With Chuck and Bruce’s combined weight pulling it toward the Earth’s core, I found the cart was surprisingly difficult to push and even harder to steer as it bounced against stacked containers, drums, and hoppers along the way. I was trying my darnedest to get as far away from line position 194, Hydroponics Installation, before the hazmat team arrived, summoned by the alarm Bruce had set off to provide himself cover.
    With my hands on either side of Bruce’s bobbing, snoring head, I trudged along under the mezzanine on a path perpendicular to the line which Must Never Stop. I cought myself mouthing that mantra along with my thoughts as they ran by in my head. The Line Must Never Stop, but tonight it had, and the man laying atop my friend’s severed pelvis was the cause. I added that atrocity to the list of crimes and slights I’d suffered under his tyrannical reign as shift foreman. He’d stopped the line.
    He’d also killed Chuck; a man who, judging by the strawberry flavored blood and strange black internal bits exposed by the violence visited upon him, was not a man at all.
    Chuck’s smiling face and reassuring voice came unbidden to my thoughts. The time we worked together on the line already seemed like a nostalgic, bygone era, though it was only minutes gone. It was my loyalty to him that had complicated this already bad situation so.
    See, if I was smart, I thought as I righted the course of the creaking cart yet again, I would’ve left Chuck lying there. I could’ve run from Bruce and the damned forklift, and wouldn’t have this cart-load of trouble to deal with. I looked down at Bruce again. His eyes, mouth, and miniature clown-headed brother all still sported handsome decals proclaiming the inadvisability of dashboard marijuana horticulture. I wasn’t sure how long he’d remain unconscious, and I regretted leaving the wreckage of my sticker gun back by the line. It had made an effective cudgel, and I would love to have a chance to take a couple more cracks at that skull of his.
    I wheeled around a stack of boxes, following the yellow striped pathway toward the glowing “Exit” sign. I had no plan beyond that door, especially when it came to Bruce. I had a crazy image of myself nursing him back to health, strapping him up in a kitchen chair, lovingly hanging matching Sesame Street bibs on him and the clown, spoon feeding him oatmeal and reading him Dostoevsky until he begged to confess to the authorities.
    Shit, what a ridiculous image. Even if Bruce confessed to trying to kill me, there’d be the matter of Chuck’s tongue, to whom I’d promised sanctuary. I was passing through a narrow hallway on the north side of the factory now, past an empty breakroom; half-eaten lunches and abandoned magazines bore testament to the evacuation prompted by the hazmat alarm. Fifty yards away was the end of the hallway and an emergency exit, through which I saw pre-dawn darkness, and felt a layer of winter air flowing up my pant-legs; it was already propped open.
    Oh, yeah, everyone would be outside now, waiting and watching with interest to see if the Furd factory was going to collapse or begin emitting toxic fumes. Your average factory worker loves bad news, and standing close to a factory on hazmat alert only seems crazy if you’re the sort who stops to think about it.
    I hauled back with all my strength, stopping the cart and wrenching my already sore shoulder. Holding in a gasp from the pain, I back-pedaled to the break room and spun the cart in and around the wall so that it wouldn’t be visible from the hallway. The turn was a bit tight, and Bruce’s head hit the corner rather harshly. To my consternation, he moaned pitifully. Was he waking up? I froze, cocking a fist back, hoping I’d be able to put him back into dreamland without killing him.
    I hesitated; how hard was hard enough? To my relief, after a frosty second or two Bruce went back to snoring. His brother, covered by the sticker I’d fired from my poor, smashed decal gun, continued his eternal kissing, causing the sticker to ripple slightly.
    I relaxed my fist and, leaving the cart, stepped out into the hallway. I turned around and looked back into the breakroom, making sure I couldn’t see the cart from this vantage point. That done, I strode the hall towards the exit swiftly, looking down at myself. Belatedly, I began worrying about my torn jacket, the welts on my arm from the decal gun, and the smears of strawberry pie-filling stuff on my knees, chest and arms; perhaps I could make up a story about a mighty struggle with a toxic jelly donut.
    Despite my worries, I didn’t hesitate to burst forth into the cold night surrounding the Furd factory. My breath puffed white clouds in front of my eyes and the harsh mercury vapor lights of the Detroit street lamps cast a blue tint to the world and turned the red sticky fluids on my body to a glossy black. Problem solved, I thought, as far as anyone else is concerned I’m covered in oil now, definitely not berry flavored blood.
    This side of the factory bordered a road, separated from me by a cracked and filthy sidewalk and a strip of mottled grass and weeds. Across the road was around thirty of my coworkers, standing in a vacant and gravel strewn lot. They stood about laughing and drinking coffee from the portable service which sat steaming into the pre-dawn night. Judging by the presence of the coffee service, there would be a union steward among them.
    Presently, I was spotted by Rake at the same time as I spotted his black form spearing up from the center of the little crowd. He raised his Styrofoam coffee cup and hollered out,
     “Hey! Joe! Over here!”
    My thoughts darted back to the parts cart sitting in the break room down the hall behind me. Chuck’s partitioned body, pressed down by Bruce doing a crack impersonation of a Carhartt tablecloth, sat in the darkness awaiting my help. Hide me, buddy, my silenced friend had licked into the air. What could I tell these people to get them out of here?
    As I stood waffling, a thin female form separated from the group and began crossing the street towards me. In one hand she held a cigarrette, the tiny red glow of the tip poking through the night and pointing the way to the earth below her feet. In her other hand she clutched the rest of her current pack of cigarrettes against her chest like her life depended upon it.
    I couldn’t make out the yellow of her sunken eyes yet, but there was no doubt that Gail Koslowski approached.