Cookie Cutter Man (21 page)
Authors: Elias Anderson
When the door was closed and the doctor was comfortably
seated, Daniel took his last good look at Dr. Pazcowski. “I’m sorry, doc.”
“I know, Daniel.”
“Sorry you went to Harvard.”
Daniel snatched the Mark Cross pen away from Pazcowski, and
jammed it most of the way into the base of the doctor’s neck. Dr. Pazcowski
began to screech. Daniel punched him twice in the mouth and shoved him to the
floor. Again the door burst open, and Daniel was ready.
Shultz came first, running with his shoulder down like the
all-star defensive lineman he had been in high school. Daniel took a step
forward and planted his foot right on Shultz’s kneecap. There was a sickening
snap and Shultz screamed, going down on his good knee. Daniel kicked him in the
crotch as hard as he could.
Crevvers was almost upon him, a toothy, deranged smile
across his face. Daniel picked up his chair by the backrest and swung it. The
metal seat connected perfectly with Crevvers’s jaw, shattering it. Shultz was
curled up on the floor, trying to breathe. Daniel swung the chair again and
broke two of Crevvers’ ribs; knocking the orderly off his feet. Daniel could
see several perfectly capped teeth on the floor amidst the blood mixing with
Shultz’s lunch as he coughed it up. The sound drained out of the world and everything
moved slowly, like through thick liquid or as in a dream. Faintly, coming from
somewhere, Daniel could hear Beethoven’s Ninth.
He was only aware of his feet and fists as they pummeled
Sven Crevvers, who would go through six different surgeries before he was
properly put back together again. Sven’s jaw was wired shut for about 14
months, before the first operation and after two of the others. The admitting
emergency room doctor that initially looked Sven over gave him a one in fifty
chance of surviving.
One of Sven’s ribs snapped and punctured his lung. The
orderly blacked out, as the air meant to scream with instead filled his chest.
Daniel turned on the doctor again and beat him until he was
pulled away and hospitalized by three other orderlies, none of whom escaped the
confrontation without injury.
Daniel sat in the Mod-U-Form institutional chair, picking at
a loose thread on his shapeless grey top. It was almost winter again, but the
autumn light still held its tenuous grip on the day. He and Dr. Shafer had just
returned from a little field trip. They had gone to where headquarters had
been. The house was still there, but there was a family living in it. They also
talked to the realtor that had rented the family the crumbling three-story Victorian,
who said they had been living there for just over four years.
The family had a little red Toyota truck — a ’78, maybe
—with the rear panel rusted out.
Daniel still couldn’t see how all that happened could have
come out of his own head, but Dr. Shafer explained to him that such delusional
fantasies can seem to last for days, but only occupy a few minutes of time in
reality.
His therapy was going very well now. He hadn’t had a single
outburst since — well, he shouldn’t think about Dr. Pazcowski.
Daniel was better now, and that had all happened almost nine
months ago. He could feed the pigeons again, and no one even had to watch him.
He’d never hurt another pigeon. They were birds and that was all; just little
rats with wings. Not ... well ... he took a deep breath and closed his eyes
tight tight tight. They were birds. Birds, that’s all. Birds.
Cameras, he thought. I used to believe they were cameras.
Daniel pulled the gray thread loose, undoing the hem along
the bottom of the polyester hospital uniform. Slowly. Carefully. No one was
watching him.
Echo hadn’t come to visit him today. She had come yesterday,
hadn’t she? He had a little trouble with days ... well, with time in general
now. He thought maybe it was the drugs they gave him to help the schizophrenia,
or to stop the hallucinations. Or maybe the pills for his nerves, or the shot
they gave him because if they didn’t he felt angry all the time.
In his head was a slow pulse of building pain. It seemed to
have been in the background for days now, beaten back over and over by the
pills he was getting, but always returning. Today was the day though. There was
no getting away from it this time, which made him sad. He hadn’t had a headache
in a long time, since that thing with Pazcowski …
The pain swelled inside his head until it felt like his eyes
were bulging out of their sockets. He closed them and the pain got worse. It
ebbed and flowed, rolling back a little less and coming in a little harder each
time.
In one of the moments of recession, Daniel wondered if Echo
would come tomorrow. She had the prettiest green eyes. He sure hoped to see her
again.
There was a little commotion at the other side of the
sitting room, and Daniel looked up with anticipation. McMurphy was down there
somewhere, and he was a fucking lunatic! Maybe he was—
No, just handing out medication. No commotion. The
short-haired pill-guy weaved his way between the patients, handing them their
little paper cups of multi-colored sanity and cool sips of water.
Daniel looked down at his shirt again, having undone the hem
along the front. He smiled a little. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had on
them, this one insignificant little rebellion. They couldn’t take everything
away.
Daniel looked up again to see if his pills were here yet.
Nope. This new guy was slow. But that’s OK, Daniel thought. Dr. Shafer said you
should give everyone you don’t know a chance, because you never know whom
they’ll turn out to be.
Dr. Shafer was much better than Dr. Pazcowski. But, then
again, she hadn’t gone to Harvard.
The pill-guy stopped again, this time talking to a couple of
patients. Even though the patients seemed to be ignoring the pill-guy, Daniel
looked around for an orderly; the help wasn’t supposed to talk to the patients,
and maybe the pill-guy would get yelled at. Only doctors should talk to
patients.
But no one was around. Daniel took a little cold pleasure in
knowing that if there
had
been any orderlies around, they certainly
wouldn’t have been Sven Crevvers.
Maybe this pill-guy wasn’t so new. Daniel thought he looked
familiar. He must have seen him around. Oh well, didn’t matter. What did, so
long as he had his pills and wasn’t acting angry or causing a commotion? The
pain in his head came rolling back in once more. Daniel looked down at his
fraying shirt again and just stopped there, almost hypnotized by the pain. He
would have looked at it for a long time if he hadn’t been disturbed. A hand
thrust a paper cup under his nose. Daniel flinched at the intrusion, and
staring down into the little cup of pills, realized his headache was gone.
A voice said, “Howya doin’, Dannyboy?”
“I’m OK.” Daniel looked hard at the pills in his cup.
“You know that thing’s
not
Echo, right?”
“Her eyes,” Daniel muttered. “They should be
blue
.”
“That’s right. I knew you still had it. Now hurry and take
these. You’ll be leaving soon.”
Daniel stared into the paper cup, confused and wanting to be
numb again. The pills seemed to double, then triple. They came back together as
one but this time the little cup was full of spiders. The spiders turned to
pills again, but not the ones he was used to.
“These aren’t my medications,” Daniel said.
“I know. It’s OK, Dan, they’re
good
pills, like
before.”
Daniel looked up.
Jared looked back at him and grinned.
If you liked this title, perhaps you should try one of these.
As
a child, all Ryce Dalton wanted to be was an Army Ranger.
Conquering
his dream, it was only 16 years later that he was forced into early retirement
due to an injury.
Sworn
to defend his country, putting his combat and intelligence skills back to work,
he has joined the Joint Border Task Force.
Four
laptops have been stolen from the Pentagon, containing critical data that could
put us all in danger. Can Ryce keep those secrets from reaching the enemies of
America?
Seth is a young man torn by fear and indecision. His life no
longer in his hands, he fears an uncertain future where the only certainty is a
life of servitude to the kingdom. Fortunately for Seth, he is not alone. His
brother Garret too attends the choosing ceremony where their fates will be
decided. Together the twins make their way to the castle city of Valdadore for
the choosing ceremony but along the way Seth notices a strange new trend in his
life. Time after time strange circumstances befall him in what others might
call a coincidence, but Seth knows something else is amiss and begins mentally
cataloging each new and strange event. Learning his past is all a lie, Seth
begins to fear more for his future as a dark goddess vies for his service to
her cause. Seth’s loyalties and responsibilities begin to stack up as he makes
friends and allies and even falls in love, but with the choosing ceremony
growing ever nearer will he be forced to flee the kingdom into a life of exile,
or choose to serve the goddess who swears that only through her will he find
peace.
A dark, demon-like creature has possessed Sunshine’s body
since the day she was born. For seventeen years she has watched from the
outside as the Intruder has slowly wrecked her life. Risking it all, in an
attempt to reclaim her body, Sunshine is sent to a mental institution where
Intruders abound. In a constant struggle to learn who she is, Sunshine must take
charge of her life while battling the Intruders. Can she do it and maintain
her sanity?
The secretary to a leading
Criminal Defense Barrister is found brutally murdered and her body dumped.
For Detective Inspector Jonny
Jackson and his team, this is an apparently motiveless crime. The absence of
tangible clues to the identity of the perpetrator as well as any credible
suspects causes considerable concern to Jonny who fears for his future on the Force.
Simon is the cause and the
motivator behind this crime. He does not commit the crime personally,
preferring to manipulate another. He cares nothing for those who are hurt in
the process. For Simon this is just a game.
A second murder throws the
investigation into chaos and Simon's game continues to escalate as again and
again evidence conflicts.
Jonny and his team struggle
to identify the man responsible, but perhaps you can see what they have missed.
A Key that was lost has been found... Dark powers long
forgotten are reawakening...
Wishing to escape a reality where she hates her job, her
relationships are failing, and trouble and stress choke the fun out of
everything, 23 year old Nicola Cook thinks things can't get any worse. That
is, until she begins to have disturbing visions. Now things have begun to
spiral out of control as Nicola discovers she has fallen into the middle of a
centuries old battle.
Paul's aunt just died, but before her last breath she
promised him a destiny straight out of a fantasy novel. It would have been
easy to overlook until he met the girl he had been dreaming of for months. She
was real, a living, breathing person, and he had to have her. Then she is
taken from him again and he is forced to realize the truth of his destiny.
Life and death reside in his hands and it is up to him to decide who will live
and die.
Imagine the world portrayed through a severely unvarnished
tale of drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, mobsters, motorcycle gangs, and a whole host
of other curious beings. It is an honest portrayal of the fringe southerner, at
his best and his worst, and is a sober tasting of the counter cultures that
dwell on these gritty fringes. The types of people, which skid along this
uneasy gamut, range from the kindest of the most honest and meek, on to the
most depraved and callused among them. It is humorous, and even ludicrous, at
times and tragic at others, but it is what it is, and I post no apologies for
any of it.
This modest of works is the paltriest literary testing of
Tennessee William’s boasts that “Nothing human disgusts”, all the while being a
celebration of Walt Whitman’s fanciful claims of “Being large enough to contain
multitudes”. Do you contain multitudes, dear hearts? Climb in, sit down, hold
on and shut up!!!
Born in 1978 in the wastelands of southeastern Montana,
Elias Anderson was moved to Colorado at the age of six weeks. He spent the next
21 years in various parts of the state until relocating to California and
Oregon, only to settle back in Denver with his wife and two daughters.
His professional writing experience ranges from staff writer
and reporter for the Coastal View News (Carpinteria, CA) to food critic,
freelance copy writer, and editor. He has published poetry, articles, essays,
and short stories in a variety of hard copy and web-based publications
