by Blake Crouch
She turns, senses suddenly on high alert, and sees two other guys strutting toward her. Black faces, black jackets, mean black eyes.
She’s seen eyes like this many times before. Knows with a sick, sinking feeling what’s happening.
“Look, uh, Jasmine sent me.” Moni hopes the girl’s name was Jasmine, but it dawns on her that it doesn’t matter. Jasmine didn’t send Moni here to score. She sent Moni here to get japped.
What is the world coming to when you can’t trust a whore strung out on smack?
“I’ll do whatever you want,” Moni says. “Don’t hurt me.” She knows they’ll run a train on her, but maybe they won’t be rough. Maybe she’ll even end up with the H when it’s over.
“Check this bitch with the don’t hurt me.” The man behind the oil drum laughs. “Whacha gonna do for us, baby? Huh?” He steps out from behind the fire and moves toward her. “You gamed a bit, din’ you? You gonna show us how skinny white bitches suck black cock?”
“Whatever you guys want,” Moni says, knees trembling. “Just don’t—”
The slap rocks her head backward, and Moni falls onto her ass.
“Don’t hurt me,” one of the men behind her mimes, and the trio busts out laughing again.
Moni covers up as best she can when the kicking starts.
A two hundred dollar gym shoe catches her face, frees a tooth.
She spits blood, starts to cry.
“Dude, don’t fuck her mouth up…how she gon’ suck?”
Moni begins to crawl back toward the mouth of the alley, but it’s too far away. Sick as it is, she wonders if she’ll still be able to get a fix when they’re done with her.
A kick to the belly. She kisses the filthy asphalt. Unbidden, the memory of the freak comes back, smiling down at her, ready with his blow torch and his video camera.
That time, she fought back. Fought for her worthless, miserable life, because she didn’t want to die.
Now?
Now dying doesn’t seem so bad.
And then the kicking stops and she readies herself for what’s coming next, trying to land upon some memory—so few worth a damn—to latch onto and take herself out of this moment.
“Walk the fuck back out this alley, cracker!”
What? They can’t be talking to her.
Moni looks up, sees a tall figure standing at the opening to the alley, ten feet away.
“I was wondering if I could buy some drugs from you guys.”
“Please,” Moni moans. “Help me.”
But the man doesn’t acknowledge her.
“He ain’t for real,” says one of the men behind her.
“Boy, it look like we open for business? Get the fuck—”
“Your door was open. So how about you stop fucking around and sell me something?”
In the moment of heavy silence that follows, Moni glances back over her shoulder at her attackers, who are staring at one another in complete bewilderment. The closest gangbanger puffs out his chest, taking two strides up to the white guy.
“Muthafucka, you just walked into the wrong fuckin—”
The blades seem to materialize in the white man’s hands, glinting in the fire from the oil drum.
Slash-slash and the black kid is on his knees, trying to put his face back on.
“Oh hell no.”
The two remaining men step over Moni, the one in front reaching into his pocket.
She keeps expecting the tall man to retreat, or at least step back, make some effort to protect himself, but he just stands there, letting them come.
The next swipe happens so fast, she only sees the blade for a fleeting second.
Then a wet, gurgling sound, the dealer staggering back and grasping his neck as blood gushes out of a gaping tear.
As he falls back into the brick wall and sinks down onto the concrete to die, Moni looks back at the tall man and sees that he’s already brought the third man to his knees, in the process of carving a canyon through his chest, feathers from the down jacket billowing around them in a cloud that quickly turns from white to red.
When he hits the ground, Moni pounces upon the dealer, snaking a hand into his baggy jeans. Her fingers grasp what feel like warm grapes, and she makes a fist and pulls them out, her heart jumping, her eyes widening, an incredulous smile exploding across her face.
Balloons. Six of them. Each filled with H.
Moni glances up as the tall man walks toward her. She thinks about offering him half the drugs. He saved her life, after all. It’s the motherload of scores, and more than enough to share.
He squats down in front of her, and she notices for the first time in the firelight that he has one of the palest faces she’s ever seen.
And long black hair.
“Oh, God, thank you,” she says. “Thank you so, so much.”
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Moni.”
The man smiles a mouthful of awful, rotting teeth and spits a white piece of candy onto the ground—smells like…lemons.
Then Moni notices his eyes.
Black as tar.
Unfeeling.
Freak eyes.
“Hi, Moni, I’m Luther,” he says. “Do you know what an artificial leech is?”
A Schizophrenia of Hawks
The Plains of Central Illinois, 2008
The road to the Heathrow Facility for the Criminally Insane is a two-lane blacktop that cuts a straight line through the prairie west of Peoria. On a clear day, you can see the stone quadrangle and its various spurs from four miles away, like some prehistoric monument abandoned to erode upon the plain.
Only it isn’t abandoned. Heathrow is home to four hundred thirteen of the most violent and mentally damaged human beings in the tri-state area.
And this wasn’t a clear day.
Lightning slashed across the night sky as Doctor Carmichael drove down the narrow road to the asylum.
Rain drumming hard against the windshield.
Wipers barely keeping up.
Another explosion of lightning revealed the facade of Heathrow in the distance—four stories of crumbling granite masonry, the glass behind the barred windows reflecting the electricity.
Carmichael pulled his black Mercedes S-Class under the covered entryway and killed the engine. Lingered for a moment longer, enjoying the heated leather as it warmed his back through his woolen jacket.
Eventually, he grabbed his briefcase and stepped out of the car into the raw, damp night. The sound of rain hammering the drive and the roof over his head nearly drowned out the deeper booms of thunder, which he could feel in his backbone.
Everything smelled of Heathrow’s cold, wet stone.
Inside, it was still as a tomb, and the air reeked of disinfectant, which barely masked the odor of urine, desperation, and crazy.
Crazy had a distinct smell. It was medicinal, metallic, like an open bottle of pills. Almost human, but not quite.
The good doctor walked to the reception desk where a nurse in burgundy scrubs was filling out an intake form.
“Good evening,” he said. “I have an appointment with one of your patients.”
The nurse looked up from her paperwork, gave a tired smile. She was young, might have been pretty, but her face was scrubbed free of any trace of makeup, and her hair was tied up in a tight knot against the back of her head.
“Your name?”
He said it slowly, patiently. “Doctor Vincent Carmichael.”
“Who’s the patient you’re here to see?”
“Alexandra Kork.”
He registered some reaction in the nurse’s face at the utterance of that name. Disgust or horror or some mix of the two.
The nurse rolled her chair over to a computer, whose monitor Carmichael could just barely see. She was studying a calendar.
“Yes, I see you’re on here for 9:15.”
“It’s a late appointment, but I wanted to see her after a full day. When she’s tired. More compliant.
”
“Yeah. Sure. Let me know how that works out for you.” The nurse lifted a phone and punched in a three-digit extension. “Hey, Jonas, Dr. Carmichael is here to see Little Miss Sunshine. You want to come up and take him back?”
“Have you examined Ms. Kork before?” asked Jonas, head orderly of D-Wing. He was a large, bearded man who might have played guard or tackle at a small college. He reminded Carmichael of a combat orderly—white uniform, white tennis shoes, and a belt outfitted with a radio, pepper spray, zip-ties, and an assortment of other restraint tools.
“This is my first time,” Carmichael said.
They were walking down a long, dark corridor that linked the quadrangle to its most outlying, most secure wing.
Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky, flashing through the tall windows on either side of them, casting the checkered floor in a burst of electric blue.
“She is, without a doubt, our most violent, most dangerous patient.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“In your email, you mentioned you wanted to meet with her in a private room.”
“That’s correct.”
Thunder shook the windowglass all around them.
“I would strongly advise against that,” Jonas said. “Our preference would be to have you meet in separate rooms connected by a Plexiglas window. You would be able to see her and speak to her through a telephone.”
“Unacceptable.”
“If she decides to kill you, you’ll be dead before we get to you. Ms. Kork has tremendous physical strength.”
“But her ankles and wrists will be chained, correct?”
“They haven’t stopped her before.”
Carmichael quit walking and faced the orderly.
“Jonas, everything I do, any progress I make with Ms. Kork, will be based upon a foundation of trust.”
“I under—”
“And that foundation is not built by speaking to someone through reinforced Plexiglas on a telephone. It’s by sharing the same space, breathing the same air.”
“You know that Ms. Kork killed two of her previous psychiatrists.”
“I am aware.”
“The first was a two-hundred fifteen pound man who insisted on the same conditions you’re requesting. Seventy-four minutes into their third session, Alex went into convulsions. When Dr. Andrews attempted to help her, she shoved a sharpened, plastic toothbrush through his right eye socket. It went all the way in, right up to the bristles.”
“I’ll watch out for the convulsion trick.”
“The second shrink, she snapped her neck when the poor woman reached out to shake her hand. They hadn’t even said two words. Alex blamed it on her period.”
“Periods can be rough.”
Jonas eyed Dr. Carmichael oddly.
“So I won’t shake hands with her,” Carmichael said.
Jonas nodded, apparently satisfied. He lifted his radio to his mouth and said, “Move Kork to Interview One.”
They continued walking toward a pair of double doors in the distance.
“What is it you hope to achieve here?” Jonas asked.
“I want to learn from her,” Carmichael said.
“Why?” Jonas pulled a keycard out of his pocket.
“Maybe so we can stop people like her from happening again.”
“Amen to that.”
Carmichael shot Jonas another cold stare.
“Despite all the terrible things she’s done, all the pain she’s caused, Alex Kork is still a human being. A broken one, sure. But one just the same. You could stand to have a bit more empathy. Perhaps I need to speak with your superiors about that.”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary. But this one…she’s a real pisser, Doc. No bullshit.”
“Which is why I’m here to study her.”
Jonas rubbed his hairy chin. “I have to say, and this may be my ignorance showing, that I’ve never heard of you before. Your credentials check out, but let’s be realistic. In this day and age, with the Internet and photoshop, anyone can impersonate a doctor.”
Carmichael stopped walking, forcing Jonas to do the same. “You’re correct,” Carmichael said.
“Really? How so?”
“Your ignorance is showing.”
Jonas blinked twice. Carmichael didn’t blink at all.
“Um, Dr. Panko instructed me to assist you in any way I could,” Jonas said, “so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Jonas swiped the keycard, and through the space between the heavy steel doors, Carmichael saw two bolts retract.
One of the doors swung back and they walked over the threshold into D-Wing.
Harsh, fluorescent lights glared down.
They passed a utility closet and arrived at a reception desk that stood protected behind steel bars. It looked less like a hospital, more like a military bunker. Behind the desk, one doorway opened into a room that resembled a small armory—stun guns, cattle prods, face-masks, canisters of pepper spray and tear gas, batons, straight-jackets, blackjacks, riot gear. Along the back wall, several pistols and shotguns had been mounted.
The other doorway opened into a pharmacy.
Jonas and Carmichael stopped at the reception desk, and Jonas smiled at a behemoth of a woman in a gray suit with the unmistakable countenance of a prison guard. She was playing Solitaire on an old-school computer that must have been fifteen years old. Clearly, the funding had been poured into better weapons.
Jonas said, “Hi, Bernice. All quiet?”
Her eyes didn’t avert from the screen as she said, “Mostly. This the one here to study our precious little angel?”
“I’m Dr. Carmichael,” Carmichael said.
“Little Miss Sunshine is waiting in Interview One.”
“She’s secure?” Jonas asked.
“I strip-searched her myself. Her wrist-and ankle-irons are bolted into the new D-ring in the floor. Still ain’t safe, you ask me.” She caught Carmichael’s eyes for this comment.
“I’ve been duly warned.”
“She’s in a real foul mood tonight,” Bernice said, “even for her.”
Carmichael smiled. “Then any progress will be readily apparent. Would you take me back, please, Jonas?”
“Sure. We have some protocol, though. Gotta look through your briefcase, check your pockets. You saw Silence of the Lambs. Even a paperclip in the hands of one of these patients could be lethal.”
Dr. Carmichael submitted to a brief but thorough pat-down.
“Be careful in there,” Bernice said, once Carmichael got the all clear.
The man calling himself Dr. Carmichael brushed a strand of long, black hair off of his pale forehead.
“I’m always careful,” he said.
Jonas led Carmichael through another series of doors, and when those locks had shot home, took him down a dark, quiet hallway.
“She’s right in here,” Jonas said, gesturing to a red door at the end with I-1 engraved beneath a small window.
Jonas pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.
“If anything happens, anything at all,” he said, “don’t hesitate. Scream at the top of your lungs.”
“I don’t scream much anymore.”
“It’s for your own good, Doc. Trust me. She’s as bad as they come.”
Carmichael moved past Jonas and pushed open the door.
It was a few degrees colder in the interview room.
Through the barred window in the back wall, he could see rain beading on the glass.
Lightning flashed.
Thunder dropped.
He closed the door behind him and looked at the woman seated at the small, metal table.
Alex Kork was classically beautiful. At least, half of her was. Her long blond hair hung over the side of her face, partially obscuring the pink, rubbery-looking scar tissue that spread from her forehead down to her chin.
The prisoner watched as Carmichael entered, following his movements while she rem
ained perfectly still. She wore a white, unisex cotton top, sleeveless, with matching pants. The muscle definition in her bare arms was offset by her ample breasts. On her feet were slippers with flimsy rubber soles. Her wrists and ankles were manacled, the chains hooked onto the iron ring bolted to the floor.
Carmichael removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair across from Alex.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked.
Alex said nothing. Her posture was neither tense nor relaxed, but she gave Carmichael her undivided focus.
Carmichael pulled out the chair and eased down into the seat.
There was the sound of the rain hitting the glass and nothing else.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Finally, Carmichael cleared his throat. “They tell me I’m putting my life at risk meeting with you in here.”
Alex’s mouth twitched, the non-scarred half curling into a smile. “Life is risk. More than a hundred fifty thousand people across the world will die today. You think they woke up knowing that would happen?”
“Do you think about death a lot…may I call you Alex?”
Alex leaned back, her chest stretching out the thin cotton smock. She wore no bra, her nipples pronounced.
“I almost didn’t agree to see you. Doctors bore me. But then Jonas gave me your description.” Her tongue darted out, licking her scarred lip. “Pale skin and long, black hair is hard to forget.” More silence. “Sure,” Alex finally said. “You can call me Alex. And I think about death almost as much as I think about sex, which is constantly.” Alex raised an eyebrow—the only one she still had attached. The left side of her face looked like strips of bacon had been stapled to it. “So what do I call you? They told me your name is Dr. Carmichael, but that seems disingenuous.”
Now it was Carmichael’s turn to smile. “Call me Luther.”
“Luther?” Alex raised her cuffed hands and touched an index finger to her hairline. “You’ve got some black dye on your forehead, Luther. “
Luther’s dark eyes twinkled. “It’s not easy being me.”
He pulled a crumpled candy box out of his coat pocket, shaking some Lemonheads onto his palm. He offered one to Alex. When she extended her hands, she held his for a moment, her fingernails raking lightly across his knuckles.
“You like Lemonheads, Luther?” she asked, placing one on her tongue like a communion wafer.
