Bloody Business

Chapter 4: Don't get connected, they might die.

The other chefs gave her a minute in the bathroom that was available by going through the locker room. She coughed and heaved bile into the sink, clutching the sides as her only support, her hair was already up in a ponytail when she put on her uniform, muscle memory, and it was thankfully dangling a good distance away from all the substances coming out of her mouth in that panicked moment.

Noemie stared into the mirror with tears in her eyes after spilling out her nausea and shock . The tears probably weren't sympathy or sadness for the head of the coworker she suddenly recognized, sitting bodiless on that counter, but from the stress of puking. Weird, how some humans will tear up from throwing things up out of their mouths, though to be fair, most don't do it often and are very unused to it.

With the water and some tissues taken from a large box on the wall by the sink, she cleaned herself up and held herself back together again, making herself presentable. Her face was blank, sometimes that implied that a person was thinking; I wonder what she was thinking of.

Was it perhaps about how her coworker, now recognized as Lilia, ended up just a head when she only saw her a few hours earlier today? I wonder how they killed her to receive an expression like what Lilia's face currently wore. Or, perhaps the better question, when did the young lady get hunted, so quickly, and so close to Noemie?

The woman stared into the mirror as the tissue cleaned up the rest of the water droplets on her neck, eyes foggy and dazed.

A knock is heard from the doorway, right behind the woman, and she flinches. She stared at the door through the mirror, waiting for something to pop-up.

"You alright now? We need your help here, the letter from the manager said that it was a round table party tonight." A muffled voice said from behind the door.

It sounded feminine and of a higher, yet monotone pitch.

".... Yes. Come in if you want, I'm about to go back out." Noemie responded.

The door opened to reveal another woman, her blonde hair about as curly as Roman's ponytail, but not as red, eyes were soft like Alonzo's, yet still and holding a bit of apathy. Her skin was dusty looking, almost a little peachy gray even though she seemed young.

Noemie stared, seeming to wonder which position the woman held as one of the six chefs of the night, scrunching up the wet tissue into a ball and throwing it into a nearby trash can as she steadily walked closer to the door and the woman.

"The, new dishwasher?" She questioned, holding her hands together cautiously as she walked past the woman, who was the same height as her.

"Yes, now if you don't mind, I'll be here." The woman gestured to one of the stalls of the washroom.

Noemie nodded and quickly left, walking quickly back to the kitchen and adjusting the collar of her chef jacket, having forcefully unbuttoned and shuffled it with a hard pull earlier. She was smoothing out the wrinkles.

The door connecting to the locker room and the kitchen had a figure leaning by the wall next to it. The stoic baker man from last night, Roman, had his arms crossed as he leaned back. He too was staring off into space, imagining something by staring at the side of one of the lockers, until he heard Noemie's footsteps come closer and turned his head.

Noemie eyed him cautiously as she kept her hands closed and fiddling with the buttons of her uniform, giving him a curt nod as she left through the door. The man looked at her with an almost unreadable expression, but it was easy to sense that he too was concerned about her and was waiting for her to come out of the bathroom, yet for some reason, they didn't say anything to each other. Not a lot of humans are good at reading body language.

Noemie passed by Alonzo, who was carrying some plates and fancy holders that could hold more than one candle with the help of some waiters, to the dining area, and then coming back to grab some linens from one of the cabinets of the only large and long shelf of miscellaneous, fancy items, utensils, and cutlery ware. The longest shelf in the whole cooking area, yet easily blends in with the wall when all its cabinets are closed, it was a large room.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his voice shaky and nervous.

"The smell just bothered me." She lied to him. "Don't worry about me, be careful carrying those."

She gave a curt nod as he hesitantly nodded back and tried not to bump into the third lady in the kitchen, who was carrying a knife that she needed to grab from another station, her and Gavin's. Not sure if it was already stated before, but their carving station was the only one with the most knives, and the most creative looking ones too.

She walked to her position next to Gavin at the metal counter, he nodded to her, looking with the most sympathy on his face seen that night before slipping it off and becoming unreadable again, going back to finish cutting the top of the skull off the final head with a bone saw. On this night, the party of patrons ordered heads, one for each person, so all the hair was shaved off in a corner where a large trash can stood. The heads were currently being cut and carved to sit on their own and flatly hold stuff inside.

The lady put on some new gloves.

"Thanks for doing all the work, I'm sorry for earlier." Noemie said without facing him.

"It's alright, besides you wouldn't have been able to help me anyway. These heads are a bit more complicated than limbs or torsos."

She grabbed a thick plastic sounding tray from underneath the metal counter, sliding it over for him to put all the contents from the cut open heads inside. More blood, but a little funny to look at when he tips the heads over to spill the organ out, only to then see a tiny stem still keeping it attached that he also has to cut. Awkwardly funny.

Not very funny for the woman however who was looking away and covering her nose.

"I still feel bad, you could show me how if you ever get tired yourself, that way we don't always have to depend on you to cut the difficult parts."

"Unless you went to mortuary school, I doubt I'll be able to show you in a way you'd understand. I'm not much of a teacher myself, just a doer." He said as he used the cleanest part of his wrist to nudge his glasses into place.

The woman smiled as she took the tray all full of brains and slid it to an empty space, pulling out a smaller metal tray, and taking out a thin, hook needle, leaning forward just enough to be on level with the eyes.

"I've taken some classes in med school for a year, and some culinary classes in university for two, I'm sure I can take another subject."

She tilted the first head back and stretched the eyelids far enough apart to see those pink flesh sides attached to eyes, stabbing in between the eye and the pink parts before twisting and pulling, the eye slowly popping out with a weird sound, couldn't tell if it was wet noise or dry sounds of stretching muscles. It looked like it was about to break like an egg yolk.

"Can you, do the other please? The woman with the green eyes. I'll take care of the rest if you can do that." She said as she dropped the eye into the tray, it bounced a little as she quickly worked on the other and carefully placed the eyeless head to the side, grabbing another that had the face of a stranger to her.

"Sure." Gavin said as he shuffled through all the feminine looking heads.

"Or, I can just take care of all the women's heads while you take the men's."

"That would be nice too, thank you."

As they finished plucking the eyes out, a pair of eyes from eight heads making a total of sixteen, Noemie took the small metal tray of eyes and walked over to the station where Elias was cutting up fruit and there was a small container of thin, metal sticks. This was one of the rare times where the soft looking man was seen being busy at his own station instead of helping others to make their dishes look more presentable.

The tray was placed down at his counter, he merely looked at the eyes which still had some of the pink lines that likely connected it to the brains, still attached, and he shivered and winced his own eyes shut. Gavin came over and put each of the heads on Alonzo's table as well, one by one, not letting Noemie help, and gently turning her by the shoulder to go deal with the tray of brains. They didn't notice until the last minute, Elias had walked away from his station that now had a tray of eyeballs and heads and was taking a moment to breathe in the corner.

He had a hand placed on the wall for support, and sounded like he was having trouble breathing.

"It's just heads, you've seen plenty of skulls. It's just heads, you've seen plenty of skulls." He mumbled to himself, like a whispered chant.

Gavin grabbed his station partner's shoulders before she could go to comfort him.

"He'll be fine, just give him a minute."

"But what if he's actually getting sick? Maybe I should just prep them for him-"

"No, no. He will learn to look at them and not be squeamish eventually." He pulled her away from the man doing breathing exercises in the corner and had her come back to the metal counter.

He pulled an iron looking mechanism from somewhere that was hard to see, it was getting crowded, and eyes would naturally have a difficult time trying to keep track of who's doing what in this kitchen. It was a meat grinder.

"Afterall, he works at a museum, right? Full of articles and pictures about dead people?"

"I don't think studying aged corpses is equal to dissecting bodies." Noemie shook her head.

They took the brains, the tall man picked one up and rotated it, looking at which side to stick before setting it gently back down, it was difficult to hold as it was like a weird, firm jelly made of rubber. In a way, I was curious what it would be like to claw into it.

"I'm actually surprised that we don't do this more often, not that I'd want to, but I thought cannibals would want to eat the head more than anything." Noemie said quietly to him.

"Yeah, or make a special order to fulfill their fantasy of eating someone else's, kind of like they did your coworker?" He asked without looking at her.

She froze a little, still holding one of the brains as she was about to stick it into the sink. It was dripping spinal fluid between her fingers.

"How'd you guess?" She answered, a sad tone mixed into her voice. She continued transferring the other brains from the tray to the sink.

Their gloves must have been very thick for them to touch all of those organs no problem, their chef jackets as well, as more blood was now leaking all over the white clothes.

"You didn't start sobbing, so I knew she wasn't family or friend, but you did go run to puke, so she must've been close in some way. It was either that or a person you hated but not too much." He shrugged.

All the blood mixed with water was going down the drain, and they picked the brains up to put into the meat grinders. They were turned into strings and then squished together again into a more malleable type of meat, easy to mold and flattened into something square and evenly flat on the cutting board. Instead of knives, there were multiple metal cylinder shapes, they used those to press into the grounded-up brains, making these circle shapes out of them. It almost looked like the shape for hamburger meat, but it was a bit too tall, and they put them onto plates by themselves without being sandwiched, so it was something else.

"I'm just glad I didn't get too close to her to want to sob, I never befriended most of my coworkers before, and now I fear I found the reason."

Some of the scraps were put into meat grinders, turned into these long strands of noodle looking meat and then put in bags, clearly going to be used for a later time, the rest of the scraps from the brains were collected in a bowl and passed over to a chef who was by a station with an oven with a pit inside, filled with this boiling oil and a metal basket being held above it. She took the scraps and covered them in layers of flour and egg before putting them in the basket.

How the oil was boiling was likely thanks to the machines, making the area around it warm while other areas of the room were cold, an odd feeling when going in a circle in that place.

Elias, with shaky hands, had stabbed each pair of eyes with the long metal sticks and put them on a rectangular plate, the heads were filled to the top with chopped fruit, and the holes that used to have eyes in them were now plugged up with cherry tomatoes.

Roman, who only worked with blood it seemed, was making drinks with the blood, mixing them with those alcohols that most people loved to drink so much, even though some tasted awful but made them act funny. The man seems to be multi-faceted, with skills in confectionery sweets and skills as a bartender.

"Does being a mortician also help you read people?"

Noemie asked Charles, as she helped Elias put each of the heads onto plates, they were now turned into some kind of fancy holder for fruit and mystery red cream that another pastry chef in the kitchen was responsible for. It looked similar to some kind of other dish that consisted of a fancy cup filled with fruit and cream, but the name was hard to remember.

Another thing that may also be hard to remember, Elias is Alonzo's first name, Gavin is Charles' first name, no one knows Roman's last name because his first name is common, and the only name he gave when the chefs first met. Why am I switching between calling first and last names? Well because, we don't know how close Noemie is to each of them, first name basis? Or last name basis? I'd say they should recognize each other by smell, if it weren't for the strong metallic smell at the moment.

"As a mortician no, as a funeral director yes." Gavin chuckled lightly.

Noemie tried to smile; it came out hesitantly as she gave a comforting back rub to a lightheaded looking Elias, who was, by the look of his Adam's apple and his hands planted at the edge of the table, trying not to gag. Roman, who was still making all of the drinks, looked over his shoulder, seeing the lady try and have a light-hearted conversation to distract the soft looking man. He frowned and shook his head.

The dishes were finally prepared and served when a familiar waiter from the previous night came in, Everett I think his name was, and told all the chefs that the eight patrons were here.

Each of the eight opened heads filled with fruit and red cream were still sat at a cold part of the room while the plates of grounded up brains turned into decorative shapes of meat patties, were taken up by the waiters to be served first, they were served with some of the fried leftover pieces on the side. It was weird how they weren't even cooked yet still being served anyway, but I guess some humans actually can handle raw meat, some were topped with either onions, green herbs, small pieces of lettuce, or even a raw egg. A very weird looking decoration for raw meat, but then again, they had fried meat chunks on the side, it couldn't get any stranger.

The other pastry chef helped Roman finish the last blood drink, and another waiter put them all on a round tray before being served.

Alonzo collapsed, leaning on the kitchen island as he slid down and breathed, no longer wanting to look at the heads that he fiddled with earlier. The lady knelt down to pat his shoulder.

"Relax, our night is done now."

"Not ours." The new dishwasher lady said.

She was leaning against the edge of the counter next to the sink with another woman who had a polar opposite attitude, looking tired and very scared with her hands holding each of her arms, she side-eyed her friend next to her.

"Oh, of course." Noemie was next to look regretful. She stood up and nervously looked at the two who were already beginning to clean some of the tools and things used tonight, the plates would come later.

"Would you like me to help you two? So that you won't have to stay too late?"

One just shook her head while the other affirmatively said no.

Roman brushed up against her shoulder as he walked past her to the locker rooms, he was always the most eager to leave. He threw his gloves into the trash can in the corner with loud thuds.

She turned to look at him, he stopped and nodded his head over to the locker room door while looking at her, a sign meaning he wanted her to come follow him.

Gavin gave a look that was hard to read as she followed him out, also taking her gloves off and throwing them out on the way. His face was a negative one; it seemed as he stitched his brows together, leaning against the table to rest next to Elias while the other pastry chef stayed standing, holding a pitcher of something sweet smelling and slowly pouring it over the skewered eyes. It had the consistency of honey.

In the locker room, Roman was taking off his chef jacket while he talked to the woman, his eyes staring off into nothing.

"You need to stop getting so close with the others, you did the same with the old pair of dishwashers."

The lady gave a sad look as she looked over her shoulder to the door. She sat down on one of the benches in the locker room, legs clearly tired.

"I feel guilty for everyone here."

"Some people are here for a reason."

"Oh, believe me, I know. Regardless, I feel a sense of guilt." She told him gently, keeping a strong eye contact.

He returned her gaze with a soft look as he was fixing his clothes that were hugged underneath his chef coat.

"That's nice of you, but don't waste your efforts being nice to them, Gavin as well."

She frowned, staring blankly at him as she raised her head higher.

"Why not?"

Roman didn't face her or respond. He was fixing his hair out of a bun and into a ponytail, revealing how curly his hair was, the red tips oddly complimenting his face. He closed the door of the metal box holding his bloody chef coat and apron, eyeing the woman curiously as he leaned against the lockers, arms crossed.

Sidenote: While the dishes they make are rather disgusting and gruesome to their tastes, the rest of the place was actually cleaner and rather nice.

"He makes jokes out of this situation; those people tend to either die early or turn into backstabbing jerks. I don't want you to cry over him when his 'dark humor' finally gets him in trouble."

She scrunched her nose and left his gaze, standing up towards the door.

"He won't die, I'll make sure of it." She mumbled.

She turned her back to him and walked towards the door.

"If you're just trying to scold me into caring less so I won't get hurt about their death, then follow your own advice and stop caring about my business."

He froze at her response, and then composed himself again as he sighed, choosing his next words carefully.

"Wait."

She stood right before the door, hand on the door handle and waiting for his next response. The woman has steeled herself in an odd way during the month she began working for this underground restaurant; she can stay calm, maybe act defensive at times but those are simply small reactions. All those other normal reactions such as questioning and needing time to cope, she can skip all of it and get right back to what she would normally do, still thinking about the incident, just calmly. Though, I suppose another word for that would be numbness.

This has a good effect when she doesn't waver under the sounds of Roman's shoes tapping against the floor, coming close behind her, even when she can feel him tilt his head to her and feel his breath on her ear.

"Please understand, I just don't want you to lose yourself here." His husky voice whispered to her. "Elias is still too weak but you're strong enough, and I feel like I can trust you more than the rest."

She shifts her face and carefully makes eye contact with him, while also making sure their lips and noses don't touch as she stares into his sincere eyes that were somehow looking sad in that moment. His eyebrows tilted to opposite sides and his hand helped him steady himself against the door frame, like his body was towering over her as a protective barrier from the world.

Her eyes were already numb from witnessing the world, they didn't waver at his body's proximity to her.

"I might get hunted soon with how I always arrive late; I'm annoying the manager all the time. You shouldn't get too close to me; I can't guarantee I'm worth trusting."

He gave an extremely rare smile, mixed with sad eyes.

"I know, but I still want to."

"Why?"

The door opened and revealed Gavin who was not expecting to see those two right by the doorway, his widened at their close proximity.

Roman slowly backed away from Noemie, hand leaving the door frame and away from her head, his fingers brushed against the side of her hair and dropped to his side as he walked away, erasing the atmosphere of what he made earlier.

Gavin merely raised an eyebrow, adjusting his glasses as he watched him leave, and then back down to the woman who wasn't faced by the situation, still holding her blank expression while she was now signaling to him that she wanted to move past him and back to the kitchen.

He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and tilted his head in curiosity.

"What was he doing just now?"

"He was just scolding me, I think." She brushed it off.

He still wouldn't let her go, instead gently pulling her by both shoulders into the kitchen. They stayed silently as the other two chefs along with a sickly-looking Alonzo moved past them, going to take their coats off and go home.

The only one's left were them and the two dishwashers, who were now receiving plates back as the waiters came in to retrieve the plates of fruit filled heads, putting them on carts and wheeling them out quickly.

"I've always had a weird feeling about that Roman guy." Gavin said out of the silence.

"Why? Do you also think he'll get into trouble?"

He leaned against the kitchen island with one hand still on Noemie's shoulder, stroking softly as he stared down at the dark red tiled floors.

"I feel like the manager will keep Alonzo around more, like a cat toying with a mouse, but an ambitious and stoic guy like Roman? She might get suspicious of him."

Noemie put a hand on his, stopping the strokes, pondering something before she let go and moved away from his hand, going out to look through the small circular window of the door leading to the dining room.

She could see all eight of the patrons sitting in the large circle table, far more fancy looking than the canine man from the previous night. They acted like normal people as they talked and used toothpicks to grab the chopped fruits sitting inside the cut open heads of people.

Her eyes connected with one patron who looked familiar, they looked like one of the two coworkers who joined her and Lilia for lunch earlier today.

Gavin reached from behind and turned her face away, he searched her eyes and watched as she became silent again. He easily read it as shock as his face grew with concern, and he pulled her close, guiding her to the locker room while he bid the other ladies goodnight.

In the locker room, Noemie sat on the bench again, mentally drained this time. Gavin sat next to her, rubbing her back as he lightly lectured her.

"Don't stare out the window, we chefs have the luxury of not having to interact with the patrons, unlike the waiters, and I suggest you keep it that way."

"I knew one of them." Noemie whispered, her face in her hands.

Gavin didn't look very surprised, nor did he react at all much. He wrapped both his hands around her and rested his head on top of hers. They stayed like that not out of comfort, but simply because the night was growing tiring to deal with and it was nice to have some sort of warm physical contact. There was no cat whose purring or dog whose rumbling could help make anyone feel better, but there were hugs.