THE SMELL OF IRON

I hesitate at the threshold of my older brother’s room. The remnants of hope taste sour in my throat. I swallow it down.

This is the last place for me to look. The last place I have yet to search for a clue on where he went.

Sam’s been gone for three days now. He disappeared in the night, without a whisper or a sound.

No one seems to care that he’s gone, not even our foster parents. Which, would be surprising to any outsider, but our temporary parents haven't been all too welcoming since we've arrived on the farm. They have hardly seemed to notice or care about Sam's disappearance. But I care. I’ve been looking.

Our guardians aren't pleased with my worry, though. Frank, our foster father, has grown more aggressive towards me. I haven’t been getting my work done in the pastures. I’ve been jumpy, distracted ever since I woke up to find Sam nowhere in the house. He hadn’t been in the fields, either. And despite my urgency and begging, my damn foster parents refuse to tell me anything. Sam could be missing for good or possibly even dead, and I wouldn’t even know it.

A part of me wonders if they have it out for him. A creeping feeling has me wondering if they're behind it all.

Sam has always been seen as a misfit among our foster families, especially this one in particular. It’s mostly chalked up to his buzzed hair he always keeps bleached a yellow close to mustard and his choice of dark clothes that many correlate with delinquents. It doesn't help that he's never been careful with his words and actions. He's a little too sharp, a little too quick to speak his mind. Adults never take kindly to disrespect. But, despite sneaking out to meet up with romantic partners or snatching bottles of moonshine from the pantry, we always made sure to be specifically careful here. We had to.

When we first came to our current foster home, a butcher farm left alone and forgotten and covered in fields, we instantly felt something…off. There was something wrong with the way the trees seemed to bend down towards the house, the way the air had a constant smell of metal. We tried to push it out of our minds, but we've never felt truly safe.

Sam must have done something to make them angry. He must have gotten himself in enough trouble to be thrown out. That’s the only explanation on why he’s suddenly disappeared. He’s out there somewhere—could be hurt or cold in this fall that already feels like winter—and now it’s become my responsibility to find him. I would have already contacted social services for help if we had any damn phone reception. Living in the middle of Wisconsin definitely has its negatives. I’d have to use the landline if I wanted to get in contact with them, but that phone is monitored, out of my use.

A feeling sits low and heavy in my lungs, making them feel like two bags of sand. I can still smell traces of my brother's cologne, fumes of cigarette smoke, and maple in the walls. The door handle is warm like it still holds Sam’s body heat. And the hinges, they creak and groan like they’re in pain as I crack the door. Loud. Loud enough to wake the dead.

I hiss and bite my tongue. Waiting, I listen for my name to come booming. I wait to hear Frank racing for me, ready to drag me downstairs by my ankles and get me back to work.

When I hear no shouts or footsteps, I push the door open fully, and step into my brother’s room.

On this farm, Sam and I never stop working. Not when it’s dark and not when we’re hungry. It’s only when our foster father goes inside that we’re able to follow.

“What are you two doing standing about?” Frank said one evening this past summer. The man’s face carried deep wrinkles, hollowed in with age, but his form held strong. He’s been built like a mule, strengthened from work.

There was another man there, standing hunched over right behind our father. His name was Flint, a neighbor residing on a dairy farm three miles West. He was frail and red-faced, maybe from drinking too much milk.

“We’ve sweat through our clothes,” Sam had hollered across the yard. The two of us were resting outside the barn, damp and tired. “It won’t kill ya to give us thirty minutes.”

Our foster father had taken one, lumbered step towards us.

That’s when I noticed the rope clutched in his fist, trailing behind him and attached to something I couldn’t see.

“You get fifteen minutes,” he spat. “If I find you still lazing about any longer, I’ll hang you up by your toes and let the chickens have their fill.”

I think it was meant to be a joke, something to spook us, but it sounded like a true threat coming from him.

Sam and I watched Frank trudge towards the shack resting at the edge of the property, Flint on his heels, rope swishing. They were heading to the butchering shed. Perhaps our foster father wanted to show off his prime meat. Maybe he needed help testing out his cleavers.

We never saw that dairy farmer again. But our foster parents had fresh, red beef stocked in the freezer for weeks after his visit, so I assumed he talked Flint into handing over a cow or two.

I inhale the air of my brother’s room, hazy from the remnants of smoked weed.

I used to gag and cough at the stink. I’m used to it now, find comfort in it.

The bed is in its usual place, centered under the single, broken window in the room. Behind the glass lies miles of hills and tortuous fields. Blankets spill off the mattress and onto the floorboards.

I don’t bother with turning on the light. The sun will start to rise soon, and once that rooster cries, everyone will wake. My hope was to get a lead on where Sam has gone, and be off the farm before my foster parents have the chance to feel splintered plywood under their feet.

Time is ticking.

I don’t know what it is that I am hoping to find. The fact that Sam disappeared so soon, it’s unlikely he would have thought to leave something behind for me, especially if he was kicked out without warning. Still, I can't risk missing a clue by not searching.

I shuck the fitted sheet from his bed, dig through his dresser and tattered briefs, coming up with nothing. I move to the desk. Papers lie stacked in tidy piles. A framed picture of Sam with his boyfriend is placed right next to his computer screen. I ruffle through his things, passing by loose pencils and condoms. Still, not even a note.

I send a swift kick to his desk chair. Off it goes, clattering into a peeling wall.

The thought presses into me, whispering and taunting.

What if he got taken there? What if he’s been sent to the shed?

I pinch the bridge of my nose, pressing the ideas out, but the voice persists.

Go get him. The shed. Go to the shed—

The floor creaks behind me.

I don’t have time to turn before a gruff voice says, “Meant to lock the door.”

A flash of pain flairs on my scalp. Darkness consumes me.

* * *

The farmhouse was damp and green on the day we arrived a couple of months before. I remember the chickens the most though because they were pecking at red puddles on the ground.

Sam looked down at me, a smile loose on his lips, and said, “At least it’s in better shape than the last one.”

I nodded, examining the dilapidated barn and the rusted shack circling the property.

“Hey, now.” Sam slung his arm around my slim shoulders. “We’ll be safe here, Cree. It’ll be better than before. I promise.”

But it wasn’t better. It wasn’t better at all.

The smell of blood and ammonia wakes me. A headache pierces down to my neck, spreading behind my eyes, throbbing with every intake of breath. Metal clanks and jingles in the distance. Dots of black and blue speckle my vision. I blink them away.

Someone grabs my shoulders, and hoists me up, adjusting me to rest straight in a chair.

“Easy now,” Frank says. “Don’t rush yourself coming to. Take it nice and slow.”

My tongue feels thick between my teeth. “What’s going on? My head hurts.”

“Don’t try to talk.” He huffs something close to a laugh. “You had quite a fall.”

Sweat slides down my back. My breathing increases as my vision begins to clear. Wooden walls, hanging slabs of meat, and deep freezers come into view.

He’s brought me to the butchering shack.

I have to get out. I have to leave. I’m not supposed to be in the shed.

I hic, going to stand on trembling feet.

Frank pushes me back down, hands clamped on my shoulders, tight enough to bruise.“Calm down, kid. We need to have a little talk.”

I whip my head around, sight swimming with it, searching for Sam’s gangly limbs and bleached hair. “Where is he? Where’s Sam?”

The man hushes me. “You’ll see him soon. He got himself in trouble, and now he’s dealing with the consequences.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

His grip tightens. “Why're you so nervous, Cree? There’s no reason to be afraid.”

I squirm in my seat, still searching the darkened room. “Bull shit. You’re all crazy, killing and eating—”

He surges forward. “No. No, don’t…don’t go spouting lies now.” Frank’s head droops and shakes back and forth, back and forth, like he’s shaking flies out of his ears. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” He brings his hand up from my shoulder, and squeezes my mouth, silencing me. His blunt nails cut into my cheeks. His palm feels like paper, not quite as rough as I imagined. It’s slick too, with something warm and smelling of iron.

I tense, trying to lean away.

With his head still bowed, he says, “I wanted to explain it all to you gradually. Didn’t want to scare you off. But since you couldn’t help digging around, I don’t have a choice.”

He releases me, throwing me back in the chair.

I wipe my face, try to rub, rub, rub the sensation of him off. Crimson stains my fingers when I pull them away.

He stalks to one of the fridges, opening it and rummaging around the stacks of paper-wrapped meat.

I gulp down a breath. He doesn’t have me tied down. I could run. But to escape would mean going past Frank, and I’ve seen him lope alongside the field dogs. There’s no outrunning him. I have to be smart. I can’t be rash.

“Why are you doing this?” My voice comes out stronger than I thought it would. “You’re supposed to be our caregiver.”

He slides a bundle out of the fridge and takes it to the counter. He grabs a knife and I have the sudden image of him pointing the sharp end towards me. “I am caring for you. In the way that’s necessary,” he says. “We do important work here. There are people who depend on us.”

“For what?” I ask, buying time I’m not sure I’ll be granted.

He slices through the meat. Red spills off the edge of the counter. Drips sound when it meets the floor.

Frank grunts. “For food. We run a farm, after all. We harvest produce for people with a very particular taste.”

Another chop.

A bead of sweat slides onto my upper lip. I lick it away, tasting salt and metal.

“I brought you boys in for the extra hands. I needed a bit more help around here.”

Chop.

“I didn’t think you’d be the one to cause trouble, though. I should have had Sammy forge a note.”

The mention of my brother’s name has me leaping. “Tell me where he is!”

The look Frank sends over his shoulder, one filled with fire and warning, shoots me right back into my chair. My hands tremble and I turn them into fists to force the shivers away.

“That boy got what was coming to him. Did you know he was a meddler?”

I do. Sam always did like to play detective. But to do so without telling me—

Oh god, Sam.

With one last slice of his knife, Frank picks up the bloodied pieces of meat and shovels them all onto a plate. “We do very important work here, Cree. I need you to understand that.”

I’m shaking as he turns, leans back against the counter, muscles bulging. “So, what will it be, boy? Will you join our family, or become our feed?”

The rooster finally cries outside.

My sweaty lip shakes. I open and close my mouth several times, gasping for words, for the understanding of his question.

He seems to decide my answer for me.

Frank picks up the dish and approaches.

Something low and heavy drops in my stomach. “Please,” I say, hardly a whisper. “Please, where is he?”

Frank looks down his nose at my form, huddled in the chair.

“Where’s my brother?”

My foster father says nothing but sends a slight shake to the plate. The meat sloshes like jello.

My blood is burning. Drops of sweat leaks into my eyes, searing. Brain in a puddle, I try to piece together the situation.

Frank sets the plate in my lap. Raw meat stares up at me.

Bile burns a trail up my throat. “What the fuck—”

I can almost smell stale joints in the blood.

Frank grips my neck. “Say hello to Sammy.”