Chapter Five

Hide in the cupboard but not in the oven

I don't want to go in those pots they got bubblin'!

-'Hungry for another one' by JT Music

Six looked at the passing hooks, mesmerized. They seemed to run along a track, starting from what Six could only assume to be the Janitor's lair, running to who-knew-where. Most of the hooks were empty, but every so often one would pass by with a wrapped bag hanging off of it. One of the bags had fallen to the floor and sagged there looking hopeless. Six inquisitively pulled up a part of the wrapping to see what was inside and immediately wished she hadn't.

Meat, fresh and raw. A single piece formed of squishy clumps twisted together into a single whole. Six remembered what the boy had said about the other half chosen to become food and shuddered, dropping the wrapping back in its place, for in that moment of realization she thought she saw the curve of what had once been a face, smoothed and warped into a singular slab of meat, integrated into the whole. Whether that had been her imagination or not, she would rather not think.

Despite her determination not to think of such gruesome matters, her mind began to ponder how the small bodies had come to look like this. Had the bags been circling around so long that the children inside had grown up? Had the confinement of the bags cramped their growing so that they developed into these meatbags? Or maybe there had been something on the way here – chemicals, perhaps, or some kind of magic – that had forced them to grow up quickly and folded them into the boneless cadavers that they were now.

Six shook the thoughts out of her head, forcing herself to think straight. She needed to get out of the room. That much was certain. But how?

The hooks. Six's eyes followed them out the gap and into the mists beyond. They didn't seem too slick. Her arms were strong. All she needed to do was get up to them, hang on, and they would bear her away. The only problem was getting up to them. They swung tantalizingly close, but not close enough. She needed a footstool – something to climb on. Her eyes alighted on the sack on the floor and she grimaced. Her stomach curled with even the thought of touching that thing again, but she tentatively stuck her foot onto the wrapping and began to climb.

Ugh, it's squishy, she thought, her mouth wrinkling in disgust. The meat was cold. She could feel it through the wrapping. She tried to ignore the sensation of walking on raw meat, for all at once the thought arose that maybe, like in the Janitor's room, the mind within was under a spell. What if the meat was still alive? What if she woke it up? What if while she was walking around on its back she suddenly felt a heartbeat? What if it started to breathe? What if—

The next hook swished above her head and Six leaped for it without delay, curling her feet toward her chest and looking back toward the slumped sack which looked as dejected – and unalive – as ever.

I should really stop thinking such things, Six reprimanded herself, unclenching and letting her legs swing free. If I get too scared it's going to get me into trouble one day.

Once the shock left her, Six began to enjoy the sensation of swinging through the air. The cool, moist wind swept past her legs and the fog around her gradually dispersed, layer by layer, each becoming lighter than the last. The rattling of the track above her was the loudest noise around, but she could hear the distant noise of thundering gears, the hiss of steam, and the very present sound of air whooshing past her ears.

Finally the last layer of smog faded away and Six was able to see where she was going. Another large, metal-structured erection, to all appearances like the one she had just left. Except, she thought, this one is closer to my journey's end. Wherever that may be.

Six became aware of another sound coming through the hovering darkness. A low, burbling sort of sound, annunciated by an explosive hacking noise, like someone trying to cough up a hairball. Six turned in the direction of the sound – which was harder than she presumed, dangling as she was – and saw up above a parapet jutting out of the side of the metal structure before her. On the structure was a figure, mostly shrouded in the smog, but she recognized that lumpy, slouched silhouette in an instant. It was the fat cook from the kitchen who she had seen in the magic moving pictures!

The fat cook was staring over the line of oncoming hooks, obviously scoping out how many bags there were. Six shifted, wondering if he would look at her next, but the fat chef only turned and walked back inside, his calculations apparently completed. Six breathed a sigh of relief.

And then she was swallowed by the opening before her. She was inside. The track continued on into the depths of the building, but twin clamps descended on either side of the hook Six was on and the jolt shook her loose. She fell, but landed on something squishy and uneven. Grunting with each harsh bump, Six rolled head over heels down the decline. She landed with a roll at the bottom and staggered backwards, trying to regain her breath, but as soon as she saw what she had been rolling on, it was taken away again.

A mass of those heavy meat-laden sacks lay in a heap below the hook clamps. They must be there to shake these bags loose, Six thought through her daze. She scanned the heap up and down, seeing here and there a bit of uncovered tendon, a strip of red, or an exposed slab ready to be chopped up and cooked. Six turned away in disgust and began down the corridor.

And then the disgust twisting her stomach took a sudden turn and twisted in a different manner. Again? Six groaned, curling in around her gut. This circumstance had become all too familiar for Six to be much more than startled, so she waited out the primary hunger pangs until they allowed her to move again.

I need to find food as soon as possible, she thought, peering about as she trotted forward. If I don't, I'm not sure what'll happen. Shouldn't there be a kitchen around here somewhere?

The Hunger set in again and Six slumped, gritting her teeth. Black spots were dancing before her eyes and the pain savagely tore at her middle. It's getting worse, she realized as she rose. Last time I felt like I could eat almost anything. Now I feel like I really could eat anything. Even—

Her mind turned back to what she had just left. A ripe mountain of meat just there for the taking.

"No!" Six exclaimed aloud and hurried forward, hand clamped over her stomach. That unwanted thought had horrified her, yet her mind kept running over it again and again. Just a taste, it coerced. Just a little taste. Just to keep the madness at bay. Who knows if you'll find anything else in time?

As the Hunger rose to its peak yet again, Six sank to her knees, the chorus becoming deafening in her ears. She wanted that meat. She wanted it so badly! Who cared where it came from? It was something to slake the gnawing greed. It would go away as soon as she fed it.

No, no, no! Six thought, realizing she had been crawling back as her thoughts prompted. She tried to fix in her mind the wrongness of it all, how it should not be, no matter how much she willed it, but arguments always rose again, even as she limped in the right direction.

It was just meat, wasn't it? She was hungry, wasn't she? It was there for the taking. Who cared where it came from? Who cared what – or who – it had been before? She had eaten the meat the Janitor had baited her with. It could have been the same thing. Who was she to judge?

Six whimpered in her throat, wondering how much longer she could hold out. A black spot hovered before each eye, whipping back and forth. She realized she was dimly looking at a rat scurrying on the floor before her. It saw her, squeaked, and tried to run away, but fled right into a large rattrap in the middle of the floor. It struggled, but the trap pinned it too tightly to move.

Six limped toward the struggling creature, the voice of her madness singing in her ears. She could see the tendons tight beneath the fur, the ripple of moving muscle as it shook with fear. As soon as she was close enough, she grabbed it. Instead of its movement dissuading her, it fueled her greed as a dog is stimulated by the struggles of a bird he's caught in his jaws. She ripped into the rat's neck, cutting of its frantic cries, digging past the fur into the red meat within, holding down its hind end as it lashed about with its tail. The rat's blood pulsed out onto her face and down her chin, but she lapped it up like water, going back for another mouthful. The rat stopped moving. Six stopped eating. She stood and backed away.

For a long time, Six only stood there, staring down at the mangle remains of the beast she had eaten alive. Its matted fur was stained with blood and its throat was torn open. I did that, Six thought, unconsciously rubbing her bloody hands on her yellow raincoat. I did that.

But then she thought of the alternative and pinched her mouth shut, moving on. If it was between eating dead human meat or eating a live rat, she was willing the rat should be the one to fall.

But why? her mind insisted on wondering. The humans were already dead, after all. Do you have such respect for the dead that you resist feeding off one?

Six had very little respect for the dead, and very little superstition of any curse that would arise from doing such a deed. She was too young to wonder the ethics behind her actions, but something had told her that succumbing to those urges, feasting on once-human flesh, would be – in simple terms – yucky. Yuckier than eating a rats, no matter how that rat still wriggled. In her book, some wrongs were worse than other wrongs.

…

If only I had held out a little longer, Six thought, dropping into a pantry. She scanned the laden shelves, admiring the bunches of carrots, barrels of potatoes, buckets of fish, and many other assortments of food. She touched a nearby stalk of celery as if daring the Hunger to strike again while she was surrounded by things to eat, but there never felt even a grumble. Six couldn't help feeling relieved, for even though these things were available and seemed nourishing, the Hunger seemed to have moved beyond such meager pickings as carrots and onions. Not now that she had tasted live meat.

Unwilling to pursue these thoughts, Six moved out the door and across the corridor. Her steps slowed as a noise came to her ear. She could hear the bubbling of pots on stovetops, the sound of meat being chopped, and – worst of all – the sound of heavy footsteps moving around. Six quieted her footsteps and crept to the doorway. Inside was a monster.

The fat chef, dressed in stained apron and white chef's hat, slaved over a slab of meat, digging into it with a knife in brief spurts, taking breaks in between. His face sagged and drooped, his cheeks weighed down with their own mass, keeping his mouth perpetually open. His fingers were thick, but they clutched the knife with strength. The hem of his apron obscured everything but the very bottoms of the chef's black shoes, black as the chef's dark eyes. He snuffled as he worked, his throat letting clogged breaths into the air. Every so often he wheezed something that might have been a song.

Six found herself fixating on the chef's face, peering into the sagging curves around his eyes. Something seemed wrong about it. Well, maybe 'wrong' was not the best way to explain it, but she felt as if it was off somehow. Perhaps it was the waxiness of his skin. Maybe the gap between the skin around his eyes and the eyes themselves. Maybe how the flab on the back of his neck stretched the wrong way when he leaned over too far.

And then it all made sense as the chef reached into a gap in his skin between the neck and the chest and gave whatever was under it a scratch. He's wearing a mask! Six realized suddenly. This discovery, although startling, did not unnerve her as it might have. Instead, it intrigued her. She took a step forward.

And then the chef turned around. Six's heart leapt into her mouth and she ducked underneath a nearby countertop. But he didn't seem to have noticed her. Instead, he merely turned to a bowl on the counter, took a piece of sausage, and dropped it into a nearby pot. Six saw the boiling water splash out on the sausage's impact and drew her feet in a little tighter. The chef didn't seem to notice. He wandered into the next room. Six followed.

Inside was another kitchen, much more massive than the last one. The walls were lined with stoves and ovens and an island in the middle with even more. Cooking utensils hung on the walls and an enormous firepit stood along the back wall, several pots thickly bubbling over its flames. The fat chef moved through the kitchen, his white hat all Six could see from the far side of the island that separated them, bobbing among the kettles.

She spotted some movement. Two Nomes scurried out of the shadows, brushing past hanging ladles and potholders with only a little noise. Six watched their progress to the opposite side of the room and followed one's path, determined to make as little noise as they. But as she moved, her hand grazed an oven's open door. With even that slight touch, it jumped shut with a resounding slam. Six could hear the chef's burbling wheeze change a note and a low growl stick in his throat. His steps came closer. Six cringed against the oven's side.

Then she heard a shrill cry, overshadowed by the cook's gurgle of triumph. Six decided to run for it while the chef was distracted by whatever it was. She slid underneath a wooden table and kept going, peering back in his direction. The chef held a struggling Nome – presumably one of the ones she had just seen – in both meaty fists, a string of drool dripping from his half-open lips. The Nome whimpered like a hurt child – the first noise Six had heard out of the creatures besides their initial scurrying. It wasn't even struggling anymore. Just shivering. Six fled up the short flight of stairs to the back wall, still keeping her eyes on the captured Nome.

The chef gurgled again, sounding very satisfied. He held the Nome pinched in one hand and took a knife in the other. He began to slit open a fish that sat nearby on a cutting board. Six took a desperate look at the door along the back wall. Locked with a padlock. So she couldn't escape right now even if she wanted to.

The Nome shrieked again and Six turned back. The chef was in the process of lowering the Nome into the opened belly of the fish, trying to cram it in like stuffing. Six's heart twisted and she gave the nearby shelf a kick. One of the precariously balanced items on the top bounced and then toppled, falling to the ground and smashing open. The cook turned immediately, his piggy eyes glancing every which way to see what had caused the disturbance.

And then he saw her.

Six had been under the impression that the chef was dull and heavy, that since he had such weight on his frame that he was slow. She realized as he thundered toward her, knife clenched in one hand, Nome forgotten, that she had been sorely mistaken. Six began to climb the shelf, thankful for the many handholds. She could hear the keening cry of the chef as she clambered her way upward, kicking off the drawer rungs and onto the stacked shelves. She felt the wind of the chef's hand pass by her feet and almost felt his rubbery fingers slide off her soles, but then she was safe on top of the shelf, the chef looking stupidly up after her. She climbed even higher into the rafters where pieces of meat and enormous raw fish were hanging, ready to be processed or cured.

Six couldn't help smirking at the chef's dumb face as he bumbled around below her, bubbling incoherent words. He looked around, hurried to the table, and picked up a piece of cheese. He held it up to her, attempting to smile, although she couldn't see much of it through the mask, beckoning with his free hand. "'ood?" he gurgled. "'or 'oo! Goo' 'ood!" And he shook the cheese as if that made it more inviting.

Six played along, acting as if this interested her. She moved a little closer and peered down. The chef seemed excited. "shee?" he asked, holding his hand up as far as it could stretch. "I 'on't 'urt 'oo. 'Ome 'own 'ere." And he beckoned again.

Six pinched her lips together in a considering gesture, cocked her head, and then shook it, turning away. The chef's consoling gurgle became a panicked bubble of incoherent speech as he ran below her, shaking the cheese in her direction, and then picking up other foods and attempting to bribe her with them. But Six was tired of that game. She moved on, balancing evenly on the wooden rafters. Below her, the chef began to rage. She merely smiled to herself and began to climb some of the stored meats that had been left in containers. Mostly fish, although there was also some bread. Now, to find the key for the door, she thought, wriggling through a panel and leaving the chef to throw his tantrum alone.

The panel led to a bathroom, oversized, as usual, with two toilets seated close together. Why anyone would need two toilets that close together was beyond Six, but she ignored it and pressed on. There was another small corridor beyond the bathroom door and Six walked down it, taking special note of the elevator on the right-hand passage. That's my way back down once I find the key, she thought to herself.

The farthest door creaked as Six leaned up against it, palms to its thickly grained wooden surface. The darkness inside sent a shiver of apprehension up her spine and she almost backed out again, but Six forced herself to press into the room. Only after her eyes had adjusted did she notice twin beds in the center of the room, their headboards pressed up against the wall. A shadowy mountain lay slumped in the second bed, a snore issuing with every fluctuation of its breath. There's two of them? Six exclaimed internally. She nearly jumped backwards as the mountain's snore hitched, but did not relax when it settled back into its pattern.

The key, Six's fearful brain reminded. I must find the key. It must be in here!

Quiet as a mouse, Six started forward, her heart leaping into her throat with every creak of the floorboards. After her stint with the Janitor, every minimal noise sounded raucous. Every step was like a salute from a shotgun.

Then Six was under the bed. She felt a little safer, but only at first, for as soon as she was under the occupied bed she could hear the stretching of the overburdened springs and a terrible image reached her mind of the bed breaking and the mattress falling on her head. The claustrophobic feeling of the imagined weight was very real in that moment and Six was out from underneath before she had any recollection of moving.

But where to then? Six peered squinting into the darkness trying to scope out the key. Up above, dangling in the blackness, was a glimmer almost too dark to see. Keeping her eyes fixed upon it, Six began to ascend a nearby dresser, the handles of the drawers acting like rungs of a ladder. Her ears were still pricked to any sound.

With a slam like a gunshot, the door to the room closed, shut by the ever-present rocking. Six's heart almost stopped as the figure in the bed shot upright, grunting and untangling blankets from its massive figure. Her hands bore her upward as the figure straightened, groping in the darkness for the light-pull. The room was lightened just as Six reached the top of the high dresser. She cowered, but the monster did not seem to have seen her.

Six crept forward, only the very tip of her hood extending beyond the dresser's edge. Her heart stopped again as she saw hollow eyes looking up at her, a gaping mouth opened in her direction. She almost lost her wits completely before some more collected part of her brain informed her that the figure had simply pulled up its grotesque mask onto its forehead and the scant excuse for the monster's hair was showing through each eye socket. After this conclusion was reached, Six still felt devoid of movement, watching mesmerized as the dislocated face stared blankly in her direction, pivoting with the movement of its wearer. She was in no position to see the monster's true face, but the mask and the garb was almost the same as the chef's downstairs.

Twins, Six guessed.

The twin chef reached up with chubby fingers and pulled the gaping mask into place, plopping down a chef's hat where the mask had vacated. He gave a burbling sort of sigh, or maybe a grumble, and stumped out through the door, leaving it to swing open behind him. Six waited for several long, tense minutes before daring to move, certain that with any movement would come swift retribution.

But the twin chef did not return. Six remained alert, however, and calculated every movement carefully before making it. Soon the key was hers and she was taking it down the elevator to the lower level. I need to be extra cautious, she reasoned as the elevator descended. There are two of them there now, and if they see me…

Six didn't even need to finish that thought. She simply shook her head and stepped out of the elevator, but something stopped her from going toward the kitchen. A noise, a certain sound issuing from the pantry gave her pause. Six's curiosity piqued and she set the key down beside the door, heading in the opposite direction.

At first glance the pantry seemed the same as ever. Six gave a quick glance and was almost ready to turn around, giving it all up as a figment of the imagination, when an especially large jar on the floor jumped. Six blinked and with her second glance could see the shadowy figure of a Nome trapped inside the jar. Every time it jumped, the jar lurched. Unfortunately, it was making rather too much noise for comfort and Six hurried over to try and quell the Nome before its antics gathered too much attention. This plan was a failure, however, for the Nome seemed even more excited by her approach than before. Its jar tipped over and he rolled clanking over the floor. Six looked anxiously back through the doorway and wrung her hands.

Finally, in a desperate attempt to get the Nome free, Six picked up the jar in both hands and threw it toward a nearby barrel. The jar shattered and the Nome scuttled free, coming forward to hug her around the knees. She gave it a quick squeeze, but she could see the impending figure of one of the chefs coming steadily in her direction. She gave the Nome a little push toward the shadows and bolted out the door, snatching the key up as she went and ducking through a ventilation hole into the kitchens. The chef continued on to the pantry, glancing about suspiciously. Six let loose a pent-up breath and continued to the larger kitchen area, skirting the second chef who was bubbling to himself about nothing, and climbing up the short stairs to the locked door. The key fit perfectly and Six let herself in.