The Sunday Scaries
Volume 1, Number 39
Microfiction by Pat Harrigan
Content Warning: Language and Horror

The Machine Shop

They unblindfolded her and pushed her down a short flight of steps. She stumbled but kept her footing. Someone turned on the lights: blinding, fluorescent. Concrete slope flooring with drains, industrial machines to all sides, draped with canvas for the night. Diesel fuel in the air.
          The two men were standing on a concrete lip a few feet above her. Their ankles were at eye-height. Next to them a chain descended from a crane. At the end of the chain was a heavy-duty trash bag, bulging full, belling out at the bottom. The taller man pressed a button on the crane and the bag swung out over the lip.
          We trusted your father, said the short one. He worked for us for twenty years. So we didn’t believe it at first. But we got a guy in to look at the books. He’d been stealing from us all along, little here, a little there. Providing for his family, I get it, but it’s still not right.
          Please, she said.
          Wait a minute, said the taller one. From a shelf he grabbed a serrated hunting knife and a pair of poultry shears. He threw them down to her and grabbed a reciprocating saw.
          He tested it: brzzzzzzz brzzzzzzz.
          He must have found out we knew, said the short one, because he took half a million in diamonds out of the safe and got on a train. We took him off the train and asked him to show us where the diamonds were, but no dice. They’re not in his house, they’re not at his bank, so we figured he stuffed them in himself or up himself somewhere.
          Andrea stared at the bag. The taller man swept the saw down across its double-layered side—brzzzzzzz—and the bag split open, pouring unspeakable filth and red clotted slime at Andrea’s feet. She scrambled backward as large hunks of something splatted down onto the concrete. Everything smelled like perfumed garbage and rotten breath. She gagged and hunched over, covering her mouth.
          We did what we could, but it’s disgusting work, said the short one, so why not call in a marker, we thought. We figure you owe us a little something, since the family sent you through school and all that.
          The taller one was pointing a pistol at her. Get to work, he said.
          Eventually she found them somewhere in his colon: a dozen perfect jewels, covered in shit. They took them from her with a handkerchief and rinsed them off at a sink. The man put the gun away. There’s a hose in the corner if you want to clean yourself up, he said. Don’t worry about the rest of it; someone’ll be by to take care of it. See you. Thanks again.
          For a while she didn’t move. Then she crawled to where her father’s face lay, shaved from its skull. She slapped it with her hand, over and over, ignoring the bone splinters that pierced her palm, until it was an unrecognizable smear on the bloody floor.
💀