The Extractors

by Jon Clendaniel

 

It’s easy to tell when an extraction is necessary. Most of the time, you just have to listen for the screams.

Like the other day in the cafeteria, for instance. Billy Simpson, terror of the seventh grade, was shaking down poor Roger for reasons unexplained. While he was caught in a headlock, pressed against Billy’s chest mid-noogie, Roger heard it: the tell-tale cry of the trapped.

“Help me! Help me!”

We had suspected that Billy was a carrier for a while, but this confirmed it.

After Roger returned to our table and fixed his hair, we began planning Billy’s extraction.

#

Ahmet was in charge of luring carriers to the school gym for extractions. I never asked how he did it—the kid had connections, I guess. We stood around in the darkened gym, waiting for Ahmet to show up with Billy. Some of us played wall ball or shot hoops. I chose to sit alone, mentally preparing myself for the procedure. 

We were starting to get tired of waiting when Ahmet ran in, bursting through the gym doors like a cannonball.

“He’s coming!” Ahmet warned.

Billy charged into the gym moments later, glancing around wildly. He looked everywhere but behind him, which was how Ty was able to whack him in the head with a baseball bat.

We dragged Billy’s twitching form to the operating table, dropped him onto the disposable tablecloth with a thud. We tied his hands and feet to the table to prevent excessive flailing.

Thus commenced the extraction.

I held my hand out. “Bone saw,” I said.

Scriggs handed me the bone saw. I activated it, brought its whirring blade down on Billy’s chest with a crunch. Blood, bone, bits of flesh splattered everywhere.

This was why I told everyone to wear old clothes to extractions.

Once the fissure was rent in Billy’s chest, I turned back to Scriggs.

“Forceps.”

It’s nice having a dad who’s a surgeon. You get to raid his old med school supplies. Lots of useful stuff in there. 

I took the forceps and pried open the hole in Billy’s flesh. Billy, by the way, was almost certainly dead by now. He had stopped twitching a while ago, and I could see a trickle of blood running from his mouth.

Billy’s ribs cracked and groaned as I pulled the forceps wider, wider. I peered into the chest cavity, looking for signs of movement amongst the various organs.

“I see it!” Scriggs shouted. I looked closer, and there it was, nestled behind one of the lungs, trying to hide its face from the light. A small child.

This was the part where we had to be careful. The trapped were often extremely frightened. They didn’t always want to come out right away. Sometimes you had to coax them.

I motioned for Darrius. He was the best at this part.

Darrius stepped forward, leaning over the hole in the corpse.

“Come on out,” he said, softly, like he was trying to lure a rabbit out of its den. “Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you.”

From my vantage point, I saw a little bloodied hand reach up and grasp Darrius’.

“There you go. See, you don’t have to be scared anymore. The scary time is over. You’re safe now.”

Darrius reached in and poked around a bit, rearranging Billy’s entrails.

“I’m going to take you out now, okay?”

He paused a moment, as if waiting for assent, then lifted a squirming, blood-covered kid from the fissure.

The kid was a boy with dark, matted hair. He looked like he was about six years old, as most of the extracted did. He looked around the room, rubbing his eyes with his wet hands.

Then, the gym door opened. An adult figure stood in the doorway. It held a broom, and pushed a garbage can on wheels.

“Evening boys,” said Mr. Thompson, the school janitor.

“Evening, Mr. Thompson,” we chorused.

He looked at the corpse on the table. “Messy one tonight, eh, boys?”

“Yes, Mr. Thompson.”

“Let’s get this cleaned up, then. And I see we have a new arrival.”

With Mr. Thompson’s help, we set to work swabbing the gym floor. Those of us who were in the splash zone toweled off. The soiled tablecloth and towels went into the garbage can, as did what remained of Billy. We didn’t know what Thompson did with the bodies post-extraction, and we didn’t ask.

While the rest of us cleaned up, Darrius toweled the kid off and dressed him in a fresh set of clothes. The boy seemed more alert now. He grabbed Darrius’s hand and Darrius led him over to where Mr. Thompson stood.

Even after handling a bloody corpse, Mr. Thompson looked immaculate in his crisp janitor’s outfit. He ran a hand through his graying hair. His mustachioed face crinkled into a smile when he saw the kid walking toward him.

“Well, hello young man. I bet you’re happy to be out and about, aren’t you?”

The boy smiled at Mr. Thompson, nodded.

“That’s good. We’ll get you taken care of, don’t you fret.”  

Mr. Thompson extended his hand. The boy looked up at Darrius, who gave an encouraging nod, then walked over to Mr. Thompson and grabbed his hand. Together, the pair strolled out the gym doors.

Mr. Thompson took most of the “extracted” to the orphanage on 7th and Main. It wasn’t the nicest home, but it was a lot nicer than where they came from.

After we finished cleaning up the gym, we spent the rest of the evening out by the loading dock, sipping juice boxes and watching the first rays of sunlight creep across the sky.   

#

The week after Billy’s extraction, we were sitting in the cafeteria when Molly Higgins came to our table.

She lowered her voice. “You guys are the Extractors, right?”

We all looked at each other.

“Who wants to know?” I asked.

She tapped her chest. “I want in.”

Scriggs and Canzano laughed. I stifled the urge to. A girl in the Extractors? It was unheard of.

She stood there, hands on hips, glowering. “You guys can laugh all you want. But I’ve got a lead on a potential carrier you’re definitely gonna want to investigate. You have to give me the first crack at her, though. Deal?”

Scriggs was about to protest, but I cut him off. I turned back to Molly.

“All right. Show us.” 

#

I can’t speak for the rest of the boys, but I did not frequent school board meetings. I spent enough time at school already, between attending classes and disemboweling people.

Entering the auditorium for the meeting felt strange, like getting a glimpse behind the iron curtain. We glanced around uncomfortably, hoping none of our parents would show up. We sat in the back of the auditorium, far from the stage and the questioning eyes of parents and faculty. The first part of the meeting was boring stuff—new hires, a proposed renovation to the parking lot, that sort of thing. 

Then, a woman stood and walked to one of the microphones in front of the stage.

“That’s her,” Molly said.

The woman looked sort of like a large, pissed off ferret. She had this ugly scowl plastered on her face, like she had a perpetual need to take a shit.

The woman got to the mic and immediately started ranting about … I don’t even know what. Books in the school library, books about rainbows and gay dinosaurs or some nonsense. Stuff that no reasonable person would ever get angry about.

“She’s the leader of a movement,” Molly said, as the woman continued her tirade. “These people, mostly moms with nothing better to do, go around bitching about library books and pronouns, or whatever other bullshit the media tells them to get worked up about. It’s like a network of Karens all over the country. And she’s Karen Prime.”

The thought of women like this invading my school, or anyone’s school, made me want to puke. But I still needed confirmation that the woman was a carrier.

While people were filing out of the meeting, we had Canzano sneak up next to the woman and give a good listen. He leaned close to her torso for a few seconds, then looked back at us and nodded.

The extraction was a go.   

#

We waited in the gym, listening for Ahmet to approach with our quarry. Ty stood next to the door, baseball bat in hand.

We heard voices outside in the hallway.

“… I appreciate you showing this to me, young man. To think, a child trafficking ring operating out of our own gymnasium-”

The door swung open, and Ty swung his bat right into Ahmet’s gut. I grimaced.

So that’s why Ty got cut from the baseball team.

The woman shrieked as the rest of us rushed her. We grabbed her clothing and pulled her toward the operating table.

“Get your hands off of me!” she screamed. “You kids have been brainwashed by those leftist teachers!”

She continued ranting, going off on a tangent about transgender kids playing soccer. Or something. The bitch didn’t shut up until we dumped her onto the table and I fired up the bone saw. Then she got real quiet.

I handed the saw to Molly. “I believe the honor is yours.” 

The woman stared up at Molly like a beached fish, mouth agape. “Oh, you poor, confused girl. Why are you doing this? You’ve been corrupted by the woke mob.”

We tied the woman’s limbs down. Her shrieking went up an octave.

“God will avenge me! God will affirm my righteousness! I will be vindicated! The children of Sodom will bathe in hellfire!”

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt,” said Molly. She plunged the saw into the woman’s chest, sending blood splattering everywhere.

Several minutes later we loaded the woman’s mangled corpse into the garbage can, and Mr. Thompson led a wide-eyed little girl out of the gym.   

#

A couple weeks afterward, we were hanging out at Ahmet’s house, snacking on kdaameh and playing video games.

Ahmet’s mom had the local news on in the other room. Sandwiched between the weather report and coverage of the annual rhubarb festival was a brief story about a political activist scheduled to visit town next week.

B-roll footage showed a middle-aged man, his head shaved, wearing a tight-fitting black t-shirt and storming around a stage. His eyes shone with hate and defiance. Cut to a shot of the crowd, his supporters, similarly attired, shouting like madmen, their faces filled with rage. Cut back to their Fearless Leader, egging the crowd on, standing at the edge of the stage, giving a straight-armed salute, palm outward.

I could tell, without even listening for the cries, that he was a carrier.

And I could tell this would be our toughest extraction yet.

#

We decided to dispense with the baseball bat this time. Ty was disappointed at first, but Ahmet was still sore over the last incident, and the job we gave Ty instead was really cool.

We heard the sound of Fearless Leader approaching, filling Ahmet’s eardrums with the lies he was accustomed to telling.

“You’re really mature for your age, you know that? I could tell when we chatted online-”

The gym door opened, Fearless Leader walked in, and Ty threw a bucket of scalding acid in his face.

Thank goodness for Mr. Mulkaney’s science lab.

The acid ate away at Fearless Leader’s bald scalp. He yowled, clawing at his boiling skin. We closed in around him and shepherded him to the operating table.

Once on the table, Fearless Leader seemed to regain some of his awareness. And his defiance.

“What the fuck is this?” he jeered. “You kids playing Operation?” He turned to me. “Who are you, Doogie Howser, M.D.?”

“My name is Steiner,” I said through clenched teeth. “Charlie Steiner. And I’m going to cut your fucking chest open, you fascist piece of shit.”

I leaned over him, blade spinning. He stared at me through red-rimmed eyes, searching for a retort.

“Dig away, you fucking kike,” he spat. “You’re not gonna like what you find.”

Cutting Fearless Leader’s chest was like trying to cut iron. The saw blades whirled in place, sending blood flying, but making little progress.

Wiping my sleeve across my brow, I turned to Scriggs and asked for the one tool I had not yet used in an extraction.

“Sledgehammer.”

The others murmured. “Won’t that hurt the kid?” Canzano asked.

“Just do it!” I said.

Scriggs handed me the sledgehammer. As I strained to lift it above my head, I heard Fearless Leader laugh, a maniacal, staccato laugh that echoed off the gym’s walls. Spittle and blood flew from his mouth. The sound mocked me, mocked all of us. It lingered in the air for a few seconds after I brought the hammer down, shattering Fearless Leader’s ribcage.

We cut into his now-considerably-mushy chest. I called Darrius in. As we sifted through the man’s innards, I felt a strange, prickling sensation, a sense of wrongness I had never felt during an extraction. I pulled the lungs apart and beheld a pair of black eyes staring straight into mine.

We gazed at each other for a moment, the child and I, as time seemed to slow.

The eyes of the trapped child contained the same anger, the same malice that its adult vessel had possessed. There was none of the usual fear or uncertainty—just pure rage.

When Darrius reached for the child, it burrowed deeper into its fleshy cave, baring its teeth in a snarl. We had to yank it out. As we pulled, it grabbed one of Fearless Leader’s broken ribs and stabbed Darrius’ arm, drawing blood. It took three of us to subdue the kid.

Later, as I reflected on the ordeal, I decided the kid would’ve hated us no matter what we had done for it. It had been stewing in a tiny, cramped vat of hate and anger all its life. Hate was all it knew, all it could have known.

Mr. Thompson led the little boy out of the gym, just like he did with all the others. While I watched them walk away, I couldn't help but wonder if what we were doing was right, or if we were just perpetuating the cycle, replacing one hateful person with another. I wondered if we could ever perform enough extractions to eradicate all the hate in the world, or if hate would keep replenishing itself. I wondered if hate was something that started deep down, from within.

I needed an extra juice box that night.

#

You can’t dwell too much on an extraction, no matter how it goes. You never know when the next one will come.

We were sitting around the lunch table when Canzano came up and gave us the news. A pair of new students, a set of twins, had been causing havoc. Throwing kids into lockers, gum in hair, the usual stuff. Molly told us the female twin had left all the toilet seats up in the girls’ bathroom.

I told Ahmet to make the necessary preparations.

Our first ever double extraction was imminent.

 

 

AUTHOR BIO:

 

Jon Clendaniel is a writer of speculative fiction from western Pennsylvania. His work has also appeared or is forthcoming in foofaraw and Flash Point Science Fiction. When not writing, he can usually be found watching obscure horror movies or buying way too many used paperbacks.