Endurance

by Jack Kilborn

  There were misshapen heads, distended bellies, twisted spines, shrunken limbs. Every way the human genome could be perverted was on display.

  There were even a few that looked perfectly healthy.

  Before Florence tore her eyes away, she noticed a commonality among them all. The overwhelming majority were females. Each jar had a handwritten label, listing names and birthdays.

  They’re all named after First Ladies.

  You poor, poor things.

  Florence wondered how many of them died naturally and how many were killed on purpose. She brushed a tear from her eye, then left the room quietly, as if she might disturb them.

  After taking a moment to compose herself, Florence pressed onward. The Warren G. Harding bedroom was next. Again, the door was open. Florence went in fast, entering a dark room. She paused, listening.

  Snoring. Loud snoring.

  Florence felt for the light switch along the wall, flipping it on.

  “Ma?”

  The man on the bed was massive. His head—double normal size—looked eerily similar to the Elephant Man’s from that black and white movie, his forehead bulging out in large bumps, his cheekbones uneven and making his mouth crooked. His torso and legs were also malformed, twisted and lumpy, as round as tree trunks.

  Proteus Syndrome, Florence knew. She’d seen it in South Africa. His body won’t stop growing.

  But unlike gigantism, where a person grew in relative proportion, Proteus meant that different parts grew at different speeds. The overall effect was like making a figure out of clay, then squeezing some parts and adding more clay to others.

  “You ain’t Ma.”

  Warren—Florence assumed that was his name—rolled out of bed with surprising speed. His bare feet, swollen as big as Thanksgiving turkeys, slammed onto the floor.

  He had to weigh over four hundred pounds, and his gigantic head lolled to the side when he stood up. But Warren was able to walk.

  And he was walking toward Florence.

  She raised her pistol. “I need to know where my family is.”

  He moved closer. With each step, the floor shook. He wore a bed sheet wrapped over his shoulder like a toga.

  “Youse pretty.”

  Warren stuck out his tongue, licking his huge, flabby lips. A line of drool slid down his crooked chin.

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Youse wanna make babies with Warren?”

  Florence aimed at his head.

  “One more step, I’ll shoot.”

  Warren took one more step.

  Florence made good on her threat.

  The two shots hit him in his oversized forehead.

  Warren lunged at her, moving so fast Florence barely had time to dive to the side.

  His skull is too thick. The bullets bounced off the bone.

  The giant turned around and faced her.

  “Warren’s head hurts,” he said. Then his eyes got narrow. “Now Warren gonna make you hurt, too.”

  # # #

  Mal placed the pointed end of his exposed ulna against his throat, ready to kill himself before he let any more freaks operate on him.

  But when the door opened, it wasn’t Eleanor or her monstrous brood.

  It’s a dog.

  A German Shepherd, tail wagging. It put its front paws on the embalming table and licked Mal’s face.

  “JD! Oh, Jesus...”

  Mal watched a blonde woman enter the room, followed by several others. The blonde wore a tee shirt, but no pants or shoes. A younger version of her—obviously her daughter—followed, holding hands with a boy wearing black leather gloves. A pregnant woman followed, clutching her belly with a thousand yard stare. The last person in was a woman in a tattered jogging outfit. She had limp hair and hollow eyes and looked like she’d lived through a war.

  They immediately went about unstrapping him, bombarding him with multiple questions.

  “Who are you?” “What happened?” “Are you okay?” “Where’s Eleanor?” “Where’s the exit?” “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Mal,” he said. The pain in his wrist was bad, but bearable. He sat up, and the movement made him woozy. The older blonde put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

  “Do you know how to get out of here, Mal?”

  “I think so. But I need a favor first.”

  “What?”

  “Your dog has something that belongs to me.”

  The woman snapped her head around and pointed. “JD! Drop it!”

  The German Shepherd opened his jaws, and Mal’s hand flopped onto the ground. The blonde picked it up without hesitation.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Mal said, “since we already seem to be shaking hands.”

  The woman set the hand down next to Mal. Then she took a roll of gauze from the instrument tray and began to wrap it around Mal’s stump. “I’m Letti.”

  “I know. I was supposed to interview you and your family.” Mal blinked twice, trying to keep it together. “Where’s Florence?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you seen a woman with no legs? Her name is Deb?”

  Letti shook her head. Mal eyed the other people in the room. He recognized the girl, Letti’s daughter, and the thin woman. She was also an Iron Woman triathlete, a high-ranked contender who vanished last year before the competition. Maria somebody.

  Apparently, I’ve discovered the reason for all the disappearances in the area.

  Though close to being in shock, Mal was still enough of a reporter to recognize what a terrific story this would make.

  If we get out of here alive.

  “I think my clothes are in a pile over there.”

  Kelly turned away while Letti and Maria helped him get off the table and dress. Mal’s cell phone was still in his pants pocket. He tried it.

  No signal. And why would there be? We’re underground.

  Letti found a plastic bag for his hand. She placed his severed appendage inside, and tied the bag to his belt.

  “Thanks. There’s another door,” Mal said. “Far end of the room. That’s where Eleanor went. I think it’s the way out.”

  Everyone loaded up on surgical tools—scalpels, knives, saws, cannulas—filling hands and pockets. Then they walked to the door, giving the corpse of Jimmy a wide berth. Letti let JD go through first.

  “Clear,” she said.

  They shuffled through the doorway, one by one. Rather than the exit, this was another room. It was large, a few hundred square feet. Concrete walls. Dirt floor, but muddy in parts. In the corner was a hole in the ground, several pipes leading into it. A pump and two water heaters stood next to the hole.

  The rest of the room was packed, floor to ceiling, with cardboard boxes. Dozens and dozens of them, many of them crumbling and moldy.

  Mal squinted at the nearest box.

  DruTech Pharmaceuticals - Contergan.

  He touched the cardboard and his finger went right through it, like tissue paper. Powder spilled out. Mal stared at the floor, and saw a great deal of the powder mixing with the dirt. Near the water pump, there was so much powder it had turned the mud a lighter color.

  “What’s Distoval?” Kelly said, staring at a box.

  “Distoval is another name for Contergan,” Mal said. He’d just read about this very subject when researching the history of Monk Creek. “It was a sedative, developed in the 1950s in Germany. They thought it was a wonder drug. DruTech was the company set to manufacture it in the US. But the FDA didn’t approve it. DruTech lost a fortune, and closed up their factory in town. They were supposed to dispose of their supply. I guess they paid off Eleanor, and it ended up here.”

  “Why wasn’t it approved?” Letti asked.

  “You probably know it by its other name. Billy Joel even mentioned it in a song.”

  “Thalidomide,” Sue whispered.

  Mal nodded, which made him slightly dizzy. He knew he was rambling, but it helped hi
m feel grounded. “It caused massive birth defects. Real freaky stuff. Pregnant women taking it gave birth to children with some pretty terrible deformities.” Mal pointed to the well. “And it’s apparently gotten into the Inn’s water supply. The drugs have seeped into the ground. Anyone pregnant drinking from that well will... oh, shit.”

  Mal’s addled brain remembered the woman who very obviously was with child.

  “Are you saying,” the woman was gently rubbing her belly, “that my baby...”

  “We don’t know that,” Letti went over to her. “We don’t know for sure, Sue. We’ll get you to a doctor when we get out of here.”

  “But… this is Larry’s baby. It’s supposed to be normal.”

  Letti patted Sue’s hair. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, Sue. Let’s focus on getting out of here.”

  “I can’t have one of those freaks growing inside me. I can’t.”

  Mal had been feeling pretty terrible before, but now he felt like curling up into a ball and dying.

  “There’s the door,” Cam said. “Maybe that’s the way out.”

  Cam led Kelly, by the hand, to the exit. Letti and JD followed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mal said to Sue.

  “They did things to me,” Sue said. “Horrible things. I can’t have my baby be like that.”

  “I’m sure it will be okay,” Mal lied.

  Sue nodded. She and Mal walked toward the door, and then Sue broke off, heading for the well.

  “Wait! Don’t!”

  The pregnant woman gave him a sad, backward glance, then jumped into the hole. Two seconds later, there was a splash.

  “Help!” Mal shouted. “Help us!”

  Letti and Maria hurried over.

  “She jumped in. She just jumped in.”

  The three of them formed a ring around the well, staring down into the blackness.

  “Sue!” Letti called.

  Sue didn’t reply. There were no splashing noises. No sounds of struggling.

  Just bubbles.

  The bubbles of someone letting all the air out of her lungs and sinking.

  Aw, Jesus, what have I done?

  “It’s not your fault,” Letti said. “She would have found out eventually.”

  Mal continued to stare into the well. Jumping in didn’t seem like a bad idea, actually.

  “We need you,” Letti said, taking his good arm. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but we need to stick together to get out of here.”

  “We can’t,” Mal said. “We can’t get away.”

  “Yes we can.”

  Mal pulled away. “They’ve been killing people for over forty years. More than five hundred people. No one has ever escaped to tell the world about it.”

  “Then we’ll be the first.”

  Mal stared into Letti’s eyes. They were strong, determined. Like Deb’s eyes.

  Deb.

  I have to find Deb.

  “I guess I could lend a hand,” Mal said. “One, at least.”

  He allowed Letti and Maria to lead him to the door. The next room was another storage area, thalidomide boxes stacked everywhere. There were three other doors, not including the one they came through.

  “Kelly?” Letti said, looking around. “Kelly!”

  But Kelly, the dog, and the boy were gone.

  # # #

  Felix opened his eyes to blurry, swirling lights. He took a breath and winced—add several broken ribs to his grocery list of things that hurt. Blinking, he realized he was on his back, lying in the woods. The two lights he saw were headlights, coming from a vehicle a dozen yards away.

  The memories came to him in snippets.

  ...accidentally shooting John in the head...

  ...being taken here in a police car...

  ...the cougar attack...

  ...getting hit by the tow truck...

  The tow truck.

  Felix knew the tow truck was part of this whole nightmare. He needed to get away from it. Far away.

  Biting his lower lip so the whimpering wasn’t too loud, Felix managed to turn onto his side. There wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t throb.

  A stick broke, nearby. Someone walking through the underbrush.

  Ronald? Or the tow truck driver, Ulysses?

  Felix looked around, saw he was near a depression in the ground filled with dead leaves and pine needles. He rolled to it, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, coming to a rest on his back because he couldn’t breathe while on his stomach with his ribs hurting so badly. Then he put a stick in his mouth to bite down on, and used his mangled hands to scoop dirt and dead foliage onto himself, trying to cover his body completely.

  The sound got closer. It was steady, rhythmic.

  Footsteps.

  If Felix had any doubt it was Ulysses coming for him, those doubts were laid to rest when he heard, “Don’ make me come find you, little man. You make me hunt around, it’ll be worse on ya.”

  If Felix had any sense of humor left, he might have laughed at the irony.

  Like things could get worse.

  The footsteps got closer. Felix peeked up through the pine needles on his face, waiting for Ulysses to approach.

  That’s when he noticed his cell phone.

  He’d had it in his jeans pocket. It must have come out when he was hit by the truck, or when he was rolling. The tiny green light, indicating the phone was on, blinked like a homing beacon.

  If Ulysses sees that phone...

  Just then, Ulysses walked into the clearing.

  He was big, every bit as big as John. Thick in the shoulders and the chest. A head as massive as a tree stump. Felix could only make out his silhouette in the moonlight, but he could see Ulysses was carrying something long and curved.

  A crowbar.

  Felix quickly reached out his hand, slapping his palm over his cell phone, covering the green light.

  Then there was a burst of red. Ulysses had lit a flare.

  The red glow illuminated the large man’s facial deformity. The right side of his face bulged out like he had a baseball under his skin. This stretched out his mouth, making it almost twice as wide as normal. Ulysses looked like he could swallow an orange, whole.

  Felix stared, impotent, as the man stalked closer. Soon he was three steps away...

  Two steps...

  One step.

  Please no oh please don’t step on...

  MY HAND!

  Ulysses’s work boot crunched down on Felix’s broken hand, prompting a pain so intense Felix had to gnash his teeth so he didn’t scream.

  “Y’all put a dent in my truck,” Ulysses said, staring into the woods.

  Get off my hand! Get off!

  “When I find you, I’m gonna beat out that dent with your skull.”

  GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!!!

  Ulysses hacked and spat, hitting Felix on the cheek. Felix squeezed his eyes shut, feeling it slide down into his ear, knowing he couldn’t hold the scream in any longer.

  Then Ulysses abruptly walked on, into the forest, the red flare growing dimmer and eventually disappearing.

  With tremendous effort, Felix got up onto his knees, and shoved the cell phone back into his pocket using his thumb and pinky.

  The Inn. I need to go back to the Inn and find Maria.

  But with his mangled hands, he knew he was practically useless. He couldn’t hold a weapon. He couldn’t even open a door.

  Are my fingers broken? Or just dislocated?

  Squinting in the moonlight, he studied his bent digits. The bends and twists were primarily around the knuckles. But, incredibly, the two of the fingers Ulysses had steeped on looked better than before.

  Maybe I can bend them all back.

  He brought his right hand up to his mouth, ready to stick his finger inside.

  Just bite down, and let gravity do the rest.

  But Felix didn’t bite down. On the list of things he didn’t want to do, trying to fix his fingers ranked sligh
tly above pouring gasoline on his head and setting his hair on fire.

  Just do it.

  Felix didn’t move.

  Do it! For Maria!

  He clamped his teeth down, hard, and then quickly dropped his wrist.

  SNAP!

  A sob escaped him, and his whole body shook. But his index finger did seem to be better. Even semi-functional.

  Three more to go.

  He switched hands, raising the left one to his face, when he noticed a firefly in the bushes, glinting yellow. The firefly also had a mate, a few inches away.

  Then the fireflies blinked, and Felix realized he wasn’t staring at fireflies.

  He was looking into the eyes of the mountain lion.

  # # #

  Deb didn’t hesitate. With her folding knife in a death grip, she hacked away at the throat of the nearest Siamese twin, cutting and slashing until she hit bone and they crawled off of her, spraying geysers of blood.

  When they got to the bed, the twins sat up. The duo shared the same two legs, but at the chest they forked into two halves. A single, underdeveloped arm jutted out of their sternum just below the split. The head on the left-hand side was limp, nodding forward, eyes rolled up. The left arm was similarly slack.

  “Andrew?” the other head said, staring at his dead twin. “What’s wrong, Andrew?”

  He slapped the slack head, repeatedly. Deb gawked, the horrible image too much for her to handle. She scooted away from them, snagging the bag with her prosthetic legs from the closet.

  “You killed Andrew!” the other twin cried. He attempted to lunge at Deb, but only half of his body worked. As he pathetically tried to drag himself forward, Deb crawled to the nearest wall and pulled herself up.

  The blood soaking her sweater was warm, and the stench was making her sick. She stripped it off, down to her tee shirt and shorts, and headed into the hallway. More than anything else, she wanted to run outside, get as far away from this awful house as possible. But she wasn’t going to leave Mal behind. Somehow, she knew he’d give her the same consideration if the roles were reversed.

  The next room over had Abraham Lincoln stencilled on the door. Brandishing the knife, Deb went in quick, feeling along the wall for the light switch. When she flipped it on, all she saw was lots of creepy Lincoln decor. But it was empty of people.