Meatloaf Dead
Chris Zasada (original inspiration in part by C)

It was an average Monday at Fassett Middle School. Boring, agonizing, just an average Monday. Two students walked down the bustling halls, pushing past the masses in a vain attempt to make it to class on time. They failed miserably, a fact that sank in the second the bell rang when they were just three feet from the classroom doorway. The hall quickly emptied out as the two entered the classroom and promptly went to their seats in the front, trying their best to ignore Mrs. Morrin’s angry glares.

“The two Chris’s, late as usual.” Mrs. Morrin observed in a manner that would have only been taken as a joke if they didn’t know her.

The two Chris’s returned with a set of grins. The one sitting next to the wall on the right, Zasada, settled comfortably into his seat, his pudgy frame rocking the desk/seat combination slightly. The other to the left of him, Selmek, after promptly taking his seat, shuffled through his backpack on the floor, looking for his journal. He shot up promptly as he located the college-ruled blue notebook, opening it to the first blank page and removing the pencil that was placed in the spiral binding.

Mrs. Morrin, satisfied that her class was now in order, began her lesson. “Now, take out your journals.” she announced, giving a short pause, “Today’s topic is: ‘If you could do something to make the world a better place, what would you do?’ ”

The random scratches and rustling of pages eventually shifted into a constant tune as the students wrote their responses. Mrs. Morrin shifted around her desk and sat down, eyeing the class before turning her attention to the student reports that covered her desk. Zasada quickly took out his small black journal from his backpack and began working furiously, cracking a smile as the ink flowed onto the paper. Selmek glanced over and smirked, knowing full well the storm that was about to pass through.

Minutes passed, and as the scratches died down, Mrs. Morrin rose from her desk and walked to the front of it, leaning carefully on the edges, seemingly so she wouldn’t knock over any of the knick-knacks displayed on top. “Okay,” she began, with a noticeable apprehension, “who would like to read their journal entry?”

Zasada’s hand shot up and Selmek sighed and smiled. Mrs. Morrin rolled her eyes and let out a less enthusiastic sigh of her own. She surveyed the room to see if anyone else had raised their hand, but the airspace was barren expect for that one maddening hand. She sighed again in defeat. “Chris?” she groaned.

Zasada cleared his throat unnecessarily and peered at his journal. “ ‘What I would do is stop the violence and fighting going on around the world.’ ” he read, hesitating only to look up at Mrs. Morrin’s face, which seemed to be rushed with relief. It was not to last.

“ ‘To do this,’ ” he continued, “ ‘ I would get the frying pan and the flying toaster to help me defeat the evil lunch ladies and their plan to use students who got detention for lunchmeat. I should warn all of you that their plan is already in motion, so you should think twice about eating the Salisbury steak today.’ ”

The words “Salisbury steak” were met with a flood of groans from the other students. Mrs. Morrin fixed Zasada with an icy stare while Selmek covered his face with his hands as he shook his head and laughed. Mrs. Morrin rolled her eyes and sighed again, allowing the exasperation to subside before attempting to calm down the classroom. As the commotion began to waver, she looked up at the clock with false optimism.

Only forty more minutes until lunch.

The chaos of the cafeteria was more than the lunchroom monitors could bear, as evidenced by their plopping down, one after the other, at their table and chewing their lunches with a defeated air. The lunch line extended almost to the entrance of the cafeteria and showed little signs of movement. Zasada swayed back and forward in the entryway of the serving room, actively thankful that Mrs. Morrin’s class was so close to the cafeteria.

A few minutes went by after Zasada disappeared into the serving area. Selmek sat at a table located at the edge of the cafeteria, unpacking his lunch from his padded red lunch box, setting everything neatly in front of him. He unwrapped and took a bite out of his tuna sandwich as Zasada appeared out of the serving room exit with a dark pink tray filled with cafeteria goodies.

He promptly trotted over to Selmek, weaving through the busy tables and haphazardly-placed backpacks, and sat down across from him, setting the tray down first. Selmek noticed a piece of paper under the tray Zasada had just set, and before he could inquire about it, Zasada seized it and pulled it out so Selmek could see. “Check this out!” he exclaimed, resting the paper into Selmek’s grip, “They’re looking for workers for the cafeteria kitchen, and they’re paying a free lunch!”

Selmek looked over the paper carefully. “Let’s sign up!” Zasada suggested.

Selmek thought about the matter for a moment. “I don’t know.” he replied, “I mean, we’d be working our lunch hour away.”

“No problem!” Zasada comforted, “We have fifteen minutes to eat, then we clean dishes or trays or whatever, and then we leave! It’ll be easy!”

Selmek set the paper down. “Yeah, sure.” he agreed, rising from his seat. Zasada followed, and they began their journey through the maze of tables to the serving room to sign up.

Ben sat at the table next the Chris’, quickly losing his feeble focus on the conversation the others sitting with him were having. One of the Chris’ at the other table mentioned something about free lunch, a notion that caught Ben’s attention immediately and took over all of his limited resources. What he heard sounded like the words of angels sent down exclusively for his benefit: easy work around food for free food.

He kept focus on the two as they rose from their table and went into the serving area, his slack lower lip not swaying in the least as his large head followed the Chris’ path. His mind was focused on one task now: getting that free food.

“Why should they get all of the free food?” Ben said to himself, “I love free food!”

His lip lifted off of his chin, resolute on his mission. “I’ll sign up after I’m done eating!” he thought, reaching a needy hand into the bag of chips he had handy.

The Chris’ walked into the serving room, past the students in line, inciting glares and mutters of “no cuts!” in their general direction. A lunchroom lady stood over a bin of Salisbury steak, fixing a steely gaze on anyone who approached. Zasada stood up on his toes in an effort to get the stagnant server’s attention and was eventually successful. The lunchroom lady turned her head up to him and handed him the requisite steely gaze, with ice attached for good measure.

“Um, we’re here to sign up for lunch work.” Zasada stammered before the stone-cold lunchroom lady, who was resembling a statue very nicely.

After a few unhealthy seconds of silence, the lunchroom lady stiffly motioned for the two to come behind the counter, into the forbidden lunchroom ladies’ area, and pointed to the cashier. The Chris’ hesitated, but eventually took a step towards the similar-looking lunchroom lady, who met them with a dead stare as they approached.

There was more silence, and the cashier kept it up as the person in line to pay for his lunch grew impatient, but not enough to foolishly question the situation. Selmek stared at the cashier’s face, surprised at all of the sagging and wrinkling that was going on. The only thing that was lively was her curling, gray hair, which appeared dead except for how high it stood. If he were to guess at her age, he would say two hundred and nineteen and not a year younger.

The cashier eventually reached under the stainless steel counter and brought up a ragged clipboard. “Sign here.” she said, unprompted, in a deceased voice.

The Chris’ took turns sheepishly signing the clipboard and walking away, each giving a vague “thank you” gesture. “Tomorrow after you finish your lunch, report here.” she grimly called after, and continued giving lifeless looks at paying students.

Ben’s substantial form pushed aside the person who was standing in the entryway of the serving area. He shoved aside the person who was being served and looked at the lunchroom lady with a stupid smile. “I want to work for free food!” he announced, his low, booming, and enthusiastic voice nearly rattling the glass sneeze guard in front of him.

The stone lunchroom lady looked him over, but did nothing for several dozen seconds. As the students in line grew impatient, Ben stood unmoving, smiling his smile as if it were going to do him any good. The lunchroom lady eventually motioned for him to come in back and go the cashier, who was as receptive as the server. Ben signed up and walked away blessing his luck, smiling and saying to himself, simply, “What nice ladies!”

The next day, the Chris’ and Ben, having promptly eaten their first free lunch, stood waiting in the kitchen located in the back of the cafeteria. The Chris’ exchanged an aggravated discourse with each other over the presence of Ben with their eyes, which involved looking at him in a confused manner, then at each other, and then back at him. It would seem that their plan for an easy free lunch was inhibited somewhat by the prospect of working with this idiot.

The Chris’ each sighed from pent-up exasperation and looked the kitchen over. It was fairly large, maybe the size of two or three classrooms, and was decorated with stainless steal and light yellow brick, which seemed to be the basic décor for all of the rooms connected to it. The kitchen was a maze of steel counters in the middle, a large sink against the back wall, and a corner full of massive ovens, stoves, and other, unidentifiable machines. To the left was a hallway that contained a large metal door; a freezer, it seemed. The hallway also led towards the outside, presumably.

The cashier from the day before appeared through one of the kitchen entryways and mournfully glared at the three boys, her stiff, white lunchroom lady uniform strengthening the impression that she was made out of some kind of rock. She laboriously walked towards them and stopped a safe ten feet away. “The three of you will have separate jobs.” she began with a sigh, “One will be washing lunch trays, the next will be washing pots and pans, and the last will be stocking and assistance. You will alternate jobs weekly.”

Her head creaked from side to side, looking over the new workers. “You!” she shouted, causing all three to jump, pointing at Selmek with a complete abandonment of her last demeanor, “You’ll be on trays!”

She pointed to the nearest exit, to the right, indicating where he would be working. “Report to the tray washing room and listen to the lunchroom lady there!”

She sneered at Ben. “You’ll be on pots today, and you!” she yelled, turning towards Zasada, “You will be on stock today! I will train you!”

The three looked around for a moment and began to break off towards their assigned areas when the lunchroom lady barked more information. “No slacking off, and no stealing food!” she ordered, “And DO NOT be late for work!”

The Chris’ shot worried glances at each other before parting ways. Ben smiled and made his way to the back of the kitchen where the wash basin was. A lunch lady, the server from yesterday, appeared from the far back of the kitchen, seemingly out of nowhere, and explained the procedure of washing dishes down the slightest detail, as if Ben were a complete idiot. It turned out to be a safe bet.

Selmek met up with the lunchroom lady in the washing room, a room about half the size of a classroom, most notably filled up halfway with a gigantic, steel tray washing machine, which seemed to have far more ducts, pipes, and other parts attached to it than necessary. The monstrosity ground and belched in a loud, almost hypnotic song as it breathed out massive quantities of steam, which effectively made the room twenty degrees hotter than the rest of the kitchen and made the air smell of humidity and soggy food. Other, less significant portions of the room were taken up by a storage cabinet, various selves, and a counter with a built-in conveyer belt that brought dirty lunch trays through an opening in the wall into the washing room.

Standing next to the tray washing monster was the no less intimidating lunchroom lady, a slightly younger, yet no less grim woman, with long, fake, curly red hair that somehow emitted a strong desire to suddenly spiral out and puncture the flesh of students. She set a look that intended harm on Selmek, and after a few thousand moments, let out a sigh. “Okay, this is what you’re supposed to do.” she began, her voice the voice of an angel with dire bronchial concerns, “I’ll rinse off the trays that come through here and you load them in the washing machine. DO NOT touch the rinser!”

Selmek’s eyes widened as she emphasized the part about the rinser, which she was pointing at so he wouldn’t miss it. He eyed the rinser, which looked like a big hole with a shower head dangling from it. It was probably used for large bits of food and garbage, but it was nothing to make a fuss about.

Selmek meekly watched as she demonstrated, with the obvious impression of being bothered, how the machine worked. Selmek followed the lead, and soon began whittling away his lunch hour, glancing at the lunchroom lady’s hair from time to time, just to make sure it stayed put. When he wasn’t concentrating on the hair or the trays, Selmek thought about how this job might not be worth the free lunch.

Meanwhile, the cashier, her back turned to the line of students who were waiting to pay for their food, explained the ropes to Zasada with a non-urgent, but aggressive tone. “Your job is to count the stock and bring it to and from the freezer! You will clean the counter after the line is empty!”

Zasada’s gaze wavered between the cashier and the students waiting to pay. They scowled at him as they crossed their arms and tapped their feet, putting the full blame for their inconvenience on him. The cashier continued staring at Zasada, though she apparently had nothing more to say. The students in line finally couldn’t stand any more interruption of their busy schedules. “Hey, could you help us out?” one of them called.

The cashier’s head twisted around, perhaps a little too far, towards the dissatisfied student. “Silence!” she snapped, “Or I’ll stuff you in a pot and serve you for lunch!”

The students backed off, dropping their intended purchases and shuffled off, refusing to take their eyes off of the cashier until they were safe. When they were out of view, the cashier screwed her head back towards Zasada, causing a soft yet disturbing cracking noise magnified a thousand times just by its presence, signifying that her head was on straight. She rolled her eyes in annoyance and slowly sat down on her metal stool next to the cash register, opening it to count the money.

Zasada stood for a while and stared. Finally, the cashier turned towards him and yelled at him to get to work. He jumped and ran to get some rags to clean the counter off, since the line was now empty and looked like it was going to stay that way. As he wiped off the serving area, he began to genuinely wonder if the lunchroom lady would actually carry out her threat she placed on the students.

Ben had no observations; he simply washed pans and thought about all of the wonderful the free food he would be receiving.

It wasn’t long before the Chris’ began noticing oddities in the cafeteria kitchen. Besides the lunchroom ladies’ vicious attitudes, they observed some strange, potentially fatal procedures. The first week, Selmek was cleaning trays when he noticed the lunchroom lady bringing out a roughed-up, dirty plastic bucket that looked like it originally contained sidewalk salt. She dropped the bucket on the floor and turned her attention to the dirty trays that were steadily coming from the opening.

The first tray appeared, one of its dull blue compartments filled to the brim with uneaten green beans. Without a word, she seized the tray and turned it upside-down, causing beans and other bits of food to fall into the bucket. She tossed the emptied tray back onto the conveyer belt, allowing it to continue its journey to Selmek, who loaded it warily into the tray lift bound for the washing machine.

The lunchroom lady continued dumping beans into the bucket. Selmek found this curious, since there was a garbage disposal right in front of her. As the uneaten green beans kept coming, the lunchroom lady gradually became more sullen, a tricky feat, Selmek was sure. She began to angrily mutter things under her breath, things Selmek could mostly not make out, but a few words managed to escape unharmed. He eventually made out a somewhat-complete sentence, something to the effect of “Stupid cretins! Don’t they know the school put us on a tight budget?! And they waste their food! They shall pay for this…”

The incoming trays eventually stopped coming, and once she was satisfied that there would be no more, the lunchroom lady reached down and grasped the handle of the half-full bucket of green beans, lifting it and carrying it out of the room. As the bucket hovered by, Selmek gazed into it and noticed bits of bread, mashed potatoes, and a full napkin swimming on the surface. The lunchroom lady exited the room and a loud thump from the outside of the room echoed back into the room shortly after.

“You!” she shouted to someone outside, “Find a container and put these green beans in the freezer for next week’s lunch!”

Selmek faced forward and his features drooped from shock, confusion, and nausea.

By the end of the week, Zasada already decided that he might not like this job after all. A few days ago, the lunchroom lady in the wash room slammed some lethal-looking green beans that had various pieces of food and a napkin in it onto the steel counter, carried in an equally lethal-looking bucket, and told him to find a container for the death beans and put them in the freezer for next week.

Zasada looked at the concoction with a disgusted sneer. He stared straight at the bean juice-soaked napkin and figured if anything, he should at least pull it out of there. He reached into the bucket, and within a second, a patrolling lunchroom lady shouted at him. Zasada promptly snapped his hand out of the bucket and cradled it with the other, as if he had barely missed the jaws of a bear trap. The lunchroom lady glared at him furiously. “DO NOT put your grubby hands in the food!” she commanded, with no sense of irony.

The recollection of the green bean incident faded as Zasada finished counting the stock of milk cartons, some of which, he noted, had their expiration dates whited out and replaced with new ones, obviously written in pen. He decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble in bringing it up. He gave up drinking the milk a couple of days ago anyway.

Just then, a lunchroom lady in back shouted to the front. “I need more meat!” she bellowed.

The cashier turned and called to Zasada. “Go to the freezer and get some meat!” she ordered.

Zasada sighed and made his way to the walk-in freezer. He pulled open the heavy door and stepped in, suddenly concerned about the fact that the “freezer” seemed warmer than the kitchen itself. Another oddity was that there were only six racks, and not very large racks, in the entire freezer; most of the containers were stacked on the floor, which was disturbingly dirty. To top it all off, a good portion of the back wall was taken up by some large, shiny, steel canister-like thing, to what its purpose was Zasada refused to ponder on. Whatever it was, it was, in stark contrast with everything in the freezer, spotless and well taken care of, indicating that it was important. It was also of no concern of Zasada’s at that juncture.

He walked to the rack where the meats, of which the animal of origin was unclear, were stacked. He looked over to the vegetables briefly and grimaced at the container of green beans he had placed there days earlier, then turned and sneered at the clear plastic containers of meat, all of which, to his disgust, seemed to have traces of mold growing on them. Defeated, Zasada poked his head out of the freezer and called to the lunchroom lady in the kitchen, who scowled in response to his shouting. “Hey! Where’s the good meat?” he asked, “All of this stuff has mold on it!”

The lunchroom lady sighed. “Is any of it moving?” she replied, grimly.

Zasada appeared disturbed. “Uh, no…” he said.

“Are there maggots in any of the meat?” she continued.

“I don’t think so…” he replied, looking ill.

“Then grab a container and bring it out here RIGHT NOW!” she yelled.

Zasada quickly pulled back inside the cooler and did as he was told, wondering whether or not tomorrow’s lunch was worth taking a chance on.

Ben missed his free lunch the moment he ate it. This was an ongoing problem.

Before long, Thanksgiving arrived, and the Monday before the holiday break turned out to be a bad time to be a worker in the cafeteria. Unless, of course, that worker was one of the evil lunchroom ladies, who never seemed the least bit fazed by their own malevolent policies.

It was Zasada’s week to work in the tray washing room, and the cafeteria had a special pizza day on Monday, since the usual Wednesday pizza day was the first day the students had off for the holiday (“We have to use up the stock of pizzas before the meat starts eating them.” one of the lunchroom ladies claimed, with no hint of humor).

As the first set of trays came in from the conveyer belt, the lunchroom lady began dumping uneaten bits of pizza into the same bucket they dumped every other uneaten thing that came off of the trays. Before too long, the bucket was filled with bits of pizza and other miscellaneous food bits, with a broken spork peeking out from under a half-eaten rectangle of pizza for good measure. The lunchroom lady grabbed the bucket and carried it out of the room, though not before informing Zasada that there was a stiff punishment for touching the rinser.

Zasada loaded the remaining rinsed trays into the washing machine and leaned against the counter, waiting for the lunchroom lady to come back to rinse off the trays that were steadily piling up. He wondered why she was saving partially eaten pizza. Of course, it was beyond belief that anyone would re-serve uneaten portions of cafeteria food in general, but within the lunchroom ladies’ bounds of reason, as he saw it, saving pizza seemed like an absurdity.

Zasada’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a shrieking sound. His head spun around, facing the general direction the noise had come from. Something had shrieked from somewhere in the kitchen, and soon after, there was a strange noise, like a gobbling, approaching the washing room. It sounded like a turkey.

The noise became louder; it was in the room now. Zasada leaped up against the wall and darted his head around, trying to find the source of the noise. It had dashed along the opposite wall, making clicking noises against the tile as it ran, shielded from view by the tray washing machine, but its position identifiable by the clicking. The thing hid itself under the counter, and after a moment’s pause, it scurried towards him, finally popping out next to the rinser. It was a turkey.

Zasada blinked at the bird, and the bird seemed to blink right back. They stared at each other for a few seconds. Zasada’s brain eventually allowed him to accept what he was looking at: a live turkey in the tray washing room. And not a particularly healthy looking turkey at that. He let out a yelp out for lack for a better plan.

It finally sunk into the bird’s minuscule brain that it was staring at an animal that wasn’t another turkey. And when the animal let out a roar, albeit a pretty pathetic one, it panicked and dashed off, back out the door and into the kitchen, where the animal that was just chasing it, a really, really unbelievably scary animal, roared more convincingly. “So there you are!” the animal exclaimed.

The terrified screams of the turkey slowly faded away as it ran further and further away. The yelling of the lunchroom lady who was chasing it made it difficult to gauge just how far the turkey was. Suddenly, the noises couldn’t be heard anymore. Zasada tried to concentrate his attention on what was going to happen next, but a loud grinding sound from the kitchen overpowered any noise in the cafeteria. He decided that no matter what, the final outcome was not good for anybody, especially the turkey.

Selmek couldn’t focus on cleaning pans after witnessing a particularly troubling incident. The lunchroom lady from the tray washing room came in with the bucket she always used for dumping partially eaten food in for storage. This never failed to make Selmek feel ill, but he figured that the used food was finished off by the sixth and seventh graders. His lunch was very likely safe, but he was always sure to check it first.

She brought the bucket over to a giant, dangerous-looking mixer that was mounted to the floor among a cluster of other stainless steel appliances. The machine’s bowl looked like it could easily fit a human being in it, an observation Selmek refused to dwell on any further.

The lunchroom lady dumped the bucket of food, partially-eaten pizza, into the massive metal bowl. She then went in back to get something when something else darted from the back and out the kitchen towards the tray washing room, screeching as it went. Selmek stared at the doorway, eyes blinking furiously. He rubbed them, blinked some more, and squinted, trying every vision correction method he could think of to make sure that he did not just see a live turkey run through the kitchen. The lunchroom lady didn’t seem to notice.

Another lunchroom lady charged out from the back carrying a large butcher knife, looking quite upset. She was panting heavily and her eyes seemed very bloodshot, even from a distance. She looked around the kitchen, her breathing becoming more aggravated.

Suddenly, another sound, a scream from the tray washing room and a sound like squawking from the same place, was closing in. The lunchroom lady cocked her head quickly towards the noise, and as she did, the other lunchroom lady returned carrying an array of spices, which, Selmek couldn’t help noticing immediately, were stored in severely rusted canisters from what was conceivably the beginning of the century. She crossed paths with the first lunchroom lady, heading straight towards the giant mixer, when the knife-wielding lunchroom lady shouted, “So there you are!”

Selmek’s gaze shot straight for the floor in front of the exit, where he saw, running and screeching, a live, but rather sickly-looking turkey. The other lunchroom lady began shouting something to the knife-wielder, who swung at, and missed, the bird as it darted between her legs. She spun around and chased after it, and before long there was an odd, sickening, sound, like a loud gurgle, and then a very loud grinding.

The lunchroom lady in the kitchen had turned on the mixer, which seemed as loud as a jack hammer. Selmek covered his ears, trying desperately to shield them from the painful noise. All he could do was wince and watch as the lunchroom lady mixed spices in with the leftover pizza.

After an eternity, the noise stopped, and the lunchroom lady shouted something out the door. It was impossible for Selmek to tell, since a full bell choir was playing in his brain at that point. Soon, Ben showed up, slack-jawed as usual, gleefully bounding into the room. “Take this stuffing for tomorrow into the freezer and let it set overnight!” he managed to hear her command as his ears returned to normal.

Selmek felt sick. So much so that he didn’t notice that the other lunchroom lady had returned. She casually tossed the butcher knife onto the pile of pans he had yet to wash, grabbed a dirty metal baking tray from the middle of the stack and walked in back again. He gazed at the knife sitting atop the stack of pans, and much to Selmek’s horror, it was covered in blood, which was now spreading itself around the pan. He did his best not to pass out.

He grasped the side of the sink, looking away from the knife. He knew he was gong to have to wash it, or the lunchroom ladies might use it on him. Selmek fearfully pawed for it, almost letting out a yelp when he actually touched the handle. He threw it into the sink as quickly as he could manage and began filling the basin with hot water, even thought it was half full, and a half a bottle of dish soap, even though there was plenty in there already.

Selmek uneasily cleaned the knife from under the soap and water, still turned away from it, eyes clenched. He opened them only a little, and they suddenly came completely opened all on their own when they caught sight of what the lunch lady, whose white uniform, he just noticed, was severely stained red with blood, had brought back with her: a decapitated turkey, feathers ruffled and falling out, on the dirty metal baking tray. Selmek fought the urge to vomit.

The lunchroom lady nonchalantly carried the bird, which Selmek could swear was still twitching, across the kitchen and to a metallic box that looked like a large microwave with an extra-thick window, a single ominous, dull red button, and a large valve sticking out on the front. She set the turkey on top of the box and turned the valve until the heavy-sounding door squealed open. She picked up the bird, put it into the box, and closed the door, sealing it tightly with a few turns of the squealing valve. She then pressed the button, and a sound like a generator powering on whined louder and louder until Selmek fell over.

When he came to, he realized that he was lying on the rubber slip cover in front of the wash basin. He rose up slowly and rubbed his head, trying to calm a new pain that had afflicted it. His ears were once again ringing and it took him a few moments to collect his thoughts. He began to remember the turkey, and then the lunchroom lady pressing a button, and a loud explosion, and then he was lying on the floor.

Selmek shot to his feet and stared at the steel box, mouth agape. He began to recall that right after the explosion, the steel box, which must have weighed almost as much as he did, bounced off of the counter and landed with a deafening bang. Those details were unimportant now, however, as he was now observing the lunchroom lady picking charred feathers and bones out of a messy pile of cooked turkey meat.

“ ‘I don’t know if anyone should eat the turkey today.’ ” Zasada read shakily from his messily-penned journal the next day, “ ‘I could have sworn I saw a turkey running around yesterday in the dish room when I was working in the cafeteria.’ ”

Soft moans dotted the classroom as Zasada read on. “ ‘Also the bloody butcher knife that Chris Selmek had to wash wasn’t reassuring…’ ”

Mrs. Morrin slammed her hands onto her desk, a gesture that overpowered the growing groans of the other students, demanding their immediate silence. “Chris, I’ve had enough!” she scolded, “Please, just stop writing about the cafeteria food! No one wants to hear about it!”

“But…” Zasada interjected.

“DON’T!” she confirmed.

Zasada jerked his head down and somberly closed his journal. Selmek turned and gave him an apprehensive and sympathetic glance, understanding the Hell they were going through, and no one on Earth would believe them. Worst of all, lunch hour was slowly approaching.

Two-thirty couldn’t have come a moment too soon that day. Selmek and Zasada walked down the halls, navigating into the flow of students that were bound for the buses. They didn’t speak, they could only silently reflect on the lunch hour that day. It was extraordinarily awkward, not just counting the fact they had to clean up uneaten bits of the turkey they witnessed running around the kitchen yesterday. They pushed back the thought of how many other turkeys met the same fate just to feed the school. They were also very hungry, since they passed on lunch today.

They reached the bus boarding area. Zasada waved to Selmek and got on his bus. Selmek returned the gesture and began the walk back home for some much needed snacking.

Thanksgiving break was an absolute necessity after the school year they had been having. Each of the Chris’ had their own separate Thanksgiving dinner, a welcome remedy for both of them, even though the turkey part of it was still a sensitive subject. The day after, Selmek got a call from Zasada, who suggested they go to the local park and hang out. They met an hour later, promptly beginning their journey into the woods, talking and causing various acts of mischief. Never once did the subject of the cafeteria come up, which is why they were able to laugh so much and forget their worries.

Then Monday came. The Chris’ had both separately dreaded it all through Sunday, and now it was here. As they greeted each other in the minutes before school started, they were both terribly aware that once sixth period came around, they would be thrown right back into the Hell they managed to crawl out of.

“Maybe we should quit…” Zasada suddenly blurted as he swirled his spork through the vegetable concoction on his tray and decided against it.

Selmek gave him a firm glance that shared the sentiment and the irony of the situation. “It really wasn’t a good idea.” Zasada continued, “I never should have made you sign up.”

Selmek waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it.” he assured, “It’s not your fault. Who could have possibly known it would turn out like this?”

Zasada nodded in a way that indicated he knew that already, but somehow he should have known better regardless. “Look,” Selmek kept going, “We’ve got less than a month until Christmas break, and then we’ll make up some excuse, like we’re in a different class next semester and we can’t get out early or something. Let’s just wait it out.”

Zasada nodded in a way that indicated he was thinking the same thing. He was silent for a few seconds, and then came out with what was bothering him. “You’re scared too, aren’t you?” he questioned.

Selmek froze for a moment, and then replied a little too quickly and honestly, as if he had been pondering that too and was trying to avoid making it so obvious. “Yeah…” he sighed.

After the Chris’ finished their lunch, which they had retrieved without the slightest eye contact with the lunchroom ladies, they fearfully approached the kitchen entrance and reported to their assigned places; Selmek was on stock and Zasada was on wash basin this week. They began working slowly and nervously, wondering what vile scheme the lunchroom ladies would pull this week. There was always something, if not the reusing of food or the exploding of turkeys, then something less tangible. There was always an evil about them that showed itself everyday, without fail, though some manner of incident that was so relatively minor it was impossible to point out with any sort of meaning unless one was present to witness it.

The day went by with a single large, completely insane oddity: there was no evil.

Of course, the lunchroom ladies were grumpy as always, but they didn’t do any of their usual unusualness. There was no food recycling, no bloody knives, no threats of death. The Chris’ went in, did their job, and left without thinking how lucky they were to be leaving on two legs. This in itself unnerved them.

They were not convinced, though. The next day, the Chris’ watched the lunchroom ladies closely, just in case they were playing some kind of trick. The lunchroom ladies were still cross, spiteful, and frightening, but there didn’t seem to be any imminent evil.

On Wednesday, the hallowed “pizza day,” the Chris’ were washing up to leave when a lunchroom lady appeared from the front with a large tray full of leftover pizzas. She set it down on the counter in the middle of the kitchen and looked straight at Zasada, and then Selmek. “You want some leftovers?” she asked in an unenthusiastic, but un-ominous tone.

The Chris’ stared at the lunchroom lady, then at the pizza, and then at each other. “Well, do you want these?” she asked again, impatience growing in her voice, “I’m going to throw them out if you don’t.”

It was too much.

The Chris’ remained still, occasionally glancing at each other to confer the situation with each other, as if they were dismantling an armed nuclear bomb. The lunchroom lady scowled at them, and they each concluded that they didn’t want to see what manner of wrath came next. Zasada cautiously walked over to the pizzas, quickly grabbed a piece, and, after a moment’s hesitation, bit off a corner. He chewed for a few seconds, examining it for poison. Besides the fact that it was a little cold, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. Zasada hastily swallowed and stood still for a few moments, waiting for something to happen. Nothing. It didn’t seem poisoned.

The lunchroom lady had given them extra free food, and it wasn’t fatal.

With an approving nod from Zasada, Selmek stepped over and had a piece for himself. After tasting it, he too realized that it was good, and the two looked at each other with a smile, an action they could never have anticipated acting out while on the clock. It was a wonderful dream.

The lunchroom lady assured them that they could have as much as they like, since it was bound for the trash bin anyway. Having finished his first piece, Zasada grabbed two more, sandwiching them together. Selmek smiled stiffly and shook his head, taking a second piece for himself. The lunchroom lady went to the exit and poked her head out to say something to Ben, who was probably finishing up his bumbling on the job by now.

“MORE FREE FOOD?!” yelled Ben, his voice rattling through the walls with a force that almost caused Selmek to drop his pizza. A loud series of thumps, so powerful the Chris’ could almost feel them under their feet, crashed from the serving area to the kitchen. Ben bounded gleefully in, his face lighting up at the sight of the giant tray of pizza. He hopped over and with a look of joy that could only otherwise be obtained by peering into the gates of Heaven, and pawed at the food furiously, cramming as much of it in his mouth and grip as he could. The Chris’ looked on in awe of this display, disappointed this once-in-a-lifetime joy was actively being consumed by Ben.

But it wasn’t the last display of generosity on the part of the lunchroom ladies. Almost everyday, they supplied their workers with leftovers of every sort. They even allowed them to quit work a little earlier in order to partake of their rewards. And the weirdness hadn’t shown up again. The lunchroom ladies were still cranky, but still not evil. The Chris’ suddenly felt a sense of indescribable relief, for their nightmare was finally over for good.

And then the incident occurred.

It was a few weeks before Christmas break. Selmek was on trays that week, and he was almost happy about it. The lunchroom lady, who never touched her recycled food bucket since Thanksgiving, was cleaning off trays, dumping all of the uneaten portions down the garbage disposal, as she had been doing since putting down the bucket. For the past few days, she hadn’t seemed as concerned about her dominion over the rinser. Not that Selmek would dare touch it still, but now the restriction didn’t seem to hang over his head anymore. Work was almost pleasant now.

Then, the lunchroom lady let out an angered groan, like the sound a rhinoceros would make if someone smacked it in the head with a sledgehammer and failed to kill it. Selmek picked up on some laughter coming from outside the opening. He looked up and saw a bare butt looking right back, waving unsteadily from side to side. The laugher from outside was growing into a roar, and though Selmek could have sworn he heard one of the lunchroom monitors yelling at the mooner, the orders were quickly drowned out by the laughter.

The lunchroom lady stood, trembling with anger that built into an outright earthquake. Selmek could almost hear the muscles in her body tensing, the blood rushing through her exposed veins and into her eyes, and the cracking of clenched fists. She suddenly let out a rasping shriek and lunged for the flesh in front of her, seizing it with her nails and digging into the soft skin.

The blood spurted out and trickled onto the conveyer belt. The lunchroom lady showed no signs of releasing her grip, instead digging in further. There were loud and agonized screams coming from outside, and the cheeks tried to pull away, but it was no use. “You think it’s funny?!” the lunchroom lady screamed, her words nearing the line of incomprehensibility, “I’ll show you funny!!!”

She let out a howl and pulled back on the flesh, digging in just to make sure it didn’t rip off from the rest of the body. The butt came forward as the body it was attached to bended into the small opening, the sound of vertebra cracking from being violently contorted echoing off of the walls. Selmek threw himself against the tray washing machine, pressing himself against it, trying to get as far away from the horror that was in front of him, but too horrified to do the rational thing and run out of the room and go mad.

The screams from the lunchroom lady and her victim grew louder as the body came completely through the opening. Selmek’s eyelids were stretching beyond what they were previously capable of as the body came through. It was a boy, someone Selmek vaguely knew from math class, a jock, he somehow recalled, screaming and bleeding as the lunchroom lady drew him in.

When he was all the way in the washing room, the lunchroom lady yanked her right hand out of the boy and grabbed his shoulders. She hoisted him over her head with what seemed like little effort and began panting wildly. “You could stand to learn some manners!” she shouted, and with malicious bay, began bending him in half.

The boy began to scream even louder as the lunchroom lady pushed his body together. The sound of back snapping almost, but not quite, overpowered the screaming, a sick symphony that made Selmek want to pass out and choke on his own vomit just to get away from it all. He tried to cover his eyes, but wasn’t successful for long, as the terrible noises were too hideous to drowned out, forcing him to stare in terror out of some morbid and stupid instinct. He convulsed when he realized that the boy’s head was now between his legs, and as they drew past that point, the lunchroom lady howled and shoved him into the garbage disposal.

Selmek nearly died spontaneously as he gaped at the rinser. At some point in all of this, perhaps when he covered his eyes, the lunchroom lady had apparently activated some mechanism, because a loud whirling and grinding, much louder than usual, shook the counter. The boy’s eyes were nearly popping out of his head and his mouth stretched so wide from screaming that his cheeks looked like they were able to split. Blood started to spit up from the hole, spattering on the counter and on the nearby by wall. The splattering, wet sounds amongst the grinding that was now too obvious made Selmek’s legs try to kill themselves, resulting in him falling to the floor.

The boy continued to shriek in agony as the lunchroom lady stood over him, panting and drooling like a rapid, out-of-breath wolf. She was apparently growing impatient, for after yelling something that sounded like “get in there!” with a noticeable strain, she pushed the boy’s screaming head down as hard as she could. The boy slipped into the garbage disposal with ease, and the screaming suddenly stopped, replaced with the sound of the machine struggling. A long moment later, the machine suddenly jerked back into full operation, and a loud cracking and squishing noise rang out just as a geyser of blood and flesh flew from the hole, landing back towards the sink basin and splashing all over the immediate area.

Selmek stopped breathing as the lunchroom lady reached under the counter and hit a switch, causing the garbage disposal to return to normal. The soft whirling allowed the flow of the water from the washer head to be audible once again, and the splashing and clanging of the tray washing machine just behind him came back into existence. The lunchroom lady stood panting madly, calming down after a while.

Once she was calmed down enough, she began unceremoniously washing the blood off of the walls and counter with the washing head. After a moment, she turned and looked down at Selmek, who should have been clinically dead by that moment. The front of her was almost completely covered in blood, with the occasional piece of something he refused to think about stuck to this and that. The lunchroom lady fixed him with a near-fatal stare. “Nothing happened here.” she said simply, and went back to her cleaning.

There was shouting and crying coming outside the washing room, the sounds of students trying to sort out the impossible thing that just happened and the noises of teachers trying to bring order to a situation where order was impossible. Despite all the efforts to figure it all out, no one but the two in the washing room knew what really happened, and only one, perhaps, knew why. Even so, who figured out what and why was unimportant to Selmek now, who felt his organs wanting to fail him, but they weren’t quite getting there.

He immediately called home sick and left school for the rest of the day.

Zasada walked into the school the next day frantically looking for Selmek. He hadn’t seen him after lunch, and a messenger from the office told Mrs. Morrin halfway through class that he went home sick. When he tried to call, his mother said that he was in his room asleep and not feeling well. He probably wouldn’t be in school today, but something told Zasada otherwise.

He rounded the corner into the eighth grade hallway, half-heartily looking ahead towards Selmek’s locker, hoping to see him fumbling with his lock or pulling out his ill-fitting backpack as he usually did. There was no one standing in front of his locker. Zasada sighed and made his way somberly to his own locker further down the hall.

He twisted his combination lock and pulled at lock. It didn’t budge, and with a sharp huff, he tried again. When the lock finally came off, Zasada opened the locker sharply and searched for his backpack, his concern for Selmek making the task harder than it looked. He pulled out a jacket that was thrown on the bottom of the locker, revealing the lost backpack. As Zasada dropped the jacket on a locker hook, he felt a meager tap on his shoulder.

He spun around and started to smile, but stopped halfway when he took in what he was looking at. It was Selmek, swaying back and forward, awkwardly waiting for acknowledgement. It wasn’t hard to tell why Zasada’s smile hung in limbo when Selmek’s expression was taken into consideration. He stared at Zasada, face slack and pale, a look in his eyes that looked as if his ties to reality were ripped from the ground and thrown in his face.

Zasada stood silently, looking at Selmek with a mix of horror and worry. He fought for the words that would best work for this situation, but the right ones didn’t come to him, because they didn’t exist. “What happened to you yesterday? Are you all right?” Zasada asked, even though he had a guess about the cause of Selmek’s unrest.

“I was just a little sick.” he replied unconvincingly as he looked down the hall.

Zasada scowled. “Yeah, right!” he shot, “It was something that happened in the cafeteria, wasn’t it?”

Selmek attempted to twist his head further away, but his neck had reached its limit. “Chris, what happened?!” Zasada demanded, grabbing Selmek’s shoulder and forcing him back a little.

Suddenly, Selmek grabbed Zasada by the arm and pulled him down the hall, towards the exit, away from the crowd, Zasada noted. When they were out of earshot, Selmek looked straight into Zasada’s eyes, teetering on the edge of insanity. “It was the lunchroom lady! In the tray washing room!” he cried, “She killed someone!”

Zasada’s head shot back in surprise, but the reaction was more voluntary than he cared to admit. The news wasn’t as shocking as it should have been, not even close. “What happened?” Zasada questioned, noting a level of color returning to Selmek’s face.

Selmek sighed and looked out the glass door, out towards somewhere that wasn’t here. “Some kid stuck his butt into the washing room, where the trays come in. A prank, you know?” he explained, “The lunchroom room lady started getting furious and grabbed him and shoved him into the garbage disposal!”

Zasada gawked. He wasn’t surprised so much about the murder as much as he was about the fact that he apparently witnessed it without knowing about it. Yesterday, he remembered hearing a lot of screaming coming from the tray washing room. He assumed it was the lunchroom lady returning to normal, and though he was disappointed, he didn’t think anything of it. He apprehensively left work late that day and rushed out of the lunchroom room without waiting for Selmek or paying any heed to the clamor that seemed to be going on at the other end of the cafeteria. It turns out his assumptions were truer than he cared for them to be.

Selmek’s head drooped down and he crossed his arms close to his body. Zasada shot him an unsteady grin and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it!” he comforted, “If we stick together, we’ll be alright!”

Selmek turned and gave his friend a weak smile. Zasada turned and suggested they get to class, walking away with a confident air. It was a shame that it was just a big show, since he had no idea if his assurance was worth any more than the guess it was.

Lunchtime was met with a nearly-impossible level of paranoia. Zasada entered the serving area first, followed by Selmek, who shot nervous glances around, making sure that the killer lunchroom lady wasn’t in sight. The lunchroom lady that was present served them their lunches, hamburger and fries, and they went to sit in their normal spot, Zasada eying the food suspiciously. “She stuffed him in the garbage disposal, right?” he questioned with concern as he lifted the bun off of the meat to get a better look.

“Yeah, why?” Selmek replied with his own anxiety.

“Uh, no reason.” Zasada answered, replacing the bun and digging into his hamburger. His fear was absurd, but he couldn’t so easily put anything past the lunchroom ladies.

After they finished their lunches, the Chris’ began work. As they convened in the kitchen, Selmek nudged Zasada’s shoulder. “Hey, do you think we can trade jobs today?” he asked, knowing full well how inconsiderate and selfish it was, but not knowing any other alternative. He didn’t want to go back there anymore.

Zasada shrugged and agreed, figuring that it would be for the best anyway. They made up an excuse that Selmek wasn’t feeling that great, and wanted to work in a room that wasn’t so warm. The cashier grudgingly agreed, and Selmek took over the stock job for that day. Zasada sheepishly entered the tray washing room, half-expecting something ghastly to be hanging around. There was nothing, save for usual lunchroom lady who was bitterly working around the rinser.

He walked over the tray area and greeted the lunchroom lady, who turned around slowly and immediately gave Zasada a look that was more annoyed than usual. “Where’s the other one?” she asked, a hint of restraint in her voice.

“Uh, he’s not feeling that well. He’s working in stock today.” Zasada explained shakily.

“Well, it’s his week for trays, and HE’S GOING TO DO THEM!!!” the lunchroom lady shouted.

“I know, but the steam makes it too hot in here!” Chris replied, trying to hold steady, “He’ll throw up all over the trays if he works in here!”

The lunchroom lady gave him a look that effectively conveyed the fact that she didn’t personally care, but reluctantly agreed with the idea. She turned away and grumbled something to herself. Zasada nodded, assured that nothing bad was going to happen to either Selmek or him.

Before long, the first wave of trays came through. Zasada loaded them into the carrier and sent them on their way. He leaned against the counter and began to think about the situation. He thought it was odd that no one seemed to notice the disappearance of the murdered student. He thought that someone would have come back into the kitchen and said something, since there were a lot of witnesses who saw the guy get dragged into the washing room. In fact, there wasn’t any chatter about it at all, and Zasada noticed that some students from his classes, friends of the boy Selmek later identified, were all absent as well. Could it be that everybody feared the lunchroom ladies so much that they would try to cover up the incident?

Zasada’s train of thought was unexpectedly derailed by a loud thumping noise in the tray washing machine. The machine ground and sputtered, and after a bit more noise, shut down completely. The lunchroom lady looked over a little too quickly at the machine, and then at Zasada. “Sounds like a tray got stuck in there.” she stated with a little hesitation, “Crawl inside and get it out.”

He turned to her and stared with a look that said, simply, “No way in Hell.”

“Don’t be a wimp!” she shouted back, any hint of hesitation completely vaporized, “I’ll go shut off the power, so by the time you get in there and fix it, I’ll have the power turned off.”

Zasada wasn’t convinced. The lunchroom lady narrowed her eyes and allowed her face to turn red. “GET IN THERE RIGHT NOW!!!”

He vaulted onto the counter and scurried inside the machine, feeling that, no matter what, he was probably safer in there anyway. Zasada paused and watched the exit of the room through the plastic flaps that dangled from the opening of the machine, making sure that the lunchroom lady was good on her word. She strode out of the room without looking back, not that she could see through the flaps and the darkness in the machine anyway, disappearing into the kitchen where he hoped the circuit breaker was located.

After a pause, he decided to get to work. He crawled all the way into the machine, its dark, warm, moist atmosphere capable of suffocating anyone who bungled around in it. He did his best not to slip on the wet rollers that moved the trays along, despite the fact that they clearly wanted to roll right out from under him and cause him to fall into some point of no return.

When he reached the tray carrier, Zasada grasped the edge of it and reluctantly pulled, expecting to set off the machine and be scalded to death by boiling rinse water. The carrier moved easily back, and he managed to pull it out of the machine without any problems or death.

Once the carrier was out of the way, Zasada darted back into the machine, wanting to get this job over with as soon as possible. He made his way further into the murkiness of the machine, squinting to see where the problematic tray was. What he found instead was a stick jammed in the machinery.

He seized the stick, which turned out to be a mop handle, and pulled on it. It didn’t budge. Zasada grasped it with both hands and pulled back with all his weight. As he reared back, he by chance looked behind him, back at the trays. He then realized that he had missed something that was plain as day that he should have noticed at once: there were no missing trays in the carrier. By then, it was too late.

The handle gave way. The excessive force Zasada had put into it backfired, throwing him on his back. The machine sputtered and the rollers began to move. She hadn’t turned off the power after all. It was a trap.

Zasada spun around onto his stomach and forced himself up. As he tried to steady himself, his fingers went in between two rollers, pinching them. He drew his hand sharply back. His first instinct was to nurse the finger, but that instinct was overpowered by his urge to keep his head from getting tangled in the hidden machinery above. He tried to spin himself in the opposite direction, to crawl out with the direction of the rollers, when the water sprayed out.

He let out a yelp when the stream of water spattered his body. Zasada knew for sure that he was about to be scalded to death, yet he didn’t stop pawing for the exit. Inches from the exit, it dawned on him that the water was warm, but not hot, at least not yet. There was a chance.

It wasn’t long before the odds were quickly looking worse as Zasada felt the temperature of the water rising quickly as it shot out from all directions, its origins obscured by thick darkness. He thrust his hands forward and felt the smooth steel of the counter just beyond the flaps, and with as much strength as he could muster, he grasped the edges of the counter and pulled himself towards the exit, shimming his hands as his body lurched forward. A scalding blast of water shot out of the machine, hitting his ankles, but unable to reach the rest of his body. Zasada scurried down the counter, fell off onto the plastic titles, and huddled against the nearest wall, shaking.

He couldn’t tell how long he had been there, but it didn’t matter. That spot was now the safest place in the world, and he wasn’t about to move without a good reason. His mind began to trance over what had happened, frequently stopping to think about the fact that he almost died in a tray washing machine.

As Zasada began to calm down, he started thinking about the situation in more detail. Had he fixed the machine too early? He paused, thinking about the mop handle for a second, and then remembered what he noticed before, the fact that there were no trays missing from the carrier, even though the lunchroom lady claimed that a tray was the cause of the malfunction. The cause was a mop handle.

And what was a mop handle doing in the tray washing machine anyway? As Zasada pondered this, his eyes widened and it began to come into focus. The lunchroom lady, the one who Selmek saw murder a student, was pretty upset that he wasn’t washing trays, and it was the first load that got jammed, as if it was supposed to. And she should have had plenty of time to shut down the main power.

He sat, slumped loosely against the wall, thinking. The water dripped off of his clothes, onto the floor and towards the floor drain in the middle of the room. If he had wet himself in the process, there was no way of telling. Either way, it wasn’t all that important right now. He could only run over the conclusion he had drawn.

They had just tried to kill him.

The rest of the week was the worst. The Chris’ were completely paranoid, looking over their shoulders at the slightest indication of possible signs of trouble, which seemed to occur every few seconds. They constantly kept an eye on each other, to make sure that the other was still alive. Their only goal was to get through each day, surviving for two more weeks. In two weeks, they would be free, at least for a little while. Just two more weeks until Christmas break.

Ben, who managed to completely miss everything that unfolded, was still upset that his free food ran out upon its consumption.

The next week, a snow storm caused a two day school cancellation, much to the joy of the Chris’. The mirth was crimped when the news informed them on Wednesday that there would only be a one hour delay, meaning it was another lunch day for them. When it was time for lunch, however, they were in for another unexpected occurrence: normality.

Everything shifted back to the secure, pre-murder environment. The lunchroom ladies, still grumpy, but not apparently evil, offered them free leftovers again, though the Chris’ didn’t trust them. While there were no murdering of students or attempts on their lives, they simply couldn’t put it past the lunchroom ladies to try it again. It was too much like last time.

The week went by without incident, and soon it was two days before Christmas break. Ben galloped to the lunchroom, trying to get there before the Chris’ so he could get to the free food first, as he had attempted unsuccessfully the entire year, since his pre-lunch class was held far away from the cafeteria and the rest of the eighth grade class. Success in his mission would be his badge of honor.

He smiled and let out a gurgle of joy when he realized he was the first in line. It had escaped him for the moment that he was going to be the only one there that day. The rest of the eighth grade class was on a fieldtrip that eventually led, after the boring educational stop, to the city’s largest mall. Everyone made it a point to go, everyone, of course, expect Ben, who was too stupid to know what to do with his permission slip. It didn’t matter that he was left behind, though, since free food would soon be his.

He stood patiently in line as the creaky lunchroom lady sauntered grimly from the kitchen. She groaned softly when she reached the counter, twisting her head towards Ben and staring at him with eyes that required a coffin and a burial. She didn’t say anything, but the message was clear.

Ben was unaware of any message. He swayed and tapped his feet, a large, dumb, optimistic smile on his face. He eyed the spot where the food should have been, but instead of food, there was nothing. The serving area was closed up.

This didn’t faze him. He waited and swayed, looking around and killing time until he was served. He figured that his food was probably in the back, being freshly cooked, just for him. The lunchroom lady didn’t move a molecule, but the air around her radiated her impatience. Finally, she realized that her message wasn’t getting through. “What do you want?” she rasped.

Ben looked straight at the lunchroom lady, the concern mounting, but the smile still stretched across his face. “I want my free food!” he chimed merrily.

The lunchroom lady lowered her brow a few centimeters to enforce her distaste. “No lunch today.” she rasped, “However, you will work anyway.”

Ben’s face fell a little too far. For a moment, he looked as if he was just told that he was going to die of an incurable and painful disease in a few minutes, but the sorrow was soon replaced by an even bigger and dumber smile than before. He laughed giddily and began walking behind the counter, assuming that his food was somewhere in the kitchen. “You’re bein’ funny!” he chuckled, continuing on his quest.

The lunchroom lady followed his path with her entire body, as if she was pivoting without any movement on her body’s part. Ben turned and smiled some more. “So, where’s my food?” he asked, “Is it in the kitchen?”

The lunchroom lady let out a spiteful sigh. “There will be no lunch for you.” she repeated, “There are no other students coming, and we are not going to cook simply for you. You will work for free today.”

Ben’s jaw plummeted. He couldn’t find the words that would do justice to this injustice. He simply let his jaw hang as the other two lunchroom ladies trudged in, as if on cue. Ben’s silence soon graduated into random babble, which bettered itself into a few disjointed words. Finally, he managed to find some words that would make out a somewhat complete sentence.

“I QUIT!!!” he bellowed, near hysteria. Ben always let his emotions get out of hand when food was at stake.

The lunchroom ladies fixed Ben with a fatal glare. One of them, who was tending to something else by that time, twisted her neck instantly towards him with a large crack. Their faces did not change, but the temperature did, falling a good five degrees instantly. “What did you say?!” one of them hissed, restraining her voice for an unknown reason.

Ben whimpered and began to step backwards, but refused to change his moral stance. “I quit!” he cried, his eyes widening in terror.

The room seemed to get slightly darker as a strange, almost non-existent white smoke appeared out of nowhere. The lunchroom ladies still stood unmoving, but there eyes began to change color, turning from a dead dark to a raging red. Then, the eyes began to radiate with the bloody color.

The lunchroom ladies all took a step forward at the exact same time. Ben continued backing off, letting out a yelp of absolute fear as they approached. The lunchroom ladies each lowered their hands to the nearest counter surface or table. Two of the lunchroom ladies took hold of butcher knives and one hoisted up a large frying pan, though none of the respective items seemed to be there before. They stepped closer. “You can’t quit!” the lunchroom lady rasped, “Once you sign on for work, you sign on forever!”

The lunchroom ladies raised their instruments above their heads, ready to take a good swipe at Ben, who had fallen down with a loud thump while backing away and was scurrying to escape. As the lunchroom ladies drew closer, he hurled his body over onto his knees and tried to crawl away, but it was too late. One of the lunchroom ladies lunged and sliced the back of Ben’s leg, causing him to twist around in pain and slam against the milk refrigerator.

He shrieked in terror and began flailing his limps in all directions, hoping to ward off his attackers. The lunchroom lady with the frying pan swung it around and into Ben’s forehead, slamming the rest of his head sharply into the refrigerator. His body twitched briefly and slumped quietly against the steel door.

He whimpered in terror, his unfocused eyes twitching because of the fear and the concussion as the other two lunchroom ladies surrounded him and raised their knives in the air. They began mercilessly cutting and stabbing Ben’s flesh as the third periodically smashed the iron frying pan into his body. They carried on their vicious ballet well after his pitiful cries had fallen silent.

The seventh grade students who were in the classes closest to the cafeteria looked around with widened eyes when they heard the terrible screams coming from the cafeteria. Their teachers promptly calmed them down and shut the classroom door, assuming it was business as usual in the cafeteria kitchen.

The Chris’ stepped in front of the serving counter the next day, waiting too-casually for the lunchroom lady to creak out from wherever she was hiding and serve them. The bell rang, and the rest of the eighth graders quickly filed into the cafeteria, filling the line out without hesitation. The lunchroom lady scraped out of the kitchen and to the serving counter as Selmek looked over his shoulder suspiciously.

The lunchroom lady lifted the steel bin cover off of counter, letting a wave of steam escape from the container. Zasada sneered at the bin’s contents as the lunchroom lady removed the other lids and began ladling some kind of liquid into the first bin. “Yuck, meatloaf…” Zasada groaned as he noticed the lunchroom lady pouring the unknown concoction over the meatloaf, “Hey, what’s that red stuff you’re putting on it?”

The lunchroom lady stopped ladling, frozen midway, and looked up at him. A thin, sinister smile stretched across her face, and perhaps even a very soft laugh escaped. “Our secret sauce!” she cackled, continuing her mixing with a satisfied and evil grin on her face that exploded with an obvious and ominous laugh.

The story is far from over. In the thrilling conclusion of Meatloaf Dead, not only will the fates of the Chris' be revealed, but the truth behind the evil lunchroom ladies will be discovered. What you've read is less than a third of the total story.

Currently, I'm seeking a publisher for this story. If you like what you've read, let your favorite publishing company know about it and recommend it. Interested publishers should contact Zasada. Thank you for your support!