15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  “Run faster!” the doctor snapped as he watched me on the treadmill.

  I was going as fast as I could, but it wasn’t good enough for the doctor. I was slapped on the back of the head by one of the guards. I nearly lost my footing and stumbled onto my front. That would have been a catastrophe, seeing that if I did slip I would have gone flying off the treadmill and would have crashed into the other machinery. I’m sure it would have broken either me or the machine. But they didn’t care. The only thing they wanted was results. I wasn’t of any interest to them. Not once did they ask if I was okay. They just wanted data. And by the look on the doctor’s face, he wasn’t getting much of it.

  “This is unacceptable. You aren’t running fast enough. I can’t get accurate readings if you don’t put the effort in!”

  I turned to the doctor, still running while holding onto the side bars of the treadmill, and said, “I’m doing my best.”

  I tried to sound as out of breath as I could. Truth was, I was fine. I could have run on that thing till sunrise the next day without breaking a sweat. The problem was, I just didn’t want to. I was fed up with complying. I was ready to test my mettle and attempt an escape. I was invincible, or so I thought. Apparently my only weaknesses were electricity and the occasional need to sleep. I wasn’t feeling tired, and I didn’t think there was a high chance of me being shocked again, so I decided that once I got off the treadmill, I’d make my move. Somehow, some way, I was going to escape. I didn’t want to listen to the doubts in my head. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but there was only one way to find out.

  “You need to put more effort into it!” the doctor snapped. I decided to pick up my pace to shut him up for a bit. “Yes, that’s good. Well done!” he said.

  As I ran, I decided to scout out my surroundings. The room we were in was full of heavy machinery. I knew I wasn’t going to have any use for it. None of the equipment would help in an attempted escape. It might be good for cover, but that’s about it. Somehow I doubted that they would shoot me. I didn’t think they knew I was immune to gunfire. The fat man in Tijuana knew, but he was dead. And so were all the secrets he held. So I had a clean slate. I could mess with their minds. I could try to find out what they knew.

  “Am I dead?” I asked out of the blue as I ran at a faster rate.

  The doctor was looking at the monitor readouts. He was lost in them and didn’t look at me when he spoke.

  “You aren’t dead. I don’t know exactly what you are, but you aren’t completely dead. For instance, your brainwaves show that you have an active, normal brain. Your blood flow and heart rate, on the other hand, are nonexistent. I’m just trying to figure out what’s keeping you alive. It certainly isn’t anything conventional. I might have to do a little digging.”

  I continued to pound away at the treadmill. I could feel a slight burning sensation rise up my legs. It was a new feeling to me. Sure, I’d felt that sensation before. Back when I was “normal,” that sensation would creep up on me in every race I ran. Now, however, it was a different feeling. It seemed a little worrisome. I wasn’t used to feeling sensations in my body anymore, not since the heart attack. But now I was feeling somewhat human again. But why?

  And then my worst nightmares were confirmed.

  “Holy shit!” the doctor said.

  A beeping sound went off. It started off flat and then kicked into a normal rhythm.

  Beeeeeeeep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “Your heart just kick-started back up again! That’s amazing,” the doc said as he shone a smile at me. He started writing something down. Suddenly the beep went flat again, and the sound stopped.

  I looked at the monitor in a panic.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked.

  The doctor shook his head and said, “You just died again. Welcome back to the dark side.”

  He kicked the monitor. It tumbled over and fizzled into thin smoke. The screen tore in the middle, revealing wiring and computer chips on the inside. He kicked the monitor again, shattering it into more pieces.

  “Stop running. It’s useless.”

  He hit a button on the treadmill. My feet came to a stop, and the burning sensation disappeared.

  “What are we going to do now? I mean, we need to find out why my heart started again and stopped.”

  I couldn’t believe I was actually condoning more tests. Truth was, I was interested. I was tired of not knowing and saw the tests as a way to get to know my new self a little bit better.

  “I’m going to cut you open and have a look at your insides,” the doctor said.

  I looked at him and shook my head. “No, you won’t!” I insisted.

  The doctor grabbed my arm and squeezed. “You’ll have no choice in the matter,” he said, releasing my arm. “But to be fair to you and your newfound curiosity, I’m willing to allow you to watch the procedure.”

  “I’m going to be awake through the whole thing?”

  He turned around and picked up one of the broken bits of plastic that had come off the monitor. “Sometimes it helps to see the end coming,” he said, flicking the plastic back on the ground and walking off into the dark.

  Sixty-Six

  They strapped me down on an operating table. It had a thin layered mattress on it. I could feel my back sink into it when I lay down. The wheels underneath the operating table squeaked a little. The doctor kicked them a few times, locking them in place.

  “A workman and his tools.” The doctor grinned.

  I lay there staring up at a crude hospital light that shone into my retinas. A few guards were helping with the procedure. They were hooking me up to more wires and clipping more pins into every free patch of skin I had. I wasn’t too bothered about being cut open. The time to complain had passed. I was ready to accept whatever they found. To be completely honest, I was hoping that they would accidentally kill me during the procedure. One could hope anyway, and I was hoping beyond anything. If it was possible, I would have had my fingers, toes, and nuts crossed that they killed me. I craved being dead. For some reason I wanted to know what it was truly like. I had been granted an exclusive membership in the real-life walking dead, and I’m afraid I wasn’t happy with the points on the card. I wanted to return it and get my money back. I just wanted to be normal again.

  “Will it hurt?” I asked.

  “Nope. If your blood in your body isn’t circulating around in your veins, than I would hazard a guess and say that your pain receptors aren’t functioning. That being said, it seems that the only part of your body that is actually working is your brain, so, taking that into account, I won’t know until I cut you open.”

  I nodded my head and watched them work. Surprisingly, they were doing a good job. I saw them sterilize the blades and the surfaces. They were trying to be as cautious as possible. I guess it wasn’t because they cared for me. I guess their main concern was keeping me alive so I came through as the medical miracle that they wanted. I guess they saw an opportunity in using my body for science. Maybe they wanted to cure death itself. I would be a perfect place to start with finding a cure for one of life’s only certainties.

  “We will numb your torso before we go in. I’m sure you won’t feel a thing. I would knock you out, but I don’t know how certain drugs will affect your body. I don’t want your brain to misfire and kill you permanently. If this is a medical miracle, I don’t want the Romans coming in and killing it.”

  I felt the doctor apply a swab to my torso. He started wiping a muddy brown liquid over my skin. It made me look like an over-tanned boardwalk dweller. I wasn’t crazy about the look.

  “Is that permanent?” I asked.

  “Death is, if you keep talking. Now shut up and let me get to work! As I said, this is a delicate procedure, and if I fuck it up, you won’t be walking out of here. That may be good for you, but for me, I’ll be hung out to dry. The government has shown a keen interest in this case. It could make you a very, very rich man. Not to mention famous. It’s not a
ll doom and gloom, Derrick. You didn’t actually think we’d keep you as a pet guinea pig, did you?”

  I didn’t answer. I just watched the light fixture above me.

  Sixty-Seven

  The lights came back. They were flashing violently. Pulsating. Crunching down on my retinas. Squeezing them. My head felt weary. My knees began to tremble.

  “Derrick, stay with me. Don’t you die on us now,” I heard a voice say. I recognized it, but it still seemed unfamiliar. It was crazy to hear something that sounded familiar, yet so alien at the same time. It was as if my mind was playing tricks on me. Teasing me like a school bully at recess. I was being heckled by my subconscious.

  “Derrick?” I heard another voice say. This one I recognized. It was the doctor. Suddenly, the lights were gone, and my vision returned to normal. My eyes were stinging, but they were working properly. No more lights. Just darkness and the little light coming from the lamp above me. I cocked my head slightly and saw the doctor staring a hole into me.

  “You were talking in your sleep. You actually fell asleep. You missed the whole thing. We opened you up, but unfortunately it didn’t help us in answering any of our questions. Your organs look normal. Your heart is oversized a tad, but that is normal after a heart attack. Your veins don’t have any narrowing, and your heart is in relatively good shape. Your lungs look fine. But your blood has clotted and is basically nearly gone. It fascinates me that you are alive yet present the classic circumstances of death within you. It is a miracle. I don’t know if we’ll be able to diagnose why you’re still alive when you are technically dead, but I believe in time we will know more.”

  I attempted to sit up, but the doctor gently restrained me.

  “Don’t overdo it. You’ll pop the staples in your sternum. You won’t die, that much we have figured out, but it will get messy when your stomach and intestines fall out.”

  I relaxed a little and closed my eyes. “So I’m stuck like this forever?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Your body is showing no signs of decomposition. It looks as if you’re set on becoming the first ever immortal human being. Congratulations.”

  I shook my head and clenched my fists in anger. “I don’t want to be immortal. I just want to die.”

  The doctor made his way around the operating table and looked down at me with a sympathetic look on his face. I could see that his hostility was subsiding and the humanity in him was starting to show. “I know this is scary. I know that the unknown is an unnerving thing. But you have a gift, Derrick. You have been given the power of eternal life. Your body no longer needs blood and oxygen to survive. As far as I can tell, your brain is keeping your body alive without any other organs. It’s amazing and impossible at the same time, but I guess the impossible happens sometimes.”

  This time I sat up. The doctor tried to push me back, but I persisted. “Look, I don’t care about that. I just want to see my family. I want them to know I’m fine. I want to see my mom and dad.”

  The doc caressed my face with his right hand. It was a tad creepy, and I found myself nearly punching him in the face for it.

  “We are your family now, Derrick. The world can’t know about you. They will wage war for your body. They will use you as a resource,” he said, still stroking my face.

  I grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. The guards around us were about to move in when he raised his hand. They stopped on his command.

  “Let him. He needs to vent. He can’t overload.”

  I squeezed harder. “I’m not anybody’s property. I’m not yours. I’m not the government’s. So you’d better come up with a better plan than this to keep me locked up. I am immortal, which means I can kill you before you even figure out a way to kill me. I’m leaving now. There isn’t anything you can do about it.”

  I pushed the doctor back and ripped the wires off my chest. My bare skin looked bruised, and a large scar rode up the middle of my chest. It looked purple under the darkness.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, Derrick. Your home is with us. You may be right about one thing,” he said.

  I got off the operating table and landed on the floor. I could feel the cold of my bare feet touching the rough concrete. It was another new sensation I wasn’t used to. “Oh, what’s that, then?” I asked, moving closer.

  “You’re right about being immortal. But you aren’t without your flaws. Your brain needs constant electricity to function. When your body’s natural ability to make it runs dry, you overload. That’s why you fall asleep. Your brain needs rest. If we want to switch you off, all we have to do is flick a switch,” he said, moving closer to me. He was holding a metal prong. The same sort of prong they used to knock me out before.

  “You come any closer, and I’ll rip your damn face off!”

  The guard beside me on my left went for me. I punched him in the throat. He held his hands at his neck as I assaulted his midsection with two stiff blows. He crumpled to the ground. The guard on the right made his move. He was just as unlucky. I kicked him in the groin. He keeled over onto his right side and held his privates, screaming in agony. Before I had enough time to deal with the doctor, another guard wrapped his arms around my neck. He was holding me back. The doctor came within an inch of me and shoved the prong into my neck, piercing the skin.

  Before he pressed down on the trigger, he said, “But you’ll be safe here. We have a room for you. It’s nice and spacious. It lacks furniture, with the walls being padded and all. But I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Don’t think you’ll have a chance to escape. We have an electric force field installed in the foundations of the room. Armageddon would have to come before you get out of there.”

  He pressed down on the trigger. My vision went black. I collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

  “Sweet dreams” was the last thing I heard.

  Sixty-Eight

  “Move toward the light, Derrick. You can do it. Please don’t leave us! Please!”

  I woke up with sweat dripping down my face. I could taste the sweat. It tasted salty. I could hear droplets hitting the floor. Everything in the room was silent apart from the drips.

  DRIP. DRIP. DRIP. DRIP.

  It was as if I was in a vacuum, unable to hear anything. The only sound that made its way into my ears was the sound of my heavy breathing. For some reason, that seemed muffled, too. The darkness around the room began to shift. I shielded my eyes from a ray of light that appeared on the wall. The room I was in was a padded cell. They had locked me up like a madman. Forced to live in the dark. But it wasn’t dark anymore. Lights were forming in my eyes. But they weren’t just in my head. This time I could reach out and touch them. I could feel the heat coming off them. I could smell a sterile liquid. It reminded me of bleach or chlorine. It was growing stronger. My nose hairs were twitching as the light in the room grew bigger and bigger.

  “Hello? Anybody there?” I said in a timid voice. There was no answer. Just the sound of the buzzing light.

  I got up from the bare floor I was lying on and braced myself against the door. It was metal. The cold was making my back muscles spasm. I could feel the chills rising up my back. Feelings of being human were returning. Suddenly, my chest felt sore. I fell to one knee and held my chest.

  “God, it hurts!” I muttered, clasping my midsection, my fingers digging into the fabric of my clothes.

  The light was getting brighter and brighter, so much so that it hurt. I shielded my eyes before it reached me. By the time I did so, the whole room was engulfed in light. A whiteness so white it was beautiful. Yet the fear of what lay on the other side rattled at the core of my soul, shaking it like a tree in a hurricane.

  “His eyes are opening!”

  I tried to take a few steps back, but the door behind stopped me. I screamed. I cried. A flood of emotions ran through me. I knew I was dying for real this time. I could sense it.

  “Please, make it fast.”

  But then the light exploded into nothingness. Darkness retur
ned. But I was somewhere new. Somewhere I didn’t recognize. I could hear people talking. They sounded confused and worried. My eyes opened. It was no longer dark. It was no longer bright. It was normal. I felt normal. My chest began to ache. I heard a panic rise in the room as the voices around me began to stir.

  “Derrick. You’re awake. You’re actually awake!”

  I recognized that voice. It was Chad’s. I must be in Heaven. That’s where I must be.

  “But you’re dead. I saw you die,” I replied.

  I heard a laugh. Then more laughter. Somebody put their hand on my face.

  “I wasn’t the one who died, buddy.”

  My eyes opened properly. The room came into focus. I saw my mom looking down at me. Beside her was my dad. Next to him were Chad and his mother. My ex-girlfriend Rachel was there. She was holding my hand. I was lying in a hospital bed. The sound of my heart monitor was beating steadily.

  “I’m not dead?” I asked, half-smiling, a wash of relief coming over me like a bucket of water on a hot day.

  “No, honey, you aren’t dead,” I heard my mom say.

  A few seconds passed until I realized it was all real. I thought it was a trick of my mind, but what I was seeing now was real. I tried to contemplate the rest of it. Was that real, too?

  “How am I alive?” I asked, trying to sit up.

  My mom pressed her hand against my shoulder to stop me. “Don’t overdo it, son. You’ve been through a lot.”

  I saw the faces of my loved ones staring at me. All of them had an expression of complete care on their features. They were all glad to see me, as was I glad to see them. I wasn’t really dead. I was really alive, and it felt good to be back.