Back in high school, I was a very stupid kid who surrounded himself with equally stupid friends. I know that sounds like a very harsh description of myself at that time, but if you ask anyone who knew me around then, such as one of my parents, teachers, siblings, or even the old guy who lived up the street, nine times out of ten they would use words like dumb, rowdy, foolish, rebellious, etc. We would egg houses, spray paint graffiti, the sort of stuff that young, growing, angry teens would usually do when they were bored, except we didn’t really know exactly what we were angry at. By the time our senior year had gone around, most of us had grown out of it and were quite separated from each other, each focusing on the passions we had either been cultivating or at least had just found. I myself had grown quite interested in woodworking, and I had gotten a small job at a local mill to build my experience and craftsmanship when it came to carpentry. If I am to be completely honest though, that wasn’t the only force at play at least for me. The summer right before that senior year started, me and those friends had decided to do something each of us would regret for the rest of our lives.
There was a kid named Andrew in our group, and he was the one who gave us the idea to sneak into a local slaughterhouse. Apparently, he had heard one of the more unsavory guys at summer school (“unsavory” meaning drug dealer) tell one of his friends there was some cash that was stored somewhere at one of the local slaughterhouses in our town. We were located smack dab in between a rural community and an urban city, so we were usually a stop in the entire meat process. We would get cows, pigs, chicken, sheep, and whatever other kind of animal you could turn into consumable meat, run them through a couple butchers, and ship them off to a meat packing plant in a much denser, urban environment. That’s not to say we couldn’t pack our meat ourselves, we had a small local one to supply our own town since the local meat business was a booming one. Anyways the dumbass convinced Russ, the de facto leader, to take the time to bike all the way to the place he thought the money was at, find it, and split it up amongst all of us. Of course, us all being daring and adventurous, plus the inherent enjoyment at the prospect of earning money not from work, we took the bike ride to the plant at night.
Popping the lock to get inside through the back entrance, we all entered and made sure to not be seen. Andrew theorized the money was stored near the back, and so we silently started to look to avoid being caught by the nightwatchman. It was certainly a rather dank and dreary place. All the colors I could see were gray, silver, and the yellow coming from those fluorescent bulbs. After a few minutes of searching, we found nothing and all collectively decided to move further into the facility, unknowingly getting closer to where the grinding room was. The further we headed inside, the quicker and hastier we searched. It was getting bleaker and bleaker and by the time we just made our way outside that grinding room, me and the rest of the group were ready to put Andrew’s head on a skewer. The details are rather foggy here. I remember I said something under my breath that set him off, which caused some members to take my side and some others to take Andrew’s side. Just as I had grabbed him by the collar of his stupid blue shirt, so happened the night guard was patrolling nearby and heard us arguing quite clearly.
We started scrambling, splitting up and running in all sorts of directions. I had neglected to think about where I was running, and I bolted into the first door I saw, the room containing a large catwalk above a bunch of deep pink stuff. I heard footsteps behind me, only causing me to run faster and faster to the door. Just as I was about to leave the room, I remember hearing the sound of tripping, and a hard yet smushy impact. I thought nothing of it, and continued my mad dash fueled by pure adrenaline.
Luckily, I hadn’t encountered the night guard on my way back to our bikes, and we each pedaled our way out of there as quickly as we could, not looking back nor noticing someone was missing from the group. A few days later, we met up again at a local diner, the favorite of many of the townsfolk for their usage of the locally sourced beef. All of us had gotten a burger and sat in a booth together, only focused on the coming school year until the inevitable subject of the missing Andrew came up. Naturally, a lot of us each had an explanation differing from person to person.
“I heard he was caught by that security guard and is grounded right now. I’m sure we’ll see him at school next week.”
“Really? I had heard he had a surprise move. He’s supposed to be in Georgia now or something.”
“Both of you are wrong! When he was riding his bike back, he got hit by a car and he’s in the hospital. Jimmy told me he looks like Sloth now!”
The reminder of him permeated my mind, and all I wanted to do was eat. I couldn’t even do that, though. I got sick and threw up in the bathroom, and I just had to cut my losses and go home after that. The school year started, and no Andrew. Nobody else talked about him. Nobody else knows what happened to him. But I do.
When I bit into my burger, there was a small piece of blue cloth I could see inside that meat.