Amnesia

by Rick Simnitt

  He slowly rotated the glass in his fingers, holding it up to the light to gaze at the brown swirling liquid. He had once traveled to France, had visited the vineyards where the beverage was distilled, and had tasted the grapes straight from the vines. They were as delicious then as the brandy is now. He took a sip, feeling the warmth pour down his throat, spreading through the rest of his body. He smiled at the sensation, a feeling of artificial comfort enveloping him. He could do anything, have anything, he desired, and nothing could stop him. Nothing would stand in his way!

  Suddenly one of the whispers stood out from the rest, like a fish jumping out from a whirlpool. He reached out and grabbed it, inspecting it from different angles. Then another jumped out joining the first. He compared the two trying to find how they fit together; piecing them together like a child connects his Lego’s. Then a third joined the pair, and a pattern began to emerge. Piece by piece, the items pulling together faster and faster, patterns and colors merging together like a tapestry, culminating into a brilliant picture.

  He stood back, in his mind’s eye, viewing the completed masterpiece. Just as a painter would stand back from their easel, looking at it from every angle to ensure he had missed nothing. Detail after painstaking detail he combed the conception, finding no errors, just as he knew he wouldn’t.

  Finally he looked at the picture as a whole, so perfectly fitted together, so masterfully conceived. He marveled at the utter simplicity of it all, much simpler than his original plans, and so much clearer. His voices had not failed him, just as they never had before, and had provided him the perfect solution.

  He laughed aloud, euphoric with the knowledge that he would succeed again. He had breathed life into his destroyed plans, his design rising as a phoenix from the ashes Scardoni had left him. His laughed louder as he thought of what he would do to that man, throwing his head back and filling the hall with echoing peals. Once again he had things under his control, even holding lives in his hands, determining like a god who lived and who died. He was like a god in so many ways. Soon people would bow before him and worship him—just as they should.

  He laughed louder. Soon, very soon now.

  CHAPTER 9

  “This can’t happen to me! I’m Rudy Scardoni! I’m in control here, not you!” The desperate man banged the back of his head on the driver’s head rest in the stolen Oldsmobile. He clenched the Glock handle so tightly his knuckles turned white. He didn’t notice as hatred and rage colored everything around him.

  The heat in the car should have been unbearable. Another triple digit day. Yet he didn’t notice. His emotions overpowered all other senses. He had spent most of the day in the blistering heat, trying to find the Windham girl and her wimpy boyfriend. But nothing was working out the way he planned. He didn’t know who was a step ahead of him messing up his plans, but he vowed he would get even.

  At first he had been lucky, finding the boyfriend at St. Luke’s. Not quite dead, but almost, because of the beating Scardoni had delivered. He had almost laughed out loud when the cute CNA had told him about the mysterious patient who had arrived late last night. She remembered him because she had tried to get close to the hunky friend that brought him in. He had thoughtlessly snubbed her, only to be later seen with some tired looking doctor.

  He then headed up to the room to exact his revenge, only to be nearly caught by the police captain and the Windham girl’s parents. He had waited in the car for nearly two hours before they left. When he went back in to see him the boy had been secretly moved to some unknown location. He had slipped right through his fingers.

  Frustration fuelled his anger. He went from floor to floor dressed in surgical attire he had stolen to hide his scar. Maybe they were just hiding him. Maybe the girl too, for that matter. He hadn’t found them, but did notice a room being guarded by another cop; the same room that Lenny had been in. He decided they must be in there.

  Carefully concocting a ruse to get into the room, Rudy found the floor nurse, some baggy old lady called Dolores, pistol whipped her with the Glock, and took her place. He impatiently explained to the guard that Dolores had been called down to cover in emergency and that he had been asked to cover for her. Unfortunately the guard wasn’t buying it.

  Scardoni was not about to let some insipid cop get in his way. He pulled out the gun, still slick with Dolores blood, and aimed it squarely at the cop’s heart. The man wouldn’t budge. Instead he pulled his own gun. The two stood face to face, pistol to pistol, Glock to Glock, each yelling at the other to move. Desperately Scardoni looked around trying to find some leverage to get around the stubborn sentry. He averted his eyes, only for a moment, but long enough to give the cop an opening.

  Officer Putnam’s whole job at that time was to ensure only a limited number of people, those specifically listed by his captain, gained access to the hospital room. He was completely unfazed by the gunman before him. He had grown up in East L.A. and was used to punks like this. He was patient, knowing from experience that the man would drop his guard, and was bolstered by his trust in the mandatory body armor he wore. It was only a matter of time before the man looked away and Putnam sprang like a cat pouncing upon its prey.

  Putnam hit Scardoni hard, the unexpected blow knocking the gun from his hand, sending it spinning across the floor. The two went down, crashing onto the floor with wrenching impact. Scardoni, already hurt, howled with pain. His battered body screamed at the damage already inflicted. Yet the pain only spurred him on.

  The two grappled, each scrambling for a debilitating hold on the other. They were nearly equally matched given the extra strength Scardoni’s rage lent him. They rolled back and forth, delivering short ineffectual jabs at each other, trying desperately for some advantage.

  Scardoni was starting to tire. Days with no sleep, the lingering effects of alcohol, and wounds delivered by the two prisoners were taking its toll. Still he would not allow his body to lose. Painful blows were better than mental defeat. He became frantic in his fighting. He managed to free an arm long enough to crack the policeman’s head on the floor.

  Stunned, the officer loosened his grip giving the other the chance to deliver the deciding blow—another sharp crack of his head on the floor. Putnam’s eyes rolled back into his head as unconsciousness enveloped him, freeing Scardoni to do his will.

  The victor stood, staggered over to his discarded gun, and then returned, angrily delivering some rib cracking kicks to the officer’s side. Dimly he recognized some alarms going off, but none of it registered in his clouded head. All he wanted was to get into that room and dispose of the two brats he had kidnapped.

  He opened the door, cocked the gun, and went up to the side of the bed. He vaguely registered that there was only one person in the room, but didn’t care. At least he could rid himself of one of the thorns that irritated his side. He shuffled up to the patient, put the gun to the side of the head, and slowly applied pressure to the trigger.

  Something was wrong. What was it? He let off the trigger slightly and stared at the face. It wasn’t the boy at all. It was a face he knew, with a long scar just like his.

  He looked closer. He knew this face. Something about the scar…. There was a scar running down the left side of the face just like….

  Fear clutched at his heart. He knew that scar. He had stared at that scar in the mirror for more than thirty years. The scar was from a knife fight, delivered to an angry kid with a lot of guts but no brains. He felt the burning pain anew, as if the knife were again slicing open his jaw. His tormented mind stood staring into his own face!

  He took a deep breath, telling himself that it couldn’t be his face. It just wasn’t possible. He just had to get a grip on what was happening. He put the gun back to the forehead lying in front of him. Again he applied that three pounds of pressure needed to fire the weapon, ignoring the fear that tore at him. He would be free of all of this. He would be in control!

  Suddenly the eyes flicked open. They stared in astonishment back i
nto his. Two mirrors reflecting his own fear. Terror flooded Scardoni’s body. His finger stopped paralyzed a hair’s breadth from its goal, saving the man’s life, his life, from the ravaging bullet. He thought he would pass out.

  This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be him! But it must be! The eyes, the scar, everything was a mirror to his own face. A face he had only seen in pictures and mirrors before, now staring up at him from a hospital bed. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He just stood there. Then he heard himself speak.

  “Rudy” was the only word that escaped the lips before him, but it was enough. The spell was broken, and Scardoni knew he had seen his own future; a man dying with a gun pressed to his head. He had seen his own death, and he had been the cause of it.

  He suddenly thought of his father. Hatred for his father was how his life of cruelty had begun. An incessant need to destroy the being that had created yet shunned him. The desire to avenge his mother’s agonized life and his own hated one the catalyst that spurred Scardoni into the life he had chosen. He had finally caught up with the despised vermin after years of hunting. He left him to live or die as fate would have it, uncaring as to which.

  When he had finally found him, he saw a decrepit old man dying from lung cancer, the result of too many cigarettes and not enough willpower, whose body was ravaged by disease. The old man had welcomed a short death by bullet rather than the intense suffering from the lingering death from the disease. Scardoni had pulled the trigger easily enough, ending the miserable existence, but instead of finding relief, he felt only emptiness; a void he had tried to fill with alcohol, drugs, illicit sex and violence ever since. He never did realize that far from filling the void, he was simply enlarging it, until he was completely empty, a shell holding nothing but pain, longing, and regret.

  It was that shell that he faced now, and from which he found himself running. He turned and ran through the door, toward the stairs, out to his car. He stopped only when he was inside the vehicle gasping for air to fill his burning lungs. Only then did he realize that he still held the gun and that it was still cocked.

  He stared down at the pistol. He realized anew that he had just been shown his future, a terrifying shadow that had haunted him his entire life. He slowly pulled the gun up toward his head, turning the barrel until the long hole stared into his eyes. He placed the tip up to his forehead until it was directed exactly as it was with the other Rudy lying in the bed.

  If his aim was right the bullet should pass through unhindered, destroying all in its path, taking his life with it. It would also erase the memories forever; not only of the haunting face he couldn’t dispel, but also those flashbacks of his mother that tormented him. It would all be over in a moment, too quickly to time on an ordinary watch.

  Slowly he applied the pressure to the trigger. It provoked in him an instant replay of the scene he had just witnessed in the hospital room above. Again the terror that he had experienced then flooded through him. He again felt himself paralyzed with fear. Again he heard himself whisper the word “Rudy.”

  He sat there for a few moments, pistol against his temple, finger on the trigger, panic in his heart, until finally his arm inexplicably dropped. He couldn’t do it. The fear was too much to bear. He had nearly shot himself twice now in a matter of mere minutes. His mind could take no more. He sat alone in a stiflingly hot car, oblivious to anything but the fear. He wept.

  Hours later he awoke, still sitting in his car, sweat streaming down his face, his right hand still clutching the gun. He felt more himself now yet knew he was different in a way that he would never be able to undo. He also realized that he was hungry and very thirsty. Above all else his first priority, his only priority, was to satisfy his physical needs.

  He drove down the street and ate at Chili’s, barely tasting the baby back ribs, trying to decide what to do. He sat there staring at the people coming into the restaurant, not seeing them, only registering that he was not alone. Finally he decided that all he really needed was to regain the control that he had lost. He didn’t know where the kids were, but he knew that somehow he would find them. He also knew he needed to rid himself of Brandon and Marcuse. He didn’t know where Marcuse was either, but he could find Brandon. He knew exactly where she lived.

  He drove down to the River Apartments, swung into the tree-lined drive and into the parking lot. He backed his car into a stall hidden by two SUV’s, ready to flee at the first hint of trouble. He left just enough room to watch for Brandon.

  He noticed that the Lumina wasn’t in her stall. That same stall he had visited just a couple of days earlier to destroy her car—a message from a “dear friend.” He wished then that he hadn’t stopped with the car and had taken care of her at the time too. It didn’t really matter though, he would make up for that now. He would fill his need with her in more ways than one this time, he thought nastily. He didn’t notice his saliva drooling onto his shirt as he imagined the torture he would inflict.

  Finally there was movement at her apartment. A door opened and a man came down the stairs taking the trash out to the dumpster. The same dumpster he had rummaged through on his first visit to this apartment. He looked intently at the man, trying to size him up, to see what threat he might pose.

  The first thing that he noticed about the man was that he was dressed like a surgeon, wearing the same blue scrubs that he had stolen earlier that day. Then he registered a slight recognition to the man, like he knew him from somewhere. He picked up the gun, checked that it was still ready to fire. He gripped it tightly, ready to use it on the figure growing closer.

  The man in the blue walked past his car to the dumpster, tossed in the bag, and headed back toward the stairs. He looked over toward the Olds Cutlass Supreme, saw the man staring back at him in fright, and gave a small wave and smile before proceeding back up the stairs and disappearing into the apartment.

  Scardoni just stared at the man, recognizing him at last as he passed, realizing that it was the ghost of the kid that he had hired Walters to throw out of the plane. It couldn’t be him—he was dead. Even if they hadn’t succeeded in throwing him out of the plane, the plane itself had crashed and everyone on board was dead. No one had survived—could have survived—that crash. No, it was the man’s ghost, come back to haunt Scardoni.

  He yelled again at whatever entity had ripped control from him, condemning them to that purgatory of which his mother had taught him. He screamed at the chiding voices that invaded his thoughts. He pounded his fists on the steering wheel of the car in frustration, but was too terrified to do anything more.

  Slowly his energy ebbed and his fit calmed. He noticed that the sun had set and still there was no sign of Brandon. It was time to go find Marcuse, even though he knew nothing of him but a single phone number.

  That was okay though. He knew that the voices would lead him.

  * * *

  The first thing she noticed was the soft sheets and comfortable bed. It wasn’t quite the same as she was familiar with, but it felt so good to just lay there and relax. She stretched her sore legs out, luxuriating in the warm cotton bedding, wondering if she could just stay here in this comfortable cocoon, free from the worry and pain of the past. The only thing that could be better would be to snuggle up with….

  “Peter!” Beverley sat up in the bed, reality snapping back with force as the girl thought of the man she had grown to love. Wildly she looked around the unfamiliar room, frightened beyond words, searching her mind frantically for some memory to tell her where she was and what had happened.

  She heard movement outside her door and scanned the nearly empty room for a weapon against whoever was coming to get her. The only other piece of furniture in the small bedroom was a chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. She noted there was a change of clothing sitting on the top of the chest, but nothing to use as against her captor. It was no use, there was nothing else but her hands to protect her from the unknown person outside the door, but she determi
ned it would be enough. She escaped once, she would do it again!

  She started to rise from the bed just as the door opened, but was stopped at the sight of the small, but by no means frail, woman in the opening. She was only a little over five feet tall, slim, and rather attractive. Beverley also noticed that her beautiful face had a wonderful, open smile and a radiant spirit, filling her with a sense of warmth and peace, diffusing the fear. She had no idea who the lady was, but her spirit instinctively knew that she could be trusted, and that she was safe.

  “Beverley, you’re awake!” the lady spoke.

  “Yes, but very confused,” Beverley responded, still wary despite her instincts. She had seen too much to trust too quickly.

  “I’m sure you are after what Shirley told me that happened. My name is Carrie, Carrie Price. I’m the sister of the girl, Shirley, that found you,” Carrie explained.

  “Peter. Where’s Peter? Is he…is he…,” Beverley couldn’t quite pronounce her fears.

  “He’s in the hospital,” Carrie assured with a big smile. “And before you ask, he’s safe. The police are watching him very closely. Now, if you are feeling up to it, why don’t you take a nice hot shower and put on those clothes there. I’m afraid we had to destroy what was left of the sweats you were wearing. Lissa was concerned that they might be infected with fleas or something worse.”

  “Lissa?”

  “Doctor Lissa Brandon. She is the doctor to whom they brought you and Peter when they found you. This is her apartment. And her clothes.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re going too fast for me. What happened?” Beverley pleaded.

  “Why don’t you take that shower, then we can get you something to eat and I can tell you everything that I know. The bathroom is the door just to the right.” Carrie left, closing the door behind her, allowing the privacy the younger girl needed.

  Deciding a hot shower sounded heavenly, Beverley rose from the comfortable bed, and noticed that her clothes were indeed missing. She went into the bathroom and started the shower then turned to look at herself in the mirror. What she saw frightened her.