Ike Hamill - The Vivisectionist

Jack circled behind the chair and grabbed the gun from the counter. He stuffed some of his supplies back into his pack and carefully shouldered it, while pointing the gun at the doorway. Moving cautiously, and still favoring his hurt foot, Jack approached the doorway. He wondered if the music could have started on a timer, but that didn’t seem likely. Someone played this music on purpose, to tell Jack that he wasn’t alone here. He reminded himself that he had three shots left in the gun.

Jack approached the door from an oblique angle, so he could see down the hall to where the bull-man had come from. Pointing the gun, he approached the door and whipped his head around the jam to see down the other direction. He saw closed doors. One belonged to the pole room, and another to the closet where he had found the dolly, but the other doors had been locked each time he had tried them.

He backed away and thought through these new facts. The music suggested to him that the man on the floor was not alone, and Jack might have an even more formidable adversary awaiting him. Furthermore, he had lost track of Stephen. Jack prioritized and figured his most important goal was to locate the other player, or determine that he and Stephen were now alone. He had lost the element of surprise, if indeed he had ever had it, but Jack trusted himself and his ability to deal with any problem that might arise.

Immediately after starting forward, an encouraging thought occurred to Jack: this was just part of the game. The last time Jack had explored this hallway, he had uncovered all the unlocked doors and the locked ones were impenetrable. But, he reasoned, there must be a way to solve this problem if he thought about it. Once he opened himself to this possibility, another thought occurred to Jack. He had seen an electronic device mounted next to one of the doors that he had guessed was a fingerprint reader. If that was true then he might already have the key to that door.

Jack just needed to get the dead man’s hand down to the door to test his theory. With the safety set, Jack tucked the gun under his belt and walked down the hall to inspect the device. Crouching, he examined the black box. It had a thin indentation with a metallic strip area across the middle. He swiped his own finger down the indentation and a red light flashed. It flashed twice and was accompanied by two high-pitch beeps. Jack smiled.

He returned to the body and stopped at the edge of the puddle of blood. Jack braced himself against the wall and leaned over to grab the man’s right hand. Thick goo covered the side of the man's palm. The blood had already begun to coagulate, and it dripped in thick clots to the floor as Jack held the thumb. Jack stayed cautious — he didn’t want to ruin his clothes by smearing them with this man’s blood.

Carefully arranging his grip, he pulled the cold hand. The dead man slid, but it was tough going and a wave of clot-blood rolled towards Jack’s shoes as soon as he stopped pulling. Jack decided on an easier way to accomplish his task.

He stepped around the pool of blood again and returned to the examination room. A quick look around turned up no knife, but he did find some wickedly sharp instruments in one of the unlocked cabinets. The tool he chose measured almost eight inches long and looked like a miniature saw. The leading edge was serrated, and then became a straight, razor-sharp edge. Jack admired the reflective gleam and headed back to the body.

Jack arranged the hand on the floor so that the right index finger was spread from the rest of the hand. He backed away as far as he could and raised the knife a couple of feet above the finger. He swung. The bone stopped the leading edge of the blade. The butt of the blade clanged against the floor. Jack grunted and frowned. He pulled the end of the finger and sawed through the second knuckle easily.

Pinching the severed finger between his index finger and thumb, Jack returned to the door. He lined up the finger on the reader and swiped. The red light flashed twice as the unit beeped a rejection.

“Shit!” exclaimed Jack. He looked around quickly, suddenly conscious of himself.

Jack backed away from the door and tried to see it for the first time. His face lit up as he realized his mistake — the reader was on the left side of the door, so it might read only the left hand. He also realized that it might not be keyed to an index finger. The thumb was another likely candidate.

He set the finger on the floor and returned to the body to collect the other digits. The left hand was harder to get at — when the man had collapsed, he had pinned his left hand underneath himself. Jack worked the arm free, still trying to stay clean. The index finger was easy, but the thumb gave Jack problems. He couldn’t seem to find a gap between bones and ended up sawing down the side of the man’s hand.

Now, with both hands gripping a severed digit, Jack returned to the door. He tried the thumb first. He figured it was least likely to be the one, and he wanted to eliminate it. The red light flashed and the unit beeped.

Jack set the thumb down and tried his last hope. He flubbed the swipe and the red light flashed once, with no noise. He took a deep breath, exhaled and then tried again. Jack dropped the finger in his excitement when the light flashed green. He heard a distant buzzing and a light “click” near the door handle.

With no thought about the consequences, Jack reached out and pulled open the door. As the door opened, Jack had a brief glimpse of a tall figure on the other side, silhouetted by bright lights. Two metal probes shot out from the figure. Jack heard a tiny explosion from the man’s Tazer, followed by a crackle that seemed to come from inside Jack’s head.

Just before his neck tightened, Jack’s gaze flew to his own chest where a red dot, centered on his heart, was framed by two metal spikes trailing tiny wires.

The man stalked down the hall. The boy barely registered the approach of his pursuer. Some deep part of the boy’s brain still harbored hope and for one absurd moment he wished the man would walk right by. That hope died as the man drew alongside the boy and stopped. The man bent down and grabbed the boy’s ankles.

The boy slumped as the man dragged him by the ankles away from the wall. His head flopped back and struck the floor; he looked up into the bright lights. They burned blue and yellow negatives on his eyes. He couldn’t see any of the man’s features — the glare and after-image were still affecting his eyes.

With one hand, the man lifted the boy by the collar of the the lab coat. The man grabbed his shoulders and turned him around, pushing him towards the door. Reaching over the boy’s shoulder, the man opened the door. The door swung open to reveal an exam room; either the same one the boy had been trapped in before, or one exactly like it.

The deep part of the boy’s brain, buried under layers and layers of numbness, acknowledged the exam room and registered no surprise.

The man's rough hand pressed the boy forward and he zombie-walked towards the chair. The man moved him like a puppet, sitting him down and arranging his limbs in the chair before strapping him down. Back in the man’s chair, the boy felt an urge to protest — he had come so close to escaping, and could have tried his luck at the window. His urge to fight began to rekindle as the man tightened the straps. Despite this new activity deep in his thoughts, the boy’s expression remained slack and lifeless.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said the man.

Now the boy wanted to struggle, but his limbs felt far away and foreign.