John Saul - Faces of Fear

The figure on the other side of the glass turned, and Michael found himself staring into Conrad Dunn’s darkly hooded eyes. The surgeon held up the scalpel in his right hand as if it was explanation enough, then shifted back to his unconscious patient.

Michael dropped the broken chair, already searching for something else to use against the barrier between him and his daughter.

The computer stand! It was big, looked heavy, and had enough sharp angles on it that—

He swept the computer off the stand and sent it crashing to the floor.

Every monitor on every wall in both the laboratory and the operating room instantly went dark.

Now Conrad Dunn whirled around to glower furiously at him, his eyes dark and menacing above the white surgical mask.

“I’m coming for you, you bastard,” Michael whispered, and seizing the heavy computer stand in both hands, lifted it up. Using every bit of strength he could muster, he swung the stand against the glass wall. A searing pain shot up Michael’s arms as the shock of the blow knocked the stand out of his hands and sent it crashing into the racks of test tubes on the countertop behind him. Though Michael was knocked almost to his knees, the heavy tempered glass held.

Taking a deep breath, and wiping the sweat from his palms, he pulled the stand from the countertop, gripped it even tighter than he had a moment ago, and swung it again.

The stand hit the glass and bounced back, but this time Michael let it go and ducked out of the way.

A small crack appeared in the lower right-hand corner of the glass panel.

Michael took a deep breath, heaved the computer stand up for a third time, and swung it once more into the glass.

CONRAD DUNN STARED at the crack in the glass panel with unbelieving eyes. The glass was supposed to be unbreakable — bulletproof!

And now Alison’s father had broken it.

Broken it!

Suddenly everything he’d been working on for so long — every careful plan he’d laid, every perfect feature he’d collected, every sacrifice he’d made, was in jeopardy.

Everything— everything! — could be ruined.

All the work he had done could be ruined right here, right now.

But that wouldn’t happen — he wouldn’t let it happen.

Not now, not in the final moments, not when he was on the verge of creating perfection.

So he would deal with it.

He would deal with — what was his name? Michael! — yes, he would deal with Michael Shaw just as he had dealt with Daniel DeLorian.

The way he had dealt with his wife.

Nothing — nobody — would stand in his way. Not now, not when he was so close.

Not when everything could be so easily ruined.

Conrad Dunn took a fresh grip on the scalpel just as the computer stand crashed through the wall, showering shattered glass everywhere.

Over him.

Over his instrument tray.

And — worst of all — over his patient’s unfinished face.

MICHAEL LEAPED into the operating room, but his pant leg caught on a thick shard of glass still jammed in the window frame. He tripped, his pant leg tore loose, and he skidded over the thousands of pieces the single pane of glass had exploded into.

Trying desperately to hold his balance, he slammed into the operating table, sending it crashing against a glass-sided tank filled with the same greenish substance he’d seen in the lab. The tank shattered and the green stuff spilled out onto the floor.

But the green slime wasn’t all the tank had contained.

Against his own will, Michael’s eyes closed against the gruesome sight of the fragments of human flesh that were now mixed in with the broken glass on the floor.

• • •

A ROAR OF PURE FURY FORMED in Conrad Dunn’s throat as he watched years of work spew across the floor. But even before he gave vent to his rage, he’d already repressed it.

Not now!

This was not the time to indulge himself in mere anger.

It wasn’t ruined yet — not all of it. If he worked quickly—

A new sound now rose over the blaring strains of Vivaldi.

Sirens.

Conrad snaked his arm around Michael’s neck, knocking his feet from under him and squeezing off his carotid artery.

Michael thrashed wildly on the floor, trying desperately to get his feet back beneath him but succeeding only in slashing dozens of cuts into the palms of his hands as he tried to grab hold of something that might help him escape from the choking arm around his neck. But Conrad only increased the pressure on his neck, and then Michael could no longer breathe.

He clawed at the arm around his neck. He wouldn’t die — not here, not now, not as long as Alison needed him. But even as he tried to find new strength, he felt his body weakening.

And with the weakening, a strange blackness began to gather around him.

The blackness of death…

I’m sorry, he silently cried out to Alison and to Risa. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Just as the blackness was enveloping him, Michael reached over his head and tried to grab Conrad by the back of the neck to pull him down to the floor with him.

Then his muscles went slack and he slid into the blackness.

CONRAD BARELY NOTICED a new shadow in the room before he felt fingers close on his hair and jerk his head backward. The attack came so quickly that he lost his grip on Michael Shaw and let his body drop away from him. Then he was twisted around and forced down as well.

Michael rolled over onto his back and lay still. Then, as his lungs took a deep, convulsive breath, the darkness began to clear from his vision.

He saw Conrad Dunn squirming on the floor next to him, and heard a scream of agony as an oddly familiar tan shoe ground the fingers of Conrad’s right hand into the broken glass.

As the music of Vivaldi that still filled the air faded to a quiet passage, Michael could hear the crunching of glass beneath the heavy shoe — or maybe it was the sound of the surgeon’s fingers being crushed.

Next to the shoe lay the scalpel that Conrad Dunn had clutched only a moment ago, and without hesitation, Michael picked it up.

With a quick glance up at Scott Lawrence, who still gripped Conrad’s hair in both his hands, Michael’s rage suddenly came into tight focus.

His eyes fixed on the wide expanse of Conrad Dunn’s throat.

Without making any conscious decision at all — without even thinking — he slashed the blade upward, its razor-sharp blade cutting deep into Conrad Dunn’s exposed flesh.

A gush of blood spurted from the artery the scalpel opened, pouring down Conrad’s surgical gown to mix with the green gel that covered the operating room floor.

“Are you okay?” he heard Scott ask.

He nodded quickly, then: “What about Alison? Did he cut her?”

The ensuing silence seemed to go on for an eternity, then he heard his partner say, “He was just beginning. I think she’s fine.”

As the sirens in the background abruptly fell silent and he heard voices shouting in the distance, Michael took a deep breath, chasing away the last dark cobwebs of unconsciousness.

The voices came closer, growing louder.

He heard the squawk of a radio.

At last he stood up, battling the weakness in his legs and the wrenching pain in his back. With Scott’s hand steadying him, he moved through the shattered glass wall into the laboratory.

He limped over to Risa’s still form and knelt next to her, then gently pulled the sheet away from her face. Laying a gentle hand on her cheek, he felt a terrible wave of grief wash away the last of his energy.

“She’s safe,” he whispered to Risa, gathering her body into his arms. “Our little girl is safe.”

One Year Later