Felix is homeless. There are rumors of homeless people disappearing. Security Officer Roberts is night gate guard at a slaughter house. There have been visits by Negore Heidenreich, management, except Negore is not even an employee.
Dead Animal Farm (3300 words)
Security Officer Roberts watched the car with tinted glass approach. Always at 0300. Three times in the last six weeks. He pulled his jacket collar closed and opened the guard shack door. In the darkness he could barely see the driver hunched over the steering wheel.
A cow bellowed. Officer Roberts glanced toward the pens. One with horns had its head up. It’s eyes shined from reflected parking lot lights. Most of the cows were docile. That one probably somehow suspected what was coming.
Roberts stopped by the driver-side door. The window moved smoothly down with a soft hum. An expensive automobile.
“Name please.”
“Negore.”
“Thank you. Last name?”
“Heidenreich.”
The name and appearance of the man made him think of some macabre character from a horror movie.
“You know my name,” Negore said, “Why do you always ask?”
Yes, he knew the man’s name. But asking was a way of soothing his suspicions. What he wouldn’t give to search this vehicle when it left. But for what reason? He had none, and Heidenreich was a bona fide employee, “Regulations,” he answered, “What department do you work in?”
“Deboning.”
Nobody’s working in Deboning tonight, so why are you here? “Thank you.” Officer Roberts then opened the vehicle gate and motioned the man in. Shadowy eyes glanced at him as the car passed.
Deboning. What a joke. Roberts locked the vehicle gate and returned to the guard shack, then pulled the employee list log and wrote, 0300, Negore Heidenreich, special night duty.
Yeah right. What duty? What could the man do in just a few minutes that took place only at 0300? Fill that plush auto’s trunk with steaks, that’s what. And nobody ever looked at the log, and to get somebody to actually look at the log, he would have to have a good reason. That is, a reason beyond suspicion. He felt like sneaking back there. But it was quite a distance. And he would have to get back to the gate in time to let Heidenreich out again.
****
The clock said 0552. Roberts was gazing through the frosted guard shack window toward the pens. The last load of range cattle had been mostly quiet for over an hour. But he wasn’t interested in looking at cattle slated for sirloin.
His relief was nearly a half hour late.
He moved to the south window where he could see the whole parking lot.
A man was coming. Available light showed a black uniform, and a badge glinting. It had been a long twelve hours.
He sat down. In another few seconds he heard his relief stomping snow from his boots. Then the door opened. “Morning, Parnell.” He decided not to mention the lateness of the hour. It didn’t happen that often.
Officer Parnell waved, then shivered, “Cold out there.”
Officer Roberts signed his daily record, then pushed it across the desk and handed over the pen. Parnell signed, then glanced over the night’s events, “I see Negore was here again.”
“Yep.”
“That must get kind of hard on the sleep.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, his normal shift is 0600 to 1800. In fact, he’ll be here any time.”
“Yeah?” Officer Roberts glanced at his watch, then decided to stay. He wanted to see this Negore character up really close once. Because of the fancy car he had figured Negore to be part of management rather than a twelve-hour working stiff like himself. And because he was being relieved late he wouldn’t have long to wait.
“There he comes.”
The man approaching was walking tall and straight.
“That’s Negore Heidenreich?” Roberts asked.
“That’s him. Well, hell, you must see him often enough when he leaves at night.”
“I don’t pay that much attention to people leaving,” Roberts mumbled.
“What?”
Roberts waved, something was coming clear to him. Heidenreich would always get there in the morning after Roberts was already gone at 0530, his normal relief time, and people coming to the day shift did not have to sign in. So Heidenreich would leave at 1800 quitting time and Roberts would have never known who he was. He decided not to share anything with Officer Parnell right then. Not that he had anything to share except suspicion, “Am I relieved then?”
“Yeah.” Parnell waved him away.
“Thanks.” Roberts slipped through the door just as Negore Heidenreich reached the walk-through gate. He came face-to-face with the man at eye-level. Sharp, piercing eyes. And Negore was taller than he had thought, at least six feet. “Morning, Negore.”
The eyes didn’t change. The facial features did, though not exactly into a smile. But he did answer, “Morning.” Negore didn’t stop to chat, which didn’t surprise Officer Roberts, but the man did glance back, “You’re leavin’ kind of late, aren’t you?”
Roberts gestured backward with his thumb, “Relieved late.”
“Too bad.” Negore turned away and picked up his pace toward the employee check-in building.
Roberts gazed after the man. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except that this man was not the man he had let through the vehicle gate at 0300. Two men named Negore Heidenreich? Both working at Folman Beef? Not really likely. He watched until Negore reached the check-in building, then turned to walk to his car, but through side-vision he swore the man glanced back. He jerked back in that direction but saw only the slim form of Negore’s backside disappearing.
Did the man suspect Roberts suspected him? Of…something? Were the two Negores in cahoots? Many possibilities nagged at him as he continued to his car. What he knew for sure, was that the next time Negore Heidenreich made a late-night visit he would challenge the man. Leaving the parking lot he met still another van load of range cattle arriving for slaughter.
****
Meter inspector Logan’s 12-hour shift didn’t end until 0800. By then he would have made his last maintenance round and most of the day-workers would be on the floor. He had not returned to the rendering area since the meeting with Negore. He never went there except for necessary checks, and for the meetings with Negore. And he did not wish to even think about those meetings.
This morning would be different.
“Hey, Art Logan!”
Logan had just entered rendering, his checks nearly complete, and would have headed for the maintenance office where he would turn in his log, punch out, and get the hell out of there for 12 hours.
The man who had shouted was an acquaintance, not a friend. Stringy blonde hair swirled from under his blue helmet. He stood grinning in a cluster of six other men and one woman. All were peering into the huge jaws of the pre-breaker. “Hey, Art, c’mon over, man. What’n hell ya doin’ in here late in the night?”
“Checkin’ meters and gauges.” As Logan approached the group his stomach began to feel queasy. That feeling intensified when he stopped. Heat spread through him. He felt a drop of sweat forming in each armpit.
“Meters’n gauges, eh?” The man pointed, “Well, just take a gander down that pre-breakin’ sleeve.”
A ghastly falling body flashed through Logan’s mind. He never looked down the sleeve afterward. He just pushed ‘start grind’ and ‘stop grind.’ Negore always looked. The goddamned fool. Was he getting sloppy? Logan reached the sleeve.
“Look down there, Art, goddamn it.”
In his mind Logan stormed at his antagonist. He didn’t want to look, but he did. For what seemed like a hundred hours all he saw was a torn body shredded into bloody pulp. After two or three seconds his vision narrowed.
His antagonist pointed again, “That’s a goddamn human finger, Art.”
Logan didn’t know how he did it but he kept his cool, “That’s a strip of fat, you dumb ass.”
His antagonist laughed and slapped his shoulder, “Had ya goin’ though, didn’t we, Art?”
Everybody laughed. Logan hoped he managed a smile.
Another worker piped up, “We had bets goin’, Art. We wondered if ya were grindin’ up winos.” The man, skinny with a rust-colored goatee, pointed at another who likely hadn’t changed clothes in a week, “Manferd, there, figured ya were gettin’ rid’a bodies for the local gangs.”
Again everybody laughed. Logan didn’t look at Manferd nor acknowledge any of the other comments that flew around the small group. Eventually the laughter ended and people began moving away to their individual jobs.
When alone again Logan looked down once more at that grayish, slimy thing about ten feet below. He couldn’t swear that it wasn’t a human finger. It truly was mangled. But a speck on the elongated glob was glinting. Could be a fingernail. He knew the pre-breaker sometimes left very small body parts lying below the auger. This time it had.
****
Felix gripped his whiskey. His hand was so cold it conformed to the bottle. He had been in the snow and cold and without a proper diet for so long, that, after hearing something unusual, it sometimes took days before the actual meaning of words in a conversation made sense to him.
He remembered the anger in his buddy Roddy’s voice that morning under the bridge, then the fear, “You’re crazy.”
“I could be,” was Alman’s reply, “I hope I am.”
“The dead animal farm?” Roddy had been almost crying.
And maybe that’s what had thrown Felix. He remembered his grandpa talking about the dead animal farm. As an eight-year-old it had sounded something like a place where old animals went to retire, and, probably, eventually, die, and then have a funeral. His grandpa had never been entirely clear about the details. And Felix had never pressed for absolute information. He had preferred his own fantasy idea, especially when Dixie and Daisy, two Percheron workhorses, pets to Felix, had gone there. Yet the name ‘Dead Animal Farm’ had never quite matched his imagination.
Upon reaching adulthood he left the farm and took a job at the local packing plant, and soon learned the truth of what really had happened to Dixie and Daisy. The truth broke his heart. Even so he stayed at the plant for nearly twenty years. But somehow he avoided ever seeing the rendering area, even though he knew what happened there.
Then one day he got to work early. He watched a van of, evidently old, but gentle, Holstein dairy cows being unloaded…the same kind he had milked by hand on the farm. One cow fell and couldn’t get up. No time was spent trying to help her. First came the stun gun, then the tractor and loader. Felix knew what was coming next. Without consciously planning to, he followed.
When the tractor reached the pre-breaker with its stunned but still alive load, Felix was there too. The whole cow was dumped into those monster spinning teeth, then augured to finer and finer grinders, then to a huge tank to join other ground up carcasses, finally to a manure spreader which would deliver the nearly liquid remains to agricultural field land for fertilizer. That’s when Felix finally accepted the truth of the so-called ‘Dead Animal Farm.’
He walked away from his job that day and from then on did only odd jobs. He soon lost his home and found himself with no family and penniless, and far from any person who had ever known him. He didn’t care. Now, three days after hearing Alman’s rumor, the truth was, again, finally, sinking in.
Rendered.
Never sober up had been his code for more years than he could remember. But now he had stayed sober for three days and it had not helped.
Rendered into fertilizer.
He didn’t want to end that way. Yet, he did want to end, and had gone to drinking again. He tipped up the pint bottle. Part of the whiskey went down his throat, part down his chin. He was approaching oblivion. He felt the cold but no longer cared. He just did not. And the rumor of homeless people becoming fertilizer was beginning to matter not at all.
Time passed.
Felix lay quiet in the snow. No cap. No gloves. Empty bottle cradled in his left armpit. He was nearly blue. He looked dead.
Two police officers were contemplating him. “Another one got caught up north,” one said.
“Yeah,” the other answered, “I don’t know why they even come up this far. Do you suppose they don’t understand the concept of winter?”
“Hell, what difference does it make? Let’s just call Heidenreich’s, and let them clear it with the city.”
Neither policemen checked for a pulse.
****
Security Officer Roberts knew the approaching car was Negore Heidenreich. 0300. Right on time, but only a few days had passed. This time he would follow. Once the car disappeared around the back, if he went through the middle of the building, and ran, well, there were a few places he could see outside. Just so he didn’t run into meter inspector Logan. But Logan had to be in on it, whatever it was.
****
Logan waited by the overhead door and checked his watch. 3:03 a.m. Headlights would soon appear. A half hour had passed. Never took longer than a half hour after the phone call.
****
Felix had been awake for a few minutes. He had sensed movement, that he likely was in a car or something. Difficult to breathe. He was still drunk but knew he was naked, and cold, and wrapped in slippery plastic and with what he thought was a rope around his middle. But the rope was outside the plastic. He began to feel a little panic, and began groping at his wrappings.
****
Soon as the car disappeared Officer Roberts locked the guard shack door and the pedestrian gate. Then he ran about fifty feet to the main entrance, up the steps, through the door, down two sets of concrete steps, through another door, then stopped.
Headlights were passing the huge down ramp at the north side of the sprawling building, going east. Not toward deboning, where Heidenreich claimed to work. What was east? Boneshine? Rendering? What the hell? What would they be stealing from there? He reached another door, eased it open.
The headlights kept going east, toward rendering. He stood for another second, until the taillights appeared, then ran again. He dodged huge pipes and valves and braces, leaped over a foot-wide belt that never stopped turning, and finally reached the last door before rendering.
Closed. And locked. In the time it would take to reach another door the deed could be done. He started running again, faster and harder than ever.
****
Headlights appeared on the snow. Logan hit the switch for the overhead door. Negore backed in. No use closing as the operation would take no longer than five or six minutes. He heard a thumping sound, then…a voice? Yelling? The sound was so muted that Logan dismissed it as his own stomach acid working overtime. Negore pushed his door open, then popped the latch on the car’s trunk. Logan began lowering a hook toward the rope wrapped around a bulk in black plastic.
****
The movement stopped. Wherever Felix was going he must be there. Then came what sounded like a car door closing, then another sound, closer…a trunk latch releasing? Then came movement on his plastic wrapping—hands? His breath froze in his throat.
****
The expensive automobile rose slightly as the black plastic load left. Hmmm, Logan thought, must be a big one tonight. He positioned the load over the pre-breaker sleeve and began lowering. All it would take was a few turns of the pre-breaker jaws…then came that muted voice-sound again. Maybe cows bellowing. Sometimes Logan could hear the beasts’ mournful voices in the far parts of the building. Hearing them always gave him the creeps.
****
Felix had barely found his own voice. He felt most of the pitiable shout he made had stayed in the plastic with him. He had mostly forgotten the rumors, and had very little sense of what was happening. The whirring motor that evidently was moving him around soon reminded him of the packing plant where he had worked so long ago. That same whirring sound that moved sections of beef around. Strange he would think of that right then.
The whir stopped. He imagined being suspended in air. His mind picture saw a section of beef kind of jiggling, as it always did after its journey was over, just before workers with knives and saws began hacking on it. Then his mind-picture began changing as he began realizing where he might be…
****
Logan’s finger hovered on the pre-breaker switch, “There was a finger left down there last time, Negore. Make damn sure it runs long enough.”
Negore produced a knife and ignored Logan’s comment, “Start it.”
****
Felix barely made out a word or two. Then came another mechanical sound, heavier, a clunking, and very loud. Where had he heard that brutal sound? His mind-picture changed to that gentle Holstein cow being dumped into those gigantic teeth and jaws where they ground whole animals, whole cows, whole horses, into fertilizer.
Fertilizer—
The knife slit the rope. The plastic unraveled.
Felix had no more thoughts. But in the one or two seconds it took him to drop, his body had time to scream, a meaningless squeak drowned by the clanging roar of the pre-breaker.
****
Logan hit ‘start grind’ just before Negore used the knife. He watched the plastic unravel and the body fall—were the eyes open? Didn’t matter. Dead bodies often had wide-open eyes, but they were still dead.
DEAD.
The pre-breaker clanked and ground.
About twenty seconds passed.
Negore peered down the sleeve, “That’s enough.”
It was gone. Just an it. What difference did it make? The body was dead. Just dead meat.
Logan hit ‘stop grind.’
Silence.
As Logan approached, Negore turned and said, “Our arrangement might have to shut down for awhile.” He held out his hands. Along with the plastic and cut rope—which Logan would dispose of in two places–was a piece of paper.
Logan accepted the items, “Why?” He knew the paper contained the date and logo of Heidenreich Funeral Parlors. Proof. The slip of paper would provide Logan with $100. How much Folman Beef would receive he didn’t care, and evidently disposing of the nonpaying funeral clientele by grinding was cheaper than cremation, which, the city, officially, paid for.
“I think the security guard is getting suspicious,” Negore said.
Roberts, that snoopy little weasel! “He could always become our next client….”
Negore shook his head, “Find out what you can about him. My distant cousin can maybe come to work a little early some morning.”
****
Officer Roberts arrived and hid behind a ceiling support just as Negore was returning to his car. Negore had the same sharp eyes, and was taller than he had thought, but was humped again. Definitely two different people. Some shit was going on all right. He just knew it! This time he would inspect Negore’s trunk. He would turn that fancy car inside out if he had to. He hurried back toward the guard shack.
****
Logan closed the overhead door, then walked to the pre-breaker sleeve and looked down. Empty and clean except for some fluid that looked like weak pink lemonade. He grabbed a hose and eliminated that. Later that morning his antagonists would see no finger, no nothing. When the kill operation commenced, the human body would disappear into whatever cows and other miscellaneous body parts were rendered out of the day’s quota of 600 head of cattle. No shred of anything other than bovine would remain.
But they would have to do something about Security Officer Roberts.
--0--
Nice and brutal. Did I say, quite profitable as well? Makes one wonder how the bodies of homeless are treated. I'm sure many undertakers have undertaken shortcuts and profit-making enterprises with their indigent clients. I used a similar theme for removing bodies of sexually violated young monks in my novel, American Mole: The Vespers.
I really liked it. A sense of the macabre without all the stupid fantasy that usually runs through macabre stories like Stephen King's.
Gave me an idea for a short story. Thanks. When I was a teenager, my brother and I would always want to fish in one of the best spots in the whole area… Below the local rendering plant. So I will serve up a tasty story treat for everyone to snack on… Yummy.
Farctured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces, Part II satirizes popular children's stories into adult-oriented renditions. FFFF &FF, Part II is also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats.
