The Jigsaw Man (25 page)

They damn near kill me, but it's nothin' that I can con¬

trol. Besides, I'm hurtin' way too much right now for

this bullshit. Give me my meds and an hour to let them

kick in and I promise I'll try anything you want. N o t

now, though. No way."

The old physiotherapist shot a look of pure hatred

toward me, then shook her head in disgust. "You're

pitiful, Mike, but the whining stops today. Right now.

You want your pain medication? Here, come an' get 'em

for yourself."

She walked over and placed the familiar plastic con¬

tainer containing my multicolored happy pills on the

roll-away wooden meal tray, positioning it against the

side wall of my room, about seven feet to my right.

Then she turned to leave.

"You can't be serious," I said. Junie didn't answer me.

She was already out the door and gone.

It took a full fifteen minutes before I finally accepted

this wasn't some sort of weird trick and she really wasn't

coming back. Junie the resurrectionist was gone and

my pain meds weren't doing me a lot of good sitting

halfway to the door.

SOB
ofa bitch Now what am I gonna do?

I stared at the plastic cup holding my pills—close,

sure, but they may as well have been on the other side

of the planet. My eyes wandered to the emergency call

button attached to a long white cord beside my bed. All

I had to do was push that little red button on the end

and one of my regular nurses would come running.

Surely they'd give me my pills. But first I had to get a

hold of it, and in my condition that was impossible. Or

was k? I had a sneaky feeling trying to use my new

arms would hurt like a bastard, but what alternative did

I have? I had to at least try. Either that or j u s t lay here

and suffer.

Okay then, finger first.

No real reason for it, but I made up my mind to try

wiggling my index finger on my right hand, then work

my way up to trying to move the whole arm. Seemed as

good a plan as any. If crazy old Junie was telling the

truth about them working my muscles while I'd been

napping, this should be a piece of cake.

My finger moved; wiggling on command like it was

nervous. Trouble was, it was the wrong finger. I'd wanted

the index, and the one wiggling was my middle finger.

N o t too bad—just one digit off. I concentrated harder

and really focused on moving my index finger. The

middle finger danced again.

Fuck!

Either I wasn't trying hard enough, or somewhere

along the line I wasn't hardwired up quite right. That

seemed possible. More than possible—inevitable, really.

With all the millions of nerve connections and neural

pathways inside a human body, it only stood to reason

some mistakes would be made when Dr. Marshall stitched

me back together. The question was, how many? H o w

many mistakes and bad connections made up my new

bastardized nervous system? With the kind of luck I'd

had lately, I didn't even want to think about it.

Back to the fingers.

I tried to bend them all this time, not be so picky.

Clench up my hand into a fist and—

Hey, it worked!

I could open them too. Maybe it would j u s t take a

while to fine-tune things and get my dexterity back. I

spent a minute playing with my new hand, smiling

happily, a boy again with a macabre new fleshy toy. It

hurt a bit, a stinging j a b in my knuckles every time I

bent my fingers, but it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined. In

a way it felt good. That might sound ridiculous but it's

true. After months of living in a bodiless state, it was

nice
to feel
again. Feel anything, even pain.

' Before I realized I was doing it, my right arm was

sliding across the sheet and I was making a grab for the

call button. It took several tries to grab and keep hold

of the small plastic object, but I finally managed. My

entire arm was tingling, a hot funky pins-and-needles

feeling like when your arm falls asleep.

I started to feel a cramp coming on, the ache starting

in my fingers and getting ready to spread up my arm. I

concentrated as hard as I could and felt elated as my

t h u m b acted like a good boy and started clicking the

red call button just like I'd wanted it to. A buzzer started

ringing outside my room, somewhere down the hall,

presumably at the nurses' station.

I let my arm flop to the bed and relaxed. I'd actually

done it, and damned if. I wasn't feeling proud of myself.

I'd used another man's arm, hand, and fingers to do my

bidding. Might not seem like much, but to me it was an

incredible achievement. Surely someone would be along

to answer the buzzer and see what I needed. I j u s t had

to kick back and wait. I kept my eyes on the pill cup,

anticipation bringing a light sheen of sweat to my brow.

A mouthful of saliva, as well. Once a j u n k i e , always a

j u n k i e .

Nobody came.

N o t right away. N o t a few minutes later. N o t ever.

The buzzer rang for several minutes and then went

silent. That got my hopes up, but no soft-soled shoes

came to my door. No nurse, pretty or otherwise, came

smiling into my room to hand me my pills. Instinc¬

tively, I knew I was on my own, j u s t as Junie had said,

but I refused to accept it. Getting out of bed to walk

across the room wasn't something I even wanted to

think about, much less do. Just moving my arm ten

inches across a smooth flat sheet had caused my hand to

cramp. W h a t would happen to my legs if I were stupid

enough to try supporting my weight on the cold hard

floor?

Ten more minutes passed before I closed my eyes,

gritted my teeth and slid my right leg off the side of the

bed. It moved slowly and sluggishly and I couldn't re¬

ally feel my foot. Everything felt n u m b below my knee.

As soon as my knee cleared the edge of the mattress,

my foot fell limply off the side of the bed and firecrack¬

ers of pain shot through my knee and up my thigh.

' "God
dammttl"
I screamed, loud enough that I'm

sure the entire floor heard me.

I could j u s t picture the nurses sitting with old Junie,

having a good laugh at my expense, and I vowed right

then and there I wasn't going to cry out anymore.

Bitches! I hated them all—everyone in this psychotic

place. I wasn't gonna give them the satisfaction.

Somehow J managed to get my left leg off the bed

too and shimmy my butt over to the edge. There was

no way I could sit up. No way in hell.

But I did.

My desire, my craving—my
need
—for the pain medi¬

cation was so great I was willing to try j u m p i n g through

hoops if that was what it would take. My body was on

fire; every muscle, every bone, every j o i n t hurt. My

eyelids fluttered and I came close to passing out, but I

refused to let that happen. Instead I pushed hard with

arms that felt like fifty-pound lead weights, and found

myself standing on my feet. Tears were streaming down

my face from the pain, but I was pumped up now—the

joy of being out of that damn bed overwhelming, an

adrenaline boost for my weary body.

I still couldn't feel anything below my right knee, but

I took a small shuffling step onto it anyway. I had no

choice—my body had started to sway and if I hadn't

stepped forward to balance myself I would have been

sprawled face-first onto the floor. W h i t e - h o t pain blazed

in my knee again and I nearly went down. I swayed, bit¬

ing the side of my cheek, fighting to stay upright. I knew

if I tumbled to the floor I was there to stay. The pain

subsided and I moved on to another step.

The physical pain was horrible, but maybe worst was

the disoriented feeling of moving around in a borrowed

body. These weren't my arms. These weren't my legs.

These weren't my feet. On and on the list went. N a m e

it, and chances were that body part wasn't mine and

deep down on some cellular level I think they knew it.

More crazy talk, I know, but that's how it felt to

me—like the flesh, muscles, and bones that made me

whole resented me for using them. N o n e of my patch¬

work parts worked quite the way they were supposed

to. Every movement was slower, a half-second lagging

behind what it should be as if my new body knew I was

an imposter and was determined to fight me every inch

of the way. It was a creepy, alien feeling that sent shiv¬

ers down my spine, making me want to scream.

But I desperately needed the meds so I pressed on,

robot-stepping across the floor for what felt like days

until I finally—
FINALLY—
stood beside the meal tray

carrying my multicolored salvation. W i t h sweat pour¬

ing down my face and my hands shaking so badly I

could hardly hold the cup, I dry swallowed the entire

batch of pills in one gulp and let the plastic cup fall to

the floor.

I'll be damned. I actually made it.

I smiled, savoring the moment. Then my eyes rolled

up into my head, the world started to go black, and I

went down hard.

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - N I N E

Rehab went on for eight grueling weeks and Junie the

sadistic old physiotherapist was with me
every
pain-filled

step of the way. To tell you the truth, the old cow actu¬

ally grew on me a little. She was cold and ruthless, and

she bent, stretched, twisted, and basically worked me

over every day until I could hardly stand, but she was as

straight a shooter as I had met in my whole time here at

the castle.

Junie never lied to me, not once. She hated bullshit,

always telling me exactly what we were going to do and

how we were doing it. I liked that about her. Don't get

me wrong—I didn't like
her
—she pulled no punches

and was probably the crankiest old bitch in the entire

medical profession but as long as I worked hard, she

treated me fairly. Unlike the rest of the goons around

here, she was genuinely trying to help me get some

semblance of a life back, and for that I appreciated her

effort.

My new body held up remarkably well, all things

considered. It was something I worried about a lot. At

night I'd dream all these freaky worst-case scenarios

about my stitches popping loose while Junie put me

through my paces and blood splashing the walls as my

arm or leg fell off. The nightmares were somewhat

comical to think about during the day, but they scared

the shit out of me while they were happening. I'd wake

up screaming and crying and reaching down to hold

my leg in place to stop the bleeding. Crazy stuff, I'll

admit, but what else was new? My entire life had be¬

come one big crazy dream.

On the Monday m o r n i n g that marked the start of my

ninth week of rehab, Junie walked into my room doing

something that shocked m e , something I didn't know

she was capable of.

She was crying.

N o t wailing like a schoolgirl, n o t h i n g as dramatic as

that, but there were tears r u n n i n g down her cheeks and

I could tell from her red-flushed face she'd been trying

to get a grip on her emotions for a while already. Maybe

she was h u m a n , after all. Doubtful, but maybe.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing. Mind your own business, and put that

damn plate down. You've been eating like a horse for

weeks now. Rate you're going at, you'll be a fat pig in no

time. That what you want?"

She was changing the subject, hiding something from

me. Mind you, it was the truth—I had been eating a lot

lately, and y e s , I was gaining weight, but I was still a far

cry from being fat. It was Junie who had urged me to eat

more, to help get my strength back quicker. So why

would she bitch about it now? Simple: she wouldn't.

She wiped her tears away with a casual swish of her

hand, then left no room for debate that the subject was

closed, launching into another of her famous Holly¬

wood military-inspired tirades.

"Come on, Fox, get your lazy butt in gear. We gotta

get you on that treadmill. We've already lost ten min¬

utes while you were filling your face instead of stretch¬

ing. N o w get to it, mister. Move it!"

"Yes,
sir?
I mocked her, but still jumped up and got

ready to follow her out the door. Joking around was fine,

disobeying direct orders wasn't. "Ready when you are."

Junie scowled, shook her head, and headed for the

door. I stepped in behind her, goose-stepping in her

tracks, feeling good this morning. My good mood only

lasted until Junie pulled open the door and I saw Dr.

Marshall and Drake standing patiently out in the hall.

Drake was bigger than ever. Huge bulging muscles

and an impenetrable, menacing stare. I hadn't seen him