Michael Palmer
Flashback
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men and for all time to come, if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to The Company Store.
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PROLOGUE
Toby Nelms lay on his back and counted the lights as they flashed past overhead. He was eight years old, but small even for that age, with thick red-brown hair, and freckles that ran across the tops of his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. For a time after his father's job relocation from upstate New York to the T. J. Carter Paper Company of Sterling, New Hampshire, Toby's classmates in the Bouquette Elementary School had called him 'dot face, ' and 'shrimp, ' and had pushed him around in the school cafeteria. But things were better now, much better, since the day he had held his ground and absorbed a beating at the hands of Jimmy Barnes, the school bully. Five… six… seven … Toby rubbed at the lump at the top of his leg, next to his peenie, where the pain had started and still persisted. The doctors had said that the shot would take the pain away, but it hadn't. The music that the nurses had promised would relax him wasn't helping, either. The song was okay, but there weren't any words.
His hand shaking, Toby reached up and pulled the padded earphones off his head. Eight… nine… The lights turned from white to yellow to pink, and finally to red. Ten… eleven… Following the fight with Jimmy, the kids had stopped pushing him and had begun asking him to walk home with them after school. They had even elected him to be the class representative to the student council. After months of inventing illnesses to stay home, it felt so good to want to go to school again every day. Now, because of the lump, he would miss a whole week. It wasn't fair. Twelve… thirteen… The red lights passing overhead grew brighter, more intense. Toby squeezed his eyes as tightly as he could, but the red grew warmer and brighter still. He tried putting his arm across them, but the hot, blood light bore through and began to sting them. Softly, he began to cry. 'Now, now, Toby, there's no need to cry. Doctor's going to fix that little bump, and then you'll be all better. Are you sure you don't want to listen to the music? Most of our patients say they feel much better because of it.'
Toby shook his head and then slowly lowered his arm. The lights were gone from overhead. Instead, he saw the face of the nurse, smiling down at him. She was gray-haired and wrinkled and old-as old as Aunt Amelia.
Her teeth were yellowed at the tops, and smears of bright red makeup glowed off her cheeks. As he watched, the skin on her face drew tighter, more sunken. Her wrinkles disappeared and the spaces below the red makeup, and above, where her eyes had been, became dark and hollow.
'Now, now, Toby… now, now… now, now…'
Once again, Toby threw his arm across his eyes, and once again, it did no good. The nurse's skin tightened still further, and then began to peel away, until the white of her bones shone through. The red dripped like blood over her skeleton face, and the holes where her eyes had been glowed. 'Now, now… now, now…'
'Let me up. Please let me up.'
Toby screamed the words, but heard only a low growl, like the sound from the stereo when he turned the record with his finger. 'Let me up.
Please, let me up.'
The sheet was pulled from his body, and he shook from the chilly air.
'I'm cold, ' he cried wordlessly. 'Please cover me. Please let me up.
Mommy. I want my mommy.'
'Okay, big fella. Up you go.'
It was a man's voice, deep and slow. Toby felt hands around his ankles and beneath his arms, lifting him higher and higher off the bed with wheels, higher and higher and higher. That same music was in the room.
Now, even without the earphones, he could hear it. 'Easy does it, big fella. Just relax.'
Toby opened his eyes. The face above his was blurred. He blinked, then blinked once more. The face, beneath a blue cap, remained blurred. In fact, it wasn't a face at all-just skin where the eyes and nose and mouth should have been. Again, Toby screamed. Again, there was only silence. He was floating, helpless. Mommy, please. I want Mommy. 'Down you go, big fella, ' the faceless man said. Toby felt the cold slab beneath his back. He felt the wide strap pulled tightly across his chest. Just the lump, his mind whimpered. Don't hurt my peenie. You promised. Please, don't hurt me. 'Okay, Toby, you're going to go to sleep now. Just relax, listen to the music, and count back from one hundred like this. One hundred… ninety-nine… ninety-eight…'
'One hundred… ninety-nine…' Toby heard his own voice say the words, but he knew he wasn't speaking. 'Ninety-eight… ninety-seven …' He felt icy cold water being swabbed over the space between his belly and the top of his leg-first over the lump, and then over his peenie. 'Ninety-six… ninety-five.' Please stop. You're hurting me.
Please. 'That's it, y'all, he's under. Ready, Jack? Team? ' The voice, a man's, was one Toby had heard before. But where? Where? 'Okay, Marie, turn up the speakers just a hair. Good, good. Okay, then, let's have at it. Knife, please…'
The doctor's voice. Yes, Toby thought. That was who. The doctor who had come to see him in the emergency ward. The doctor with the kind eyes.
The doctor who had promised he wouldn't… A knife? What kind of knife?
What for?
Then Toby saw it. Light sparked off the blade of a small silver knife as it floated downward, closer and closer to the lump above his leg. He tried to move, to push himself away, but the strap across his chest pinned his arms tightly against his sides. For a moment, Toby's fear was replaced by confusion and a strange curiosity. He watched the thin blade glide down until it just touched the skin next to his peenie. Then pain, unlike any he had ever known, exploded through his body from the spot.
'I can feel that! I can feel that, ' he screamed. 'Wait! Stop!
I can feel that!'
The knife cut deeper, then began to move, over the top of the lump, then back toward the base of his peenie. Blood spurted out from around the blade as it slid through his skin. Again and again, Toby screamed.
'That's it. Suction now, suction, ' he heard the doctor say calmly.
'Please, please, you're hurting me. I can feel that, ' Toby pleaded He kicked his feet and struggled against the wide strap with all his strength. 'Mommy, Daddy. Please help me.'
'Metzenbaums.'
The blade of the shiny knife, now covered with blood, slid free of the gash it had made. In its place, Toby saw the points of a scissors pushing into the cut, first opening, then closing, then opening again, moving closer and closer to the base of his peenie. Each movement brought a pain so intense, it was almost beyond feeling. Almost. 'Don't you understand? ' Toby screamed, struggling to speak with the reasoning tone of a grown-up, 'I can feel that. It hurts. It hurts me.'
The scissors drove deeper, around the base of his peenie. 'No! Don't touch that! Don't touch that!'
'Sponge, I need a sponge right here. Good, that's better. That's better.'
