by David Coy
“You mean you don’t want to lay hands on him?” John teased. “That might be fun.”
“You’re really sick,” she smiled. “Far sicker than he is.” He smiled back. The smile faded, however, when he noticed one of the patient’s eyes flutter.
“Check this,” he said. “He’s trying to open his eyes.”
Donna leaned over him and studied the movement. “Come on, Buster. You can do it. Open those pretty blues or browns, or whatever's.”
As she watched, one, then the other, of the patient’s eyes fluttered open, and then closed, several times. Finally staying open, the eyes stared straight at her and blinked, slowly and thickly. She reached over and grabbed a small bottle with a little spout on it. “This is just sterile water, Buster. It won’t hurt.”
She flushed his eyes with water and dabbed the excess from his face with a clean towel. “There. That’s better, huh?” The eyes stared straight at her, and she was sure now that they saw her. In only an instant, something about them made her very uneasy.
The patient breathed deeply once or twice, and the foul odor that reached her made her back off and fan the air with her hand. “Gad!”
“Hey, I’d say he’s trying to talk,” John said.
The patient’s mouth opened slowly and stretched. It closed and opened, and the tongue worked out and back. She was afraid to irrigate his mouth because she didn’t know if he could swallow just yet. Putting liquid in there might cause him to inhale it.
“You’re on your own, Mister,” she said. “Come on. Talk to us. Tell us something.”
Finally, a sound, thin and shapeless, came up from him like a mist.
“Helll . . .” the stranger said.
“What did he say?”
“Quiet,” Donna commanded.
“Helll . . .” he said again
“Is he saying hello?” John asked.
“Quiet,” she insisted. It sounds more like help. Now shut up!"
“Helll . . .”
A few more sluggish attempts followed, and Donna thought she saw him swallow, although his mouth was partially open at the time.
John leaned in over Donna’s shoulder. “What’s your name?” he asked loudly.
“You can forget it, John,” Donna said. “He can’t hear a thing.”
“Oh.”
“Come on, Buster. Just say anything,” John persisted.
The disconcerting blue eyes slowly closed, and the mouth dropped open and stopped moving altogether.
“Well, I guess that’s all we’ll get for now,” Donna said, blotting his desiccated mouth with a moistened towel. “All that work must have tuckered him out.”
John scowled and shook his head. “I don’t know why we’re bothering. He’s useless to us. Look at him. He’s so emaciated he looks like . . . like . . . he’s dead already. He can’t hear. He can’t talk. What a waste. I say we just euthanize him and bury him outside. Or better yet, just leave his carcass out on the dirt—at least his body would be some use to the bugs.”
“Sorry. We can’t do that,” she said to John with a little smile.
“I could,” John said with confidence.
“Oh, I know you could,” she replied smiling, “And that’s why we can’t leave you alone with the sorry bastard.”
She had to admit the patient was having a peculiar effect on them. These mixed feelings they were developing were quite pronounced, at least for Donna and Rachel. John, on the other hand, rarely had mixed feelings about anything.
“I wouldn’t murder the sonofabitch if that’s what you mean,” he snorted.
“Oh, I see,” she replied.
“Oh, what?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, still bemused. “Skip it.”
* * *
The next day, the patient did open his eyes again, and Donna irrigated them. This time, they moved from side to side, giving the odd impression of sneakiness. Finally, they came to rest on her as she cleaned him, and she smiled down at him. The dim blue eyes stared back up, and her smile soon evaporated. Her doubts about him were growing. She kept thinking about Rachel’s strange comment about wanting him dead, but not yet. Perhaps it was just the desire to find out about him, to unravel the mysteries he held. What was he doing here anyway? Where did he come from? What was the bible book doing in his hand? Rachel was right: there were questions that needed answers.
The patient's mouth opened and stretched out slowly like a fish yawning; Donna heard him take a deep breath.
“I . . .” he said, "I've . . . been . . . in Hell.”
Those words flushed her doubts away, and she leaned over him and nodded that she understood.
“You’re out now,” she said clearly and loudly. “You’re back among the living. We’re going to take care of you.”
His eyes fluttered closed. Later, she saw one claw-like hand open and shut, then freeze there, as if it had never moved.
That day, Donna steeled herself, put her hands on his strange, pale skin and started to slowly work his limbs, starting with his feet and ankles. The joints were so stiff they felt almost fused, but she applied pressure a little at a time until they moved just slightly, then a little more, then a little more still. By the next day, she had his ankles and knees loosened to the point that some of the motion was restored. By the end of the week, she could move most of his joints—wrists, shoulders, neck, elbows, knees and hips through nearly full articulation.
He did not speak for the entire week, but when his eyes were open, he watched her with that strange empty stare.
She never got used to the way his body felt. His skin was more like a loose rubbery covering over bone and gristle than skin. That dreadful impression made her want to wash her hands repeatedly, which she did, after each session. And how one arm got longer than the other was a mystery to her; she’d never seen anything like it.
* * *
Rachel was spending more and more time in the structure’s interior, especially in the laboratory with its alien technology. Occasionally, she would bring something back, something bizarre or especially peculiar to show and tell. Most of the devices were so far removed from anything they’d ever seen that their intended use was an utter mystery. None of them looked friendly. They had in common elements of shape and color that suggested a profound malevolence, but they were not entirely lacking in their own grotesque beauty. Some seemed marvels of engineering with parts that moved in complex ways— puzzling anatomic structures from some fantastic organism.
They fascinated Donna less than Rachel. They frightened Donna on some deep, unfathomable level. They fascinated John as well, and he scowled with mock repulsion at them the entire time. He turned and twisted them, trying to make them work.
“This one looks like it’s for separating tissue,” Rachel was saying. “Look at this.”
She held the spider-like device up and actuated it by slipping her fingers down into holes in its center. The fine-tipped legs moved slowly in and out, up and down.
“See, look at that,” Rachel said. “Great precision, huh?”
“Ugh!” Donna said. “Get that damned thing away from me.”
Playfully, Rachel chased Donna with it into the shuttle. Donna screeched the whole way like a schoolgirl, laughing, finally darting around to the far side of the patient. Rachel feinted one way then the other with it trying to get at her.
“Stop it, Rachel!” Donna laughed.
“Give me your boobs! Give me your boobs!” she teased, wiggling it at her.
“Get outta here with that!” Donna smiled.
Donna saw the patient’s reaction first and held up her hand for Rachel seriously to stop it. He began to tremble as if shaken from the inside out. His head vibrated back and forth in hysterical denial. His arms and legs began to move aimlessly, uselessly in a lame attempt to get away.
“No. No. No. No. No. No. No.” he repeated. Each "No" was separate from the others, as though to emphasize the terror of each moment the patient had suffered un
der some such instrument.
“Rachel,” Donna said. “Put it away, quick.”
Rachel swung the device behind her and backed slowly out of the room. Donna put her hand on the man’s shoulder to quiet him.
“Sorry,” Rachel said to Donna.
“It’s okay,” Donna said to the man. “It’s okay. It’s gone now. It’s gone now.”
Like waves in a pool that slowly flatten to nothing, the man finally settled, calmed and slept.
Rachel waited a few moments then returned to the room, a little sheepishly.
“What was that all about?” she asked Donna.
“I’d say the patient has had some experience with that device or something like it,” Donna replied. “I don’t think he liked the experience very much.”
For some perverse reason she couldn’t explain, Rachel was tempted to bring the device back into the room and show it to him again—real close up.
“Well, this just gets more and more mysterious all the time,” she said knowingly for Donna’s benefit. What she really wanted to do was grab the man and shake him and make him tell her what it all meant. “I wonder what the relationship is.”
“We may be able to find out,” Donna said. “I plan to install the AUD's tomorrow. I think he can handle it. We know he can speak. If he could hear, we could communicate with him.”
“That’s a good idea,” Rachel said, disguising the anticipation in her voice. “That’s a real good idea.”
Sometimes, during the daylight hours, when her thoughts were busy, confused and filled with figuring out this or that, she was sure it was only her professional pride that kept her wondering, seeking answers about the structure and the stranger’s role in it.
But it was in the in-between state, the time between sleep and wakefulness, when certainty came.
When she first awoke, in that half-real state at dawn, clarity came to her and her questions were answered before they were phrased. Adrift there, she felt in her nerves, more than thought it in her mind, that the man was part of something more horrible, more hideous than she could ever imagine. She could feel it, as surely as she could feel her own flesh, that something terrible, something loathsome was here; something fantastic, dreadful and vile. Try as she might, she could find no clue to its form, no hint of its shape. There was no picture of it, no image of it to be found, but she knew it was there, invisible yet as tangible, as revolting, as rotten meat.
There was something else about the man that frightened her. In his appearance, she found something terrifying, yet familiar, like an ugly afterimage from a nightmare. Somehow those limbs stirred the dimmest and most nauseating feelings. She was sure that, somewhere in the hideous man’s soul, a repugnant thing lay dormant, squirming, waiting for release. When those feelings occurred, in the half-light of daybreak, she was sure she held the key to the damned thing’s liberation.
“Hey, what’s going on?” John said into her ear. “You’re as tight as a spring.”
She patted his arm and made a conscious effort to relax a little. The response drew a fond and lengthwise hug that caressed her from neck to feet.
* * *
Rachel wanted to see the operation and to be there when Donna turned on the stranger’s hearing. She wanted to be the first to ask questions. The problem was that she didn’t know what those questions should be, but she was sure she could think of something.
By the time she had bathed and dressed and made her way to the shuttle, Donna already had the patient under anesthesia. He was on his stomach with his head in a steel support to keep it immobile. She was preparing to open his skull, just behind his ear, with a small bone saw.
“Put this on if you want to stay in here,” Donna said, handing her a mask.
Rachel put it on and took a seat. She wasn’t in the least squeamish and very interested in the procedure.
Two hours later, Donna was finished and the AUD's were in place, looking like shiny walnut shells behind each ear.
“They look painful,” Rachel said. “Are they supposed to stick out like that?”
“Well, there’s only so much that can go inside his head,” Donna replied. “Most of the works are right there where we can get at them to tune them.”
“Tune them?”
“That’s right,” Donna answered. “We can adjust his hearing to be quite powerful if we wanted to. You can turn them up so his hearing is better than a canine’s. Not that you’d want to do that. Most humans would find that much auditory reception pretty distracting.”
“What about the devices themselves?” Rachel wanted to know. “Aren’t they going to get in the way? Like when he’s sleeping?”
“They’ll cause a little irritation for a while at the point where they make contact with the epidermis,” Donna said. “But the proteins in the seals will bond permanently with the skin there and in a week he won’t even know they’re there.”
“That’s great,” Rachel said, not meaning it. “When does he wake up so we can talk to him?”
“In a few hours if all goes right.”
“I’ll be back,” Rachel said. She left her mask on the table by the door.
* * *
Donna cleaned up and left the patient to recover. She turned the AUD's down to low so the sounds around him wouldn’t disturb him too much when he came out of anesthesia. That’s all there was to do for now.
It was Eddie’s turn to prepare dinner that night. They’d just sat down to eat when John looked up and saw Donna’s patient standing in the shuttle’s open door.
“Well, look at this,” he said. “He’s up on his feet.”
Like a scrawny mannequin, the grotesque man was standing there naked, leaning against the latch. His head was turned toward them, but it was impossible to tell if he could see them. He looked like he might fall down any second, and in any direction.
The sight of him standing there, backlit, with one arm longer than the other and his thin, rubber-covered legs made Rachel ill.
Donna rushed over to him and held him up.
“Can you hear me?” she asked. “Do you understand me?”
The patient nodded yes to both questions.
“Where?” he croaked.
“You’re with us. You’re okay. You should lie back down now,” she said.
Rachel was there in a flash. She kept her distance but hovered around them like a hyena.
“Who are you?” Rachel barked.
The forcefulness of the question drew a look from Donna.
“Hold on Rachel,” she said. “He’s just coming out of anesthesia. He should be back in bed.” Donna turned him gently around and started him back into the makeshift infirmary. That much physical contact with him was nearly unbearable.
“I’ll go with you if you don’t mind,” Rachel said.
Donna gave another look over her shoulder. “Don’t piss me off,” she said to her. “He’s my patient. I mean it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rachel replied. “I’m the one who brought him back, remember?”
“Yeah, I do. Why is the question, Rachel.”
“I’ll let you know when I find out myself,” Rachel said back. She followed them closely as if he might somehow get away from her.
Donna helped him back up onto the bed and covered him up with a sheet. His eyes closed almost immediately.
“Can I talk to him now?” Rachel asked, an impatient edge to her voice.
Donna sighed. “Look, there’s plenty of time for that. Leave him alone for now, won’t you?”
Rachel pursed her lips and thought about it.
She didn’t have to think about it long.
“I can speak,” the man said weakly. “I can hear you . . . and I can talk.”
Rachel held up her hands. “There. See? He wants to talk. So let’s allow him to talk.”
Donna, resigned, gave her a parting look as she brushed past. “Don’t yell at him or anything,” she said.
Rachel made a face at Donna's departing b
ack, then pulled a chair closer to the bedside and plopped down in it. She studied him. The man’s eyes were open, and he stared straight up, waiting.
She took a deep breath.
“Who are you?” she asked.
* * *
The question went in Gilbert’s brain and stirred around a little, then slipped out the other side with nothing attached. He understood it easily enough. He just didn’t know the answer.
“I . . . I don’t know who I am," he said. His voice was slow and far off. Rachel had to strain to hear it.
“You don’t know your name or you don’t know anything about yourself?” she asked. “Which one?”
“I don’t know my name.”
“Then we’ll have to give you one for now. How would that be? Just until you remember your real one.”
“That would be all right. I don’t think that would matter.”
“What shall it be? Do you have any heroes or anything that you like? Maybe we could use one of those.”
“God is my hero,” he said solemnly.
“Well, I can’t call you that, now can I?” she chuckled.
“No. That would be blasphemy.”
“Okay, how about one of the characters in your book. How about one of those?”
“What book?”
“The one you had with you when we found you. Your bible.”
“My Bible is here?” he asked, real affect in the words.
“Oh, yes. Right here.” She reached over and patted it, then gently opened it to a page at random. She looked closely at the page and read a few lines of the old English.
“Here’s one . . . Jacob. How’s that one. Is that a guy you like?”
“Jacob,” Gilbert said, “was the nephew of Laban and married his cousin after laboring for seven years to pay for her. He had many wives in the end.”
“Is that right?” Rachel took a moment and read a little of the story. “You know this stuff is pretty good,” she said on finishing it. “Okay, then Jacob is it?”
“Jacob is a good name.”
“Well, Jacob. How did you get here?”
