Saturday, March 10, 2007

Third Time

Another darkened bedroom. Another syringe. Another dark figure lurking.

Dr. Taylor, or Dr. Kammerich depending on who was looking, took a step toward the bed. On it lay a sleeping figure. Dr. Taylor took another creeping step. It felt like there was something under his foot. He looked down, and in the darkness it looked like he was standing on a large glove. He looked up. Two startled eyes stared up at him from the bed. A foot hit him in the side of the head and he fell backwards. I can't even succeed at destroying my failures, the multi-named doctor thought as he scrambled to find his syringe in the dark.

There was the sound of someone fumbling against a wall a few feet from the bed and heavy breathing. A lamp flicked on in the corner of the room. The doctor saw the oversized hand at the lamp switch. He followed the skinny, five-foot-long arm back to its source, a startled looking woman, sitting up in her bed. "Dr. DePalma?" she said, recognizing the man crawling about on her floor.

With one quick, fluid movement, the doctor snatched up the syringe in front of him, stabbed it into the long-armed woman's leg, and slapped down the plunger with the other hand. The long-armed woman screamed from the brutal administration of drug. The neurotoxin, the doctor's own concoction, began to flow through her.

With her other leg, the long-armed woman kicked the doctor in the head again. The doctor caught himself on his way back to the floor and began to scramble toward the door. Still sitting on her bed, the long-armed woman reached for the doctor with her longer arm. He was just out of her reach. She tried to stand up, but howled from the pain in her leg. She ripped out the syringe and threw it at the figure dashing through her door. She began to feel woozy. She stood up to try to give the doctor chase.

Before she made it to the door, she had to stop. Her vision was blurring and her skin felt like it was aflame. She held her head in her large right hand and tried to steady her dizzy head. The only thing she could concentrate on was her rage.

The drug was supposed to have killed her within minutes, especially since the doctor had included even more poisons in this batch than he had with the batch that had failed to kill one of his earlier patients. But the doctor was a better Frankensteinian than a pharmacist, and had neglected to realize that some of the drugs counteracted one another, and, thus, the drug would not kill anything but the mice he had tested it on. In fact, the drug served only to dull the patients' senses and awareness and increase their energy and emotions. The recipient of the drug was nearly impervious to pain for hours, and for several hours more would be in a state of heightened anger and confusion.

The long-armed woman walked to her closet like she was drunk and pulled out a coat and a pair of shoes. She laboriously put them on over her pajamas. The entire time the only thought she had was of finding the doctor. Her intention was justified, perhaps, but her actions were irrational. I have to find him, she thought. I have to find him and kill him.

1 comment:

  1. ooooh. new character...

    hey, fix this sentence:

    "Still sitting on his bed, the long-armed woman reached for the doctor with her longer arm."

    -mags

    ReplyDelete

Circa Now