The elevator doors opened with a ding. Mr. Jones led Steve to the final supply closet. Only, this closet was unlike any of the other ones. Man, this is like a doomsday survivalist’s wet dream, Steve thought to himself as he followed Mr. Jones into a giant freezer unit.

The first thing he noticed was the giant pallets of various types of meat neatly lined up along the walls. Each pallet had a dated label on it and noted when it should be used by. There were also dozens of bags and boxes throughout the over-sized freezer. All Steve could do was wonder as to the purpose of all this stuff.

“Well son, you better get to pulling today’s pallet out and taking it down the hall, ‘cuz my old ass sure as hell ain’t doing it.” Mr. Jones pointed to a pallet jack in the corner. “I’ll go open up the apartment for you.”

Mr. Jones made his way down the hall while Steve struggled to move the pallet. He never used a manual pallet jack before, but after playing around with the handle he figured out how it worked. Even so, the load of meat was extremely heavy and he had to use all of his might to pull it from the freezer.

Once in the hallway, Steve was able to gain some momentum and caught up to Mr. Jones with ease. Stopping was another matter entirely.

“Watch out!” Mr. Jones yelled, breathing unusually heavily from the walk.

Steve pushed all his weight into the pallet of meat and managed to get it to stop before it mashed him into the wall. “Sorry, I never used—”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.” Mr. Jones used a special key card to unlock this apartment. “It’s my fault for not giving you more instructions. But I got limited time here.”

Steve wondered what he meant. Then he noticed Mr. Jones had seemed to of aged 30 years after walking down the hallway. “You okay?”

Mr. Jones just nodded. Then he pulled open the extra wide metal double doors of this apartment. It looked more like the entrance to a warehouse than a place somebody would live.

“In you go,” Mr. Jones said, his voice dryer and more harsh sounding than before.

Steve pulled the massive pallet through the doors and into a seemingly endless room. “Wow! This looks like the hyperbolic time chamber,” he said with his voice echoing into infinity.

“The hyperwhatsit time chamber?”

“Nothing, just something from a cartoon I used to watch.”

“Damn, white people and your crazy shit.” Mr. Jones had to clear his throat several times to finish speaking. “Now, take that pallet over there a little more and let’s get the hell out of here. It’s been a long day and we still have to go back down to the office.” His voice cracked with the last word—sounding as if vocal chords were deteriorating.

“Alright Mr.Jones,” Steve said with a hint of concern. “Is this good enough over he—”

RRRRROOOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

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