Immobility

He felt the pricking again, then briefly an intense coldness followed by a burning and an itching all over his body, and then an intense wave of pain.

He heard someone above him laughing.

He cried out and tried to throw them off, but already his limbs felt thick and distant. He felt the hands leave his head. He tried to lift it and still could, but when he tried to move his hands, they refused to obey him.

And then Rasmus was there in front of him, holding his head off the ground by the hair, still breathing heavily. He bent down so his head was almost touching the ground, so he could look Horkai straight in the eye.

“There,” said Rasmus. “As peaceful as a baby.” And then struck him in the face, over and over again, until he passed out.

PART FIVE

A SENSATION, AGAIN, OF COMING BACK to life, only not quite that: half life maybe. Still utter darkness, though perhaps a faint hint of light on the horizon. A swirl of memory and imagination, a bloody swath depicting the past, real or imaginary, smeared across the inside of his skull. Bodies everywhere. A light that shone through his skin to reveal his bones. A dead child, a dead wife, and then that, too, blown away in a fine drift of ash. The whole world cut up and churned under and him lying there for days, half-dead, half-alive, waiting for someone to come.

Or no, that wasn’t right. A man crawling up an abandoned and devastated freeway, alone. No food, no water, knees and hands bloody, slow and then slower still, and then lying there in a heap, exhausted, waiting to die.

Something fluttered, something scraped, told him—because slowly there was starting to be such a thing as a him—no, that wasn’t right either. A man, in the dark, feeling around him for the body of another man he planned to kill. A man, stumbling, striking walls while other men tried to bring him down.

Or a man, frozen, stuffed into a cylinder, unable to move, unable to draw breath, waiting to come back to life again.

Only it wasn’t that either, at least he didn’t think so.

But he was beginning to have the feeling that when he opened his eyes and saw who was standing over him, he would realize it would be much worse than any of these possibilities.

30

“HE’S COMING AROUND,” he heard a voice say. He felt someone slapping his cheeks softly; then his eye was parted and a light shone in and then moved away. He managed, with great effort, to open the eye again, then the other eye as well, saw nothing at first but a blur. It all seemed familiar somehow, as if it had happened before.

Oh, Christ, he thought, without knowing exactly why. It’s starting all over again.

His head ached. The blur of the sun smeared further and then slowly became clearer and clearer, becoming a light in a concrete ceiling and there, before him, two faces. One was a technician that he vaguely recognized. The other was Rasmus.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. “Did I just come out of storage?”

“No,” said Rasmus. “You’re just about to go into it.”

And then it came rushing back, inexorably. He tried to get up, found he couldn’t move more than his head and neck. Rasmus smiled. “You’re paralyzed,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

“You did this to me,” he said.

“Of course I did,” said Rasmus.

“But why?”

“Mr. Horkai, you’re far too valuable a commodity for us to lose. Every community needs a guardian angel. That’s what you are for us. You’re our guardian angel, albeit a somewhat reluctant one.” His hand moved forward, stroked the side of Horkai’s cheek softly. “We don’t travel well. You go places we can’t. We’ll store you until we need you again.”

“I won’t help you,” said Horkai. “Not a second time.”

“Not the next time, you mean,” he said. “That’s the same thing you said before this time. And the same thing you said the time before that. And before that. And yet, given time, a scrambling of the head, and a certain befuddlement, you always come around.”

“But you said I was in storage for thirty years.”

“You should know by now I don’t always tell the truth,” said Rasmus. “But yes, in a manner of speaking, you were in storage for thirty years. We just happened to wake you up a few times along the way. But this next time, it may well be thirty years. You’ve done very well for us this time,” he said. “I’m willing to bet it’ll be a while before we require your services again.”

“I’ll never help you,” he said. “Next time I wake up, I’ll kill you.”

Rasmus smiled. “You’re nothing if not consistent,” he said. “Always the same threat every time.” He motioned the technician forward, and the man approached wearing rubber gloves, a wet cotton ball in his hand. He carefully moistened one temple and then the other and then turned away again.

“Traditionally they used to put a cloth in the mouth as well,” said Rasmus. “So that the patient wouldn’t bite off his tongue. But you have the advantage of being able to grow a new tongue if you bite yours off.”

Then the technician was back, holding two metal paddles with insulated handles. He handed them to Rasmus, who took them, pressed them to either side of Horkai’s head.

“What are you doing?” demanded Horkai.

“What does it look like we’re doing? We’re taking steps to help you forget.”

“Why?” asked Horkai. “Why do this to me?”

“I’ve already told you,” said Rasmus. “You’re a valuable commodity. We own you. Why would we give you up?” He turned to the technician. “Ready?” he asked.

“Let it build up,” said the technician. “Another dozen seconds or so.”

Rasmus nodded. “I have to admit, there’s something else,” he said. He leaned closer and for the first time showed Horkai his genuine face, stripped of all trappings, his eyes sharp with hatred. “My father didn’t die because he went out to get you. I lied when I said that. My father died because he sat beside you for days nursing you back to health. You’re immune to the poison, your body even feeds on it. But you’re also a carrier. Any time you go outside, you get a little bit poisonous. When you come back in, you bring it back in with you. Why do you think we have your storage facility so far away from the rest of the community?”

He moved back, his mask in place again, his true face hidden. “And one last thing,” he said. “About your legs. You were, of course, right. There’s nothing wrong with them. We made all that happen. But of course, by the time you wake up again, you’ll have forgotten all about that, too.”

He nodded. Horkai suddenly felt his neck and jaw tense, his skull trying to push its way out of his head. He heard a hissing sound, but it took him a moment to realize it was the sound of him breathing through his own clenched teeth. Then as quickly as it had begun it stopped, and he felt the blood pounding in his ears.

“Again,” he heard Rasmus say, and felt his neck and jaw tense and roll, saw the flailing of his arm though he couldn’t feel it. He tried to keep his mind focused, tried not to forget what had happened to him, what had brought him there, but he felt his thoughts rapidly receding, being replaced by a wincing, screaming pain.

And when it was finished, there was Rasmus, standing over him, paddles in hand, smiling.

“Again,” he chanted. “Again. Again. Again.”