It was because of Mike that she survived for as long as she had in the crazy version of the world. He became her protector, her guardian angel, defending her until his demise. The thought of how his life ended made her angry. Mike died a horrible death in the middle of nowhere and had his skin nailed to the wall of some abandoned farmhouse. It seemed a sad and pitiful end for such a good man.
She lay on the bed and daydreamed about the guard’s bodies blistering, skin splitting, and turning black from the intense heat of flames. The sounds she imagined their bodies making as they sizzeled and popped in the fire brought her pleasure. Angela wanted to witness and savor those final moments before death took them to hell.
35
The hard heels of his shoes counted out his rapid steps with loud clacks. The pace he marched from his office carried him to his private laboratory in under a minute. He checked his watch to note the time and jotted it on his chart paper. The doctor pushed the door inward. He flipped a switch as he entered the room, and the overhead lights fluttered on.
Moans came from several people who were strapped onto the row of beds that lined both walls. The woman on the last bed shrieked in hysteria, prompting the doctor to observe her condition first. He lifted the clipboard from the end of the bed, read over his notes, and marked the current time and date at the bottom under the previous entries. Doctor Wilson stepped beside the bed and pulled the thin blanket back to expose the woman’s naked form. He lifted the bandage from what remained of her left arm and brushed his finger over the series of stitches at the end of her amputation. She fought against the restraints, and tried to move her body on the soiled bed to get away from him. Her screams reached a state of continuous and incoherent noise.
“You mustn’t do that,” the doctor said. He leaned over her body, raised his eyebrows, and slapped at her mouth with violent strikes on her lips. “You will only excite the other patients. It will cause them undue stress.”
She thrashed her head on the pillow, her voice rose to a higher pitch, and she bit at the air causing the doctor to withdraw his hand. He waited, in a calm and passive manner, for her to take another breath after she had depleted her air supply. As she inhaled, he came closer to her ear and cautioned her about her disrespect to the others in the room.
“Would you like for me to perform another surgery? A leg this time, or perhaps you’d prefer the other arm?”
The woman stopped screaming, lowered her head on the pillow, and the mess of tangled auburn hair covered her eyes. She cried in muted sobs, shivering and exposed on the bed, fearful of inciting the doctor’s wrath again. He tossed the blanket back over her and made certain that he covered her head to hide her from the other patients.
Doctor Wilson progressed down the row of beds, read the individual charts, and documented the current conditions. He turned from them, walked to his compounding table, and removed various amounts of fluids from several glass vials. With a dozen syringes filled, he inserted the needles one after another into an empty bottle and mixed the contents together. After noting it on his paperwork the amounts he added, the doctor stopped and meditated on what he needed next. It was a daily practice for him, experimenting with different levels of the numerous chemicals. He observed which amounts caused instant sedation, what number of units would render the subject unconscious. He played with the totals he added together, saving the formulas that induced volatile results, extreme pain, hallucinations, and seizures.
Once the vial was full of the day’s current variation, he returned to the row of beds and began the treatments. This day’s first test subject was a man who called himself Danny. He told the doctor, when he first arrived at the hospital, that he was a sheriff from a county in the northern part of the state. His story seemed plausible, to a degree, but the doctor could see the desperation in his eyes. Desperation meant one thing. The man was running from something, trying to leave some tragedy behind. Doctor Wilson knew, that in itself was the most dangerous position to take, it allowed the disease to fester, to remain hidden. He took it upon himself to show the man he was indeed sick, expose the truth of his internal disorder, and help him overcome the illness. Several months passed, and Danny still held to his original story. He refused to admit any wrongdoing and maintained that he was a sheriff seeking help for the remaining people of his county. Danny kept telling the same story, time after time, trying to convince the doctor he was truthful with his account.
Doctor Wilson stood beside his bed, filled the syringe from the vial, and listened to Danny begin his customary routine. He regarded the man with growing frustration, and thought about the lost time spent helping a man who refused to accept it.
“Please,” Danny said. He shook his head back and forth. Tears ran his cheeks. “I promise, I’ll never tell anyone what happened here. Just let me go. I’ll never say a word. Please?”
“And how do you suggest you’d leave here?”
The doctor pointed to the man’s smoothed over knees, and waved his hand above the area of the bed where Danny’s lower legs should have been. As he pushed the needle into the man’s arm, Doctor Wilson smiled and shook his head.
“You’d not get very far I’m afraid,” he said.
“I could use a wheelchair,” Danny said. “Let me have one and…and I could make it. I know I could…please.”
“Perhaps, but what if your sickness continues?” the doctor said. “You are a risk to yourself and others. I cannot allow you to hurt someone else. It would burden me with guilt.”
He stood back from the bed and watched Danny struggle under the restraints. The man’s reddened face shifted into a grimace, his eyes squeezed shut, and his body convulsed. Danny opened his mouth and released a long wail of pain before falling silent with a sudden jerk of his head back into the pillow. His eyes seemed to lose focus while his head fell to the side, the sound of his breathing halted, and his face paled. Doctor Wilson touched his fingertip to the man’s throat and noted on his chart the time of death. He marched back to the compounding table and adjusted his formula, diluting it with saline water.
In the process of refilling the syringes, he did not hear the guard named Joe enter. It was after several impatient minutes of waiting that Joe gave a loud cough and identified his presence in the room. The doctor continued his work, refusing to stop and turn to look at the unwelcome intruder.
“What can I do for you?”
“The major told me to come here,” Joe said. “He says you’re going to show me how to make them shots.”
Doctor Wilson froze, his hand held the syringe with the needle still inside the vial. He considered the proposal again. Lifting his head to look at the ceiling, he worked the details over and reached his final decision. He turned and faced the younger man.
“No,” he said. “I do not believe I shall.”
“I don’t think the major will like that.”
Joe crossed his arms, leaned forward, and shook his head in disappointment. He watched in mild amusement as the doctor stepped past him and stuck a needle into an armless and legless man’s neck. The doctor glanced at his wristwatch and wrote on his paper, ignoring the soldier again. Joe strutted toward the door and paused within the threshold. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, offering the doctor a final chance to change his mind.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Positive,” the doctor said. “Tell Major Rose that I no longer wish to train anyone to mix the treatments. Also, you should tell him—”
“Save it doc,” Joe said. “You can tell him yourself. I’m not your little messenger.”
He busied himself and tended to his patients. As he checked their wounds, he gave them their daily dose. The doctor was cleaning around the sutures of an old man’s eyes when the major stormed in.
“I’m told you won’t train my man.”
Doctor Wilson dabbed a cotton ball at the sewn eyelids, taking special care not to press too hard against the lids. He removed both eyes from the man, in a hopeful
attempt to help him see what he wanted to deny. So far, it had no effect on the subject, much to his personal dismay. He looked at the major standing in the middle of the open floor, fists clenched, face reddened with anger.
“I won’t,” Doctor Wilson said.
“And why the hell not?”
The doctor placed the cotton ball on the bedside table and approached the major. The tension built between them, each had an incensed temper, and both felt they were the one who was suffering the indignation.
“It is quite simple,” the doctor said.
He shuffled his papers, snuck a glance out of the corner of his eye, and counted the other soldiers lined along the wall near the door. Major Rose stepped toward the doctor, he placed his hands on the back of a metal chair, drumming his fingers on the flat surface.
“Which is?”
One soldier removed his gun from his holster, pulling it out with an energetic tug. He held it out in front of his body and aimed at the floor in a peculiar fashion. The soldier tilted his head to the side while he stood in an emphasized static pose. Doctor Wilson thought over the man’s awkward stance and his clear and pronounced failure to appear threatening. He knew there was the possibility that the so-called soldier did not understand how to fire the weapon at all.
“Power, Major Rose,” the doctor said. “It is about control. I have it, and you do not.”
“The hell you say?”
“Oh yes. You need me far more than I need you, or your soldiers.” The doctor flicked his fingers towards the man holding his drawn firearm. “And you know this, just the same as I do.” He smiled, pulled his glasses from his eyes, and placed the earpiece into his mouth.
“Now listen here—” The major rushed forward, and pushed his finger into the doctor’s chest.
Doctor Wilson turned from him and placed his papers on the table. The major’s breathing transformed into a growl. He moved closer to the doctor and lowered his head, staring at him past a furrowed brow. He grabbed the older man’s shoulder and spun him, made him face him again, and bared his teeth in an angry smile.
“How about I just beat you until you decide to show my men how to make it?”
“You could,” the doctor said. “But, keep this in mind, I will hold out for as long as necessary. You, on the other hand, you would succumb to the conditions of the disease long before I gave in. I would simply bide my time, wait for you to grow sick, and then I would terminate your life.” Doctor Wilson pushed past the major and lifted the chart from the auburn-haired woman’s bed. He scribbled at the papers. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have important work to finish here.”
Major Rose spun on his heels and stood glaring at the doctor. He tried to form an argument against the doctor’s logic, but the longer he stood staring at the back of the man’s head, the less of a reasoning he could find. He felt cornered, trapped by the simple fact the doctor was right. The men needed his medicine, his knowledge to make it, and he did not need them in return. With his pride insulted in front of his men, the emasculated major left the room and stomped down the hallway. Doctor Wilson smiled to himself when he heard the far-off shouting curses from the major’s throat.
36
Charlie opened his eyes, focused on the ceiling tiles, and rubbed at his arms with his hands to warm them. He sat up and stared at the wall of cardboard boxes. He shook his head in disappointment as he stood and looked out from the small window in the door. Charlie stepped from the door and stood in the hallway. It was empty, claustrophobic, and the stark silence made the sterile white color unsettling.
He went into the room where he left Ben. The sight of his twin brother curled on the floor repulsed him. Ben’s pale face and sunken cheeks stirred his anger. He leaned over him to make sure he was still breathing.
This is where you brought me? This is what you would have me do? Rescue you again. But what’s in it for Charlie?
Ben opened his eyes and looked up at his brother. He tried to speak several times, gave up, and motioned for something to drink. Charlie let out a frustrated sigh and nodded his head.
“Just wait here,” he said. “Charlie will get something for the princess to drink.”
He opened the door, stepped toward the right, and made his way down the hall. His bare feet quiet against the cool floor, he opened every door he came to and checked inside for anything to salvage or steal. It became evident that the only thing of use to the captors on the whole floor was the meat hanging in the small room that once housed an x-ray machine.
You were almost meat, Ben.
Doubling back, he cracked open the door to the stairwell. He slipped into the dimness beyond the door and waited several minutes as he listened for anyone else inside. When he was confident he was alone, he pulled a found paper clip from his pocket and bent it. Charlie formed it into a shape similar to the curve of a horseshoe. He pushed the metal latch of the door in and stuck the paper clip over it to hold it in place. That provided a way to open the door in silence later.
Always too slow to act, weak-willed, pathetic. They can smell it on you, they can always tell. This won’t be the last time.
Charlie stepped down the stairs and went all the way to the bottom. The door he came to was unlocked, he could push on the bar and move the door forward. Smells of the outside wafted to his nose. He smiled to himself as he knelt down on the floor. Charlie would wait for nighttime. Under cover of darkness he would slip away, they would never know he was gone.
But what fun is that? Don’t they deserve to suffer? Like that old man, always yelling at us as he sat on his porch. The way he taunted and cursed, I shut him up. I shut him up forever.
He rubbed his temples. The headaches were the worst part. Too often, he would have to lie down, wait until they subsided. That was what he would have to do, rest until he could leave under cover of darkness. He climbed the stairs and the pounding in his skull intensified. When he passed the first door, he thought to stop and have a look. The fear of capture kept him climbing upward until he was back to the third floor. He opened the door a small crack and kept himself low to the ground. Charlie waited until he felt it was safe.
His neck tensed and made it almost impossible to move his head. Nausea would start soon after. It always came next. He tried to focus on what door opened to the room in which he had hidden. His mind clouded, a thick curtain of searing hot needles fell over it and draped vicious pain over his thoughts. He fell to his knees, crawled along like a baby until he gave up searching for that one particular room, and went into the next door he found that was unlocked.
It was dark inside. He welcomed the darkness. The scent of cinnamon was in the air. He hurried to lock the door and felt his way along the floor until he wedged himself between the wall and what felt to be a large filing cabinet. Charlie rested, clutching his head in his hands, and waited for the storm of misery in his head to subside. He could feel his pulse pounding against his eyeballs, even the roots of his teeth hurt.
This is what happens…what happens when you resist…when you fight it.
The cold floor pressed against his sweat-soaked face, he tried to let it all fade from him. Sleep was the cure. It was always the cure. Maybe when he woke he would feel better. Perhaps he would still be himself, and remain himself for a while longer.
Just let me still be me…don’t take it away…not yet, not now.
He slept for some time, unsure of how long, there was no window to offer him a clue when he woke. His relief that he had awakened changed to nervousness, he needed to leave the place soon. The longer he stayed, the more danger he was in. Charlie went to the windowless door and opened it, the dim gray glow of the fading daylight shone on the walls. He smiled to himself, it was almost time, not longer than a few hours. He would wait until it was late in the evening, long after the men had grown tired.
Now we wait, just like I always have to. Patience and waiting.
He opened the door to let more light in and looked around the room. Papers were strewn ac
ross the floor, chairs tossed and overturned, a large television lay bashed against the floor. It was a conference room. He had slept against the wall lined with large metal cabinets. He hunted around the floor for a weapon, something to use for defense.
There were pens and folders littered about. The sound of a plastic bottle crackling under his foot startled him. He jumped back at first and then dove for it when he understood what the noise was. There was only a swallow left, he drank it, and hunted for more. His hands felt across the thin stiff edge of a rug and bumped into table legs. He stood and ran his hands across the table, knocked over a bottle, and froze when it landed on the floor with a loud thud. Charlie waited for the bastards to rush in with their rifles drawn. Nothing but silence came from the hallway.
Charlie twisted the top from the thick plastic bottle. A small hiss of air escaped. He drank it down in gulps, stopping only to breathe. It was a large bottle, and he could not finish it all. His thirst taken care of for the time and his mind clearing from the distracted fog of need, he hunted the room for food. He discovered an empty liquor bottle, and after feeling the heft of it in his hand, he considered the use of it as a weapon. Charlie sat it back to the floor after deciding it would do no good other than its original function.
After closing the door, he sat on a soft cushioned chair and tried to rest for his getaway. His mind wandered back into his history, his life. How he came to be Ben’s watchman, his bodyguard, the one who did what Ben could not. A grin formed as he remembered the first time he saved the day when the other boys picked on Ben. The memory of how he got even with the fat one at the creek made him chuckle.
The Wretched Page 25