The Logan Files - Pain Center: The Logan Files

by Marshall Huffman

  “Now, don’t you feel better?” JJ asked, watching her closely.

  “Yessss,” she answered.

  Everything seemed out of focus and JJ was no longer by himself. There were two, no, three of him, she decided.

  “Okay, Donna. I’m going to let you out and we will walk over to that chair and you can sit there and rest a little,” he said, opening the cell door.

  He had to help her stand and she floated over to the chair. She giggled several times. She was sure she could fly if he would just let go of her arm. He sat her down on the chair. It felt like it was floating to her, she giggled again.

  “I’m floating,” she slurred.

  “Well, I don’t want you to float away. Here let me help you,” he said and placed the metal clamps around her wrists, ankles and head.

  “Now I can’t fly,” she said, rolling her eyes, “I want to fly.”

  “You will very soon. Now Donna, I need to get you ready. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to hurt. Do you feel this?” he asked, grabbing a hand full of hair and yanking it.

  “Did you pinch my arm?” she asked, smiling.

  “Very good. It will just be a minute,” JJ said.

  Donna started sing a Ray Charles’ song, “Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road Jack...”

  JJ hummed along as he cut her hair off and then shaved her head. He decided to leave the eyebrows this time. He didn’t like the way it made Erin look. When he was done, he took the bands off of her and stood her up.

  “Come with me,” he said leading her over to a table.

  “Now, you just stay right here,” he said and walked around behind her. He picked up a scalpel and sliced through her blouse, and skirt. They fell to the floor. He cut the straps on her bra and her breasts fell free. He then cut her panties off. She just stood there, oblivious to what was going on.

  “Up on the table,” he told her.

  She tried to get on but fell over several times, giggling.

  “I’m all naked,” she giggled.

  “Lay down,” JJ said, pushing her back on the stainless steel table.

  “It’s kind of cold,” she said.

  “Spread your legs,” he ordered, helping her.

  She started singing ‘Hit the Jack, Jack. Don’t go down the road cause your broke’.”

  The words were wrong but she sang them anyway. When he was finished shaving her pubic hair, he led her over to the chair and strapped her back in. She was becoming quieter by the time he finished getting her tightly buckled in.

  “Now Donna, can you count to twenty for me?” he asked.

  “Sure. One, two, three, four...uh...three, six.”

  “Good. Very good. You are going to feel a little pressure on the top of your head. Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” he said.

  “Okay,” she replied dreamily.

  JJ picked up a small drill with a thin bit on it and a stop to limit how far in it could go. He began drilling small holes in the top of Donna’s head. She was oblivious to what he was doing. He took his time, making sure they went all the way through the skull but didn’t penetrate the brain.

  “Everything alright Donna?” he asked after he finished drilling twenty-five small holes in her skull.

  “Just peachy. Hit the road Jack,” she said.

  “Good. Now I am going to insert a few wires, you just keep singing. This won’t hurt a bit,” JJ assured her.

  “Okey-dokey,” she said and giggled.

  She was totally out of touch with reality. JJ began inserting the long thin rods, much like an acupuncture needles, into each hole. There was a thin filament attached to each one so he could measure her brainwave activity. He worked slowly and carefully, twisting each one into the soft tissue of her brain.

  “Hey JJ, do you know any good songs?”

  She had stopped singing for several minutes.

  “Sure. How about something by Ray Charles. I know, how about ‘Hit the Road Jack’. You know the one...Hit the road Jack and don’t ya come back...”

  “Yeah. That’s a good one.”

  She started singing the same song she had earlier but didn’t seem to have any recollection of having done so. JJ wondered if the rods had anything to do with it. It wasn’t what he was after but it was interesting nonetheless. He made a note of it in his detailed log. He inserted the last rod and carefully bundled the thin wires together with a plastic tie wrap. He inspected his work and finally satisfied, he started the next phase.

  “We are going to stand up now. Can you do that for me Donna?”

  “Can’t. I can’t move,” she said. A thin line of spittle was running down her chin.

  “I mean after I undo you. I will help you. You must be very careful when you stand. Okay?” JJ asked.

  “Oh sure. Am I gonna’ hit the road Jack?”

  “Not just yet. First we have to stand up.”

  JJ took the ankle and wrist straps off and released the band around her head. It immediately started to drop forward but he was ready so he gently shoved her head back. He placed a strap under her chin. The sides came up to a band that he placed around her head. The side straps had clip rings attached to them.

  “Here we go Donna. We are going to try to stand. I’ll be right here to help you.” he said.

  “Okay Mr. Jack,” she said and giggled again.

  JJ helped her to gradually stand up. She was very unsteady but she managed to get out of the chair. He quickly attached the straps hanging from the ceiling to the clip rings on each side of her face. He then placed each wrist in a cuff and raised her arms over her head. He left her feet touching the floor.

  “Very good Donna. I think we are ready to proceed.”

  She mumbled something then shouted out, “Hey, I’m flying. Wow, you should try this,” she said and started to babble again. JJ unwrapped a bundle of needles similar to the ones he had inserted into her brain. There were over two hundred in all. He began to shove them into her body, starting with her breasts and continuing around her entire body until all of them were in place. She looked like an overgrown porcupine. During the entire procedure she never once cried out but just continued to babble. Saliva was running out of the corner of her mouth and dripping off her chin.

  “Donna? Donna are you still with me?”

  She didn’t answer but mumbled something incoherent.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” JJ said. “Now here is the procedure so you will know what to expect. I am going to stimulate various parts of your body so I can get a reading of your brain patterns. You will feel different sensations. If you can, I would like for you to describe them. Even if you can’t, the machine will tell me the statistical data. It would be very helpful to have you verbalize the sensation for me as well,” he said, standing directly in front of her to see if she was focusing.

  He saw her eyes flicker but didn’t know if it really meant that she understood. He turned on a modified electric wire transformer that he had stepped down to give only a few millivolts of electrical shock. One lead was grounded and the second one he touched to one of the needles stuck into her breast. Her head snapped back and she let out a muffled moan. He marked it down on the schematic he had drawn of the pins in her body and made a notation. He moved to the next one. She jerked and moaned louder. The third one got a more violent response. She shuddered and let out a yelp. He noted the location and where the signal had originated in her brain.

  This was the calibration part of the experiment. He would touch each needle one by one, noting where the response originated in the brain. He wanted to map how pain stimulus triggered the brain’s response. Sometimes she would just moan or jerk, many, many times she would scream out in pain. On a few occasions she reacted so violently that he thought she might break the head restraint. It took three hours of electrical shocks before he finally had mapped the two hundred needles’ responses.

  It would take him some time to analyze the incredible amount of dat
a he had been able to extract. Donna’s eyes were closed and sweat was dripping off her body and had pooled on the floor beneath where she hung. He removed the needles. Occasionally a small trickle of blood would run down her body but for the most part it only left small needle marks.

  “Donna, I need to do some analyzing of the data. I would like to let you down but I can’t take the chance of dislocating the wires in your brain. I am going to have to leave you here for a while, maybe a good while. I am going to give you something to drink and some nourishment. Does that sound good?”

  Her eyes rolled back in her head.

  “Good,” JJ said. He pulled a stand over and attached an IV into a vein in her foot. She moaned but didn’t resist. Satisfied with his work, he taped it in place, gathered the data, and headed upstairs to study what he had discovered.

  * * *

  When JJ came back down the stairs, the first thing he noticed was the smell.

  “Aw gross, man,” he said, putting his nose in the crook of his arm.

  He walked in further and saw that Donna was hanging by her wrists and head but her feet were stretched out behind her. She had emptied her bowels and bladder.

  “Damn it to hell. Son of a bitch,” he said disgustedly. He was pretty sure she was dead. It really pissed him off because now he wouldn’t be able to go to the next phase. He was back at square one and would have to start all over again.

  “Damn it,” he shouted at the corpse of Donna Landers.

  In a rage, he reversed the flow of current and sent electrical impulses to her head. She twitched once and then was limp again. He spun the dial to maximum and smoke started coming out of the tiny holes on top of her head.

  “You dumb bitch,” he yelled at her.

  Finally he shut off the electricity. His experiment was over, at least for now. He would have to begin again, searching for his next victim. He removed the electrodes from the top of Donna’s head and smoke drifted out the top of her skull.

  “Fried your stupid brain; didn’t I bitch,” he said, snarling.

  He picked up the hose and began to wash her body and fluids down the floor drain. He hosed her down for a long time before he finally took her down and placed her on the autopsy table.

  He used the same procedure he had on Amy, his first victim. He cut around the top of her scalp and removed the top portion of her skull. He backed up quickly as the burnt smell of skin and brains came out of the cavity.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  He reached in and carefully dislodged her brain, sliced through the brain stem, and removed it. He could see burn marks where the electrodes had been placed. Interesting, he thought. It would have been even more interesting had she been alive. Still he had gained some knowledge. He placed her brain in a large vial and filled it with formaldehyde. He placed it on a shelf, right next to Amy Belkers. He spent a long time cleaning the room, getting it ready for his next experiment.

  * * *

  Snow was falling as JJ loaded the wrapped corpse into the back of his vehicle and drove back into the city. He wasn’t about to use the same place twice. He settled on a small residential park. He sat watching for half an hour before he finally decided that no one was up and about. He hefted the body over his shoulder and walked up the sidewalk a few yards. He went just far enough so that her body wouldn’t be easy to spot from the street. He unwrapped her and propped her up against a sign. Taking the plastic sheet with him, he went back to the vehicle and waited. Nothing happened. He sat for another thirty minutes then decided that enough show had fallen that his tracks would be totally obliterated.

  He drove off, satisfied with his work. Rather than going back home he decided to swing by The Cave. The place was pretty full when he parked his car and slipped in the side door. He saw his manager, Bobby Varner, talking to the bartender and inconspicuously made his way over to his usual table and sat down. A group of three women were performing on the small stage. It was almost an hour before the manager looked over and saw JJ sitting at the table. He abruptly got up and walked over.

  “Hi boss. I didn’t know you were here. How long have you been sitting here?”

  “A good hour and a half,” he said, stretching the time.

  “Oh. I guess I just didn’t look over here.”

  “Actually you haven’t been looking anywhere accept at the tits of the bartender.”

  “No I haven’t. I mean, not all that time. Anyway we have a problem I need to discuss.”

  “We have a problem?”

  “Yeah. Someone lifted Thursday and Friday’s deposits out of the office,” he said leaning his arms on the back of the chair.

  “Someone broke in and stole the money?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what exactly?”

  “They had a problem in the bar and I went to help. I had just counted out the money. When I came back, it was gone.”

  “How much are you talking about?”

  “A little over ten thousand. Ten thousand, six hundred and forty dollars to be exact.”

  JJ sat looking at him. He knew he had to control his anger. He wanted to jump up and smash him in the face but too many people were around so he just continued to look at him.

  Finally he said, “Tell me again how this happened.”

  “I had just counted out the money and was getting ready to make out the deposit slip when Anthony, the day bartender said he had a problem with the beer taps. I got up and went out to see...”

  “You just left ten thousand dollars sitting on the desk and walked out?”

  “No, no. It was in the deposit bags,” the Bobby explained.

  “On the desk.”

  “Well, yeah. But the cash wasn’t just sitting there. When I came back, the bags were gone.”

  “I see. What did you do then?”

  “Tore up the office first, then went to the bar and looked all over. I talked to all the employees but I came up empty handed,” he said.

  JJ sat perfectly still for several seconds.

  “Let’s continue this discussion in the office and you can show me exactly how it happened,” JJ said at last.

  The manager led them back to the office and tried to explain how it happened but it did not go well.

  “Bullshit. Even you aren’t dumb enough to leave the door open with over ten-grand setting around. What the hell happened to the money? If you need a loan, just ask but by God, don’t you dare try to rip me off,” JJ said, his voice rising.

  “I didn’t take it. Someone came in and got it. Hell, you know what kind of low life works here,” the Bobby said.

  JJ grabbed him by the throat and slammed his head against the wall.

  “I work here jerk,” he said, spittle coming out of his mouth he was so mad.

  The manager was trying to loosen JJ’s grip but to no avail. Finally he let him go, walked over to the desk and in a perfectly calm voice said, “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “Damn. You almost choked me to death,” he said, rubbing his throat.

  “What?” JJ said again.

  “What? You mean what am I gonna’ do? Me? I can’t do anything about it. Turn it into the insurance company. They cover things like that.”

  “You think so?”

  “They did at my last job.”

  “Just so you know, we are self-insured here. Theft isn’t covered,” JJ said, sarcastically.

  “Oh, I didn’t know. You mean the insurance company won’t cover any of it.”

  “Not a dime,” JJ assured him.

  The manager made a face and shrugged.

  “I want the money back. Tomorrow. Understand?”

  “I ain’t got it.”

  “The money comes back tomorrow or you don’t need to show up for work. It’s up to you. If the money is on this desk when I come in, that’s the end of it. If not...well I’ve already told you that part.”

  “Man. This isn’t fair. Someone came in while I was taking care of business, your business, and this
is what I get for it. You’re going to fire me if I can’t find out who took it by tomorrow? How in the hell do you think I can do that? Even the police couldn’t do that. JJ I’ve been a good manager. I work hard at making this place a success. I think I deserve a little better treatment than that. Firing me like that just ain’t right,” the manager said.

  “Why? Do you think I should give you a severance for this? A bonus perhaps?” JJ said, raising his voice again.

  “Something. A couple of week’s pay,” he said.

  “You already have ten thousand of my money as a severance, I think that’s enough. Tomorrow, on the desk, or ‘hit the road Jack,” he sang and laughed.

  JJ waited a few minutes before sliding out the side door. He walked around quickly to the back of the building and watched. A few seconds later Bobby walked across the parking lot to the dumpster, opened the fence gate, and went inside. JJ walked over to Bobby’s car, his footsteps muffled by the snow that was still falling. He opened the back door to the car and sat in the back seat. He watched and in a few minutes Bobby came out from the dumpster and looked around quickly. Seeing nothing, he ran across the lot and jumped into the front seat of the car. He tossed the two deposit bags onto the seat beside him and rubbed his hands together. Bobby stiffened as he felt the gun pressed into the back of his head.

  “You’re quite a detective. You found the missing money pretty damn quick,” JJ said.

  “JJ, I was going to return the money. I got to thinking about where someone might hide it so I checked it out and there it was. Honestly, I was going to bring it in to you and tell you about it,” Bobby swore.

  “Sure you were.”

  “No. Really. I was going to surprise you,” he insisted.

  “When? Tomorrow? You were just going to take it home for safe keeping, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re a really bad liar Bobby. I would think you could do better than that by now. I know you rip me off each week, just a few hundred here and there. I figure that’s the cost of doing business. I pay you what, Fifty thousand a year and you probably steal another five thousand. This time you got too greedy. You should have stuck with the small stuff,” JJ said.