by Leo King
As she lay there, colored lights and shapes still dancing around her, she smirked. Haven’t broken me yet, you bastards.
Right before she passed out from exhaustion, she saw the caterpillar reappear, wink at her, and then crawl off into nothingness.
When Sam woke up, she was lying on the cot in her cell, back in her gown. Her throat hurt, and her nose was runny. Her head still pounded, and she felt a shiver running through her. She hacked several times. Her chest burned.
And now I’m sick.
“Hey, you OK over there?” It was the man in the other cell.
When she heard his voice, she started turning over. However, her limbs were still weak from the water coffin, and they ached whenever she moved. It took her a minute to face the wall. “I feel like shit, but I’m alive.”
“You were making a lot of noise over there a little while ago. Had me worried.”
Despite the numbness that blanketed her heart, she was touched by his concern. They had been chatting almost every day through the wall, mostly about the state of New Orleans since her commitment. Her conversations with this mystery man were one of the few things that helped her keep her sanity.
“I must have been having nightmares. I’ve gotten those all my life. What did I say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t speak Creole.”
Sam frowned. “I was talking in Creole?”
“I’m pretty sure. Yeah.”
I don’t know Creole. It must be Bridget.
“Oh, well.” She rested her forehead against the cold stone. It actually helped alleviate her relentless headache.
Then he asked, “You’ve always had nightmares, right? What were they about?”
She blinked. “You’re asking me something personal? Just the other day, didn’t you say that would be a bad idea? That we might get attached to each other?” He still wouldn’t tell her about the silver pen, shutting down the conversation whenever it went there.
His bed creaked. “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve run out of things to talk about. Maybe it’s because the electric shocks are scrambling my brain.”
She rubbed her head against the wall, trying to get as much coldness against it as possible. “Fair enough. I’d have nightmares of my father.”
There was a long pause. “You didn’t get along with your father?”
She thought of Vincent and then snorted. “No. I hate him with all my heart.” The snort vibrated in her sinuses, making her sneeze until her nose was sore.
“Ouch,” he said after she had quieted down. “That’s kind of rough. I mean, fathers aren’t perfect, but they’re far from monsters.”
Guy, you have no idea…
Sam coughed a few more times, her throat scratching. “So I take it that you’re a father?”
Silence.
“Hello, you there?”
More silence.
“Come on. You asked me something personal. Play fair or piss off.”
A few more seconds passed. “Yes. I used to be a father.”
She coughed again. Her lungs burned. “So what happened?”
His voice sounded strained, then angry. “Someone killed her, OK? She was murdered!”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” She was sure she had pneumonia.
“It’s fine,” he finally said.
Closing her eyes, her heart ached at the memory of her children being taken from her. She couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like if someone had murdered them.
Finally, she said, “Hey. Just so you know, how I feel about my father is pretty unique. He wasn’t even the man I thought was my father—his son was. So my situation is pretty screwed up. I’m sure you were a wonderful dad.”
There was a long pause before he said, “Thank you. It’s taken me a while, but I’m sure my baby girl loved me to her last breath.”
Then the door to his cell opened. Someone said, “All right, you. Time to meet with the doctor. You’re the last one tonight.”
As she heard her neighbor being carried away, she grimaced.
I hope this guy lasts. He’s possibly the only friend I have.
She settled down into her cot. In a few minutes, she was asleep.
The following week consisted of even more electroshocks, injections, and sensory deprivation—sometimes several treatments in one day. By the time Sam was seated before Dr. Klein, her face puffy and bruised from an hour in the “correction chair,” she was so tired that she could barely keep attention.
Tapping the clipboard he held, he said, “It has been seven days since ze water coffin. I have upped the treatments more than with any other patient. Und yet you still aren’t responding. Sam, I am very disappointed in these results.”
She rolled her head to the side and peered up at him. With the concoction keeping her too weak and muddled to act, it was all she could manage. “You’re disappointed? I thought you hit harder than that.”
Dr. Klein nodded to Dick, who punched her so hard that the fireworks went off around her again. She leaned forward, spit up some blood, and then started laughing, well past her breaking point. “You don’t get it, do you, you stupid shit? I’m fucking immortal! Vincent murdered all those people to bind Baron Samedi to him. So no matter how much you hurt me, I’ll just keep getting better.”
Smiling viciously, Dr. Klein jotted something down, the light shining off the silver luster of his pen. “Of course you are immortal, Sam. Und I was foolish to assume otherwise.”
She shook off the last of the colored explosions. “Taking down notes on how much you’re hurting me?”
“No, these are notes on your healing rate. Ze Knight Priory has decided to use you for experimentation on how quickly you recover from trauma.”
Spitting again, she said, “Heh, and here I thought this was to get rid of me and get Samantha back.”
“For me, yes. For them? They are convinced the tkeeus has given you superpowers. They refuse to accept it’s your psychosis. They plan to mass-produce it und use it to further spread their control.”
With a derisive hoot, she said, “That’s stupid! The tkeeus just makes it easier for a loa to possess someone. All they’re going to do is make…”
Then the reality hit her. It would be a situation where people would, just by inhaling a powder, become susceptible to possession—possession by loa that were now under Vincent’s control. Things could get bad in a hurry.
Her attention returned to Dr. Klein as he sighed. “I tired of these conversations of ghosts and possessions. Crackpots like Dr. Lazarus und lunatics like yourself just love to blame madness on demons. Utter rubbish.”
She glowered. “Then why would someone like you do research for the Knight Priory if you don’t believe in the tkeeus?”
“Because, Sam, they are the ones who have been funding my research. So if they want to mass-produce ze tkeeus, then I will provide them that service. It amazes how little you understand the way this city works. Why, you probably don’t—”
But she interrupted him by throwing her head back and howling with glee. When she stopped, he was glaring at her. She then shook her head. “Amazing. After all these goddamn years, I see you for what you truly are. You aren’t some psychopathic psychiatrist. You aren’t even a good shade of Vincent Castille.”
As she spoke, Dr. Klein’s mouth tightened and his face grew red.
”You’re a sad, pathetic puppet of the Knight Priory who’s not ever going to be allowed to join. You must have some dirty blood in you. You’re not even worthy of hating. I pity you, Dr. Klein.”
She spat in his face, and as the glob slid down his beard, he went from red to purple. Standing up, he screamed, “Get this bitch out of my sight!!”
Sam continued to laugh as they dragged her down the hallway. On the way back to her cell, they passed the Middle Eastern technician again. He regarded her cautiously and then stepped in front of them.
“What are you doing, new guy?” Dock sounded irritated.
The
technician leaned in and squinted. “I was just wondering if she’s gone mad.”
She blew a raspberry at him. “Hun, I am well past crazy.”
Dock pushed him out of the way. “Of course she’s mad. Now don’t ever do that again!”
“I’m not mad. I’m having too much fun. It’s a vacation here, handsome!” She winked at the technician and then continued giggling all the way back to her cell.
“You’re in a good mood,” the man in the other cell said.
Sam snickered as she lay chained to her bed. The image of Dr. Klein’s outburst, his saliva forming strings across his lips as he screamed, was still fresh in her mind. She rested her forehead against the cool stone wall. It felt like victory. “I just made Dr. Klein lose his shit.”
He started laughing. “That’s brilliant! Someone needed to put that prick in his place.”
She took a moment to catch her breath. “He’s probably going to go on a rampage now. Sorry in advance if he hurts you worse than normal.”
“At this point, I don’t care,” he said with a snort. “Don’t you dare regret it. Not even for a second.”
Snickering again, she rubbed her puffy face on the surface of her filthy cot, scratching her skin, which itched as it healed. “Hun, I don’t regret a damn thing in my life, not a thing. Nothing except…”
Then she stopped, the memories of Richie, Rodger, and Michael gnawing at her.
“Except… ?” His voice had lowered.
With a sigh, she traced designs on the wall again, something she did whenever she became introspective. “Some people very close to me—people who I loved very deeply—died because of me.”
“How do you mean?”
It took her some effort, but she rolled on her back, staring at her shackled wrists in the dim light of the cell. Thinking about it was still painful. “My father did terrible things to many people in order to fulfill a wish I’d made. If I hadn’t made that wish, the ones I love would still be alive. They all died because of me. If I had never been born—”
“Don’t you dare say that!” he yelled harshly.
She stopped. “Say what?”
“You listen to me, girl, and you listen well. You are not responsible for what other people do. You say people died because of your father? Well, you aren’t your father! Why should you have to pay for what he did? That’s ludicrous!”
Now it was her turn to be silent.
He continued. “I’ve seen some sick shit in my days. I have seen evil that would make most people run home to their mamas. So before you go blaming yourself, just remember that you aren’t the reason they’re dead. You didn’t kill them. He did!”
Looking back up at the ceiling, she said nothing, deep in thought. Even if her wish to live without the fear of death is what had set everything in motion, she hadn’t actually killed anyone. Even with the silver pen, she wasn’t aware of what she was doing.
For the first time in years, she searched inside herself and saw something other than a blight against God and humanity. This guy is right.
Closing her eyes, she said, “None of this is my fault.” A weight, one that felt like it had been on her chest all her life, vanished with those words.
“Hey,” the man in the other cell said. “I’m gonna get some sleep. You think on all that.”
She rolled over and pressed her lips to the wall, kissing it. “Good night. And thanks.”
Dr. Klein leaned over Sam, who was strapped to a table, and scribbled furiously on his clipboard with a silver pen. “Now, Sam, I’m going to try something new today.”
She sniggered, unable to take him seriously anymore. “What? You gonna let me go for a walk, maybe get a bit of fresh air?”
His pen stopped mid-stroke. Then he grinned wickedly. “No. I am going to blind you.”
Her smile vanished. “You’re gonna what?”
“Like we talked about, you’ve exhibited an amazing ability to heal. I want to see if you can regrow tissue.” Then he nodded to Dick and Dock, who secured her head in a vise and administered more sedative.
Struggling against the restraints, she scowled at him. “You really are a sick fuck, you know that? Did having me call you a puppet piss you off that much?”
“I do not know what you are referring to, Sam. I have never lost my temper before in my life.” He sniffed with contempt and drew liquid from a bottle labeled “HCl” into a syringe.
“Acid? You’re going to use acid?” Despite the courage and cockiness she’d felt so far, this provoked a fear response unlike before. She thrashed in her restraints as Dock held her right eye open. “You goddamn, in-denial, booger-bearded shit! This isn’t treatment! This is torture! Why are you doing this?”
Dr. Klein held the syringe over her. She could see the clear liquid bubbling from the needle’s point. For a moment, his eyes rolled back, and he said in a deeper voice, “When you are in pain, Princess, you are the most alive.”
The way he said that, the words he used, reminded her of Vincent. Her eyes rested on the pen he was holding. It was a silver fountain pen, and on the side was etched a single word: “Castille.”
Oh, God! How did I not notice that? But she already knew the answer. For weeks, she’d spent every moment fighting for her sanity. It was an easy detail to overlook—a small but vital one.
“Dr. Klein, you need to get rid of that pen. It’s pure evil!”
Then his eyes went back to normal and he said, “You’re stalling, Sam. Let us begin.”
Dick and Dock held her eyes open. The drops of acid splashed in and immediately starting sizzling away the tissues. Despite all the suffering she had been through in the past, nothing could have prepared her for that pain. She shrieked without restraint as her vision was agonizingly eaten away over the long, drawn-out treatment.
When Sam was brought back to her cell, the world of light and color was gone. She was shivering as they secured her to her cot, pain still searing through her ruined eyes. She lay there and cried.
Finally, the burning ebbed, and the queasy sensation of tissue rebuilding began. It itched like mad. She reached up and touched where her eyes used to be. They were regrowing. Was it Bridgette, her immortality, or both? She didn’t know any more. All she knew was that no matter how badly she was hurt, she’d heal and live on. That thought made her feel sick to her stomach.
“Are you OK?” It was the man in the other cell.
She sniffled and then wiped her nose. “No. I’m… blind. He squirted acid in my eyes.”
“He did what?”
The itch grew outright painful. She scratched at her eyes to no avail. “It’s OK. I’ll be OK. I can recover from this.”
“Recover from… are you out of your mind? How can you recover from that?”
She started cackling. It was all she could do to keep the pain from driving her over the edge. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s crazy. All of it.”
“Oh, yeah? I’ve seen my share of crazy, too. Try me.”
“All right, you want my story, Bucko?” She rocked from side to side, forcing herself to think of anything but the horrendous itch in her eyes. “When I was a child, my father put something inside of me. Something powerful. Ever since then, I’ve always been able to heal quickly. And then one day, I made a pact with something even more powerful. I can get hurt, but I always recover. Always. And now I’m immortal and I can’t die, and oh God, this hurts so much!”
There was silence as she continued weeping, jerking against the restraints, anything to alleviate the pain.
Then he said, “I believe you, Sam.”
She froze in place, the pain momentarily forgotten. “You know who I am?”
He chuckled. “I sort of figured it out a while ago.”
Try as she might, she couldn’t place his voice. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
His bed creaked as he sat up. “I met you very briefly when I arrested you.”
Almost at once, she knew who it was. The shock only ag
gravated the itching.
“Detective Aucoin?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Call me Kyle.”
“But I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
“Because I killed someone over the silver pen. Before I was sent here, however, I was visited by Rodger’s ghost. He told me that I’d be helping you.”
“Rodger,” she said, remembering how he, Michael, and Richie said they’d find a way to assist her. She scratched at her eyes as they continued to regrow. “But wait, I thought you hated me.”
“I did. For the longest time, I thought you were responsible for Cheryl’s death.”
She knocked her head on the wall. It helped with some with the discomfort. “What happened to change that?”
“Dallas happened. I realized that I had been focusing my anger, my sadness, and my confusion on the wrong person. I persecuted you unfairly. So there’s something I want to say, and I won’t blame you if tell me to fuck off.”
“Go ahead.” She was pretty sure she knew what Aucoin would say next.
“Sam, I’m sorry for accusing you of killing my daughter, and I’m sorry for trying to get you executed.”
Now she chuckled. “I think we’re long past that bullshit.”
Silence.
Then she cleared her throat. “All the same, you’re forgiven. Apology accepted.”
“Thank you.”
“So where do we go from here? How will you help me?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll think of something. I hope.”
As he grew silent, Sam continued to scratch at her eyes. There wasn’t anything to think about as far as she was concerned. She knew what she had to do.
I have to get out of here, get that pen, and destroy it!
Chapter 23
Bridgette, Queen of the Loa
Date: Monday, May 10, 1993
