The Dark Descent

by William Oday

  McKenzie followed behind and paused to close the blinds to the wide window beside the door. He stopped in the doorway. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”

  “Thanks,” I said, doing my best to sound appreciative. All part of the subterfuge to go along until something clicked into place. A memory or a situation that brought understanding.

  The door closed and their voices cut out.

  I slipped out of my shoes and crept to the window, taking care to drag along the hanging blood bag as I went.

  Standing in the corner of the exam room, I found a crack between a bent blind and the row below. Careful not to touch them, I peered through the sliver.

  McKenzie and Tanaka stood in the corridor outside. They huddled close and spoke in low voices clearly intended to keep the conversation private.

  Tanaka pointed at his clipboard as McKenzie looked on.

  McKenzie said something.

  I focused on his mouth and the movement of his lips.

  “The question is what to—”

  I gritted my teeth in frustration as he turned toward the doctor and his mouth rotated out of view. His head moved as he finished whatever he was saying.

  Tanaka adjusted his glasses and shook his head. He replied as I stared at his mouth. “It’s a risk.”

  A surge of dizziness swept over me. I teetered forward and my forehead smacked into the blinds and glass.

  The door flew open as I landed back on the bed.

  “What was that?” McKenzie said in a voice thick with concern—or was it suspicion?— “Are you okay, sir?”

  I waved him off. “I’m fine. Stood up to move the blood bag closer and got dizzy for a second. Nothing major.”

  He turned and noticed the blinds settling. His eyes returned to mine.

  Did his posture shift?

  Was there a tension not there an instant before?

  I waited, ready to jerk the pistol up and fire a round into his chest.

  “Do you need help getting into the gown?”

  “No, I’ll be fine. Just need to stand up a little slower.”

  He seemed to accept that. “You need to take it nice and easy, sir.”

  I nodded. He was right. I felt it. The exhaustion. The weakness overtaking my limbs. A sluggish warmth creeping into my veins.

  The donor blood.

  What had the nurse added to the blood bag? Was it actually a masking agent?

  Or was it an anesthetic?

  Something to knock me out.

  Something to give them control.

  I grabbed the tube attached to the IV port and ripped it out. Blood spurted out the end as I flung it away. It splattered onto the sheets, my pants, and then continued leaking crimson onto the drab beige tile floor.

  “What are you doing, Mr. President?” Tanaka said from the doorway. It was more an accusation than a question. “You need that blood! I’m doing my best to save you, but you seem determined to die!”

  McKenzie snatched the tube off the floor and crimped it shut. “You’re not well, sir. Please, you need to listen to Dr. Tanaka.”

  “He’s right, Scout. I’ve been your personal doctor for more years than I care to remember. I know your physiology better than my own. I want to help, if you’ll let me.” He crossed his arms and waited.

  A pious priest ready to absolve a penitent sinner.

  CHOICES:

  1. Should I accept the donor blood?

  2. Should I refuse the blood but still go for the brain scan?

  3. Should I grab Dr. Tanaka, put the pistol to his head and demand some answers?

  4. Should I refuse to do anything until I get some answers? Keep the gun close, but don’t use it. (Added by the group.)

  The group chose #4 and this is what happened next…

  7

  Unfortunately for Dr. Tanaka, and perhaps for the both of us, I was in no mood for confession. I was in the mood for answers. Anything that might shine a light into the surrounding darkness. Anything about the girl who colored the folded up picture in my pocket.

  “The blood can wait. The scan can wait. I want some answers first.”

  Tanaka frowned. “This is not the time for catching up. That can come after we’ve diagnosed your injuries and stabilized your condition.” He took the tube from McKenzie. “We’ll have to get you another one as this one is contaminated.” He closed the port on the bag and lifted it off the hanger.

  “I don’t care about the damn bag! I want answers! Now!”

  Tanaka passed the bag to McKenzie. “Dispose of this and instruct the nurse to get another one ready.”

  McKenzie looked at me for confirmation.

  Tanaka snorted. “That is, assuming you think keeping the president alive is a good idea.”

  I nodded at McKenzie. “Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

  McKenzie gave us each a hard look, thought about refusing, and then complied. He walked out and Tanaka closed the door behind him.

  I had my first question ready before he let go of the handle. “Who is Hannah?”

  Tanaka’s shoulders slumped. He turned and his eyes glistened. Not crying. No tears. But sadness? Yes. Grief? Definitely. “She was your daughter.”

  The confirmation of my own belief was like a leg placed under a table. There were still three missing and it didn’t function like it was supposed to, but it was something. It was a tangible improvement.

  Wait.

  Was.

  He’d said was.

  “What do you mean was?”

  “She’s no longer with us.”

  The fleeting vision of her cherub face skipped across the surface of my mind. To think that sweet face no longer lived twisted my insides up. “How did she die?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not privy to that information.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was a top secret mission. I’m a doctor so I have no reason to know about such things.”

  “Who would know?”

  Tanaka pushed his glasses back up. “I would’ve expected you to know, sir. The fact that you don’t is worrying. We need that scan immediately.”

  “It can wait a few more minutes.”

  “I sincerely hope so.”

  I needed to know more about her. My daughter. Someone I should already know everything about. The next question rose above the morass swirling in my mind. “When did she die?”

  “Almost a year ago.”

  A year?

  I hadn’t seen that angelic face in a year?

  Why couldn’t I remember her loss?

  Why didn’t it feel true after Tanaka said it?

  It wasn’t that it felt like a lie. It just didn’t carry a feeling either way. It was an impartial fact with no emotional grounding. Like a body stripped down to the skeleton. There was nothing hanging on to the statement that gave it substance.

  The next question was obvious.

  Why was the girl I remembered on some kind of top secret mission?

  Elementary school kids weren’t typically on any missions more secret than raiding the cookie jar or trying to get out of doing chores.

  “Why was Hannah on the mission?”

  “I don’t have access to–”

  “I’m not asking for a mission brief. You knew her. I’m asking for your opinion.”

  “Oh. That part isn’t difficult. She was the most talented hacker anyone had ever seen. At six-years-old, she hacked into the bunker’s security system and did some things that ruffled a few feathers.”

  “Like what?”

  “Pranks, mostly. Always played on the higher ranking citizens. Members of the previous president’s cabinet were a frequent target.” He stared into the distance and smiled. Then coughed a few times to regain composure. “One of my favorites was when she inserted a subroutine into the mechanical operations code base. It targeted an old blowhard named Senator Burton. Anytime he used his keycard to get through a security door, the door opened like usual but then closed on him halfw
ay through.”

  Tanaka chuckled. “Caught like a fat walnut in a nutcracker. It went on for months. He had to be extricated by maintenance personnel a couple of times. It got so bad that he started thinking the whole bunker was possessed by an evil spirit that wanted him dead.” He chuckled as the memory played out in his mind.

  It was a good story. Sure, there was an element of rebellious mischief. But it was still the kind of story I’d be proud to hear as a parent. The problem again was that it didn’t feel real. It felt like a pitch-perfect performance where every note was hit, but the artifice of the act shone through.

  It didn’t feel like reality.

  Maybe there could be no truth, not until I remembered more. Maybe I was the disconnect, the unneeded extra.

  Maybe everyone else had parts in the grand play that they all moved through and accepted without question. And if I remembered more, I could rejoin the performance and the truth would again be clear and simple.

  No. It wouldn’t be that easy.

  It never was.

  Besides, there was something to being on the outside. An outsider saw things the others didn’t. The unique perspective shifted the lens and revealed a different part of the picture.

  “I’ll share something with you,” Tanaka said. “Something she made me promise never to tell you. But I think her passing makes the promise no longer binding.”

  Disorientation crept around the edges of my consciousness. I fought to steady myself, to keep control. Something trickled down my upper lip and into the crease of my mouth.

  I licked it away and tasted blood.

  Tanaka’s eyes went wide. “Your nose is bleeding! That’s another indicator for edema or possibly an intracranial hematoma!”

  The door opened and McKenzie held up the new bag. He noticed the trickle of blood leaking out of my nose.

  Tanaka hit a red button by the bed and an alarm in the hallway went off.

  The nurse from earlier appeared in the doorway.

  Tanaka eased me down onto the bed as he shouted over his shoulder. “Get a surgical team together right now!”

  “In the OR?”

  “No! Here! Now!”

  The nurse rushed out.

  I tried to resist, but Tanaka overpowered my weak limbs and blurred focus. The stirrings of my body felt like a distant thing. Something not altogether interesting. Something that existed over there and drifted farther away with every passing second.

  I remembered the pistol on my lap. That it was important. With the feeble sensation remaining in my fingers, I tried to close them around the grip.

  The cold metal slipped away.

  I glanced up to see McKenzie check the chamber and then slide the pistol into a holster inside his coat.

  He secured it and caught my eye.

  A chorus of voices and action exploded behind him.

  “Out of the way! Move!”

  McKenzie skirted to the side as a team of medical personnel crowded into the room.

  The rush of bodies and the staccato burst of chatter between them. All fading echoes that didn’t interest me, even though they discussed the body I used to feel so attached to.

  “We need to relieve the pressure. I need a bone drill with a perforator bit.” Tanaka said.

  Blood poured out of my nose and gathered in my mouth. It puddled at the back of my throat. I coughed and blew out a spray of red mist.

  “Strap him down! Get the skull clamp set. We don’t have time for anesthetic,” Tanaka said in a voice thick with tension.

  Wide bands went across my chest, hips and calves. They tightened, compressing my body into the bed.

  “Give me the drill!”

  A high-pitched whirring drowned out the voices. It reminded me of getting a cavity filled at the dentist’s office as a kid. The horrible promise of that sound.

  It started as a pinprick of pain. A curious thing seen from a distance. Like the flicker of a candle in a distant window.

  “Get that clamp set!”

  The perception started that way, but it quickly changed.

  A raw grinding vibration jerked the sensation close in an instant.

  A blinding pain on the top of my head.

  The cutting vibration blurring my vision.

  An electric torture shot through my torso and limbs. Growing in waves as the drill continued grinding through thick bone.

  I realized with a shock my role in the play.

  My part was pain.

  And I sang it with pitch-perfect agony.

  8

  A city of endless ruin.

  Stretching to the horizon in all directions. Devastation draped over the surface like a camouflage net. A drab gray filter that sucked the life out of everything within view. No movement to be seen. No breeze to ruffle leaves. No trees to have leaves.

  No living thing anywhere.

  And the silence.

  The impossible, unbearable silence.

  An insufferable wave of solitude.

  A graveyard of decayed buildings occupied the center of the city. Their skins long turned to dust. Only the metal bones remained. Misshapen and scarred black. Some sheared in two. Others bent over and almost graceful in their final repose.

  Every structure hugged close to the ground, fearful of reaching toward the bleak sky above. The sky itself a hazed reflection of the monochromatic landscape below.

  A wasted city bled dry of contrast and definition.

  In all places but one.

  A single skyscraper standing tall in the center.

  Black as night with its top hidden in the suffocating blanket above.

  A column of shadow that seemed to inhale the surrounding light.

  And yet, there at the center of the building in the center of the city, the smallest flicker of flame appeared.

  A weak and unsteady thing, whipping back and forth in a non-existent wind. Glowing orange then yellow then orange again.

  Struggling.

  Refusing to be snuffed out.

  A tendril of warmth reached out to me. An invisible current of connection.

  Something familiar.

  Pulling me forward. Faster.

  Silent rushing. Blurring speed with no wind.

  Closer!

  The connection stronger. An expanding bubble of recognition about to pop.

  Closer still!

  The flame a torch burning into the shadows, fighting to survive.

  The bubble popped and a warm knowing arrived.

  Hannah!

  Closer now!

  And then a sudden stop like hitting an invisible wall as the building shifted. Subtle at first as if only an illusion. Then obvious and physical and undeniable.

  The flat column of featureless shadow shattered.

  Millions of shards first fell and then swooped into flight.

  Black wings and beaks.

  Ravens.

  Too many to count. Millions. More.

  Flapping and cawing and filling the air. Their wings buffeting and driving me back.

  Others surrounding the flame, pecking and tearing at it.

  Dark things lurked with flashing razor beaks, smothering inconstant warmth with flapping wings.

  Their number overwhelming and irresistible.

  They swallowed the light and the unbearable cold returned.

  9

  I dreamed after that.

  But they were dreams of a different quality.

  Dull. Distant. Forgettable.

  Clues perhaps to the life I’d forgotten, but nothing vital enough to remember.

  The darkness began to fade.

  At first slow and imperceptible, but then faster until all that remained was a diaphanous sheet separating me from the world.

  “Scout? Are you awake?”

  A familiar voice.

  The sheet sliced apart like a samurai sword through silk.

  My eyes opened.

  At first blurry, but then clearer.

  Tanaka stood above me. A
look of guarded relief contorting his face. “Welcome back. Can you understand me?”

  I nodded and flinched from the movement as a network of sharp needles pricked my scalp.

  “I should’ve said not to move. Then again, I didn’t know if you had the capacity to understand. If that part of your brain sustained damage or not. In any case, I’m pleased to see it did not. Can you speak?”

  The word struggled out of my mouth like a toad from under a heavy rock. “Yes.”

  “Good,” Tanaka replied as he scratched notes onto his ever-present clipboard. “Visual and auditory systems promising. Your reaction tells me you experienced pain from the surgery so the nervous system is at least minimally operational. Promising news, altogether. Especially considering what happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “We lost you. You flatlined for a few minutes.”

  “I died?”

  He nodded without looking up. “Technically, yes. For a few minutes. But then you came back.” He continued scratching notes while I surveyed the room.

  It was different from the one before. Designed to be the same as was typical in institutional settings, but subtly set apart by its unique history.

  A four-inch long dent in the metal door by the door knob. Like the arm of a chair hit it.

  The blue cover on the bed. The first had been closer to royal blue where this one was older, faded to a dull baby blue.

  A clock on the side table that showed 17:28 with a small part on the lower half of the eight burned out.

  Twins only looked the same from a distance. A closer inspection always revealed a history of the marks left by life. And it always left a few.

  The fortunate ones ended up with only a few.

  Everybody else got more than they asked for. Often more than they could handle. Some marks disfigured bodies and minds. Some marks made death look like a better option.

  Depending on the mark and on the person, sometimes that was chosen.

  But most soldiered on, accepting the anguish and scars and deformities.

  “The pain you feel are the wounds from the burr holes.”

  Burr holes?

  “You don’t understand,” Tanaka said the obvious. “I had to drill through your skull to relieve pressure. I suspected swelling of the brain. We scanned you while you were out so we’ll know more on that soon. Anyway, I found a subdural hematoma. Bleeding in the tissues between the skull and the brain, basically. Bleeding that can lead to permanent damage and death in short order. I had to find the spot without access to any diagnostic scans. So, it was kind of like how they used to find water. Dig one place and see what you find. Dig another and do the same. Keep going until you find the gusher.”