Page 5 of Meat

The word repeated like a mantra in her mind, following the rapid drumming of her heart, the harsh in-and-out of her pained breath.

Alyx rounded a corner. One of the ships’ cargo ramp was down, and she could see into the interior. A long narrow cargo hold similar to the one she had just gotten out of.

Similar, but not identical…

The walls of this hold were crusted with a glittering layer of frost. Pale tendrils of steam swirled and drifted out of the open gate like dry-ice vapor.

A giant freezer.

A freezer full of meat.

Standing there in the cold breath of that refrigerated cargo hold, even Alyx’s perception of time seemed to freeze. Her eyes drifted over the headless, bloodless carcasses hanging in neat rows down the length of the freezer.

She had seen something like this before when she was a girl and she had wandered into her dad’s meat factory. Pink flesh split down the middle. White ribs curving around the hollowed out interior where innards had once been.

Alyx shuddered.

These were not pig carcasses that she was looking at. Something about the shape was off. Something wasn’t quite right. In that frozen time-stretch, her brain finally caught up with her eyes and figured out what she was seeing.

Alyx’s stomach seemed to turn itself inside out.

A hot rush of saliva flooded her mouth. A surge of sour-milk taste. Had she eaten, it would have come back up now.

People.

Those carcasses hanging in the freezer were people.

The nith weren’t using the humans as slaves in that slaughterhouse. They were using them as food.

Chittering nith voices and the clomp of running boots shook Alyx out of her daze. She choked back the bitter taste of bile in the root of her throat. A renewed surge of adrenaline set her feet in motion.

She ran.

Between the ships, off the landing pad, and into the high grass and weeds that surrounded it, she ran.

There was a dark strip in the distance, the edge of a forest. That might offer shelter, a place to hide. Alyx didn’t think these things consciously. It was raw terror that drove her on now, pure survival instinct pushing her body beyond its normal limits.

She ran and ran and ran, not once looking back.

She didn’t need to. The image of that freezer ship filled with human meat was scorched into her mind’s eye.

CHAPTER 3

Trees blurred past in parallax. The air was unbearably hot, even within the dappled shade of the forest. Alyx’s naked skin was greasy with sweat. She could smell her own fear. A white flock of alien birds burst from the underbrush ahead, startling her momentarily.

Alyx ran as fast as she could, legs pumping, arms chugging wildly. The muscles of her thighs burned with lactic acid. The soles of her feet were raw and bleeding from rocks, sticks and prickly leaves.

The trees and foliage were dense around her. Low hanging limbs slapped at her cheeks and clawed at her eyes.

Below, the snarled undergrowth bit at her ankles and shins. Thorns and briars as sharp as fangs. Her shins were warm and wet from dozens of bleeding scratches. She could smell the iron of her blood mixed with the salt of her sweat.

The adrenaline coursing through her veins helped a little. Helped to dull the sting of the brambles and the fire in her thighs.

She pressed on, running full speed, or as close to it as the dense forest would allow.

Overhead, more of those alien birds squawked and chittered in the trees. In her delirium, Alyx half imagined they were urging her on…

Run. Escape. Flee.