The Jigsaw Man (24 page)

bent down to my eye level, leaning in so dose our noses

were actually touching. His breath stank of stale whis¬

key, but from the slightly glassy look in his drunken

eyes, I was sure I had more to worry about from Drake

than j u s t his bad breath. He had the look of a hungry

predator about him, and there was no doubt I was defi¬

nitely easy prey.

"How you feeling, little man? You cold? I should get

you a s w e a t e r . . . oh, sorry. Sweater wouldn't do you

much good, would it? Perhaps a nice warm hat?"

Drake burst out laughing, spraying my face with spit¬

tle. I hated him more than anyone else in the world at

that moment—even Dr. Marshall, who was most re¬

sponsible for what had happened to me. At least the

doctor was driven by his mad obsession to help his only

son. Drake acted the way he did out of sheer vicionsness.

He was a wickedly evil, pretentious bastard and I vowed

to myself that I'd hang on, somehow find the courage

and strength to live long enough to see him die.

"Dr. Marshall wants to talk to you. Said he'd be along

in a few minutes." Drake leaned down to whisper in my

ear, "What should we do while we're waiting?"

He stepped back a few feet, pretending to ponder it

for a moment, and then started to undo his pants.

You wouldn't DARE?

Of course he would. Seconds later, he had his man¬

hood in his hand and was stroking it hard.

"I've had my eye on you right from the start," Drake

said in a lusty growl. "I like 'em feisty like you, Mike.

N o w you be good, or ol' Drake's gonna have to hurt

you real bad. Understand?"

Perfectly.
I opened my m o u t h up as wide as I possibly

could—an open invitation for him.
Drive it home, big

boy, see what it gets you!

God, I hoped he'd be stupid enough to do it. If he

stuck that filthy thing in my mouth, there was n o t h i n g

on earth that would stop me from taking a chomp. He

could threaten me with pain, endless suffering, and even

death, but I didn't give two shits about any of that. If he

stuck it in, he was gonna lose it. Guaranteed!

Do it, Drake. Do it!

Something in my eyes must have given my intentions

away, because I saw him hesitate, think things through,

then decide maybe his present course of action wasn't

exactly the smartest. I swear I saw a flicker of fear race

across his face and when his penis started to soften in

his hand I knew I'd gotten the better of him.

"You're not worth the bother," Drake said, trying to

backpedal and cover his tracks.

He was far too macho to ever admit I'd managed to

scare him. Instead he zipped up his pants and walked

out of the room without saying another word.

He sulked back a few minutes later with Dr. Mar¬

shall, who seemed to be walking around much better

now than I remembered. Made me wonder how long I'd

been floating around in recuperation land this time and

I actually tried to ask, forgetting I couldn't speak. The

doctor saw my lips moving and walked over.

"Save your strength, Mr. Fox," he said. "I've tried to

master reading lips, so I could communicate better

with Andrew, but I j u s t don't seem to have the knack

for it. Besides, I've come to tell you some great news."

I highly doubted that, but what could I do but wait

for him to spill the beans?

"I've gone over all the test data at least twenty times,

Michael. Everything looks exactly as I'd predicted and

hoped. We're ready to go ahead and do the transplant.

Yours that is, not Andrew's. I still need to study the re¬

sults of y o u r transplant into the flesh suit before I com¬

mit to doing Andrew."

This was his good news? That I was headed back for

more surgery? Admittedly, I sure as hell didn't want to

remain in the pitiful helpless condition I was in now, but

the thought of being sewn up inside that hideous patch¬

work body I'd seen clumsily dancing in the second tank

was too much to contemplate rationally. I mean, how

could I possibly exist within a body made up of thirteen

different people? Michael Fox: from street bum to Fran¬

kenstein, in four easy steps. W h a t a nightmare.

I started to panic, helpless to do anything but squirm

around and shout silent obscenities, but I had to do

something. I couldn't j u s t sit idly by and be turned into

a walking freakshow without at least trying to fight.

N o t that it did me any good. As soon as Dr. Marshall

saw me getting agitated and dangerously thrashing

around, he filled yet another of his seemingly endless

large syringes and injected it into one of the tubes

flowing in and out of my neck. I felt the drug's effect

immediately, and was powerless to fight against it. My

eyes were closing before he even withdrew the needle.

"Don't worry, Mr. Fox " I heard Dr. Marshall say

from what seemed like ten miles away. "You won't need

to suffer in this bodiless state much longer. Fll have

you fixed up in no time at all. You'll feel much better

the next time you open your eyes. Like a new man, in

fact. Literally, a ... whole ... n e w . . . man."

PART F O U R

T H E M O N S T E R

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S E V E N

For a while I disappeared. Gonzo. I lay perfectly still,

strapped down unnecessarily tight in a bed, in a room,

in a hospital, in a world I had no knowledge existed. I

was far beyond any sort of rational thought, confused

and disoriented for several eternities, as time laughed

and passed me by.

The first thing I remember noticing were the lights.

I've done a lot of strange things in the past, but for

the life of m e , I couldn't figure out when (or why, for

that matter) I'd decided to become an astronaut. Didn't

they have fairly rigid standards about the people ap¬

plying for that type of work? N o t t o be self-depreciating,

but come on—
me?
Surely N A S A could do better than

that. One m o m e n t I was in a cold dark place (the

shuttle's cockpit?) with my eyes closed, then the next

someone pushed the blastoff button and I opened my

eyes to a galaxy of exploding planets, fiery comets,

and shooting stars—an u n e n d i n g supernova of bright

lights and awesome colors that were truly awesome

sights to behold.

Were there really rainbows in outer space?

I was tripping, of course, the blinding light show tak¬

ing place only in my mind, my brain saturated with

enough pain medication, it was probably draining out

of my ears onto the pillow. For m o n t h s I was a full

card-carrying member of Star Command, only touch¬

ing back down to Earth long enough to refuel my meds.

Good thing too, because gravity hurt like hell. I was in

such extreme agony it hurt too much to waste energy

screaming. It felt like my body had been crushed to

pulp in an industrial metal press.

Later—much later—the stone-faced nurses told me

that Fd wake up screaming, "Send me back. Send me

back to the fucking moon." And with one push of a sy

ringe they'd do j u s t that—bless their cold little hearts.

Houston, we have a problem.

No doubt.

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - E I G H T

Drugs are wonderful things sometimes, having the

power and strength to mask, in fact
alter
reality for an

indefinite period of time. But all things pass—whether

good or bad—and eventually so did my j o u r n e y s to the

stars. I'd be lying through my tightly clenched teeth if I

didn't admit I missed them.

Being a juiced-up astronaut was far better than being

a monster. And there was no doubt in my mind that's

what I'd become—a pieced-together nightmare of thir¬

teen mutilated men. Perhaps I was being overly harsh

with that assessment; after all, having a body again had

to be a step up from the liquid-filled glass tank I'd been

calling h o m e , but no matter how hard I tried to get

my head around this, I couldn't change the way I felt. I

should be dead. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Every¬

t h i n g about my continued existence was j u s t
wrong.

But damn it, I wasn't dead.

So where did that leave me? Well, in pain, for one

thing. Son of a bitch I was hurting. They hadn't taken

me off all my pain meds, even the nurses weren't
that

cruel. I was still on a shitload of them, but they'd be¬

gun what they said was my tapering-off stage. Appar¬

ently the powers that be wanted me coherent enough

that I could get started on my next phase of torture. It

was called rehab.

"Get the hell up," the nurse said, her tone sharp, con¬

frontational. She was a chubby, sour-faced old dame with

her gray hair cinched up in an ubertight bun. She

looked a bit like the secretary downstairs. Had the

same miserable disposition, anyway. I'd never seen her

before and those were the first words out of her m o u t h

as she walked in my room. No good m o r n i n g , no how

ya feeling today, no nothin'. A real sweetheart, this one

was, I could already tell. W h e r e did Dr. Marshall find

these people?

"I
am
up," I said. "Been awake for an hour already for

Christ's sake, waiting in agony for you to bring me my

meds. Where's my regular nurse?"

She ignored me, of course. They all did. I could rant

and rave, scream, cry, or bark like a dog and none of

them seemed to give a shit. Most of the time I j u s t kept

my m o u t h shut. These weren't my vocal chords I was

speaking with, and my voice still scared the hell out of

me every time I opened my mouth. It wasn't necessarily

a bad voice, nothing freaky like Pee-wee H e r m a n or

overly irritating like Arnold Horshack from that old

70s television sitcom,
Welcome BackKotter,
but it was

higher pitched than the voice I'd gotten used to and it

freaked me out too much when I started thinking about

whose voice I might have.

"I didn't say,
wake
up." The old nurse was bending

over, squinting to read my chart on the clipboard at the

foot of my bed. "I said
get
up! There's a difference. Bet¬

ter clean out your ears and start listening or you and I

are gonna butt heads, you hear?"

"What are you talkin' about?" I asked. "Who the hell

are you?"

"Call me Junie. I'm y o u r resurrectionist."

"Mywha—"

"Your physiotherapist, dumbass, but resurrectionist

somehow seems m o r e appropriate, for most parts of

you anyway."

"Fuck you," I said. Every inch of my body ached and

my head felt like shit. I wasn't in the mood to play word

games and be the brunt of this old bitch's warped sense

of humor. "Give me my meds and get out of my room!"

She stared at me for a long time, stared hard and mean

as a snake. I was pretty sure it had been a long time

since anyone had told her to fuck off, and I could tell

she didn't like it much.

"You're still not listening," she said. "I told you to get

up and I meant it. It's time to start your rehab. You've

lain around long enough. Doc Marshall expects results,

I hope you know. He did his part; time for you to do

yours. On your feet, boy."

N o w I was really pissed off. I'd been torn apart and

sewn back together with discarded spare parts, been

strapped to this ungodly hard bed for who knows how

many bloody months, and my patchwork body hurt me

so bad right now I had to fight hard not to scream. W h o

was this stupid old bat to j u s t walk in here and com¬

mand me to stand up? My resurrectionist—ha! Screw

that.

"I'm not sure what cemetery they dug you up from,

lady, and I really don't care, but someone should've

clued you in to the fact I can't j u s t leap to my feet.

Stand up? Hell, you may as well ask me to float upside

down and dance the j i t t e r b u g on the ceiling. I can

barely move, asshole!"

"Nonsense," Junie said, having none of it. "Stop be¬

ing such a crybaby. This may be the first time you re¬

member seeing m e , but I've been monitoring you for

m o n t h s . W h i l e you were recuperating in a semi-coma,

Dr. Marshall had me hook you up to his fantastic

machines to continually stimulate your new muscles and

stretch out your ligaments and tendons. W h i l e you

slept, y o u r new body parts have been getting to know

each other. We've rigorously worked y o u r arms, legs,

neck, back, h e l l . . . even y o u r fingers and toes. So

don't get all huffy and tell me you can't move. I've

damn well watched you and
know
you can. Have you

even tried? Or have you been too busy feeling sorry

for yourself?"

"Of course, I've tried," I lied. "I can't do it. I get the

shakes and a lot of leg cramps that make me move.