Trembling With Fear 07/31/2022

Flesh Unknown, by Katie Conrad

I had just started carving the last pig of the day when every alarm in the place went off. The flashing red lights, the ones that go beepbeepbeepbeepbeep, the ones that go WHOOOOP WHOOOOP WHOOOOP. The whole works.

“What the…?” I dropped my cleaver. There was no one to answer me but the dead animal laid out on my block.

I peeked into the hallway just in time to see a lab coat racing past, black braid waving behind.

“Dr. Robertson! What’s happening?” She turned back for a moment, her sky blue eyes a smoky violet in the flashing lights. She shouted, but I couldn’t hear her over the racket. 

“What?” I called. But she was gone.

By then my nerves were tingling. I don’t know what the scientists here do, exactly. The staff are divided whether it’s cloning, aliens, or alternate dimensions. But it takes a facility so secret and so isolated they produce their own food rather than have it flown in. So when the alarms go off like that in a place like this? Well, it can’t be a good sign.

I went back for the cleaver and wiped it off on my apron before heading down the hallway in the direction Dr. Robertson had gone. The only door on that corridor was locked. I swiped my key card but nothing happened.

I jogged back along the hall toward the living quarters. Not a soul to be found there. The hairs on the back of my neck were well and truly pricked by then. 

“Hello?” I yelled, straining to be heard over the alarms. “Is anyone here?”

No one answered. I pounded on doors as I hurried past. They didn’t open. 

Something was very wrong.

I ran down the hall, no longer bothering to knock. The place had obviously cleared out.

But why? Was there something the scientists hadn’t bothered to tell the lowly butcher? But it wasn’t just the scientists; the cooks and cleaners and farm hands were gone too. Why should I be left behind? 

Wrapped up in these thoughts, I was barely paying attention when I reached the staircase at the end of the hall. I didn’t look down until my foot hit something squishy. I threw myself to the side, already too far into my next step to stop, terrified I was about to crush someone.

Why would someone be lying on the stairs? My mind flashed through the nightmare scenarios–slip and fall, mass shooting, gas leak–but it wasn’t a person. Something was growing on the stairs. Mold? How could so much mold grow so quickly? I extended one hand and poked the mass.

“Sweet Jesus.” I snatched my hand back.

Not a person. But definitely flesh.

It looked as if a snowfall had drifted down the stairs. The top steps were covered, but only a little reached the bottom. Except instead of snow it was flesh, and instead of drifting it had grown. The stuff seemed to be sprouting from the floor, fresh skin smooth as an infant.

I hesitated, glancing behind me. The only other exit from this floor was across the building. God only knew what I would find there. 

I’m not a squeamish man. Couldn’t do the job if I was. But pigs, cows, chickens–there’s a natural order to them. This? This was something different.

I breathed deep to calm my pounding heart. I wiped one sweaty palm, then the other. I got a good grip on my cleaver and I charged up the stairs.

My feet landed on tile for the first few steps. Then I rounded the landing and there was nowhere clear. I had no choice but to climb the fleshy ramp, trying to ignore the spongy feeling under my feet. 

The flesh grew higher with every step, and soon I was crouching to avoid hitting my head. The ceiling was covered in the same mass and in only a few more steps I came to a solid wall of the stuff.

I felt desperately along the barrier, like a broad hairless abdomen. There were no gaps. It stretched from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. I tried to turn back. There had to be another way. 

But the flesh was still growing behind me, closing in on me. Frantic, I turned back toward the top and raised my cleaver. The flesh gave way under my blade like any other meat. Only there were no bones, no organs, no tendons. Just skin and muscle and blood. 

Good God, the blood.

I hacked away, too panicked to cut smartly. Not that there’s a smart way to cut such a shapeless thing. The blood wasn’t half so horrifying as the thought of that flesh pressing in around me, squeezing the air from my lungs. I cut and chopped until my arm was weak. I began to worry the entire upstairs was filled with the stuff, when suddenly it pulled away. 

The flesh receded as though being sucked back, and in a moment I stood at the top of the empty staircase. With an audible POP the flesh resolved itself into a new, smaller shape.

Dr. Robertson stood before me, an ice cream cone in her hand.

“Jerome, there you are! You almost missed dinner. “

I gaped at her as I collapsed against the wall, gasping, and slid down to lie on the cool, fleshless floor.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s–” I pointed behind me. But the stairway was clear. No flesh. No blood. The alarms had stopped, too. “But it was just–I saw you, downstairs? And the–the flesh, it was right here, how did you…?.”

She frowned. “Are you alright? Oh, no, is that blood yours?”

I looked down, surprised to find I was coated in blood. 

“Let’s get you up.” She extended a hand. Her gaze met mine, and I recoiled, stumbling back onto the stairs.

Her eyes were emerald green.