by Hopkin, Ben
At Darc’s side, Trey ran a fist through his hair. “Dude, I’m cool with going back.”
Rather than respond, Darc gave his partner a look. It was the one Trey called “the look of death.” Darc had found it to be effective in dealing with his partner’s trepidation in the past.
But as his partner held up a hand to take back his statement from before, a movement just beyond Trey’s head caught Darc’s eye. One entire row of carcasses was swaying in perfect sync. Only the one row moved. This was not random movement from the ventilation system.
Trey must have noticed the change in Darc’s eye-line, for he spun around to see what held Darc’s attention. He raised his gun, pointing at every corner of the room.
“What?” Trey demanded. “What the freak are you looking at?”
But for Darc, all that existed was the swaying of the animals. A set of symbols formed, coalescing in Darc’s mind and immediately falling into place. There was no doubt now.
“He thinks himself so clever,” Darc said.
Trey continued swinging his weapon around. “He who? Clever how?”
Darc walked to the door on the left and pushed it open. The sight on the other side of the door caused his partner to groan.
“God’s testing me, he really is,” Trey stated, as he peered into the room. “I will not swear. I will not swear.”
* * *
The space was small, and strange echoes came back every time she moved. The metal walls of the scary tunnel boomed like a drum when she pushed against them with her hips or her hands. The noise was scary, but she couldn’t move ahead without making it.
She could hear her own breathing. It was loud and fast. She tried to do what her daddy always told her when it was bedtime and the monsters in her room scared her. She counted to ten real slow, breathing in on one number and breathing out on the next. After a little while, she could feel the pounding in her chest slow down some.
Thinking of her daddy was hard. He had tried to be so brave when he was here. He was smiling at her, telling her it was going to be okay. But it wasn’t okay. It would never be okay.
Not unless she could find the man. The man with the bald head and the dark eyes. He didn’t smile at her. He never smiled at her. But he made her feel safe when he was there. She had to find him.
She grabbed her bear, Popeye, and hugged him tight. His name hadn’t always been Popeye. When she had gotten him, his name had been Paddy. But when his one eye had fallen off and Mommy had stitched it back on, her mommy had said that maybe Popeye was a good name for him now.
It was a good name. It had made her laugh. And he smelled good. He smelled like her old home, before all the bad stuff happened.
As she smelled him again, a different smell—a bad smell—came up from a hole in the side of the tunnel. It made her scrunch up her nose, it was so bad. She tried not to breathe too much until she got past it.
And then there was a noise behind her. It was really scary, even though it sounded like it was a long way away. She started moving faster.
She knew the man was somewhere up ahead. He would make it okay.
He had to.
CHAPTER 12
Trey was devastated. And more than a little sick to his stomach.
There, laid out in front of him—in front of all of them and God—was the sausage-making room. This was so not okay. Trey was pretty sure his life would never be the same again.
The room was not as large as some of the suckers they’d gone through so far. But what it lacked in size, it totally made up for in making Trey’s past breakfast crimes stand out in stark relief.
On one end of the room was container after container filled to overflowing with what Trey figured must be meat. But it was not any kind of meat he had ever seen at the grocery store. There were bumps and lumps that shouldn’t be there, and the colors and textures were just…gross.
Trey had never been much of a guy’s guy when it came to the whole hunter-gatherer thing, much to the disappointment of his dad. Trey liked his meats prepackaged and covered in plastic. So his experience with this kinda stuff was admittedly limited, but seriously…what the crap were they putting into those sausages? Trey couldn’t tell, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to find out.
Off to the side of the stacked containers with the “meat” in them were huge, industrial-size grinders. Bits of ground meat clung to the metal, the stuff around the plate turning a dark black color.
There were some huge mixers and the stuffing area crammed into the other corner of the room. Boxes of intestinal linings processed to become casings for the sausages were stacked up next to the machine that was used to fill the tubes.
The smell was a bizarre mix of pleasant spices and decaying meat.
Officer Benti cleared his throat before speaking. “So this is how they make it.”
“Oh, I did not want to see this,” Trey groaned. “I like my breakfast meats. I need my breakfast meats.”
Working on keeping his mind off of what he had really been eating all these years, Trey looked around the room. As far as he could tell, there was exactly nothing here that could be of any use to them. Of course, he wasn’t the savant here.
Looking over at Darc, Trey could tell his partner was just as frustrated as he was. His fist was clenched at his side, and the muscle in his jaw stood out in stark relief from the rest of his face.
Darc had seemed so positive when he opened up that door. Sure that this was the way they needed to head next. Seeing him stymied now, practically paralyzed by his apparent lack of information, was profoundly disturbing.
If Darc couldn’t figure his way out of this puzzle, who on earth possibly could?
* * *
Once it was clear that neither Mala nor the officer could find any way to get into the ventilation shaft to drag Janey back out, they were immediately at odds. The only real solution here was for someone to go into the building and search for her. The officer was having none of it.
“I’ll go in myself, then,” Mala countered.
The cop, Officer Roberts, huffed in exasperation. “You don’t seem to understand. When the captain says ‘locked down’ until he gets here, we are locked down.”
Mala felt a slight wave of sympathy for Darc. This must be how he felt constantly. Rules, the rules that Mala usually embraced, were in the way here.
“She’s by herself,” Mala pleaded.
“We’ve got twenty men in there.”
Could he really believe that was an answer? There were so many things that could happen to Janey while she was in there by herself, not all of them related to the possible serial killer lurking in the shadows. She was crawling around a ventilation shaft, for crying out loud. Mala had to quell the urge to just shove the police officer out of the way.
Then an idea sparked. “What does Darc say?”
Roberts dropped his eyes, his expression somehow ashamed and guarded all at once. Mala had seen that same expression too many times not to know what it meant. Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong.
“We’ve…we’ve lost contact with him,” the officer stammered finally.
“What?”
“Actually, with two teams.” Roberts lifted his eyes back up to meet Mala’s. She could see the earnestness radiating out of his face. “So, can you see why we’re in lockdown?”‘
Yes, she could see. She could see very well. And what she could see was the possibility of her young charge getting seriously hurt.
If Officer Roberts truly thought Mala would just sit here and let that happen, he had another thing coming.
* * *
There was something wrong here. Officer Larry Benson had started off this whole search just trying to keep from thinking about this being the place where his steaks came from. Now, the sight of organs and unidentified cow parts was getting a little ho-hum.
He and Murdoch, the other cop with him, had dug their way through three different rooms filled with stuff that Larry didn’t even want to thi
nk about. They were now sorting through bins and bins of entrails. And he was tired of it. Maybe he should pretend to puke so he could run out of here like Suvall had. Sissy punk.
Thirty-two years he’d been on the force. He knew what a royal screw-up looked like. And this was it, baby. Might as well drop trou. They weren’t going to find anything here.
“Yeah, just more guts,” Larry grunted over his shoulder at Murdoch. “Didn’t ever think I’d say ‘just’ when referring to intestines.”
“At this point, I’m just hoping we don’t find much. Can you imagine what it’ll be like if we have to sort through all this shit? Like Humpty Dumpty on crack,” Murdoch muttered back.
Off to the left of them, there was a muffled screeching sound. Both the cops swung around, reaching for their weapons. It sounded like it had come from behind a door that was snuggled in between a washbasin and some kind of machine that did who knew what.
Larry glanced over at Murdoch and saw the sweat beading up on the officer’s brow. At least Larry wasn’t the only one that was freaked out at this point.
Murdoch whispered, without taking his eyes off the door, “Should we wait for backup?”
“We are the backup.”
Stepping over some organ meat that had spilled out during the search, Larry kept his pace dead even with Murdoch as they both approached the door. It was probably nothing, right? One of the other two teams, or maybe a carcass that had slipped off a table. No biggie.
Larry spoke into the radio at his shoulder. “We’re going in.”
This was nothing. He knew it was nothing. Thirty-two years on the force, you knew stuff.
This was nothing.
* * *
Grown-up men were crying. The sound echoed through the tunnel and scared her so badly, she dropped Popeye. She scooped him back up and squeezed him tight.
The sounds forced pictures into her head. Pictures of badness.
Mommy and Daddy, their faces squished up and tears falling from their eyes. Smiling and saying nice things, but their voices saying bad, bad, bad. Red everywhere. Red covering everything so she couldn’t see Mommy or Daddy anymore.
She huddled in a corner of the tunnel, holding Popeye tight so he wouldn’t be scared. She sucked her thumb, even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to. She couldn’t help it.
There were no crayons here. No markers. She couldn’t draw badges. So she drew them in her head, making them big enough to cover Popeye and her both. She stayed there in the badges until the sounds stopped.
It took a long time.
* * *
Screams crackled over the radio as Mala and Officer Roberts listened in horror. It was the one team with whom they still had radio contact, and it sounded like they were being flayed alive. If there had been any uncertainty that this was the right place, that doubt had fled with the horrific sounds of the police officers being eviscerated.
“No, no, no, no…” Roberts grabbed the radio. “Benson! Murdoch! Get out! Get out! Do you copy?”
But all that came back over the radio were their continued screams. One set of cries choked off in what sounded like a gurgle of blood. The other continued on until it finally faded away to nothingness.
“Oh, no. No.” Mala was sick. Sick from what she had just heard. Sick from the fear she felt for Janey, Darc, Trey, the other officers inside. Sick from the knowledge that she had allowed a little girl to come to the place not only where her parents had been butchered, but where the killer lay in wait.
Officer Roberts wiped his eyes brusquely, evidently embarrassed by the emotion he felt at the death of two of his own. She would say nothing, but her respect and regard for the officer rose several notches. But it was clearer than ever that they had to get Janey out. Now.
She opened her mouth to start her arguments, only to have him cut her off cold with a finger pointed straight at her. The finger quavered, as did the voice that followed it.
“It’s not going to happen,” Roberts retorted to her unasked question. “Those two were good men. We’re not losing more by sending them in blind.” Mala started to protest, only to be overridden once more. “I get that you’re worried. I am too. But until we have eyes back in there, we wait. We wait. Understood?”
Mala held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. As much as she wanted to claw her way into the structure herself, she knew he was right. She would just have to trust Janey’s instinct for self-preservation. As for Darc, she was pretty sure he didn’t have any.
Trey’s would have to serve for both of them.
* * *
As the screams ended, Trey and the rest of the group bolted in the direction of the sounds, seeking out their location. Trey had just enough time to realize he had willingly run toward danger, and was about to pat himself on the back, before he saw a figure dart past them, covered in what looked like blood.
“What the—?” Trey managed.
Darc rushed off after the figure without a word or a glance to his companions. Typical. Somehow, every operation ended in Trey’s chasing frantically after his partner in a labyrinth of death. He turned to James and the other guy, whose name he could never remember.
“You two follow the source of those sounds. Benti, you’re with us.”
Sometimes Trey forgot just how fast Darc could be when he really wanted to get somewhere. He was like some kind of tall, dark bunny rabbit or something. Okay, maybe he could come up with a cooler animal for his partner, but that was what he looked like right now.
Right up to the point where Darc was hit in the side of the head with a side of beef. No sooner had Trey had the thought that this had to be the weirdest weapon he had ever seen than he and Benti were struck by another. The killer was whipping the flanks of meat down the tracks with superhuman speed. They weren’t just getting hit by meat. They were getting pounded by hundred-pound meaty juggernauts.
Trey caught a glimpse of their suspect, wielding a meat hook, which he used to fling the carcasses in their direction. He almost managed to avoid the next one before it smacked him in the side, knocking him to the ground. He found himself staring up at the ceiling and realized the meat had to travel along the set tracks laid up there. Clambering back to his feet, he shone his flashlight above him.
“Heads up, guys!” Trey shouted at the others. “He can only hit us if we’re under a track.”
Just as he spoke, he saw the figure sprint through an open door, slamming it behind him. Arriving at the door together, Darc, Trey, and Benti shoved it open and burst through into…
A maze. A freakin’ maze.
If Trey had thought the gutting room was big, it was nothing compared with this one. There were metal chutes everywhere, curving around so that you couldn’t see all the way down any one of them.
After work one night, Trey had started watching a documentary on Temple Grandin that talked about her work, specifically where it related to slaughterhouses. He had found out a couple of things before he was so bored, he fell asleep in front of the television.
One, Grandin was high-functioning autistic. Trey had thought that was cool, since he dealt with it every day. But when he figured out that they weren’t going to tell him how to better handle his partner, it became a lot less interesting. He already knew the amazing stuff people with autism were capable of. Duh. He saw it every time he went to work.
The other thing was why the chutes that led to the hammer-punchy-in-the-head thingamabob were curved. Grandin had come up with that idea to keep the cattle from getting stressed out by seeing what was about to happen to them.
Great for cows. Not so great for detectives trying to track down a serial killer.
And they had to go through this freakin’ maze of death. Trey had to admit, he was getting pretty sick and tired of this serial killer. He had never had to run so much on a single case in his entire career. And he used to work in vice.
“Bugger this. Where’d he go?” Trey complained.
Darc did his scan-the-room thing but app
arently didn’t come up with anything useful. He turned to Trey. “We should each take—”
“No.”
Darc tried again. “If they are booby-trapped, then we should spread out the risk by—”
“No.”
And once more for good measure. “It is an inefficient use of—”
Okay, time for a more detailed explanation. For such a logical guy, sometimes Darc just didn’t think things through. “Yeah, like I’m going to take a path you clearly didn’t think was the best one.” Trey let that idea sink in for a second. “Whichever one you pick, I’m following right behind.” He turned to Benti. “You do what you want.”
Benti snorted. “You kidding? I’m on your six. And seven. And possibly eight.”
Yeah, that about covered it. Trey turned back to Darc. “Well, big guy?”
Darc turned to the labyrinth of chutes in front of them, clearly not pleased but probably figuring he’d get more accomplished by moving forward. Which was exactly Trey’s plan, with one small addition: move forward, don’t die. It was a simple plan, but he was proud of it.
Looking at the chutes directly in front of them, Darc moved toward the one on the left. Trey decided that maybe it was time to speak up.
“You sure? That left one didn’t work out so well last time.”
Darc just glared at him.
“Okay, okay.”
And on that note of shared confidence, they entered the chutes.
* * *
Popeye was getting restless, she could tell, but it wasn’t always so easy to know what to do. She rocked back and forth, looking at where the shaft split in two. She didn’t know which way to go, and Popeye wasn’t helping. He was very, very naughty sometimes.
Down one of the paths, there was a cool breeze that ruffled her hair and Popeye’s fur. It smelled good, like when it rained or when she went down to the water and played in the rocks.
From the other one came a low moaning sound. It sounded scary. And it smelled bad.
Then she thought about what was behind her. If she turned around, she would be with the pretty lady. The lady was nice. She said soft things to her.