The Outsiders (11 page)

His torso
looked like a patchwork quilt, the puckered skin around the
stitching ugly colors. His breathing was labored and he felt a lot
of discomfort even with the morphine pills, but at least he wasn’t
dead; it was practically a miracle.

Greg
awoke in the middle of the night to hear muffled words near the end
of his bed. Too tired and dope-hazed to open his eyes, he tried to
focus on what was being said; Senka was talking to the surgeon, who
also had a heavy accent, although a different one. Maybe Russian.
They spoke together in English.

He was
interested to hear whether they said anything about his progress,
because he’d been excited to realize that day that snippets of
memory were returning. He could remember where he lived in America
and his mom and dad’s names. They were flying out tomorrow; it had
taken a few days for the hospital to track them down.

He hoped
that if he was beginning to recall things just three days after the
accident then he had a good chance of recovery. The mental agony of
not knowing anything about himself or his loved ones was far
greater than the physical pain of his injuries, extensive though
they were.

“
Not until Friday?! But we can’t wait that long!”

“
There is no other option. Mr. Kowalski cannot be moved from
Warsaw until then.”

“
He’s starting to remember...It’s dangerous to administer to
him again so soon.”

“
Already? Don’t worry; it’s only another three days. And what
can he do?”

Greg felt
a rush of alarm and apprehension, but as the figures began to move
towards the doorway, voices drifting away like dissipating smoke,
the morphine started to pull him back down into its lulling grey
mist...

He
couldn’t assign any meaning to their words before slumber claimed
him once more.

Greg was
as weak as a kitten, and that concerned him for more reasons than
he wanted to examine closely. He found himself staring out of his
window and comprehending just how isolated the hospital appeared to
be; there were thick woods just beyond the manicured lawns. There
was also an eight foot high security fence and a guardhouse, which
struck him as both peculiar and somehow frightening.

He’d
remembered more things today: he was an architect, he hated
anchovies on pizza, he’d once broken his ankle during a game of
touch football.

“
When are my parents getting here?”

Senka
looked up from her clipboard, where she was making notes. “I am
truly sorry, Greg, but they had problems getting flight. Maybe
document issues? I’m not sure. They will try to get here as soon as
they can, and your wife too.”

Greg
tried to return her reassuring, almost too sunny smile. He simply
watched her for a few moments as she set down the clipboard,
checked his catheter and fussed with his bedding.

“
Uh...what did you say my wife’s name was again?”

“
Abigail,” she replied patiently, fluffing his pillows for him
and handing him the remote control for the TV. “Would you like
anything else before I leave you?”

“
No, thanks,” he replied with a false smile, keeping it
plastered on his face until she’d exited the room and then letting
out his breath in a long, wheezing exhale, gasping at the pain in
his chest. His brow furrowed in a worried frown.

He’d remembered lots of things that day, including the
heartbreak and loss of a funeral. He could vaguely recall the
ceremony, the hymns...but one thing was as clear as a bell: the
headstone.
Maria Franklin, resting with the
other angels. Beloved wife of Gregory. 8 February 1974 – 15 July
2008.

He
supposed that he could have remarried within six months. The same
as there could be some reasonable explanation for why his parents
hadn’t been able to obtain a flight in four days. And perhaps, in
context, Senka and the doctor’s conversation hadn’t been sinister
at all.

But he
suddenly didn’t feel so lucky anymore.

His name
was Greg. He had been in a car accident.

The car
had been annihilated by a lorry, pieces of metal flying everywhere,
slicing and piercing. He’d lost his spleen, left kidney and lung,
part of his liver and pancreas and his right eye. A valve of his
heart had also been removed during surgery.

He’d
barely made it through alive. He was extremely lucky.

Greg’s
forehead creased in confusion as he examined his wounds, blinking
to focus properly with his remaining eye and hampered slightly by
the thick gauze taped to his face.

The
authoritarian nurse – Senka? – had warned him not to tamper with
the dressings, but he’d wanted to see just how much of a Raggedy
Ann doll he really was. The scarring was so...localized. It was as
if the deadly shrapnel he’d apparently been so fortunate to survive
had aimed directly for his organs. And the weirdest thing of all?
While the gashes over his heart and liver were raw and wet, some of
the others appeared to be healing. The bruising around them had
yellow and black tinges and he itched like crazy where the skin was
knitting back together.

There was
something very wrong with this picture.

He’d had
amnesia at first but he was beginning to remember things now.
Certainly he recalled enough to know that he was being lied to.
Moreover, he was getting some disturbing flashes from what he
assumed to be the last moments before the accident. And he hadn’t
been in Serbia, nor even in a car. In fact, he’d been walking out
into the parking lot of a local hospital after having given
blood...He’d become quite vigilant about that after Maria’s death;
while the doctors ultimately hadn’t been able to save her, the
transfusions she’d received following the accident had at least
given her an improved chance and he appreciated that. Apparently he
was a good candidate for donation: strong and healthy with type ‘O’
blood, meaning that it was universally compatible.

He didn’t
remember much else apart from screeching tires.

When
Senka came to wash him, Greg told her that he believed his memory
was returning. She congratulated him, not offering any genuine
warmth but not outwardly alarmed by the news either. Maybe his mind
had been playing tricks on him. Maybe he was just being
paranoid.

Greg lay
awake in the early hours of the morning, concentrating on slowly
breathing in and out as a way to combat the nagging and growing
pain. He needed more morphine but when he’d tried to call for some
he’d realized that he didn’t have an alarm to press. He’d tried
shouting but soon become resigned to the fact that no-one could
hear him.

In a
nasty dull fog of hurt, he drifted frustratingly on the edge of
unconsciousness, the sharp stabs of pain preventing him from
succumbing. Forgetting the fear and concern inspired by his
returning memories, too absorbed by his current distress, he almost
cried with relief when Senka slipped into the room, cell phone
jammed to her ear.

“
I’m just getting the chart.” She pinned the device with her
shoulder as she picked up the item, shining a penlight on it so
that she could read in the gloom. “Yes, all good. Stable enough to
undertake the last surgery, at least. You have buyers for
all?”

Senka
flinched slightly when she looked up to see that Greg was awake,
gazing at her with wide, horrified eyes. She stared at him for a
few beats before saying in clipped tones, “Call back when you have
a buyer for the heart. Then we can operate.” She snapped the small
phone shut decisively and sidled over to the head of the bed.
“Greg?”

“
What’s going on?!” he demanded, trying to sit up, crying out
as his torso flared with hot agony and Senka pushed him back down
as gently as she could.

“
Hush now. Go back to sleep. Maybe you will see your wife and
family tomorrow and you want to look well for them,
yes?”

“
You lying bitch!” he hissed. “You didn’t call my family...and
my wife’s dead!”

Senka smiled and it was the first time that the gesture seemed
real, reflected in her glittering, cat-like eyes in the dim glow of
the penlight. “So, you see? Maybe you
will
see her.” She lightly traced a
finger over his torso, tsking as he tried unsuccessfully to shrink
away from her. “So strong. You healed so well. It’s a shame you
don’t have two of everything...”

As her
softly spoken and yet malicious words sank in, Greg attempted again
to rise out of bed, to fight her, something. But he’d had so much
major surgery and was in so much pain, debilitatingly weak. He sank
back against the pillows, screaming and clutching at his body, and
she stepped backwards out of reach.

“
Sorry, Greg. But we don’t let you have drugs for twenty-four
hours prior to operating,” Senka confided with mock sympathy,
backing towards the door while he tried to pull enough breath into
his remaining lung to cry out louder, to curse at her.

This time
when she left, he heard the sound of a bolt being slid
home.

Agony
welling inside him, potent and nauseating, Greg considered that he
was facing a day of waiting to die, with no painkillers to even
soothe his decimated body. Time would draw out sharp and slow, each
second a burden to be borne. He’d probably lose his voice before
the ordeal was even half over. If he was lucky, he’d pass out...but
he doubted it.

For the
third time, Greg realized why his room was soundproofed.

His name
was Greg. He had been in a car accident.

The local
press in his home-town carried the story of his tragic demise while
he was on vacation in Serbia. The car had collided with the
guardrail on a mountain road and carried on going, rolling down the
side of a ravine. The gas tank had exploded on impact, obliterating
Greg’s body; there hadn’t even been anything left for his
distraught parents to repatriate and bury next to his beloved wife.
Apparently on the verge of a breakdown, they insisted that they
hadn’t even known that he was planning a vacation.

No-one
said anything, at least not above a low whisper, but ‘suicide’
echoed around more than one mind.

It was a
heart-wrenching tale and a tragic waste. Car accidents were such a
nasty way to go, as commented many of the readers when the story
ran.

But at least it had happened quickly, they all agreed. In that
way, Greg had been very lucky.

THE
GROWLING

David Jeffery

“
Stop it! Stop it, for Christ’s sake! You’re killing
him!”

The voice
was distant, a dream within the nightmare, fogged by fury and the
need to get even, to set things straight; rage fuelling the
repeated pummelling punches; blunting the pain in the knuckles as
they parted lips, mashing them against teeth, the sickening crackle
of a nose disintegrating under the onslaught. The gurgle of warm
blood in the back of the throat.

Retribution is a cold beast, but Cory Anderson was warmed by
it, juiced up on it, getting positively high on it and all the time
his heart pounding, pounding, pounding; in beat with the beating he
wilfully doled out.

Hands
upon him now, small hands, hands with nails that used to rake him
in the throes of desire; Jennifer Spencer loved to do it, hell, he
loved her to do it, loved her leaving her mark on him.

A sign of
her love.

But no
love now. No love for quite a while, in fact. Just lies and deceit
and distance.

And
Malcolm.

Malcolm with his Ford Tigris and faux gold
Rolex
that rotated on his twig thin
wrist. Malcolm with his thin laugh and wide boy charm. Malcolm with
his bloodied lips and pulverised nose.

“
Get off of him, Cory!” Jennifer was back in his head,
insistent, the tone in her voice lilting and frantic, and the nails
raking his neck.

Anderson
dislodged her, knocking her aside as he climbed to his feet.
Jennifer was on her knees, mouse-blonde hair hanging, strands of it
clinging to the sweat about her neck.

God, even
pissed off she looked great.

Malcolm
lay sprawled across a coffee table, his face splattered. He waved
an arm feebly in the air and one of his loafers had fallen off. He
was making thick mewling sounds.

Jennifer
scuttled over to him, her hands unsure of where to go. They settled
on his chest.

“
Why did you have to do this?” she sobbed without taking her
eyes from her lover.

Her
little secret, now in the open and bleeding out on the green
carpet.

“
Why did you have to
do
that?” Anderson said, his sneer made even uglier
by his breathlessness. His eyes caressed her lithe frame in an
attempt to avoid any possibility of meeting hers.

“
You just don’t get it do you, you fucking animal?” she spat.
“You and me, we’re done. And that was before this. Now GET OUT OF
HERE!”

Her skin on her neck was mottled red fire. With some
incongruity Anderson noted that it was the same colour as when
Jennifer came, hot and hungry and holding onto him breathless and
sated. That was back in the days when their lovemaking had actually
been informed by love. Anderson felt a tear in his chest,
realisation that he would never again bear witness to such an act.
Never again feel her warmth lying against him,
around
him.