by Andrew Yake
The bells over the door jingle to indicate someone entering. There are four people who enter. All of them have on ski-masks. They are obviously here to rob the place. The man that I have been speaking with looks at those who have just entered and then back at me. “I guess we will see if you are who I think you are.” The store owner did not take his eyes off of those who had entered and simply walks past them to the counter with the cash register.
******
Allison and Jane watched as the store owner walked over and sat behind the counter. The men who had entered seemed just as confused by the calm way that the store owner seemed to disregard their presence. The store owner raised an eyebrow and motioned toward Jane with is metal arm. Again, the masked men seemed to be confused as they looked at each other and then at the shop owner and the two girls.
The tallest of the masked men spoke. “GIVE ME YOUR MONEY! NOW!”
“You haven’t earned it yet.” The shop owner addressed him with a smile on his face. “All you have to do is force us to give it to you.” He pointed at the masked man and his comrades and then let his gaze land on the various blunt objects that they had brought in as weapons.
“You think dis is a joke, yo?” A shorter man who had no obvious weapon in his hand lifted his black hoodie to reveal a revolver tucked into his belt.
“OOoo…” The shop owner feigned supprise and fear, obviously mocking the man for his attempt at intimidation. “Will no one help me? I am just a poor defenseless man.” Again, the tone was mocking and obviously meant to antagonize the masked men.
Jane took her cue and strode forward. She seemed to move without thinking. Allison watched from a distance. Her eyes seemed to be calculating everything. Jane tapped one of the men on the shoulder to get his attention.
The man turned and struck with his bat in one motion. Jane stepped into the masked man’s swing on the outside of his arm and used the outward momentum of the swing to pull the arm toward her chest while placing her right shoulder at the man’s elbow. The bat hit a rack behind where Jane had been standing moments before. There was a sickening crack as the man’s arm bent unnaturally. Jane’s motions were smooth and she did not stop with her turn when the man’s arm broke. She used her spinning motion to swiftly move the placement of her hand to the base of the bat and continue the swing of the bat and help it regain momentum.
The blow from the bat landed with a resounding crack on the head of a masked man who was carrying a crowbar. A mist of blood rose in the air. The scream from the first man with his arm at an impossibly wrong angle dangling was deafening. The man who had been hit in the head fell to the ground and did not move. A pool of blood started to gather behind him as blood streamed from the back of the mask to the floor.
Alison wasted no time in striding up to the man with the broken arm and landing a punch right on the Vagus nerve. The punch was sloppy and untrained. Allison’s knuckles ended up missing their target slightly and instead brushed the underside of the man’s jaw and landed more toward the man’s throat. This caused the man to cough as he moved his good hand from cradling his broken arm to his throat. Allison obviously felt a twinge of pain from her fist connecting with the jaw bone, but instead of allowing a moment to indulge this pain she used her other hand and made her fingers straight as if to make a spear out of her hand and she jabbed forward to the intended spot like she had seen Jane do to the man in the elevator. This time her strike landed true and the man crumpled to the ground like a large bag of potatoes. This earned her a smile from the man behind the counter.
The shop owner spoke up just then, “You have to do better than that if you want my money.” The last masked man turned his attention to the smiling shop keeper and foolishly swung a machete toward him. The intent was obviously to bury the blade deep into the skull of the Pilipino shop owner. Instead the shop owner simply raised his metal prosthetic arm and caught the blade that was quickly descending toward him. The metal against metal made a clanging sound as he grasped the blade effortlessly. Now the shop keeper seemed annoyed and stood up while still grasping the blade. His grip tightened and the metal from the blade started to bend. The shop keeper seemed to flex the metal hand and the blade broke under his grip. The man holding the handle of the machete looked up, fear in his eyes. He dropped the remainder of his weapon and ran out the door.
Jane dropped the blood-spattered bat on the floor and turned her attention to the one man left. She saw him reaching for the revolver in his waist band as soon as the shop keeper caught the blade of the machete. Jane was able to make it to where the last masked man was in the blink of an eye. Her left hand reached out and stopped the masked man from fully pulling out the revolver. Her fingers slipped over his and she squeezed. A shot rang out and the masked man screamed. The crotch of the masked man’s pants exploded outward with a mist of blood and he went down to his knees. Jane now held the gun in her hand. The masked man was grabbing at his crotch and crying. Jane used her right hand to unmask the man.
The man was white with a blond greasy hair. His facial hair was patchy and suggested that he was in his late teens to early twenties. There was a tattoo of a crescent moon and arrow on his neck. He continued to cry as his pants continued to change color to a deep red and his hands attempted in vain to stop the bleeding. The shop keeper now came around from his position behind the desk.
“Yep, you’re her.” He extended his left hand toward Jane. “Call me Alex.”
“This was one hell of a test.” Jane said breathing hard. There was a look of shock on her face as if she could hardly believe what she had just done. She had acted completely on instinct and muscle memory. She put the gun on safety and then slid it under her belt behind her back, letting the bottom of her jacket fall over her waistline totally concealing the weapon. She then shook Alex’s hand.
Allison was cradling her right hand and could see that there was a bruise forming over the knuckle of her middle finger. She instinctively moved so that her back was to Jane and Alex and she reached into her pocket and produced her bottle of pain pills. She took one out, placed it in her mouth, and swallowed hard. Her eyes fluttered for a moment as if to will the medication to start working faster. Allison turned back to the others and took in the sight of the carnage on the floor of the shop. It only took her a moment to cross the divide and step over the two who were on the floor and get to the man who had been shot.
“This man needs medical attention.” Allison said over the whimpers of the man who had been shot. “Sir, what is your name?” Allison addressed the man bleeding on the floor. “Can you tell me your name.” The man looked up at Allison with a pained expression on his face and shook his head.
“Allison!” Jane spoke up. “What are you doing?”
“I told you I am a doctor.” She looked up at Alex and asked him, “Do you have any medical supplies here?”
“Sure.” Alex walked toward the back and there was the sound of a mechanical door opening and sliding. He returned a moment later and reached down to the man who had been shot with his metallic arm. Alex picked up the man by his hoodie and hoisted him high enough that the man’s feet could not touch the ground. Alex started walking without explanation back from the way that he came. Allison and Jane started following him. Allison was horrified when Alex simply dropped the man down a shaft that had not been there before. She heard the unmasked man hit the ground with a scream and a sound like wet skin being struck by a toaster. Alex then put his hands on the rungs of the ladder and started to descend. He looked over at Jane and Allison. “Are you coming?”
******
I am still stunned by what has transpired. I turn to meet Allison’s gaze. I look back one last time at those we have left in a heap on the floor. I am feeling more confident that I am part of some military outfit or something else with specialized training. My confidence makes me smile. Allison does not seem as pleased as I am right now. She is genuinely concerned about the human trash that Alex just dropped down the shaft. I admire that ab
out this young girl and I find myself wondering if I have ever cared about a stranger in the same way. She had no reason to care for him and just as much reason to inflict pain on our attackers.
It occurs to me that she had only attempted to knock out the other man and that she had not attempted to jump into the fight. I suppose that should be expected from a normal person. I watch her more closely. I see Allison retrieve her new back pack and put it over her shoulder. Her eyes suggest that she is not happy with the way things just transpired. She starts going down the ladder without saying anything to me, but her eyes suggest that she thinks of me differently now. Before I follow them down the ladder I make a mental note to have a nice long conversation with Alex before I leave.
I start down the ladder and after my head is below the floor I hear the mechanized door start to move. I look up and see the ceiling close and I hear the sound of an air lock click into place. Neat. I have to get one of these. Actually, I wonder if I already have one and just don’t remember it.
I continue down the ladder until I reach the floor. The man has been moved. I see a blood trail. The room in is more of a curved hallway that is made of stone and has a very medieval look to it. Instead of torches there are industrial lights humming and lighting the way. I follow the corridor as is slopes slightly down and curves around. I enter a room much larger than the store above me. The room has a wall at the far end with a heavy looking metal door and electronic keypad at the end. Alex and Allison are here and they have the man on a table. Allison has quickly gathered an assortment of medical supplies from a sterile looking section along one of the walls. The table that the man is on is stainless steel and there is a sink at the end of it. It is well lit in this room.
Alex leaves the man on the table and rinses off his bloody hands and then takes off the shirt he had been wearing and goes to replace it from a shelf that has an assortment of apparel. I cannot help but stare at the half naked man. Yes, his muscles ripple and could probably make most women, and some men, swoon with desire, but that is not what I see. I see a man with a variety of scars all over his back and chest. He has no tattoos, no other indicators that he has attempted to cover up skin blemishes caused by, what I can only guess is a lifetime of battle and torture. I find myself wondering how many scars he has left on others. He catches me staring.
“See something you like?” He puts his shirt on and it stretches to cover his chest and arm. “You turned me down last time I tried to impress you with my, as you put it…” he held up his metal index and middle figure along with his flesh covered hand’s index and middle figure to make air quotes, “…god-like physique.” Alex smiles as I am clearly unmoved by his fake desire to entice me. “Then again I had both arms then.” Alex undid his belt buckle and tucked his shirt in as he talked. “Maybe you are into that whole prosthetic fetish thing. I never could figure you out.”
“I think we should talk.” I raise an eyebrow at him. I am slightly amused by his witty banter, but the fact remains that he knows more about me than I know about myself.
Alex motions to the door at the far end of the room. “By all means. Let’s catch up.” We leave Allison with the bleeding man. The door closes behind me and I am now in a room that is like an office with a very nice desk. The thing about this room, that I take note of, is that the walls are lined with guns of every size and boxes of ammunition. There is a computer screen on the desk and a computer screen in the corner of the room behind me. That screen has four sections and seems to be monitoring the areas in the next room where Allison is and the store upstairs. Alex sits in a reddish-brown leather-bound office chair. It has wheels and he rolls over to a matching loveseat and pats it. I take a seat and exhale.
11
Mind games
My mind is reeling trying to accept what I just went through. You might be dreaming. You might still be in the hospital. Maybe you never left. Maybe you are in a coma. I reach down to my left arm and squeeze my injury. My arm immediately feels like I have a fire under my skin. I know that I have popped a suture. No, the pain is real. This is real. I hear Jane and Alex talking behind me. I see the man bleeding out in front of me. My instinct to protect life overrides my desire to scream at Jane for shooting a person.
I walk to the end of the stainless-steel table and drop my backpack from my shoulder to the floor. I start to wash my hands with hot water and then use my elbow to turn off the water like I have done hundreds of times before in the hospital. I take a clean towel from the rack nearest to me and dry my hands before I put on the surgical latex gloves that Alex has available. As I do this I have an awareness that Alex and Jane have left the room. I hear a nearby door unlatch and then latch shut. It is just as well. I would rather not have anyone in the room while I do my first solo-surgery on a live person. I steady my hands and put on a surgical mask. I look for surgical goggles, but find none. I suppose that I am lucky to have this many hospital supplies available to me.
I grab a vile of morphine and a syringe and give the man enough to knock him out, but not enough to kill him. I then take scissors and carefully cut off his pants to expose the area with the gunshot. The man does not move. I take a moment to inspect the entry and exit wound. At least the bullet went clean through. It is unfortunate that the exit wound was through his scrotum. I carefully inspect the scrotum and find that one of the testicles is missing. No doubt, it has been obliterated by a bullet passing through it. I inspect the entry wound and see that there is an excess of blood and I know that he had internal bleeding. I use a scalpel to make an incision from the top of the wound track further up so that I will be able to retract the skin and get into this man’s body and stop the internal bleeding.
It takes a few minutes of following the wound track inside his body, but I am able to find the bleed and then use silver nitrate available to cauterize the bleed. It is not my first choice, but it is what I have available to me here. I continue to work on the man and I hear him starting to wake up. It probably has more to do with the fact that I am basically burning his insides, especially in his special area. I momentarily consider making it so that he can never reproduce. My professionalism keeps me from acting on this desire. Instead, I finish and start closing up his entry and exit wound. I am unsure if he will even survive the blood loss, but at least I know that I have done my best to save his life. I find some antibiotics and give him a healthy dose to lessen the chance of an infection making him septic. You are not going to die today if I can help it and I would prefer if your own blood doesn’t end up poisoning you. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I know the feeling. I think this to myself as I start to bandage his wounds.
I can feel the desire building to use my own pain medication again. I know that it has not been all that long since I have taken a pill, but I feel the pain building. I am guessing that it is more psychological than medical, but at this point I do not care. Pain is pain in my book and I have lived with it for many years now. I look again at the vial of morphine and the needle and consider using it. I think back to my brief conversation with Jane and why she had refused the pain pill, “The pain is not fun, but I need to be alert right now.” I decide that I will hold off for a bit longer. I notice that there is a chain connected to a single handcuff connected to the table. I decide that this would be the prudent course of action at this moment and I cuff the man to the table.
I discard my bloody gloves and take off my mask. Then I reconsider my earlier reservation regarding dosing myself once more. This time I take another pill. I wash it down with a drink of water from the sink. I feel myself becoming blissfully tired and sit down in an armchair across from the table and place my feet up on the footstool directly in front of the chair. I think about how the man refused to tell us who he was. I could be becoming paranoid like my new companion, but I figure that this is an appropriate time to allow these sorts of thoughts. I desperately wish that I could find out why he had been there. It seems like too much of a coincidence to me that we would be in th
e middle of an armed robbery directly after escaping the way that we did.
I see a figure appear in a darker corner of the room off to my right. I am unconcerned after I turn my attention toward the corner. I see it is my mother she is standing just as I remember her standing in my kitchen earlier that morning. She is beautiful and smiling at me. There is no trace of the trauma of a car accident. I see her as I remember her before the accident, alive.
She steps toward me out of the shadows. I have never really seen her move much before. Maybe it is the high I am experiencing from my pills or perhaps I am just happy to see her. Either way, I welcome her presence. These are troubling times and I have been trying to contact her in the most real sense. It seems only natural that she would be here to comfort me. I hope that she has come to offer me insight or direction. I am not disappointed.
My mother crosses the room and gently moves my legs so that my feet fall to the floor. This I am surprised by, but not enough to be concerned. She sits across from me and looks me in the eyes. “Hi honey.” She says this to me in the sweetest of tones.
“Am I dreaming?” I say to her. I am now sure that I finally succumbed to the exhaustion of my day.
“You asked me here. I heard you calling to me.” She points to my back pack then returns her gaze to me. “You know how to get information from that bad man.” She shrugs her shoulders a bit. “You already opened the door. Just walk through it.”
I still believe that I am in some sort of dream-state and that I am proving Freud’s idea of wish fulfillment in the dream scape. I give into my desires and intentions begin to swell in my mind. I smile at my mother and rise from my seat. She smiles back. I cross the short distance to my new backpack that is still sitting on the floor. I look momentarily at the door where I know Jane and Alex are. I hear nothing so I continue. I open up my pack and retrieve the book that I had hidden in my clothing. I open the ancient text to reveal the writing that is coded with a mixture of Sanskrit and Aramaic. The writing is beautiful and scrawled in a penmanship that is lost on my generation.
