Title: Fresh Pantry
Author: Kassfinol
Genre: Terror
All rights reserved.
Single Chapter
The suffocating midday heat fell like lead through the shattered skylight of the bank branch, baking the dust suspended in the air that covered the fractured marble counters and the barricades built from overturned filing cabinets.
Elena adjusted the straps of her backpack over shoulders marked by the weight of the copper and the solar panels torn from the machine rooms during the early morning, resting her cheek against the frame of a glassless window to watch over an avenue dominated by concrete skeletons and charred vehicles.
Behind her, Diego pressed an alcohol-soaked rag against the infected bite on his calf, stifling a groan as he sank his teeth into the collar of his leather jacket, while Mateo guarded the service stairwell opening, gripping a steel bar covered in rust and dried blood.
The smell of burned garbage and rotten flesh rose from the asphalt, driven by gusts of thick wind, revealing the exact position of the tide of betas swirling around an overturned bus a few meters from the commercial building.
For the past eight months, the group’s strategy had required moving across the interconnected rooftops of the financial district, subsisting on the stagnant water in the reserve tanks and the canned food looted from the executive cafeterias on the top floors, avoiding any contact with a surface dominated by creatures that knew no exhaustion under the relentless sun.
But the fever and the deterioration of Diego’s leg ruled out any possibility of carrying his weight back up twenty flights of stairs, forcing them to take refuge in the second-floor offices after emptying a corporate first-aid kit, where they found themselves cornered upon discovering that the creak of a collapsed shelf had drawn the horde into the lobby, blocking access to the upper levels.
Elena tore her gaze away from the sea of bodies crowded on the sidewalk when she caught the hum of diesel engines approaching from the southern end of the avenue, a heavy roar that made the broken glass scattered on the ground vibrate until it drowned out the chorus of guttural growls.
Two armored trucks with bumpers reinforced by steel mesh emerged from the heat haze, followed by a black van fitted with a loudspeaker on its roof emitting low-frequency sound pulses.
The betas reacted to the stimulus by turning their necks in unison before abandoning the siege on the bank to hurl themselves at the vehicles in an avalanche of uncoordinated limbs.
The trucks slowed to a stop in the center of the intersection to deploy rear metal ramps, down which came twelve men dressed in tactical suits and gas masks.
Mateo took a step toward the window, lowering his steel bar, mistaking the convoy for a rescue patrol, but Elena stopped him by pulling on his backpack when she noticed the operatives were not carrying rifles to clear the area.
The soldiers formed a circular wall, raising riot shields to withstand the horde’s initial impact, repelling the onslaught with electric arcs that paralyzed the attackers’ muscle mass until they lay sprawled on the steaming pavement.
A second group of men in lab coats over bulletproof vests came down from the van to move among the paralyzed bodies, passing rectangular scanners over their faces in search of specific readings.
When a device emitted a sharp beep in front of a recently infected man who still retained some muscle tone, the technicians drove a pneumatic syringe into his neck and secured his wrists with plastic restraints, dragging him toward the bed of a truck sealed with the biohazard symbol, paying no attention to the other betas still hurling themselves against the electrified barrier.
The metallic sound of a pill bottle rolling across the floor broke the silence inside the branch when Diego tried to shift the weight off his injured leg, a tiny noise that bounced off the bare walls until it slipped out through the tall windows toward the street.
Below, the squad leader raised a fist wrapped in Kevlar gloves to halt the technicians, lifting his dark-visored helmet straight toward the ledge where Elena was holding her breath.
The officer pointed at the window with two fingers, ordering three of his men to leave the perimeter and run toward the bank doors with heavy-barreled weapons drawn, marking the survivors as prey of greater value.
Elena spun on her heels, shoving Mateo by the chest to move him away from the light, slinging the shotgun over her back before hooking her hands under her brother’s arms to help him to his feet.
They crossed the lobby, dodging overturned chairs and reams of paper rotted by dampness, while the echo of glass shattering under the hunters’ boots rose up the elevator shaft, pushing them toward the darkness of the administrative corridors where the stagnant air smelled of mold and confinement.
Diego’s weight became an anchor with every meter they advanced down the corridor, forcing Elena to dig her boots into the torn carpet to drag him toward the central archives area, a labyrinth of shattered cubicles that swallowed them into the gloom.
The emergency lights had been dead for months, leaving as their only guide the thin beams of light filtering through the holes in the false ceiling to illuminate motes of dust floating above the desks.
Mateo walked backward, covering the rear with the steel bar raised to chest height, gulping air in harsh breaths as he heard the unmistakable sound of the fire doors opening behind them with a hydraulic hiss.
The hunters advanced without uttering a single word or shouting orders to stop, communicating through the rustle of tactical fabric and the sweep of flashlights with infrared filters that cast elongated shadows on the plaster walls.
Elena pushed Diego inside the open security vault, leaning him against the solid steel door before peeking out through the frame, watching as three beams of red light cut through the darkness of the corridor to sweep every cubicle with mechanical precision.
Mateo gritted his teeth, raising the bar to lunge into the corridor in an attempt to ambush the first guard to cross the threshold, but a silhouette slid down from the false ceiling, landing right behind him with a dull thud.
An arm wrapped in Kevlar encircled Mateo’s neck, cutting off his breath at the root, followed by the pneumatic snap of a device pressed against his spine that switched off all tension in his muscles in a second, leaving him to fall onto the tiles without letting go of his weapon.
Elena stepped back, raising the shotgun toward the corridor just as the three guards lit up the inside of the vault with blinding lights mounted on their rifle barrels, fixing the point of a red laser on the center of her chest.
Behind the uniformed men appeared a man in a white coat adjusting the vials of a cylindrical injector, who pushed aside one of the guards’ barrels with the back of his hand to advance toward Elena, stepping over Mateo’s inert body.
Diego tried to sit up, scratching the steel of the vault with his broken nails, but the technician gave him an indifferent look before pressing a button on the injector. Elena pulled the shotgun’s trigger, but the firing pin clicked on empty just as a polymer dart pierced her shoulder through her heavy fabric jacket.
The chemical cold invaded her bloodstream, shutting down control over her arms and forcing her knees to give way, making her fall sideways in front of the technician’s boots while the flashlights’ light became the only bright point in total darkness.
The hum of tires over shattered asphalt replaced the silence of the vault. Elena opened her eyes under the glare of fluorescent tubes embedded in a corrugated aluminum ceiling.
She was sitting, bound by the torso, thighs, and wrists to a metal chair welded to the floor of the armored truck. In front of her, Mateo hung from similar straps, his head tilted to one side and a thread of saliva trickling down his chin. A few meters away, on a stainless steel table with drainage channels, lay Diego.
A technician wearing nitrile gloves passed a scanner over her brother’s body. A sharp beep filled the enclosed space, forcing the man to consult the screen attached to his forearm before pointing at the swollen, reddened calf.
“High fever, septic condition in the right limb,” the technician said without looking away from the data. “Ruled out for the feeding protocol. He won’t survive the transfer to the facility or cold storage.”
A second individual advanced from the back of the van. He wore dark fabric trousers and an impeccable gray shirt, apart from the guards’ tactical gear. He carried no weapons.
“Use him right away,” the technician ordered, stepping back. “We avoid waste, and you stabilize yourself for the return trip.”
The man in gray nodded. He approached the steel table with measured steps, without the slightest trace of the frenzy of the betas crowding the streets. Diego blinked, moving his parched lips without making a sound under the white light. The man gripped his jaw with one hand, tilted his face, and sank his teeth into the jugular vein.
A jet of arterial blood stained Diego’s plaid shirt. Mateo looked up, straining against his chair’s straps until the buckles creaked, choking back a scream behind the plastic gag that held his lips apart.
Elena pulled at her restraints, ignoring the rub of leather against her wrists, forced to watch as the individual swallowed the blood rhythmically, consuming the flesh while her brother’s spasms diminished until they disappeared.
The technician let the man finish his ration before crossing the space toward Mateo, passing the scanner over his neck until he got the confirmation beep.
“Optimal muscle mass. No evident pathogens.”
He took out a steel device similar to a rivet gun, pressed it against the side of Mateo’s neck, and pulled the trigger. A pneumatic snap pierced the skin, stamping a sequence of black bars in permanent ink. He repeated the process when he stopped in front of Elena.
“Two healthy units for this week’s quota,” the technician murmured, typing on the screen. “Load them into the fresh pantry inventory. Doctor Silva needs this batch in the containment level before Tuesday.”
The device’s barrel rested against Elena’s collarbone. The heavy-gauge needle cut through the skin, injecting the mark with an electric burn, tagging her with the same numeric code as the food rations.
Diego’s death on the steel table eradicated any illusion of a military rescue, laying bare the true structure of the new world: there were no prisoners or labor camps, only human livestock classified to be devoured alive by the residents of that facility.
The technician stepped back to put the scanner away, securing the supply case against the aluminum wall.
The truck swerved sharply as it left the avenue, making Mateo’s shackles clang against the metal of the chair. The man in gray ran the back of his hand over his stained lips and turned his face toward Elena. He looked at her the way you look at a dish that is not yet time to serve.
The End
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