The doc was right.
He didn’t think he ought to be alive.
John Douglas had wanted him to come down to the hospital yesterday afternoon for another checkup. He didn’t want to because he knew what he looked like, but he did anyway. They did the shot of saline solution while a man with a shotgun stood nearby. Just a precaution, JayDee had said. Not that I don’t trust you.
Ethan’s blood pressure was checked. No problem. Then when JayDee asked Ethan to take off his shirt to check the heartbeat was when the doc made a noise between a choke and a gasp and it seemed for a minute that he was going to press his hand against his mouth to stop any more sounds from coming out, but then JayDee got his bearings back and he said in a tight voice, “You’ve seen yourself, I’m guessing.”
“Yes sir.”
“Turn around, if you please.”
“Same on my back,” Ethan said.
“Let’s take a look.”
Ethan obeyed. The bruises were worse. They were still as black as a midnight funeral and now they had converged. There was no area of unbruised flesh on his chest, stomach or back down to the bottom of his spine. His sides were mottled with purple and green, the tendrils of one huge bruise reaching around to connect with the other.
“Damn,” said the man with the shotgun, whose name Ethan thought was Lester.
JayDee approached Ethan with caution. “I’m going to listen to your heart,” he said, as if asking permission, and Ethan nodded. “Okay,” JayDee said when he’d finished that, but he still had the stethoscope plugged into his ears. “Now…I want to listen to your lungs. Just take a deep breath when I ask you, and let it out slowly. Right?”
“You’re the doctor,” Ethan said.
JayDee began his work. “Breathe. That hurt you any?”
“A little.”
He moved around to Ethan’s back. “Breathe. Coughing up anymore blood?”
“No sir.”
“Another deep breath, please.” When JayDee was finished he came back around to look into Ethan’s face. “Les,” he said quietly as he took off the stethoscope and put it aside, “you can leave us now.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Go ahead.” He waited for Les to shut the warped door behind him, as much as it would shut. Cracks from the earthquake riddled the walls. JayDee said, “You can put your shirt back on,” and Ethan did. “Have a seat.” JayDee motioned toward a chair, but Ethan said, “I’m okay standing.”
“Well, I’m sitting down then.” JayDee eased himself into the chair. Something creaked; either the chair or his weary bones. The doc stretched his legs out before him and, staring at Ethan, rubbed his clean-shaven chin.
“You know what I’m going to say,” JayDee ventured.
Ethan shrugged, but he knew.
“At a time like this, a man needs a good stout drink of rye whiskey,” JayDee said. “That was my drink of choice. In the quiet of the evening, before a nice fire in the hearth…a little Frank Sinatra on the stereo…way before your time, I know…and all was right with the world. Deborah…my wife, bless her soul…would sit with me and listen to the music or read. Oh, maybe that sounds boring to you. Does it?” This time his white eyebrows did not go up; it was a question that did not expect an answer. “Well, it was a life,” he went on. “A damned good life.” He gave a sad, crooked smile. “What I wouldn’t give for that again, and as boring as you please. For two years now…Hell has visited earth. In many forms, too terrible to recount.” His smile that was not really a smile faded and the expression in his eyes sharpened. “Tell me about the white mansion,” he said. “I mean…Dave’s already told me. But you tell me. All right? Wait…before you say anything…I’ll tell you that a couple of days ago Dave and Olivia went down to the high school’s library to find maps to help figure out where this white mansion might be. Dave’s thinking it might be the name of a town. Somewhere.” He added a little sarcasm to that word. “They did find a road atlas. They won’t talk about what happened over there, but Olivia hurt her knee a little bit. While she was in here she started shaking and crying, and she was about to go to pieces. I gave her a sedative, the best I could do. Dave won’t talk about it either. So I want you to know, Ethan…that something terrible happened to them down there…while they were…let’s say…acting on your behalf. It had to be bad…because I saw how bad it was in Dave’s face. And when you can read that in his face…brother, it was a whole big bag of bad.”
Ethan nodded. He didn’t know what to say. The best he could manage was, “I didn’t ask them to do that.”
“No, you didn’t. But…you see…it’s this white mansion thing. And the earthquake you said you caused. And that Dave believes that somehow you knew the spring was there under the swimming pool. Those things. Kinda hard for a rational person to swallow, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“But,” JayDee went on, his brow furrowed, “Dave has a point. What’s rational anymore? What makes sense? I’ve seen what looks like a man explode into something covered with black spikes, right in that secure room you were locked up in when you first got here. Seen a teenaged girl’s face implode, and suddenly it was a mouth filled with greedy little teeth that tried to bite my head off, until Dave shot the thing to pieces. Does that make sense? Well…maybe it does if you’re a Gorgon or a Cypher. See, I think they’re making weapons out of what used to be human beings. Experimenting on them. On us. They’ve got a real slam-bang weapons program going on, they’re wanting to see what works and what doesn’t. Maybe they’re just doing it because they can, and that’s their way. What do you think, Ethan? You brought that up about the Gorgons and Cyphers fighting over the border. That’s what you said, right?”
“Yes,” said Ethan quietly.
“Why did you say that? What information do you have that I, Dave, Olivia and everyone else here doesn’t have?”
Ethan didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, just as quietly, “I know it’s true. It’s what they’re fighting over. The border between their—”
“What are you?” JayDee suddenly asked, and he drew his legs back as if they might be in danger of black spikes or a mouthful of little daggers. “You and I both know…those injuries you have…they should’ve killed you. And the bruises are worse, aren’t they? Yet your blood pressure is fine, your lungs are in good shape, and your heart’s just ticking along. And let me tell you…your lungs ought to be so clogged full of blood you couldn’t draw a breath, and I still don’t know how you’re walking. God, if I only had an X-ray machine and some power to run it! So…young man who doesn’t know his name or remember anything about his life before he suddenly woke up running across a field…what exactly are you, because I don’t think you’re human.”
The statement tainted the air. Ethan felt a spark of anger grow into a flame. “You think I’m something they made? Like…a secret weapon? That I’m supposed to explode or grow two heads or something? Is that it?”