Awakening: Dead Forever Book 1 (5 page)

Not much of a life, I know, but alive and loading boxes is better than dead inside one, six feet underground.

“Yeah,” he says, “I done some of that too, now and then. Keeps you fit anyway.” He goes on to describe a variety of odd jobs, cleaning parking lots, washing cars and unloading trucks, all sorts of miscellany similar to my varied attempts at squeaking out a meager living. So much in common, I’m surprised we hadn’t met before. But the similarity of our lives fails to explain why anyone would want to talk with us so badly. It makes no sense. We’re both losers.

“So tell me, Carl, where did you grow up?”

The question itself is a sad reminder. “The thing is, I don’t really know.”

“Why’s that?”

“I had an accident a while back, I’m not even sure what happened. All I know is I woke up in the hospital with my head in bandages and a migraine so bad I couldn’t see straight. Some brain injury that required surgery. The whole deal really messed up my memory. I can’t recall anything before that.”

“Then you don’t remember growing up.”

“Sometimes I get flashes like a dream, probably just nonsense imaginary stuff. I don’t think it really matters anyway. I doubt my life was anything important before that anyhow. I was probably loading boxes and one fell on me, or some dumb thing like that. Maybe I got hit by a train, who knows. Who cares?”

“Somebody must care.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Come on, Carl, you must have someone who visited you in the hospital.”

“Nope, no one. I’m a nobody, without any friends or family. No, not a single person cared about me, no visitors at all, just the doctors and nurses. I guess they cared, they put me back together pretty good. I felt okay after that, well, except for the migraines. Damn painful. Just something I have to deal with. I shouldn’t complain. I could’ve ended up a vegetable, kept alive by weird little machines.”

“Yeah, that’s an awful way to go through the rest of your life. Good thing you can still walk around and do stuff, but it sure stinks not remembering. So you’re sure, you can’t remember anything before that.”

I know his type, so lonely and desperate for a conversation, they never let one die. On and on, long past the obvious conclusion.

“I’m telling you, Vinnie, it’s all gone. It makes me dull and boring, I know, having no grand stories to tell about things I did or places I went, but I doubt anything exciting ever happened to me anyway.”

He sinks inward like he’s calculating something. Perhaps a clue that explains our being here together. “Are you absolutely positive?” he asks. “You don’t remember even one thing before the accident.”

It’s like he doesn’t believe me. “I told you, I don’t remember. Really.”

He aims a blank stare at me, as if judging my sincerity. Then he says, “Okay, as long as you’re really sure.”

“What about you, Vinnie? Where did you grow up?”

He rises from the bench rather easily, as though his pain has suddenly disappeared. “That’s not important,” he says, and heads for the door. “Don’t worry about me. There’s nothing to tell that matters at this point.”

What’s with him? Mister Conversation when I’m the subject, now he’s got other things to do.

He presses a button next to the door, leans closer, and speaks into an intercom. “He’s ready. Come and get him.”

* * *

To think I may have finally found a friend. No, I have sucker tattooed across my forehead. The door pops open and Vinnie slips through without so much as a good-bye. It was all a charade. What was so important that I might say?

Three Bobs march in and they don’t look happy. One is holding a strange device.

“Put out your hands,” he says.

“What, are they on fire?”

My sincere confusion is contagious—the Bobs look mystified. I inspect my hands, which appear fine. Bob extends the strange device. Oh, I should have known, they want to restrain me. I must be dangerous.

“What if I don’t want to?”

The Bobs exchange befuddled glances, as though no one has ever questioned their commands. They don’t know what to do.

Then one of them gets a bright idea. “If you do not, we will put out your hands for you.”

This guy’s a real genius. Who taught these goons to handle things? They’re a bunch of idiots.

“I don’t want to. Now what happens?”

Again they look to one another, unsure of the proper course of action. Then a realization comes to them. They grab my arms, pull hard, and wrestle the device over my wrists.

“Hey, whoa there, no need for that. Take it easy, I was just funnin’ with y’all.”

They are not amused. They haul me out the door, adding loads of unnecessary roughness. Looks like I made them mad.

We enter a long corridor that leads somewhere, but the thing is, I don’t want to know where. My doom is just beyond the next door, I’m sure of it. Torture, pain, and without a doubt, my last moments alive.

* * *

After a distance along the corridor, we arrive at a door that the Bobs slam open and haul me through. The room is identical to the last, the same dark paneling, the same black ceiling like an abyss leading upward, but the open space lacks the rows of padded benches.

Men are seated behind a wide table, silent with their hands folded. Thirteen in all. The lack of variety continues—they all look the same. Not like the Bobs, these guys resemble the businessmen roaming the streets of downtown, but dressed more elite than the masses, they appear men of higher status, wearing exquisite gray suits few could afford, perfectly knotted neckties, and pressed white dress shirts. Nothing casual about these refined gents, but they do share one feature with the Bobs—the black helmet hairstyle.

A single chair is facing the table, and next to it is a smaller table where a strange device is set up, some sort of electronic console, surely an instrument of torture. The Bobs wrestle me into the chair, again using unnecessary force. They don’t seem to realize that I’m perfectly capable of sitting down all by myself.

“Come on, Bob, take it easy. I’m not resisting here, am I?” Bob slams my ass down and cinches straps over my wrists and ankles. “Hey, Bob, where’d you get that jacket? Bob’s House of Fine Plastic? You could’ve done better, you know, maybe some actual leather. Couldn’t afford the real thing, is that it?
Ouch!
Okay, okay, I’m sitting already.”

The Bobs pull the straps extra tight. I must be dangerous all right, and they’re not taking any chances. Having completed the task of securing me to the chair, the brutes step back, their ugly expressions full of disgust. Good, I have annoyed them.

This must be how criminals are handled. But I’m no criminal. I was minding my own business before all this. I did nothing to hurt anyone. Well, until they unleashed the manhunt. But my criminal acts are justified—that was all self-defense. Besides, I didn’t crush them, the building did.

I wonder about this chair. Could it be an electric chair? I’m going to be fried while they watch my skin boil and pop, peeling off my crispy frame right before their eyes. That might be entertaining for some people. Not me. But then, I won’t be the one watching.

At the far end of the room, another door opens and a man enters. He carries a black satchel, which upon arriving, he sets on the floor below the small table next to the chair. Finally, someone who looks different from the rest. A doctor, judging by the white lab coat, but more than that, he has wiry gray hair sticking out the back of his head, while the front half is completely bald. He looks funny like a clown and I want to laugh, but I can’t, too scared for that. The half-crazed professor is preparing for a mad experiment, and clearly, the focus of that experiment is me. He wears horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses that only amplify his menacing glare. Those glasses alone would make anyone look evil. He’s also the first person in this crowd with facial hair. He has a rather pointy goatee to match his rather pointy nose. An ugly man.

He comes near and speaks in a raspy voice. “Let us have a look at that wound, shall we?” He clutches my arm and squeezes it like I’m made of putty.

“Ouch! Is that necessary? It’s fine already, leave it alone.”

His eyes go wide, shocked by my suggestion. “Oh no, we must make sure that all is in order. We do not want your wound to become infected, that would be most unfortunate. Let us have a closer look.” He rips the bandage from my arm, not in a gentle fashion as would a person with an ounce of compassion, no, he tears the thing off in one vicious yank.

“
Yow!
Can’t you have a heart?”

My new inflictor of pain hesitates, befuddled by my remark. “I do have a heart, right here.” He points to his chest. “If I did not, I would not be alive, now would I. You are quite an odd creature. What is the source of these strange idioms? If only I had more time to study your kind.”

One of the businessmen stands. “Enough! You will cease unnecessary conversation with the subject. Complete your inspection and prepare the equipment.”

Tempted with defiance, the doctor glares at the businessman, then he changes his mind and cowers. Yeah, I’d do what I’m told, too. That guy looks scary.

The doctor returns to my wound, his eyeballs giant past the thick lenses of his glasses. He studies intently, as though searching for traces of bacteria invisible to the naked eye. He pokes and prods, examines further, then satisfied, reports his findings. “He is healthy. The injury is repaired.”

These people are truly creepy. They have nearly killed me in an effort to bring me here, and now I’m strapped to this chair, which has to be an instrument of execution. But they want to make sure I’m healthy, before making me entirely
un
healthy, the ultimate unhealthy—dead. Ironic, like disinfecting the needle before administering a lethal injection.

The doctor shifts to the small table and prepares the electronic device. He puts in a roll of paper that sticks out one end, then pulls the unwinding sheet over a flat area beneath a suspended needle. He adjusts controls then pulls out thin leads that end in half a dozen circular pads. He opens my shirt and applies the pads to my chest, shoulders, and forehead. More wires end in a pair of thimble-like cones that he slips over my fingertips.

My heartbeat rises to thunder. My body is having the natural reaction to impending harm. I’m strapped to this chair and here I will die, it’s that simple. There’s no way out, might as well relax and let it happen. Regardless, the flow of adrenaline begins. Preparing itself for the coming torture, this body believes it can survive. I fail to see how.

* * *

The far door opens and a woman enters, carrying a small device with keypad. An older lady, she is dressed like the men, but with a knee-high skirt and her hair in a bun. Her heels snap the floor as she walks across the room, then she seats herself at the table.

One of the men rises, the one who scolded the doctor. “We are ready to begin,” he says, standing firm with hands like tripods, fingers spread atop the table. He seems to be in charge. The ready-to-begin prologue is a clue, but even when silent, he exudes an authoritative presence.

“Carl, we are going to ask you some questions, and you must be completely honest. Rest assured, your responses will be held in the strictest confidence. It is vital that we know your every thought, anything that may come to mind. Do you understand?”

“Not really.”

“All we ask is that you try.” He lowers back to sitting, hands folded atop the table and staring at me, his expression drained of all emotion.

At least he’s talking to me, not about me while I’m sitting right here. This time I’m not a thing, or subject to be discussed, and he speaks in a calm, reassuring tone. I wish I was as calm. I’m not even close, greased by sweat while my heart works overtime, straining to pump the terror out. The machine on the table seems to agree. The needle scribbles wildly, drawing peaks and valleys across the rolling paper.

Given the circumstances, I realize what this situation represents. The businessmen are like a group of attorneys, or a panel of judges. The woman is recording what we speak, typing our words into her small device. The doctor is tracking my physical condition.

“Am I on trial?”

“No, Carl, you are not on trial. We simply have questions for you, that is all.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Specific questions that we will ask, which we hope, will expose your considerations, so that we may confirm your state of mind before advancing to the next process.”

Something about this reeks of sinister intent, but his calm demeanor is contagious. The scribbling needle seems to agree, drawing a nearly flat line across the slowly rolling paper.

“Look, I can appreciate that you have questions, but I have plenty of my own. And I don’t like being tricked, either. What was all that nonsense with Vinnie?”

“I apologize for his part in this, but it was necessary. Our questions must be answered under precise conditions, to ensure that you attain the proper end result.”

“You could just ask. What’s with all the deception? Why not send in a counselor or something, instead of the big act.”

The needle jerks and scrawls a few jagged slopes.

“Again I apologize,” he says, “but it was necessary, and I hope that will suffice as an explanation.”

It doesn’t, but somehow I doubt arguing over it will do any good at this point.

“Fine, but who are you people, and what do you want with me?”

The leader glances at the other businessmen. They nod. The leader says, “We are members of the Association, the body governing this system, and many others. We are entrusted with maintaining the conformity of our civilization here, and beyond. This is an ideal handed down by our ancestors that we take great pride in carrying forth into future generations. The program in which you are enrolled exists to establish individual consistency within our organized society. We take great pains to eliminate variation from the populace, a social flaw that causes confusion and unmanageable cultural problems. Our goal is a pure society, rid of these negative aspects, bringing contentment to the peoples we govern.”