The Law of Nines

by Terry Goodkind

  Out of the corner of his eye Alex saw Jax trying to crawl toward him to help. Alice planted a white shoe on Jax’s neck, pinning her to the floor. Jax moved as if she were mired in mud. She cried out his name, but it came out as a slurred murmur.

  The world began to blur. Everything looked small, as if it were at the distant end of a dark tunnel. Alex yelled Jax’s name, but only a whisper made its way out.

  His fingers found hers, then. Both of them held on for dear life as the room dimmed.

  Alex felt himself being engulfed by thick, tingling blackness. It was all happening too fast.

  His last thought, before thought ceased to exist, was of Jax, of the terror in her eyes.

  30.

  ALEX DIDN’T REMEMBER OPENING HIS EYES. He didn’t remember waking. He merely became gradually aware that he was awake. After a fashion.

  Everything looked soft and fuzzy, unreal, distant, dim. He could hear snatches of sounds but he didn’t know what they were. Figuring out what the sounds were didn’t strike him as at all important.

  He was aware of the world all around him, but it seemed far away, not something he was a part of. He was alone . . . somewhere else.

  His whole body tingled in a thick, numb, twilight way.

  With the way that everything seemed less than real, it occurred to him that he might actually be asleep and only dreaming that he was awake. He couldn’t decide which was true. He didn’t know how to find the solution to such a puzzle.

  Try as he might, Alex could not, simply could not, form a complete, coherent thought.

  Fragments of ideas, bits of things that seemed as if they might be important, floated beyond his mental reach. He couldn’t pull them in, couldn’t make those fragments come together into a complete thought. He knew that he should be able to, knew what he wanted to do, but his mind wouldn’t make it happen. He could not exert enough willpower to bring himself to think.

  It felt like his brain was shut off. He struggled to form a complete sentence in his mind, but his mind could not pull anything together. He would start a thought, but it would trail off into nothing as his brain simply failed to complete the task. He could not coax it to stay on track, to work, to think. Monumental effort didn’t help.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind his inability to form complete thoughts, to think deliberately, was giving rise to a vague, distant, claustrophobic panic. Those feelings, even as they began to surface, sank back down into the black depths of indifference, never to fully surface, leaving only fuzzy emptiness.

  The panic somewhere inside him could not manifest itself into something solid enough to concern him.

  Alex wanted to be angry, but there was nothing there to form anger.

  Every time he struggled to feel emotion, he only fell back into feeling nothing.

  He turned his dim perception away from the futile effort and realized that he was sitting in a chair. He tried to get up, but his body didn’t respond. With great effort he looked down to see his hand resting on the arm of the chair. He tried to lift it, but it only levitated a few inches. He couldn’t make himself care enough to accomplish the simple task.

  He squinted, trying to make out the fuzzy white shape not far away, trying to understand what it was doing.

  “You awake, Alex?”

  He thought it was a woman’s voice.

  Answering was too unimportant to even try.

  “I’ll have your bed made in a jiff. Then I’ll let you be so you can get your rest.”

  That was what she was doing: making up a bed. She was tucking in sheets. Just grasping that much of the mystery around him felt like a profound accomplishment, but the accomplishment failed to be satisfying.

  He didn’t know if he knew the woman in white. He couldn’t make himself concentrate on her face long enough to tell. His gaze kept sinking to the floor. The gray swirls in the linoleum echoed his thoughts.

  He wanted to break down in tearful despair at not understanding any of it, but there was nothing in him that knew how to cry, so he could only sit and stare.

  “I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake. I’m sure that when he makes his rounds he’ll want to stop in and see you. Okay, hon?”

  The woman came closer. She pulled a tissue from the box on the windowsill, then leaned toward him and wiped the side of his mouth and chin.

  “That better?” she asked as she threw the tissue in the wastebasket beside the chair.

  Alex wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind.

  She touched his shoulder sympathetically before moving away. The square of light darkened. He wondered distantly if maybe she had gone out and shut the door.

  Snippets of things echoed through his head, fragments of conversations, flashes of sights. He sat unmoving as the obscure turmoil tumbled inside him.

  He wondered where he was and how he had come to be there. He couldn’t think it through, couldn’t come up from the depths toward the distant surface. He wanted to get up out of the chair, but it seemed too monumental a task.

  The world kept going dark. Each time he again became aware, he realized that he must be nodding off.

  As he sat staring, going in and out of consciousness, the daylight behind him gradually went dark.

  “Alex?”

  It was a man’s voice. Alex lifted his head a little and realized that he must have been asleep again. He blinked slowly, trying to clear his vision. It took great effort to blink, but it didn’t help.

  The man leaned down toward him. “Alex, hi, how are you doing?” The man had a clipboard in one hand. A stethoscope hung around his neck. He had on a white coat and a blue tie. Alex couldn’t muster the will to look up enough to see the face.

  The man picked up Alex’s hand and shook it. Alex was too limp to participate.

  “I’m Dr. Hoffmann, Alex. I’ve met you before. Remember? In the past we’ve discussed your mother.”

  Alex didn’t remember much of anything. He remembered that he had a mother, but he couldn’t remember what she looked like. The effort to remember details about her was simply beyond his ability. He could do little more than stare at nothing.

  “Well, I can see that you’re still pretty out of it. It’s the Thorazine. After a while, when you get a little more acclimated to your medication, you’ll be able to function better. You won’t sleep so much, either.”

  As Alex finally managed to turn his eyes up, the man smiled. He looked nice. Alex hated him. At least, he guessed that maybe he hated him. Somewhere inside he wanted to hate him, but he couldn’t feel any hate. He couldn’t feel anything.

  “Best thing to do is just take it easy for now, maybe get up in bed and take a nap. You’ve been through quite an ordeal, from what I’ve heard.”

  With all his strength Alex managed to say, “What?”

  Dr. Hoffmann looked down to search through his papers. He lifted a page on his clipboard, then another.

  “Well, from what I’ve been told and from this report, you became violent, apparently convinced that the staff was trying to harm your mother. Seems you hurt one of the orderlies, Henry, pretty badly. Alice was shaken up as well.”

  Alex remembered only foggy flickers of a fight. He thought that he remembered being afraid—not afraid for himself, but afraid for someone else.

  “The staff here would never hurt your mother, Alex, or any patient, for that matter. They’re dedicated to helping people who are ill.”

  The man looked through the papers on his clipboard again. “With your mother’s history, I’m afraid that your violent outburst is not entirely surprising.” He let out a sigh. “Sometimes this sort of psychosis runs in families. In the case of your family, it seems to lead to violent aggression.”

  Alex managed to lift his back away from the chair a few inches. “What about . . .”

  The old bed squeaked as Dr. Hoffmann leaned back against it. He clasped his hands together as he held the clipboard in them and stared down at Alex.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,
but I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “Someone . . .”

  “Someone? Who are you asking about?”

  Alex didn’t know.

  “Your mother? Is that who you’re asking about? Helen is doing fine. She was understandably frightened by the whole episode, but she’s fine. I saw her earlier. She’s resting comfortably. I don’t think she even remembers the incident.”

  Alex wanted to talk, but he couldn’t. He could feel drool running down his chin again.

  “Here, let’s have your arm before I go, make sure you’re doing okay.”

  The doctor pulled Alex’s arm out and wrapped a black blood-pressure cuff around it. He put the stethoscope to the crook of Alex’s arm as he pumped the bulb in his other hand. He concentrated, remaining still for a moment as he watched the dial, then turned the knob to release the rest of the air.

  “It’s pretty low,” he said as he wrote on the chart, “but that’s to be expected with Thorazine. We’ll need to keep an eye on it. As I said, you’ll acclimate to the medication over time.”

  “Over time?”

  The man looked up from the chart. “Alex, I’m afraid that you’ve had a full-blown psychotic episode that requires aggressive intervention. Considering what happened, along with your family history . . .” He peered down at his chart, reading for a moment. “As a matter of fact, your mother was the same age, twenty-seven, when her psychopathic symptoms first manifested themselves.”

  Alex was dimly aware of his nearly lifelong fear of ending up like his mother.

  “Well,” Dr. Hoffmann finally said with a sigh, “let’s hope for the best. Often, with the right balance of medications, people like you don’t have to live with the delusions and mania of such an illness.

  “But I’m afraid that you’re going to have to be here for a while.”

  “While?” Alex mumbled.

  “With the violence of the assault there is the possibility that charges will be brought.”

  The doctor patted the side of Alex’s knee. “But I don’t want you to worry about that at the moment.” He smiled. “If it comes to that we’ll ask the court to have you confined here, under our care. Jail wouldn’t be the proper setting for a person with a serious mental condition. I’m afraid that it might be necessary to have you placed here indefinitely—for your own safety, of course.”

  Alex was not able to form a response, but somewhere deep inside he felt a distant sense of alarm.

  With a thumb the doctor clicked the cap on the end of his ballpoint pen and slipped it into his coat pocket, all the while watching Alex.

  “Once you get used to your medication, once it settles you down, we’ll talk more about all of this. I’m going to want to know about the thoughts you have that seem to control you and make you do the things you do.”

  There was a soft knock at the door. Someone with a tray poked her head in. “Am I interrupting, Doctor? It’s time for his medications.”

  “No, no, come in. We’re done for today.”

  A woman in white came close. She held the tray out as if she expected Alex to do something. He could do little more than focus his vision on it.

  “I think he’s going to need some help until he’s more used to the medication,” the doctor said.

  The woman nodded and set the tray on the bed. She held a small paper cup up to his lips. Alex didn’t know what to do. It seemed so unimportant. With her other hand on his forehead she tipped his head back and poured syrupy liquid into his mouth. She pushed his chin up with a finger, closing his mouth.

  “Swallow. That’s it. There you go.”

  When she removed her hand Alex’s jaw hung from the effort of drinking.

  “I’ve got rounds, Alex,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “I’ll check up on you in a day or two. For now try to take it easy and let the medication do its work, all right?”

  Alex sat unable to form a response as the man patted the side of Alex’s knee again before leaving. The room darkened a little when the door closed.

  The woman in white tipped another cup up. This time pills rolled into his mouth. She poured water from a third cup into his mouth. He swallowed to keep from drowning.

  “Good,” she said in a soothing voice as she swabbed his chin with a tissue. “Soon you’ll be doing it on your own.”

  Alex just wanted to go to sleep.

  “Soon,” she said, “we’ll have you talking up a storm.”

  31.

  ALEX SAT ON THE EDGE of the bed, exhausted from the effort of getting dressed. Every day they told him to get dressed. He wasn’t sure why he had to get dressed, but they had told him to, so he did.

  Whatever they told him to do, he did.

  He didn’t want to comply with their orders, but he didn’t have the will to fight them and couldn’t think of a reason why he should. He knew that he had no choice, no way out. He was at their mercy.

  At the same time, his imprisonment seemed unimportant. What difference did it make? Confinement seemed trivial.

  The thing that concerned him the most, in fact the only thing that concerned him, was his inability to think, to form complete, coherent thoughts. That was the most exasperating thing of all to him. He would sit for hours staring blankly at nothing, the whole time trying his best to form a sentence in his head, but nothing would form. It left him feeling hollow, empty, and distantly frustrated.

  He knew that it was the drugs that were causing him to be unable to focus. More than anything he wanted out from under the mountainous weight of what those drugs were doing to him. He couldn’t envision a way to bring that about.

  One time when he had turned his face away, saying that he didn’t want them anymore, they had warned him that if he refused, if he became difficult, they would strap him down to his bed and give him injections.

  Alex knew he didn’t want that. He knew that it was hopeless to fight them. After they threatened to strap him down to his bed, he took his medication without further complaint.

  But more than anything, he wanted out from under the dark weight of the drug-induced stupor.

  He had the sense that he had been confined for a couple of days. He couldn’t figure out how many, but he didn’t believe it had been long. He vaguely recalled the doctor coming again to talk briefly with him.

  The doctor had wanted to know about the things that Alex thought about. Alex wasn’t able to identify any thoughts. The doctor had then asked if Alex was guided by voices. Alex asked what kind of voices. The doctor said that perhaps he heard the voice of the devil, or maybe even people from another world who haunted him, wanted things, told him things. Alex had felt a vague sense of alarm at the question, but he didn’t know what the doctor was talking about.

  The doctor had left, then, saying that he would return another day and they would talk more about it then, adding that Alex was not going to be going home anytime soon.

  Home. This was his home now.

  A fleeting thought flashed somewhere deep in his mind. It was about his mother. He felt that he needed to know if she was all right.

  Although the drugs suppressed any emotion, every waking moment Alex felt unsafe in the place, even if it was only a vague concern, and so he felt that his mother was in some kind of trouble as well. He was completely helpless to do anything about his fears.

  When the door opened, he saw a big man lumber in.

  Alex looked up and saw white bandages over the middle of the face.

  “How you doing, Alex?”

  “Fine,” Alex answered by rote before he stared off at the floor again.

  “They put my nose back together for me. Said it’s going to be fine.”

  Alex nodded. He didn’t like the man standing as close as he was, but he couldn’t imagine what he could do about it.

  “I wanted to come back to work as soon as possible and see how my patients are getting along. Everyone here knows how much I love my work and how concerned I am for the patients.”

  Alex nodded. In the
back of his mind he felt a sense of danger in the pleasant voice, the casual conversation.

  “The doctor said that you need to start going out and sitting in the sunroom. He wants you to get accustomed to being around other people without becoming violent—get used to fitting into society, I guess you could say. The only society you’re ever going to see again, anyway.

  “But before I walk you down to the sunroom, I want you to tell me about the gateway.”

  Alex blinked slowly as he stared up at the man with the bandaged face. “What?”

  “The gateway. Tell me what you know about it.”

  “I want to see my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  “I want to see her safe.”

  Henry, that was his name, Alex remembered.

  The big man sighed. Then he chuckled softly to himself. “All right, Alex, let’s go for a walk and see your mother. Might do you some good to see for yourself that she’s fine—as fine as she’ll ever be, anyway. Then, after you see that she’s fine, I guess you’d better think real hard about telling us what we want to know—if you want your mother to stay healthy.”

  “Please.” Alex managed to look up. “Don’t hurt her.”

  Henry leaned down toward him and smiled. “I guess that’s pretty much up to you, now, isn’t it?”

  Alex saw to each side of the bandage that both the man’s eyes were blackened. A few of the pieces came together. Alex thought that he had done that to Henry, that he had hurt him, broken his nose. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember why he’d done it.

  Henry plucked a tissue from the box and wiped Alex’s chin. “Okay, let’s go see your mother.”

  Alex began slowly levering himself to his feet. He immediately got light-headed. Henry stuck a big hand under Alex’s arm to keep him upright.

  “The doctor said that your blood pressure is pretty low, so you have to be careful or you’re liable to pass out. Got to take it easy, he said, or else you could get hurt.”