The Jigsaw Man (17 page)

fingers around my heart, squeezing fear out of every

pore. Acting on instinct alone, with no destination in

mind, I tossed the hospital gown in Drake's grinning

face and ran like the devil himself was chasing me.

Realistically, there was no place for me to go, but I ran

anyway, the need to escape my appointed fate com¬

pletely taking over my body.

Everyone started screaming, and of course gave

chase, but a desperate man can be faster than greased

lightning, given the proper motivation. W i t h the threat

of losing my arm h a n g i n g above my head like D a m o cles's proverbial swordj I was more than fast—I was

flyingl
Unfortunately, it's impossible to outrun bullets,

so when I became lost in the jumble of boxes, dashing

between two large crates to find myself staring down

the barrel of a big black gun, I knew enough not to try

anything stupid.

The guard with the minicannon, a pimply-faced red¬

head who looked about nineteen years old, started

shouting to Drake that he had me, while backing me up

until my back was against a hard metal surface. I had

nowhere left to run. W i t h i n seconds, other guards had

found us and Drake was rounding the corner of the

storage crate too.

"Let me plug him, Drake," the overzealous y o u n g

redhead shouted. "He's more trouble than he's worth."

Re's gonna do it.
I watched his finger starting to tighten

on the trigger.
He's gonna kill me!

I closed my eyes as tight as I could, not wanting to

see the bullet heading my way. At any second, I ex¬

pected to hear the loud
BOOM
and feel my head begin

to vaporize, but what I heard was Drake screaming a

long, drawn out,
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
I opened my

eyes j u s t in time to see Drake run up and knock the

gun out of his y o u n g recruit's hand.

"What kind of an idiot are y o u ? " Drake screamed.

"For Christ's sake, Brad, take a look where you are.

W h e r e
he
is. You'll kill us all."

The y o u n g guard looked confused, uncertain what

his boss was angry about, but then his eyes opened

wide, and I saw realization wash over him like a splash

of ice water. The look on his face made me wonder what

the guards knew that I didn't. All it took was for me to

turn around, and I understood right away. I was leaning

against one of the two huge spherical-shaped tanks Fd

spotted from atop the incinerator. From this close, I

could see the word
O X Y G E N
painted in bright red letters

with the unnecessary warning,
D A N G E R : E X T R E M E L Y

F L A M A B L E
below'it.

So that's what they were... oxygen tanks.

That explained the network of small pipes rising up

through dozens of spots in the ceiling. The pipes sup¬

plied the various laboratories and operating rooms

throughout the entire medical center. Drake had been

right. If the guard had fired his gun, we'd all be dead

by now.

Well, at least
1
won't be getting shot today.

I clung to the base of the oxygen tank like a capsized

sailor might grasp a life preserver in the middle of the

Pacific. W i t h the threat of death by explosion taken out

of the mix, Drake quickly regained control of the situ¬

ation. He ordered two of his men to grab m e , threaten¬

ing to break their scrawny necks if they let me get away

again. Then he marched right up to me until we were

actually touching nose to nose and said, "I'm done fuck

ing around, Mike. You're coming.with me whether you

like it or not. We can do this one of two ways: the hard

way, or the
really
hard way. What's it gonna be?"

Neither sounded particularly good, so I j u s t kept my

mouth shut. I knew anything I said would end up earn¬

ing me a fist in the face, or worse, so I quietly waited for

whatever would come next. Had I known Drake was

hiding a large hypodermic syringe behind his back, I

might have struggled more than I did, but as it was, the

chief of security grabbed me by the throat and ruth¬

lessly jabbed the needle into my right shoulder before I

knew what hit me.

Whatever drug he injected into me, it packed a hell of

a wallop, because before I even had the chance to call

Drake a sneaky bastard, my vision began to dim. The

image of Drake's toothy grin froze in my mind, and

began swirling around and around in my head, spinning

faster and faster until someone finally pulled the plug,

letting my dizzy consciousness drain down into the

black sewer of oblivion.

C H A P T E R S I X T E E N

W h e n I woke u p , I had a throbbing headache, so bad it

felt like someone had backed over my skull with a trac¬

tor. My eyes were crusted shut, but I blinked a few times

and managed to get them open. Bad mistake. The bright

light on the tiled ceiling above me practically blinded

m e , sending daggers of shooting pain through my brain,

making my poor head hurt even more. Refusing to make

the same mistake twice, I kept my eyes closed as I tried

to gather my senses and get my bearings.

Gotta stay away from that damn Sterno. I need a drink of

water... bad.

T h i n k i n g about water made me remember the fire

hose shower I'd recently been given. Once my mind

started along that memory path it didn't take long to

remember where I was, Drake giving me the knockout

drug, and his promise to deliver me to Dr. Marshall for

my scheduled surgery.

Oh God, no!

Had Drake already done that? Had Dr. Marshall al¬

ready taken me to his operating room and removed my

right arm? I was too frightened to open my eyes and

check. Other than my head I wasn't in a whole lot of

pain, but I was still woozy and half out of it so I might

be pumped full of happy drugs for all I knew.

Almost as if on cue, my right arm started to itch. I

felt it first near my elbow, and then slowly it began tick¬

ling its way up toward my neck. That should have been

a good sign, assured me I was still in one piece, but I

wasn't at all convinced the itch was real. I'd heard all

sorts of strange stories of people feeling phantom sensa¬

tions in limbs that had been amputated—even ones r e

moved years earlier—so I wasn't getting my hopes up.

Open your eyes, Mike. You gotta know for sure. Do it,

man. Do it now. Maybe it's not too late?

That was true. Maybe I hadn't been unconscious for

as long as I thought. The surgery m i g h t not have started

yet, and I might be lying in one of the waiting rooms. I

might still be able to get up and sneak out of here. One

way or the other, I had to find out.

Steeling myself against what I might see, I said a quick

prayer, opened my eyes, and reluctantly let them slowly

drift down the length of my body.

My right arm was gone, severed clean at the shoulder.

And so was my left.

C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

Dr. Marshall kept me heavily medicated with a mor¬

phine drip for the next two weeks, then slowly began

weaning me off the highly addictive painkiller. It was a

hell of a lot easier dealing with my double amputation

when Fd been high as a kite than when I started to crash

back down to earth. Call me crazy, but I much preferred

a drug-induced fantasyland where I still had both my

arms to the cold sterile world of my disfigured reality.

Healing was a slow and painful experience, made worse

by my murderously foul mood and combative attitude.

The doctors and nurses who attended to me were pro¬

fessional and somewhat sympathetic to my plight, but

whether they were j u s t doing their j o b or not, they were

part of the enemy camp and I hated them for it.

N o t once, in the entire three weeks I lay recuperating,

did Dr. Marshall come to see me. I liked thinking maybe

he was a little scared of m e , but it was more likely he just

didn't give a damn, labeling me as so unimportant I didn't

merit'the wasting of his precious time. I was nothing but

a commodity to him, flesh and blood spare parts kept in

cold storage in case he had further need of me.

Drake popped in and out all the time, unfortunately,

laughing at my pain and taunting me in childish ways

like tossing me a tennis ball and saying, "Here, Mike,

catchy
He'd shriek like a loon when the ball would whack

me in the face, or thud painfully against my bandaged

shoulders. He enjoyed pissing me off, and loved hurting

me even more. As helpless as I was, I vowed to someday

pay that muscle-headed sadistic asshole back in spades.

The first day the doctors let me get out of bed was the

day my mind turned away from revenge and started l i n k ing seriously about escaping. The minute my feet hit the

floor, I was already planning and scheming, keeping my

eyes and ears open for a chance to bolt. Ironically, it was

Drake—the big cheese of security around here—who

gave me the opportunity I'd been waiting for.

He strutted into my room with his chest puffed out,

cocky as usual, and ordered the two nurses who'd just

finished changing my dressings to get out and stay out.

"Dr. Marshall's on his way to see you, Mike."

"What's he want?" I asked, curious, but more than a

little nervous to hear the answer,

"I think he needs your legs," Drake smiled, clearly

happy to be the bearer of such shocking news.

He pulled an apple out of his coat pocket, leaned

against a filing cabinet by the door, and silently enjoyed

his snack while relishing the terrifying effect his words

were having on me.

God no, not my legs! Not my fucking legs!

I had a vivid picture of me carved down to nothing,

lying upstairs in a bed beside Lucas and Charlie while

three nurses began sticking the IV tubes into my head,

neck, and torso to begin draining my first of countless

donations of blood. The vision was so powerful, so
real,

I found myself unable to stand on my own power. Dis¬

oriented as I was, I tried grabbing hold of my dresser

drawer to support myself, but I had no arms to clutch

onto anything with, so I ended up sprawled out on the

floor near Drake's feet.

Drake found my spill comical, naturally, nearly

choking on the last bite of his apple he was laughing so

hard. "Oh man, I've got to get out of here. You're killing

me Mike,
killing
me!" Tossing his apple core toward the

garbage can, he headed out the door, pausing only long

enough to look back and say, "Dr. Marshall will be along

soon, so be nice. I'll see you later on, back in rehab."

Then he was gone, the heavy metal door swinging

behind him so that he assumed he'd left me alone in a

locked room. That was his mistake. Although the door

was automatically set to lock, as always, the chief of se¬

curity had failed to notice that his gnawed apple core

hadn't fallen into the trash can as he'd intended. Instead,

it had bounced off the top rim and rebounded to the

floor, coming to rest between the closing door and its

j a m b . Wedged between the two, the locking device

couldn't engage, leaving the door open about an inch.

Lying where I'd fallen, I held my breath, waiting to

see if the weight of the door would compress the apple

core enough that the latch would click, but it never h a p

pened. Hope surged through me like a charge of light

ning, b u r n i n g away my ghastly thoughts of the Bleeders'

room upstairs, and fueling my weakened body into ac¬

tion. I was back on my feet in seconds, rushing over to

the door. Getting out of this room didn't guarantee me

freedom, but it sure as hell was a good start.

How was I supposed to open the door? The knob was

way too big to try grabbing with my teeth, and if I tried

to nudge it open using my hip, I might j u s t as easily

push the door shut, locking myself in. I ended up using

my toes, t u r n i n g my left foot sideways, pushing them

through the gap, and prying the door open enough that

I could get my head and neck around to shove it open.

Drake was nowhere in sight, the hallway in both di¬

rections blessedly empty. Outside my room for the first

time in almost a month, I felt great, almost giddy with

excitement, thinking maybe this time luck would be on

my side and I'd be able to j u s t stroll on out of here un¬

noticed and unchallenged. I should have known better. I

hadn't made it more than a few steps when Dr. Marshall

wheeled around the corner, obviously on his way to my

room. He was dressed in a blue sweatshirt and faded

j e a n s , looking quite comfortable until the shock of see¬

ing me out wandering in the hall spread across his face.

"How did you get out of your room?" he asked, a

trace of alarm creeping into his normally confident