To help her escape. She was going to get out of here, with or without him.
She thought that if only she could stop him from what he would do next, she could spare him some pain. But the muzzle and gag prevented her from speaking; she could only grunt and gesticulate. And that, only quite weakly. She had little strength, drugged as she was by whatever was in the IN. It felt like a combination Valium-Demerol to her. She was experienced enough to know. When she thought about it, it brought on resentment and anger, rage and indignation. She had spent the last three years of her life learning to live sober. Now, forced on her, she found herself drugged up again-enjoying the feeling, wanting more. She looked up at the precious drip, drip, drip of the IN. Worst of all, she couldn't bring herself to disconnect the tube. If anything, she wished it would flow faster. She could take more.
She had always been able to take more ... Despite her efforts to warn him, her neighbor reached out and touched the chain-link door of the 4, cage. He actually laced his fingers into it and shook it with his considerable strength. He must have heard the collar sound its electronic warning-the buzz-but like her on her first time, he didn't associate this sound with the pain that would follow. And like her, he would learn soon enough.
She watched as his fingers met the cage, as a blinding pulse of electricity stung his neck, and literally knocked his knees out from under him. She heard his head thump against the cement as he wilted. His bowels loosened and he fouled himself. He lay there staring up at her, flat on his back, the pain, fear and terror so great in his eyes that she felt herself break into tears. A maddening frustration stole through her, and briefly she found enough strength to sit up, to sit forward and be as close to him as possible.
As his strength returned, he reached for the shock collar, and despite her shaking her head in discouragement, he tried, in vain, to rid himself of it.
How clearly she remembered those first few minutes; they seemed so distant now. He would deny his situation at first. She knew. He would think: This can't be. This is impossible. Then, as reality sank in, as his muscle strength returned, as he began to assess, to realize the hopelessness, he would recoil. A minute later he sat in the center of the cage, wrapped in the fetal position, sobbing and mumbling incoherently. "Impossible What did I do? Can't be ..." He mentioned God, he mentioned his parents. He glanced over at her several times, but seemed not to see her. He retreated.
She sat back onto the burlap and waited. In time he would come around. Given time, he would come to realize they were a team now and that their only chance of escape was to work together.
Her one single hope remained that he would come up with a plan.
After all this time here, she saw no way out. Like the IN. in her wrist, she was stuck here.
Not long after that-she could not determine the passage of time because of the drugs and the suspended states in which she found herself-the ground rumbled. A car! The dogs paced restlessly inside their cages.
She turned quickly to her neighbor, charged with adrenaline. She shouted at him through the gag, able to win his attention but unable to communicate. She resorted to an archaic pantomime, pushing her hands along the cement as if to say, "Clean up!" Demonstrating that he should scoop up the vomit and excrement and get it into the bucket left as a toilet. When he failed to respond, she twisted her face angrily and screamed, shaking her fists, and then pointed to the door. "It's him!" she mumbled. She grabbed hold of her collar and shook it. That reached him. He sat up with a jolt. Again she motioned that he must clean his cage. Her panic contagious, she drove him to it. He worked quickly, glancing over his shoulder all the while, both at her and the door he expected to see opened any second.
Miraculously, he got most of the mess into the bucket at the last possible moment.
The door rattled as The Keeper fumbled with the lock.
The dogs erupted into barking once again. Sharon covered her ears. The door opened. The Keeper was dressed in a business suit. He was smiling. "Good morning," he called out, sounding more like Captain Kangaroo than the madman she took him for.
Elden Tegg walked down the narrow cement aisle that separated the two sides of the kennel, carefully inspecting the inhabitant of each cage. He knew the medical history of each of these animals. He had grown to love them. Each and every one despite-or perhaps because of-their nasty dispositions.
"Time to eat," he said, pushing the wheelbarrow to each cage, the bag of dog food precariously balanced. At the end of the run, he reached the two newcomers, Sharon and Washington.
Sharon was huddled modestly in the corner, looking at him through the muzzle he had cleverly rigged out of nylon strapping. Her contempt for him never left her eyes, although he intended to correct that by harvesting her right cornea. "Come on," he said to her, encouraging her to show him her incision. When she failed to obey, he reached for the remote device that controlled her collar, threatening to use it. Use of this device had the same effect as coming in contact with the wire-it triggered the collar. She sprang into action, obediently duckwalking toward him, paying careful attention to her I.V. She clung to modesty by keeping folded up on herself. "Let the doctor see," he instructed, enjoying the title. He could care less about her nudity: It was the incisions that held his interest. His insistence on leaving the two of them naked had no basis in voyeurism. A determined person could hang himself with clothing. He couldn't afford to lose her, that was all. He waved the remote again, and she turned herself for him. The skin around her bandage was slightly pink but not bad.
He motioned her back into the far end of the cage and let himself inside, the shock collar's remote "wand" constantly in hand, constantly a threat. He changed her dressing, removed the muzzle, took her temperature-ninety-nine and change, nothing to worry about-and replaced her I.V. of Ringers solution with a fresh one supercharged with Valium, a dash of Demerol and a higher dosage of antibiotics. He gave her new gauze for her gag, returned the muzzle, and handed her a bucket of a Quaternarybased disinfectant they used at the clinic. He stood by and watched her as she scrubbed the pen's floor. He directed her to a few missed spots and then took the bucket back, convinced of the pen's cleanliness. Locking her inside he told her, "Cleanliness is next to godliness."
He turned and faced Washington. "Welcome," he said. "You're insane," Washington whispered. Tegg went rigid. His first temptation was to shock him, but he resisted. He had never felt clearer. "Sticks and stones," he answered. "She needs medical attention."
Tegg shot back dismissively, "What do you think I just gave her?"
Sharon grunted at her companion, waving him off, asking him to stop.
Tegg added, "Perhaps you need some medical attention."
"Perhaps you do," Washington protested.
Tegg understood that such charges, if left unanswered, gained validity in some perverse way by simply having been spoken. He picked up the "wand" for this man's collar and reminded him with a short little zap! Washington responded with a spasm of pain. "You are out of your element. I would watch my accusations if I were you."
Washington backed into the corner. "Don't do t is."
Tegg objected, "Do what? You don't even know what this is about.
This is about basic needs. This is about life and death.
That's fairly simple, isn't it?"
He clearly wasn't getting through. Tegg paced the center aisle.