to the machines.
The first time he took any initiative in anything, and this was the situation!
Don't ever bust your ass. That's for younger and dumber people who think they'll actually get ahead in life. Me, son, I'm happy where I'm at. I'm swimming in calm waters. Slow and steady wins the day.
"You let an accident at work dictate the rest of your life! You might as well have died that day, Father! I AM NOT GOING TO BE LIKE YOU! BITTER AND SATISFIED AND TOO TIRED TO HAVE
A FUCKING ADVENTURE. I HAVEN'T BEEN LAID IN FOUR YEARS!"
The gunner was confused by his choice of words. That won him seconds, but only seconds, to execute a plan.
The pounding against the glass. The spinning of cycles. The sloshing of water. The birth of bubbles. The rebirth of life after grizzly death. The continuation of something that shouldn't be continued. Three more machine guns joined in the effort. More would be coming. Larry had one pistol. He hadn't fired a gun in his entire life.
You're dead. You're theirs to do as they wish with you.
"My life is my own!"
He shot up the washing machine glass fronts closest to him one after the other. After he did that, he ducked, barely missing a crowbar to the head. That crazy gothic chick was back. Larry had little to fear. A hand was spring-ejected from one of the shattered machines, flying on its own accord. It clenched her throat so hard her head spurted free like a bar of soap slipping from a pair of wet hands.
Larry picked up the crowbar and shattered glass front after glass front. Unleashing a fuselage of living anatomy, super powered by rage and want of revenge, Larry kept smashing the glass.
Smash-smash-smash-smash-smash-smash.
More guns were fired in his direction. He stayed low and watched the battle unfold. Long intestines hovered in the air, and like thrown lassos, they straightened out and turned into visceral whips. The crack of the pink flesh was so sharp, Larry covered his ears. The whip struck three times, splitting one bear of a man into three longwise pieces. Another set of intestines wrapped around three heads, tightened around their necks, then let rip, uprooting the heads from the stumps with nasty gruuump sounds. Heads shot out of washing machines so fast they acted as bullets firing through torsos. One skull went head-to-head with another person's head and both burst. Hands clutched severed legs and arms and used them as beating clubs. Internal organs, the giblets of odds and ends, were shoved down throats to choke.
The gunfire eventually stopped. The killing floor was sodden in blood and body parts. The parts had lost their life, being outside the machine, the life giver. A few broken fingers and innards flapped like dying fish before they too went still.
Between his legs, a severed hand lay. Its finger was extended, pointing straight ahead. Larry knew the fight wasn't over. He moved ahead in that direction. Nobody would be tortured here ever again.
He'd see to it.
34
The finger was pointing to a double door. Beyond that double door was giant room after giant room of different killing floors. Butcher blocks featuring insane meat grinders. Big hot ovens to cook people to death while someone could watch through the grease stained glass as they died slowly. Tunnels and tubes like that at a child's play place stretched on, but they were loaded with deadly traps. Rooms with torture implements that made no sense. A big tank of acid, with steel chains and pulleys above the tanks to dip people into the harsh substance. Rooms with beakers and Bunsen burners, the science of death turned into liquid. Some of beakers were labeled: Burn, Suicide, Internal Rupture, Flesh Eating Disease, Bacteria. Rooms mimicked rooms in houses. Brick walls mimicked city alleyways. It was a strange labyrinth of killing.
The place had no end. The hallway kept extending, showing off another room with more ways to slaughter people. He was about to turn back around when a gun was pressed to the back of his head.
"Ah-ah-ah, Mr. Koche. Keep moving forward. I have someplace very special to show you."
35
The man with the gun to his head turned out to be Mr. Kelly. The man who bought out "Get Loaded." The man Larry had only talked to over the phone for two short conversations. Long enough for Mr. Kelly to say Larry had been laid off and when his last day would be.
Larry was told to walk forward. The door at the end of the hallway was another double door. Larry faced it, waiting for the man to tell him what to do next. Mr. Kelly wasn't very happy with him.
His words were acid.
"I hope you realize how much of a set back this is, Mr. Koche. Killing off my helpers, do you realize how hard it is to recruit people? Jesus, you've turned them into pureed shit. What am I going to do with you? How will I even things up? You've taken so much away from me. What can I take away from you, Larry?"
Then Mr. Kelly lost himself in an uproar of laughter. "Looking at you, I remember how things used to be for me. I was like you. I tried to fight them. I worked at a laundry mat called "Suds Your Duds." I was a stool man. I sat on my ass, counted out quarters to people, and watched my life pass me by. Like you, Larry, I lived with a thumb up my ass. Then I was stabbed through the back with an axe and chopped into pieces and brought back to life inside a fucking washing machine. My life changed for the better ever since then. Depending on what side of the deal you're on, that is.
"I'm in charge of buying out laundry services buildings. I turn them into hubs. Bases of operation. Places for those who work for us to seek refuge if they're in trouble. The machines in the laundry mats are also used to collect new victims. That's what we do in the places you used to work. We collect new people to kill, and then we ship their pieces out to these warehouses, like the one you're standing in now. This is where the fun really begins. How a lazy ass like you managed to dismantle this place blows my mind.
"I know what you're about to ask me. 'Why do we do what we do?' I'll just tell you because I'm very proud of what we've accomplished over the years. These rooms you were checking out are used to slaughter people in new and strange ways. New heights of fear are reached and recorded for research. Imagine hearing the sound of blood curdle in the veins. Imagine making somebody shit themselves just by looking at you come closer to them. Imagine a person offering you anything, I mean absolutely anything, in exchange for not killing them—and imagine taking what they offer you and slaughtering them anyway. Breaking hope, breaking people's will, it's a beautiful thing. It's so sweet to cause that in somebody. But how do you make somebody terrified beyond one death? A person must experience many deaths and accumulate these heightened emotions. So again, why do we do this?
"This is hell's research facility. A facility to test pain and death on the living so those running the show in hell can inflict far worse punishments on the dead in the afterlife. The washing machines give bodies new life, but it's the special detergent that brings them back to life. The process allows a victim to hold onto the previous experiences of fear so it builds and builds each and every time they are slaughtered. Imagine what data hell can obtain from studying people who've died a hundred times. A thousand times! Those with as much fight in them as you, Larry, can be used, no matter how much trouble you cause. You're a strong specimen, despite what I thought about you before you came here. How do you pay me back for the trouble you've caused? Easy. We're going to turn you into one of us. Welcome to the team."
Mr. Kelly urged him to open the door.
Larry walked through to the other side.
He was about to join the team.
36
Ahead of him was a short metal platform that looked down into a long fifty foot drop. What Larry stared down into was like a giant wishing well, but at the bottom, it moved like a enormous washing machine cycle. The giant tank of water sloshed back and forth. The waters were a strange toothpaste blue. Detergent blue. Larry took three steps onto the platform, and he was already facing the edge of a great drop into the enormous washing machine cycle.
"This is where we recruit the members of our team. We take those worthy of hell's mission, and the wash injects them with extreme sadism. It turns people into death engineers. Pain inventors. Once you swim in those waters, Larry, you'll get a hard on for mass slaughter. You'll crave blood, guts, and misery. Imagine fist-fucking insanity and craving more. You'll never be sated. It's an awesome feeling wading in those waters. I'm about due soon for a treatment. I need replenishing. You'll forget the life you left behind. This will become everything to you. It'll be everything you'll ever want or need. And if we get killed in the line of duty, it c
an bring us back to life. This operation is a miracle."
Larry wasn't sure if the gun was still trained on the back of his head. Questioning this, Larry learned during his years working at the laundry mat was that people liked to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. People could turn the mundane into high drama, and high drama into psycho-drama. Mr. Kelly was talking because he loved his work. The man wasn't paying attention to Larry.
He took the initiative.
Turning to the side, he grabbed Mr. Kelly's arms, threw him over the railing, and the man sailed down into the great washing cycle below them. He heard the cycle increase. The trashing of water, it sounded like sewage pipes rupturing. Bubbles popped and boiled. The blue hissed steam, super hot. Mr. Kelly came and went in a flash of movement as he took a head dive into the troubled waters. The waters sucked him down as if Mr. Kelly had fallen into the arms of an undertow. The cycle thrashed harder, raising foamy waves of water and soap.
Larry could walk away and escape and forget this nightmare. It would've been so easy. But for once, he wanted to finish what he started.
37
On the platform to his left were shelves and shelves of big barrels of blue detergent. There was a poster up against the concrete wall next to the shelf. It was a measurement table. For every ten bodies in the cycle, one barrel was to be used. For every twenty, two barrels, and so on. What would happen if he broke open every barrel? Larry performed a quick count. Seventy barrels. An axe was propped against the wall, what was used to cut through a plastic spigot and allow the detergent to spill free.
Larry swung the axe seventy times.
All hell was about to break loose.
He was out of breath from swinging the axe so many times. Below, the blue waters roared in a rage. The room was a steam room cranked to volcanic proportions. It was like hot lava. Bursts of blue shooting up, reaching higher and higher. He caught Mr. Kelly's body be torn in half by a blue wave, and then he dissolved.