D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

As he paced, he heard the faint squeak of a floorboard in the hallway and a small folded piece of paper slid under the door.

He stared at the square of white paper on the floor, picked it up and read the single sentence. ‘You are not alone’.

What the hell was this? He had never felt more alone. Was someone sympathetic to his personal plight? Was there someone else locked up here or hiding? Maybe it was a trick. Possibilities raced through his mind and as he contemplated this development, he heard the muffled thuds of people ascending the stairs. This time the door swung open, and Sarah and Seth walked in. Chris slid the note into his pocket.

“How’re you feeling?” Sarah asked.

“Not good,” Chris replied. “What are you going to do with me?”

Seth and Sarah exchanged quick glances before he said, “Nothing – for now. You’re staying right here.”

Sarah stood next to Chris, and before he could react, she plunged a needle into his shoulder.

“What’s that,” he exclaimed, recoiling.

“A sedative.”

He turned to Seth who slowly unrolled a medical kit on the bed. The shiny tools wrapped inside the cloth bundle glistened maniacally as the light in the room glinted off them.

The sedative was already kicking in. “What are you doing?” Chris slurred.

“Setting your arm,” Sarah replied. “If we let it go much longer, you’ll get gangrene and we’d end up having to amputate it. That wouldn’t be good.”

Seth pushed him down onto the bed. His colorless lips pressed tightly together, making his mouth look like an old scar on his angular face. Chris felt like he was in a coma – alert but incapable of communicating.

They unwrapped the gauze from his arm. Sarah grimaced as she looked at the wound.

“We’re going to have to open it up,” Seth said as he pulled out a scalpel.

As the blade touched his arm, Chris wanted to scream but he was paralyzed. He watched in horror as they slit his forearm open and blood streamed from the cut. The antiseptic shininess of the scalpel, its obvious weight, the effortless way it parted his skin made it seem alive, as if it were far more than just a simple cutting tool.

The procedure only took twenty minutes, but to Chris it was a lifetime. They clearly weren’t doctors, but they got the job done. They sutured him up, wrapped his arm with fresh bandages, gave him another shot and left the room.

“How’d it go?” Camilla asked as they walked into the kitchen.

“Good, I guess,” Sarah replied. “Now I remember why I didn’t go to med. school.”

Mike handed her a glass of wine.

The four of them sat around the table in silence for a few minutes until Sarah said, “I think we need to talk about a contingency plan.”

“What makes you say that?” Mike asked as he abruptly stopped the overly full glass from meeting his lips, spilling some wine in his lap. “Surely we should carry on with the plan as it is. Making last minute changes now sounds risky.”

Sarah noticed the nervousness in Mike’s voice. Why was he so worried about creating a contingency plan? She still didn’t trust him and vowed again to keep a very close eye on him. “It’s best to be prepared,” Sarah replied.

“We should be safe here,” Mike said. “I don’t see any reason to move from here or change plans at this stage.”

“I know that, and we probably will be safe, but let’s talk about it just in case.”

Pell had no idea what the time was – the floor was dark and quiet. He had been staring at the ceiling for a length of time that he couldn’t begin to define. The dim lights of his monitoring equipment flickering on the suspended ceiling tiles and the steady sounds of the equipment put him into a trance – as if he were sleeping with his eyes open. The sedatives most certainly played a role in this feeling.

A hand clamped over his mouth.

He stared into his assailant’s pale blue eyes, inches from his own – Carl Moscovitz. A black ski mask covered his face, but it was that bastard, no doubt about it. His pointy nose poked through the woven fabric.

“Hi, Pell,” he said in a whispered nasally whine. “Surprised to see me?”

Pell stared back at him – defenseless.

“How did you find out about me?” Carl spat.

When he didn’t respond, Carl shook his head violently.

“Was it one of my men? Shake your head or nod you son of a bitch. Was it OIA?”

Pell refused to give him the satisfaction of an answer.

“I always knew you were worthless,” Carl said as he pulled a hypodermic needle from his pocket. He removed the protective tip and brought his face down next to Pell’s. “This is for Allen Jenkins,” he whispered into Pell’s ear. “And me.”

The needle pierced his skin next to an IV line so that the puncture hole would look like a first unsuccessful attempt on the IV. Carl knew all the tricks. Pell struggled briefly, but his body soon felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Carl released him and stood up. Pell gasped. Central nervous system paralysis had set in.

He watched Carl blow him a kiss before leaving the room. His senses left him almost all at the same time. The last one to go was his sight. He could see the frantic nurses running into his room but that too was soon gone. Agent Paul Pelletier would never get to enjoy his new-found sobriety or an early retirement; he died at nine minutes past twelve.

Chris woke up expecting the pain in his arm to be much worse than before, but to his surprise it actually felt better. It still hurt, but it was a good pain, as if his body understood that it could now heal properly. As he sat up in his bed, he realized that he wasn’t alone.

He could hear the light breathing of someone standing just inside the shadowy doorway. It was too dark to see who until the form moved closer and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“What…” Chris started to say, but a hand quickly covered his mouth.

“You are not alone,” Albert said.

“You gave me the note?” Chris said through Albert’s hand.

“Are you going to be quiet?” He asked in his crisp speech.

Chris nodded and Albert removed his hand.

“Good,” he continued. “We don’t have much time so I want you to listen to me carefully.”

Again Chris nodded and Albert continued, “I knew you followed me up from Malibu, Chris. I let you do it.”

“You knew? Why?”

“I thought you were with the FBI.”

Chris contemplated this for a moment. “So you wanted the FBI to come here? I don’t understand.”

“It was a spur of the moment thing. I don’t know what I was thinking. That’s why I lost you there at the end. On the drive up here I considered what I was doing and bringing in the Feds at that point was definitely the wrong thing to do.”

“I’m not following you,” Chris said.

“Look, I don’t want Gen96 to succeed. I understand where they’re coming from and I appreciate their reasoning. I really do but I can’t accept the method. It’s too…” he paused for a second, letting his gaze fall on Chris’ freshly bandaged wound and said, “…unnatural.”

“So why don’t you call the cops?”

“I could never hurt Camilla. I worked for her parents when they were alive and I have been here for her since she was born. I basically raised her. She’s like my own flesh and blood. I promised her parents I would always look after her and, to that end, I would never be, could never be, a part of her incarceration.”

Chris nodded as he considered the implications of what Albert was saying.