The Henhouse

Basement

The basement was cold.

The parade of subjects shivered down the stairs, dressed in shorts and T-shirts. Shoulders hunched, grateful for his threadbare jacket, Justin lead the way. But there was little to see. The combination of white vinyl flooring, grey walls, and tile ceiling punctuated with recessed circle lights that barely glowed made the hall buisnesslike, calculating and formal on every level. It was enough to make Justin squirm without the chill.

The left wall here was dotted with doors – each with an oblong tinted window to match. These looked in on a series of offices – identical and dry, monochromatic, little more than a desk, wheeled chair, and computer monitor to fill them.

"What d'you think this place was meant for?" Dany asked no one in particular. He hunched a bit when he heard his voice echo down the corridor.

"Dunno," Jonah answered. "Shady research that doesn't follow accepted ethical guidelines? I'm just drawing from personal experience."

"No, I don't think so," Ivy said. Her voice was growing weak; Justin guessed the buisness with Peter had her drained. "I mean, don't think the House was made specifically for this. First off-"

"You know what?" Dany said. "I've just decided. I don't wanna know."

It didn't take long for Justin to notice a new door up ahead, this time on their right-hand side. He jogged over and noticed that the door had a large pane of glass inset into it.

"What the-?"

The window looked into a small room - maybe 10 by 12 feet– all 4 walls lined with folding tables holding scattered platters of food. A plate of ham and cup of green beans were both overgrown with white and green patches of fuzz; a bowl of mashed potatoes looked stiff, cemented; the remains of various fruit lie together in an improvised compost pile.

"The dinner," Peter breathed. "I- That- uh, that's the food they made for us that one day...."

"And that room is just big enough to fit our dining table in it," Ivy noted.

"So," said Jonah slowly, "they bring the table up, we eat, they bring it down, take off the food, refuse to clean up said food, and bring the table back up. Am I missing something here...?"

Justin's fingers started drumming on the metal door handle, thinking, before he finally pulled it down with all the strength his arm could muster. Yet he found he didn't need to force it; the door opened with ease.

The sickly sweet smell of rot flooded through.

"Can you close that, please?"

"Oh, gross."

Justin obeyed, satisifed. But then he turned to face a door on the opposite wall. Wordlessly he reached for its handle, and swung the thing open.

"None of these are locked...."

Ivy blinked. "Did you expect them to be?"

Justin shrugged, attentions taken by the computer. It was idle; he awakened it and was greeted by a no-frills login: little more than a username and a password box, blinking. Blank.

"We'll have to try each office," he decided. "I'm sure sometime we'll get lucky, someone will have forgotten to log off-"

"I- every office?" Ivy blurted. "But we don't even know how many offices there are here. There's no way we have that kind of time."