Inside the room was a cage of heavy-gauge steel wire mesh that was backed against one wall. The cage measured about seven feet square and contained a stretched-canvas cot and a bucket for waste.
Pastory unlocked the door to the cage and guided Malcolm inside. "I'm sorry to have to lock you up like this, Malcolm, but I have to drive into Clarion for supplies. I shouldn't be gone more than three hours, and I trust you won't be too uncomfortable in that time."
"Why do I have to be locked in here?" Malcolm said. His mind was still fuzzy from the sleeping drug he'd been given the night before.
"Security, my boy, security," said Pastory, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. "It's as much for your own safety as anything else."
The doctor backed out of the cage, closed the steel-framed door, and snapped a heavy padlock through the hasp. "If there is anything you absolutely need before I get back, Kruger will be here." He turned and called toward the open door of the room. "Kruger!"
The big man entered so quickly that he must have been standing outside listening.
"I want you to stay here with our young friend," Pastory told him. "Get him anything he wants, within reason. That is, anything that will fit through the mesh. I do not want you to unlock the door except in the gravest emergency. Is that understood?"
"Don't worry, Doctor. I'll watch him good. And I won't let him out." Kruger's thick lips twitched. His tongue slid out over them.
Pastory stood for a moment looking from one of them to the other, then nodded to himself and left the room, closing the single door behind him. A minute later the sound of an automobile engine could be heard starting outside. Tires crunched on the dried pine needles that carpeted the roadway. The sound faded as Pastory rolled down the overgrown logging trail toward the county road.
Kruger hitched one of the chairs close to the front of the wire cage and sat down facing Malcolm. He smiled. The fatty tissues around his eyes squeezed them into slits.
"It's just you and me now, freak-boy. All alone. How do you like that?"
Malcolm sat on the cot and did not answer.
"You don't care if I call you freak-boy, do you? 'Cause that's what you are, you know. A freak. A goddamn freak."
When Malcolm still did not respond, the big man's smile faded. He wiped a callused hand across his lips. "The doctor treats you like some kind of a prince, but all you are's a goddamn freak. Oh, I seen what you do when the doctor has you out there on the table. Your face gets all funny and long, kinda. Your fingernails grow. Like a woman's or something. And you get hair on you where hair don't belong. What do you say about that, freak-boy?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, you don't, don't you? I know how to make you do it, too. I watched the doctor. You want me to make you do it, freak-boy? Want me to turn you into a goddamn freak?"
"Just leave me alone."
"Just leeeeave me alone," Kruger whined in a mocking falsetto. "You know, I was number one around here until you showed up, freak-boy. The doctor used to treat me real nice before you came. He took me out of the bad place and he said I'd never have to worry about anything again. He'd take care of me. And he did, too, but then he found you, and we had to bring you here, and now he don't have time for me anymore except to tell me to go fetch this or go empty that. You're the hotshot now, freak-boy. But you know something? It ain't gonna last. One way or another I'm gonna see that it don't last."
Malcolm felt the anger start way down deep somewhere. "Why don't you shut your ugly mouth?"
Kruger hitched his chair closer, pleased that he had gotten a reaction. "Oh-oh, is he going to get mad? Is freak-boy I going to get mad? Go ahead. Let's see you do those things with your face. Then we'll see who's ugly, freak-boy."
Malcolm felt the heat rising within him. His hands began to twitch. He forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He closed his eyes and thought of the words Holly Lang had used when they put him into hypnosis. So relaxed. So comfortable. Drifting, drifting. Farther and farther away. Gradually the fire within him cooled. His hands lay quiet in his lap. He felt the waves of relaxation wash over him. Mind and body were once again under control.
"Almost had you goin' there, didn't I, freak-boy?" Kruger said. "Oh, yes, I did, all right."
Malcolm opened his eyes. He looked through and beyond the thick, ugly man. He smiled softly to himself.
"You're not makin' fun of me, are you?" Kruger said. "They used to make fun of me in the bad place. Laughed behind my back when they thought I couldn't see. I knew, though. I knew what they were doing. I took care of them, too. That was before the doctor came and brought me here."
Malcolm breathed in and out slowly. So relaxed. So comfortable.
"I know how I can get that silly smile off your face," said Kruger. "I know. You just wait here." Then, as though realizing he had said something funny, he laughed. "That's right. You just wait here." He laughed again and left the room.
Malcolm tried to hold on to his state of calm relaxation, but the mood was fading. Dr. Pastory was a dangerous man, and he did some unpleasant things to Malcolm, but he was always solicitous about the boy's welfare afterward. At least that was the way he acted. And there was always the hope that when Pastory had finished with his study, whatever it was, he would return Malcolm to the hospital in Pinyon. Holly was there. He could put up with Pastory as long as there was the hope of a reunion with his friend.
But Kruger was another matter. The brute had a damaged brain and was barely kept in check by Pastory's greater strength of will. If he ever went over the edge Kruger could be dangerous. Malcolm began to worry about what the ugly big man might do.
Before he could reorder his thoughts, Kruger returned. He carried with him a wand, shaped like a stubby pool cue. The thicker end was wrapped with leather at the grip. The greater length of the wand was metal. Two wires protruded from the butt end and ran into a flat leather packet that Kruger had attached to his belt.
"Do you know what this is, freak-boy? It's a cattle prod, that's what. The cops use 'em sometimes. Dr. Pastory used it on me when I first come here from the bad place. Then I wised up and he didn't have to use it no more. I found out where he kept it, but I never told him."
Malcolm stared at the metal prod as Kruger waved it back and forth in front of his face.
"Want to see how it works? Watch."
Kruger thrust the metal tip of the prod to within half an inch of the wire mesh of the cage. He touched a switch on the belt pack. A blue-white spark jumped with a loud crack.
Malcolm flinched away from the spark.
"What's the matter, you afraid of it?" Kruger said. "The doctor's been using something like it on you in the laboratory when you're strapped down. Only difference is, the one in there is a lot smaller and it don't hurt as much as this one. Want to see?"
In a movement surprisingly swift for so big a man, Kruger thrust the prod through the cage, jabbing the tip against Malcolm's face.
The pain was like hitting the nerve of a tooth. Malcolm cried out and put a hand to his cheek. He backed against the rear of the cage, but there was no way he could get out of the reach of Kruger with the cruel cattle prod.
The big man laughed, a high-pitched, mindless giggle. "Aha, gotcha now, haven't I? Can't get away, can't get away."
He stabbed Malcolm's wrist with the tip of the wand. The pain of the shock jolted up his arm. Malcolm felt the fires grow inside him.
"See? See? There you go. I knew I could make you do it. Look at your hands, freak-boy."