1

How long had we been here?  Time didn’t seem to affect us anymore.  The room had no windows, no clocks, no calendars, nothing connecting us to the outside world or any real sense of reality.  There was only us, the door, a chair and a single light overhead.  We were the only living things in the room, trapped in what used to be a kennel.  The scent of dog still lingered within, but was mostly smothered by the smell of blood body odor and human waste.  The top, bottom and rear of the kennel were a tough beige plastic and the front was a steel gate with very little space between the bars.  One of the previous prisoners tried to stick his arm through and lift the latch but had gotten stuck.  I remembered him crying out to us, begging us to help him before she returned.  We didn’t.  Our cowardice cost him his life.  I think his name was Elliot.  It was.  I remembered because we shared a brief laugh that we shared the same first name.  He was also the first I ever saw die.    

               There were about thirty of us in the kennel now.  Sitting along the sides.  We were all naked, but there was no shame in that.  Fear drowned out the shame ages ago.  There was rage too at one point, indignation as well, but those elements had been stomped out and what was left of it stained the hardwood floor in front of us.  We were hollow, shells of what we were, diminutive shadows of men.  

               “When will she feed us?”  A voice whined.  It was Jacob.  He was one of the newer prisoners, he hadn’t yet adjusted to the schedule.  He was a slight young man, white, with long brown hair and a short beard.  His face was narrow and gaunt.  He wouldn’t last long. 

               “Soon.”  That voice came from Darron.  Darron had been here longer than any of us.  He was tall, black and he had maintained his powerful build through pushups and squats.  The rest of us didn’t see much of a point.  But Darron did.  Darron was a survivor.  I made a note to ask him what he did and who he was before.  Before this.  Darron stood at the gate looking out at the massive door to the left of us.  Waiting. 

               “I need something, anything.”  Jacob cried “Does anyone have anything at all?  She has to feed us.”  His voice cracked with desperation. 

               “Shut up.”  I said.  I empathized with him, I did.  But the noise was too much.  I was trying to strategize.  She would be here soon, and she’d want to play.  It was probably going to be tag today.  She loved that game.  The brutality of it. 

               “I need to eat.”  Jacob was on his feet walking to each of us clutching his stomach and grimacing.  “Please.  Anything.” 

               “Shut up and sit down” someone said. 

               “How can you all do this to me?  I know you’re saving something.  Give it to me.  What’s wrong with all of you?  How can you treat someone like this?” 

               “SHUT UP!”

               “Please, someone, anything.”  Jacob wandered back and forth.  “Please-“

               The rumbling began.  It was soft, and grew heavier quickly.  A steady rhythmic crescendo that grew to be so violent that it shook our prison and caused us to brace.  Jacob fell to the ground, Darron steadied himself with the bars. 

               “She’s coming.”  Darron said. 

               “Shit” I thought. 

               The rumbling continued for a few seconds, but the dread made it feel like hours.  Finally the rumbling stopped.  The handle twisted and the door lurched forward with a anguished squeal.  Revealing our warden, torturer and executioner: Sheila. 

               Even at our original sizes, Sheila would have been an imposing woman.  She was immense, with broad shoulders. She was fat, but not the fat that indicates apathy or laziness, the kind of fat that you see in farmhands and bricklayers.  Something beyond “big boned.”  The kind of fat that hides muscle, the kind of fat that implies incredible strength.  Her skin was tan and she was wearing a tank top that strained against her heavy breasts.  Her leggings worked twice as hard containing her wide hips and large, protruding belly. Her massive, muscular calves were exposed and she was barefoot. 

               Her feet.  Wide, with thick, calloused soles.  We estimated that she’d be something like a size 12W in men’s based on our relative size.  So much life had been lost to them.  So much pain caused. 

               I got up and walked to the gate.  I looked up at her face.  Her hair was cut short, I think the style would be called pixie.  My wife mentioned something like that once.  I don’t remember her face anymore.    

               “Hey boys!”  Her voice was incredibly feminine, but powerful.  It had a body to it, it was deep and it reverberated throughout the room and into our bones.  She flashed a grin across her wide mouth.  She looked down at us with large black eyes.  Darron met her gaze, but I looked away.  I found a blotch of dried blood on the floor with the partial shape of a heel.  I tried to remember who died there.  I think it may have been Eddie.  Or maybe Christian.  I don’t remember. 

               She walked over to our cage and stood right in front of us.  The entire opening was filled with her feet and calves.  They were the size of large pickup trucks to us.  The smell of her feet filled the cage and quickly overpowered the animalistic scent we had grown accustomed to.  There was the very faint smell of lotion, but mostly sweat.  She must have worked out recently.  

               The cage shifted and began to rise.  We all tumbled around and cries of pain and shock bounced against the walls.  She held us right in front of her face. 

               “How are my little babies?”  Her voice boomed and a few men covered their ears.  “Did you miss me?  I missed you!” 

               “Let us go you fucking bitch!”  I turned to see who said it.  Even though I already knew who it was.  Jacob got up and ran to the gate and looked Sheila right in her enormous eyes.  “Let us fucking go!  We didn’t do anything to you!  You fucking fat bitch!”  Sheila’s smile fell.  The wrinkles in her face returned.  We began to descend.  We landed back at Sheila’s feet with a bit of bang. 

               “You stupid fuck, do you know what you’ve done?” Someone said. Sheila bent over and we saw her hanging breasts before her large, thick hands began undoing the latch.  

               “Thanks for volunteering Jacob.”  She said.  The gate swung open and her hand reached through the opening. 

               “NO, NO FUCK!”  Jacob cried, trying to scurry to the back of the kennel.  Two other men grabbed Jacob by each of his arms and dragged him to the opening.  They threw him into her hand and stepped away.             

               “YOU PIECES OF SHIT.  YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT, FUCK ALL OF YOU.”  Jacob screamed.  Sheila closed the gate and locked it.  As she stood, Darron and I ran to the gate and looked upwards through the openings.  Jacob was still yelling, but we could no longer make out his words.  Sheila didn’t seem amused.  She held him with her fist, his legs dangled about and he was pushing against her grip with his hands. 

               “You don’t talk to me like that Jacob.”  Sheila said.  Her voice was disturbingly calm.  With her free hand she placed her index finger and thumb around Jacob’s right leg  “You should know; you never talk to me like that.”

               She pushed her fingers together and snapped Jacob’s leg in half.  The sound of bone cracking was deafening. I choked down vomit, but I didn’t look away.  Jacob’s defiant yelling turned into animalistic howls of pain.  He clawed at Sheila’s grip but her thick skin was impenetrable to us.  His bones were exposed and his lower calf hung by a thread.  Blood spewed out of the upper part of his calf onto Sheila’s broad toes.  The crimson blood contrasting sharply with her baby blue toenail polish.  Noticing this, she began to frown.  “Jacob, I just got my toes painted and you’ve ruined them.  Tsk.  Your punishment just got a little more severe.”  She bent down and placed Jacobs ruined body in front of us face down.  Jacob looked up at us and held out his arm.  “Please” he wailed.

               Sheila lifted her right foot and placed her heel on Jacob’s back.  His wails were cut short as air left his body. 

               “I want this to be a lesson for all of you.  I shouldn’t have to be teaching respect after all this time.  You should all know better.”  She spoke with an authoritative tone.  This was the true Sheila.  Power and cruelty.  We all knew this.  Why she maintained the veneer of kindness occasionally was beyond us.  She slowly brought down the upper half of her foot onto Jacob, pushing his torso into the hardwood.  He was whimpering now.  We could hear his ribcage cracking under Sheila’s weight. 

               “I really hope you all learn from this.”  She lifted her foot off of Jacob’s back.  It was over.  Jacob was mangled, but at least alive.  Jacob took a deep breath and smiled. 

               Sheila brought down her foot with a grunt and Jacob’s body exploded into gristle and blood.  Nearly everyone in the kennel cried out in shock.  A pool of blood surrounded Sheila’s foot.  Her fists were clenched and she had a satisfied smile on her mouth.  She turned and began walking away.  Her right sole took Jacob’s entrails with it, dragging them across the floor.  Sheila noticed this and brought her foot up behind her and flicked bone and blood fragments off her foot onto the floor. 

               “Egh.  Don’t you boys worry, you’ll get to clean him up later.  I’m gonna watch a little Netflix before my nap.  See ya!”  She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.  The men walked to the front of the cage to look at the carnage.  Jacob was nothing more than a few skeletal fragments and a smear on the floor.  

               “Jesus”  A voice said. 

               “What did we do” said another.

               “We did what we had to.  If we didn’t, whose to say she wouldn’t have killed even more of us?”

               “Fuck.  Fuck, fuck fuck.  We’re never getting out of here.”

               “Yes, we are.” Darron said. 

               “What the fuck are you talking about?” someone said.  Darron turned away from the bloody mess outside and looked at the rest of the men. 

               “We’re going to get out of here.  I just need time.”