Last Days

by Brian Evenson;Peter Straub

  Kline didn't say anything. His eye felt like it was being stabbed, but softer now, with a butter knife. Either the pain was lessening or he was getting used to it. Maybe both. He squeezed the eye shut and waited for the pain to pass.

  "How did you lose the arm?" asked Frank.

  "Who shot you in the head?" Frank asked.

  "Why are the mutilates looking for you?" asked Frank.

  "Don't want to answer now?" said Frank. "Fine. I'm off to have dinner and see the girlfriend. I'll be back early tomorrow. You'll answer when I come back, I guarantee."

  The pain was suddenly gone. He opened the eye. Davis, he saw, was awake now, alert.

  "You a cult member?" Frank asked on his way out the door. "A mutilate?"

  "No," Kline said.

  "There's at least that," said Frank, and went out.

  Davis sat in the chair, slightly slumped, arms crossed, feet out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, staring at Kline.

  "How long you been on the force?" Kline finally asked.

  "None of your goddamn business," said Davis.

  "What's the matter?" asked Kline, surprised. "I'm just making conversation."

  "You think you have Frank fooled," said Davis. "But you're not pulling the wool over my eyes. And you're wrong about Frank, too."

  "What wool?" asked Kline. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

  "That's it," said Davis. "I've had enough of you."

  Kline watched him pick up the chair and carry it out into the hall. He put it to one side of the doorframe and sat down. All Kline could see of him was, cutting into the doorway slightly, a sliver of his shoulder and his arm.

  III.

  He was walking toward a guard with a gun in the place of a hand. The guard lifted his arm and tensed his forearm slightly and the gun rattled oddly and then fired. He felt his head jerked around and found himself lying on the ground, dirt and blood filling his mouth. There was a strangeness to everything, as if the separation between things and himself was much less distinct than he had previously supposed, as if he was blurring into the world around him. He had, he realized, a gun in his own hand, but not in place of a hand. He was lying on it, it was somewhere beneath his ribs. Could he move? No. If he aimed at the guard through his own chest and squeezed the trigger would he be able to kill the guard before the guard shot him again?

  The guard was coming toward him, footsteps heavy and slow. There was something odd about his footsteps, a kind of chiming to them, metal on metal. And they seemed to last longer than footsteps should. He made a tremendous effort to roll over enough to get the gun out from under him, and felt as if a knife was being stabbed into his eye. But it was enough: the gun was out and in front of him and he was squeezing the trigger.

  "What's that?" a nurse was saying to him, a new nurse, nobody he remembered seeing before. Her features were softened by the darkness. "It looks like a dentist's mirror."

  He just watched her, still brandishing the dentist's mirror. Next to her, on the bedside table, the telephone was ringing.

  "If you're here to see the dentist you're in the wrong place," she said, uncradling the telephone. "Hello?" she said.

  The knife slid slowly out of his eye and back into God's sheath. He slipped the dentist's mirror beneath the blanket.

  "He's right here," she said. "May I ask who's calling?"

  He watched her nod, then hold the receiver away from her mouth, muffling it with her palm.

  "Your wife," she said.

  "I don't have a wife," he said.

  "You don't?" she said, and looked thoughtful. "To be honest, from the voice I was surprised it was even a woman."

  "Give me the phone," he said. "I think I know who it is."

  It was awkward settling the receiver against the wrong side of his face with the wrong hand. But why? he wondered. I've been missing the other hand long enough that I should be used to this. But losing the rest of his arm seemed to have changed something inside his head, to have transformed him somehow.

  "Hello," he said.

  "Mr. Kline?" a voice said. It was flat, grainy, with something seriously wrong with it. But vaguely familiar as well.

  "Speaking," he said. "Who is this?"

  "You know who this is. You've caused a lot of trouble," the voice said.

  "I didn't ask for any of it. And I don't know who this is."

  "Who asks for anything? That's not how life works."

  "Who is it?" the nurse beside him was asking. "Is it a prank call?"

  "Mr. Kline," said the voice.

  "What?" said Kline.

  "What's going on?" he heard Davis say, waking up. Some guard, Kline thought. Davis was standing now, a dark shape framed in the light of the open doorway. Then he turned the light on and stood there blinking, his face puffy.

  "Nothing," said Kline to him.

  "Mr. Kline," said the voice, "we're coming for you." And then the line went dead.

  He told the nurse the call had been a prank, nothing to worry about, just a friend trying to be funny. "Some friend," she suggested. She and Davis wandered unruddered around his room for a while, Davis threatening to call Frank if Kline didn't tell him what the caller had said. The nurse, despite Kline's protests, administered an injection and then left. Davis stayed near the bed watching him suspiciously for a little while, then went back to his seat just outside the door.

  Kline lay there wondering how they would kill him. He could feel whatever it was the nurse had given him now starting to work, insects beginning to rustle just beneath his skin. Surely not here, surely not the hospital, he thought. Even if they did come, there was Davis there, at the door; he'd hear something.

  If he was awake.

  I should stay awake, he thought, I have to, he thought, even as he felt the dark congeal around him, his face growing numb as glass.

  IV.

  Later, he came blurrily conscious to a sound he couldn't place, not sure if he had actually heard it or had merely dreamt it. A low burbling. The lights in the room were out now except for a dim glow near the bathroom and a rectangle of light from the hall. What was it he'd heard? The sound wasn't exactly recognizable or familiar; probably the sound, whatever it was, had awoken him.

  Something had changed. The hallway struck him as wrong. He stared at the box of light that was the doorway. It was just a doorway, but it still looked wrong. What am I not seeing? he wondered. He kept staring, but there was nothing extraordinary about it: it was just a simple doorway.

  And then he realized that, yes, that was exactly what was extraordinary about it: where were Davis' shoulder and arm?

  Nothing to worry about, he told himself. He's just gotten up to use the bathroom. He's moved his chair slightly. That's all.

  But there was still the question of the sound. What had he heard?

  He was still mulling it over when a nurse came through the doorway, tugging her scrubs straight. It was not the same nurse as earlier. Perhaps this was the night nurse. But hadn't the last nurse been the night nurse?

  Through his lidded eyes, he watched her come. Her shoes were tracking in something, he realized, and then realized with a shock that it was blood.

  He watched her come, still pretending to be asleep. He gripped the dentist's mirror tightly, thumbing the stylus' end. It wasn't sharp, though it tapered a little at the tip.

  When she was closer, it became obvious one hand was prosthetic. The way she was walking made him think something was wrong with her leg as well: either a serious injury or that leg was artificial as well.

  Once she reached his bed, she just stood looking down at him. He watched her take from the pocket of her smock a hypodermic needle encased in a gray plastic sheath. Awkwardly she clicked it onto a syringe. She gave a little twist and the plastic sheath came free to reveal a needle. From the other pocket, she removed a squat plastic vial. Resting it on the bedside table she stuck the needle's end through the lid and drew a liquid, bubbling, up into the syringe.

 
; Inverting the syringe, she tapped the air out.

  Now, he thought, tensing slightly, she will bring the needle close so as to inject it into my arm. When she does, I'll plunge the mirror's stylus into her eye and will kill her dead.

  Only it didn't work quite the way he imagined. Instead of coming close and injecting it into his arm, she simply injected it into his IV bag.

  She stood above him, watching, still a little too distant. In the dark, he could see a faint gleam from some part of her face, either her teeth or her eyes.

  Slowly, trying to keep the sheets from moving, he turned his hand palm down. He could feel the catheter tug between the bones on the back of his hand, but, taped down, it didn't come free. He flexed his hand first back then forward, trying to catch the thin tubing between his fingers. His mouth was going dry. The tubing was taped too far back on the wrist. There was nothing loose to grab hold of, nothing easy to reach one-handed. He could get to it, but not without her knowing he was awake.

  He moved the dentist's mirror out of his fist and held it like a pen, the mirror near his fingertips, the stylus and its tapered tip extending back over the web of his thumb. He bent his wrist back but couldn't catch the IV tubing on the stylus.

  Rolling the mirror over between his index and middle finger he tried again, straightening his fingers until the tapered tip touched the back of his wrist. Pushing the mirror down against the mattress, he slid his hand forward. The end of the stylus touched the strip of tape and slipped back over it.

  He tried again, slower this time. His tongue had started to feel thick and stiff in his mouth, like the handle of a whip. The stylus touched the tape and caught against its edge a moment and then slipped over.

  The third time he got the tip firmly under the tape. He worked it minutely back and forth until he was sure the tape was loose enough and then, using his knuckles as a fulcrum, pulled the tape slowly loose.

  It made a slight sound coming off the skin, but the woman didn't notice. The tape came up with the stylus and with it came the catheter, stinging as it pulled out of his vein. He groped for the tubing and held it between his fingers a moment, its wick wet, and then pinched it closed.

  She stood beside him, her gaze moving from the IV bag down to him and back again. After a while, she looked at her watch. His mouth was starting to feel like his mouth again, or like somebody's mouth anyway, tingling slightly.

  After a while, she picked up the telephone and dialed. He heard her curse and reset the line, then dial again.

  He could hear the sound of the ringing between her ear and the telephone. Then he heard a click, a low mumble on the other end of the wire.

  "It's me," she said. "Yes," she said, and then waited. "Somebody was outside," she said, and then said, "dead."

  "No," she said, "the man outside the door. Two nurses as well.

  "No way around it," she said.

  "Well, it's done now, no changing it. I had to decide for myself."

  He watched her cup the receiver against her shoulder and reach out. He felt her fingers against his hairline, her thumb just below his eyelid, tugging the lid up. He rolled his eye back into his head, then let it float.

  "Looks like it," she said. "Hard to be sure in the dark."

  "Of course I'll be sure," she said, and let go of his eyelid.

  He let his eye slip down until he could see out again through his eyelids. She had turned away now, was facing the IV bag.

  "Where?" she was saying. "Just wheel him out like a corpse, then?"

  "Yes," she said. "Just as you say."

  She reached up and prodded the IV bag with a finger, then pulled the finger back slightly. He watched her stand there, finger outstretched, and waited for her hand to fall. Instead, she prodded the bag again, slower this time.

  "Just a minute," she said.

  He heard a low rustling on the other end of the line.

  "The IV bag," she said. "It's fuller than it should be."

  He thought briefly about releasing the cut end of the tubing, letting it drip into the bed. Instead, he groped for the dentist's mirror.

  "Probably just a kink in the line," she said. "Hold on."

  She turned back toward him, resting the telephone receiver on the bedside table. He could still hear a voice coming out of it. Be careful, it was saying. In the half-light she followed the tubing down from the bag, running her fingers along it until she got to the edge of the bed. With one hand, she lowered the railing. She had already pulled the blanket aside, her head down and close to him, before he realized this was finally his chance and drove the end of the stylus as hard as he could up and into her face, the pain in his eye rising immediately to such a pitch that he passed out.

  He came conscious to find himself struggling for breath. The woman had fallen onto him, was lying with her shoulder pressed against his mouth. The tubing had come out of his hand and started dripping: the bed was wet on one side. It was wet around his face too, on the pillow, but warmer, and when he turned his head to try to breathe he could see the fluid was dark and from the smell guessed it must be blood.

  His shoulder was beginning to throb. He wriggled a little and her shoulder slid off his face, and her neck and ear slid down to replace it. He wriggled again, and pushed with his remaining arm. The head slowly tilted, the ear rolling down his cheekbone and the skull pushing against his face through hair that swept it wetly along and past his lips. The head yawed up and in the darkness he caught the brief glint of the mirror's stylus and then the mirror itself, anchored somewhere in her face, then the rest of the body slipped off the bed and collapsed onto the floor.

  He lay there, panting. Hair was caught in his lips and he tried blowing it out and then brushing it away with his hand. He lay still, catching his breath, the pillow's dampness growing tacky, sticky.

  Relax, he told himself. Stay calm.

  But lying there in the dark he kept thinking he could hear her somewhere below him, feebly moving. There was a sound like whispering or something rustling over paper. In the dark below, he couldn't help but imagine her fingers moving, her body slowly gathering itself.

  Soon he came to feel it was worse lying there imagining her coming back to life than whatever getting out of bed would do to his eye. Slowly, he swung his legs off the bed and raised his body, his head throbbing. At first, he didn't realize he was standing on her body and then he almost fell trying to figure out how to step off her without slipping or falling. But then almost without knowing it he was out of bed, still conscious, steadying himself against the mattress with one hand.

  Still hearing the scuttling, he straightened enough to grope for a light switch, almost falling in reaching for it.

  The lights flickered a moment before coming on, sickly white. It hurt his head to look down. When he did, she was there, contorted and face down, head suspended a few inches off the floor by the dentist's mirror, face hidden by the back of her head, a swath of blood along the bed and floor to mark how she had slid. She wasn't moving at all.

  It took him a moment of standing and staring to realize that the scuttling was not coming from her but from the table, from the uncradled telephone receiver. He reached out and picked it up, held it against his face.

  The scuttling became a whisper, then a voice talking into his ear. Mlinko, it was saying. Tell us what happened, Mlinko. Mlinko, please pick up the telephone.

  He listened for a while, finally said, "This isn't Mlinko."

  The whispering stopped. For a moment, he thought the line had gone dead.

  When the voice came back, it was no longer a whisper, but still flat, uninflected.

  "Mr. Kline," the voice said.

  "Yes," said Kline.

  "Would you mind putting Mlinko on?"

  "Mlinko seems to be dead," said Kline.

  "Appears or is?"

  "Both," said Kline.

  "You've caused a lot of trouble," the voice said.

  "I didn't ask for any of it," he could not stop himself from saying.<
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  "Yes," said the voice. "In that case, you must remember how the rest of the conversation goes. We're still coming for you."

  V.

  Later, once he made it to the loading dock, he wasn't quite sure how he had managed. Only the first part was clear. He had dropped the receiver and then tried to bend down to search Mlinko's pockets, but before he was even bending his knees, he realized that there'd be no getting up again.

  He looked for something on the bedside table to use as a weapon, but there was nothing. He pushed off the bed and made slowly for the door. The pain in his eye was still there, more a constant pressure than a lacerating pain as long as he made no quick movements with his shoulder.

  He shuffled toward the doorway, feeling as if he were moving underwater. Once there, he balanced against the posts and then moved through the slick of blood. Davis was lying to one side, face up, throat slit, neck cricked back. Two of his fingers had been severed and removed. The blood felt warm through Kline's socks.

  He slipped and almost went down, then nearly blacked out and started to go down again. He came to himself clinging to the desk of the nurses' station, on the other side of which were a pair of nurses, both with their throats cut, hands hidden so he couldn't tell if any of their fingers had been freshly amputated. One was the nurse who had answered the telephone earlier. The other he didn't recognize.

  He pushed off and started down the hall, his breath coming out in throbs, his shoulder pulsing. The knife was back in his eye, sharp and long. Things began to come in bursts. Suddenly, he was farther down the hall than he thought and he could see a door at the hall's terminus, and without opening it he was on the other side. A scattering of faces reared up around him, frozen and static, like cutouts, stricken with odd expressions, falling quickly away. Another stretch of hall, a slowly descending ramp, then a tight staircase that he tumbled down as much as walked down. Somehow he was still standing when he reached the bottom. Another stretch of hall, this one dimly lit, a series of broken beds lined along one wall, followed by a series of sealed blue plastic bins. Then a double set of swinging doors. By the time things started happening in sequence again, he was slumped over a railing, staring down at the sewer grate below, on some sort of loading dock. Now what? he wondered. The dock was empty, no vehicles to be seen. If he followed the railing in one direction, there was a set of stairs he could go down. He could take them down and then climb the incline of the drive out of the hospital. It wasn't too steep, but he still wasn't sure he could make it. In the other direction, the railing ended just before a large green dumpster. There might be a gap between the dumpster and the far wall. Perhaps he could squeeze in.