Everything was upside down, in a haze with no real exactness to convey the situation he was in. Everything in his world was swinging slightly from side to side, an immense pressure was building up in his head, his eyes felt as if they’d pop out of his head if he stayed this way any longer. The room was dark with no windows, only the darkness to keep him company. The cold was almost unbearable. Ice had formed around his eyes and he shivered. His thoughts reached the conclusion that he was dead, but why would he feel like his head was bashed in with a brick? Why was he cold? Shouldn’t he be burning in fire and brimstone?
Small drips could be heard among the rubbing of rope on metal. Eddie could hardly move his body now. He looked upwards, the pressure releasing slightly. He swung a little harder now, but his stomach couldn’t hold him up any longer. He fell back down and swung a little more.
He was obviously tied up right now. His head felt like he just finished a hard night of drinking, his temples throbbed uncontrollably, and the harder he tried to think, the worse he felt. The cold didn’t help either. The shivers were getting worse the more conscious he became.
Eddie closed his eyes. The last thing he could remember was that he fell from the second story of the warehouse, falling unconscious and then he woke up here, wherever here was. His pockets were empty and his bag was missing, which reminded him that he needed to call Sam about Breaburn and the conspiracy. He couldn’t do that being tied up in some mystery room.
His phone was lost with all his other equipment. He let out a big sigh and shut his eyes, his mind quick at work to figure a way out of here.
Eddie’s eyes shot open as he heard muffled voices nearby. The muffled yelling got closer and closer to Eddie. He quickly shut his eyes and went limp. He could hear a door burst open, followed by the yelling he heard just earlier. Light pummeled his eyelids. Eddie risked a glance with one of his eyes, peeking to get a glimpse of where he was.
The light was blinding at first, his eyes watered, pressure built up in his tear ducts. His face scrunched lightly and his stomach sank. His breath shot outwards, visible in the cold air.
“Hey! Looks like this ones is still alive.” The voice was followed by a chuckle.
Eddie tried to blink away his tears, but all he could see was black silhouettes against the light. A slimy hand grasped under Eddie’s chin and yanked him upright. Eddie tried to pull back on instinct. The things breath was atrocious. It smelt like sewage water and rotten garbage.
The thing grabbing Eddie’s neck moved its head as close as it could, examining Eddie’s eyes intensely. The sound of bubbling water was present under the things chin. Its head turned to the other figures that had moved into the room. “Hit the lights. Let’s show him the meat locker. I think he will enjoy this.” The thing’s voice was muffled under some sort of mask. Every word he spoke was followed by bubbling.
The lights flicked on all around, showering Eddie in illumination. He now saw what he was faced with. Despair worked its way to the forefront of Eddie’s mind. He spoke out under a sigh, “Of course it had to be mutants.”
Before him stood a fishlike, frogman, something that could only crawl from the depths of a sewage dump. A clear mask filled with murky water was strapped to his head, cradling the gills on his chin. It bubbled every time he took a breath, a large bag expanding from his neck each time he did so. Its green skin was covered in slime, cold and clammy to the touch. His puffy lips spread all the way across his amphibian face.
The others behind him were just as grotesque as usual. Horns, fleshy aberrations jutting in random places, tentacles, multiple eyes, the whole works spread out within their ranks. Eddie watched as the picked saws and knives up from some tables nearby. They went off in different directions behind Eddie.
“You gots the lists boys. You know what to butch up.” The frogman turned back to Eddie, “We’ll keep this one fresh.” The frogman grabbed the rope that held Eddie, heat was misting off of the murky water bowls. “Yous a lucken one. When we finds you in that yard, we mades you were dead, just some roadkill to add to our stock.” The frogman turned Eddie around, his chest pumped outward with pride. He smiled, his mouth stretching from ear to ear.
Eddie coughed up as he was spun to face behind him. He had almost vomited on the icy floor. Crystalized blood was frozen to the walls and floors all about. Bodies hung from the ceiling swaying from side to side. They were all frozen rigid. Faces of horror spread across the open mouths that tried to scream for help in their final moments.
They were all adorned with worn out clothes, mismatched and uncleaned. Eddie came to the conclusion that they were homeless throughout the city that were snatched up and brought here, but for what reason.
Eddie watched as two of the mutants grabbed a body. The first one held it steady while the second started to saw the limbs off of the frozen dead body.
Eddie flinched away, his gut wrenching with what he had seen. There must be hundreds of bodies here alone. “What are you doing with them?” Even though he asked the question, at the back of his mind he knew exactly what these bodies were used for. He wanted to hear the words from the creature’s mouth.
The frogman licked his lips, “We’s a eatin them right up.”
Eddie tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but the pressure to his head was starting to get to him, along with the realization of what was about to happen. He was alone. No one knew he was trapped in this cooler from hell. Not even Kregg, who had left him behind at the warehouse. There was no help coming for him now.
Eddie suddenly wished he had died.
The frogman let go of his rope and he turned back towards the door. His eyes moved to the table near the door where the mutants had grabbed their utensils of butchery. A slim mutant, way too emaciated to have a set of normal organs within its body, was going through Eddie’s personal effects.
It pulled out his cellphone and brought it as close to its head as possible, examining it for whatever it needed. The stick mutant bent all the backwards and looked at Eddie. A normal person’s spine would have broken in half from the angle. Its beady, black eyes were squished together on its pinhead. A tiny mouth the size of a quarter opened, “Phone’s broke.” It held up his phone with a miniature hand adorned with thin, wiggly fingers. The phone was broken in half, the glass shattered out, and the insides frozen.
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Eddie scoffed. He was going to be eaten alive and this boneless thing was informing him of his phone’s condition.
The bendy boy snapped back upright and began to rifle through Eddie’s bag once more. It picked up his light emitter and examined it for a second before tossing it aside. The slender hand’s flimsy fingers grabbed one of the UV grenades and looked at it for a second before tossing it like before. The grenade rolled over near Eddie, his eyes followed it intently.
Next was the plasma knife. The stick boy pressed the button on the hilt and it buzzed to life. He swung it around a few times before he took it over to a nearby frozen corpse. He bent forward with ease and pressed it to the shoulder joint. The knife cut right through the body like it was warm butter.
“Froggenz!” The small mouth shouted in a high pitched squeal. “Look at this knife the surface dweller was carrying.”
The frogman slapped his large webbed feet over to the mutant. He grabbed the knife from the mutant. He pressed it to the other shoulder, slicing through the frozen meat with ease. They both laughed together while they whittled away at the corpse, cutting chunks of human flesh with joy.
While the mutants were distracted, Eddie started to swing towards the UV grenade, his hands closing in on the object with each swing. He moved his vision to the mutants still cutting away, joy rushing over them like children on Christmas morning. His final swing achieved his goal. His hand wrapped around the blue sphere and he brought it up to his chest.
The mutant known as Froggenz walked back over to the prisoner hanging upside down, “What’s this knife? Hmm?” The frogman kicked Eddie with his webbed feet, taking a deep breath through his murky water. He held the knife down to Eddie’s face. “Makes more of these and we won’t have to eats you.”
Eddie chuckled nervously, but the knife was right in front of him. It was now or never. He pulled the pin from his grenade and let it roll from his hands. He pushed outwards on the frogman’s legs, forcing himself to swing backwards. He shut his eyes and waited for the small explosion to light up the oversized meat cooler.
The grenade burst and light overcame the frogman and the stick boy, both shouted out in pain as their sight was taken from them.
Eddie opened his eyes as he started swinging towards the frogman, the plasma knife in sight. He reached out and with all the agility he could muster, he snatched the knife from the frogman. Triumph shot through the young techs body. He could use the knife to cut his ropes and escape the bonds of the mutants. He had to be quick before the UV’s effects would wear off.
He used all his strength to pull upwards. He grabbed his leg and began to pull himself up to the rope holding him to the ceiling. The knife buzzed to life as he swung it at his bonds.
A movement off to his side caught his attention at the last minute. A fist swung out, smacking him square in the face. His nose filled up with pressure. He swung back down, dropping the knife to the floor. His head was in a haze more powerful than before.
“Where are you going?” A thick boney hand reached down and grabbed the knife. A mutant with a large pig’s snout stood in front of Eddie. It had several hooves on each hand. Its eyes had been grown over with pink, fleshy skin. One of its ears and been bitten off by the looks of the marks left on the remaining ear. “I got’em Froggenz.” He turned to the frogman, who was wiping the spots from his eyes.
“I can deal ‘em a beating. Get back to cutting the meats.” The frogman walked over to Eddie and kicked him again. “You bad, ball bustin, fleshy.” He slid his webbed hand into his pocket and pulled out a small pocket knife. “I carve you bit by bit.”
The door to the meat cooler opened again and more mutants, grotesque and horrid, poured into the butchery. Froggenz looked over at the newcomers, “Get to cutting!” They grabbed saws and knives from the table next to the door. A blue-skinned mutant was last to enter. He looked normal, save for the four arms he had instead of two. “AH! Four arms eh? We get twice as much cutting done now. Good mutant blood in you.”
The four-armed man smiled to accept the compliment. His arms rested inside the old coats and raggedy clothes that adorned his blue body. His eyes scanned the cooler, locating every last mutant occupying the frozen space. He took small steps towards Eddie, his breathing increasing as he closed the gap.
The four-armed mutant walked up to Froggenz, his smile still hanging from his face. “I may look like a mutant.” The blue man finally spoke, “But a god’s blood flows through my veins.” One of the arms shot out of the wad of dirty coats covering his body. It gripped Froggenz by the throat and tossed him at the table by the door. Saws and blades flew into the air as the table fell on its side.
The other three arms sprouted from his coat mass with several pistols. He picked the most harmful targets first, pulling the guns’ triggers in careful bursts, each hand moving independently to the other. Bullet casings dropped to the ground with short lived pings as they hit the floor, piling up by the dozens, each bullet hitting home, drawing blood, and toppling bodies.
The pig mutant charged the blue man from the side. Eddie shouted out, “Watch out!”
The free arm immediately retreated into the coats, reappearing with several throwing knives. With a simple flick, a knife planted itself into the middle of the pig man’s head. A small spout of blood leaked from the wound as the pig man’s snout smashed into the chilled ground. The four-armed man flicked several more knives out into the meat cooler, finishing off those who had not been eliminated by the bullets.
Eddie was starting to feel the pressure of blood get to his head. The punch had loosened his senses and his vision was starting to fade.
The blue man scanned the cooler for life once more. Not a single mutant moved, only the frozen corpses swayed from the violence that overtook their butchers. The blue man holstered his weapons and his two top arms began to untie Eddie, as the bottom arms began pulling small square objects from the coats, tossing them throughout the cooler.
Once Eddie was untied, the four-armed man slung him over his shoulder, his bottom arms finding their way into his pockets.
Eddie was slipping back into the darkness once again. He managed to get out a question before he did so. “Who are you?”
The blue man looked up at his rescued prisoner, “Mr. Scott, at your service.”
The blue man walked out of the door he entered from. Froggenz writhed around the ground, his water masks had shattered and he now gasped for air as he suffocated. Mr. Scott smirked and left the room as the small squares he tossed into the meat cooler began to explode, crumbling the ancient structure around the horrors within.
Mr. Scott dropped the unconscious man in the back seat of his car. The young man had just only escaped certain death by the mutants. He had Sam to thank for his life. If she had not messaged Scott about the young Institute member’s disappearance, Scott would have never been able to track him down.
The blue, four-armed man took one last glance at the abandoned meat factory. Fire had begun to spread throughout the building, burning all the evidence inside. It was a big blow to the mutants. The horrid creatures had been dinning on the flesh of their human counterparts for far too long. Scott shook his head and his skin turned back to its human color. His bottom arms retracted back into his abdomen as he shut the back seat door.
Soon all these creatures would be destroyed forever. Their filth would be cleansed when Mr. Bartlett, or more importantly the creature within him, finished his plan.
Scott tilted his rear view mirror to check up on the lad in the back of his car. Bartlett urged Scott that he would be better off alive. Mr. Scott never disappointed, as usual.
He pressed the gas petal down with a smile. Things were going to get interesting soon, very interesting.