He’s playing with me.
The cougar tugged Felix, pulling him across the ground, forcing his hand away from his pocket as his body extended.
Did I get the keys?
I can’t tell! I can’t see!
And then Felix was fully stretched out, his cuffs around the pole, his body pulled taught by Ronald’s grip.
Do I have the goddamn keys?!?!
He squinted into the darkness, saw the key ring wrapped around his thumb.
Ronald continued to pull. The cuffs cut into Felix’s wrists. The pressure on his foot got worse, twisting Felix’s ankle. His spine screamed, joints reaching their limits, sockets beginning to separate, cartilage threatening to tear.
He’s pulling me in half.
I’m so sorry, Maria. I tried. I love you so very much.
And then the cat released him.
Not stopping to celebrate his luck, Felix scrambled back to the pole, getting it between him and the mountain lion. Then, using his teeth and his lips and his two unbroken fingers, he managed to fit the key into handcuff lock—
—just as Ronald swiped at him again with his huge paw.
Felix’s world spun, and he rolled and rolled and came to rest on his back, staring up at the orange hunter’s moon. He wiped his sleeve across his face, clearing some blood from his eyes.
The cuffs. They’re off.
I’m free!
Felix didn’t bother to look for Ronald. He got to his feet, fighting ten different kinds of pain, and scrambled into the woods. When he left the clearing, the tree canopy covered the moon, making it impossible to see. Felix ran blind, his mangled fingers bumping off of trees, continuing forge ahead until he saw a light in the distance, a light coming up exceedingly fast.
It’s a tow truck.
That was Felix’s last thought before the truck plowed into him.
# # #
Mal stared at his hand. Jimmy was dangling it up over Mal’s face.
“The operation has been a success,” Jimmy said. “The patient has survived.”
Mal turned his head to see the stump of his wrist, one of the pointy bones still sticking out through the flesh. It wasn’t bleeding anymore—a quick dip in the white powder clotted the wound within seconds. But the pain was still there.
The pain went deeper than just Mal’s nerve endings firing off signals. The pain was also mental. The memory of what this monster had done to him—cutting the skin, snipping the muscles with scissors, using a hammer and chisel to get through the bone—that would haunt him for as long as he survived. Mal’s begging and pleading had devolved to incoherent bawling. Staring at the monster who had done this to him, the monster who gleefully held up his severed hand like a prize fish he’d just caught, was almost more agonizing than the physical hurt.
“Excellent work, my boy,” Eleanor said, setting down the camcorder. “Momma has to go check on the guests upstairs. But you might want to give your patient another examination.” Eleanor looked at Mal and smiled. “I think he may have some cancer in his feet.”
Eleanor patted Mal on the cheek, then waddled off, leaving through one of the operating room’s two doors.
“Foot cancer?” Jimmy said, his expression grim. “That’s a very serious condition. We’ll have to begin treatment immediately.”
Jimmy went to the instrument table, gripping a hacksaw in his oven mitt.
Mal cringed away, starting to babble again, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
And then his arm, bloody and missing a hand, slipped out of the leather strap binding his wrist.
Without thinking, Mal thrust his traumatized arm at Jimmy as he inspected his saw, jabbing his protruding unla bone into the hunchback’s neck.
The pain was otherworldly. But the bone—sharp as a splinter from the chisel—cut deep into Jimmy’s flesh.
Jimmy grunted, stumbling backward, pressing both mitts to his wound. The blood gushed right through them.
“Laceration... to the... internal jugular vein... Need... QuikClot... to stop the bleeding...”
Jimmy reached for the bowl of powder on the instrument cart. Mal, his vision red with agony, thrust out and knocked the bowl away, upending it onto the floor. A plume of white dust hung in the air, then settled.
“Gone...” Jimmy’s red eyes grew wide. He stared at Mal. “You... knocked it over... The styptic…”
One of the hunchback’s hands stayed pressed to his pumping neck wound. The other picked up a scalpel.
Mal watched him stagger forward, the scalpel raised.
“You’re a doctor!” Mal managed to say. “You can stitch yourself up!”
Jimmy halted his advance. “Stitch...?”
“You can do it! You can sew up your wound! There’s a needle on the cart!”
Jimmy looked at the scalpel again, and Mal was sure the crazy son of a bitch was going to plunge it right into his heart.
But Jimmy didn’t. He dropped the scalpel, shook off the oven mitts, and grabbed the large, curved, surgical suture. He lifted the needle up, the thread dangling down, and stared at it.
“Do it,” Mal said. “Stitch up your neck. You can fix it. You’re a doctor.”
Jimmy nodded several times. “I’m... a doctor.”
Then he pinched the wound closed with his free hand and gouged the needle into his skin.
“Keep going,” Mal said. “You can do it. In and out, just like that.”
Jimmy pierced his flesh, again and again, showing a fair amount of enthusiasm. But enthusiasm didn’t replace skill, and after six stitches the wound was still gushing.
He’d also sewn his fingers to his neck.
“That’s it!” Mal said. He felt both ready to laugh hysterically and sob at the same time. He shook away both emotions, forcing himself to stay in the moment. “You’re doing it, Dr. Jimmy! A few more stitches and you’re done!”
Jimmy lasted one more stitch. Then he dropped onto his face.
Mal let out a breath, his head resting back onto the table. He closed his eyes.
It’s over.
Now I need to get out of here.
Maybe I can escape.
Maybe I can even find a doctor to reattach my hand.
It’s over.
The worst is over.
Then his eyes went wide with panic when he heard the door open.
# # #
Deb stole a glance at the framed poster of Ulysses S. Grant facing the toilet as she hid in Florence’s bathroom. Like the poster in the Roosevelt room, it seemed to be looking right at her.
Then she stared at the door, straining to hear what was happening.
“Granny, that was a big mistake.”
Florence was in trouble.
What do I do? Go out there and try to help?
Anything is better than waiting in here for them to find me.
Deb flinched when she heard the gunshots. Two, in rapid succession.
Jesus, did they kill her?
“Hi there, girly girly.”
Deb spun around.
The poster of Grant was yawing open on hinges, and Teddy was slinking out into the bathroom through a hole in the wall.
He flopped onto the floor, reaching his hideous, double-thumbed hands for her, grabbing her prosthetics.
Deb cast a frantic look around, seek some kind of weapon. There was nothing. Just a sink, a toilet, and a shower. She lashed out at the poster, trying to break the glass.
Plastic. The covering is plastic.
Teddy began to pull himself up her artificial legs, groping at her underwear.