"Like you, he discovered a talent he hadn't realized he had?"
"Yes-but it wasn't always a talent. There was a woman there- her name is Greta Wurlitzer, and she was on the bus with us-who suddenly developed incredible night vision. She could see at night like a cat. The problem was that the daylight hurt her eyes, so she had to wear dark glasses during the day. Greta used to joke about it, call herself 'the night owl.'
I was immediately reminded of Margaret Dutton and the remarkable senses of taste and smell she had displayed during our Thanksgiving dinner, super-keen faculties I now realized she must have developed within hours after she had started taking the drug in the capsules. I said, "The meds obviously relieved the symptoms of schizophrenia and restored your emotional balance. But you're saying the doctors at Rivercliff were mainly interested in the side effects of the drug?"
He shrugged, glanced nervously at the clock on the wall to our left. "I guess so. I really don't know, because we were never told why the questions were being asked. I'll bet they would have run tests on me too if they'd known about this chess thing."
"Oh, I think you're absolutely right. Michael, were any of the patients at Rivercliff ever taken off the meds, just to see what would happen?"
"No, at least not that I know of. We were always given our meds."
"Did any of the patients ever forget to take their meds?"
He shook his head. "A nurse always brought us our meds in a paper cup every day after lunch, and then would stand over us to make sure we took it."
I sipped at my coffee, which had gone cold, and thought about the many levels of what I could only think of as monstrous evil committed by the doctors at Rivercliff, and whoever was behind them. It was not only that they had imprisoned innocent men and women for life, but they had somehow, in secret, managed to develop what could only be called a wonder drug, the mental health equivalent of a cure for AIDS, and had not bothered to tell anybody about it because they were more interested in the drug's side effects. Then again, they had good reason to keep their activities secret; a drug that changed body chemistry to a point where a patient would spontaneously bleed to death if he stopped taking it wasn't a likely candidate for FDA approval.
"Mongo?" the other man continued anxiously. "Can I go now?"
"I just have a couple more questions, Michael. Dr. Sharon helped you escape from Rivercliff when this Raymond Rogers started running amok. What do you suppose caused Rogers to go wild like that?"
"I don't know. Sometimes things like that just happened."
"Raymond Rogers had gone wild before?"
"Yes. And they'd taken him away."
"Taken him away where?"
"I guess to another part of the hospital. Raymond wasn't the first person to suddenly become violent. When it happened to somebody, big guys would come and take him away. We'd never see them again- except once I saw one of them when I had to go to the infirmary. I think that's where Raymond must have been when he got loose; he must have been sick, and they took him there. That's where he would have found the scalpel and the surgical saw he was using to kill people."
"Did you actually see him kill anybody?"
His blue eyes again opened very wide, and he nodded in a quick, jerky movement. "He almost killed me. I had a cold and a sore throat, so I'd been sent to the infirmary. I was sitting on an examination table while this doctor was looking at my throat. Then Raymond just suddenly stepped into the room and slit the doctor's throat with a scalpel-sprayed blood all over me. Jesus, I was scared. I just sat there, like I was paralyzed, looking into Raymond's crazy eyes. I thought he was going to kill me next, but instead he started to cut up Dr. Sawyer while he played with himself. I came to my senses and ran the hell out of there while he was busy with Dr. Sawyer. I saw two dead guards and a nurse inside another office. There was blood all over the place." He paused, laughed nervously in a high-pitched giggle. "It scared the cold and sore throat right out of me."
"I can believe that," I said, nodding slowly. "You say Raymond was playing with himself while he mutilated the doctor. You mean he was masturbating, jerking off?"
Michael Stout reddened slightly. "Yeah. It's kind of embarrassing to talk about."
"There's no reason for you to be embarrassed. It's important that you tell me everything you can remember, in detail."
He shrugged. "I remember that, all right. Raymond's dong was already out of his pants when he came in the room. It was poking straight out of his fly, hard as a rock, and there was jism oozing out of the tip. He grabbed himself with one hand while he was slashing Dr. Sawyer's face and sprayed jism all over the floor. That's when I came to my senses and ran out of the office. But I kind of froze up again when I got out into the corridor, because I didn't know where I was going to go where Raymond wouldn't eventually find me, because now he had the run of the place. That's when Dr. Sharon found me. She was carrying a black plastic garbage bag. She must have come from someplace Raymond had already been, because her hands and face and the front of her smock were covered with blood. She shouted for me to follow her, and when I couldn't move she grabbed my wrist and pulled me after her. We ran out of the infirmary and through the halls of the residence area; Dr. Sharon was banging on doors and shouting at everyone she saw, telling them to follow her if they wanted to live. When we got to Emily's room, Dr. Sharon opened the door and went in. Emily was huddled on the floor over in a corner. Dr. Sharon grabbed her wrist, pulled her to her feet, and dragged Emily along behind her. She had to do that, because Emily wouldn't have come along with us on her own; she was too scared. Emily was usually like that-too upset to do anything. Emily was the only one Dr. Sharon took with her when we split up."
"Emily who?"
"I never knew Emily's last name."
"Was Emily somebody who had experienced side effects from the meds? Did she do anything special, have some special talent?"
"I don't know."
"You say she was upset most of the time?"
"If she came out of her room to try to mingle with the rest of us, yes. Sooner or later somebody would say something she didn't like, or there'd be an argument, and then she'd just crumple to the floor and cover her head with her hands. Emily was very sensitive, very shy. After the last time they changed the formulation of the meds, she never came out of her room at all. That's why Dr. Sharon had to go in and get her."
"The doctors locked Emily in her room?"
"No. There weren't any locks on the doors-at least not in our part of the hospital. Emily stayed in her room because she wanted to."
"Then the meds didn't work with Emily?"
He thought about it for a few moments, then shook his head. "I'm not sure you can say that. Sometimes she'd open the door and talk to people-as long as they stayed outside. I talked with her a couple of times, and she seemed rational enough. She just wanted to avoid close contact with people. Dr. Sharon was the only person she'd let in her room."
"All right, Michael, so Dr. Sharon was rounding up as many patients as she could to save you from Raymond. And she ended up with twelve."
He nodded. "She opened one of the doors to the outside with a key, and she put us all on one of the buses they'd use to take us on outings-picnics, the zoo, that kind of thing. The key was in the ignition. Dr. Sharon started up the bus, and we drove …"
He stopped in mid-sentence, and his face suddenly looked ashen.
"What is it?" I asked quickly. "What's wrong, Michael? Do you remember something else?"