by Pat Connid
My cheap shoes met the wall and I sprung back toward the opening, and hit the gap squarely, then dropped like a rock down onto the other side. Anticipating a painful crunch of bone, I readied myself and instead rolled from shoulder to back and onto my feet, my legs buckling only slightly as my body folded then sprung open, still moving fast.
On my feet again, my legs felt like springs, I headed upward out of the stone tunneled observation area, and started charging for the top of the wide concrete walkway, but the flash of neoprene body armor to my right prompted my mind to jut left, out of the way of the strike, and I heard the grunt of exertion behind me, then the burst of breath as The Mentor pursued me up the long hill.
Running as hard as I could, faster than my body had ever moved even when I was in better shape, I felt liberated and free and strong, stronger than I’d ever been in my life, and even though I knew now there was no way to escape him, some part of me had beat him, if only for a short time, and most importantly, he knew it.
It would be short-lived, but I had beaten him.
The first grab at my shoulder I shook off, but I knew it wouldn’t be long. He’d knocked me off balance and, as tired as he was, maybe winded from my blow on the gravel road, he was still twenty times my physical better and would have me down in seconds.
But, for that short moment, the brief snap of time, I’d beaten the unbeatable. Something told me, and it rang true to me, this was a first for the cruel fuck.
When, at last, his fists came down hard upon my shoulders, my chest buckled. I’d not gone down without a damn good fight.
At that moment, as I rolled to the ground, my body bouncing violently off the zoo path's uneven pavement, I heard a horrendous, unnatural sound. Not just a growl, but a roar, a blood-thirsty call for flesh.
And it hadn’t come from behind me.
My eyes tracked the horizon, looked for any movement.
Disoriented. Empty cages of rusted iron and Plexiglas to my left and right, dilapidated and in disrepair, ahead and above me, at the top of the hill, racing toward me and my midnight tormentor, together we saw it.
A huge, rumbling beast. The horrific sight of its gnashing teeth, lit by the moonlight, wrenched my heart into a clenched fist.
Some feral remnant of a forgotten, rundown zoo now wild with fury and bloodlust.
Another crazed, terrifying half-scream, half-growl erupted as the creature rocketed toward us. Too weak, too battered, I couldn’t even move to escape it.
The Mentor spun in the direction of the creature’s howl.
We were both prey this time, he was trapped alongside me, the beast racing toward us. With only a quick grunt, he sprinted toward the opening in the glass where we’d both just come through.
Eyes of fire, the creature was racing toward me but I was unsure if I was the chosen dinner or, maybe in my crumpled heap, I’d be spared, the running man instead its prey.
It was only a few seconds later, confused, that I’d heard the odd, incongruous clatter from within the rabid creature’s uneven, panicked pursuit.
“Raaaaaaaooowrrrrnnnnn”
From the ground, over my shoulder, I saw The Mentor perched at the dog-eared hole in the Plexiglas, unsure to run or to freeze.
“Raaaaaaannnnommmrrrnnaaaaaaa!”
As the creature rocketed past me, a flash.
Is that… metal?
Clearer from behind, as it charged toward The Mentor, I caught a quick glimpse of the wheels of the hand cart the creature appeared to be holding onto. The two small ones in front shaking furiously with the speed, the larger rubber wheels in the back more steady on the uneven concrete path.
“Mutherfuckin’ roarrrrrhrrnrnnnnn!”
Pavan.
The crazy son-of-a-bitch had found an old, rusted mover’s dolly, laid it down, and was racing down the hill at a breakneck speed. For a split second, I envisioned Pavan years ago, bored by trip after trip after trip to the zoo, yet finding some great fun in racing the wheeled dollies to the base of the hills around the many slopes of the state zoo.
Probably a first though: Pavan had this time slapped on his uncle’s Chupacabra mask.
“Raaaaaaaooowrrrrnnnnn—waaaaaaaa!”
Unable to steer, Pavan roared past The Mentor, rattling and rocketing up the next hill, and after a sudden, brief silence-- the length of the time the dolly had hung in the air-- he disappeared over the hill and there was a deep splash as he landed into the swollen creek on the other side.
This was my window, and jumping up, I ran after him hoping to hit the water, too, not only my ticket to escape, but if he’d been knocked unconscious in the fall, it’d be my chance to make sure he’d not drown— but after only a few strides, I’d caught a hard slap in the chest from a closed fist.
Everything in me wanted to hurt the bastard, but as I leaned up, the sole of his shoe connected to my skull and he, once again, flung my body and mind into total darkness and quiet.
Chapter Twenty-four
Rain.
The splash of tires, the beating of windshield wipers.
I don’t remember which had shaken me enough to drop my cell phone to the car floor-- the crack of thunder-flash just outside my window or Ruthie’s scream, but as my hand came back to the wheel, too fast and too hard, the front tires must have spasmed, and we’d begun to spin.
Clipped by a semi-truck, its air horn bursting into the car like the howl of an ocean liner trying to ward off pirates, the spin threw our car toward the cement divider that split the rushing streams of north and south bound traffic.
Her long scream hiccupped at the impact, then a long fade, as my kid sister was flung from the car, and it was the last thing I'd ever heard from her.
Then quiet.
Total silence, all stop.
Seeing her empty seat, I said: "Ruth--?" but the truck, which I learned later was a logging truck with a three-quarter load, struck me dead on, t-boned the car and everything went black.
For years now, all the years since the accident, I'd very often wished I'd stayed in the black.
Now, and this was the first time-- I no longer had that wish.
My eyes came open and he was sitting on the edge of a metal table in a dark room. This guy must have something against chairs.
The air was musty, damp and the walls looked like a mock-up of a cave's interior. This had been a part of the zoo, some supply room or conference space for area businesses.
A soft bounce of echo in the room was the sound of water somewhere overhead. We were underground.
The Mentor was talking with the faces on a video wall across from us, the entire wall. Ten men and a woman, five on the top row and six on the bottom, each confined within their individual window for video conference.
"Ah, Dexter," one of the men said. I recognized him, instantly.
"Marion Bluth," I said and he nodded. Several of the other men, and the woman, I recognized. Pavan had pegged it. Each was worth more than a small third-world country.
CEO from a South American Telcom.
The creator of an alternative, virtual payment site favored by the underworld drug trade.
Another I recognized was a billionaire by definition. As in, I’d seen him as a frequent guest on the national news channels. He was labeled, his contribution to whatever they happened to be talking about, was his name then, “Billionaire.” Like that gave him some sort of credence or implied some sort of life-smarts or wisdom. Sure, you could make an argument for it but, at that moment, strapped to a chair in a cold, damp room, and tortured to near death the past few weeks, you’d likely have a hard time convincing me.
The woman was a former lawmaker-- a U.S. senator from the east coast but went to the private sector after an ethics violation, if memory served me. Soon after, some of her savvy investments into alternative energies, companies lifted by endowments awarded by White House “green” initiatives, paid off and she was, according to a half dozen magazine covers, now one of the wealthiest women in the world.
My eyes went to another of the men I’d recognized, but my thoughts were interrupted by Bluth, today’s apparent meeting leader.
"It took some time to find you. Records indicated you had died."
"They were right."
He waved off my comment. "But, we eventually did, once our chief investigator came across the discrepancy." In the dark corner, my athletic, blond man-basher shifted her weight from foot to foot. Bluth continued: "I have to ask, did Eller, uh, Jepson tell you to stay off line, off the grid like that?"
"’Off the grid’?” I said and laughed, but it crumbled into a moment of coughing which stung my ribs. “Who says that? ‘Off the grid’! So, does the social awkwardness come with the uber-success or is it always sort of there, lurking like an ulcer?"
The Mentor hit me hard in the temple. Enough to hurt but not enough to put me out.
I heard Bluth say, "It doesn't matter."
Another man spoke, his eyes looking wild on the video screen: "Did it work? Do you remember! Tell us, now!”
“What?”
“Did it work?”
Bluth cut in: “We know it worked, we know it worked! That’s why he’s here.”
Another face said, “The research, the analysis, of course it did. Increasing the duration of each trauma event, his survival dependent upon the information in the memories under the retrograde amnesia callus. When those had to come up, to survive, the rest would come up with it. It makes per--”
“Enough! Yes, you’re so fucking smart, we get it!” The wild-eyed man said, then again turned his attention to me. “Do you remember?”
The woman said to me, smiling: "We knew you'd head, eventually, to the school. It seems the recording of Eller-- your Professor Jepson-- that was enough to, in essence, pull the pin."
“Yes,” Wild eyes said. “Your contribution, madam. Wonderful. Now credit has been handed all around can we fucking get down to the business of why we are here and get the goddamn procedure details?”
The Mentor smiled at me, perfect teeth.
Bluth said. "You have what we need, now. We’ve each spent individual fortunes and waited more than a decade for the research to be completed.” He moved closer to the screen, his features distorted. “It’s ours! Rightfully! And it was stolen from us!"
Another voice said, "We want it back. Now! It’s ours."
Christ, this was what it was like to be threatened by mavens of industry and Wall Street CEOs? I couldn't help it, I laughed again. I imagined one of them saying something like, "Gents, let's tabletop this discussion for another time and reconvene…"
The Mentor delivered another blow to my head, the back this time. And he whispered, "Now you got that one to match the other. You need a couple more?"
"Please, it’s doing wonders for my stiff neck. What if I asked nicely?"
Whapp-whap!!
I didn't have to ask.
"Cut that out," Bluth said. "He's done enough damage to his brain before we came along and we don't need any more. Dexter. Now, tell us what Eller told you."
The taste in my mouth was warm, metallic. Blood. Not my first time to bleed in recent days and weeks, it didn't bother me.
"You have a Post-it note and a pencil?" I held up my wrists that had been taped to the chairs armrest. "You mind? Can't write--"
"Just tell us," a short, fat man said, his voice shaking. "It's OURS. It belongs to US. And no bullshit! Our chief researcher is right here with me; he assisted Eller and can tell me if you're lying!"
"That's quite enough!" Bluth didn't like the little man and probably didn't like implicating one of their staff, either. "Dexter. What did he say?"
"You're not going to like it."
Over a few seconds, Bluth’s features darkened and his face filled the entire screen. He said to me: "Don’t fuck with us. I mean that."
I exhaled and rolled my eyes. "It's incomplete."
The room silenced.
Three of the screens went dark, then two others. A few moments later, they'd come back, apparently, from some offline conference.
"The drug therapy, then." One of the others nodded and the man at my side walked to a shelf or table behind me.
"No, my memory is complete. I remember it from beginning to end."
"So, what's the problem?" the woman asked.
"Jepson-- eh, Eller-- told me it wasn't finished. That's why he blew the lab and hid,” I said, holding my gaze steady at the camera just above the screens. “He knew you'd kill him."
A quick conversation off mic, and the little, fat man turned back to me.
"That's a lie! We saw the test results. We saw it work!"
"Do you have those results? Let’s see them." It was a gamble, sure, but I had nothing else. Thankfully, once again the room was silent. "He destroyed them because he'd falsified the test."
"He… told you that?"
"Yes," I said. "Someone was pressuring him to finish faster, one of you it seems, and he said he thought his life was in danger."
One of the faces who'd not spoken up to that point, "Sheppard, I bet. Sheppard was dying and put the screws on. Selfish prick!"
"Shut up."
"It makes sense; he died a few months after the lab blew. Selfish prick would have pushed and not considered what that would mean to the rest of us."
"Any of us would have in that condition!"
"Shut up!" Bluth yelled. "I'm not buying it. Not yet."
The short, fat man said: "We know you have at least part of it. Give us what you have, then. Come on!"
“How do you know I have--” I said. “Oh. Sure. Professor Marsh was working for you guys. At the school in case I came back. Of course.”
“Tell us!”
I sighed. "Okay, okay. You take three-quarters of a cup of flour, two tablespoons of vanilla extract and a half cup of sugar. You mix that reall--"
Another fist, then another. I'd expected it, but it was worth it.
I lifted my head, dizzy. Blood dripped, splattered on the metal table.
The Mentor was no longer next to me. I saw the eyes of several of the people on the screen move to the upper corner. They blinked quickly and one of the screens went to black.
He grabbed my chin and turned my head. A needle went into my neck, painfully, then was yanked away. But, he didn’t let go of his grip on my jawline and then there was something just above my ear, warm and ticking softly.
"No more," Bluth said. "Give us the formula."
More tired than scared, told them what I'd told Dr. Patel and their man, Professor Marsh, earlier.
"The rest."
"That's it. He told me it was incomplete. That's what he had," I said.
Bluth's screen went to black and the others did in quick, succession. Each window in front of me was dark. My heart-rate began to quicken and my lips went numb. I made a slight movement and The Mentor gripped my jaw tighter to let me know who was in charge.
A full minute later, only half of those on the screen returned.
Bluth said: "We have to be sure."
He nodded and I felt warmth fill my ear, my chin held tight by the black man above me. Drops of his sweat fell onto the side of my face.
Warm turned to hot turned to burning then pain seared into the skin of my ear canal, something was being pushed down inside, and I could hear my own flesh begin to sizzle. Popping and snapping, he was digging deep with something hot into my ear. A twisted fuck, he went slow, burning as he went.
"We need the formula. All of it."
"I told you iii--aaaerrrrrrrrrgg"
The smell of my own inner ear reached my nostrils and it made me sick, I vomited but couldn't turn my head, he had me like a vice. I spit it up and out of my mouth, but missed him and he pressed one last time, digging, carving like he was digging the meat out of a stubborn nut.
I heard a long whine, then something like the sound of a rubber band stretched, and then snapping.
Then nothing.
Nothing at all.
He let me go, and I snapped and writhed and gnashed my teeth in the open air, I could feel blood, gore oozing out of my ear onto my check and neck. My own animal sounds terrified even me.
Especially because those sounds were heard only by my left ear now.
My right ear, he'd dug deep and burned through the eardrum.
I was now half deaf.
"The procedural sequence, Dexter. Eller's formula," Bluth said, his voice quivering with some queer excitement.
My face, wrenched again, there was a popping in my neck, and my left ear now offered up to the ceiling. Again, I felt the heat but briefly caught a glimpse of what he'd been holding in his free hand.
Through angry tears, I told them, word for word, the sequence I'd recalled earlier.
Then, delivered incomplete, all that was left to do was to wait.
"The rest, Dexter."
I felt the hot iron tip push into my left ear, as he'd done to the right, and the pain seared through my skull. The sizzling, the last thing I would hear, sickened me once again.
"What is the rest??"
I screamed, "That's it. It was incomplete, he told me it was incomplete, that was ALL HE HAD!"
My words bubbled at my lip as sweat, tears and snot poured over my mouth, blood oozed down my neck.
"The rest!"
Then, in that moment, so strange, but in that moment, I realized something amazing.
I was not beaten. I had not been broken.
Then the next realization: I could not be broken. I could never be beaten.
My death would not be my ultimate defeat, but instead would be their failure to extract from me what they wanted to know.
But they would get nothing more from me.
Through the blood and fluids that caked my face, both eyes swollen shut, I smiled. Certainly, I was the only one in the room to know it was a smile. But it was there.
It was there because I realized that I had beaten them. And the reason I could resist them? Oh. Oh, that was what made it so sweet.