The surgery continues slowly, but it’s mostly just making sure that this youth won’t die too quickly. The police still haven’t shown, and the stars really seem to be aligning just for him. The rush of excitement that Cox gets is nearly overwhelming. He must remain careful so as not to let his hands shake. He must control himself just a little bit longer. Later, when the police do finally show and start to ask questions, Doctor Cox will give him the very unfortunate news that the poor car crash victim died during surgery and that of course they did everything in their power to help the poor child. Nobody will ever be the wiser.
Once the boy’s condition is officially stable, Doctor Cox removes his hands from the body cavity and folds the sterile towel over them, not that an infection is anything to worry about anymore. All involved know that the man on the table, Jake, will not be leaving this room alive. Whether Doctor Cox keeps him in here for hours or minutes, it won’t make a difference.
Usually, he likes to play for hours.
“Time of death, one twelve a.m.”
It’s the final signal that the recording is supposed to be cut off here, that this is the last official moment of life for poor little Jake here. Jake who will never finish the college course that the state is paying for. Will never finish and get married, will never have the opportunity to build a life with another person or start a family that he’s probably never had. No, Jake will die here today and be forgotten. He will be a burden on the system no longer.
It’s a powerful feeling. Cox always works alone for these next bits, not because he has yet to find another soul who is willing to walk into this particular darkness with him but because he doesn’t like to share this feeling. He feels like a god whenever he holds life in his hand. He is overly experienced in giving life, reshaping it, and twisting it to human desires. He is equally as experienced in taking it away.
Finally there is only one person left standing in his way, one single witness that looks back over her shoulder with a wary eye and speaks in a soft voice. If only he were able to feed off of fear alone, how long would his life be then?
“Do you … ah … want me to turn the lights off, doctor?” she asks meekly.
For a moment he doesn’t acknowledge her because he’s so focused on the body cavity in front of him. His hands hold their positions of power looking at the person in front of him. He’s not deceased, not hardly. However, all of the medical reports will say that he died exactly at the time he was claimed to have and everybody in this room will testify that, yes, he had died. There will be no hint of malpractice. There will be no rumors or whispers about what might have happened here. Doctor Pierre Cox has perfected this to an art form. All of those scrub nurses and techs are either too scared of what he might do to them or they have been paid enough to turn a blind eye. Either way, this surgical suite is now his playground. The steady beeping of machines keeps him company while the rest of the team starts to disrobe and file out of the room.
“No, that’s alright, Ashley, just the overhead is fine. Thank you, darling,” he says in his sugar-sweet voice. There’s a snapping of latex being pulled from fingers and dropped into the bin and the sliding of the heavy surgical doors as the last scrub nurse finally leaves the room. Doctor Cox is focused on the monitor beside the body, knowing that the anesthetic is slowly about to start wearing off. He starts to hum, his soft, random tunes filling the eerie space and turning it somehow more sadistic. Whenever these bodies come into his emergency room he gets such a secret little thrill. Those bodies where they try and try again to contact an emergency contact or next of kin and they don’t come through, leaving the body to be taken to surgery with no consents or forms filled...leaving them totally and completely at his mercy.
Patience is key as Doctor Cox waits for the heart rate to start to rise, for the pulse on the monitors to start beeping more and more quickly. With unhurried movements the doctor reaches under the gurney and pulls up the arm restraints, buckling him in. With a strap across the open abdomen and tightened down there will be no chances of this poor man freeing himself. Doctor Cox adjusts the blood transfusion bag, just because the man is in shock doesn’t mean he is going to allow him to die before he’s had his fun, and Doctor Cox has quite a lot of fun in store for the both of them.
All he needs now is for his subject, his plaything, to awaken and for the screaming to begin.
2
I f Nathan was given a choice, he wouldn’t ever set foot on a bus again. He understands the need for them, the fact that it’s efficient and low-profile travel. It’s something that the company can set up for him early enough in
