Carlos stood up and took a couple of deep breaths. Then he crossed Marsha's arms so that her cut hands were on her stomach. Picking up her feet, he dragged her across the kill-room floor to the grate at the termination of the cattle chute. He stepped over to an electrical junction box and threw the switch, activating the room's machinery.
Kim drove like a madman, oblivious to the rain-slicked streets. He agonized about what could have happened to Marsha in the Higgins and Hancock record room. He found himself hoping that she had been surprised by a security guard, even if it meant her arrest. Any fate worse than that he didn't want to consider.
As he turned into the parking area in front of the immense plant, Kim noticed there were only a few parked cars scattered through the lot. He saw Marsha's car at one end, nowhere near the entrance.
Kim pulled up directly opposite the front door. He leaped out. He tried the door. It was locked. He banged on it with his fist. Cupping his hands around his face, he peered inside. All he could see was a dimly lit, deserted corridor. There was no security guard in sight.
Kim listened. There was no sound. His anxiety mounted. Stepping back from the door, he surveyed the front of the building. There were a number of windows facing the parking lot.
Kim stepped off the concrete entrance slab and quickly moved north along the side of the building. He looked into each window he came to and tried it. They were all locked.
When he peered into the third window, he saw file cabinets, upended chairs, and what he guessed was Marsha's phone on the table. Like the others, the window was locked. Without a second's hesitation, he bent down and picked up one of the stout rocks lining the edge of the parking area. Hefting it up to shoulder height, he tossed it through the window. The sound of shattering glass was followed by a tremendous crash as the rock bounced off the wooden floor and collided with a number of the upended chairs.
Carlos paused and listened. From where he was standing in the head-boning room, the place where cattle heads were stripped of their cheeks and tongues, the sound of Kim's rock came through as merely a muffled thump. Yet as an experienced burglar, he knew he could not ignore any unexpected noises; invariably they spelled trouble.
Carlos closed the top of the combo bin then turned out the light. He slipped out of the bloody white coat and pulled off the gauntlet-length, yellow rubber gloves he was wearing. He stowed these items under a sink. Picking up his knife, he moved silently but swiftly from the boning room out into the kill floor. There he doused the light as well. Once again he stopped to listen. He would have retreated up the cattle chute except he wasn't quite finished.
Kim had climbed through the window headfirst. He did his best to avoid the shards of broken glass on the floor but wasn't entirely successful. As he got to his feet he had to brush a few small slivers gingerly from his palms. With that accomplished, he scanned the room. He saw a blinking red light on a motion detector high in one corner but ignored it.
The abandoned cell phone, the upended chairs, as well as a broken panel of glass in the door to the front hall immediately convinced Kim that he was standing in the room where Marsha had been when she called him. He also noticed the open door at the rear of the room and guessed after being surprised she'd fled in that direction.
Dashing to this second door, Kim looked down the length of a deserted back hallway. He paused to listen. There wasn't a sound, a fact which only fanned his ever building anxiety.
Kim started down the corridor, rapidly opening each door he came to. He glanced into storerooms, cleaning closets, a locker room, and several restrooms. At the far end of the hall, he came to a lunchroom. He paused at the threshold. What caught his attention was the trail of overturned chairs leading to a rear door. Kim followed the trail out the rear door and up a half flight of steps. He yanked open the fire door and stepped through.
Kim again paused. He didn't know what to do. He found himself in a room filled with a labyrinth of machinery and raised metal platforms that cast grotesque shadows.
Kim noticed a cloyingly fetid smell that was vaguely familiar. His mind struggled to make the association. Within seconds he had the answer. The odor reminded him of observing an autopsy as a second-year medical student. He shuddered against the mostly suppressed, unpleasant memory.
"Marsha!" Kim yelled in desperation. "Marsha!"
There was no response. The only thing Kim could hear were the numerous echoes of his own frantic voice.
To Kim's immediate right was a fire station with an extinguisher, a long, heavy-duty flashlight, and a cabinet with glass-paneled doors that revealed a canvas fire hose and long-handled firefighter's axe. Kim snatched the flashlight from its bracket and turned it on. Its concentrated beam illuminated narrow conic sections of the room and cast even more grotesque shapes onto the walls.
Kim set out into the alien world, shining the light in fast-moving arcs. He proceeded in a clockwise direction, skirting past the machinery to explore more thoroughly.
After a few minutes, he paused and again yelled out Marsha's name. Besides his echoes, all he could hear was the sound of dripping water.
Ahead the flashlight beam swept across a grate. Kim moved it back. Over the center of the grate was a dark smear. Advancing to the grate, he bent down, and shined the light directly on the smear. Hesitantly he reached out with his index finger and touched it. A chill went down his spine. It was blood!
Carlos had pressed himself against the wall of the head-boning room, at the very lip of the doorless opening to the kill-room floor. He'd been retreating from Kim's relentless advance. Carlos had first seen Kim as he'd come down the back hallway clearly on a searching mission.
Carlos had no idea who this stranger was and had first hoped the man would content himself with wandering around the office area of the plant. But once Kim had come into the kill floor and had yelled out Marsha's name, Carlos knew he'd have to kill him.
Carlos was not dismayed. Contingencies were a factor in such work. Besides, Carlos figured he'd be paid more, maybe even double. He also wasn't concerned about the stranger's size and probable strength. Carlos had experience and the benefit of surprise, and, most important, he had his favorite knife, which at the moment he was holding in his right hand up alongside his head.
Cautiously Carlos eased his head out into the opening so he could see into the kill-floor area. It was easy to keep track of the stranger now, thanks to the flashlight. Carlos saw the man straighten up from the grate at Carlos's workstation.
All at once the flashlight shined directly at Carlos. He retreated from the beam. careful to keep the knife blade from flashing in the darkness. He held his breath as the stranger edged closer, again probing the kill floor with sweeping motions of his shaft of light.
Carlos flattened himself against the wall and tensed his muscles. The stranger was coming into the boning room as Carlos had anticipated. The searching flashlight beam flickered around the room in a progressively brighter fashion. Carlos could feel his pulse sky rocket as adrenaline coursed around his body. It was a sensation he loved. It was like popping speed.
Kim knew he was in a slaughterhouse that had been in operation that day, so finding blood shouldn't have come as a surprise. Yet the blood he'd found was unclotted and appeared fresh. He hated to think it could have been Marsha's; the chance that it was brought back his familiar fury. Now he wanted to find her with even more urgency than earlier, and if she were indeed injured, he wanted to find the individual responsible.
After having searched the kill floor, Kim decided to widen his search to other areas of the huge plant. He headed to the only open passageway he'd seen, on guard against the person or persons who had already spilled blood.