Deadlocked 8 (21 page)

“Harry,” said Annie, but the old man cut her
off.

“I’m not done. Don’t go cutting off a man’s
dying words. If there’s such a thing as bad karma, you’re swimming
in it for that.”

“Sorry,” said Annie with a smile. “Go
on.”

“Kid, you might have an angel watching over
you, but that damn sure means you’ve got your fair share of demons
too. They’re fighting for space up in that pretty little head of
yours, and you need to kick them the fuck out. Okay?”

She nodded and said, “Sure.”

“One of those demons is named revenge, and
he’s working you something fierce.” Harrison coughed and turned to
spit. Blood struck the pavement and Harrison wiped his mouth in
surprise. “Damn, this disease isn’t wasting any time.” He looked
over at me and said, “Better get on to you, Benny.”

I smiled in the absence of any other
response, and even that was hard to offer.

“My little Chinaman. The stranger that stuck
by me when everyone else in the whole damn world had written me off
as a crazy old coot. A drugged up thief with no one left to give a
shit about him, and you still put up with me. You know why that is,
Ben?”

“No,” I said.

“Because you need some friends!” He laughed
with enough fervor to elicit laughter from both Annie and me. “You
need some damn friends, Ben. If you didn’t learn nothing else from
me, then learn that it fucking sucks to be lonely.”

“You’re right,” I said.

“I know I’m right. I’m right about a lot of
stuff,” said Harrison. “You should’ve listened to me more. And you
know what? There’s something else I’m right about. I’m right that
you should take those files your dad left you and burn them up.
Burn them, Ben. Life’s too short to spend it like you have. You’re
sitting next to one of the best damn girls I’ve ever met, and you
both need to wake the fuck up and get your priorities straight. You
hear me?”

We both nodded.

“Good,” said Harrison. “Now, Annie, would you
do me a favor and go get my Bible out of the back of the Jeep? It’s
on the back seat.”

She did as he asked.

Harrison waited until she was gone to look at
me and say, “Now I’ve got to ask you to do something for me,
bud.”

“Anything,” I said, tears dripping from my
chin.

“I don’t want to be a zombie, and this
disease is ripping its way through me. I don’t know how long I’ve
got.”

The realization of what he was asking struck
me with physical force. I straightened my posture and said, “No,
Harry. We can get you someplace…”

“No way, bud. No way. I’m fine right here, in
the sunshine with my bible and my best friend. Okay? This works for
me. This is good.”

“No, Harry, I can’t.”

“Yes you can, because I can’t do it. I can’t
pull the trigger, kid. I need you to do it or I’m going to ask
Annie to. Your choice.”

Annie returned with the Bible and handed it
down to Harrison as she asked, “What’s going on?”

I stood up and turned away.

“Annie,” said Harrison. “I need you to do me
a favor.”

I turned and shouted, “No. No, goddamn
it.”

“This has to happen,” said Harrison. “We all
know it.”

Annie looked at me and nodded in agreement
with our suicidal friend.

“No, for fuck’s sake.” Tears continued to
course down my cheeks and my nose was beginning to plug up from
crying. “I can’t.”

“Annie,” said Harrison. “Would you do me the
honor…”

“No,” I said again and stepped between the
two of them. “Don’t make her…” I took a deep breath and said, “I’ll
do it.”

Harrison smiled and said, “Thanks, brother.
I’ll see you on the other side.”

He walked to the side of the road as he
opened the bible that Annie had brought him. Harrison leafed
through the pages as I stood behind him. The sun was sitting high
above and cast only the slightest shadow of a gunman aiming at the
back of his best friend’s head.

Harrison was reading to himself, finding
comfort in the book he’d been carrying with him for as long as I’d
known him; a time that seemed woefully short as my finger slipped
over the trigger.

“I love you, Harry.”

The gunshot echoed, but nowhere near as long
as my cries of anguish.

Levon Kline

“What’s up, doc?” I asked as I lay in
bed.

The stranger had come late, although I wasn’t
asleep. I’d forced myself to stay awake, despite how weary I always
became at this time. My head was filled with a hundred conspiracies
about this place, and one of them had been that they were drugging
me at night so that they could perform secret experiments. Like
usual, my conspiracy theory proved true.

The doctor was anonymous in his plastic suit
of armor, his breath coming in rhythmic, tinny gasps through the
respirator that dominated the lower portion of his mask. He didn’t
offer an answer as he focused on his work at the counter across the
room from me.

It was odd for him to be here so late,
although I wasn’t truly certain what time it was anyhow. The people
running this facility had explained to me that they were
influencing my biorhythms by adjusting the lights to mimic a
day-to-night exchange, and the television on the wall in the room
shut off each night when I was expected to go to bed. It was the
most minor of rebellions to stay awake longer than they wanted, but
a little revolution does a body good.

“What are you up to over there?” I asked as
the doctor worked by the light of a desk lamp on the counter beside
him. He ignored me, and I started to get annoyed. “Buddy, I asked
you a question. Don’t be rude.”

He turned to me and placed a finger over the
gasket at the front of his mask, shushing me without saying a word.
Then he went back to work.

“Mother fucker,” I said as I tried to force
myself up. The tubes that protruded from the ports in my side
rattled as I moved, and the machines that surrounded me started to
blip and chirp in reaction to the disturbance. “Don’t shush me. Who
the hell are you?”

The stranger turned to reveal a four inch
needle with a canister filled with a greenish solution, like some
mad scientist plucked from a nightmare. But this was no dream.

He approached fast and grabbed my right arm
with his latex-gloved left hand, pressing down hard to keep me
where I was. Then he stabbed the needle into me, burying it down
deep until the barrel pressed against the cloth at my side. He was
injecting the fluid into my abdomen, not far from where these
bastards had burrowed those ports into me. The shock of the attack
was enough to stall my response until he’d nearly finished, but I
lashed out at him with my left hand, attempting to grasp anything I
could reach.

This wasn’t the first time the people here
had stuck me with needles, or pumped me full of some mysterious
concoction, but they’d never done it like this. It felt like I was
being assaulted, and I responded accordingly.

I got ahold of the respirator on the front of
his mask and jerked it down, pulling him forward as he continued to
try and hold me down. Had he tried this a few months ago, I
would’ve manhandled the weakling and pummeled him into a wet stain
on the floor, but I was far from healthy now. Still though, I was
determined to put up a good fight.

My fingertips got wedged behind the lip of
his mouthpiece, and I held on tight. He tried to get away, but I
wouldn’t let go as we continued to battle with one another.

“That’s right, bitch,” I said as I grabbed at
him with my other hand as well. “I’m gonna beat your ass.”

He struck me hard in the side, beside the
ports, and the ensuing pain stole my breath away. My grip on him
slipped as my body quaked in agony and he was able to pull himself
free.

The intruder stood a few feet away, confident
that he was safe, and started to collect himself. He smoothed out
his suit and adjusted his mask. I could hear his muffled curses as
he turned his attention to the small refrigerator in the corner of
the room where they kept samples of my blood.

I coughed up blood and looked over at the
machines that were supposed to alert the doctors that I was in
distress. All of the various alarms were flashing, but they didn’t
emit any noise. My attacker had figured out a way to disconnect the
alarms, and I knew that no one would come to save me.

That’s all right. I didn’t need saving,
because I didn’t mind dying.

I forced myself to sit up, and the agony of
my action caused my arms to tremble as they supported my weight. My
joints wobbled, and I could feel bone scraping against bone. The
pain shot through me as if electric shocks were being sent up from
the bed and through my arms, causing me to grit my teeth. The man
in the room with me was busy pilfering my blood samples, and didn’t
see as I pulled my legs off the bed and let my bare feet settle on
the cold floor.

It had been weeks since I’d sat up on my own,
but I was determined to do so now. I couldn’t tell where my feet
were placed without looking down, as if they weren’t my legs at
all. Pins and needles danced up from my feet, tickling every nerve
along the way as my body registered a smattering of real sensation.
The chill of the floor swept through me, causing goose bumps to
spread and the hair on my arms to stick up like bristles on a
cactus. I took a shuffling step, and then another as the tubes at
my side rattled their base above me. I kept my eyes on my target,
ignoring the pain that thundered inside of me.

My attacker was pocketing vials and satchels
of blood, examining each label as he went as if in search of
something specific. I was nearly beside him when the tubes at my
side impeded my advance. I’d stretched them to their limit, and
when I took my last step I’d caused the apparatus that hung from
the ceiling to rattle loud enough to alert the man I was trying to
sneak up on.

He turned to see what had made the noise and
saw me looming over him. He fell backward, out of his crouching
stance and to his butt, and I swung down at him, stretching the
tubes at my side to their limit. The man cursed as he fell back and
he pressed his fist to the floor to steady himself. He’d been
holding a vial of my blood, and the fragile container cracked in
his grip.

The man shook his hand as my blood dripped
from his glove. He scooted away from me, along the wall, but he was
more frightened of his wound than he was of me now. He glanced up
at me, and then back at his hand.

“Uh oh,” I said with mocking glee. “Did you
get cut?”

He cursed and then looked at the sink that
was beside the fridge, near where I stood. I knew he wanted to
clean himself off to check and see if the broken glass had cut
through his glove, but he didn’t want to risk coming close to me
again. I beckoned him over. “Better wash up.”

Blood trickled from his fingertips as he
turned to leave. I pleaded with him to stay, but he pressed his
badge against the sensor near the door so that he could leave. The
circular entry spun open with a hiss and I waved as he left. “Good
luck, asshole,” I said with a wide grin.

The exit spun shut, and I was left alone, out
of bed and in tremendous pain. The tubes at my side were pulling at
their ports, and I gripped them in an attempt to ease the pain. I
felt the metal ring at the end of one of the tubes and ran my
finger along the smooth edge until I felt the indentation of the
lock. The doctors and nurses here had a small metal key that
slipped into the tear-shaped hole that allowed the tubes to be
detached. Without that key, I would forever be imprisoned by this
contraption, like the victim of a squid, stuck to its arms and
waiting to be devoured.

Blood wet my gown from where the man had
plunged the needle in. I pressed against the wound and was
surprised by the thumb-sized blood print that emerged on my white
shirt. I winced as I felt the lump left behind there. It had
swollen quickly, and I wondered what he’d injected into me. Have
they been doing this every night when I slept?

The small fridge beside the sink was still
open, and there was blood smeared on the floor and wall from the
broken vial. What was he planning on doing with my blood? Wasn’t it
contaminated? The other doctors had taken great care to keep my
disease isolated before.

My legs started to lose the feeble amount of
strength I’d managed to force out of them and I staggered back over
to my bed. I fell onto it, exhausted and racked with pain. It was a
struggle to pull myself back onto the bed, and sweat beaded on my
forehead from the attempt. I finally got myself up and then fell
back with a gasp and a groan of pain.

Now that the alarms had been shut off, I
would have to wait until morning for the nurses to find me. It was
going to be a long night.

* * *

I didn’t have any idea what time it was now.
There was a light on, so it had to be daytime. Right?

Something was scratching at the walls. It
sounded like an animal pawing at a door, with a thousand tiny claws
scraping, scraping, scraping. And then the sound of water
splashing. I looked to the side, my vision spinning as I struggled
to keep my eyelids from closing.

A man was on his hands and knees, scrubbing
the floor where my blood had been spilled. He glanced over at me
when he heard me moving, and paused like an animal caught in the
headlights of an approaching semi. I could see his eyes behind his
visor, bloodshot and wide, and the streaks of sweat that fell down
from his soaked hair. When he was certain I wasn’t getting up, he
continued with his work.

The only light on in here was from a
flashlight that he’d brought, and was resting on the floor, the
beam shining out at the blood he’d spilled. He was furiously
scrubbing, and then using the light to search for another
stain.