by P. Craig
The man struggled on for another moment or two, jerking his whole body up and down, from side to side, in one final attempt to work himself free. He could see she was about to turn and leave at any second, her body language clumsily giving her game away. He figured her goal was to stay long enough in the room to make him dare to believe she was there from genuine concern, to try to gain his trust; after all, he knew they were trying every trick in the book to get him to drop his guard, to make him more susceptible to their conditioning. But he wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to let them break him. He wasn’t going to fall for their tricks. He knew them too well to go quietly, willingly, to his doom.
“The hard way it is, then.”
He froze as she bent down and rummaged around in a box underneath his bed; his mind screamed that she was going for some kind of weapon, that she was taking the chance to kill him while she still had it in front of her. His frantic eyes watched hers as she pulled out a cloth, stood up and stretched a hand across his wriggling body towards his face. He began to panic at the thought of her smothering him—a simple cloth would be enough to do the job.
The man bit down hard on his lip again and blood quickly flooded his mouth. Twisting and contorting his tongue, he arched his neck and spat a thick, red glob in the direction of his oppressor.
The nurse’s head rocked back sharply and she stumbled backwards a few steps, her hands instinctively rising to her face. The man’s blood-drenched saliva dribbled down the side of her head as though an invisible knife was slowly etching its mark on her skin.
The man saw fear in her eyes as she turned away to clean herself; the sudden realisation that she hadn’t beaten him, hadn’t managed to break his will, was a staggering thought that seemed to frighten her.
Invigorated by her reaction, a blaze of hatred and fury ignited in the man’s heart. Within seconds, he had whipped himself into a state of frenzy; the bed beneath him shook as he squirmed and pulled and wrestled at the straps.
But to the man’s amazement, the nurse hadn’t given up; she recovered quickly and surprised him by throwing the cloth over his snarling face, rendering him blind and vulnerable at a stroke. He shook his head from side to side, desperately trying to restore his sight, to enable him to see what she was doing to him; his ears suggested she was whispering something, plotting against him, but he couldn’t be sure. He shuddered as her hand touched his shoulder. She tugged his gown to one side and then, a second later, he felt something cold, something sharp, probing his skin.
The cloth disappeared and the sudden return of the light dazzled the man’s eyes. Something warm and wet rubbed against his face, first one side and then the other; it lingered tenderly over his swollen lips, dabbing moisture into his mouth. Slowly, his vision returned, and the first sight that greeted him was a dark indistinct mass hovering what seemed like a short distance above his face. Startled, the man sunk his head deeper into the pillow, but gradually he calmed down, though his eyes remained wide open, unblinking. The unusual object fascinated him, but he wondered why he couldn’t quite tell what it was.
Time passed.
The dark mass drew closer. The man felt a breeze of warm air blowing gently over his face. A faint sound reached his ears but went no further—it was a noise too vague and unrecognisable to trouble his mind. In truth, he was beyond caring now; his thoughts were too far gone from what was happening around him—he was adrift on a sea of a tranquillity.
For some time the dark mass hovered close over the man’s head, sometimes rising up, pulling further away, sometimes falling down, drawing nearer, but always just there, never once out of his sight. At times, briefly, he was vaguely aware of something touching his face, something warm gently stroking and caressing his skin. The touch was little more than a suggestion, a hint of a feeling that something was happening. His mind was too relaxed to care about it, to question it; all he could do was simply accept that it was so, that it might be. A fleeting thought passed through his mind that the sensation had something to do with the dark mass, but the notion slipped away without leaving much of a trace—it was a mere blip on his ocean of serenity.
The disappearance of the dark vision went almost unnoticed. The empty space above him didn’t register for a considerable length of time; his mind was elsewhere—everywhere and nowhere—but eventually the realisation sank in that the dark mass had gone. He blinked, for what felt like the first time in hours, and noticed the light was once again shining upon him unchecked.
The tranquil waters he had been floating over changed in an instant. Waves emerged from the darkness, rolling high and falling deep, rocking him back and forth, plunging his mind under water, shaking him, reviving him, bringing him back to his senses.
The man’s eyes regained their focus first, quickly locking on the movement of bodies in the room—one, two, three people—who he soon realised were nurses. One of them was setting up a table next to his bed; another was holding a tray close behind the first; the third was loitering by the door.
The man’s hearing was next to return. Faint whisperings somewhere in the background grew louder, soon forming words and sentences; he identified three distinct voices and these quickly synchronised with what his eyes were telling him.
He didn’t need his other senses at their peak to know that the nurses were there to punish him further; he could think of no other reason why they would be there.
“He’s awake again,” said the nurse holding the tray. “He’s timed that quite well, hasn’t he?”
The man listened as the nurse by the door muttered her agreement. Neither of them cares about what’s happening here, he thought; after all, he knew they, like everyone else, were only concerned with plotting against him.
In truth, those two were of little interest to the man; he only had eyes for the nurse closest to him, the one setting up the table by his bed. Since waking from his coma, he had seen her face countless times; in fact, she was the one constant in the few memories that he’d formed in that time. He could see her hatred of him in her eyes. Her face was otherwise expressionless, impassive, but the windows into her soul said everything about her feelings for him. Bitch. How he wished he had taken a few extra seconds to gather more blood in his mouth before spitting on her face.
“Now, I hope you’re not going to cause us any problems while we feed you.”
Nurse Bouchet smiled at him as she said this, but the man remained po-faced. He knew that she wanted to punish him, to hurt him, to make him pay for his earlier defiance.
The man watched her closely as she stepped back and gestured to the other nurse to lay down the tray. Nurse Bouchet stood hands on hips, saying nothing; to the man’s eye, she looked exactly like a stern-faced prison warden. Or maybe a hunter eyeing up her prey before the kill.
Placing the tray on the table, the other nurse—a younger, more innocent-looking woman—whispered something to the executioner, something just beyond the man’s hearing, and then turned and left the room. The third nurse left too and closed the door behind her.
Once again, as he always seemed to be, the man was alone with his personal nemesis. Knowing he didn’t have much time, he began working his right wrist and hand, both out of the nurse’s sight, trying once more to extricate himself from the strap.
“You certainly look a lot better than when I was here earlier today.”
She wasn’t even looking at him as she spoke. Her gaze was fixed upon the items on the tray, and her hands were busy removing the metal covers from the plates. She sniffed the food, and the man grimaced as her lips curled into another awful smile.
“Mmm! This meatloaf smells good. I hope you’re feeling hungry.”
The man forced a smile in reply as she turned to look at him; the muscles in his face were aching, almost trembling from the strain, but he tried his best to look calm and composed, belying the frantic nature of his efforts to wrench his hand free. The instant her eyes looked away again, the smile on his face morphed into a grimac
e of determination; his wrist continued to struggle against the strap, rotating side to side, pushing back and forth, and gradually he worked almost enough space to slip his arm out.
“Now, I’ve got a nice forkful with a bit of everything on it, so if you could open up nice and wide for me, I’ll gently place it in your mouth.”
There was a look of intense concentration on the nurse’s face as she held a hand underneath the fork and brought the morsel of food over his body towards his face. With resolute determination—stubbornness in her eyes, he supposed—the man clenched his teeth firmly together and glared at her with unblinking eyes. He didn’t need to hide the strain on his face now; he didn’t need to hold back in his efforts to escape; he could just pull, wrench and fight as hard as he liked, as hard as he needed to, to free himself.
“I promise you, you’ll like it, but I will need you to open your mouth for me.”
He gave her an odd look, his head tilting slightly to one side; slowly, the strain on his face eased and then his teeth unclenched. Almost smiling, he opened his mouth the tiniest of a fraction.
“That’s better. A tiny bit more and I’ll pop the first forkful in for you.”
He nodded and slowly opened his mouth until it was wide enough for the nurse to feed him. He closed his eyes in anticipation. As soon as the food touched his tongue, he opened his eyes once more and closed his mouth while the nurse carefully removed the fork. He chewed slowly—the food was bland, tough and practically indigestible—and while he worked it around in his mouth, the nurse loaded up the fork with a second helping. After a minute, he stopped chewing and waited for the nurse to continue feeding him.
“Here it comes again. Open wide, please.”
The look of concentration on her face was priceless—eyebrows furrowed, eyes locked on the fork, mouth slightly open. A hand was poised under the fork as though she might catch even the smallest morsel if it fell. The man knew she hadn’t the slightest inkling of anything outside her immediate sphere of perception.
He waited until the fork was hovering a few inches above his mouth, until her eyes shifted back onto him; suddenly, he inhaled sharply through his nose, filling his lungs, and then spat out the chewed-up food all over the nurse’s startled face.
Reeling in shock, the nurse dropped the fork onto the bed and turned her back, while her hands went to her face to try to clear the muck from her eyes.
The man acted quickly. With his right hand now free from its restraint, he reached across, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head savagely back towards him. Gasping, the nurse’s hip banged hard against the bed frame, knocking her further off balance; she fell down on top of him, her hands flailing out to the side, desperately trying to find something to hold onto. The man let her go but only long enough to change his angle of attack and work a hand underneath her chin; his fingers wrapped around her throat and he squeezed tightly, trying to crush the fight out of her.
He didn’t want to kill her, though; at least, not yet. His real goal was the key on the chain that was hooked onto the loop on her uniform—the key that would open the lock still holding his other arm down. But if the only way to get the key, to escape, was to kill her, then he knew he shouldn’t hesitate to take that option.
Her legs were kicking wildly and her elbows were flying every which way, making it difficult to hold her with one hand; no matter how hard the man squeezed, she kept on fighting. He pulled her up the bed until her head was close under his chin and then he pressed down on her shoulder with his forearm, restricting her movement, allowing him to tighten his grip around her neck more easily. In desperation, her hand flailed up to her head, trying to bat him away, but she succeeded only in accidentally dislodging several hairpins, making a section of her hair fall loose about his face, where some ended up getting into his mouth. Spluttering, the man spat her hair out. He quickly moved his hand over her mouth and pulled down hard, trying to suffocate her. He was desperate to silence her and give himself the second or two he needed to grab the key. He could feel her teeth trying to bite him, but he held firm—the gnawing graze left by each bite was a small price to pay for the opportunity to sap her strength.
Her muffled attempts at crying for help were wasting what little energy and air she had left, and it wasn’t long, just seconds, before she began to fade away. A moment later, her struggling came to a sudden stop.
The man didn’t think she was dead—her chest was still rising and falling, though not as rapidly as before—but he knew she was close. He could sense Death was lingering, waiting in a corner of the room.
He slid his hand down her lifeless body towards the key dangling from the loop on her uniform. She stirred as the tip of his middle finger slipped through the key ring; a quiet groan escaped her lips and her chest rose and fell more deeply, slowly refilling her lungs.
Bending his finger, the man pulled the key back into the palm of his hand and then wrenched it free from her clothes. He shoved the nurse out of the way, pushing her further down the bed, and then reached across and slotted the key into the lock of the second restraint. Sweat was all over his fingers, making it difficult to get a good grip, but finally he managed to turn the key. He grinned as he heard the click that told him his hand was free.
Conscious of the need for haste, the man quickly unfastened the strap, though his hurried movements elicited a loud groan from the nurse. He looked on, eyes narrowing, as one of her hands went up to her throat, while the other grasped the bed frame for support as she tried to get back to her feet.
Instinctively, the man grabbed the nurse by the hair and yanked her head back down onto the bed. He twisted and turned, pulling her round, and then pressed her face against the mattress; shifting his weight, he pinned her shoulders with his elbows and pushed down hard.
Eyes flitting around the room, he wondered what he should do next. He knew he couldn’t hold her like that forever—someone would notice her absence before too much time passed, and he desperately needed to free his legs in order to escape long before anyone came looking for her.
The man shifted round, applying more weight to her back, and then pressed down with his forearm against her head, pushing her face even harder into the mattress. Working quickly, he reached down with his free hand and unlocked the strap that was pinning his legs down.
Adrenaline coursed through his body, feeding and powering his muscles, making him push down even harder on the nurse’s head. He had never felt so exhilarated—at least, not in the short life that he could remember. The joy of freedom, of vengeance, was overwhelming and yet empowering at the same time, making him feel that anything was now possible.
The man lifted the nurse’s head from the mattress and tugged hard on her hair so that he could see her face more clearly. Blood was everywhere, pouring from her nose in rivulets, and she had a dazed look about her eyes that told him she had no idea what was happening anymore. Pulling her close, his mouth almost touching her ear, he lingered for a moment without saying anything; finally, he broke his self-imposed silence—the temptation to say something, to get at her, his personal demon, was simply too strong to resist.
“Got... b-b-bitch... you!”
It had almost been worth it—to goad her now that he was free—but his irritation at hearing the words stumbling imperfectly out of his mouth overrode his pleasure in getting one over her. He glared at the faint upwards curl at the corner of her lips. Bitch.
Furious, the man slammed her face back down onto the mattress and rubbed it even harder than before, determined to punish her for her amusement—her mocking—of his difficulties.
All thought of escape slipped from his mind; only his hatred for the nurse—hatred of how badly she had treated him—occupied his thoughts. He was blind to everything else, obsessed only with his revenge; the sound of the door opening went totally unnoticed.
“Hey!”
The word, screamed in abject horror, barely registered with him; his mind noticed only that there had been some kind
of sound, albeit one that was too inconsequential to distract him. It was only when he suddenly became aware of pressure on his shoulder—a strong hand gripping him tightly—that he turned his head to find out what was happening.
His eyes spotted a young nurse standing by the open doorway; her face was a picture of horrified shock. But the man hadn’t noticed the orderly standing on his blindside right next to the bed—the orderly whose hand was already on his shoulder.
Before the man could react, the orderly took a grip of the other shoulder and then hauled him away.
“Get the fuck off her, you freak!”
The orderly was strong—inhumanly strong—and as the man flew through the air towards the far corner of the room, he almost had time to wonder if there had actually been an invisible force assisting the brute. But that thought didn’t have time to form fully in the man’s head—he crashed to the floor and slid headfirst into a wall, rendering all coherent thought immediately obsolete.
For the first time he could remember, the man experienced pain. His head felt as though it was about to explode—like his brain was pounding on his skull, trying to get out—and the scar on his head was burning terribly, like someone had poured hot oil all over it.
And yet, for all that, the pain wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
But the man didn’t have time to enjoy the sensation. Two pairs of hands grabbed him by the arms and quickly wrenched his hands behind his back; seconds later, two pairs of knees had him pinned to the floor. The man struggled desperately to shake the brutes off, but they were too strong, too determined; they weren’t going to let him go easily.
With his face hard against the cold floor, and his eyes only catching the briefest, blurriest glimpse of their white uniforms, the man was blind to what the orderlies were doing to him. Only his sense of touch, of feel, gave him any inkling as to their actions, but even then, everything felt muted, distant, almost as though it was happening to someone else.