Too Many Humans

by Jacob Rayne

  He came back to the now, realising that Solomon was once more deceiving his people with this inane display.

  There were no cattle being bred here, it was all for show.

  All as fake as that horse had been when he was a kid; two girls hidden under a costume made out of old towels.

  In spite of the guards that were on duty around the entrance to the warehouses, he felt the need to vent his frustration on the fake cow.

  He slammed his fist into the piece of battered old settee cushion from which its head had been fashioned, sending a vast cloud of dust flying up into the air.

  This made him feel a little better, but he knew that to fully vent his frustration would have certainly led to detection.

  He’d have been slamming his fists and feet into the cushion for hours before his rage had abated.

  Fighting the urge to pummel it a second time, he ducked down behind the cow and looked around.

  He saw a pair of speakers atop each of the warehouse entrances.

  The cow noises were coming from here, seemingly to convince anyone passing by that there were indeed animals being bred in here for food.

  The reality, he would discover, was much harder to stomach.

  4.8

  Davey moved towards the door of the nearest warehouse.

  He frowned as he noticed the legend; ‘Free raynj,’ on a crudely painted sign above the entrance.

  There was a guard on duty, but he seemed to be idly picking at a spot on his arm.

  Davey reckoned he could probably get to the door without being seen, but didn’t want to take the risk.

  He found a small rock by his feet and hurled it into the grassy area near the fake cow which had annoyed him so much.

  The guard didn’t even flinch, didn’t look up from squeezing the large, inflamed white head on his arm.

  In fairness, the noises of the animals coming over the speakers were loud as hell over here, so the guard may not have been that bad at his job.

  Davey got close enough to see the spot rupture, to see a thick gobbet of pus burst from the wound, followed out by a small flow of blood.

  He saw the guard’s triumphant smile, then saw him begin the search for the next target.

  Judging by the state of his arms, it wouldn’t be long before he found it.

  Davey crept by on the other side of the doorway, ready to dive into action, but the guard didn’t stop his inspection of his arm.

  The next spot ruptured in a rush of blood and pus and this time Davey heard the Grim’s impressed grunt.

  As he passed, undetected, through the door, an unspeakably vile smell hit his nose with the force of a heavyweight’s jab.

  It was as effective as any guard dog and was almost strong enough to make him turn back.

  In the shadows of the entranceway, the cow sounds still blared, echoing ominously around the metal walkways above him.

  He moved in a little, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness.

  The stench of stale shit and the ammonia of a thousand spent bladders stuck in his throat.

  He saw a Grim off to his right, at the base of one of the black metal stairways.

  Like his colleague outside, he was absorbed in his own little world, reading a battered and well-thumbed – and, Davey noticed with a grim shudder, slightly stuck together – porn magazine.

  His left hand was shaking as it held the magazine open on the centrefold, the rest of the pages hanging around it like some obscene cocoon.

  His right hand was hidden, but Davey knew what it was doing.

  The Grim’s eyes were half-lidded, rolled back in his head a little.

  He was breathing heavily.

  Davey didn’t want to watch any longer, and didn’t want to wait for the Grim to become more alert, so he kept low and moved in.

  As he moved further into the shadows, the lowing sounds of cattle from the loudspeakers slowly faded, replaced by a hellish cacophony of screams and wails.

  He peered through the mesh fencing at the edge of the perimeter and saw hundreds of naked men, women and children running around inside a circular enclosure.

  They were spattered with blood and shit.

  Some of the adults were rutting in the puddles of liquid filth that stained the dirt floor.

  There was no joy in the act; it was just something to pass the time, exactly like the guard Grim with his dog-eared porn mag.

  Others were fighting; punching, gouging, biting.

  Sprays of blood came off one man as two others dived on him and began to dig into his flesh with their jagged, yellowing teeth.

  Directly in front of Davey, a woman with a heavily distended belly and thick, matted black hair wandered over to the fences.

  As she neared, Davey saw her pale flesh and the dirty hand marks on her body and face.

  She turned her back to him and squatted without any measure of shame.

  The pungent stench of urine became slightly stronger as her bladder emptied itself onto the floor, splashing up onto her feet and ankles.

  She bent slightly more and thick coils of shit splattered into the puddle of urine around her feet.

  She made no attempt to clean herself.

  The stench made Davey’s stomach heave.

  One of the males was seemingly undeterred by the smell and approached the female, his groin stiff and quaking.

  The female leant down and offered her rear to him.

  Davey turned away as he knew what was coming.

  He looked back to the fighting men.

  One of the guards was wading into the fray, swinging a stout black stick which sprayed sparks from its glowing tip.

  The two aggressors backed away, teeth bared like those of wild dogs.

  Their body language suggested they were submissive but ready to attack if he dropped his guard.

  Other Grims were watching from the upper walkway, their rifles pointing down into the enclosure.

  They whistled to let the cattle know they were there.

  The aggressors looked up, and saw the guns aimed at them.

  Hissing, they bared their teeth and slunk away to hide among their kin.

  It saddened and sickened Davey to see humanity being treated like this, but there was something strangely captivating about it too.

  He found he couldn’t take his eyes off the bizarre scenes.

  The guard moved in, his stance one of caution and awareness.

  Some of the other human cattle approached him, keeping a safe distance as he swung his strange, sparking weapon in a semi-circle.

  They backed up slightly, their teeth bared.

  The guard bent down, touched a finger to the gushing throat of the fallen man – Davey wasn’t exactly sure why he did this; even from his hiding place it was obvious by the thick trails of dark gore coursing out of the bite wounds in the man’s throat that he was a goner – and waited for a few seconds.

  He looked up to his colleagues, pulled his thumb across his throat from ear to ear and nodded.

  Then he slung the dead man over his shoulder and carried him out of the gates.

  A few brave souls among the cattle charged at the gate.

  Gunshots blared over the screams and curses and hissed threats.

  Bullets hit the ground beneath the herd’s feet.

  They reacted like stunned cattle and retreated, trembling and shaking.

  The gate to the enclosure slammed shut.

  Some of the men and women – and, heartbreakingly, a small boy – ran to the gates and began to shake them on their hinges, wailing at the top of their lungs.

  The sounds chilled Davey’s blood, as he realised that this could, in the blink of an eye, be him if things went south.

  For a few seconds, he felt certain that he’d rather die than be reduced to this.

  But he knew his burning desire for vengeance would carry him through just about anything.

  He watched the guard shove the dead man’s body into a wheelbarrow and set off towards th
e warehouse exit.

  The cattle were still storming the gates, trying to climb, slam and batter their way out of their enclosure.

  The wrought iron fences were a good ten feet high, with murderous barbs on the top of them, and they slanted back on themselves, presumably to dissuade anyone trying to escape them.

  Still, a few of the cattle tried it.

  The scenes were of mass disobedience.

  It was obvious that humanity did not take well to being treated like cattle.

  A blur of activity on the upper deck drew Davey’s eye.

  Some of the herd noticed too.

  A number of them stopped and looked up at the walkway, looks of hungry longing on their faces like those of dogs about to be fed.

  One of the guards whistled loudly, slammed the butt of his gun into the railings.

  At this, every head in the enclosure snapped round to look in their direction.

  The effect made Davey’s skin crawl.

  The guard began throwing handfuls of what Davey assumed was food down into the enclosure and the ensuing scenes made pretty much everything else he’d seen in this brutal world seem tame.

  It was all out war for the scraps that had been thrown into the enclosure.

  Davey had seen enough.

  The warehouse was huge and he could hear more screams from further within, so it seemed obvious there were more of these enclosures in here.

  More of the hapless bastards locked up like cattle.

  He moved towards the gate.

  The guard who’d been absorbed in the porn mag was gone, presumably up on the upper deck now to keep an eye on the feeding times.

  Davey moved outside again, trying to shield his eyes from the glare.

  The guard who’d been picking his spots was gone, but there were a few sprays of matter and blood on the wall near where he’d been.

  When he’d been much younger, Davey would have been repulsed by this, but it was nothing compared to what he had just seen in the warehouse.

  Or would see in the next.

  4.9

  The inside of the next warehouse was a deafening wall of misery.

  Davey saw horrendous sights everywhere he looked.

  The collection of atrocities showcased here even made the free range enclosures seem kind in comparison.

  There were row upon row of tiny cages, no more than three feet by three, into which were crammed some of the most sorry-looking people Davey had ever seen.

  The uniform in here was pale emaciation with blood to accessorise.

  Sad eyes stared out at him.

  Parchment-thin voices pleaded to set their owners free.

  Whether it was from the cages or from their miserable lives wasn’t clear.

  There were close to a hundred cages on the bottom level.

  Above that, stretching up to the ceiling, were more rows than Davey could count at first glance.

  He reckoned it was between twenty and forty.

  Each cage had a human crammed into it.

  The toilet facilities were conspicuous by their absence – each shell of a human had to go where they sat, leading to reeking trails of shit and piss running down into the cages below.

  It seemed to be worst on the bottom as they were encrusted with the fallen excrement of the levels above them.

  The smell made Davey throw up the partially-digested remnants of his last meal.

  If there was any solace to be had from being at the top this was soon taken away by the furnace-like heat that filled the room.

  Davey strained his eyes and saw naked bodies shivering on the upper levels of the cages, their bodies sheathed in dripping coats of sweat.

  ‘Help us,’ came the chorus.

  ‘Set us free.’

  The worst plea was from a boy who looked a similar age to Davey. ‘Kill me,’ he simply said, tears rimming his sunken eyes.

  Thousands of hands beat against the bars, creating a cacophony that went right through Davey.

  His eyes too filled with tears.

  One old man – sporting a blood-smeared white beard that made him look like an anorexic Santa – was hell-bent on ramming his head into the bars of his cage.

  His forehead was a bloody welt of flesh which showcased gleaming streaks of bone.

  The bars were thick with dripping blood.

  The worst thing about it was the maniacal laugh he made as his head collided with the bars.

  ‘One blow closer to getting out of here,’ he cackled.

  His emotions in tatters, Davey’s eyes scoured the cages.

  Depravity, squalor and misery were tattooed on every inch of the room.

  Davey jumped as he heard footsteps off to his right.

  A muscular, squat Grim with a rifle slung over his shoulder came along the walkway towards him and began eyeing the cages with a cold, practical glare.

  Davey felt his blood boiling a little hotter when he noticed that the Grim had a clipboard in his hand.

  He’s doing a stock check, Davey thought, utterly furious.

  Davey hid beside one of the cages, which housed a small boy who was sobbing and wailing with his head clasped in his hands.

  The boy gripped Davey’s arm so hard his knuckles turned white.

  His jaws suddenly opened and he started screaming at the top of his lungs.

  His breath was warm and sour.

  Blood-flecked spit hit Davey in the face and ran down, leaving trails in the grime.

  The boy’s eyes had been removed, now just bloody holes in his face.

  The empty sockets still wept blood as he screamed out his pain and misery.

  In the corner of the next cell was a small puddle of vomit containing what looked like the partly digested remnants of an eyeball.

  Davey gripped the boy’s hand hard and twisted, levering his thumb up to release his grip.

  The boy let out a little cry that almost broke Davey’s heart.

  Then a gruff voice shouted, ‘Someone fucking help me, I’ve got the bastard,’ and Davey’s attention was diverted.

  He glanced over to see one of the prisoners had managed to wrap his bony forearm tight around the guard’s throat.

  The guard was trying to squirm free, but already the prisoner had sunk his teeth into the side of his face and was beginning to chow down on the bloody flesh.

  The prisoners in the neighbouring cells were doing their utmost to get to the terrified guard.

  It reminded Davey of feeding time at the zoo.

  Davey didn’t see what happened next – though the chilling screams and greedy slurping sounds were clue enough – as he was already on his way towards the next factory.

  ‘Prep-or-ayshon stay-shun,’ was emblazoned on the wall of this one in crude, spray-painted letters.

  The words filled Davey with dread but he figured things couldn’t get much worse than what he had already seen.

  Or could they?

  The inside of the next warehouse was a total juxtaposition to that of its neighbours.

  The cow noises shut off within a few feet of the door.

  There were no human noises to cover up in here.

  No screams.

  No agonised cries.

  No dutiful grunts of rutting and fighting.

  The noises in here were more of a mechanical nature.

  Hisses.

  Clunks.

  Scrapes.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what he was walking into but it had already begun to make his skin crawl.

  In contrast to the utter chaos and filth of the last two warehouses, this place was clinically clean.

  The smell of bleach clung to his airwaves.

  He saw no one out on the corridors.

  No guards.

  No human cattle.

  The calm was startling after the overwhelming scenes in the last few warehouses.

  He walked towards the nearest doorway and at first thought he was under attack until he realised he was being hosed down with water.
<
br />   The realisation of what he was walking into hit him like a speeding locomotive, but still he got a nasty shock when he saw what waited for him behind the third set of doors.

  Everything in the place was white, sterile, stinking of bleach.

  A man in pristine – Davey for a few seconds idly wondered how in this world of filth and smoke and blood and rot he had managed to keep a garment in such good condition – white overalls and a blue plastic face mask was tugging on a long metal chain, going hand over hand in a motion that reminded Davey of the movements he’d seen before when watching a boxer work a speedball.

  The chain made a jingling racket that seemed to be the only sound in this room.

  A second man was standing on a small, square metal platform.

  Metal fences surrounded three sides of the work station.

  He stood with his back to Davey, but it was clear he wore the same uniform in the same clinically clean condition as his colleague.

  As the first man continued to pull the chain, a long metal rail came through a set of plastic curtains at the far end of the room.

  Davey struggled to see what was happening until it was revealed in all of its grim glory.

  And he promptly wished he hadn’t looked.

  A naked, hairless man twitched and writhed, suspended upside down by chains around his bare ankles.

  The chain was tight enough to create dark purple welts in the flesh around the base of his emaciated calves.

  He shouted, but his cries were rendered mute by the removal of his tongue in the previous room of the warehouse.

  Blood poured from his mouth, running down over his nose and dripping from his forehead in thick trails.

  His eyes were wide, seemingly on the verge of flying out of his skull and landing at Davey’s feet.

  The man on the platform moved in, and Davey was reminded of the ruthless efficiency of the Cullsmen.

  There was no hesitation, no flicker of emotion, no remorse or even thought about what he was about to do.

  He slammed a small – but heavy-headed – hammer into the base of the hanging man’s skull.

  The resultant crack was enough to sicken Davey to the very pit of his stomach, even more so when it echoed around the warehouse for a few seconds after the impact.