What Hides Within (14 page)

"Give me that little electric saw thing."

"You mean the bone saw, Dr. Landenberg?"

"How many other saws do we have, Rosie?"

A circular blade with shark-fin teeth was placed into the neurosurgeon's able hands. Dr. Landenberg scrutinized Clive's shaved and pinned-back scalp. A small, white segment of his skull, with connect-the-dot marker lines painted on it in a rectangular pattern, lay unnaturally exposed. All blood had been swabbed off it, leaving a clean, polished surface that was about to get soiled.
I should have been a proctologist
, Dr. Landenberg thought.

He switched on the blade. A high-volume, high-pitch electric buzzing blotted out normal vocal tones and Dr. Landenberg's heavy breathing. It was the only sound heard, save for the faint, infrequent yet stable beeps of Clive's anesthetized heartbeat on the EKG monitor. Dr. Landenberg's own heartbeat ran much faster. He lowered the saw and began connecting the dots.

Skull fragments and other biological substances splattered upon the doctor's frock and speckled his glasses. His face mask resembled the bib of a dental patient after a cleaning with that power drill dentists call a toothbrush. His work caused him considerable anxiety, yet his hands remained steady. The incision was perfect, deep enough to pry open the skull segment like a manhole cover without slicing into the brain. Blood filled the target area. He dabbed it delicately with a sponge clenched within his forceps' grasp.

With the horizontal trenches dug, Dr. Landenberg rotated clockwise around Clive's head just far enough to saw along the vertical marker lines. Once cut, he removed the rectangular, concaved section of Clive's skull. He peered into the cavity.

"Uh-oh."

"What is it, Doctor?" his assistant asked.

Dr. Landenberg ignored the question. Instead, he examined the exposed portion of frontal lobe with astonishment. After a few moments of intense scrutiny, he broke his silence.

"Let me see the scans."

"Is everything alright, Dr. Landenberg?"

Rosie leaned in for a closer look at Clive's brain. She wiped the skull chips and bile splatter from her goggles as she strained her eyes to locate the tumor.

"Back off him," Dr. Landenberg grumbled, ushering his nurse away from Clive. "Give me a second." Another nurse handed him a folder containing CT scanned images of what purported to be Clive's most vital organ. But something didn't match up.

Dr. Landenberg didn't bother to remove his soiled gloves before rifling through the images. His bloody thumbprints smeared their edges.

"Dr. Landenberg?"

Rosie's pestering was becoming more irritating. Dr. Landenberg's impatience grew faster than an erection on prom night. The longer Clive's brain remained naked to the outside world, the more likely his chances for infection, or worse. He knew Rosie didn't need to be a doctor to see that there was something seriously wrong with the exposed portion of Clive's brain. There was nothing wrong with it at all!

"I don't see any tumors, Dr. Landenberg," Rosie said, verbalizing the dread in his own mind.

Dr. Landenberg again dismissed his assistant. "We're in the right quadrant," he said, mostly for his own comfort. He slapped a backhand across one of the images. "I pinpointed the incision perfectly."

Dr. Landenberg looked up at his staff, their faces aghast and directionless. He thrust his arm toward Clive's man-made orifice, dangerously close to committing an undoubtedly rare assault, the puncturing of another's brain with one's forefinger.

"The anomaly should be right there!" He pointed. "Yet, all I see is healthy brain tissue."

"Maybe it was just a pebble or something that dislodged when you removed the skull piece."

"Rosie, how long have you been a nurse? That has got to be the stupidest thing I . . ." Dr. Landenberg's pause was prompted by an equally stupid idea. He reached for the carved out segment of Clive's skull and raised it between his fingertips to eye level. He flipped it over to glimpse its underside, naively hoping to find his tumor rooted to the bone like some upside-down mushroom.

Among the droplets of red, Dr. Landenberg saw, or
thought
he saw, something glossy and white, like a contact lens doused with milk. He could have sworn it moved.

"Shit!" he shouted, dropping the bone to the floor. He squirmed to remove his gloves, squinting one eye shut as he hurried to the sink. He turned the faucet and removed his glasses.

"What is it, Dr. Landenberg?" Rosie asked, sounding amused by his discomfort.

"I've got something in my eye."

"That's why we're supposed to wear goggles over our glasses, Dr. Landenberg."

Fucking cunt. Why can't I fire that bitch?
Dr. Landenberg washed and disinfected his hands thoroughly before beginning the delicate operation on himself. He could feel a hair, an eyelash perhaps, against his eyeball. When he wiped his fingertips underneath his eye, his hand caught the strand. He gave it a tug, but it was slow to give way as though it were glued to his eye. It snapped off his cornea with a stinging pop.

"It's a long hair," he said with irritation. "Probably one of yours. That's why we tie our hair back, Rosie."

Rosie flashed him a disgruntled look, but he let it slide. His patient laid unconscious, heavily sedated and unappealingly spliced open like a frog in science class, minus the formaldehyde. If he didn't return to Clive soon, formaldehyde had potential to be Clive's next drink. He wiped his glasses dry with a paper towel, slid on a fresh pair of gloves and headed back to gainful employment.

The sound of porcelain being pulverized under foot sent something just short of fright to all of Dr. Landenberg's nerve endings. He stood frozen. His staff stared back at him, their expressions showing their horror.

"Where's the skull piece?" he managed after a hard swallow.

"On the ground," Rosie said, "where you dropped it."

"And nobody thought to pick it up?"

His staff stood dumbfounded. Dr. Landenberg crouched down to salvage the remains of Clive's now fragmented skull. He breathed a heavy sigh before picking up a large portion of the removed section, then another smaller piece, then another.

"Phew!" he said, all the pieces apparently gathered in his open hand. "No sharp edges at least. It looks like I just broke off a corner. Anyone got any Superglue? If not, these broken off bits are tiny. He probably won't miss them."

Dr. Landenberg scanned the underside of the skull fragment a second time. It appeared normal in all respects, save for some lint or crud it had accumulated off the floor. He blew it off with his mouth.

Only the most sterile conditions in Massachusetts hospitals
, he thought. He washed the bone clean with a squirt bottle of saline solution. Whatever he'd seen on it earlier, if anything, was now gone. He dismissed the glossy-white object as something he just thought he saw, a symptom of his hair-affected vision.

"Well, no tumor, no problem. Let's patch him back up and call this one a success."

***

Now is probably as good a time as any to lay down some ground rules.

In a veiled world between consciousness and dreamscape, Clive's senses ventured toward a voice whose maker he couldn't make out. The room around him went from black to white to rainbow, then back to black again, a merry-go-round of colors and nothingness. He felt weightless, a floating spirit separated from his body, immersed by cushy-cozy warmth. Visions of happy frogs dancing to mischievous tunes flirted in and out of sight. Lollipop and butterfly apparitions splurged upon a canvas of air, and he wondered if the frogs would eat them. All around him, the sinister voice swirled, drawing him closer. Clive was more fucked up than a hippie at a Grateful Dead concert. The post-operative painkillers and the lingering anesthetic combined into a potent hallucinogenic.

By now, I hope you realize that you can't get rid of me.

Clive looked all around for the voice's owner. The cartoon images began to fade, yet he still couldn't locate its source. Were they real? Was anything he was experiencing real or would it all just disappear with the close of a dream cycle?

Again, the voice beckoned him toward it. He blinked; his vision was lost. Everything went dark, save for a smidgeon of glossy white propped at the end of his nose. He peered cross-eyed down his nose's crooked path. The image of a tiny creature blinked in and out of focus with metronomic consistency. Was it . . . waving?

"Hey there, little guy," Clive said, sucking back his drool. "What are you doing on my nose?"

Trying to get your fucking attention
, the creature answered without moving its mouth.
And I'm not a guy.

Had Clive been capable of even sporadic coherency, he may have feared the being perched upon his snout. The minute animal protruded like a wart no more than a third of an inch off Clive's skin. Its basic features were identifiable to Clive even in his heavily medicated state. But it was oddly colored, a kind of nearly see-through white all over its shiny, hairless body and legs, with two streaks marking the sides of its bulbous abdomen like blood-red lightning bolts. Seven of its eight legs were tucked beneath it, concealing its full dimensions. Compacted like a fold-up sofa, it barely covered the width of Clive's nose tip.

The ends of the back two legs were bristled like teeth on combs. The thought of the creature grooming made Clive's belly jiggle. Its eighth leg was raised up for Clive's purview. It resembled an old man shaking his fist at meddlesome children, only this old man had many more fists and an equal number of eyes--black, empty eyes. Despite its menacing incisors hanging non-proportionately like walrus tusks from an uncannily blank face, the creature didn't alarm Clive. The anesthesia that should have kept him unconscious a few more hours left him carefree.

"You're a cute little spider, aren't you?"

Clive reached out with one finger to pet the arachnid. "Boop!" he said, attempting to pat it on its head. His motor functions completely out of whack, he monumentally missed the spider. His hand crashed limply onto his chest.

Don't touch me
, the spider warned, but Clive was in no state to heed warnings.

"Relax, little man," Clive said, slurring.

Something had slid partially over his left eye. He brushed back the bandage that covered his forehead. It felt wet, but then again, so did everything else.

I told you, I'm not a guy. Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to reveal myself, what with all the dope you have in your system. I wasn't sure what would happen if I woke you, but I wanted to catch you at a moment when you wouldn't scream like a bitch at the mere sight of me. Plus, we have work to do. So, here I am.

"Yeah!" Clive shouted, laughing for no discernible reason. "I see you."

I warned you, didn't I? I told you I'd still be here after the operation, but you didn't want to listen.

Clive cackled like a drunkard. "You're too funny. I may not be . . . thinking clearly, but I know talking spiders aren't real. This is a dream. When I wake up, you'll be gone. Don't worry, though. I'll tell Morgan about you."

Still unable to accept the truth, huh, Clive? Let me give you the bottom line. You destroyed my home. Now, you are my home. Sound fair? And I like it here. I have new purpose, plans for you, Clive. It's been a long time since I last entered what your kind ironically calls civilization. A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same, and I will view this new age through your eyes. You can either embrace that and all that I can offer you, or resist me and suffer the consequences. I'll grant you one pass since you did have brain surgery for no reason.

"Boy, you're a serious little buggie. Come on, now! Let's see you turn that frown upside down." Clive gurgled, and the drool ran freely.

Perhaps this wasn't the best time to talk to you after all. At least you're not panicking like you've been so fond of doing lately.

"Since you're my new 'real' friend, shouldn't I call you by your name?"

Thank you, Clive. Finally, some semblance of maturity. I've been called by many different names over the years. My preferred name, though, is probably--"

"Captain, hehe, Captain Fuckwad!"

Clive giggled so uncontrollably that he broke wind. He knew that there was about a fifty-fifty chance that he sharded, but he was too drugged to give a damn.

I stand corrected.
The spider stepped around the curve of his nose.
We'll talk again soon. I have business to attend to. You're lucky I don't take a shit on your nose for that one, though.

"No, wait! I didn't mean it," Clive said apologetically, still having trouble controlling his laughter. "How about Charlotte, then?"

What? You mean like Charlotte's Web? You're an unoriginal bastard. That's pitiful.

"Okay. How about Chester?"

"Do you have some strange fetish for C.H. names? Not to mention, I already told you that I'm not a guy. I'm female. You wouldn't want me calling you Sally, I presume."

"I got one! Cornelius Cornhole of the Klondike."

Chester it is. Glad to officially make your acquaintance, Clive.

"Same here, Chester Molester." Clive's joke was both antiquated and unfunny, but that didn't stop it from sending him roaring.

You would think one might pay a bit more attention to a talking spider. Anyway, I'm leaving. I have places to go and people to see. Actually, you do, so heal up quickly. Call to me when your mental capacities return, and we'll finish this conversation. Oh, and be sure to thank that doctor for giving me a skylight.

"Chester" retreated into Clive's nostril. Her every step caused a trickling sensation that tickled Clive's nose hairs and provoked his laughter. As she settled back into her new home, Chester left Clive with some parting words.

Think about what I said. We could be friends, or we could be enemies. That's your call. I'll make sure you remember this conversation when you're more together. I can do that up here. I can do lots of things to you up here. After all, I'm in your head.

Shrill screams and ghastly wailing reverberated through the hollow air, echoing off the thick, concrete walls. Quiet sobbing came from ground-level breaths. Cries for help went unanswered.