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  “Okay,” she said.

  “I hope you have a wonderful time. Feel free to call me if you have any problems or concerns.”

  “Sure. Bye.”

  Ann left the office.

  «« — »»

  Dr. Harold sat in silence. He closed his eyes, thinking. He thought about her. Type A, occupationally obsessive, sexually dysfunctional. Dream methodizing, he thought. The emblem she’d drawn on the pad looked scrambled, dashed. Kinesthetically, it was obvious: she’d drawn it hurriedly because it scared her. He knew that a lot of things scared Ann Slavik.

  An awful lot of things.

  —

  Chapter 4

  “So what happened?” Duke asked. “You never said.”

  Erik finished his Macke cheese dog. He always ladled them with onions—the kind that came in the little tubes—to get the taste out of his mouth. Not the taste of the cheese dog, the taste of Duke.

  “What happened what?” Erik asked.

  “You know, your voice. How come your voice is so fucked up?”

  Suddenly, he tasted memory, salt and copper. Blood. He’d tried to break away from them several times. They hadn’t liked it.

  We offer you everything, Erik. And still you rebel.

  That had been weeks before the police had caught him. Holy Mother of God, Chief Bard had said, staring into the pit. They all called him “Chief Lard”; he had a belly like a medicine ball. Rumor was he’d been chief of some town in Maryland; a state sting operation had caught him laundering mob money through the town bingo games at the fire hall. They’d told him he could be prosecuted or he could move on quietly. It had been Bard and Byron who’d caught Erik that night. Whatchoo doin’ with that shovel, boy? Byron had demanded. Holy Mother of God, Bard had said.

  Erik knew he had been set up. They no longer trusted him.

  We love you, Erik, one of them had whispered.

  We want you to be good, whispered the other.

  So we’re going to give you a little reminder.

  So that whenever you talk, you’ll think of us.

  They’d tied him down. The one had been blowing him while the other went to work on his throat. The doctor at the emergency room had said that he only had one vocal cord left. He was lucky to have lived.

  “A scratch awl,” Erik finally answered Duke. “They stuck a scratch awl in my throat.”

  “Christ,” Duke muttered. “Who’s they?”

  “Muggers,” Erik lied. That’s what he’d told the people at the hospital and the police. That muggers had done it.

  Duke picked his nose. “Bummer.”

  The girl named Dawn walked in, approached the candy machine without looking at them. She’d recently made Class III status too. Duke chuckled under his breath. They’d heard Dr. Greene talking to one of the techs about her. “Katasexual,” he’d said. “Sexual obsession with a dead person.” Erik had heard that before they got her on the right medication, she would masturbate ten times a day. There were a lot of winners on the ward. The three hundred pound schizophrenic who claimed she was pregnant by her collie. “I’m going to give Dr. Greene the pick of the litter!” she’d rejoiced. One night the city police had brought in a raving PCP overdose. “I can fly anything that God can make!” he’d informed them as he strapped him into a jacket. Lots of the pats had religious fixations. Many were hypersexual yet devoutly religious, like the prostitute who was “tricking for Jesus,” or the unipolar serial killer they’d brought in from Tylersville who forced women to accept Christ as their savior and then killed them before they could change their minds. “Lotta people in heaven who wouldn’t be if it weren’t for me,” he’d bragged.

  “God loves you,” Dawn turned with a Snickers and said to Duke.

  “If He does, tell Him to let me the fuck out of this dump, you floppy tit psycho bitch. How about sucking my balls?”

  Dawn hmmffed and left.

  “Fizzlehead!”

  Erik tried the phone again. No answer. Where are they? he wondered. “See, that’s how I know I ain’t queer,” Duke was analyzing himself when Erik returned. “That fizzlehead there? I could have her right on this table. Boy, I could tear her up.”

  Erik didn’t need to be convinced. He was thinking. Duke was a fat, disgusting sociopathic slob with bad teeth and hair like a mop. But he’s strong, Erik thought. Three times a week the techs took all Class II’s and III’s to the gym in the other building. Erik had seen Duke bench press 250lbs ten times. Yeah, real strong, he mused.

  “I been thinking, Duke,” Erik’s ruined voice grated.

  “About what, faggot?”

  “You and me, we’ll never get out of here. Greene’s review board wouldn’t okay us for the street in a hundred years.”

  “I know that.”

  Erik leaned over the table. “I got something I gotta take care of, on the outside.”

  “What, kill more babies?”

  “I never killed any babies. It was a setup—”

  “Sure, faggot. That’s what they all say, ain’t it? Just like I never chopped the arms off that bimbo.”

  “Would you listen to me, goddamn it. I think I know a way we can get out.”

  Suddenly, Duke was listening.

  Erik took Duke to the window, pointed out the “safety barrier.” A high fence surrounded the hospital grounds, yet beyond was a parking lot where the staff and contractors parked their cars. “See that white van?” Erik asked. “And the pickup trucks beside it?”

  Letters on the van read “Lawn King.” “Big deal,” Duke remarked.

  “They’re groundskeepers. I’ve been watching them. They get here every morning at seven thirty and start cutting the grass. The hospital grounds are huge, these guys are all over the place. They don’t have to come in and out the front gate ’cause the trailers they haul their lawn mowers on are too big. There’s a service gate, right over there behind those trees. If we can get past that gate, we can drive out the main entrance.”

  “In what? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?”

  “In one of their trucks. See all those pickups parked next to the van? They belong to the crew.”

  “Awright. Keep talking.”

  “At eleven thirty they start breaking for lunch. They break for lunch in four shifts, three at a time. They get to the parking lot through the service gate. The supervisor has to let them out. He’s the only one authorized to have the key to the service gate. See that guy there? He’s the supervisor.”

  Duke peered through the wire window. Several workers were fueling tractors which hauled the cutting platforms. A man in overalls stood in attendance. He was tall. Broad shoulders and back. Knurly.

  “Big fucker,” Duke commented.

  “Yeah, but so are you.”

  Duke continued to peer out the window.

  “I’ve been watching him regular,” Erik grated on. It hurt just to talk. “He’s got a routine. They start breaking for lunch at eleven thirty, like I said. But at eleven he eats his own lunch. He doesn’t leave like the others—he brings his own in a bag. That’s what he does every day at eleven. He sits down by those trees all by himself and eats his lunch.”

  Very slowly, Duke nodded.

  “No one else is around. All the workers are still out on the grounds cutting the grass. And this guy, like I said, I been watching him. He’s the boss, so he’s the first guy out here every morning at seven thirty. He drives that blue and white Ford pickup right there. We wouldn’t have to waste time looking for which truck is his ’cause we already know.”

  “But the gate, the service gate. I don’t even see it.”

  “That’s why this’ll work,” Erik came back. “You can’t see the service gate from the grounds because it’s behind those trees, the same trees where that big guy sits and eats his lunch every day at eleven o’clock.”

  “Eleven o’clock,” Duke murmured.

  “That’s an hour from now. And you know what we’re doing an hour from now?”

  “What?” />
  “The techs are taking our whole wing outside for volleyball.”

  «« — »»

  Duke had his duties down pat. II’s and III’s achieved their privileged status by demonstrating good behavior for protracted periods. Nothing ever happened because no one ever expected it to. Three techs supervised the volleyball games: Nurse Dallion, who was so thin she looked like she might blow away, and Charlie and Mike. They would have to take all three of them out before someone could get back inside and hit the security button. Mike would be tough—most of the male techs were hired for physical size, and Mike was young and strong—but not stronger than Duke. And Charlie, the black guy, was huge. Erik figured they had maybe two minutes after the fight broke out to overpower the lawn supervisor, get his keys, unlock the service gate, and take off in the pickup. Duke’s job was to take out Mike quickly, then get over to the trees, while Erik took out Nurse Dallion and Charlie. Though Charlie was big, he was also hopelessly myopic. Without his soda bottle lens glasses, he couldn’t see past his face.

  It was sunny out and warm. Spring was just days away.

  “Great day for volleyball,” Erik grated to Charlie.

  “Sure is. Glad to see you’re playing for a change, Erik. Do ya good to get out with the others.”

  Yeah, he thought. He glanced behind him as they chose up sides. At four minutes past eleven, the lawn supervisor was walking down the hills, toward the trees.

  “Chad’s a faggot,” Duke barked. “I don’t want him on my side.”

  “Enough of that, Duke,” Mike warned. “We’re all here to have fun.”

  “Fuck fun, I wanna win.”

  “I’m no faggot,” Chad complained.

  “Come on, folks,” Charlie said. “Let’s get playing.”

  What a clusterfuck, Erik thought once they started going. Many of the pats were extrapyramidal, a neurological side effect of long term phenothiazine therapy. Slow. Uncoordinated. Twitchy. One of the girls served and the ball didn’t make it over the net.

  “My turn, thank God,” Duke said, and batted the ball across. It went back and forth maybe twice before Harry the sterraphobe knocked it into the net.

  “Jesus to Pete,” Duke complained. “Can’t any of you faggots play?”

  “I’m telling you, Duke. Any more comments like that and you’re back inside,” Mike told him, standing aside.

  “Your turn to serve, Erik,” Nurse Dallion pointed out. They rotated. Erik took the ball.

  “Come on, Erik, let’s see a good one,” Charlie said, and clapped.

  “Aw, Erik can’t serve for dick,” Duke yelled. “He’s a faggot too, just like all of ya. Just like Chad.”

  “I’m no fag!” Chad yelled, fists clenched at his sides.

  “Shit, you suck your daddy’s dick. He told me so last time he came to visit.”

  “He did not!”

  Dawn started crying. “I can’t play!” she screamed. “Not while Duke’s here!”

  “You go down on your mother, fizzlehead,” Duke guffawed, and rubbed his crotch. “Why don’t you just shut up and suck my knob, huh?”

  “That’s it, Duke.” Mike gave him a shove. “Inside.”

  Erik, still holding the ball, nodded.

  “I fucked your girlfriend,” Duke reported to Mike. “I ever tell you that?”

  Nurse Dallion commanded, “Get him inside, Mike. He’s ruining this for everyone.”

  “She wasn’t nearly as good as Nurse Dallion, though.” Duke busted out a laugh. “Yeah, Nurse Dallion, she can suck a good one. Suck your balls right out your dickhole.”

  Dawn sat down on the grass, bawling. Several other pats began to wander. Mike grabbed Duke by the collar and began escorting him off the field. “You just lost your Class III, Duke.”

  “Shag my balls, queer. Your girlfriend licks my crack.”

  “Now!” Erik yelled.

  Duke lunged, then rammed his elbow back into Mike’s throat. Simultaneously, Erik rocketed the volleyball into Charlie’s face. Nurse Dallion was running up: “Erik, what are you—”

  “Sorry,” he said. He really was, because Nurse Dallion was nice. He slugged the heel of his palm right into her forehead. Suddenly, the pats were running all over the place. Erik glimpsed figures dashing. Duke was stomping Mike’s face, then breaking. “Motherfuckers!” Charlie yelled. Erik had time to palm heel Nurse Dallion in the head again, and that was it for her. Charlie grabbed him, lifted him up, and Erik spun. He raked Charlie’s glasses off, kicked him in the groin, then stomped on the glasses. They crunched.

  Charlie’s teeth were gritted in pain. One hand held his groin, the other reached out. “I’m sorry,” Erik grated, and kicked him in the head.

  Erik broke for the trees.

  Two minutes, he told himself. If we’re lucky.

  Mike, Charlie, and Nurse Dallion were all out cold. The pats fled every which way. “Fly, Fleance! Fly!” Harry the sterraphobe quoted Shakespeare. Dawn was still blubbering in the grass, while Chad shouted to the sky, “I’m no fag!” as he urinated on the net post.

  Erik disappeared behind the stand of trees.

  “I took care of this big fucker sure as shit,” Duke was gloating. The lawn super lay limp. Duke pulled two clumps of keys out of the guy’s overalls, and his wallet.

  “Jesus Christ!” Erik yelled. “You killed the guy!”

  Duke looked up, disinterested. The supervisor’s neck was broken. Erik grabbed the keys and gratingly shouted, “Come on!”

  The lock on the service gate was a big Rollings Mark IV with a tubular keyway. Erik fished out the only tubular key on the ring; the big lock snapped open instantly.

  This is too easy, he considered. “Walk,” he whispered to Duke. “Walk normal. We’re just two lawn guys walking to our truck.”

  Duke loped along beside him, whistling “Hail to the Redskins.” The Ford keys had black plastic shrouds; Erik isolated them at once. Ten seconds later they were pulling the big pickup out of the lot.

  “Shit yeah!” Duke exclaimed. “The faggot was right! We’re out of this shithole!”

  “We’re not out yet,” Erik reminded him. “We still have the main entrance to get by, and the security guards.”

  “Those creamcakes? I’ll bust all their heads.”

  “You shouldn’t have killed that guy.”

  “Fuck him. Killed Mike too, the faggot. Heard his windpipe crunch.” Duke laughed. “Sounded like steppin’ on walnuts.”

  Jesus, Erik thought. “Get ready to talk,” he grated. “I can’t talk, so you’re going to have to.”

  This was what would make or break them; Erik doubted Duke’s expertise at method acting. Quickly, Erik opened the super’s wallet. “Phillip Alan Richards,” read the name on the driver’s license. In the back of the pickup were several five-gallon gas cans. “Tell them we’re making a fuel run for Mr. Richards,” he said.

  “Fuel run, sure.”

  The guard at the entrance stopped them. The gate was down. Shit, Erik thought. He might have to drive through. He might have to kill the guard, and he didn’t want to do that.

  “We’re makin’ a fuel run for Mr. Richards,” Duke said. “Lawn King.”

  The guard nodded. He handed Erik a clipboard through the window. A sign out log, Erik thought. He scribbled a name, wrote the time in the Out column, then paused. Tag Number, the next column requested. His eyes scanned up the sheet, found the name Richards signed in at 7:23 a.m., put the following tag number in his column, then passed the clipboard back to the guard. The guard glanced into the pickup bed. Then he glanced in the cab again.

  “Later, guys.” He raised the gate and waved them on.

  Erik pulled through. Slow, he thought. Normal. A moment later he heard the phone ringing in the guard booth. Erik turned the pickup truck off the court and onto the main road.

  Ten seconds later the elopement alarm began to blare at the hospital.

  Erik pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  —

&
nbsp; Chapter 5

  The old man saw horror in his mind. He saw them.

  He saw them naked, praying before their blasphemous slab.

  He saw their open faces, their soft hands reaching out—for something. What? The sound of their incantations made him sick, but not nearly as sick as the things they’d made him do. Scieror, they’d dubbed him—a cutter. Bring us ælmesse. Wîhan to this pig.

  He couldn’t resist them, none of them could. He’d been good with the cnif, a master; the sensation defied description. To flense a woman, to fillet a man. Once they’d made him cut off a girl’s head and bleed her into the chettle. Broo for the cuppe! and they’d laughed, drinking. Then they’d made him watch as several wreccans had fornicated with the corpse.

  Give lof! they’d cry. Give lof!

  Others stoked the fire, for smaller and more potent lof.

  He’d even eaten with them.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” came the wifmunuc’s soft voice now. “This will make you feel better.”

  “No, please.” They’re killing me, he thought.

  Several figures surrounded him. He lay paralyzed on the bed. They’d been doing this to him for weeks now—he felt more dead every day. Several of the younger ones looked on from behind, their faces bright in wonder, their naked bodies glowing in youth. But he was wizened now, shriveled like a dried fruit.

  “You’re sure this is safe?”

  A man’s voice replied, “Quite sure. It merely retards the heart rate for a time and restricts the cerebral blood vessels. The brain damage will be minor but significant enough to produce the desired effects.”

  “Good. Just don’t kill him.”

  A needle jabbed his arm. A cold rush.

  From her black mentel, the wifmunuc extended her hand. “Come, girls. You may come and touch.”

  They approached timidly at first, then scampered forward. Their small breasts bobbed as they leaned over. When the syringe was retracted, one licked the blood off the puncture. Soon the hands roved his old skin. They giggled.