The place smelled like shit and piss.
“I thought these things didn’t have bodily excretions,” I called out to my partner.
“They’re not supposed to,” she replied. “For some reason this one does. Someone’s been hard at work making a clank that can process food the way humans do.”
The clank was a junker, alright, especially since someone had unloaded several rounds of buckshot into the thing. Oil and grease spattered the wall around where it was slumped, and a puddle of very human sewage was leaking onto the floor around the thing.
“Makes you wonder what happened here,” I said thoughtfully. No answer. I looked around. “Mel?”
I found her in the next room looking at a scrap of paper she’d found on the desk. I looked over her shoulder and read: Nobody loves a clank at midnight.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Hell if I know, Joe. Nothing about this makes sense. We still haven’t found Mr. Peabody.” She sighed. “Maybe when we find him, we’ll have our answers.”
Maybe, I thought, but I wouldn’t count on it.
[Originally posted at Ficly.]
