Chapter 1216: Story 1216: Slaughterhouse Shivers
EXT. SLUM FRINGE – EARLY MORNING
The sun hung low behind a smoky veil. Lena, Briggs, the Girl, and Ward followed an overgrown service path into a part of town no map covered—Old District 5, home to the decommissioned meatpacking plant known only in whispers as “Slaughterhouse Red.”
BRIGGS (grumbling):
“Smells like something’s still dying.”
WARD:
“Place was shut down long before the infection. Locals claimed it was haunted. I saw what really happened—no ghosts. Just the first experiments.”
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE RED – MAIN FLOOR – MOMENTS LATER
The door creaked open. Inside: rusted hooks, conveyor belts, dried blood like black stains on concrete. A low mechanical hum echoed through the empty halls.
THE GIRL (whispering):
“They fed the pigs… people.”
Lena flicked her flashlight toward a corner—movement. A shadow darted behind a row of hanging carcasses.
WARD (raising rifle):
“They’re here.”
Suddenly, a metallic shriek as a security gate dropped behind them. They were locked in.
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – PROCESSING BAY – CONTINUOUS
Red emergency lights flickered. Machines long thought broken clunked to life. The slicing arm—a robotic limb with dull but deadly blades—whirred and swung.
BRIGGS:
“We need out—now!”
The group ducked and weaved through the narrow maze of meat hooks and conveyor belts. But they weren’t alone.
Figures emerged from the shadows—humanoids in blood-stained aprons, faces hidden by metallic slaughter masks. Their movements jerky, unnatural. Not fully undead… but not alive either.
WARD (grim):
“Slabmen. Failed regeneration test subjects. Nerve endings still work. Pain keeps them angry.”
One Slabman lunged at Lena—she slammed it into a meat hook. Another caught Briggs, clawing into his arm before the Girl stabbed it in the throat with surgical precision.
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – SECURITY ROOM – MINUTES LATER
Ward found an old terminal. Static crackled on the screen before flickering to a video log.
RESEARCHER (on screen, panicked):
“They promised revival. But the serum twisted them—mindless but still remembering pain. They don’t die. They remember dying.”
Briggs winced, clutching his bleeding arm.
BRIGGS:
“If I turn, you end it fast.”
Lena shook her head.
LENA:
“No one’s dying today.”
Ward downloaded coordinates onto a data drive.
WARD:
“Alpha Vault had sister sites. One’s close—beneath the Memorial Hospital.”
Suddenly, alarms blared again. The conveyor belts reversed direction—toward them.
THE GIRL:
“They’re feeding the living now.”
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – EXIT CHUTE – FINAL MOMENTS
The team sprinted toward a chute that once dropped meat to delivery trucks. Slabmen closed in from all sides.
Briggs tossed a fire extinguisher into a control panel—it exploded, triggering a partial collapse.
They slid down the chute just as flames lit up the plant behind them. Screams of the half-dead echoed into the dawn.
EXT. RIVERSIDE CANAL – SAFE FOR NOW
They landed in sludge and silence. Alive, for now.
LENA (breathing hard):
“Next time someone says ‘shortcut,’ I shoot them.”
Ward handed her the drive.
WARD:
“Let’s hope Memorial’s less dramatic.”
The Girl stared back at the burning slaughterhouse, eyes glassy.
THE GIRL:
“They felt everything. Even at the end.”