blurred but the tone lewd, drunken.
They walked to the side of the building, Dunphy fumbling at his pants. Moments later, Jack heard the sound of the cook’s piss hitting the ground.
Then, as if hearing Jack’s thoughts, the three walked around to the front of the building. Cool night. Maybe it was hot inside.
Jack waited.
A few more steps, and the three of them stood near the front, out in the open. The laughter faint now. The bottle still being passed.
He took a breath.
Struggling to remain in the crouch, he hurried to the two open doors at the back of the building.
* * *
That’s what he thought going in. Huge bubbling pots, the floor filled with blood.
A big oven under the chimney had massive black pans and pots bubbling away. On the other side, a walk-in freezer. The biggest walk-in freezer Jack had ever seen.
The walls, lined with saws, bolt guns, butcher knives.
The image so powerful he didn’t move, even though Dunphy could walk back and find him any minute.
And how would that go down? Jack thought.
Not too well.
He moved to a table to the right, a solid block of thick wood. He crouched down just in case the cook returned. On the floor something glistened. A curved butcher knife that must have fallen off the table.
Across the way, the entrance to the freezer. He crouch-walked his way to the double doors of the freezer.
He moved behind what had to be a twelve-foot-long table as if he was a soldier moving up on a target.
He looked around as he moved.
This kitchen, this insane place with its smells and cooking pots, could all be seen from here.
He saw something on a table across the way.
His attention first drawn there by the steady drip, drip, drip of blood running off the table.
His first thought:
Like when desperate cattle ranchers fed their steers the dead offal of other creatures … anything to try and make some money.
Who’d be crazy enough to eat Can Heads, knowing that whatever threw a switch turning them into feral animals could be within them, ready to infect whoever ate it?
He slowly stood up, keeping his ears cocked for the sound of Dunphy and his laughing companions.
When he stood he could see the table, and what was on it. A body. First thought: They are dismembering the Can Heads and using them for food. For the chili, for the stews, for whatever the hell they served and ate.
But after a glance at the open back doors, Jack took a step toward the table, then another. Expecting to see some crazed Can Head face on the table.
The face, smeared with blood, but intact. Though already, its legs had been removed. One arm left.
He fought the gag reflex.
Until the angle was about right and he could really see the face.
Jack realized that he had been pushing that thought away the whole time.
Still no sounds from outside. It had only been minutes. They could stay out there for awhile, letting these pots bubble away.
He turned away from the big wooden table. Next to it, the freezer.
He hobbled his way over.
Hand on the freezer door. It had a latch that could be thrown over the handle and a place for a massive lock. But the latch wasn’t flipped, and there was no lock in sight.
He grabbed the handle. Important to pull it gently, he told himself. Don’t want a telltale click that cuts through the night sounds.
He pulled back so slowly.
He felt the latch disengage, the large freezer door ready to swing open.
When it was free, he pulled on the door smoothly now. A cloud of frost rushed out.
He saw metallic shelves loaded with covered plastic trays—so many, stretching to the full height of the freezer, which was nearly as high as this charnel house itself.
And deep. The freezer went back and to the side, easily half the length of the whole building.
When Jack walked in few more steps and the frost settled, he saw the hooks.
A row of fifteen metal hooks. Things hanging from them.
Different sizes.
His brain screamed at him:
More steps into the freezer, his strides kicking up icy clouds as the humid air from outside also entered the freezer.
He saw the bodies hanging from the hooks.
God. The bodies.
Still dressed. Different sizes, because some were adults.
Some were—
Children.
He was close enough that he could touch the nearest, a woman. His hand felt the frozen, crinkly material of the skirt. The body twisted a bit, the head hanging down, gaping right at Jack because the hook had to be embedded in the back.
Sharon Blair’s eyes wide open.
Her dead, dull face for once registering something.
Horror.
His mind repeating dully:
Things that had to be done. He had seen enough. He knew enough.
He limped out of the freezer. As carefully as he had opened it, he shut it.
He went over to his hiding place, near the fallen knife. His journey from there seeming to have started a lifetime earlier.
Before he knew—really knew—
Crouching down. Listening. So quiet.
34
