occ- Nice to see you back Reaper-
IC-
Clara knew that Elroy was smart enough not to venture near the gate, but fool enough to explore underneath. It was like the boy to get into something that he was having trouble getting out of, and she feared that he might have gotten trapped in the tunnels and conduits that existed below the giant warehouse.
Quietly, she slipped away from the others. A door way, and down a hall and she came into the large warehouse.
Giant industrial shelves full with all sorts of items of types and purposes she could not understand. So many things, many covered with a plastic coat that shielded the items from the dust that had accummulated on the surface. Boxes, and racks of clothes, monitors of computers, dusty boxes of software, tapes, school supplies, items for home.
She moved quietly, trying to make the most of the darkness, moving deeper into the warehouse space.
There was an area lit by artifical lights, electric. Large refrigeration units, mostly empty. Stocks of shelves with food, mostly depleted.
The Glutons were slowly running low of food. No wonder after so long. They must have consumed most of what they had to stay alive.
She heard someone walking, heavy, and ducked into a space between two shelves.
Two men wobbled by.
One said. "She's a fire breather that one."
"Oh, but I would love to get her for a few minutes."
"Aye, she'd give you a tease that."
She heard another voice, this one a woman's. "You are so disgusting. You got a full of women but you need to fuck the strangers, eh?"
One of the men responded. "It's you that's disgusting ya fat cow. Don't be giving me lip because no one wants to poke ya."
They passed and Clara waited for them to leave. Then she poked her head out and watched them go down a stair well behind a refrigerator.
Tip-toeing she followed behind. Slowly cracking open the door and looking down.
No one.
She entered the stair and started to decend.
She got down to the first landing and was about to leave the stairs when she heard a door close below.
Clara took her foot off the nob and continued down, now to the lower landing. The stairs continued down, but it was only darkness below.
She listened to the door. Heard nothing. Opened it a crack. Another corridor.
She slipped in. She could feel her heart pounding. This was a trespass, and the deeper she went in, the more difficult to escape.
Still Ellroy was down here somewhere.
She turned a corner, than another.
Before her was where sheets of plastic that covered a door way. Beyond that she could see little.
Quietly she pushed the plastic sheets aside, and stepped in.
Inside was some kind of butcher's shop. From what she could see they had recently butchered some kind of animal. Organs were on the table and there was a pool of blood still in the sink, but she could not see the carcass.
She bent over to peer into the waste bin to see what kind of animal the Gluttons had caught, never realizing that the butcher was watching her from a dark corner.
She lifted the bin and started to scream. But the scream came out muffled.
Her eyes wide in shock, she heard the voice in her ear. "Now what do we have here? Little lamb, little lamb, the big bad wolf has you now."
Then she felt herself pulled back, a fat hand over her mouth, andother around her waste, picking her off her feet, and carrying her away.
She was still trying to scream when she was dragged into a room, the door behind closing like the lid of a coffin.