CHAPTER SIX: NO PLACE TO TURN

 

Darkness.  He remembers the darkness.  It huddled around him like a pack of savage beasts.  But what he remembered most of all was the stench of death and a strange confused movement; a fearful shuffling just out of reach.  It was as if something was desperately trying to get at him but couldn’t.  Something in the dark wanted to reach out and grab him.  It wanted him dead.

After eons of waiting for the final moments to embrace him, consume him, a door opened and light flooded the room blinding him.  

“Well, aren’t we the lucky one?”  A shadow standing in the door asked.

He didn’t feel lucky.  Was this hell?

The shadow walked over to him and stooped down, “Yeah, you’re one lucky little bastard.  You should be dead, ya know?  Hell, most all of your ilk has moved on; turned…”

“Turned?”  He asked himself.

The shadow eased up to him as if still unsure that it was safe.  He could make out the contours of his face now.  He would never forget the shadow’s face, ever.  In fact, he was sure, if given the chance, he would make this sicko pay; pay for every indignation taken out against him.  They would all pay.  All of them.

“But, enough prattle, the bosses will want a report and they’ll definitely want to see you…more tests…”

“No…no more tests…”  He muttered.

“Yes, more tests!  I mean, you’re the lucky winner of the grand fuckin’ prize!!  Of all the poor bastards in here, you’re still standing…so to speak.  So, yeah, more tests.  Inquiring minds want to know what makes you so DAMN lucky!”

The half shadow mocked him in every word, gesture and facial expression.  He seemed to be angry, but for what reason he did not know.  As the shadow violently pulled on the chains, he was yanked along, but not to the door, but deeper into the shadows.

“Yeah, Lucky.  You’re buddy here wasn't quite that lucky!”

As he was yanked along, the movement in the dark became more and more frantic.  The sounds erupted from the dark like the sad song of the whales only sadder and more haunting.  Suddenly, a form lunged out of the darkness; flailing its arms in a frantic attempt to get at him.  The grinning shadow maliciously pulled him closer and closer to the specter reaching out of the dark.  As he got closer, it took an almost human form; as if it was once a man.  Then, he recognized the uniform and realized he knew the specter.

“No…”  He muttered unbelieving.

“Oh, yeah!”  The shadow yelled a little too happy about it, “This is what you were supposed to be!  But you couldn't even get that right!!”

The screaming shadow yanked the chain around his neck edging him closer to the figure in the darkness who was, even now, straining to reach him.  He may have known the man before him at one time, but not now.  The former man’s arms reaching out of the dark, showed strips of flesh hanging; seemingly ripped by self infliction.  He remembers the eyes peering from the black.  Those vast pools of hopelessness darker than the shadows around him.  It just stared at him hungrily and moaning in a way he had never heard before.  It was if something deep within the thing’s soul was trying to escape and couldn’t.  Or maybe it was something it desperately wanted from…

 

“FRANK!!!”

It was daylight and he was in the Westin again.

“Dammit, Frank!  You said you were a doctor, right?”  Sarge was standing over him with his hands on his hips awaiting an answer.

“Wha?”  Frank was still shielding his eyes from the piercing light.

“A doctor, Frank!  Alex’s leg needs a lookin’ at!  Are you a doctor or not?”  Sarge waved his hand at Frank.

“I’m not that kind of doctor…”  Frank muttered and rolled over on the couch he had been sleeping on.

He could feel Sarge crossing his arms in disapproval behind him, “Not that kinda doctor?  Well, hell, I think Alex would accept help from a gynecologist right now, Frank!!!”

Frank just got comfortable and tried to find rest; maybe a happy dream this time.  Although those were far and few between these days

“Oh, yeah, just turn your back and go to sleep!  That’ll fix things!  Shit!  What a waste of space!  I oughta toss you out the window and let you fly all umpteen hundred stories to your deserved death!”

“Turn” Frank muttered and chuckled to himself.

Another voice was heard from across the room, “I don’t want that toaster throwin’ freak anywhere near me anyway!!  I’d rather cut off the damned leg!!”

“Well, if it keeps this infection up, that’s exactly what we’ll be doin’!”  Sarge stomped off in disgust. 

“Shoulda tossed me…”  Frank muttered out of Sarge’s hearing as he drifted back into the darkness.