Fresh Meat

Madge’s eyes raked over the numbers, her heart beginning to pound in her ears. She spent the next five minutes checking the math over and over just to be sure. The pen she had been gripping clattered to the floor as Madge stumbled off of the stool and past the swing door.

They had finally made it.

“Jean!” she called out. Madge made her way to the back of the diner’s kitchen, her muscles straining as she hauled open the deep freezer door. The loud cracking and mashing sounds ceased upon entry.

Dark red spots and splashes covered Jean’s plump yet robust body—the grease-stained apron she wore was essentially useless, but the woman insisted on wearing it—and her frizzy hair was pulled back into a bun, also caked with blood. “Kid, can’t you see I’m in the middle o’ something?” she asked, the flesh of a mangled thigh in her grasp. Whoever that might’ve been had to have been tall and lean.

“We did it.”

“Huh?”

“I-I was counting the numbers from today, a-and I wasn’t sure but I redid the math like eight times.” Madge stammered over her words, the exhilaration surging through her veins. “One million two hundred fifty-six dollars and thirty-seven cents.”

That thigh thumped on the concrete below, and the two just stood there staring for a moment. Then they took each other into their arms and began squealing and jumping like schoolgirls.

Oh, the relief—they had finally made it.

Almost five years.

No more raids. No more sneaking customers to the freezer for a “free tour” then shoving them down the human-sized meat grinder. No more all-nighters secretly buying ammunition and cleaning the evidence. No more shaping all that mush into burger patties. And best of all, no more serving those snobby rich people—goodness, being a waitress for those people had been the worst for Madge, but it would all be gone now.

Those one millions dollars meant freedom from this hell hole.

After the exciting part had been over, and a few tears had been shed, Madge left to the small closet that they had used for an office to send a telegram to the boss. They’d be out of here, and out of this post-apocalyptic life, by sunrise.

Madge was admiring the rifles on the wall reminiscing—all that pain and suffering that she had caused or that she had felt—when Jean slid open the barn door to the compact office. Madge had been grinning.

“Jean, ma’am, what are you planning to do when we roll out of here?”

However, Jean didn’t answer her and instead placing a familiar blue trucker cap on the desk. Madge’s brows furrowed, her heart sinking at the thought. “Ma’am, that’s Billy’s.”

Jean placed her hands on her hips, an exasperated sigh escaping her. “He was planning on snitching. I knew me and you were close to being done here, and I couldn’t risk it. I’m sorry, kid.”

Madge’s voice became small. “No… Billy was only poking fun. You know that, right Jean? H-he would never, never even think— snitching on me? Me. C’mon, ma’am, you know that’s… preposterous.”

Jean only shrugged, as if saying, “Oh, well.”

Madge slumped against the wall, too overwhelmed by everything to even formulate a normal reaction. She guessed that’s what’s bound to happen when being to used to sticking real bones down a meat grinder—maybe she was bound to become numb to regular human emotions.

“You never liked him, did you? It was all ‘cuz he was one of them tall and skinny ones. Not enough meat to be worth salvaging.”

“Now let’s think about this, dear.” Jean’s older timbre had always been comforting, despite the circumstances. “You’d only known Billy for less than a year, and his family is with that team of sheriffs. If he found out, which I’m betting that he got a whiff of what we’re doing here, you really think he would favor you over his daddy?”

Madge scowled, taking his hat by the brim, her fingers brushed over the dusty fabric from riding out in this desert. Billy was really gone, wasn’t he? A somber, bitter feeling washed over her. “That’s cruel, ma’am.”

“No, it’s honest. I stopped sugar coating things for you when you were fourteen.”

“I was taken at fourteen, Jean.”

Jean reached up behind Madge to take down her lucky rifle, her eyes glazing with memories of the moments of adrenaline that the weapon had brought her. Apparently, she thought it was best to move past that topic as soon as possible. “Hey, remember when Omar tried to flee the business and two hours later we found him and he was shot on sight? Ha, good times. You made a great shot. You’ve been making great shots in the past four years.”

“Five, Jean.”

“See? It’ll be many more when you an’ me get outta here. We’re all we got.”

The expression of Madge’s face softened. “You still want to stick together after this?”

The woman’s reply was cut off by a rapid, continuous booming erupted from above the roof, and for a third reason that night, Madge’s heart began to race. She stood, a sense of panic running down her spine. “Jean, you forgot to turn off the turrets! The body of the van is gonna be destroyed!”

Madge rushed back into the kitchen to head out back when an iron grip seized her arm, yanking her backwards. “The van isn’t going to come get us for at least two hours. That ain’t them outside—”

Then bullet shot straight from the diner entrance whistled past her ear, grazing the lobe. Madge hissed and crouched beneath the workstation.

Not the van.

Definitely, not the van.

Jean moved quickly. Madge reached her hand up on the workstation, feeling around until she could grasp the knife.

“WE’RE NOT LETTIN’ YA BOTH GET AWAY—” one was screaming as he barged into the kitchen. Madge through the knife from her spot with precision. It landed in the man’s leg. His crying out was cut off by the loud boom of Jean’s rifle from the office.

Straight through the temple. Idiot.

More of them “honorary” deputies were to follow.

“Freezer!” Jean ordered, more ammo and a carbine in hand.

Madge wasted no time, putting her legs and back into it as the steel door groaned ajar. Even with the hatch itself being sturdy, he rest of the raid were bound to barge in soon enough. Being in there put as much time between to two parties as possible. Both of their fingers worked meticulously to load up the weapons, despite the cold.

“Billy told anyway, dammit,” Jean grumbled, cocking the gun. The booms of a battering ram against the entrance echoed against the walls. “Good thing he’s in the mush bin now.”

“Oh God, would you shush?”

Not important. Especially when the ground shook upon the door falling.

Madge let her bullets fly, hitting the first one in the chest. And the rest was a blur.

Madge’s skin broke when the bullets grazed her along her arms, her face, and her thighs. Yet more and more were coming. Backing down was not an option. Cracking someone’s skull with the butt of her gun. Shooting up another’s chin. A blow to her stomach. Red lined the walls and her ears rang so much, she was convinced they too would bleed.

Then in the commotion, time froze when she saw Jean’s eyes bulge, that damn apron chafing her neck. Suffocating her. Until she fell. Unconscious. More likely dead. Madge couldn’t hear her own scream as her vision turned the rest of the room red.

Someone definitely got shoved down the human-sized meat grinder alive. Maybe two someones. And yet the crunching of the bones and the pure, excruciating agony of their screams only fueled her.

And somehow…she survived.

The other fourteen didn’t. And that included Jean. Though that stubborn woman had taken out at least half before she went down. All that had come to raid them now were left as mush in the burger meat bin. Good riddance.

Crickets chirped in the distant desert, the sky still an indigo shade with a sliver of orange peeking on the horizon. Standing outside the diner filled with corpses. The black van screeched to a halt, and a masked man emerged from the back.

“Big day for ya,” he said. “You must be elated, dearie.” That was all he said. He didn’t care that only one remained when three hours ago it was supposed to be two.

Madge felt nothing. The only sign of emotion on her face were the dried up tears that had all been spent. She hauled herself into the back of the van, and it hummed as it drove away from this hellhole.

She had finally made it.

And yet it felt so empty now.