Ike Hamill: The Vivisectionist

He reached to put his instrument back in its holder. Pausing halfway, he looked at Stephen and raised his eyebrows. Stephen nodded assent and the man set the instrument down.

With that done, he placed his hands in his lap and resumed speaking — “First, I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. Honestly, I don’t want you to hurt anyone either.”

Stephen tried to hold his stance. His arms trembled from exertion.

Stephen had intended to silently slip behind Patrick’s bureau and use the tunnels to get to the vending machines. His memory had failed him miserably, as he found himself in the exam room with Jack. Now he stood face-to-face with the crazy guy — Patrick — and Patrick was right. Stephen desperately didn't want to shoot anyone.

“Second,” Patrick continued, “when I captured Jack and you had your adventure in the ceiling, I found that gun and removed the ammunition.”

He sounded confident; Stephen believed him completely. Narrowing his focus on the back of the revolver, he could see a sliver of the chambers on the left and right, and they looked empty.

Stephen could only think of one idea, and it required complete commitment.

“You’re lying,” said Stephen.

“I just saw you look at the cylinder,” said Patrick. “You know it’s empty.”

Stephen assessed his options. He'd seen empty chambers on both sides of the cylinder. Unless someone had unloaded the gun, he should at least have seen the spent casings. Could he bluff Patrick? Jack spoke before Stephen could decide.

“He's wearing my backpack,” said Jack. “I had extra bullets in there. Stephen could have reloaded.”

Patrick paused and looked into Stephen's eyes.

“You boys are not very convincing,” said Patrick. “And I’m the one who unloaded the gun, so you’re not going to bluff me.”

Stephen kept quiet. A new plan formed in the back of his mind; he had to keep it from showing in his eyes.

“The probability of that is very close to zero, based on his reaction,” said Patrick, gesturing towards Stephen. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

Patrick rose from his stool and brushed his hands on his lab coat. He took a step towards Stephen and hesitated only slightly when Stephen raised and re-aimed the gun. With two confident strides across the floor, he stood with his chest directly against the barrel of the gun. Stephen let the man press into his arms a bit, getting a few inches closer.

With his left hand, Patrick reached up and took the gun from Stephen. Sighing deeply, shoulders falling, Stephen raised his hands in surrender. As if explaining a simple concept to a small child, Patrick opened the revolver and showed Stephen the empty cylinder, holding it directly in front of his face.

This was his moment — Stephen cast back his right hand, tilted his head to the left, and landed his fingers perfectly on Kate’s kitchen knife. He had rescued it from the shelf in the closet and tucked it into the pack, at the ready.

He pulled the knife from the pack in a perfect shallow arch. When he brought the knife down, the blade faced Patrick.

Stephen tightened his grip as his right hand had reached eye-level, where Patrick held the gun for his inspection. The knife was tilted, and when it struck Patrick, it slipped nicely between Patrick's knuckles and split the skin and muscle, down to the wrist. The knife rebounded off Patrick’s wrist, and only the tip of the knife scratched the next few inches. The tip scraped down Patrick’s arm, and Stephen pressed forward again and dug the blade in deep.

Patrick inadvertently aided Stephen’s cut, reacting by raising his arm up and away. His reflex helped the blade plunge deeper. Then Patrick leaned back enough to be out of the blade’s path.

“Bitch!” screamed Patrick. He flung the empty gun at Stephen’s head. Expecting retaliation, Stephen easily ducked the gun, but got splattered with a streak of Patrick’s blood. He took a short, crouching step towards Patrick, flipped the blade, and swiped it again. He caught only a tiny part of Patrick’s right arm, but caused Patrick to back up another step.

Stephen pressed ahead, still desperate; he had nothing to lose. He wanted to take full advantage of the surprise. He thrust the knife ahead and lunged.

Trained for this type of attack, Patrick turned his midsection and dodged. Patrick grabbed Stephen’s wrist as it passed by and pressed his hip against Stephen’s falling body. Soon Stephen was upended, flipping over with his knife-wrist as the fulcrum. Halfway through his flight, his wrist bent painfully back and the knife slipped from his hand.

Stephen had studied martial arts enough to know how to fall. He used his legs and free arm to soften his landing, tucked in his head to prevent concussion, and slapped the floor with his free hand. With his chin pressed to his chest, Stephen could see his own left hand hit the floor, and he saw the flipping, flashing knife bouncing just an inch away from it. He turned his hand to intercept the handle of the knife, and grabbed it. His fingers fell perfectly into the grooves of the handle.

Patrick followed the throw with a crouching left-handed punch, aimed right at Stephen’s nose. This was a move he had practiced a thousand times, but had never employed to the point of contact. A smile turned up the corners of his mouth as he anticipated the satisfying crunch of Stephen’s nose. In mid-punch, Patrick remembered the fresh wound and pulled back slightly, not wanting to injure his hand further.

Stephen looked up to see Patrick’s ruined hand descending towards his face, and jerked his left hand up. With his arm fully extended, Stephen would have just reached Patrick’s chest with the knife, but Patrick helped him again. Unable to stop, Patrick’s momentum carried his chest directly into the knife held by Stephen’s locked arm.

The knife slipped easily between Patrick’s ribs and sliced through his heart just as Patrick’s fist reached Stephen’s nose. Stephen jerked his head to the side and his cheek took the brunt of the dying punch. Gasping and pulling both hands up to his chest, Patrick toppled over. For a second Stephen flailed and kicked to get away, but soon saw that Patrick wasn’t trying to pin him down — Patrick's life was quickly fading away.

Extricating himself from the dying man, Stephen got to his feet and stood a pace away from Patrick. He watched as the crazy man’s eyes turned glassy and unfocused; listened as the man’s breathing hitched and stopped. When he had seen no movement for several seconds, Stephen closed his eyes. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before he turned around and faced Jack.

“Can you untie me now?” asked Jack.

“I don’t think I should,” replied Stephen. “I think I’ll just go to your house and get your parents.”

“You can’t do that,” said Jack. “You’re in this now — you just killed that man.”

“That,” said Stephen, pointing, “was self-defense. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.”

“Except for the fact that you don’t have any evidence,” said Jack. “How will this look? It’s his hotel — we’ve just been breaking in. One day he catches us in his place, so you stab him?”

“There’s got to be some evidence around here. That guy’s a killer. You said so,” argued Stephen.

“I think he’s a killer. But I don’t have any hard proof. The worst he did was cut up my leg,” said Jack.

Stephen took a step closer to Jack and surveyed his leg — “Actually he didn’t really cut up your leg. Looks like he was doing a tattoo.”

“Really?” Jack craned his neck to see. “I thought it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Yeah, so what proof do you have of anything?”

“Shit,” said Stephen, thinking about Jack’s logic. “So what do I do then?” He was sure that he could get his parents to understand, but it did seem like a pretty outlandish story. Stephen started to consider talking to police about the hotel.