He took the shoebox to the bench and pulled out its contents for the last time.
Portland, Maine — A family of four, recently reunited, vanished without a trace after leaving their Maine home for a summer vacation. Charles and Sheri Palmer, divorced but recently reconciled, left last Saturday and expected to reach Florida by Tuesday, according to family. With reservations in Orlando, they hoped to visit several attractions while they celebrated Charles’s recent career success….
Stephen read the article again and thought about his friend Ben. The last time he saw Ben in the hospital, Stephen never imagined he would never see him again. He heard of their disappearance a couple of weeks after returning home. His mom had broken the news and then Stephen had found the newspaper article online and printed it out.
Next in the box he pulled out the confession letter from Jack. Stephen had never opened it because he never needed to use it. He supposed Jack had taken care of everything at the hotel, but hadn’t given it a lot of thought after returning home. Shocked by the events of that summer, he happily forgot everything and tucked away the letter so that he could return to a normal summer. Eventually he started to think of the shoebox as his protection against the past — anything that reminded him of that summer went in the box and out of his thoughts.
Durham, Maine — The entire community in this small town was shocked and saddened by the disappearance of Gabe Vigue late last year. Another shock was delivered when the police arrested neighbor and friend of the Vigue’s, Bill Anderson for the abduction of Gabe. Although little physical evidence tied Anderson to the crime, the prosecutor was able to paint a compelling picture of his guilt….
The most recent printouts in the box were from a small-town Texas newspaper detailing the disappearance of a boy from a pre-school. Stephen’s one connection to his past was a habit that he never questioned — when he was bored and had a computer in front of him, he would always look up “Gabe Vigue” and see what came up. One day an article appeared from a small Texas newspaper that compared a recent kidnapping to the case of Gabe. Reading the details, Stephen had to agree, the case was very similar. What really made the article jump off the page was the name of the reporter credited for the story. The byline read “P. Bateman.”
Stephen intended to head for the Texas town in the morning to see if he could discover the true identity of the reporter and perhaps even look around for an abandoned hotel. If he was right, he would discover his one-time friend Jack, entering into his new avocation. If he was wrong, then he would be happy to be wrong.
He put down this last article and gathered all the papers into one neat pile. He broke apart the old, tattered shoebox and added it to the pile. All the contents and the shoebox were then stuffed deep into the plastic trash-bag. He knotted the top and looked at his apartment for the last time.
The next morning, he drove.
CHAPTER 27
The Boy
He fought to get his eyes back open, but they kept slipping closed again. It was peaceful here, and he wanted to sleep, but something nagged at him — something he had wanted to do before falling asleep. He imagined reaching up and pushing his eyelids open with this fingers. That worked — he was able to see, and blinked the world back into focus.
“You are certainly a fighter,” said the man who sat next to the boy’s right hip.
The boy wanted to rub his eyes, but looked down and saw that his arms were tied down — strapped to the chair. It felt like every time he opened his eyes he had to re-learn everything he knew about the world.
“Too bad you didn’t fight more earlier,” continued the man. He looked at his watch and adjusted a dial on the side of the timepiece.
“I, thought. I thought you were,” stammered the boy. “I… you were.”
“Yes, I told you it was over. Don’t worry, I didn’t lie again,” said the man. “I’m just waiting on someone, and I expected they would be here by now.”
“Who?” asked the boy. He felt the need for more information. He thought maybe if he understood what was going on, he would be able to save himself.
“Don’t worry about it,” said the man. He looked up and stared into the boy’s eyes. “By the way,” he said, “I never really introduced myself.”
“Some people call me ‘Baal.’ That’s if they see me as half-man and half-animal,” the man explained. “When I was your age, people called me Jack, and I was once in a situation remarkably similar to yours.”
“Really?” asked the boy.
“That’s right. But that was over thirty years ago. I was strapped to a chair, just like that, and a killer tattooed my leg while he prepared to kill me,” said Jack. “I still have the tattoo. I’d show it to you, but it’s really hard to see. It’s white ink.”
“How’d you get away?” prompted the boy.
“My friend saved me,” answered Jack. He sounded distracted as he looked at his watch again. When he looked up at the boy again, he was smiling. “Okay, sorry, time’s up.”
Jack reached up to the IV bag connected to the boy’s arm and dialed it all the way open.
“My… friend?” the boy slurred. Suddenly his fingertips and toes felt like they were being stung by bees. He tried to jerk away from the sensation, but his limbs wouldn’t work. His lips began to tingle and his left ear heard a crashing wave, but his right only heard his own breathing.
Before the boy’s hearing failed completely, he heard Jack say one more thing: “Goodbye.”
His right eye closed and his left lid was falling. Just as he lost his vision he thought he saw the door behind Jack open. It didn’t matter any more. Seconds later the boy’s heart beat for the last time.
The End
Ike Hamill — 9/9/2008
Thank you for reading The Vivisectionist. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing this book. Books and authors only survive through word of mouth, so please tell someone you think might enjoy The Vivisectionist. You can find more of my novels at ikehamill.com, or see a list of my published works on Amazon at amazon.com/author/ikehamill.
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Thanks again!
Ike
What people are saying about The Vivisectionist:
“Take two quarts of idyllic boyhood summer vacation and mix in two quarts of dark psychological thriller, and you’ve got yourself a gallon of seriously spooky paint called ‘The Vivisectionist’. The characters and settings really come alive through Hamill’s writing, and found myself seeing each scene clearly in my mind.”
“I couldn't put it down. At the end of each chapter when I promised myself I would put it down and go to sleep, I couldn’t, I had to find out what happened next, the whole time curled up at the top of my bed tense to see what would happen.”