Headcase, p.26
Headcase, page 26
I look at Harmony for a long time.
‘What?’ she says.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Good work, Harmony.’
She nods seriously. ‘I notice things. I have good eyesight.’
It’s close to what I told Thistle, when we first started working together. I wonder if Thistle was thinking what I’m thinking—I’m stuck with a crazy person.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Harmony says. ‘To spread the word, like you said. You can talk to your CIA person—your handler. They can have us released, right?’
‘I’ll get on that,’ I say gloomily.
‘Great.’ Harmony rubs her hands together. ‘I’ll come back after lunch tomorrow, see how it’s going.’
The thought of lunch makes my stomach gurgle. I look Harmony up and down, weighing her in my head.
‘You should leave,’ I say.
‘I’m gone,’ she replies, and slips out the door.
I peel the Timothy name label off my shirt and slap it against the window.
Zara visits the main hospital every day, and my window is just visible from the parking lot on top of the hill. When she sees the sticker through her binoculars, she’ll bring some dummy paperwork and get me out. And I’ll have to confess that I’ve found nothing. Whatever Cho knew, it died with him.
•
I can’t think when I’m eating—maybe that’s why I like it so much. The process of cutting and chewing and swallowing wipes my mind clean. I regain consciousness to find myself seated at a table in the lunch hall, staring down at an empty tray. Where the chicken nuggets were, there are only crumbs and a smudge of ketchup. No one is sitting opposite me. But Nurse Kelly is approaching, the armpits of his white shirt dark with sweat.
‘Must have been tasty,’ he says.
I grunt.
Kelly holds out a plastic cup. ‘Hope you saved room for these.’
I take it. Five half-pills rattle around the bottom, not just two.
‘That’s too much,’ I say.
Kelly’s expression doesn’t change. ‘I think that’s up to the doctor to decide, don’t you?’
Eli is on a chair in the corner, long legs crossed at the ankles. His cargo shorts leave his meaty calves exposed. He’s holding the TV remote, but his good eye isn’t pointed at the screen—it’s aimed squarely at me.
‘She said she was doubling my dose,’ I tell Kelly. Diaz said no such thing, but it was worth a try. ‘There should be four, not five.’
Kelly checks a clipboard. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Fifteen milligrams.’
‘Can you ask her?’
He’s starting to look suspicious now. ‘It’s the right dose, Timothy. Are you going to be a good boy?’
‘Of course.’ I tip the cup onto my tongue, show him the pills and then swallow. I think again of the magician who ate the broken glass. He also swallowed five razor blades—or made it look like he had. I wish I’d watched him more closely and learned his method.
I open my mouth again, and Kelly probes around my gums with his fingers. Over his shoulder, I look for Eli, but he’s gone. Maybe someone told him TV gives you square eyes.
Kelly peels off his gloves. ‘Have a nice day, Timothy.’
I can already feel the pills dissolving in my stomach, doing who-knows-what to my brain chemistry. ‘You too.’
He goes over to the bathroom, but doesn’t go in. Just stands next to the door, watching me. I start walking back to my room, like he expects me to. As soon as I’m out of sight around the corner, I break into a run.
There’s no toilet in my room. But there is a drain under the carpet. I can vomit into that. But I have to work fast. The amount I absorbed last time filled my brain with fog, and that was a much smaller dose.
I open the door to my room and rush in, my eyes already focused on the corner of the carpet. So I don’t see Eli stepping out from behind the door. I only feel the movement, something rushing towards me. I turn my head in time to see the missing chair leg swing inwards. I duck, but too slowly. The steel bar comes crashing down on my skull, and everything goes black.
CHAPTER 34
I took aim at the fog, but didn’t hit it. What did I do?
The world comes back slowly. Everything is blurry, but I can make out a drop ceiling, a fluorescent light, and a curtain. I can smell disinfectant, and feel thin sheets. I’m in a hospital bed.
Three facts hit me at the same time—
One: Eli was in my room.
Two: I was unconscious for some time.
Three: I can’t see out of my left eye.
I let out a moan and reach for my face. Where my eyeball should be, there’s something wet and spongy. The fear spikes. I blink my other eye frantically, trying to clear the blurriness away.
‘Whoa, he’s awake.’ The voice comes from my right. Through the mist I can make out a woman in scrubs holding a thin tube.
Someone I can’t see pins down my arm. ‘Don’t touch it. Okay, Timothy?’
‘Where’s my eye?’ I scream.
‘Your eye will be fine,’ the voice says. ‘The cornea has been scratched. Your vision will be blurry for a while. But it will heal, as long as you don’t touch it. Okay?’
I can’t just take his word for it that my eyeball is still there. But if I touch it and he’s telling the truth, then I might lose my vision. It’s another one of those lose–lose witch trial situations. But he hasn’t released my wrist, so the choice is made for me.
I recognise the voice now. ‘Dr Kobald?’
‘Right. How’s your head?’
Now that I’m not so focused on my eye, I notice a pounding headache. My neck and shoulder are stiff, probably from hitting the ground.
‘Sore.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Harmony got you pretty good. I’ll prescribe some stronger painkillers.’
‘Harmony?’ I say.
‘She attacked you in your room. If Eli hadn’t found you when he did, I don’t know what would have happened. Don’t worry, we’ll be keeping a very close eye on her from now on.’
‘You’ve got it the wrong way around,’ I say. ‘Eli attacked me. He wants my eye. Harmony must have interrupted him before he could finish the job.’
Kobald doesn’t respond, and when I turn to face him, I see that he isn’t there. The woman has gone as well, though there is a structure—a bit like a coat rack—with the tube dangling off it.
‘Hello?’ I call out. As my voice echoes through the shadows, I realise the overhead lights are off. The only glow is from wall-mounted LEDs near the floor. But it was daytime a second ago.
I’m wearing a hospital gown. I sit up, trying to ignore my throbbing brain, and look around for some clothes. I’m not in the Behavioural Health Unit anymore. They must have taken me across to the main part of the hospital, where all the non-crazy people with gunshot wounds and cancer and pregnancies are. This place won’t be as well guarded as the psych ward. This is my chance to escape.
Escape isn’t supposed to be my plan. I haven’t completed the message—I mean, the mission. But I feel a powerful need to get out, just get out.
‘Probably because you have a head injury,’ a voice says, and I realise that Kobald is back. It’s daytime again.
‘What?’ I say.
‘You’re very lucky that you were already in a hospital when this happened.’ He reaches for my eye.
I shrink back, but he’s just peeling off a soft, damp bandage. ‘Bacteria thrives in the darkness,’ he explains. ‘It never stops eating. Never stops. Eating. Eating.’
I still can’t open my eye. It’s been scotch-taped closed. ‘Eli attacked me, not Harmony.’
He nods reassuringly. He doesn’t believe me.
‘He had a chair leg. He wants my eyes.’
‘You have a few different medications in your bloodstream right now,’ he says. ‘Try to relax.’
If you have a mental illness, people don’t trust you. And if you take drugs to fix the illness, they trust you even less.
I realise I’m holding a spoon. I look down at my distorted reflection in the curved metal. I try to speak, then realise there’s food in my mouth. I choke.
‘Easy, now.’ Kobald pats my back.
I let the sludge dribble out of my mouth, onto the plate. ‘It’s not the head injury. It’s the meds Diaz prescribed for me. They’re messing with my head.’
‘They shouldn’t be. I started you off with a small dose in case you had a bad reaction, and you were fine.’
‘I haven’t been taking them. This was my first dose.’
Silence. I look over at Kobald in case he’s vanished again, and realise I’m talking to Dr Diaz herself.
‘I see,’ she says, expressionless.
‘Please help me. I’m losing time. Seeing things. I need—’
I’m talking to no one. Diaz is gone. Was she ever there?
I haul myself off the hospital bed and stagger barefoot across the ward. I only make it a few steps before there’s a painful tug from my forearm. I’m connected to an IV drip. I wrench the needle out and let it fall to the floor. I head for the door, dripping blood.
The corridor is dark, but I can hear the soft shuffle of footsteps somewhere. Nurses, I guess. Do they patrol regularly, or wait for a machine to beep before they check on their patients? I don’t know. Don’t want to stick around to find out.
I keep moving until I find a stairwell door and push it open. An alarm screams—
Suddenly I’m at a bus stop, the concrete cold and gritty beneath my feet. No sign of a bus. There’s trash in the gutter. Clouds peel back, like the moon is opening its eye. The wind blows at my hospital gown, and I fight to keep it closed.
‘You okay, man?’ Dr Diaz says. But when I look, it’s not her. It’s a guy in a Cougars jersey. He’s a big guy. Meaty. Coming closer.
I bare my teeth. He backs off.
‘Come closer,’ I say.
Someone is screaming. The noise is a power drill, burrowing right into my eardrum. The man is gone, and Reese Thistle is standing there instead, clad in the tan uniform of a sheriff’s deputy, her gloved hands outstretched. A copperish tang fills my mouth.
‘Let’s just take it easy,’ she says, her dark eyes wary.
The blood spills from my lips and down the front of my gown as I try to speak: ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’
‘He’s a zombie!’ the screamer says, from behind me.
I look down. The puncture wound from the IV has been replaced by a bite mark on my forearm. My prosthesis is nowhere to be seen.
‘Interlace your fingers behind your head,’ says the love of my life.
‘Thistle, please help me.’
Thistle doesn’t react to her name. She can’t understand me—or it’s not her. Thistle is FBI, not a beat cop, and this woman has lighter hair, and a softer jawline. But those are Thistle’s eyes. Has this cop stolen them?
‘I’ll kill you!’ I screech and lunge at her.
‘Stand clear,’ the cop tells the screamer. There’s a sharp pop, and suddenly the skin all over my body is burning, my hair standing up so straight that it hurts. As the cop moves in, the crackling wires connecting me to her go slack, and I find myself falling. I try to raise my hands to break my fall, but one arm won’t move, and the other isn’t there. The concrete rushes up to meet me. Meat me. Me meat.
CHAPTER 35
I hold doors open, but clothes closed. What am I?
I wake up in my room, as though the whole thing never happened. Like Eli never attacked me, like Harmony never saved me, like I wasn’t rushed across to the main building of the hospital where the sane patients are. I’m dressed in the same clothes as I was after lunch, my prosthesis back on, the buttons on my shirt done up all the way to my throat.
Except my vision is still blurry in my left eye, my forearm is bandaged, and my chest stings where the two needles from the taser punched holes in my skin.
I try to sit up but can’t. Groaning, I slump back down. There doesn’t seem to be a reason to try again. I have nowhere to be.
After a while, someone knocks at the door.
‘Come in,’ I say. If they mean me harm, they will, either way.
Dr Diaz opens the door and slips in. She looks taller in here than in her office. Maybe my ceiling is lower. She’s also dressed more casually. A sweatshirt and jeans, like she’s visiting a friend rather than a patient. Maybe she’s come in on her day off.
She quickly scans my room with a practised gaze. Looking for what, I don’t know.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asks.
My voice comes out in a rasp. ‘Not great.’
She glances around for somewhere to sit and, seeing nothing, leans against the wall instead. ‘Do you know what day it is?’
‘No. Friday, maybe?’
‘That’s correct. Do you know who I am?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Michelle Obama.’
She hesitates.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Reaching for humour as a deflection, again. You’re Dr Diaz.’
She smiles, relieved, and asks me a few more questions. It’s like a history test, with a bit of math mixed in, and some spelling. My brain seems to be working fine. Then again, how would I know? It occurs to me now that only someone else can tell you your brain isn’t working properly. But Diaz looks satisfied.
‘I owe you an apology,’ she says, when the questions are done.
I clear my throat. ‘It’s not your fault. I never warned you about Eli.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Eli? I was told it was … someone else.’
‘No.’ My head is a little clearer now. ‘Eli attacked me a few days ago, in the bathroom. I didn’t tell anyone, because I thought he’d snitch on me for puking up my medication. But then he was waiting for me in my room, with a chair leg. He wants my eyes.’
Diaz keeps a poker face through all of this.
‘But Harmony got to him before he could do more than scratch my cornea. I assume—I don’t remember what happened after he hit me.’
‘I see.’ Her voice is neutral.
‘I get why you wouldn’t believe me,’ I say. ‘I’m crazy, and I’m guessing Harmony’s keeping quiet because she thinks it’s all a big conspiracy or whatever. But—’
‘I believe you,’ Diaz says.
The relief is like a physical thing. My head sinks back into the pillow.
‘I’ll keep Eli away from you,’ Diaz says. ‘But that’s not what I was going to apologise for. I wasn’t honest with you in our session on Wednesday.’
I run through the conversation in my head. You’re not bad, you’re just lazy. It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? The idea that change is possible.
‘You were a little too honest, if anything,’ I say.
The corner of her mouth twitches. ‘I said I got paid by the hour, and I didn’t care whether you got better. That’s not true. You got under my skin, so I reacted defensively, which was unprofessional. I do care, Timothy. I mean that.’
She seems genuine. But maybe she just feels guilty because her meds nearly killed me.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t take the pills.’
‘I get it,’ she says. ‘You didn’t think you were sick, so you thought the medication might harm you.’
‘I still don’t want to take them.’
‘And I won’t make you. I do think you need medication of some kind. But not those pills, which clearly didn’t agree with you. Can we revisit the subject in about a week?’
I hesitate, and then nod.
‘Whatever we try next,’ Diaz says, ‘we’ll start with a small dose, so we can identify any side effects before they get too severe. That is, assuming you actually take the small dose.’ She holds my gaze.
‘I will,’ I say.
‘Good.’ She clears her throat. ‘I need to tell you that your circumstances have changed.’
‘Oh?’ I doubt they’ve improved.
‘When you were admitted, you were told you could leave as soon as you felt ready. But after yesterday’s episode …’
My heart sinks. ‘You’re keeping me here.’
‘That’s the protocol after any incident of self-harm.’ Diaz’s gaze flicks to my chewed forearm.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Zara’s wizardry with paperwork will get me out of here, regardless of my legal status. I’ll be gone long before Diaz tries to medicate me again.
‘Don’t worry,’ Diaz says. ‘You’re making progress. You won’t be here forever.’
‘If you …’ I trail off, remembering that I’m not really here for therapy. I’m here on a mission.
‘Go on,’ she says.
‘You gave me something to stop the delusions,’ I say. ‘But it made things worse.’
Diaz is watching me carefully. ‘You think that’s proof you’re not delusional.’
‘That’s not what I was getting at. Well, kind of. But I was wondering …’ I turn my head on the pillow, unable to look at her face. ‘If I wasn’t delusional, if it was all real—could you help me?’
‘You’re asking if I could cure a cannibal? A real one?’ Diaz sounds faintly amused.
‘Hypothetically,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ Diaz says. ‘To be clear, that’s not what I think is happening. But I would treat a person like that with a combination of talk therapy and medication. Just like you.’
‘You wouldn’t just throw them in jail?’
‘I’m a doctor, not a judge. But I don’t think jails are the best place for sick people.’
My former colleagues at the FBI would argue that it’s not about what’s best for the perpetrators, it’s about justice for the victims. But I’m touched that she thinks I’m—hypothetically—worth helping.
