Brian Evenson - Last Days

The dressing was off now. The nurse dabbed at the wound with a moist pad, slowly breaking the crust away. The wound was big and jagged, a crazed network of stitches running all along one side of his head.

"We got out the bullet, what didn't come out on its own," said the doctor. "Most of it anyway."

The nurse kept dabbing, leaning against the edge of the bed. Kline watched her in the mirror, listened to the sound of her breathing.

"Your biggest worry," said Morand, "is the brain. Also internal bleeding. I'd give up jogging for a while if I were you."

The nurse gave a high, tittering laugh.

"The pain in your eye is worrisome. We can put a shunt in, if it's a brain issue," said Morand. "For now, shall we just watch you?"

The nurse covered the wound again with gauze, beginning to rewrap his head.

"We'll just keep an eye on you," Morand said absently.

"What?" said Kline, suddenly nervous.

"What?" said the doctor. His smile came back. "Nothing to worry about, Mr. Kline," he said. "It's for your own good."

They drew the curtains back around the bed as they left, but he didn't hear the door close. He lay staring up at the lights, listening to the echoes of their footsteps down the hall, the alternation between the doctor's treble voice and the nurse's high laugh.

After a while, the telephone began to ring. It was on the bedside table just beside him, on the same side as his missing arm. To reach it, he would have had to roll onto his stump and stretch. He couldn't imagine how that would feel.

So he didn't reach. Instead, he just listened. It rang six times and then stopped. And then rang six more times, and then stopped. And then rang six more times. After that it didn't ring again.

Six-six-six , he thought. Mark of the beast . And then thought, They know exactly where I am .

It made him restless. He made himself sit up again, this time slower and with more care. It still felt like someone was pushing a knife into his eye, but slower now. And once he was seated, the pain slowly faded to a dull ache.

The phone was still on the wrong side, silent now. On this side was the curtain. He stretched his arm out as far as he could, but still couldn't reach it. When he started to twist toward it, the pain in his eye gathered, then spread.

He tried to extend his reach with the dentist's mirror, was still short. He pulled the mirror clamped to the IV stand closer, straightening its cable as far as it would go, then twisted the stand's pole with his wrist until the mirror touched the curtain.

He twisted the pole further and the mirror brushed its way past, ruffling the curtain. He twisted the mirror back toward him, cocked the end of the cable slightly, then twisted the pole back out until the mirror was touching the curtain again. Then he spun the pole hard.

The movement sent a wave of pain through the remnants of his shoulder and deep into the abyss of his eye. He closed both eyes and bit down on the insides of his mouth and squinted hard. It seemed to help.

When he opened his eyes again, he could taste blood in his mouth. The curtain had slid three inches or so along its track, leaving a slight gap near the wall, just behind his head.

He tried again and more than doubled the gap, then once more, which left the curtain open enough, but not so much to look like it hadn't simply been carelessly closed. It was harder to work the IV stand and its mirror into place without passing out, but in the end he had positioned them near the edge of the curtain, mirror pressed against the wall. If he held the dentist's mirror just right, he could look into the larger mirror and have an unimpeded view of the doorway.

A few hours passed before anyone came through the door. When someone did, it was just one man, large of frame, balding, who still had all his limbs. He came in and stopped, then came near the curtain.

Kline hid the dentist's mirror under the sheet, watched the tips of the man's shoes just beneath the curtain.

"Mr. Kline?" the man said.

Kline didn't respond. He watched through veiled eyes as the man slowly dragged back the curtain and then came to stand beside the bed. He was motionless and silent for a moment, and then his footsteps echoed off across the room. When they returned, he was carrying a chair.

He sat down beside the bed, crossing his arms.

Just past him, another flicker passed through the doorway and disappeared. A moment later, it slipped back into Kline's limited vision to become human, a uniformed police officer.

The officer put his hand on the first man's shoulder.

"Asleep is he, Frank?" the officer asked.

"I'll wake him up soon," Frank said.

"Where do you want me, buddy?"

Frank shrugged. "Doesn't matter. In here, if you want. Or just outside the door."

The police officer went and got another chair, carried it over to a corner, sat down. Almost immediately he was sprawled in it. Shortly thereafter was asleep.

After a while Frank reached out, nudged Kline slightly. "You're not asleep," he said. "I can tell."

"Never claimed to be," said Kline.

Frank smirked. "Shifty, are we?" he said. "Kline is it?"

"That's right," said Kline.

"Used to be a cop?"

Kline nodded.

"Undercover," said Frank. "That's no cop. It's someone doesn't know who he is. You know who you are, Kline?"

"Better than you," said Kline.

"Don't be too sure," said Frank. Reaching into one pocket, he pulled out a folded piece of paper. He carefully unfolded it and smoothed the creases out.

"Says here," he said, " missing a hand . I'd say that's an understatement, wouldn't you, Kline? How'd you lose your hand?"

"I let someone cut it off," said Kline.

"Now why would a man go and do a thing like that?"

"You can read about it in the papers."

"I don't suppose you care to tell me how you lost the rest of the arm? And the toes?"

"Long story."

"I've got time," Frank said. He waited. When Kline didn't say anything, he stretched. "Bunch of mutilates south of here," he said.

"That right?" said Kline.

Frank nodded. "A whole compound's worth. The Holy Christian Fellowship of Amputation or some such thing," he said. "The Brotherhood of Mutilation. They been asking after you."

Kline didn't say anything.

"You know why they're asking?" asked Frank.

"Why?"

"They don't care to say. They just seem to want to get in touch with you."

"They've already found me," said Kline.

"They pay you a social call?"

"Not yet," said Kline.

Frank got up and walked slowly around the bed. "You want me to put my cards on the table?" he asked.

"I wasn't aware we were playing cards," said Kline.

"Not much you do know, apparently." Frank scratched his head, turning to look at the curtain. "The way I see it is this: a few weeks back you show up on the side of a country road, delirious, mostly dead. Some good Samaritan catches a glimpse of you sprawled on the shoulder and calls 911. I go out there and what I see is lots of blood and an arm cut back to the elbow, recently and awkwardly done. I'm thinking I got a corpse but you turn out to still be breathing. Shallow breaths: slowly suffocating to death. So out of the goodness of my heart I get you to a hospital. With me so far?"

Kline nodded.

"Same day, earlier on, I get a call from somebody about a fire in the middle of nowhere. I send an officer out and he comes back telling me it's this cult compound. One of the buildings has caught fire. 'Anybody hurt or dead?' I ask him. 'Don't know,' he says, 'they wouldn't let me in.'"

Frank turned to Kline.

"He's just a young kid," he said. "Didn't know any better. Would have been me, I sure as hell would have gotten in. But by the time I get down there myself, the fire's out and it's all cleaned up, no sign of much amiss. They stop me at the gate, explain it's all taken care of. Each of those guards only has one hand, a kind of gun prosthesis where the other one used to be. Is that legal? Probably not, but what do I know? What I do know is I can get in, but if I do somebody's likely to get hurt. And it's too late for me to find out anything they don't want me to find out. So I let it go."