by Marlin Grail
I. Am. At. Their. Mercy.
When the man that dragged me this whole time finally lets my leg drop, so I think the aggression will as well.
It only increases.
One of the men that’s siting by the bonfire lifts himself with both hands to his knees. He’s obviously grouchy over this surprise—me—and how it’s disturbing him.
“You trying to bring torture in now?” he asks, disgruntled, to the man that dragged me here.
I’d imagine, based off how you look, sir, spitting to the ground with such apathy, that you’re not upset by the idea of me being tortured, but of the fact it would consume your time.
Great.
The man he asked this clasps both hands together, wiping off the dirtiness I rudely gave him. “No, but we will get use out of him in a different way.”
My gaze intensely swipes between theirs. To everyone who dares look at me with a negative approach, I return the vibration back without remorse.
“Bide your time.” is what I should be remembering to do.
I have the shot thigh. They obviously want me for a reason. If they can heal me first, then I won’t have to remain at their mercy. But, until then, I mustn’t show utter disrespect.
I crack open a little fake smile, teeth replacing what I’d really show them. It’s a means to give off friendliness, and apology at the same time.
As expected, there’s not one change of attitude because of it. Some of the women actually back up to be shielded by some of the men, even as we’re several feet apart.
In some ways, that hurts me. Like it hurt me with the people of Fort Washakie that thought I’d hurt them. I wish I could give a large speech to them about why I would never hurt innocent bystanders.
Unless, they hurt me or anyone I wish to protect.
I notice a jeep behind the two men starts to have rattle noises come from its inside. The noises of someone’s feet plummet to the pebbled ground, and also, they’re in a grouchy mood, though not at me.
“Tanner!” this particular man shouts. “I wake up expecting you still out trying to find out more about our…” This is where he and I make eye contact. He grows stumped, finger pointing at me in confusion. “Who is this?”
“Don’t know,” the man, I figure is Tanner, also the same one who dragged me all this way, answers. “But, he’ll give us the edge we need with our ‘problem’.”
This “problem” is spoken out, clearly meant to hide what their motivations are with bringing me here.
If that’s how you’ll be, then I suppose covering up my own reasons out here won’t make you be the only one that’s being kept in the dark about things.
“How so?” this newcomer asks with skepticism. “I can tell he’s got a bad condition. How’d you not just put a bullet between his eyes?”
Tanner is slouching, definitely to calm himself from this man—who clearly has comfortability to be as rude as he is.
More than I ever could be to Tanner, or anyone for that matter.
“Because, man, he’s able to not get turned by the voids. We saw him hiding in one for a while.”
As soon as Tanner says that to this man, my gaze immediately darts back to theirs. All of the sudden, the white-bearded person with hair coated with muck, maybe from tobacco, taking away the bright color, curves up to a smile to give off friendliness.
Likely though, it’s a manipulative means like his “apology”. “Hey, dude! Sorry, I didn’t know!” he tells me, excitedly. “How can you do that?”
I situate myself on the ground, very nervously. “I-I don’t know. I just have that ability.”
His smiling beard drops back down, and his whole face displays worry. “He didn’t get a wound in his thigh because of it, did he? Did you give him one?” he asks aloud to Tanner, aggression increasing with each syllable.
I intervene to ease his emotions back down. “No, they didn’t do this. I…I already had it.”
He bows his head, mumbling something along the lines of, “We’re not the only ones around anymore. New competition.”
Rather than correct, or explain, who gave me this injury, I remain quiet. It obviously doesn’t concern them so much as my use to them is. “Will you be able to fix my current problem?” I bring up, reserved, but silently hopeful.
This man repeatedly nods. Their bobbly head means relief for me, but his eyes are drawn at me into a deep stare.
It unnerves me.
“You want whisky?” he eventually offers up.
At first, it curveballs what I expected him to say. I expected anything other than that. Then, the question at last syncs in, drawing me to make my own stare into nothingness back at him.
I should’ve figured the operation won’t be pleasing the least bit. Once again, at least they show mild curtesy with the things that ultimately still are going to put me in unwanted and harmful scenarios.
“Y-yeah.” I can’t hide the anxiety in my exhale.
Chapter XXXVIII
Tanner drops in a crisscross seated position right where he was standing, scooting up to the right side of my body to close in the gap. “Well,” he grunts as he settles. “You shouldn’t need being told this will hurt like hell, right?”
“It’s about the mind over the body,” I reply, mainly to soothe and comfort me.
“Sure. That’s good. Tell yourself that while you swallow all that whiskey.”
Doubt in others, others I barely know, doesn’t affect me, but this is something new. It’s the way he said it. The remark tells me that he’s seen surgery before.
Not only am I proven right that he’s seen a surgery like what’s about to commence on me, but it’s confirmed he’s going to be responsible for doing the surgery. I situate my back on this pebbled ground, moving about until I’m as comfortable as I can be. All the while I watch him snap his fingers. Others in this group retrieve his belongings. He nods in approval of the first item.
Thin tweezers.
Gary, you’ve set it in your mind to see everything as an exercise, whether physical, or mental. It shouldn’t be anything different this time around. But the sight of those tweezers…
His gatherers garner the initiative to take this opportunity and come up close like he is to my personal space. One on my left asks, “Why’d you get shot?” while at the same moment the one down by my feet inquires, “What’s so special about you?”
I flash a rude look to them, but the man who woke up from his nap in the jeep does so for me. He shoos them away, but not before commanding one of them get me that whiskey.
I morph into silence as a purposeful way to emotionally detach from the anxiety I’m feeling regarding my pre-operation preparations. The people surrounding the bonfire grow comfortable enough to resume their ongoing conversations, quietly, but nonetheless fully focused on each other.
If anything, they do give me that space I desperately need from every one of them. That’s not how I figured their personalities would entail from me invading their calm day.
No doubt, these have to be the people Ominous mentioned, and Grim recommended I be exposed to. However, they aren’t depicting themselves as soulless, diabolically vile, aggressors as it was hinted they’d be. However, their mysterious traits to why I’d be useful leads me to realize I shouldn’t try and define exactly who they are.
Even if I find out the hard way.
Tanner attempts small talk with me as he sorts out his medical tools. “What’s your name?”
“What do you want me to do for you?” I deflect.
He stops in the middle of organizing his tweezers, scissors, needle, and thread. Those items raise every screaming alarm throughout the nerves of my body.
Breathe in, and breathe out. You’re in control of your pain. Two years ago, when you severely injured your elbow on stage from pushing yourself up against Kary, you stayed in control. Granted, it didn’t break, or have a bullet inside your flesh, but you worked with your mind during that time. It’s no different now.
&
nbsp; But, those tweezers, scissors, needle, and thread…
Tanner, with scissors still in hand as he was organizing those items beside him, begins to point them at me, up and down, in a lecturing manner. “You don’t get to ask those questions. You understand? We’ll tell you what you need to know, afterward. Do. You. Understand?”
His tone, a direct threat and an indirect caution, is one I assume could shatter all of the others in his group to obedience. In fact, it does to the three others that were with him when they found me. As well to the grouchy man who woke up from his nap in the jeep.
They all, whether conscious or not, nod their heads in response.
Should I act obedient too? Tanner stares me down right now, but I won’t budge to show apology. Remember to bide your time, Gary. Things slip through your grasp when you rebel every step of the way.
I give a slight shivering nod, unknowing even to me if it’s honestly from fear of him, or if it’s from worry about those scissors’ purpose.
Are they intended to go in my open wound? Will that be worked with in order to make me concede to him?
I best bide my time, and give Tanner what he wants. The surgeon wants a signature, and I must sign it with my mouth.
“All right,” I answer. It’s a quaver that’s a hybrid of fabricated and real tension.
The day’s still young, and I feel it’s been the longest day I’ve endured in a while. Part of me is tempted to use the tiredness I know the bags under my eyes betray I have, but my adrenaline paces up to my heartbeat.
Especially now. The time has come for the operation.
Chapter XXXIX
Tanner takes a shirt he requested. He doubles, and then triple knots it.
“What a big shirt!” I think when he can wrap-around the widest part of my leg, above my wounded thigh’s region.
“We’ve got bungee cords,” he spouts out, when he visibly second-guesses the strength of the shirt being a tourniquet on its own.
“Then do it.”
My hands have been secretly scooping pebbles from my sides, raising them up enough to grind and shuffle them around in my palms. It’s all an attempt to massage my thumping heartbeat back down.
If I took up meditation even once before, it would’ve been my go-to for this, and for multiple occurrences in my past. These pebbles are the best alternative for managing preparation for surgery. When in it, I’ve already established what will keep me motivated throughout the entirety of the procedure.
My people. Lissie’s welcoming face.
This all the urgency I need for me to get better by nightfall.
I’ve completely blocked out the fact a bungee cord has been wrapped around my upper leg, next to the shirt, and firmly tightened. Numbness slowly starts pushing its tentacles all the way down. I only remain patient until I can instinctively know the region with the bullet wound is numbed.
“Are we ready?” I ask Tanner.
“Not until you begin taking those sips.”
We’re just a chug of whiskey away from the surgery. I find myself taking precious time to grab it from the man down by my feet. I never was a drinker, and here is the perfect time to be drunk.
They support me being intoxicated. I know they think I have all the time in the world to be drunk and for the following hangover. It’s not true. Yet all around me people are currently ready to watch as I engulf the 1/3rd whiskey into my open mouth.
I must show them what they want, otherwise this wound stays raw. Just like my throbbing fear that grows larger with every second I delay. I have to find my people before C.F.O.G.’s deadline.
Tanner faintly gives a command to the man by my feet. Both of them cling right beside one another.
It’s becoming all too real.
Then the procedure begins.
“Hold him still!” Tanner grunts at that man who’s apparently his assistant.
Burning white is the best I can describe of the absolute sharpness, discomfort, and overall, agony. A pure white burn. Then my ears gain a high-pitched ring from that overwhelming white burning me alive.
I smack the whiskey bottle hard the moment I felt Tanner’s prying hands. It falls to the pebbled ground. My wounded leg wants to squirm, to bathe itself in helplessness.
“No, you don’t,” his assistant kids, mainly to force this dark moment to lighten.
I feel the shirt coming loose. This shirt was never truly numbing the leg, but my human instincts for self-preservation doesn’t know that. Especially my brain. It processes the feeling of it loosening up. I suddenly let out a roar.
“Shit!” Tanner grunts.
I don’t even ask, nor am I ready to look down and see what’s stressing him out.
Interestingly, I’m not asked by any of them how the stress is working on me. Never mind how vocal I am with growls and roaring.
Though I evaluate the external negatives around, my internal self hasn’t stopped once in providing positive affirmation. “Your tolerance in pain is staggering!” I think to a shriek. Then, the voice I put this on is not my own.
Lissie’s face is painted in my head. She’s telling me to keep pushing, keep fighting, keep surviving. For her.
I will, Lissie. For all of you. I will not stop, and I will not give into the pain.
My hands, both free from the whiskey bottle, instead resort to my scooping up of pebbles. Large quantities for my palms to close in on. This is a great sign of reaching the next phase.
Tussling with the bullet.
The tweezers dig inside. I feel it the entire time, like a foreign parasite swimming its way inside my thigh’s muscle. It’s at the point I’m starting to believe I’ll shed out of my own skin. The agony is getting viciously intense.
I’ve reached a new level where I believe this is natural to feel on a regular basis.
This white burn continues to pulsate throughout me. My ears ring from an over-heating head. I can’t picture pain being cranked up any further from here.
Mucus runs down my nostrils. Little drops of liquid breaks away out of my tear ducts. It ensures me the body can’t react with any more terror. My brain won’t feel a violation any worse than it is now. I thought I was at my low last night, and especially earlier today.
I couldn’t be any more wrong.
The pain here, to where I feel I’ve felt this all my life, which I rationally know I haven’t, wakes me up.
To embrace pain is to live! I want to live now, so I must embrace the pain I felt!
If Claw killed me earlier, I wouldn’t feel this terrible, unforgiving, torment. I also wouldn’t feel anything else, such as the relief when the pain lets up. And it will.
“The pain will go away,” I repeat second after second, breath after breath.
The bullet’s now being carefully removed out of my wound. I comprehend the soreness and healing will constantly bring up what I felt during the surgery.
Alive.
I request one thing. Even though my trembling voice is faint, Tanner hears it and obliges me. He drops the bullet in my hand. I study its golden outer shelling. Blood taints it, and in turn, it taints the bullet.
This pain doesn’t mean it’s forever. What’s forever is the decision to live through this.
Blood squirts out from my thigh in tandem with my heartbeat. Tanner then pulls something from behind his back I didn’t originally notice before the surgery.
Hydrogen peroxide.
Before I can barely finish reading the label, it splatters and sizzles the outer of my bullet wound. I could never imagine how badly those fizzing bubbles would engulf me in their tiny spheres. They keep me here, writhing on the ground. Tanner’s assistant restrains me, and won’t stop kidding about the situation.
“You had your own Civil War reenactment. How’s it feel?”
My raised head hides my throat, which blocks up saliva, and causes me to cough severely. My response is mangled because of it. “It ‘ade me ‘eel again.”
With the hydrogen peroxide continuing t
o sizzle on my skin, like liquid on a heated stove, Tanner adds some to his tweezers. He then clamps them down on a curved needle. I see little strands of the thread below the curved needle draping along my thigh.
“Time to sew you up.”
When I look up to the sky, the complex blue shading to a new color for the day’s progress, I understand the change has more to do with me. My eyes are hypersensitive to this change in blue, and looking up at the sky makes me wonder where to begin once Tanner heals me up.
This Gary, now knowing how painful pain can truly be, won’t hold back on inadvertently hurting these people, by taking their jeep, then hurrying off to find my people. That pain they’ll feel will be nothing like what I just experienced
I have to take these people’s jeep. It’s not me taking their lives. I don’t plan to have to do so. But, after it’s said and done…where will I begin? How will I find my people?
If the phantom shares thoughts and visuals of my mind to Grim, then I’ll just do the same. She’s seen them, and they know where they’re at. I must bide my time still.
“You’ll feel harsh pricks,” Tanner warns.
It’s not much use, because he says it the exact same moment his curved needle punctures through my skin. It’s not a tear-jerking feel from only pain, but of one from the funny sensation it gives. The funny disbelief the skin’s getting punctured by something sharp.
It’s better to chuckle with this than cry. To me right now, they mean equally the same. They mean I’m human, and I’m living.
His tweezers remain holding onto the curved needle. His technique works relatively simple with the thread, but fancy-looking tricks with how he wraps this barely-visible thread to pull together my skin is more fascinating to me than gut-wrenching. The first stitch is secured seconds after the first incision.
As I watch Tanner’s concentration and dedication to healing my wound, it muddles up my own. I can no longer concentrate on how I’ll sneak my way to the jeep, and dedicate myself to saying I’ve used Tanner’s skills and things.
They’ll be using me, so why would I feel bad doing it myself? Why am I having trouble doing this, when Tanner’s having the simplest of time sewing up my wound?