Scissorman- Gears

He bent his heavy frame and crouched to peek between a giant gear as big as a truck tire. "This is the central mechanism. There must be something around here that... Hmm, this is strange. Helen! Helen!"

"What is it, Professor?"

"I thought I had some pliers around here...... Wait, hold on......oh, dear. Oh.........Helen!"

"What's wrong, Professor?"

"The gear's caught my sleeve. Could you that lever one mo--......aaah!"

Helen pulled the brake lever back and forth several times - but the gears kept pulling Sullivan in, as if they were the teeth of a monster intent on chewing him up.

"Professor!" Helen ran to Sullivan and tried to drag him from the gears. But it did not seem that Helen could possibly pull him out by her own power.

"Helen...please, go call somebody!"

Helen flew out of the machine room. The two detectives were supposed to be there - but no one was. Helen saw only a dark corridor.

"Help!" Helen screamed.

The darkness drank down her cry - and only a scream from Sullivan, and the continuing peals of the clock bells, could be heard in exchange. And then a sound like a fruit being crushed underfoot. And a sound like tender wood being broken apart. And a sound like mud being kneaded.

And then all sound ceased.

Steeling herself, Helen turned around.

The machine had not yet stopped moving. From the space between two gears protruded Sullivan's lower half. It continued to convulse a bit, but finally drooped limp and lifeless.

Helen fell to her knees on the spot, hands on the floor, and retched. Even after she had no more to vomit, her stomach kept contracting over and over. Helen could do nothing but stare at the former contents of her own stomach as they continued to spread across the floor.

He's dead.

Professor Sullivan is dead.