Guts, Rearranged {INCOMPLETE}

Chapter 7 =Deboning=

          Something new brought Maggie back to her shift the next day, instead of the deep cautious dread found in her past two shifts, she's rather instilled with a newfound curiosity. It's been a long time, at least in Maggie's eyes, since she felt this way about someone new in a taboo environment. While she's willing to witness more and know more about her superior and the strange creature she found him to be, she's also terrified of where it would lead considering her last similar escapade proved to ruin lives. If she's to deal with slimy pink mounds of severed flesh to satiate her thirst for him, so be it.

          A small sacrifice.

          Swinging open one of the butchery doors, she's met with muffled grunting emanating from behind the flaps.

          "Otto?" She calls. Receiving no response other than the usual low whooshing of the fans above, she carefully puts on her hair net and listens for a moment. What sounds like struggling continues with a hushed tone of Otto leaking from behind it. Approaching the flaps, she hears what she knows to be slicing, something she's become accustomed to while working.

          "Otto?" She calls a little louder, now inside the room. The slicing stops and the room hums away.

          "Is everything okay?" She asks, not daring to come closer to the cracked open chiller door.

          "Everything's fine Margret, I'm just finishing up a live one!" He calls out. Maggie notices the brick keeping the door cracked open, pieces of it are missing and the surface of the clay appears to be somewhat stained. Above it, yellow and black hazard tape keeps the disc in the wall pressed down, she worries if he's been in there longer than he should be.

          "Don't we just get dead ones?" She questions, taking a couple steps closer.

          "No, sometimes they want a-" a grunt in effort is heard from him. "-fresher approach to keep up appearances so they- Look, I have my hands full in here, just sort the bag while I get this done!" He emphasises the last word as another slicing noise is heard. Remaining unsure, she steps back and goes the long way around to her station to avoid crossing in front of the chiller door. A ready bag awaits her just as he had instructed.

          As she sorts away at the chicken legs, the noises inside the chiller slowly and steadily die down until another moist violent noise occurs along with the grinding jingle of the chains on the roof, appearing to briefly rouse whatever is in there back up. The muffled noises die off suddenly and the room is shrouded in silence, the strange silence of the room proving to be more unsettling than the noises heard. The sloshing of the hose turning on peaks her interest if only for a short time. Water sounds to struggle to make its way through the hose at first until the high pitch squeak of more hose being pulled from its hole sorts out whatever knot had been preventing its flow.

          She doesn't notice it's been turned off as Otto appears from behind the door. He squeezes out of the gap trying his best to avoid opening it wider. Maggie looks up at him, droplets hang onto his apron and soak into the sides of his shirt the apron failed to save. The wet shirt fabric clings to his sides, showing more of his physic. A privilege to witness to be sure. While halfway through the door, he looks down and kicks the brick back into the abyss of the dark chiller using the heel of his boot. With his wet hair loosely tied by a hairnet acting as a makeshift hair tie, streams of hair fall as he's looking down, a common occurrence judging by how unbothered he is. The door shuts but the noises slowly start up again, the grinding of the chains against the ceiling hooks becomes undeniable through the walls.

          Otto does his best to ignore it and goes to clean his bloodied knives using the sink neatly tucked away next to the entrance.

          "Every now and again a live one is delivered to us, I'm personally not thrilled when that happens but Ian insisted we do fresher packs some days so people will buy more when we do our regular packs. Something like market manipulation or when crack dealers give people a 'freebie' to get them hooked." Otto continues, as if the earlier conversation hadn't stopped.