Sam opened his eyes to blackness, a zipper pressing close to his face. "Dean? Where are we?"
"I don't know, my hands are tied. Can you see anything?"
"No, I think I'm in a...a garment bag."
"Hold on, I think the zipper got caught on the inside, I'm gonna open the top and see what's around." he said, as his teeth worked a little opening over his face. "Oh crap."
"What is it?" asked Sam.
The zipper over him parted, and he was surrounded by faces framed against industrial lighting, machinery booming and whirring in the background. Hands stripped away the outer wrapping and hoisted them into the air, until Sam and Dean were hanging by their ankles from meat hooks, their heads inches from a conveyor belt that was slimy with other men's blood.
The Ohio State Penitentiary had changed a lot in the last year. Instead of orange jumpsuits, the convicts were naked, their heads tossed down a garbage chute, their bodies divided into quarters, and their organs stored in separate containers as delicately as ripe fruit. The convicts who were allowed to work the assembly line looked on blankly, and Dean noticed that TVs were crammed into every corner to distract the workers from the livestock.
i"Omega-3s are a family of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential nutrients for fetal health and development," said the perky pregnant woman in the TV ad, "However, the standard Western diet is greatly lacking in Omega 3's, which is where the Long Beach supplements can really do some good..."/i
"Ah, Mister Winchesters." said a male voice. A suited man bent sideways to look at Sam, who was now seeing everyone upside down.
"I know you?" asked Sam.
"Mister Roman sent me to oversee the plant," said the suit, "He'll be happy to know you two dropped in."
"What's with the factory?" asked Dean, "Too lazy to make your own Manwich?"
"Mister Roman noted the expense of the American penal system, and saw that, by depressing the unit price, he could take advantage of the economy of scale."
Dean opened his mouth for a witty retort, but none came. "Sam, what the hell'd he say?"
"Prisoners cost a lot of money to keep alive," said Sam, "It's cheaper to eat them and sell them to the public as a health fad."
"It's called reciprocity," the suit said, poking Dean in the stomach and watching him sway on the meat hook, "The citizens don't have to look both ways when they cross, and we get your livers."
"I ain't your hot hors d'oeuvre." said Dean, smiling back, though the effect was somewhat marred by the fact that he'd gone purple from all the blood rushing to his face.
"Whatever," said the suit before turning away to leave, "Next I see your ass, you'll be paste on a cracker."
They waited a minute for him to walk out the door, before Dean began to seriously panic, his hands fumbling at the zip-ties on his ankles. "Sam!" hissed Dean, "Plan! Now!"
"Why me?"
"Cuz I can't get to my gun. It's in my jacket, if you can get to it..."
Sam looked up at the meat hook. The point was not especially sharp, but he found that looping the zip-tie over the curve and pulling with all his weight stressed his bonds enough to let him wriggle loose.
"Hey!" said a worker, his arms bloody up to the elbows. Sam punched him, his body swinging backwards from the force.
"To me, Sam!" said Dean, working on his restraints. Sam swung sideways, his hand grasping at empty air as he tried to grab at Dean's jacket.
"You're too far!" said Sam.
More workers were coming for them now, young men aged by violence and abandonment, as a commercial for Long Beach Sirloin played in the background.
"Stand back!" warned Dean, as he got his hands on his 9mm, "I've got enough bullet for all of you!"
It was a bluff, but he hoped it would give Sam enough time to free his ankles. On the TVs, a bombshell blonde opened the hood of a red sports car, licking her lips as she threw a raw, bloody steak onto the engine block.
"We're not cons," said Dean, "We're just passing thru town. We don't belong here." On the TV, the meat sizzled and popped on the steaming engine.
"They belong here more than anyone," said a woman's voice from a high platform, "They killed all those people in the banks."
On the TV, the bombshell bit into the half-raw steak, blood dripping down her cleavage.
"They're monsters," said their hostess, one hand placed beatifically on her swollen belly, the other hand at the assembly line control panel, "And we eat monsters for breakfast."
Sam and Dean collapsed onto the conveyor belt, the meat hooks disengaged, and suddenly they were whisked away down a dark chute, the air foul with the smell of cooked flesh.