Many Hands

Ten seconds ago it had been a sausage, now it was a single human hand, neatly sheared off at the wrist.

Jonno had been fixing some wiring issue when the whole sausage machine started pumping backwards. The sausages on the line went in, and squealing beasts came out. The lads on the line had been having a lot of fun all morning, putting sausages into the machine and laughing as whole pigs came out all mad rolling eyes and skreeeeeeeeeeeee snk snk then charging off the belt until they could be captured, and killed again, and fed back into the machine. The men went forwards and backwards with the same pig for twenty minutes, laughing the whole time.

Then they started putting in other meat from around the factory and it all went to hell. What had ten seconds ago been a packet of Mrs. Poppers London Garlic Pork Bratwust was a man’s pale, shriveled hand. It had a single ring on one of the fingers, inset with a red stone. The jokes stopped immediately. The building was scoured for other London Brats to put through the machine. Nobody was very enthusiastic about it, but it had to be done.

It didn’t take long for them to find more: four human toes without a foot. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went home, this little piggy got butchered and this little piggy got boned. Two toes were dark-skinned, the third had red nail-polish on it and the fourth was covered in a layer of thick hair.

“’should call the cops,” said Jonno. He smirked, “though I suppose they be more worried about the pigs, wouldn’t they? That’s family, that is.”

They all shook their heads. Nobody said “if we call the cops, they’ll shut this down and we’ll never know exactly what in the hell was going on, and it will chew at us in our dreams until the day we die,” but you can be damned sure they were all thinking it. Curiosity, meet cats.

The foreman decided however, that it needed to be done right. Gibbo found a clipboard, and took notes.

Inventoried herewidth, results of putting Mrs. Poppers Real Authentic London Garlic Pork Bratwust Sausage Product backwards through the mincing machine, with which Jonathan “Jonno” Specker has recently tampered to produce an unusural effect.

1) one (1) whole pig, alive, later returned to sausage state by machine

2) one (1) whole pig, alive, later returned to sausage state by machine

3) three (3) human feet, de-void of toes, dead

4) two (2) whole pigs, alive, l.r.t.s.s.b.m.

5) one (1) human eyeball, brown, dead

6) one (1) whole pig, alive, l.r.t.s.s.b.m.

7) one (1) human head, aliholyshi

The head was screaming. “I’M NO SNITCH I’M NO SNITCH I’M NO SNITCH,” it said. It had no teeth, nor a tongue, and was missing one eye. It had been neatly sheared off at the neck, and this did not appear to affect its vitality in the slightest. The men from the freezing works were made of sterner stuff, and carefully took the head aside and put it with the other uh, things. After some consideration, somebody stuck a piece of tape over its mouth.

Please note: all previous detached human products resulting from the machine are now considered alive until further information is made available to us. It has been decided that Mister Gabrionelli, who was given all-hours access to the facility on his request -and granted due to his position as primary shareholder- is to be barred access to the machine until more information can be attained. Please also forgive any unchristian language used previously in the document, which was deployed due to the arisural of a surprising circumstance.

“What if,” said Jonno, “we got a whole bunch of these parts, and we put them on the conveyor belt, and we put them through backwards together?”

At this juncture, a vote was taken on Mister Specker’s suggestion, which was agreed upon unanimously by the factory employees and the relevant union representative. It was realised by the employees that more human parts would need to be produced before the suggestion could be undertaken, and more sausages were retrieved for this exact purpose. The log of our results continues.

7) one (1) human head, aliholyshitve

8) one (1) whole pig, alive, l.r.t.s.s.b.m.

9) Three (3) human torsos, alive

10) Six (6) human arms, alive

11) 5 (5) human legs, alive

12) seventeen (17) human hands, alive

At this juncture work was postponed while the products were sorted out.

The hands were everywhere, skittering around the room like little spiders while the men smashed at them with shovels, and wrenches, and any damned heavy thing they could find. Several hands mobbed the foreman, and tore at his skin, gouged at his eyes. He screamed and staggered around, guided towards the conveyor belt. The men rushed to him, then tore the hands off and pulverized them until they were ruined pieces of flesh twitching on the ground.

An incident occurred. At this juncture the foreman was given one (1) cup of tea to calm his nerves. Mr. William Lint was sent for pies at 11:30am precisely, and as of 1:14pm has not returned. His cellular phone was called and he said he was “quite alright but suddenly had a cold and needed a half-day off”. Half-day granted.

They took inventory of the parts they had. They came from men and women of every size, age and race. Some were in states of greater decay, but some were plump and fresh. 30 people, at least, over a span of several years. Mister Gabrionelli had been up to some mischief and no mistake. The men took the parts and placed them on the conveyor belt. Somebody was praying. Somebody else was swearing.

Jonno stood at the controls, waiting for the all-clear. The union rep gave a nod, Jonno hit the switch, then the thing chugged to life. Poor choice of words there.

13) one (1) “human”, “alive”

At this juncture, another incident occurred.

The beast lurched off the conveyor belt, then fell to the floor screaming on its hands and knees. Large patches of skin were missing entirely, one leg was far too short, one eye was far too mad. Hair stuck out at odd angles, jutting out between wads of scar tissue. “I’M NO SNITCH I’M NO SNITCH I’M NO SNITCH,” it bellowed, and lunged at Jonno, grabbing him around the throat with both hands. Vertebrae twisted and smashed together. “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME PLEASE KILL ME DON’T PLEASE DON’T,” it screamed, shaking the man’s body like a child with a doll. Jonno’s head flopped back and forth with a grating of bone-on-bone.

Two men grabbed the creature by its arms. It wailed, snarled and bit as they fed it back into the machine forwards. It shook, and from inside their was a tearing of metal. Every man held his breath until the noises stopped, and the bodyparts came out the other side. They fed them through again for good measure. About 50kg of sausages sat on the belt.

“I tell you what,” said the foreman, “I’m never eating meat again.”

From the Townsville Times, June 27th 2014:

Mr. Federico Gabrionelli is facing charges of multiple homicide, and will be appearing in court today. Though the police refuse to divulge their evidence to the media, they are calling it ‘substantial’.