Endurance

by Jack Kilborn

  “Don’t move, dummy. I got to open the wound for this to work.”

  The Sheriff unclipped a knife from his belt and brought the blade next to John’s arm.

  “Don’t... move.”

  With a quick motion, the sheriff jammed the tip into the original wound and cut sideways. John howled, jerking his whole body sideways.

  “Goddamn it, John! I almost nicked my finger!”

  “It hurts! They broke my fingers, Dwight! They broke all my digits!”

  “I gotta expose the goddamn artery.”

  The blood was really gushing now, almost like a water fountain. Felix watched the Sheriff pull a tan package out of his breast pocket. It had QuikClot printed on the paper. He tore off a corner and poured white powder into John’s wound. John yelped.

  “Shush, now. Stop being a baby.”

  “It burns, Dwight. B-burns bad.”

  “Hold still. I need to see if I got it all.”

  John twitched. Felix stared at John’s arm. The powder indeed stopped all the bleeding. But there seemed to be another problem.

  “Jesus, Dwight! Hurts even worse!”

  Felix could see why. The hemostatic agent apparently had stopped the blood from leaking out, but it hadn’t stopped the internal bleeding. John’s triceps began to expand, like a balloon.

  “I’m gonna have to open you up again, John. Hold on, I got more styptic in the car.”

  “No! Please, Dwight!”

  Without provocation, the Sheriff kicked Felix in the side, so hard he actually saw red.

  “Now don’t you move none, or I’ll make it worse for you,” he told Felix. Then he lumbered off.

  My gun. It’s in the sink.

  Felix pressed his head into the sopping carpet, then pulled his knees up under him. He got to his feet, unsteady, feeling like puking again, and staggered into the bathroom. The Beretta was still there. He backed up against the sink, reaching his cuffed hands behind him, seeking the gun.

  The sink was deep, the bowl curved, and every time he touched it, the weapon slid away from him. His fingers, wrapped in bandages, had no feeling in them, and he couldn’t see what he was doing over his shoulder.

  He felt fresh sweat break out on his forehead, stinging his scalp wound.

  Slow and easy, Felix. You can do it.

  Nudge.

  Miss.

  Nudge.

  Miss.

  He eyed the door, expecting the Sheriff to come in any second.

  Wait... I’ve got handcuff keys in my front pocket...

  He’d put them there after cuffing John on the highway. Felix tried to bring his hands around, but he couldn’t even get a finger in his pocket, let along reach for the keys.

  No time. Go for the gun.

  He backed up to the sink again, stretching his arms.

  Concentrate. Reach your hands in deeper.

  Felix blinked back tears, held his breath, and locked his right hand around the butt of the gun.

  Now what?

  He tried to bring the gun around, and shoot forward from the hip, but there wasn’t enough play in the cuffs. The best he could aim was sideways. Felix wasn’t a very good shot in ideal conditions. He doubted, with the stance, he could even hit the wall while standing up against it.

  “Now, what do we have here?”

  Startled, Felix spun around, pressing the trigger.

  The shot missed the Sheriff by a good five feet.

  However, it didn’t miss John. The hunter’s head jerked back, and the back of his skull popped off. Brains spilled out like a dropped bowl of oatmeal.

  The Sheriff was on Felix in three steps, punching him in the jaw, stepping on his neck when he fell and yanking the gun from his hand.

  “Looks like you just went from assault to homicide, boy.”

  “Sheriff, you have to listen. John has my fiancé. He and his brothers have her someplace.”

  The Sheriff didn’t seem to be paying attention. He got on one knee next to John, and closed the man’s staring eyes.

  “Styptic won’t fix this one, hoss.” He blew out a breath. “Look at all that blood.”

  “Sheriff... listen to me!”

  The Sheriff’s eyes centered on Felix. Felix saw no mercy there.

  “No, you listen to me. You’re going to get into my car and not speak one more peep, or I’m going to shoot out both your knees. You got that, boy?”

  Felix nodded.

  The Sheriff manhandled Felix to his feet, and roughly pulled him out the front door. The squad car was there, and there were several motel guests with their doors open.

  “Everyone back inside,” the Sheriff ordered. “The situation has been taken care of.”

  The Sheriff opened the rear door of his car and shoved Felix into the back seat, next to Cam. Cam’s nose was bleeding freely, and his face was the epitome of sullen. He had his hands behind his back; apparently handcuffed like Felix.

  “Asshole snuck up on me. Probably gonna take me back to the nuthouse. You find out where they’re keeping Maria?”

  Felix gave his head one quick, brief shake. “John’s dead.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to find out where he lives.”

  “What does it matter, Cam? We’re fucked.”

  The car bounced on its shocks as the Sheriff climbed in. He adjusted his rear-view mirror, looked Felix square in the eyes, and started the car.

  When he pulled out onto the road, Felix was confused. He whispered to Cam, “This isn’t the way to the police station.”

  “What are you two hens cluckin’ about?” the Sheriff demanded.

  Felix slunk back in his seat. “Town. It’s the other direction.”

  “I ain’t takin’ you to town.” The Sheriff grinned, showing his crooked brown teeth, and Felix felt his mouth go dry. “I got other plans for you boys.”

  # # #

  The machine whirs and clicks, spins and pumps. The IV drains blood out of Maria’s right arm, passing it through the siphoning mechanism, and pumping into George. He also has an IV sucking blood out of him, feeding it back into Maria’s left arm.

  A trade. Blood in, blood out.

  This has been done to Maria dozens of times, and it never fails to revolt her. Exchanging blood with these monsters—she thinks of them as monsters rather than human beings—is almost worse than when they climb on top of her. But the revulsion goes beyond the awareness that their diseased blood is in her body. Their blood actually causes her to feel sick.

  These freaks are ill. Seriously ill. They bleed from the slightest injury, and the bleeding doesn’t stop on its own. If they don’t get a transfusion every few weeks, they die.

  Maria isn’t sure why she’s still alive. Apparently whatever disease they have isn’t fatal to her. Perhaps she’s immune. Perhaps it can’t be passed on. Perhaps her body cleans their dirty blood, like some sort of human dialysis machine. However it works, Maria knows that she, and other captives like her, are keeping these mistakes of nature alive.

  The process takes a few hours, and it’s nearly done. Afterward, the monsters line up, eager for a chance to impregnate her. Maria has tried to tell Eleanor that she can’t have children, that her ovaries don’t work, but that hasn’t stalled their efforts. Eleanor endlessly prattles on about the presidential blood line, about having heirs, and she has some grotesque, grandiose delusions about her legacy. So convinced of her own importance, Eleanor often lies down alongside Maria, and has sex with her own monstrous children and grandchildren in some twisted attempt to produce more monsters.

  Though not deformed, Eleanor is the biggest monster of all.

  Maria looks around. The freaks are huddled together, grunting at one another. They don’t talk much. Some are mentally retarded, from either inbreeding or birth defects or both, and unable to converse. They’re missing limbs, or have too many, or their appendages are under-developed or in the wrong place. Some have heads that are too large, some too small. Many have harelips. Few of them have hair, and
they’re all sickly pale and smell sour.

  “All done,” Eleanor says. She’s lifting her dress up over her head. “Let’s line up, children. It’s time to make babies.”

  George pulls the transfusion needles from his arms, quickly sealing his wounds with a white powder. He turns to Maria and says, “Me first.”

  Maria forces down the gorge rising in her throat; vomiting while wearing a ball gag could cause her to choke to death.

  George presses the cattle prod to her stomach, then unstraps her feet and hands.

  She closes her eyes and thinks of Felix. She imagines him bursting in right now, killing all of the monsters, and taking her away from here.

  Will he still want me, after all I’ve been through?

  Of course he will.

  It’s been a year since she’s seen him. Felt his touch. Heard his voice. A long, agonizing, nightmarish year.

  George frees her hands, then paws at her pants.

  She imagines being with Felix. They’re sitting on a porch, drinking lemonade, holding hands. The sun is out. The breeze smells like cut grass.

  And since it’s a fantasy, she also imagines the child they can’t have. A toddler, roaming the lawn, chasing a butterfly, or a dog.

  She can even imagine the dog barking.

  Maria hears it again, and opens her eyes.

  “elpDog! There’s a dog!”

  Maria watches as Calvin bursts into the room. He’s the one with the unibrow and the flipper hands, one of which is being nipped at by a German Shepherd. Maria is overjoyed to see the animal. She’s even more elated when the dog snarls and barks at Eleanor and her monstrous brood, forcing them to back away.

  The freaks are terrified. And they should be. A single bite could kill them. And this dog is big and looks eager to bite.

  George, his broad face a mask of fear, pokes at the animal with the cattle prod. The dog takes a quick zap in the muzzle, then darts away. Its lips curl back, exposing long, sharp teeth, and it attacks in a frenzy, biting George’s hand five or six times in the blink of an eye.

  George screams, dropping the prod. The new blood he’s just received bursts out of his hand in all directions, like a 4th of July firework. He turns, running for Eleanor, dropping to his knees.

  “The styptic, Ma! The styptic!”

  The dog lunges again, biting at the back of George’s thigh, clamping down tight and shaking its head back and forth.

  The freaks are in a panic, a wall of misshapen bodies climbing all over each other in an effort to get away. They’re flooding out the exit. Some of them are being trampled. Eleanor looks at George, then at Maria, radiating hate.

  “Get the girl!” she yells at her brood.

  Maria knows she’s terribly outnumbered, and there’s a mad dog loose, but she decides then and there to die before she lets them take her back to her cell. She reaches for the dropped cattle prod.

  Most of the monsters ignore Eleanor, but a few form a circle around her. Maria swings the prod, keeping them at bay, turning this way and that way so none can sneak up behind her. With her free hand she unbuckles the ball gag, lets it fall to the floor. She’s light-headed, and the nausea is starting to take hold. Normally, after an ordeal in the Room, she sleeps for a long time. Maria fights the feeling, keeping on the balls of her feet, determined to stay alert.

  Someone grabs at her, and she sticks him with the cattle prod. The burst of light and the accompanying sizzle and scream give her strength. She whirls around, stabbing the prod into a creature’s bloated face. Then an avalanche of sour flesh rams into her, forcing her to the floor, pinning her under its weight. She twists the prod around, zaps whoever is on top of her. There’s a cry, but she’s still trapped. There are too many freaks on top of her. She can’t move.

  She can’t even breathe.

  Maria grunts, pushing with all of her strength. She’s not going to smother. Not now. Not this close to escape. But the fetid, shifting mass of flesh atop her is too heavy to move. Her hair is yanked. A filthy, malformed baby’s arm with seven fingers tugs at the corner of her mouth as her face is pressed into the dirt floor.

  She tries to suck in some air, but the weight is too much.

  I’m sorry, Felix. I tried.

  And then, miraculously, the mass shifts. One monster rolls off, screaming. Then another. Maria pushes herself onto her side, gasping for oxygen. She watches as the dog—the beautiful, terrifying dog—tears into another freak, pulling him off of her.

  They’re all scrambling for the door now, dragging their wounded, of which there are many. The dog is on top of the last freak, one with a blockish, Frankenstein head and hands that look like pincers. It’s tearing at the monster’s throat. Maria looks at the door, trades a hateful glance with Eleanor as she abandons her child and closes it shut.

  Maria sits up, clutching the prod in both hands. The dog bites the freak until it stops moving, until a good portion of its neck is hanging limp from the dog’s jaws.

  The dog shakes its head, releasing its prize. Then it looks at Maria and snarls.

  “Good boy,” Maria manages to say. Her voice is raspy. She can’t remember the last time she’s spoken.

  The dog hunkers down, the hair on its back standing up. It growls, low and deep, its lips raised and bearing teeth.

  “Sit,” Maria orders.

  The dog stalks forward. It’s not looking at Maria. It’s looking at the cattle prod.

  Maria sets it down. “Sit!” she says again.

  Incredibly, the dog sits. Its tongue lolls out of its mouth.

  “Good dog! Come.”

  The dog bounds forward, and Maria almost screams when it pounces on her.

  But it’s a happy pounce, tail wagging. The dog’s bloody tongue is warm on Maria’s cheek. She grabs its muzzle and hugs it tight. The feeling is so good, so pure, she can’t stop the tears from coming.

  “Good dog. Can you shake?”

  The dog offers its paw. Maria shakes it gladly.

  “What’s your name, boy?” She fumbles for his collar while he licks her. “JD. I swear to God, JD, if we get out of this, I’m buying you steak every day for the rest of your life.”

  JD approves of this, wagging his tail even more.

  Maria stands up. She knows Eleanor and her boys will be back, with weapons. Maybe even guns.

  She goes to the door, tries the knob. Locked.

  Maria slams her shoulder into it. The door is solid. It won’t budge.

  I can’t give up. Not now. Not when I’m this close.

  But as Maria looks around the room, she has no clue how they can escape.

  # # #

  Letti Pillsbury stood in the doorway of the Ulysses S. Grant room, looking at her mother crouch on the floor.

  “Do you normally check under the bed every place you sleep?” Letti asked.

  “Hmm? No, of course not.” Florence stood up, smoothing some imaginary wrinkles from her pants. She looked perturbed, which wasn’t something Letti could ever recall seeing.

  “Okay, then. You wanted to talk. Let’s talk.”

  The older woman seemed confused, and for a moment Letti questioned her mother’s health. After all, her health was the reason she was moving in with her and Kelly.

  “I want you to understand, Letti.”

  “Understand what, Florence?” Letti crossed her arms, determined not to make it easy for her.

  “Why I didn’t come to your husband’s funeral.”

  “I know why you didn’t come, Florence. You were off in Bosnia or Ethiopia or one of your other causes.”

  “I was in Mumbai. Doing volunteer work, Letti, during the floods. We were saving lives. Peter, bless your husband’s heart, was already dead. There wasn’t anything I could do for him.”

  She doesn’t get it. Maybe she never will.

  “Peter didn’t need you, Florence. I did.”

  Florence raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying your grief is more important than building a dam that saved three h
undred lives?”

  Letti refused to let her eyes tear up. “I was devastated. I needed my mother.”

  “I raised you so you wouldn’t need me.”

  “You’re impossible,” Letti turned to leave. She felt Florence’s hand on her shoulder.

  “What do you want me to say, Letti? That I made the wrong choice? You’re strong. Always were. Peter’s death was a terrible tragedy, but I knew you could handle it. Mumbai needed me more.”

  This is a waste of time. She’ll die before she apologizes.

  But she’s right. I am strong. And I will not cry.

  Letti spun around, feeling the scowl take over her face. “If Mumbai is so goddamn important, why didn’t you go running there when you were diagnosed with cancer?”

  Florence flinched. Letti immediately felt bad for saying it, but she was on a roll.

  “You didn’t, though. You came to me, Florence. Me and Kelly. I thought it was because you wanted to mend fences. To get to know your granddaughter. But money is the real reason, isn’t it? You gave away all of yours, helping strangers. Now you need a place to die, and my house is a free hospice.”

  Florence kept her face calm, but Letti saw something behind it crack. “Oh... Letti... is that what you think?”

  Letti bit her lower lip. She felt the tears coming, but refused to blink. “We needed you, Florence. Kelly and I. And you weren’t there. But now you need us, and here we are. Maybe Mumbai built a big stature to Saint Florence for saving their village. But I never wanted to be raised by a saint. I wanted a Mom.”

  “And I wasn’t a mother to you.” Florence said it as a statement.

  “Mothers nurture.” Letti said. She felt the tear roll down her cheek. “Mothers support. Mothers show up at the goddamn funeral when their daughters lose their husbands.”

  Florence said nothing. She just stood there, stoic as ever.

  I might as well be talking to a statue.

  “It’s so important to me for you to understand why I did it, Letti.”

  “I know why you did it, Florence. But I’ll never understand it. And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

  Florence opened her mouth, but no sound came out.