SHORT STORY: BEYOND THE FREEZER

Here's all the pieces of the story.                                                                                     BEYOND THE FREEZER  -  BEYOND THE SELF  -  BEYOND THE HERD BEYOND THE FEW  -  BEYOND THE EDGE  -  BEYOND THE STARS

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The freezers chill cut deep, down to the bone. At least, it would have if not for the fact that I didn't have any bones left; my captors had seen to their removal. And so I lay, beneath an ever growing layer of frost, trying desperately to hold on for just another day.

A light came on and a warm draft washed over me. As soon as I acclimated to the light, I saw with horror how few of us there were left. A dark figure stood, silhouetted in the doorway. The figure seemed to be impossibly tall as I watched it step closer to where I and my companions lay.

Don't see me, I thought, Leave me to freeze. The fate that awaited us outside of the freezer was countless times worse than what we faced within. Here, in the freezer at least, we had the cold numbness to ease our passing.

But still the figure drew closer, selecting more and more of my companions until only I was left.

Yes, take them, I thought, ignoring the guilt I felt for my selfishness as the figure paused to count it's overburdened load, Please, leave me.

I was not so lucky. With the glare of the freezer light all but obscuring the figures face from view, it turned to me and reached out to lift me from the cold slab on which I lay. I would have screamed out loud were it possible and, quite suddenly, something rippled through me. It wasn't a shiver, those were long since past, but even still my cold and frozen body quivered and the figure paused, inches from picking me up.

Another, more violent ripple tore through me and I thought I might split open from the force. The figure stumbled backward, unable to believe what it saw, and slipped on the icy floor. A cry, a thud and a crack before all was still and silent in the freezer once more. The door began to close. I couldn't turn to see the floor where the figure lay or where my companions had landed.

Luck, for the moment, was on my side. No grunts or groans came from the floor below. No scraping or slipping on ice. The freezer door was almost shut; the light would be going out soon. How long would it take the other figures to realize what had happened and come searching in the freezer for their fallen comrade.

A foot shot out and caught the door at the last possible moment. The light flickered but stayed on as the foot swung the door back open wide and the figure on the floor got back to its feet. It gathered up those of my companions it had dropped and then turned to me. It hesitated, then reached out and lifted me up, placing me into its arms.

The heat of the outside was like fire on my raw flesh. The hoarfrost vanished from my withered form as I was carried closer to the furnaces. The figure stumbled a bit, still dazed by its fall and passed me and my companions on to another.

Fear gripped me, though I could not help but feel some small amount of satisfaction as the figure from the freezer had to hold onto some pipework for support while it massaged its' head. The new figure carried us swiftly to the fires and, with terrible sizzles that sounded like screams, we were placed one by one onto the burning rack.

What was frozen became thawed, thawed became red, red became black. Oh, the agony. Where for days we'd been freezing, pitifully numbed by the cold, now came the utter shock of sensation, the burning and charring of what little remained of our boneless, chopped up bodies.

Right at the point when I thought I could bare it no more, I was taken from the fire. They applied creams to my body and layered chilled, moist wraps before encasing me in some absorbent material to stem the fluids that were dripping from and around my burnt form.

Why wouldn't they let it end, I wondered as they set me on a hard metal slab beneath bright lights. Most of my companions were already here and our collective juices, those that weren't caught by our absorbent outer layers, congealed around us.

One by one, we were selected and taken. So far, we knew what to expect, had seen and heard enough to surmise what awaited us beyond the freezer doors. But now we lay on the edge of our knowledge and everything beyond was unknown. None of us expected to have survived this far.

At last my turn arrived and I was placed on a wide tray with fluid containers and stacks of strange objects I'd never seen before. A new figure, one who did not look or dress like the others I'd grown accustomed to took the tray and carried me into a place where countless other, giant figures roamed. I saw my companions scattered among them; they were being eaten.

Horror as I'd never known it before swept through me but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't make my pleas known. I could only await my time when, hopefully, mercifully, it would all be over.

Someone screamed. With delight I knew that scream was from one of the figures who put us to such use. Through the pain that gripped much of what remained of my cognitive abilities, I saw them carrying the figure whom I'd somehow startled in the freezer. Blood dripped from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth. He was dead.

The place where the figures had congregated to feed now emptied, the shock of seeing one of their own dead seemed too much for them to bear, never mind how much tortured flesh they had been consuming moments before.

The figure that carried me, took me outside where a cool breeze helped sap away some of the pain. The figure pulled away some of my outer wrappings. I braced myself. If I could have looked away I would have but my gaze was fixed on the opening maw.

I shuddered, and jolted, just as I had done in the freezer before. The figure paused, looking puzzled at the meal in his hands. I tried with all my might to repeat the motion, to somehow save my life, agony though it was. I quivered and the figure's eyes widened. I shook and the figure gasped. Though reason said it should have been impossible, though my bones were long gone and my body chopped, processed, frozen and burned, I could move.

The figure dropped me, the fall softened by the many layers I'd been wrapped in. Clutching its chest, the figure stumbled, fell backward and landed with a satisfying thud. It did not rise again.

I squirmed and wriggled until I was free of my wrappings and began the long trek to find my way back to my people, to warn them, to teach them. So that when the figures came for them, perhaps then we'll be ready to fight them.

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This story is about a beef patty that gains consciousness.