Story code: ST-000578
Part 2: The Yield
Gaines’s hand moved with shocking speed, but not toward Mateo’s wounded arm. The manager slapped the sticky, silver strip of duct tape directly across Mateo’s mouth, pressing the heavy adhesive hard into his cheeks.
The sheer shock of the freezing tape sealing his lips sent a violent jolt of adrenaline through Mateo’s system. The raw, animal instinct to breathe overrode the numbing shock of his blood loss. Before Gaines could tear a second strip from the roll, Mateo drove his heavy rubber work boot straight into the center of the manager’s chest.
Gaines grunted, his boots slipping slightly on the wet blood. He tipped backward, crashing into the heavy metal filing cabinet with a sharp, echoing clang.
Mateo didn’t wait. He used his good hand to claw at the edge of the metal desk, hauling his dead weight off the floor. His left arm dangled uselessly at his side, a ruined, pulsing mess that sent hot ribbons of agony deep into his shoulder socket with every millimeter of movement. He ripped the duct tape from his mouth with a muffled scream, taking a painful layer of skin with it. The tearing sound was deafening in the tiny, isolated room.
“Stay on the floor, you stupid kid!” Gaines hissed, pushing himself off the dented cabinet. The twitch in his left eye was furious, erratic. “You’re getting it everywhere!”
Mateo staggered behind the desk, putting the heavy block of furniture between them. He grabbed the bulky landline phone with his right hand. He didn’t bother trying to dial; he knew the line out of the plant required a supervisor code, and his hazy brain couldn’t process the numbers anyway. Instead, he ripped the receiver and the heavy base entirely away from the wall. The cord snapped from the jack with a sharp crack. He held the plastic base like a blunt club, his knuckles bone-white.
“Unlock the door,” Mateo gasped. His voice sounded paper-thin and raspy, as if his vocal cords were drying out from the inside.
“You’re going into shock,” Gaines said, taking a slow, measured step toward the edge of the desk. He kicked the discarded roll of duct tape aside. “You need to lie down, Mateo. Let me wrap the arm. You’re bleeding out. I’m trying to help you.”
Mateo looked down at the heavy black plastic sheeting unrolled on the floor. It was the same thick, industrial-grade material the meatpacking plant used to line the rendering vats for diseased livestock. You didn’t wrap a severe laceration in unsterilized rendering plastic. You wrapped a corpse.
“Unlock it!” Mateo swung the heavy phone base, smashing it against the top of the desk to show he meant it. The violent motion sent a fresh wave of nausea rolling through his stomach. The room tilted violently to the left. He had to lock his knees just to keep from collapsing back into the spreading red puddle.
Gaines didn’t flinch. He just watched Mateo with a terrifying, clinical patience. “If I open that door right now, the processing line stops. The health inspectors get called. The plant shuts down for three days of deep decontamination. You know what that costs, Mateo? You know what corporate does to managers who let a clumsy floor-worker contaminate an entire shift’s yield?”
Mateo stared at him, his mind struggling to force the words through the thick haze of pain. The manager wasn’t calling a private doctor. He wasn’t hiding Mateo to save him. He was hiding him to protect the quarterly quota. If Mateo bled to death in a soundproof room, neatly wrapped in plastic, there would be no sirens. No OSHA investigation. Just an undocumented worker who supposedly walked off the job and never came back.
“You’re crazy,” Mateo choked out, clutching the plastic base tighter against his chest.
“I’m efficient,” Gaines replied, taking another slow step closer. “You’ve lost at least two pints. Probably closer to three. Your lips are blue. How long do you really think you can stand there holding that phone?”
Gaines was right. The bone-deep cold was spreading from Mateo’s fingertips up into his chest. His heart felt like a dying bird trapped against his ribs, fluttering erratically, desperately trying to pump blood that was no longer there. He needed a tourniquet. Immediately.
Mateo dropped the phone base. He grabbed the dangling black telephone cord, looping it around his left bicep with his good hand. He bit down hard on the free end of the cord, using his teeth and his right hand to yank the makeshift tourniquet as tight as his failing muscles would allow.
The agonizing bite of the thin plastic cord cutting into his muscle made his vision white out completely for three terrifying seconds. When the gray room faded back into view, Gaines was halfway around the desk.
Mateo scrambled backward, pressing his spine against the large pane of frosted glass that separated the office from the empty rear hallway. He kicked out wildly, sending the heavy, wheeled office chair rolling into Gaines’s shins. The manager cursed, swatting the chair away, but the brief delay gave Mateo just enough time to drag himself to the far corner of the room, wedging himself near the towering metal supply cabinet.
He slumped against the cold steel, his breathing shallow and rapid. The telephone cord had slowed the arterial flow, but it wasn’t perfect. The carpet beneath his boots was already staining dark red again.
Gaines stopped. He didn’t lunge. He didn’t draw a weapon. He simply adjusted his stained white coat and looked at the heavy silver watch on his wrist. He was playing the long game. He just had to wait for the massive blood loss to finish what the automated bone saw had started.
“Just close your eyes, Mateo,” Gaines said, his voice shifting back to a terrifyingly calm murmur. “It’s cold, I know. But it’s almost over.”
Mateo frantically searched the room for a weapon, a way out, anything. The frosted glass window behind the desk was heavily reinforced with industrial wire mesh. The deadbolt on the steel door required a key from the inside. He was trapped inside a sealed box.
Then, a heavy, metallic thump echoed against the steel door.
It wasn’t the frantic, open-handed pounding of a panicked coworker realizing someone was hurt. It was three slow, rhythmic knocks. Knuckles against solid steel. Precise. Expected.
Gaines smiled, a thin, humorless stretching of his pale lips. He reached to his belt and pulled the heavy ring of keys free. “Ah. The transport crew is here.”
Gaines stepped backward toward the deadbolt, sliding the heavy brass key into the lock. Mateo watched the cylinder turn, his fading mind locking onto a single, horrifying realization: whoever was standing on the other side of that door was not there to take him to a hospital.