He was worried about Peter, who was locked in a padded isolation cell at Mister Evil's order, and probably struggling against all sorts of fears along with a straitjacket. Francis remembered his own hours in isolation and shuddered. Restrained and alone, they had filled him with dread. He guessed that it would be just as harsh for Peter, who would probably not even have the questionable advantages of being drugged. Peter had told Francis many times that he wasn't afraid of going to prison, but somehow Francis didn't think that the world of jail, no matter how harsh, equated with an isolation cell at Western State. In the isolation cells, it was as if one spent every second with ghosts of unspeakable pain.
He thought to himself: It is lucky that we are all crazy. Because if we weren't, then this place would make us crazy in pretty quick time.
Francis felt an arrow of despair strike him, as he understood in that second that Peter's grip on reality would, one way or another, open the exit door to the hospital. At the same time he knew how hard it would be for him to gain enough purchase on the slippery, shale rock slope of his imagination to ever persuade Gulptilil or Evans or anyone at Western State to release him. Even if he were to start informing on Lucy Jones and her investigative progress to
Gulp-a-pill, as the doctor wanted, he doubted that it would lead to anything other than more nights listening to men moan in torment as they dreamed of terrible things.
Troubled by everything that stalked him in his sleep, struggling with everything that surrounded him when he was awake, Francis closed his eyes and shut out sounds around him, praying that he would get a few hours of dreamless rest before morning.
To his right, a few bunks away, he could hear a sudden thrashing sound, as one of the patients twisted and turned in nightmare. He kept his eyes closed, as if that could shut out whatever personal agony had intruded on some other patient's dreams.
After a moment, the noise receded, and he squeezed his lids together, murmuring to himself, or perhaps listening to a voice say go to sleep.
But the next noise he heard was something unfamiliar. A scraping sound.
Followed by a hiss.
Then a voice, followed by the sudden sensation of a hand closing over his eyes.
"Keep your eyes closed, Francis. Just listen, but keep your eyes closed."
Francis breathed in sharply. A quick inhale of very hot air. His first instinct was to scream, but he bit that back. His body jerked and he started to lift up, only to feel himself pushed by a significant force back on his pillow. He raised a hand to grab at the wrist of the Angel, only to be stopped by the sound of the man's voice.
"Don't move, Francis. Do not open your eyes until I tell you. I know you are awake. I know you can hear every word I say, but wait for my command."
Francis went rigid on the bed. Beyond the darkness behind his eyes, he could sense a person standing over him. Looming terror and darkness.
"You know who this is, don't you Francis?"
He nodded slowly.
"Francis: If you move, you will die. If you open your eyes, you will die. If you try to scream out, you will die. Do you understand the framework for our little conversation tonight?" The Angel's voice was low, hardly more than a whisper, but it pummeled him like fists. He didn't dare move, even as his own voices screamed at him to run and flee, and as he lay motionless, in a tumult of internal confusion and doubt, the hand over his eyes suddenly evaporated, replaced by something far worse.
"Can you feel this, Francis?" the Angel demanded.
The sensation against his cheek was cold. A flat icy pressure. He didn't move.
"Do you know what that is, Francis?"
"A blade," Francis whispered his reply.
There was a momentary hesitation, then the low, awful voice continued: "You know about this knife, Francis?"
He nodded again, but he didn't truly understand the question.
"What do you know, Francis?"
He swallowed hard. His throat was dry. He could feel the blade continuing to press down on his face and he didn't dare to shift position, because he thought it would slice through his skin. He kept his eyes closed, but he was trying to gain a sense of size for the presence beside him. "I know it's sharp," Francis said, weakly.
"But how sharp?"
Francis couldn't choke out a reply through a throat suddenly parched for moisture. Instead he groaned slightly.
"Let me answer my own question," the Angel said, speaking in tones still hardly more than a whisper, but with an echo that reverberated within Francis louder than a scream. "It is very sharp. Like a straight razor, so that if you even move just the tiniest bit, it will part your flesh. And it is strong, too, Francis, strong enough to slice easily through skin and muscle and even bone. But you know that, don't you Francis, because you already know some of the places where this knife has found a home, don't you?"
"Yes," Francis croaked.
"Do you think that Short Blond had a real understanding what this knife meant when it bit into her throat?"
Francis didn't know what the man meant, so he remained silent.
There was a small, slithering laugh.
"Think about the question, Francis. I'd like an answer."
Francis kept his eyes squeezed shut. For a moment, he hoped that the voice was really just a nightmare and that it wasn't truly happening to him, but, even as he wished this, the pressure of the blade against his cheek seemed to increase. In a world filled with hallucination, it was sharp and real.
"I don't know," Francis choked out.
"You're not using your imagination enough, Francis. In here, that's all we really have, isn't it? Imagination. It might take us in unique and terrible ways, force us to head in nasty and murderous directions, but it's the only thing we really own, isn't it?"
Francis thought this was true. He would have nodded, but he was afraid that any motion would put a scar forever on his face like Lucy's, and so he remained as rigid and still as he could, barely breathing, fighting against muscles that wanted to twitch with terror. "Yes," he whispered, his lips barely moving.
"Can you understand just how much imagination I have, Francis?"
Again, whatever words he tried to speak in reply were croaked into mere sounds.
"So, what did Short Blond know, Francis? Did she only know pain? Or maybe something deeper, far more terrifying? Did she connect the sensation of the knife cutting through her flesh with the blood that was pouring out and was she able to assess it all, and realize that it was her own life that was disappearing, and her own helplessness that made it all so pathetic?"
"I don't know," Francis said:
"What about you, Francis? Can you feel how close you are to death?"
Francis couldn't answer. Behind his closed eyes he could only see a red sheet of terror.
"Can you feel your own life hanging by such a thin strand, Francis?"
He knew that he didn't have to answer that question.
"Do you understand that I can take your life this second, Francis?"
"Yes," Francis said, but he was unaware where he got the strength to speak even that word.
"Do you realize I can take your life in ten seconds. Or thirty seconds, or perhaps I will wait an entire minute, depending upon how much I want to savor the moment. Or perhaps tonight isn't the night at all. Perhaps tomorrow would fit my plans better. Or next week. Or next year. Whenever I want, Francis. You are here, in this bed, in this hospital every night, and you will never know when I might return, will you? Or maybe, I should just do this now, and save myself the meager trouble…"
The flat of the knife blade seemed to rotate and for a second the edge touched his skin, and then the flat returned.