Chapter 5

Chapter 5
“The Game’s Begun - - Dante Up!”

       Cedar City festered under a blanket of sooty cloud that blinked only when furnace fires belched out of towering chimneys.
       No other lights were visible from the foothills in the distance. No street light pierced the gloomy veil. No headlights burrowed under the charcoal colored mists that hugged every building, surrounded every dead tree and loomed above the heads of all those who never dared to be out on the street after dark. Not that the day was that much better.
       Cedar City had lost all industry a year ago. That was when “The Works” opened. The jobs dropped away like gloves from a stripper.
       Within a month every other business was having trouble keeping their doors open. Within two months “The Works” was the only functioning factory, store or business of any kind still extant within the city limits.
       Now there were a couple of minor officials in city hall, three cops, a phone operator and the 5 employees of “The Works” still around.
       Renny Field was one of those 5 employees. His head did not rest on easy shoulders. The little man had been “The Boss’” #2 guy until the #1 got lost in a factory fire a month ago. His uneasy laugh made all those around him uncomfortable, but none was as skittish as was he.
       This was wrong.
       He had always been in the gangster business, and was not unhappy there. He had busted skulls, he had sold protection, he had even shot a couple of rivals. That was the business.
       This was something else entirely.
       Walking down the moon dark shadow that had once been a street Renny found he was grinding his teeth again. That would give him a head ache. Not a face to show “The Boss”
       He fished into his pocket and took out the tin full of aspirins and without hesitation threw them all into his mouth.
       He ground the things up into the foul tasting dust that promised cessation of pain, but rarely delivered.
       He looked up and saw he was at the doors.
       The granite face was carved with the mammoth letters that spelled “Body Works” from back when this was a real factory and what came out of it was something a man could point to with pride as the fruit of his labor.
       The flame erupted from the giant smokestacks and the smell swept down the canyons of the dead city.
       His hand moved to his nose, and his teeth ground again.
       Then it began, as it always did after the flames.
       A hundred voices moaned and then began screaming. With a single voice the screams went on endlessly.
       Renny Field know how long they would go on. Until exactly midnight would those agonies plead. Then, a new batch would be pulled from the vats. Two hours after that, they would begin screaming.
       “Well,” he muttered, “It’s a living.”
       He fished in his other pockets as he walked through the great metal doors.
©2005 C. Wayne Owens