The sea of emotions running through Steve threatened to drive him straight over the edge. As he lay on the hospital bed waiting for whatever was coming next, he waged an internal war with himself trying to keep himself from succumbing to the insanity that was trying to drown him. It felt like his world was coming apart, and it was three strong emotions that were doing the most damage. The anger was easiest, he knew what to do with that. He knew how to channel that fury into motivation. That was an emotion he’d met so many times in his life that it was like an old friend. And thank God, because he needed something familiar right now.
Unfortunately, he also had helplessness to deal with. That was something Steve didn’t have a lot of experience with, and that cancelled out the motivation the anger gave him. He tried to stay angry, but the fact that he had no control over his situation at all weakened his resolve. He had no choice but to lie there trapped and immobilized, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Nothing was worse, however, than the fear. It’s not that being afraid was completely unknown to him, he simply didn’t have any ability to process it thanks to the utter immobility. Fight or flight took hold of him, only he couldn’t act on either one. He couldn’t lift a finger to fight, and he certainly couldn’t move a muscle to flee. It was a nightmare. The very worst kind of nightmare he could have ever imagined.
I’m not ready. I can’t leave him.
The sound of his wife’s defeated voice haunted him. When she was holding him, he felt some measure of security, but when Marcus tore her away, the vulnerability crept over him like a cold shroud. He didn’t know how long he’d been left in that room alone, he’d lost track of time, it could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour. How long did dead bodies wait for loved ones to leave before they were taken to the slabs in the basement? He had no idea. But fear had gripped him for however long that was. He remembered the condition he was in when he jumped off Alamain’s boat and feared what lay in wait for him. Live captors were bad enough, but the concept of sharing any space with any guests that really were dead – or worse, being mistaken for dead – was unfathomable. And he was really scared of spending any time in a coffin. It was abject fear, and he prayed to either jump or pass out just so he could escape it. No wonder people going through horrific experiences tended to block them out of their memories. If there was an experience that could do that to you, this was it.
And it was with that thought that Steve started thinking things through. He had no memory of any of this. Not an image. Not a snatch of a whisp of a recollection. It was brand new to him.
Or was it?
This was Steve’s second time through these events, that was a fact. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had assumed that he was conscious during this go-round, meaning for the first time, because he was jumping. But that didn’t actually make any sense. When Kayla was suffering from the poisoning, she wasn’t aware of herself. When she was unconscious the other day in Mike’s lab, she wasn’t able to hear what was happening and talk about it later. When she jumped into a drunk body she couldn’t be sober, because her body wasn’t sober. So, it wouldn’t make any sense that his unconscious body could hear and feel everything that had happened to him just now if he were really unconscious the first time. No, he had experienced them because he’d experienced them the first time, too. So, why couldn’t he remember them?
Because you blocked them out, dude. Your mind is protecting you. You don’t remember, because it won’t let you remember.
And for the first time since he’d arrived here, he was thinking rationally. He started piecing together just how this all went down and very slowly started to calm down. He was still angry, and he still felt helpless, and was still scared; but he felt a small win for his epiphany, and it gave him some strength.
Why can’t I move?
Steve didn’t know that Dr. Hopkins had replaced his IV bag with a paralytic agent. He had no idea that the man had altered the machines to recognize his vastly slowed heart rate as a flatline. He couldn’t know that the doctor had to keep up appearances by shocking him with the crash cart paddles with the full knowledge that Steve’s heart had never stopped beating. But he did know that this was a bad doctor.
There must be a drug in my body, he thought.
That was confirmed when two things happened at the same time. The first was when he felt himself move his thumb; it was ever so slight, but it was there. The drug was very short term, and it was wearing off. The second was when he felt the poke of a hypodermic needle sink into the carotid artery in his neck. He assumed Hopkins had seen the movement in this thumb and topped him off, but that wasn’t the case. This was a super-concentrated dose of an experimental beta-blocker that had been re-designed as a memory-altering drug. Steve waited for the feeling in his thumb to disappear again but was taken by surprise when movement continued to return to him one finger at a time.
“Time to take a little trip, Mr. Johnson,” Dr. Hopkins whispered into the empty room. “So sorry about your untimely death. Don’t worry, you won’t remember it five minutes from now. You won’t even remember your own name.”
This was it. They were finally moving him to the basement. Where was Kayla? Steve hadn’t heard his wife’s voice in quite some time. Where was she? Did she go? Run away? He reached out across the darkness for her. He tried to picture where she was. He almost felt like he’d found her when he heard someone pull the curtain aside and then felt himself being wheeled out of the room and down the hall. You won’t even remember your own name. That wasn’t true. Tiny had told him that he never stopped calling for Kayla; so, he knew his memory was intact in the time immediately following his faked death. Steve opened his eye to a slit and saw the ceiling roll past him. Relief flooded through him like a drowning man getting his first gulp of air. He could move. He could feel that he was able to move all of his fingers and toes, now, and he was shocked at the speed with which that ability was returning. It couldn’t have been more than one hour’s time, could it? That paralytic drug was very effective but not very lasting. Even so, he still couldn’t make his head turn or his eye open all the way. You don’t wanna do that, dude. Keep it closed. Make ‘em think you’re still out.
Steve now had a better handle on his emotions. They were still there, but he was able to rationalize through them much better. It was a struggle, but he used the information he had now that he didn’t have before to try to formulate a plan. He ticked through what he knew: He was being moved to the hospital basement. The drug was wearing off. He was given something different to make him forget. He was going to be tied down and gagged. The drug was already wearing off, so maybe the first time through he fought through it, and that was why they tied him down. He had no idea, really, but he felt the safest thing to do would be to play dead.
And that’s what he did. He didn’t try to move a single muscle, but he could feel his toes start to tingle with somewhat painful pins and needles. He realized too late that he should have been memorizing the turns and straightaways he was feeling as they rolled his gurney through the bowels of the hospital.
Finally, Dr. Hopkins parked Steve exactly where he was afraid he’d end up, the morgue. No bodies or personnel were in the room at the time, but there was no mistaking the antiseptic smell. He didn’t dare open his eye to look, but he imagined the deep-welled, steel tables body drawers that lined the wall. The whole place felt cold and empty … dead.
“I know you’re in there, even if you can’t hear me yet,” Dr. Hopkins said into Steve’s ear. “You’ve been such a good little boy, dying right on time, failing to resuscitate, staying dead.” Then without warning, he ripped off the bandage covering Steve’s left eye and let out an annoyed breath. “Damn.” Just then another man entered the room. “Where’s the wife?” Hopkins spat.
“Huh?” the new guy asked.
“The wife, where is she?”
“How do I know?”
“We need his belongings. His eyepatch, his wallet, his jacket, we’re going to need all of those things. Did she take them?”
“Again, I don’t know anything about where the wifey went. But I can tell ya that you’re not getting any of the guy’s stuff, ‘cause Dr. Curtis beat you to it. Already cleared out the guy’s room.”
“Alright, look, you stay with him, he’s going to be confused when he wakes up, not know who he is. Once he’s awake, if anyone sees him, we’re out of business. So, whatever you do, don’t let him out of your sight.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to find him something to wear and an eyepatch. I’ll be back in an hour.” Then Dr. Hopkins turned and left.
Steve didn’t know what to do. It appeared there was just this one guy, and he assumed that it was the guy that ended up getting the short end of the stick last time. He could feel his strength returning, only he’d just woken up from a coma earlier that day, so his body wasn’t exactly ready to fight. If he tried to make a run for it, how would things be any different than last time. Maybe the timing? Maybe he’d started fighting much earlier last time, before Hopkins had left them. He also realized that even though far more than five minutes had gone by, his memory was completely intact.
Suddenly, Steve felt this guy start pulling on his toe. “You awake?” he asked. Steve didn’t move. Then he pulled harder. “You in there or you in dreamland?” The guard wasn’t getting any reaction out of Steve. “Look, I ain’t stayin’ in a morgue by myself for an hour, Hopkins,” he said to no one in particular. Then he leaned down and inspected Steve’s face, running a finger across what was left of Steve’s left eyebrow. That almost made Steve show his hand. Not reacting to this guy touching his eye almost did him in, but he stayed strong, knowing it was very likely going to be the difference between getting out of there or repeating history. “Sickening. That’s just gross.” Steve really wanted to kick in his teeth like last time. Hell, for all he knew, maybe that’s why he did. “Yeah, he ain’t in there,” the guard said aloud, then exited the room to stand outside of it and guard from there.
What time is it? Where’s the attendant? Steve couldn’t understand how they could get away with just leaving him in here like this. Didn’t people work here?
As soon as he heard the heavy doors swing shut with the automatic door mechanism, Steve opened his eye and flexed his fingers. Not only were those muscles all completely back, but his adrenalin was building, so he felt like he could very likely stand. Walking was another matter, but one thing at a time.
Steve raised his arms up so that he could see his hands and watched himself flex them. He felt his face and was less than thrilled to feel what he knew to be true, his face was bare. He didn’t have time to be horrified or self-conscious or, frankly, care, he just had to get out. He rolled over onto his left side with far more effort than he thought it would take and pushed himself up into a sitting position, letting his legs swing down. He hopped off the gurney and was grateful when he didn’t collapse in a heap. He was standing up on his own two legs, and he felt pretty steady. It was not, however, easy; the drug was dissipating at a rapid rate, but it wasn’t completely gone, and his injuries from the explosion were still quite a factor.
Steve spent the next ten minutes getting his bearings while nervously glancing out the tiny window to check on the guard. He walked the room, and with every moment that passed he got stronger and stronger. His memory didn’t seem affected to him in the least, as he mapped out in his head exactly where what he needed to do. He had to get out of there. His fight or flight hadn’t diminished, and it was fueling his ability to overcome the pain and weakness from his injuries. He knew his best chance was to slip away under the guard’s nose, but he knew it might come to a battle, and if it did, he was prepared to win. He was prepared to do whatever it took to escape the 16 years of capture and separation from his wife and family. If that meant killing the man, then that’s what he was going to do. His knowledge of the future gave him this opportunity. He had one shot, and he knew it.
Steve’s biggest problem was his state of undress. He had on a simple pair of hospital-issue bottoms that were no more than glorified pajamas. He was moving well, now, and quickly scanned the area for scrubs. Luckily, he found some in a locker in the adjoining room. They were too small, but he made do. The bare feet he wasn’t going to be able to help at the moment. Being so close to escaping galvanized him so much that he didn’t even give a second thought to his exposed eye.
Steve carefully approached the door. The guard was sitting in a chair near the doors blending in with his surroundings. The hallway was empty other than that, which was not surprising given its location in the bowels of the hospital. There was no way he was going to slip by him unnoticed. So, he thought fast and grabbed a long, metal instrument from the counter. He didn’t want to know what it was used for, but it was very solid. Time was ticking away, and he felt his future slipping away, so he didn’t have time to think this out, he just acted. When he opened the door and angled only the right side of his face to him, the guard stood up fast.
“Hopkins said to watch him you idiot!”
“Huh?!”
“Guy pulled a disappearing act on you? Nice job.”
“He’s gone?!”
Steve prayed the guard stayed as stupid as he seemed and stepped aside for the man to check himself. The guard ran in, and let an expletive fly. When he turned back around he didn’t know what hit him. Steve had whipped the steel tool across his jaw so hard that the man went down in a heap.
“You’re lucky it’s not your teeth this time, asshole.”
Wasting no time, Steve ran from the morgue as fast as his weakened state would take him. Something told him not to take the elevator, so he ascended the stairs the two flights it took to reach the ground level and ran out into the parking garage. He would have been winded if it wasn’t for his adrenalin running at such a high level. He would have made it out into the night without another issue if it weren’t for Hopkins nearly bowling him over as they each rounded the same corner into each other.
“Pardon me,” the doctor said as Steve covered his eye with his hand. Then they each did a double take and stared in shock for a moment. Hopkins moved first. Rearing back to punch Steve in the face, the younger man easily saw it coming and evaded contact, but he was too slow to avoid the doctor’s momentum from the miss. Hopkins fell into Steve, and they both fell against the wall. Steve immediately pushed him off and felt the energy in him threaten to explode through the top of his head. He’d dropped his hand by now and was in an all out fight for his life. Right here, right now, this was it. The last challenge to his freedom. Realizing he still had the instrument in his right hand, Steve repeated what he’d done to the guard in the morgue and let it fly across the doctor’s face. He connected on the first try, and the wail that came out of the man was ear-splitting. And it should have been, because Steve had opened up a gash that went from his carotid artery up his cheek at a steep angle and ripped open the man’s right eyelid. It was grotesque to say the least as the man’s eye appeared to protrude from the shredded eyelid. Poetic justice? Kind of. Steve didn’t have time to ponder it. He took just one moment to look at the doctor apply pressure to his badly bleeding neck and knew the man was not going to make it to the ER before he bled out.
“You … you animal,” Hopkins gasped. Steve didn’t say anything. The doctor who had taken Steve from his family all those years ago, who’d enabled the whole thing to happen, started to shake uncontrollably as he very quickly went into shock. “Help me! I’m going to bleed to death!” .
“Yeah you are,” Steve replied with venom. “Help you? Like you helped me? Right into 16 years of hell you helped me. Well, I’m not your good little boy, you piece of sh*t. So, you’ll excuse me if I decide to return the favor.”
“You … you …”
“I had to find my own way out of death. You’re gonna have to do the same.”
Without another word, without another glance in the doctor’s direction as he bled out on the cleanly kept concrete of the parking garage floor, Steve ran for his life.