Fortnight of Fear by Graham Masterton Page B

evening wind, and the soles of David’s shoes slapped against the thin black slime that seemed to cover everything in wet weather. He opened the door to the feed plant and stepped inside. All the lights were on; but there was no sign of Malcolm. Nothing but sacks of fish meal, maize, potatoes, decorticated ground-nut meal, and gray plastic dustbins filled with boiled swill. They mixed their own pig-food, rather than buying proprietary brands – not only because it cost them three or four percent less, but because Malcolm had developed a mix of swill, cereal and concentrate which not only fattened the pigs more quickly, but gave them award-winning bacon.
    David walked up and down the length of the feed plant. He could see his reflection in the night-blackened windows: squatter, more hunched than he imagined himself to be. As he passed the stainless-steel sides of the huge feed grinder, he thought that he looked like a Golem, or a troll, dark and disappointed. Maybe defeat did something to a man’s appearance, squashed him out of shape, so that he couldn’t recognize himself any longer.
    He crossed to the switches by the door, and clicked them off, one after another, and all along the feed plant the fluorescent lights blinked out. Just before he clicked the last switch, however, he noticed that the main switch which isolated the feed-grinder was set to ‘off.’
    He hesitated, his hand an inch away from the light-switch. Neither Malcolm nor Dougal White, their foreman, had mentioned that there was anything wrong with the machinery. It was all German, made in Dusseldorf by Muller-Koch, and after some initial teething troubles with the grinder blades, it had for more than two years run with seamless efficiency.
    David lifted the main switch to ‘on’ – and to his surprise, with a smooth metallic scissoring sound, like a carving-knife being sharpened against a steel, the feeding grinder started up immediately.
    In the next instant, he heard a hideously distorted shriek – a gibbering monkey-like yammering of pain and terror that shocked him into stunned paralysis – unable to understand what the shriek could be, or what he could do to stop it.
    He fumbled for the ‘off’ switch, while all the time the screaming went on and on, growing higher and higher-pitched, racketing from one side of the building to the other, until David felt as if he had suddenly gone mad.
    The feed-grinder gradually minced to a halt, and David crossed stiff-legged as a scarecrow to the huge conical stainless steel vat. He clambered up the access ladder at the side, and while he did so the screaming died down, and gave way to a complicated mixture of gurgles and groans.
    He climbed up to the lip of the feed vat, and saw to his horror that the entire shining surface was rusty-colored with fresh blood – and that, down at the bottom of the vat, Malcolm was standing, staring up at him wild-eyed, his hands braced tightly against the sloping sides.
    He
appeared
to be standing, but as David looked more closely, he began to realize that Malcolm had been churned into the cutting-blades of the feed grinder right up to his waist. He was surrounded by a dark glutinous pool of blood and thickly-minced bone, its surface still punctuatedby occasional bubbles. His brown plaid shirt was soaked in blood, and his face was spattered like a map.
    David stared at Malcolm and Malcolm stared back at David. The silent agony which both joined and fatally separated them at that instant was far more eloquent than any scream could have been.
    â€œOh, Christ,” said David. “I didn’t know.”
    Malcolm opened and closed his mouth, and a huge pink bubble of blood formed and burst.
    David clung tightly to the lip of the feed-grinding vat and held out his hand as far as he could.
    â€œCome on, Malcolm. I’ll pull you up. Come on, you’ll be all right.”
    But Malcolm remained as he was, staring, his arms