The Jigsaw Man (26 page)

in several months and by the looks of it he'd spent a

good portion of that time in the weight room. He didn't

look particularly happy to see me.

N a t h a n Marshall looked fit and trim, leaning against

the door j a m b , with a wild, feral look in his eyes. His

handsome face was calm, but from the set of his j a w I

could tell he was clenching his teeth, maybe angry about

something. I hoped it wasn't me. Drake scared m e , sure,

an animal like that would scare anybody, but it was Dr.

Marshall that worried me. He looked royally pissed

and I couldn't stop myself from t h i n k i n g he was here to

take me back to the operating room again.

Anything but that! Kill me if you want, but no more op

erations. Not when I'm just starting to feel human again.

Seeing them outside the door caught Junie by sur¬

prise too. She didn't seem happy to see them either.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Just yester¬

day, you told me I had another full week."

Dr. Marshall smiled and stood up straight. "Well, as

you're aware, certain
other
recent developments have

forced me to rethink my plans. I'm tired of waiting

around* getting reports that this fool"—meaning m e —

"keeps improving and getting near full recovery of his

new body, while—"

He stopped right there, but he'd said more than

enough. Obviously things hadn't gone well with

Andrew's transplant into the other flesh suit, but what

had happened? Was Andrew back swimming in his

glass container? Was he dead? This probably wasn't the

best time to ask but my mouth had a way of doing

things on its own sometimes, independent of my brain.

Before
I
could stop myself, I went ahead and let my

curiosity get the better of me.

"What happened to Andrew? Is he okay?"
I
asked.

If I thought Dr. Marshall had been clenching his

teeth before, he was really clamping down now, grind¬

ing his teeth together to prevent himself from scream¬

ing. His face turned beet red in seconds. Now, I've seen

anger on a man's face before, many times, but this look

went way past that. Dr. Marshall gazed at me with pure,

murderous hatred.

Uh-ob, now Pve done it!

Drake stepped forward and kneed me hard in the

groin, sending me to the floor in a hurry. My insides felt

like they'd been set on fire.
I
lay there coughing and

gagging, massaging my balls. I would have screamed

but I was having too much trouble breathing. By the

time the pain eased off and I managed to climb to my

knees, Dr. Marshall was gone. Drake was still there,

looming like the Grim Reaper in my doorway, watching

me with only mild interest, as if I mattered as much as a

flea on a hound dog. God, how I wanted to kill him.

"Have him ready tomorrow m o r n i n g , Junie," he said,

then walked away.

Junie looked at me with pity, or as close to pity as her

sour face could ever muster, then headed for the door.

"Wait," I said, still on my knees. "Have me ready for

what? W h a t the hell is going on? W h a t happened to

Andrew?"

For a m o m e n t she paused, and I thought she was go¬

ing to tell me. Instead, she started to cry again, and ran

out the door. I heard the key rattle and the door lock,

and then listened to Junie sob as she retreated down the

carpeted hallway. Soon everything was quiet. Too quiet.

It was as if the entire facility was collectively holding its

breath, either in m o u r n i n g for whatever had happened

to Andrew or in silent fear of his father's wrath. I

couldn't speak for everyone, but there was no question

which one of those was keeping me silent.

C H A P T E R T H I R T Y

Constantly staring at the back of a locked door wasn't

a whole lot of fun. I couldn't help it, though, having

convinced myself that Drake or Dr. Marshall was go¬

ing to reappear suddenly, charging through the door to

nab me if I let my guard down too long. N o t only was it

nerve-racking, it made for a bloody long day and an

even longer night.

No one showed u p , of course. N o t Drake, not Mar¬

shall, hell, not even Junie. Just me and my overactive,

paranoia-refined-to-an-art imagination. By m o r n i n g , I

was mentally and physically exhausted. I'd slept off and

on for four or five hours, repeatedly waking up with an

anxious start, thinking I heard the door opening.

To distract myself—either that or go totally loony

and start r a m m i n g my head against the door—I de¬

cided to kill some time by exercising. Tired or not,

anything seemed better than j u s t sitting, waiting for

something bad to happen. Most of the things Junie had

been making me concentrate on in rehab could be done

j u s t as easily here in my room as down at the gym so I

slid the bed to the side a few feet to give myself some

elbow room and went to it. N o t h i n g major, just bend¬

ing, stretching, some push-ups and j u m p i n g jacks but

twice as many as my usual routine and I was soon

wheezing and panting like an old, overburdened farm

mule. I was sweaty and smelling decidedly ripe, so I

peeled off my soiled T-shirt and was heading across the

room to find a new one when I noticed my body in the

full-size dressing mirror h u n g on the wall. I mean
re—

ally
noticed it, for the first time since my transplant

into this flesh suit.

Stopped me dead in my tracks.

Until now, I'd made a habit of
not
noticing—other

than a few unavoidable peeks while bathing and dress¬

ing, but never taking in the fall picture—quite content

to ignore the stark reality reflected in the silver glass.

For sanity's sake, the old adage "out of sight, out of

mind" had become my new motto. Words to live by, but

with my fears renewed that I might be revisiting the

operating room again, suddenly I was curious to exam¬

ine myself to see how bad I truly looked. Stripping na¬

ked, tossing my pants, socks and undies onto the floor

beside the sweaty T-shirt, I slowly turned around and

around, struggling to stifle the scream building in my

throat.

It was worse than I'd thought. A lot worse.

Oh my Godl What have I become?

A single cold word slithered to mind, describing my

new body perfectly.

Abomination.'

I'd known right from day one I was going to be ugly

and god-awful to look at naked, but what surprised

m e — n o , shocked m e — m o s t was how wwhuman I looked.

Ugly I could live with, but this pasty-skinned, sewntogether, wretched creature in the glass was worse than

anything I'd imagined.

W h a t was wrong with my skin? It j u s t didn't look

right. They hadn't used the same type of people for the

donor parts, so some areas of my body were smooth

and youthful looking while others—especially my

legs—were old and wrinkled and covered with dense,

matted hair. My left arm was covered in bright colorful

tattoos but they ended at my shoulder, cut off mid pic¬

ture. Something was w r o n g with my back, too. They'd

forgotten something—fat, muscles, whatever—because

the skin had been stretched so thin over my spine as to

be almost translucent. I could see the vertebrae in my

back pivoting on their disks every time I twisted to

look over my shoulder.

Worse by far were ray scars. Dr. Marshall had obvi¬

ously sewn me together with function in mind, not

fashion, alignment of parts far more important than

aesthetics. As it had to be, I suppose, but surely he

could have given some thought toward what I'd end up

looking like and at least tried to minimize the scar¬

ring.

Oh my God!

I was unable to tear my eyes away from the stranger I

saw crying in the mirror.

The scars were thick, puffy, dark red, and everyA

where on my body. Twenty thousand stitches; maybe

more. I looked like a pieced together mannequin cov¬

ered in h u g e , blood-engorged leeches—bigger; tape¬

worms maybe—placed end to end to form living ropes

around my body. The ropes of scar tissue intersected

with other scars, and the end result was a patchwork

quilt of meat—a jigsaw puzzle of flesh tossed together

with no more care or concern for me as a h u m a n being

than an angry child has for an old broken toy.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, and cried. At least

my tears were my own and I let them pour out in rivers

as I cursed Dr. Marshall with every ounce of hatred I

could drum up within me. Marshall was a brilliant sur¬

geon and I was convinced he could have significantly

improved my appearance. He j u s t hadn't wanted to.

N o , this was
exactly
how he wanted me to look. I hated

him for that more than anything else he'd done to me.

A key rattled in the lock on my door and five seconds

later Junie came walking into my room without both¬

ering to knock. Had it been Dr. Marshall, I'm pretty

sure I would have went after his throat with my teeth,

even if that meant going through Drake to get at him,

but seeing Junie and the sad expression on her face as

she gazed at my pitiful nakedness, I j u s t lowered my

head and started crying again.

"Help me," I sobbed, slumping to my knees on the

floor. "Please help me get away from here, Junie. Es¬

cape or suicide, I don't care which. He's taken every¬

t h i n g from me,
everything,
and I can't do this anymore.

I
just can'tl"

Junie stood rooted to the floor j u s t inside the door¬

way, silent for the longest time, but then she closed the

door and moved over beside me. In the quietest of

whispers she said, "I'll try."

That was it. N o t h i n g more. N o t even a reassuring

smile when I looked up at her. It was back to business as

usual and she was hustling me into my clothes and or¬

dering me to get my ass in gear. Maybe I hadn't heard

her right, or worse yet, she might not have said any¬

t h i n g at all. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if my m i n d and

ears were playing tricks on me but regardless, whether

it had really happened or not, a tiny seed of hope had

been planted within me. I wasn't ready to j u m p for joy,

but it was enough to get me off the ground and moving

again. For now, that would have to do.

"So what happens now?" I asked once I was fully

dressed and in control of my emotions again.

"Drake will be along soon to bring you to the video

conference room. He wanted me to make sure you were

ready."

"Video conference room? So I'm not going back for

more surgery?" Junie shook her head no, scolding me

with her eyes for j u m p i n g to silly conclusions. I was

relieved but still confused. "What's Marshall up to,

then?"

"Documentation, of course. No one has even at¬

tempted, much less succeeded, in doing what Dr. Mar¬

shall has done with you. You might not see it the way

he does, of course, but the. truth is you're a medical

miracle."

"So he wants to parade me around like a freak on a

leash for the cameras and let the world pat him on the

back for being so brilliant. I can hear it now. Come see

the pathetic little Jigsaw Man. Fuck that! That maniac

needs to be locked up, not admired. He's murdering and

mutilating people, Junie. Destroying people, mentally

and physically, j u s t to get his academic rocks off. And for

that, what, they're gonna give him a fuckin' award?"

"Of course not. The videos are for his own personal

records. He can't show you or the videos to the medical

community. N o t h i n g he does here would ever be ap¬

proved or authorized by the boards. He's way off the

charts when it comes to ethics, but his results are sec¬

ond to none. That's all he cares about,"

"But what about you? He's a lunatic, Junie. You know

he is. H o w can you work for h i m ? "

"I don't have any choice, Mike."

"Oh bullshit! Everyone has a choice. You're here for

the money. I'll bet he's paying you an e n o r m o u s — "

"He's hardly paying me anything," Junie interrupted.

That stopped my rant in a hurry.

"He lets me live here free and I get fed, of course, but

my paycheck's only eight hundred dollars a month."

"Then why are you here?" I asked, truly confused.

" Surely a good nurse like you could earn triple that in a

real hospital."

Junie closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths

"Get out of here, Junie. You're not needed anymore."

Junie turned to go, tears flowing freely down her

cheeks now, but before she left she grabbed me and gave

me a big motherly hug. Drake got quite a kick out of this

and bent over laughing at her show of affection.

"Look, Jackson," Drake said to the guard, "Michael

has himself a girlfriend. Isn't that sweet?"