“Amy,” the doctor said. “Would you join me at the table?”
He stretched his arm out and directed her to the metal chair. Amy got up from the bed, cast a nervous glance at him, and sat down on the chair. She placed her folded hands between her knees. Her apprehension made Doctor Wilson smile. She was the perfect candidate, he thought, for his newest form of therapy.
“Where are you from, Amy?”
“Birmingham,” she said.
Doctor Wilson wrote as she spoke. His pen made small scratching noises on the paper.
“Why did you come this way?”
Amy gave him a perplexed look.
“Daddy wanted us to. He said it was going to be safe here.”
“Do you think it’s safe?”
Amy lowered her head.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Without looking up from his notepad, the doctor grabbed a small white cardboard box from his left coat pocket. He placed it on the table to let Amy study it while he finished his notes. Several seconds passed before he stopped and looked at her. She tried not to fidget as his eyes locked on hers.
“Why did your family not go to the Birmingham quarantine zone?”
Amy shook her head. She said, “It was burning when we drove past it.”
Doctor Wilson jotted down the new information. The look of concern came over his face, and he wiped at his brow with a white handkerchief.
“Burning you say?”
“Yes,” Amy said. “There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of people running from the metal fences. Daddy said we would find another place. Then we came here. I’ve told you all of this before. Why do you keep asking me about it?”
Doctor Wilson stopped writing and lifted his head to see her frustrated face.
“I have?”
“Yes,” Amy said. Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke. “You’ve asked me the same questions for the last three days. You ask me where I grew up. What grade I’m in. Then you ask me how long we traveled to get here. If we saw anyone else. Were we followed? I answer you the best I can. I don’t know what else you want from me.”
He smiled and patted the table with his hands. There was a change in his expression. The fake softness of his face faded, replaced with a tired frown. Amy noticed the way his hands shook as he placed his notepad back on top of the stack of papers. She could tell what kindness he tried to impersonate was gone.
Doctor Wilson closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his thin, gnarled fingers. Several long silent minutes passed before he spoke.
“Amy,” he said. “I believe you are ready for the next step now.”
She shook her head. “What next step?”
He stood from the chair and took a small syringe from his pocket. Amy recoiled at the sight of it.
“Do not be afraid,” he said. “This is only to help you.”
She tried to move from the seat. He was too quick for her to react. The speed he moved surprised her. Amy attempted to resist, but it was too late. The needle was in her arm and emptied before she could pull from him. He held her down on the chair as she struggled to free herself from his bony fingers.
“I had to be sure you were in fact ready.”
“Get off of me. Let me go.”
A warm sensation spread through Amy’s body as she fought to free herself. Within seconds, she became calmer, almost sleepy. He saw it and relaxed his grip on her. After checking her pulse while he stared at his watch, the doctor returned to his chair and reorganized his supplies. He lifted the white box from the table, opened it, and withdrew two large cards. One was red colored, the other was green.
“Now,” he said. “We are going to play a game. In this game, you will answer the questions I ask as quickly as you can. Do you understand?”
Amy glanced over her shoulder to the other bed. He snapped his fingers to call her attention back to him.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Amy said.
“Good. Let’s begin shall we?”
He held the red card in his right hand and the green in his left. A strange numbness covered Amy’s body, and she felt saddened by the loss of control. She began to weep. The doctor ignored her tears and proceeded with his work.
“What is your name?
“Amy.”
He held up the green card. When her eyes moved to see, he lowered it.
“Is your last name Erickson?”
“No,” Amy said.
He held up the red card.
“Are you female?”
“Yes.”
Doctor Wilson held up the green card. His questions went by with an unending steady rhythm. Amy could not sense how much time had passed since he started. The world became a confusing series of inquiries and colors that blended into each other. She saw flashes of bright light when he held up the cards. His voice boomed like thunder but sounded like rustling leaves and insect noises. Her mind felt clogged, unable to think, she sat and let flow a stream of answers. The needle pierced the flesh of her arms countless times as the hours went by without distinction.
“Do you love your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love your father?”
“Not anymore.”
“Do you love your sister?”
“Sometimes.”
“Does your father love you?”
“Yes.”
“Does your mother love you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And why not?”
“Maggie.”
He administered another shot. Amy could tell it was different from the others. The sensation of electricity crept through her veins. She fell from the chair and convulsed on the floor. His face appeared over her, staring down at her with his black eyes. He spoke to her, but she could not understand him. The room was a furnace. Her skin burned and she screamed aloud. His hand covered her mouth as he leaned down closer and he spoke into her ear. He stood from her and moved from her sight. A long time passed, and he spoke to her again. She responded to him and became afraid. He talked, and it made her feel at ease. So much so, she became sleepy.
Amy dreamed of a field of red flowers blooming under a pale moon. She ran through them while a dark beast chased her. It howled as it grew nearer. She was afraid of it and feared what it would do to her. The sky turned to a red dawn, and the beast became the old man who killed her uncle. She fell to the ground as the man came within reach of grabbing her feet. A scream escaped her lips. She struggled to lift her body off the ground. Her hand landed on an object, and she grabbed it.
The old man called out to her, begging her to come closer, to let him hold her. She ran until she stood at the bottom of a tall, impassable stone cliff. Blood streaks streamed down the gray face of it like crimson lightning bolts. Cornered, she turned to confront him. She lifted the object she held and looked at it. It was a large kitchen knife. Ben carried the same knife when she first met him.
“Hey there,” the man said.
Blood flowed from his mouth and the wounds at his cheeks. She raised the blade over her head and brought it down. It pierced his chest with a satisfying sound. He howled in agony. She pulled it free. The sudden movement made his blood spray into the air. The act of vengeance excited her, and she plunged the blade into him again. Amy looked at his face as she pulled it out of his body. It was a mix of anguish and pleasure. The sight of him enraged her.
She stabbed him repeatedly until he no longer struggled. When his body fell to the ground, unmoving and covered in red, she stood over him and admired what she had done. Amy took a deep calming breath. The air reeked of urine and mildew. She stepped back from the man’s body and felt the cold stone touch her back. Amy cried aloud, spent from what she had done. She heard a door open and looked to see another man standing in front of her. His face came into focus. She smiled when she recognized him.
33
Frank felt hands grab his arms, a strong grip was on his neck, and the cold concrete sl
id under his bare feet. The guard with the mustache made it a special point to step on his toes as they pulled him along. He knew the path they led him on by the feel of the tile underfoot and the smell of the air. His body was sore, muscles ached, and his joints felt like they were full of sand. He did not want to see the room again or be strapped to the chair.
The guards pulled him into the metal trap, the seat of his torture. Once they fastened the buckles and the leather bit into his skin, the one with the mustache whispered in his ear.
“Your wife is a special kind of lady,” he said. His voice light with eager giddiness. “She has the best piece of ass I’ve ever been in.”
Frank pulled against the restraints. He said, “What did you say? What the hell did you say to me? Come back here.”
They laughed and left the room without glancing back at him. Their laughter faded as they walked down the hallway. Frank strained against the leather straps until he was exhausted. The room grew quiet. He could hear a sound in the distance, coming from an opened window. It was a noise from the outside world.
The door opened again, and the doctor stepped into the room. He had his glasses in his mouth and sucked the earpiece as he thumbed his stack of papers. Doctor Wilson placed the papers on the table, sat down on his stool, and spread the white sheets across the wooden surface. The doctor looked at Frank in deep contemplation, studying him as one would a canvas before the first brush stroke.
“So, you say that Little Rock was your home?”
Frank smiled, snorted at the man, and moved his gaze across the ceiling. He refused to break, no matter how hard the good doctor tried, he would not give him what he wanted. Frank had a plan. He was escaping, and Angela was coming with him.
“What I have here,” the doctor said. He stood and pulled out a small black leather case. “Is seven injections of therapy treatments. Each dose is stronger than the first, and the last dose is undiluted. It is potent enough to cause death.”
His bony fingers placed the case on the table and slid it near the center so Frank could see. He smiled as he walked from Frank’s field of view and came up behind the chair. His face hovered inches from Frank’s ear.
“I will start giving them to you, one by one, until you tell me what I want to know.”
The doctor ambled back to the side of the table, opened the case, and removed the first needle. He pulled the cap off and squirted a small spurt from it. He rubbed his thin finger over the vein in Frank’s arm and pressed the needle into the skin above several red pinpricks from the past injections he administered.
“I want you to know,” he said. The doctor looked over his thick glasses and showed his teeth in a crooked smile. “This one is slightly more potent than any you’ve had before.”
Frank tensed as the heat of the fluid entered his vein. He did not want to experience any of it again. His mind felt too frayed to endure more of it. Frank grunted in pain as the burn spread along his arm.
“What do you want?” he said. “What do you think I know?”
The doctor sat back down and pulled out his pen. He said, “You spoke of Little Rock as your home. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You were talking about your journey here. How did you come to be in this state?”
Frank pushed up against the leather that bound him as the sensation of liquid fire poured across his brain. He tried to shake his head, but the strap held him tight. The doctor waited, peeking over the lenses of his glasses, and tapped the paper with his pen. He glanced at his wristwatch and wrote in a small notepad.
“If we do not make progress in one hour, you shall receive another injection. Do you understand this?”
“Yeah,” Frank said. He fussed with thick saliva in his mouth. “I understand. God, do I understand.”
The doctor scribbled notes as he observed him. He repeated the question to Frank of how he arrived in the state several times, and after a long pause, he documented the results in his notebook. Frank breathed in frantic gasps. He released primal grunts as he tried to wiggle free from the chair. The doctor stood and lifted another syringe from the case.
“I wish you would let me help you, Frank.”
The doctor pushed it into his skin, and a new flood of sensations washed over Frank. It all compounded until it altered his brain’s ability to control his body. The touch of the leather on his flesh was like a branding iron. He tried to count the dots of the ceiling tiles, but his eyes refused to adhere to his will. They rolled up into his skull and back down into his cheekbones.
“I want to help you,” Doctor Wilson said. He paced the room and waved his hands in the air. “You have to allow me. As any good doctor must—”
“You’re no doctor,” Frank said. He squeezed his eyes shut and worked his jaw open and closed. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
The black-haired man laughed and clapped his hands as he twirled around in the dim shadow beyond the glaring spotlight above Frank.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “There it is. That internal fire. That beautiful spark. The utter determination you possess. You’ll need that, it is what will help you.”
Stinging whips lashed at Frank’s skull, ice flowed down his spine, and the sensation of blistering heat in his throat followed after. He could not breathe in a normal manner, it was a rapid irregular panting at best. The taste of his thick saliva turned his stomach.
“You have already said you were from Little Rock, how did you get to this state?”
Frank could not help himself as it felt like his heart was coming free from inside his rib cage. He opened his mouth and yelled out in an uncontrollable short burst. His words rose in tone and strength as he spoke until he bellowed the words.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “I got into some trouble in Lake Village, had to skip over the mighty muddy river, and landed in Missa-fucking-sippy. Hot damn! Hot fucking damn!” Frank bit the air, his jaw tensed tight, and the muscles of his legs contracted in fast pulses.
Frank noticed the doctor giggled with delight. He enjoyed Frank’s lack of control, and it proved to Frank that the doctor was a sick bastard after all. The truth of it was not at all surprising, as Frank had guessed it anyway.
“Yes. Yes, there we are now. Do you see? This is progress.”
Frank could feel the man’s fingers prodding at his eyes to check his pupils. Drops of liquid fell into his eyeballs. He figured his lids must have stopped moving again. A streak of light raced across his view. Everything had blurred and become bright white. The doctor tilted the chair upright, and Frank sat staring down at the papers on the desk. Several sheets had the name of his dead wife written on them.
How did he know about Clara? How did he know her name?
A few pages had his name repeatedly written on them. Not the name he had taken to using, but his real given name. The name he went by back then, before things changed. Before he changed.
A flourish of his fingers, a wave of his hands, and the doctor removed another syringe. Frank tried to shake his head, but his neck muscles were spent from the relentless strain. Tired and wrung out, the low sound of his weak scream faded to a moan.
“Please, no,” he said. “No more. Oh God, no more.”
“Tell me about that day,” Doctor Wilson said. His aged face, wrinkled into a devilish smile, lowered before Frank’s field of vision. “Tell me what did you see?”
Frank’s sight diminished into acute tunnel vision. His eyes worked back and forth under their own motivation. The room felt to spin round at a rapid pace. Stagnant air filled his lungs. A blade, small and surgical, appeared in the doctor’s hand. Frank’s jaws clenched, and he felt the blood from his tongue flowing down his throat. He could hear the doctor whisper to him, his voice echoed as if in a tunnel.
“Tell me. You must be healed, it is the only way. I can cure you of this sickness.”
His eyes bulged out of his skull, Frank realized the thin-skinned fingers of the doctor were at his throat. He tried to gulp down air as Doc
tor Wilson strangled him. It felt as though his skull would explode from under his scalp.
Another injection, more screams, he howled in anguish at the ceiling. He received more abuse at the remarkably strong hands of the doctor. When he passed out, the doctor revived him, and when he was resuscitated, he was tortured anew. Hours passed before the doctor was interrupted. The narrow-headed guard spoke from the doorway.
“You want us to carry him back?”
“No, leave him just the way he is. I have only just begun with him.”
They left Frank to writhe under the thick leather straps in a perpetual condition of agony.
34
Angela’s eye opened, she could see the tile floor, the semi-shine of its surface. She did not want to move, she wanted to go back into the numbness of sleep. Her left hand was in front of her face, and she saw the filth and blood spatters on the tile under her fingertips. She realized Frank was never in the room, that it was a delusion, and she might never see him again.
Goodbye. I wish you the best no matter where you end up in this miserable world.
Her middle finger was broken and pointed upward at an odd angle. She saw her thumbnail missing, and images of biting teeth pulling it from her finger flashed behind her closed eyelids. She did not want to remember what happened to her but the roll call of her traumas begged for attention and would not allow her that simple kindness.
Angela refused to move from where she rested on the floor. She felt she would rather wait for death, for it to come and steal her soul while she remained unmoving. A sharp pain was in the small of her back where one man kicked at her kidney with his hard boot. The ache of her full bladder made her consider the need to move. She knew she would piss blood.
Her body went into spasms several times as she rolled over onto her back. A sharp and painful clenching in her gut made her cry out in pain. At last, after a desperate attempt to get to her feet, she gave up and crawled along the floor to the small bathroom. It took a long while and a fair amount of pain to pull herself onto the toilet. She felt an intense burning pain as her bladder let loose.
The Wretched Page 23
