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“B.P.’s dropping, eighty over forty-six.”
What?
“O2 sat is eighty-three, he needs to be intubated.” The voice calm but full of adrenalin.
What’s happening?
“He’s lost a lot of blood, hang a liter of N.S. - wide open.”
My body was rattling around; it felt like I was holding in a shit after a night of heavy drinking. Who was this guy? Why couldn’t I get my eyes to open?
Oh right, the accident.
I couldn’t move, not because I was strapped down – though maybe I was. My limbs were completely numb. I was a prisoner in my own body. I heard a sharp click and a tube was shoved down my throat. Then the pain finally washed over me.
I’ve been beaten up a lot. It’s a guy thing, right? School yard scrapes, Pop may have been drinking too much that night; eventually you toughen up and do your own ass kicking. I remember I used to bitch about my dive suite chaffing, it used to drive Chief Robins crazy. You made it through BUDs, you can deal with some sand in your vagina.
I never hurt like this, though. I was flayed out. I’d been smashed repeatedly by a meat tenderizer called asphalt and every strand of my being wished for death. I would never bitch about dropping a dumbbell on my toe again. Air was forced in and out of my lungs but the rich, gurgling of blood kept me short of breath. I started to panic.
“His pulse is spiking,” it must have been the paramedic.
“Shit Frank, we’re right around the corner,” a new man said. “Get his heart rate under control or he’s going to bleed out. At least wait until we get him inside.”
Just don’t die in my ride, eh?
Each second was pure agony and there was no escape. I was worthless. Nothing more than a pile of shredded meat.
You think the world is gonna watch your back, Frogman? Chief Robins voice came to mind. Life doesn’t give a shit about you. When you’re out there, it’s you and your team. If you ain’tgot a team, your all on your own and from what I’ve seen, you ain’t worth a shit.
Chief was a crazy son-of-a-bitch but his advice was always motivated me. I guess I was on my own but at least this way, no one would see what I had become. One thing was for sure, no one was going to get me out of this but me.
Think objectively. Be methodical. See the objective off in the distance but remember: each destination has a path. To walk a path requires the right steps. The government spent thousands of dollars training you; don’t let it go to waste.
Step one: decide.
I wasn’t going out like this.
Okay now that you’ve decided not to die, quit panicking!
Easy as that, right?
I stopped fighting against my body. I knew it was fucked and no amount of positive thinking was going to fix that. I let the breathing tube do the work; taking in slow, deep breaths. The paramedics are doing their job, all I can do is stay as lucid as possible. As lucid as…
The vehicle must have come to a halt at some point. I was moving. The slow squeak of the gurney’s wheel grated on my ear drum – new horror to endure.
“Early thirties, John Doe. Multiple limb factures. Punctured lung,”
“We need a chest tube in here,” must be a doctor. The motion stopped as footsteps trailed off into the distance. I was light headed, barely conscious. Something was getting in the way of my breathing even with the tube down my throat.
“Possible spinal injury. Subject has been unresponsive since we arrived on the scene.”
“We’re prepping the O.R. now. Give me some space.” Cold steel pressed into my side, slicing me open, then a tube was jammed between my broken ribs and into my lung.
That go my eyes open.
Five people hovered, pushing my gurney down a long corridor. I could identify the paramedics by their jackets. Two doctors – one must have been taking my vitals again while the other guided the gurney, listening to the paramedic and barking orders. Breathing was getting easier which left me unfortunately aware of how much my oxygen deficiency had dulled the pain. It was so great I had begun to feel disembodied. As I passed under the lights, it felt like a funeral march.
A figure in black trailed behind the gurney. His head lowered, cowled in darkness and the light shone eerily off his shoulders. A chill ran down my spine, escaping whatever calm I had attempted to create – though my body was in no shape to react with a shiver.
We took a sharp turn and he was gone. No one seemed to notice I was awake – they were too busy trying to save me. I had been stubborn my entire life, I wasn’t going to let a thing like mortal injuries get in the way of that. But regardless of what I thought, tears began swelling in my eyes.
When you’re wounded out there, your buddy can’t carry you. You’ve still got to walk on your own legs.
We entered the operating room and I was hoisted onto a table. Every jolt was agony and I was so damn cold. One of the surgical nurses began cutting away what was left of my cloths. Cold wet cloth came down on my wounds. I tensed, trying to conserve what little body heat I had, but the cold cut to my bones. My heart rate began to pulse through the monitor. It sounded so fragile and erratic. I was only now coming to terms with the reality of my mortality.
The sounds around me began to fade. This was it. When you hunt men as your profession, you understand that any day could be your last. I just figured mine would come in a bad ass gun fight in some abandoned warehouse out by the docks. Flash in the pan, a blaze of glory. Yet here I was, I had come to the edge of consciousness for the last time.
“Now, now friend. No need to be so maudlin,” a resonant, mocking voice said. The words shocked me and I sat up to find out where they had come from.
A man in black scrubs stood at the sink washing his hands vigorously.
Wait, I sat up? I did. The only sound left in the room was that of running water. I looked down to examine myself. My body was still a mess and only then did I realize how fucked up I really was. Both my legs twisted, awkward and disfigured, from unnatural joints. Joints I’d been given slamming into the ground. I held myself up with my right arm, which seemed to be the only part of me that was still intact. My chest was covered in bruising and road-rash. The broken ribs on either side twisted in knots underneath the skin. My pelvis must have been completely shattered. My lap looked like nothing more than a bag of meat.
I looked back at the faucet. Water poured out of it into a sink, the metal sound permeated the room; the man had vanished. I looked around, examining the room as best I could but he was nowhere to be found. What was this? I felt my face flush with panic and my breathing sped up. I looked down again to see blood pooling at my waist on the operating table. Droplets of red began to drip down on my chest. I looked up, an observation window framed the horror of my corpse. There was no light from beyond the incandescent bulb that lit the table I sat on. My jaw clenched tightly, grinding my teeth where no lips were there to hide them. The right front half of my face had been completely peeled off. The light gleamed off my bald head – at least the helmet had protected that. A bloody purple stump was all that remained of my nose.
The lights flickered behind the glass – florescent light flickering to life. The visage of a man twinkled in and out of existence. In between the flashes, he raised his head. Slowly. His jet black hair covered by a gray surgical cap, his face twisted in a maniacal smile. Though the gaze from his left eye pierced my soul, his right eye looked away like a chameleon. I turned away in terror squeezing my eyes shut.
“Jumpy today, are we?” he said right behind me.
I let out a bark of a scream. It was as much as I could muster in my current condition, though if I had control over my bowels I’m sure I’d have loosed them.
He laughed at that. A laugh both petrifying and infectious. I took in a deep breath to gain any sort of composure I could muster. “Where am I?”
“Why, you’re here!” he said, his grin widening like the Cheshire Cat. “Where you’ve always been.”
What kind of talking-in-riddles-ass-hole was this guy? “Where’s here you—“
I coughed violently. The fear had made me forget my injuries but now black bile oozed out of my mouth.
“Where is here?” he asked, “Why, sometimes it’s here. Sometimes it’s there. But you’re always here,” he said, making a sweeping gesture encompassing what I could only assume was everything.
I was doubled over now, spitting gore out of my mouth trying to regain my composure. I couldn’t stop coughing. I couldn’t catch a breath. I must be dead. This must be Hell.
“Hell?” he mused as if reading my mind, “Yes I can see why you’d think that.” He took wide steps around me, the clack of his shoes echoing like thunder in the tiled walls of the operating room “No, no, Silas Bishop. This is not Hell.”
As I heard my name out loud a great weight fell upon my heart – not literally, though I can see why you’d think that considering the day I’ve had. I wasn’t raised religious. The thought of paying for the shit I’d done for eternity was… unpleasant. The way he’d said it though. “This is not Hell”? Something clicked inside of me at that – if this wasn’t Hell, his words made sure I knew there was one.
“Death is a paradox for you, Mr. Bishop. I’ve watched you, literally, spit in the face of your own demise. While on the other hand it consumes your every thought.” The maniac paced beside my table gesturing with his hands. I’m sure he was a fantastic public speaker.
I’ve been in a couple bad scrapes. A couple where I’d nearly been executed. You don’t just walk away from something like that. The butcher always gets his pound of flesh.
“You’re a dog, Silas,” his eyes glinting, “Gnashing at his chain; growling at his master yet begging for scraps. In spite of it all, you foolishly believe you are free. Mortality is a gift. It motivates your swift little life.” He looked down at his hands counting his fingers, “What I would give to see myself through your eyes,” he chuckled.
I sat up glaring at him with panting shallow breaths. Who does he think he is? No one tells me what to do. “I’m no dog,” I growled.
His brow furrowed with contempt as he glided to my side, his teeth gleaming in a sadistic grin. With blinding speed his hands grabbed and squeezed my shattered pelvis.
I screamed. The air tore at my vocal chords with the force of it. I couldn’t hold back – I’d never forget that feeling, likely even in death.
Finally I managed to breath in. “Who are you?” I fell back to the table – my body had just taken too much.
He put his hands behind his back in a relaxed posture, as if pleased with himself. I thought I was sadistic – this guy was the major leagues. “I am one of many faces and many names. I am shadow. I am chaos. I am a seeker, much like you, though I know what it is I am seeking. In the end I am but a mask – Grimm you will call me, a suitable façade for our budding partnership.”
Keep it together.
“A man is but the culmination of his actions – the sum of his success and cowardice. True freedom is something mortal man can never know but you throw caution to the wind.” Grimm reached out into the air and a cigarette appeared in his hand; he lit it with a snap.
I would have killed for a cigarette right about then.
“You bite the hand that feeds,” Grimm continued. “You see, at the core of your being is an anarchistic streak. One I find absolutely delightful.” He seemed to giggle at that, his good eye glancing up and down. “The means don’t matter to you. No, no, no! It’s dog-eat-dog out there and only the strong survive!”
Survive.
The lights flashed on. A surgical team surrounded me. Each masked figure part of a tribunal there to judge my worth. The ring of the heart monitor was omnipresent: I was flat-lining. One of the surgeons was above me, giving me CPR. The entire force of his body weight slamming down on me as he tried to compress my heart through the rib cage. Each repetition a sickly pop sounded from my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Not with this ass-hole slamming down on me.
One of the doctors was sewing up my legs “You are a tenacious one,” he said as sweat beaded on his forehead. I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a complaint.
“That you are, Silas” a surgical mask covered his grin, though his eyes were the same. He carried a tray of sterile instruments to the surgical table. “Tenacious, brutal, effective.” No one else heard him speak.
The doctors pulled away from me as a heard the defibrillators tell-tale rising pitch. “Clear,” the doctor commanded. The cold steel pressed against my chest and for a brief instant, I was frozen in time. The current humming against my skin, searching for the path of least resistance. My muscles constricted and flexed out of control as the current coursed through my body.
The monitor beeped twice and resumed its flat-line tone. My tribunal resumed their work.
The maniac leaned down so his face was level with mine, inches apart. “In your fervor clinging to life you’ve made a miscalculation.” His breath was earthy as an India Pale Ale. He straightened himself and walked toward the door. He pulled off his surgical cap and mask before turning around, flinging them into a nearby canister. His blue eyes held an icy stare that chilled my bones. His characteristic grin was gone. A scream begged my lungs for a breath to fuel it. The room’s florescent buzz dimmed as orange flame seeped into the room. Slowly from the floor, up the walls and engulfing the ceiling. The doctors continued their work, uninterested in the sudden cremation oven. There was no escape. Try as they might to repair my injuries, the fire would consume us all. Grimm watched me, gaze never breaking. Though his lips never moved I heard his whisper in my ear, “There are fates far worse than death.”
To Immortal Fear 4.1 > >
To Immortal Fear 4.1 > >
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