Nikos knocked on the stall. There was another moan, louder.
“Manny?” The door was locked. “Let me in.”
A scream, so shrill it pierced Nikos like glass. He took a step back and kicked the door in.
Manny sat on the toilet. His tuxedo was in shreds, and there was so much blood he looked like an autopsy in progress.
In his left hand was a scalpel.
“Manny!”
Manny fixed his eyes on Dr. Nikos. His gaze was malevolent.
“No. Not Manny. I’m his brother, David.”
Nikos took a step back. Manny’s voice, his posture, his demeanor-all had become threatening. He wasn’t acting like Manny at all. Nikos recalled the monkey experiments, and what long term N-Som use had done to their brains. He’d been deceiving himself about the drug’s safety, turning a blind eye to the truth, and now the awful realization of what he’d done was staring at him like a hungry animal.
“Manny, get a hold of yourself. You aren’t David. David died when you were kids.”
Manny stood up. His lips peeled back, revealing bloody teeth.
“I didn’t die.” He tapped his temple with the scalpel handle. “I’ve been up here all the time.”
“We need to get you to a doctor, Manny. I had no idea you were this bad.”
Manny took a step forward. “The name is David.”
Nikos felt fear. He was a big man, robust, but he’d seen what Manny was capable of. Manny could bench press three hundred and fifty pounds. Manny could punch through safety glass with his bare hands. And now, some internal switch had been flipped, and this unstoppable machine had become a full blown psychotic.
Nikos raised his hands in supplication.
“David is dead, Emmanuel. He committed suicide in juvenile hall. Don’t you remember? You told me yourself. Please, Manny…”
“Stop calling me Manny!”
The move was so quick, Nikos couldn’t even lift an arm to defend himself. All he saw was a blur, and then there was a waterfall of blood cascading down his chest.
Nikos clutched his neck, felt his fingers sink in to the trachea. He fell over.
“You killed him! You killed him!”
Nikos watched as Manny screamed at himself, turning the scalpel inwards and jabbing it over and over into his own chest. Eventually he collapsed as well.
“Dr. Nikos… I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop him.”
Nikos barely heard. He stared at the bathroom ceiling, knowing it was the last thing he’d ever see.
Theena’s mother was right. She’d always told him that all of his hard work would kill him.
He almost laughed at the irony.
I never should have left her, he thought. One of many mistakes he’d never have a chance to fix.
And then he died.
Jack Kilborn
Disturb
David exited Route 53 at the Schaumburg off ramp. He’d always wanted a pickup truck. When he and Manny were kids, they shared a small die-cast toy. It was the only thing that stayed with them, from foster home to foster home. Their one constant. He even remembered how they lost it.
It was nearly twenty years ago. They were walking home after school, taking a short cut through a field. Manny began throwing stones at a bird’s nest, trying to hit the bleating chicks inside. David told him to stop. When Manny refused, David tossed their truck into the woods, never to be seen again.
Or was it the opposite? Had he been the one who was trying to hit the bird’s nest?
He shrugged it off. He had a real truck now. Full size, with four doors, all wheel drive, and a bumping stereo system.
The only drawback was the smell. David lowered the window another three inches. The truck’s former owner had voided his bowels when David stuck the scalpel in his neck, and he hadn’t found a suitable place to dump him so the body was still in the back seat.
The clock read just after five, and most of the DruTech employees would be going home for the day. David knew that the N-Som team always worked late. There was a good chance Theena and Dr. Myrnowski were still there, along with the FDA guy. Once those three were taken care of, David would finally be free.
He fought the departing traffic, inching his way through the parking lot until he found a space near the front entrance. When he turned off the ignition he noticed the bandage on his hand.
David was missing a finger.
When had that happened? He knew that he’d cut off Manny’s finger, to teach the coward a lesson. But had Manny somehow done the same thing to him?
The memory was hazy. He could picture himself, hacking at the joint, wiggling the scalpel to get through the knuckle. He could also remember a moment of white hot pain, but was that his pain or Manny’s?
He entered the DruTech Building, unable to figure it out. The answer was so close, tantalizing him, something he was almost on the verge of remembering.
The security guard, an overweight ex-cop named Barry, offered a curt nod.
“Good evening, Manny. Glad to see you’re out of the hospital.”
“I’m not Manny. I’m David.”
Barry raised an eyebrow.
“You feeling okay?”
Actually, he wasn’t feeling okay. The missing finger nagged at him. It meant something important.
“Who else is here?”
“Dr. Boone and Dr. May from the FDA. Dr. Myrnowski as well.”
“I don’t have my elevator pass to get down to the basement.”
“No problem, Manny. I’ll take you. Let me call down to Dr. Boone.”
David put a hand on Barry’s wrist, not allowing him to pick up the phone.
“I’d prefer to surprise her.”
He emphasized his point with a squeeze, feeling the wrist bones beneath Barry’s flab. The guard’s eyes widened.
“Sure, Manny. I’ll walk you to the elevator.”
David smiled and released his grip. The chubby man led him to the lift, his gait uneasy. He used his security pass in the slot under the call buttons. The green light went on, and the doors closed.
“You have something on your shirt.”
David looked down, and wasn’t surprised to see a large dried blood stain on his stomach. He had no idea whose it was. He’d killed so many people.
He touched the stain absently, and was startled to find a lump underneath. David lifted up his shirt.
Something that looked like a small plastic faucet was sticking out of a puckered hole in his belly. It protruded almost an inch. There was a fine mesh screen on the spout, leaking brown fluid.
Barry made a face.
“Ouch. A surgical drain. They put one of those in me when I had my colon operation two years ago. Keeps the swelling down after surgery. You should keep a bandage over the end so it doesn’t drain into your clothes.”
David touched it. He’d seen one before, on Manny, when he’d visited him in the hospital. But why did David have one? He pinched the end and began to pull.
“You really shouldn’t…”
Barry stopped talking, only able to stare. An inch of tube came out, wet and slimy, making a sucking noise like a worm crawling out of the muck. Then two inches. Four.
David continued to yank. The sensation was sublime, a soft finger moving through his insides. Almost a foot of tubing came out of his stomach before he reached the end.
He stared at the tube, curious. It was filled with foul smelling liquid the color of cola. The open end dripped onto the floor. David watched as the hole in his stomach closed like a tiny mouth.
Barry made a gagging sound. The elevator stopped and the doors opened.
