by James Axler
As the door to Yorte’s office was open, the Fire Talker could see inside. The far wall was covered from floor-to-ceiling with sketches of demons on scraps of paper of various sizes, wild renderings by the head whitecoat and chief surgeon of Hell himself, in thick strokes of black marker with bold highlights of red. The doctor first dreamed the hideous faces he constructed, or so he claimed, after drinking enormous quantities of mescal. He claimed that the Lords of Death visited him with visions of their progeny when he was in an advanced intoxicated state. And that they gave him detailed instructions on how to make the visions real. Cut this. Sew that. Insert plastic chin here.
It was a revelation that had always puzzled Daniel. But so much of what surrounded him in this place was difficult to make sense of, and not worth the trouble of trying, since he was at best a pawn in whatever his masters were about, at worst a lab rat.
Yorte came into view in the doorway, his lab coat stained with drops of blood or perhaps hot sauce. Pushing his hair back from his eyes with both hands, he let out a howl of frustration. Then he laid into the room’s other occupants, Dr. Montejo and his two assistants, some more. From what Daniel could gather he was unhappy about the number and the quality of would-be plague vectors he’d been given to work with. He seemed particularly upset by the choice of the geezer with the perfect teeth and the albino. Daniel knew that Montejo had washed-out as a Xibalban plastic surgeon, although many of his attempts were still lurching around the prison yard. He had been relegated to enano babysitting duties and light defrostings. Things he couldn’t screw up.
After a few more minutes of yelling, Dr. Yorte stormed out of his office and confronted his wheelchair-bound patient.
The only thing that kept the surgeon’s colossal ego in check was fear.
Fear of the Lords of Death.
Yorte pushed back his flyaway hair and said, “Well, enano, how about I remake you on the outside while I’m at it? I can make it match the inside. Maybe you’ll wake up with a face like a monkey’s anus?”
Quite a card, that Yorte.
Daniel knew better than to banter with the man when he was in a friable mood and about to begin surgery. He kept his lip zipped.
Montejo and the brujas wheeled him down the hall to the surgical suite, a trip he had relived in nightmares countless times. This was his fifth excursion into the realm of pain-beyond-belief.
Because he was already semisedated, the trio had little trouble shifting him from the chair to the crucifixion table. They pinioned his wrists, chest, waist and ankles with heavy leather belts, pulling them so tight he couldn’t move and could hardly breathe.
One of the assistants put an IV line into his forearm, hung a saline bag and then used a syringe to inject him with something.
Dope.
Although it hit him between the eyes like a two-by-four, he remained fully conscious. He wanted to ask the grinning bitch to give him more, but he knew there wasn’t enough dope in the world to dull the agony of marrow harvesting. Besides, he couldn’t make his mouth move. That, he decided, was the real purpose of the narcotic: to keep him quiet while they mined his very bones.
Dr. Yorte pushed a stainless-steel tray on wheels beside the table. From a towel he picked up a hypodermic needle of impressive length and unholy diameter. At the end opposite the point, it had a kind of bolt head, with six faceted sides. A bruja pulled Daniel’s gown away from his hip, daubed it with Betadine, then Yorte rammed the needle into his pelvis hard enough to seat its hollow tip in the bone.
Now that hurt, no denying. A steady stinging pain that shot up and down his leg. But it was nothing compared to what came next.
Dr. Yorte snatched a crescent wrench from the instrument tray, fitted it to the bolt head, then made a quick adjustment of the gap. Jaws nice and tight, he used the wrench’s leverage to turn the needle and drive the point into the marrow.
Supposedly one of the litmus tests for whether a bone was broken or not was the person’s reaction to the shock. If he or she passed out or puked from the pain, the bone was probably broken.
Daniel’s bone wasn’t broken, but he turned his head and puked anyway, over the side of the table, forcing Yorte to take a quick step to avoid having his shoes splattered.
Screwing the needle deep enough was slow, difficult work for the corer.
And excruciating agony for the core-ee.
Was it worse than he had remembered it? Or was it that something that bad couldn’t be remembered? It could only be reexperienced.
As he writhed against the restraints, Daniel tried to recall what it was like being an ice cube for a hundred years. He was desperately searching for happy thoughts.
When the needle had been augered in to sufficient depth, the pain was constant and unrelenting; his entire body vibrated from it. Yorte then fitted a plastic tube to the back end of the needle and used a squeeze bulb—like a turkey baster’s—to suck out the marrow. The cells were a brilliant red as he spritzed them from the baster into a stainless-steel basin. Then the good doctor went back for more.
In the midst of his delirium of pain, Daniel started to hallucinate. Suddenly it wasn’t Dolan Yorte working the rubber bulb, but the five-foot-two-inch publisher of SR, this while he puffed away on a foot-long cigar.
Behind the homunculus, in the hard glare of the surgical lights, Daniel saw the familiar outlines of his heroes. They, too, had gathered around his bed of pain. There was pushing and shoving between them, and the usual hurling of threats.
“Use your broadsword, Ragnar!” the author beseeched his character. “Cut off the motherfucker’s head!”
The red-pigtailed Norseman made no move to draw his weapon.
“Liv Nacim, your rapier! Skewer his guts!”
The patriarch of the celery people wouldn’t be interrupted. He was caught up delivering an overlong insult to Ragnar.
Daniel didn’t even bother with the Princess. She was applying fresh dabs of rose-pink to the centers of her buckskin-hued cheeks.
“You ungrateful bastards!” Daniel cried. “I breathed life into you! And this is what I get in return?”
The heroes of SR blinked at him for a moment, then returned to whatever it was they were doing.
As the needle was slowly rotated out of his hip with the wrench, Daniel nearly passed out.
In the middle of the exit procedure, Dr. Yorte paused to address Montejo and the brujas. He tapped the stainless-steel basin with the jaws of the crescent and said, “Not so much yield from his pelvis. Maybe we have finally drained him dry? Maybe we should suck the cells from his spine. Oh, no, wait a minute. I forgot, he doesn’t have one. Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
Then it was time for the other hip to give up its treasure.
The big-bore needle pierced flesh and penetrated a quarter-inch into the bone. The crescent wrench clanked hard against the bolt head, sending undulations of agony down Daniel’s leg. Then the needle corkscrewed into him again, ’round and ’round, with Yorte leaning on the wrench and grunting from the effort.
Oh mommy.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Doc Tanner was awakened from a dreamless sleep by a hard shaking and a familiar voice urging, “Get up, damn it.”
When he opened his eyes he saw that Mildred had already roused everyone else in the cell. Doc swung his long legs over the edge of the steel platform that served as a bed. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s so important?”
“They’re going to infect us with Daniel’s disease,” Mildred told him. “I figured it out.”
“You mean, we’re going to start writing bad science fiction?” Doc said. “And then have the audacity to defend it?”
“No, you idiot,” Mildred snapped. “They’re going to give us what killed the people of Padre. They’re going to try to make us into carriers, like Desipio.”
“Nukin’ hell they are,” J.B. said.
“If we cannot stop them from doing that,” Doc said, “I for one do not intend to live a second so sullied. I will find a
way to end the wretchedness forthwith. Even if I have to dash my own brains out against the nearest wall.”
“Our only chance is when the guards come to take us away,” Krysty said. “We’ve got to jump them when they open the cell.”
“This is hold-back-nothing time,” J.B. said. “If we can get out of here, mebbe we can snatch some blasters, turn this dump upside down.”
The plan was just simple enough to work, Doc thought as he listened for the sound of the guards’ footsteps on the concrete. They would rush the open door all at once, using the mass of their bodies to overwhelm and pull down the closest Matachìn, then to block the closing of the cell. With the door wedged open, they would take out the other guards with a human wave before they could cry for help or respond with deadly force. Once they were out of commission, keys for the cuffs and weapons could be confiscated.
A good plan, but it didn’t take into account one thing.
The firehose.
When the cell door opened, the companions rushed it in unison. Doc managed to get hold of the guard’s arm, and that fraction of a second delay allowed the others to pile on. From out of nowhere, a stream of high-pressure water slammed them through the bars. It was like being kicked in the chest by a mule. The force of the impact lifted Doc off his feet and slammed him against the back of the cell.
“By the Three Kennedys!” he growled, lowering his head and throwing himself toward the exit, only to be driven back again.
It wasn’t just the power of the water that kept him from reaching the open door, it was also the effect it had on the concrete floor—turning it as slippery as ice.
Doc couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get up. And neither could anyone else. The hose pressure knocked them down and held them down.
Over the roaring hiss, Doc could hear the Matachìn laughing.
The guards hosed them down until they stopped struggling, until they had exhausted trying to fight the force of the water.
Then the companions were dragged out one by one, like drowned rats.
They had tried, but in the end all it had added up to was a soapless shower, fully clothed.
When his turn came, Doc was dragged out of the cell block, down the sally port, and through the front door of the Razor House. Inside, he was plopped down in a wheelchair and rolled into an examination room. Where the others had been taken, he had no clue; there was no sign of them, but there were other closed doors along the corridor.
The sights and odors of the medical unit made him flashback to his first time trawl and his first interaction with whitecoats.
Helpless in the hands of idiots.
Perverse idiots, at that.
A case in point was Dr. Dolan Yorte, who breezed into the room, brushed back his overlong hair with a precise two-handed sweep, snapped some orders to the little female whitecoat in attendance, brushed back his hair a second time, then breezed out, slamming the door after him. In those brief moments Theophilus Tanner took what he believed was the full measure of the man. Yorte’s insecurities, both professional and personal, were vast, perhaps bottomless. And they were coupled with and confounded by a manic energy, an excess of narcissism and uncrackable pigheadedness.
The whitecoat poster boy.
“Let me help you out of those wet clothes,” the little whitecoat said, speaking slowly so he could understand her Spanish.
“I think not, madam,” he said resolutely.
“There are things I must do before we can proceed,” she went on. “I must conduct a thorough physical examination to identify any health problems that need to be treated. I must draw some of your blood for testing.”
“What is the ultimate goal of this exercise?”
“You are to be given the mujera’s sickness, of course. In the hope that you will survive the disease as a carrier and thereby replace the enanos who were lost in the campaign in Tierra de la Muerte.”
“Mujera? I don’t know that word.”
“La mujera. The man who whines and fusses like a little woman.”
“Oh, you mean the Fire Talker, Daniel.”
“The sickness is very, very bad.” The whitecoat made a serious face, complete with brow furrows and pouted lips.
“I know, I have seen it.”
“Doctors Yorte and Montejo will make sure you catch it. And when you do there will be fever, vomiting, diarrhea, delirium. And the red boils all over the skin. You will be sick for a very long time. If you live through it, you will serve the Lords of Death, like Daniel.”
“If not, I will be dog food.”
The bruja nodded, her eyes glittering merrily.
“Why do you not take off my shackles?” Doc suggested.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I like you very much.”
Her eyes grew wide in surprise, but she smiled.
“You and I could go off into the jungle and be very happy together,” Doc continued. “We could make large numbers of little Docs and brujas. We could raise spotted pigs. And eat papaya and guanabana every day. This place is a hellhole. You deserve so much better.”
“No, can’t you see I am a serious professional. I have a career to think of.”
“Where exactly did you get your training?”
“Los CDs.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Oh, wait, it’s too hard to explain. I’ll show you.”
The little woman disappeared, then came back with a handful of flat, black plastic cases. “Los CDs,” she repeated.
The covers had no pictures or photos to identify their contents, just slips of paper on which were printed multisyllabic words in Spanish. The titles were uniformly uninspired: Implantation surgery, Facial Reconstruction Techniques, Viral Load Management, Cryogenic Reanimation, Recovery, Relapse and Morbidity. The discs looked homemade, or at least home copied, and they appeared to cover the specific tasks required of Xibalban whitecoats. Which was very convenient. Perhaps the last real whitecoat standing had made them? Or perhaps they were the products of the Lords of Death?
“I do not know what these are,” he told her as he handed them back.
“If you live through the sickness, we will watch them together, perhaps. You will need to wear protection, though.”
“Do you mean a condom?”
The bruja giggled, then play-slapped him on the shoulder. “You don’t understand. After the procedure you will be an enano. You won’t be allowed out without a net suit. Otherwise you might kill everyone. One little mosquito, you know…unless you are the Lords of Death.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mosquitoes don’t ever bite them. Don’t like their smell, some people say.”
“I like your smell.”
The bruja giggled some more.
Doc thought he was making some headway. Sex was not the primary thing on his mind; it was a means to an end. The end being getting free of his shackles, and then freeing his companions from theirs.
“If you and I do not consummate our relationship posthaste, we never will,” Doc said, pressing on with all the ardent enthusiasm he could muster. “Once I am infected with the disease, romantic love will be impossible for me. This is our only chance, my dear. Come on, you have me at a disadvantage. I cannot move my arms or legs. You could have your way with me and I could not stop you.”
“Is tempting.”
“It has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed the company of a beautiful and willing woman, and if what you say is true, I will not be able to do so ever again without killing her. How can you deny me a last taste of passion?” He glanced down at his crotch. “I am not a small man.”
His nurse was looking at his crotch, too.
“Is very tempting. Tee-hee.”
“Well?”
The bruja bit her lower lip as she carefully mulled over the offer. Doc imagined that he could hear the gears of her mind ticking over. They ticked very, very slowly.
Finally she shook her head and said, “No, I’m sorry, I
can’t do it. You are an attractive man, and you are very charming, but there is too much for me to lose. If the Lords of Death found out, they would throw me to the dogs.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Hatteras was a big target. Not only was it white, or once white, and two-stories high, it threw a big bow wave. Even though they were running with the sun at their backs, Ryan knew they could be seen from a long way off.
“Someone could be waiting for us on the beach,” he said to Chucho as the dark island grew ever larger. The Hero Twin passed on his concern in Spanish to the Matachìn commander who had been tied to the stern for the entire nine-hour trip.
“No one will be watching in the heat of the day,” Casacampo assured him. “Besides, boats come and go from the island all the time, bringing in supplies. No one pays much attention.”
Ryan listened to the translation. Low Pile might have been trying to pull something on them, but he doubted it. Not with Chucho so close.
“Just in case,” Ryan said, “mebbe we’d better break out the RPDs to handle any beach crowd.”
The Matachìn commander rattled off more Spanish.
“He says there’s more than one landing place,” Chucho told Ryan. “On the north side of the island there’s a rocky point with caves at the foot of the cliffs. He says we can follow them up into the rain forest. Keep out of sight the whole time.”
“What about the ship?” Ryan said.
After a brief exchange with Low Pile, Chucho added, “He says there’s a cove, a natural harbor with a lava breakwater. He says the Hatteras should make it over the bar. It’s been in there before. Inside the protected cove, it’s plenty deep.”