Free B-Movie Reels by Alan Spencer Page B

together behind a set of steel partitions. Jets of water sprayed their backs to keep them cool in the sun.  
    He checked the phone’s screen; it was Professor Maxwell.
    His professor asked, “Andy, how’s the work coming along? Are you enjoying the movies? You rolled your eyes at me when I gave you this project, but the movies grow on you, don’t they? Just try and not take them too seriously. These aren’t Oscar-worthy films. Turkeys, really, but good turkeys.”
    “They’re not bad,” Andy admitted. “I watched Jorg: the Hungry Butcher , Attack of the Sludge and a few others. They keep me guessing, that’s for sure. Some of it’s pretty gory. I started The Mallet Killer , and they show the man’s face being crushed by the mallet. Pretty blunt violence, I’d say.”
    “The sixties and seventies were great,” Professor Maxwell reminisced, taking on a tone of nostalgia. “Violence and sex were expected and appreciated. Now every mother and humanitarian whines and the MPAA takes out the good stuff in movies. They don’t make ’em like they used to, Andy. It’s a shame. But now we have DVD’s and companies keep releasing them with the goods put right back in. Thank God for technology and working around those ratings bastards.”
    Professor Maxwell returned to the point of the call. “You have about three weeks to finish up. I’m assuming since you haven’t filled up your up-chuck cup yet, you’re still okay. Should I buy you some shock insurance?”
    “Not yet,” he laughed at the theater gimmick talk. “Yeah, I’ll be ready in a few weeks. It’s coming along fine. I’m holing up at my uncle’s house. It’s empty, and I’ve got a whole wall to project onto. It works perfect.”
    “All right, buddy. Call me if you need anything. Happy viewing! Do a good job.”
    The professor hung up.
    Andy drove home to finish The Mallet Killer .  
     
    3
    Dean Runyen shifted the plastic face mask over his head and finished spraying the cows’ blood down the drain. The slaughtered bodies were moved on down the line for butchering, and he was pressure hosing the room with a water/chlorine mixture. No matter how many times he’d performed the job, he never grew accustomed to the smell of death.  
    His job also entailed shoveling the cow patties outside into the dumpster. Despite the grueling process of slaughter, line master Eddie Stolburg was known for his humanitarian procedures. He ran an independent company with barely ten hands working the place, unlike the two slaughter houses that went through hundreds of cows a day as opposed to their two dozen. Here, the cows were injected with a tranquilizer called Tarazin-B that rendered them unconscious. It cost extra money, but the expense was equaled out over the market; people liked to purchase humanely slaughtered meat. It was a small business, and Eddie explained to his workers that the new generation of consumers preferred the idea of small farm slaughter. The job also paid a good wage and decent benefits.  
    Not bad for a high school dropout , Dean thought with a grin.  
    It was ten minutes before he could take a smoke break. He hose-cleaned his rubber boots and yellow suit and walked out of the butchering room, a square concrete room with hooks hanging from the ceiling where the dead cows were pushed into the next room and onto a conveyor. Dean entered what they called the flensing line, where meat was stripped from the hide and prime cuts were rendered by practiced butchers. The men who were on the clock right now, Kevin Cook, Sam Kipper, Chris Wrays and Junior Summers, were all missing. Even Eddie Stolburg was absent from the line, and the man hardly stepped foot from the room between punching in and out for the day.  
    The sound of feet tramping against a puddle resounded at the end of the line where Junior was supposed to catch the slices of meat and place them in Styrofoam and shrink-wrap them. “Where the hell is everybody?”
    Dean listened and