The Cursed Man (13 page)

Alister brushed off the sting Anna's cold touch left on his skin. He pointed at Bob. “That man died.” He ran stiff fingers through his hair and rubbed his face. “Dammit, I saw him die!”

Alister went to the window and could no longer feel the warmth of the sun. It was covered by a blanket of gray clouds threatening rain. Distant thunder rumbled and seemed as far away as the truth.

“No,” Anna said. “He is here, and like me, he will continue to return, and you will get better.”

Alister stared at his own reflection and laughed. He saw tired eyes and hair filled with gray. “How can you say I haven't been here for twenty years?”

“You don't have to go through this alone anymore,” Anna said. “I am here for you, and so is your uncle.”

Alister moved to the bed and sat. He looked at the scars on his palms and displayed them for Anna to see. “Do you know how I got these?”

“No,” Anna said. “You haven't told me yet.”

“I do,” his uncle said as he stepped forward.

Alister rubbed his eyes, and the scars felt especially puffy and sensitive.

“You were jumping a fence at the high school,” his uncle said. “I don't remember who you were with, but—”

“No.” Alister shook his head. “That's not how it happened.”

“Well, that's what you told me.”

“No, I didn't,” Alister said. He lay flat and closed his eyes. “Leave me be.”

“Maybe that's what your mother told me happened.”

Alister's eyes blinked open and he sat up. “That isn't what—”

He looked around the room and saw he was alone. Blankets wrapped his legs, and the orange glow of the morning sun lit the room. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

The door to his room swung open, and Michael entered the room with his breakfast tray. He placed the tray down, looked at Alister, looked at the window, licked his lips and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He cleared his throat and said, “Are you OK?”

Alister rubbed his eyes and surveyed the room again. “It was just a dream. I'm fine.”

“I thought you should know that they're going to be covering your window any minute now,” Michael said.

Alister looked at the window and didn't see anything but the intense glow of the sunlight that beamed inside his room.

“I didn't want it to worry you.”

“Why?”

“I'm not real sure. It's something Anna is having done.” Michael hobbled to the door.

A clunk outside the window caught Alister's attention. Two men placed a board behind the steel bars and over his window, encasing the room in darkness. The sounds of drilling and hammering drew him out of bed.

“Wait! What is going on?” He faced Michael, his eyes not yet adjusted to the dark. “And why are you talking to me?”

“The doctor encouraged me to do so.”

Alister bowed his head. “Why would you listen?”

Michael flipped a switch on the wall, and a recessed light fixture in the center of the ceiling glowed brightly.

“Why would you listen to her?”

“It wasn't just her choice.” Michael crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “It was something I wanted to do.”

“Something you wanted to do?”

“I felt sorry for you.”

“You felt sorry?”

“I see you sitting here, day after day, all alone. I thought you could use a friend, someone that openly supports your recovery.”

Alister pushed the food tray to the floor. Cereal, milk and juice sprayed the wall, and the plastic bowl clattered.

Alister threw the blankets aside, jumped out of bed and ran toward Michael.

“What have you done?”

Michael extended his arms to keep Alister away.

“I'm sorry. I was doing what I thought was right.”

Alister exhaled loudly, sat and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Don't you understand that decision is going to cost you your life?”

“I'm sorry if I upset you; I was only trying to be nice.”

Alister ran his hands through his hair, shook his head and slapped his knees.

“That's what this is about—being nice to a delusional old man?” He huffed his displeasure. “It is going to cost you your life.”

Alister leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs.

“Never again,” he said, and he took his vow of silence so no one would fall victim to the curse again. He had made a terrible mistake letting the doctor get as far as she had. “A terrible mistake.”

 

 

 

Alister stared at the clock on the wall. He sighed at the second hand and how slow it seemed to move. It was lunchtime and Michael was late. He is never late.

“Come on, Michael, where are you?”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The tension in his neck took hold of his muscles and squeezed.

“Why did you have to go and do something so stupid? Why would you talk to me?”

He felt hot but shivered. The walls seemed like they were closing in on him, and the thought of it shortened his breath. He wanted to get away, go somewhere he didn't have to face whether or not the curse had gotten Michael. But the voice within challenged him and asked him where he would go.

“To the tree,” he said. He remembered going there as a kid. He felt safe beneath the thick, low-hanging branches and cover of leaves. The scars on his hands held his attention for a long moment. The idea that the two were somehow connected backed his mind into corners too dark to explore.

The doorknob jiggled and interrupted his thoughts. He trained his eyes on the door, and time moved even more slowly. The click of the latch disengaging, the whine of the hinges as the door swung open and the appearance of an unfamiliar female nurse who carried his lunch on a tray made him gasp.

“Oh, God, no.”

Years of seclusion meant nothing. The realization that the curse had waited as long and as silently as he had sent a chill coursing through his body. His sacrifice, hope and belief that Anna's message might have meaning was in vain.

“You've waited all this time and endured the silence with me just to see me suffer again, didn't you?” Alister said.

“Oh, my God,” the nurse said. She dropped the tray of food and ran from the room.

“Go ahead,” Alister said. He reached inside his grab bag of emotions and came out with a handful of heartache and pain. “You can have her, too. I don't care anymore.”

Alister climbed into bed and pulled the covers to his chin.

“I can't fight you anymore. I'm too damn tired. You win.”

 

 

 

The past.

 

Strapped to a bed and staring at fluorescent lights that buzzed and blinked, Alister fought against restraints that bound his wrists, ankles, torso and head.

The dizzying effects of the drugs that had been pumped into his veins had worn off, and he managed to remain quiet while the bald doctor's bones broke. The doctor had writhed in pain for what seemed like an hour, and his screams had eventually turned to whimpers. Soon after, there was silence.  Alister was relieved.

A door to his room opened, and the steady approach of heels clacking against the hard floor forced Alister to halt his struggle to free himself.

“Please,” he said, only able to lift his head an inch. “I beg you to keep everyone away from me; it's not safe.”

“Johnny,” a woman that stepped into Alister's line of sight said. She had pale skin and bright red hair. She looked down on the doctor's dead body and started to shake. “What have you done?” she asked Alister.

Three men joined the woman around the body. She fell to her knees and began to weep. She stroked the doctor's cheek and mindlessly smeared the blood that oozed from his mouth.

“Oh, Johnny, I'm so sorry,” she said.

Alister blinked hard. His head swam and his vision faded in and out. In an attempt to resist the darkness that threatened to consume him, he attempted to break free again. The leather whined and the straps dug into his flesh.

The woman stood and looked at Alister with eyes as red as her hair. “You killed Johnny!” She slapped Alister's face and pulled at his clothes.

“No,” he said. The slap stung and immersed him deeper into dizziness. The woman looked like a cartoon character in a funhouse mirror.

“You bastard,” one of the men said. He stepped in front of the woman, puffed out his chest and held his arms away from his body. The man was so skinny that Alister would have laughed if he weren't tied down.

“I'm going to kick your ass!”

“Hold on a second.” Everyone in the room stopped and looked at an older man with sad eyes. His hair was gray and his voice carried the sound of reason. “Let us not start panicking and throw away our logic. Can't you see it's impossible for him to have done anything to Johnny?”

“It's trickery, Henry,” the thin man said, his chest still inflated.

“Move aside,” Henry said, and he moved the thin man aside with a sweeping arm.

“We should smother the bastard,” the thin man said. He was now near the back of the room standing on his toes trying to see around a quiet man swollen with muscle. “And we should kill whatever he claims follows him, too.” His anger curled his lips and tightened his brows.

“Ignore him,” Henry said to Alister. “He, like everyone else here, has experienced something strange that is nothing less than horrifying.”

“I hate to say it's only going to get worse.” Alister pushed a pasty tongue out of his mouth to try and moisten his lips. He closed his eyes and exhaled with a huff. “I'm sorry.”

“Two minutes,” the thin man said. He held up two fingers and showed them to Alister. “That is all I would need with him.” He slapped his hands together. “Problem solved!”

Alister kept his eyes closed. “I could only wish it were that simple.”

“Oh, it would be.” The thin man charged Alister, but the muscleman held him back.

“Your doctor friend on the floor already tried killing me,” Alister said. “I can't die.”

The woman jumped into Alister's view and pointed a bent finger at him. Her hand trembled and her face was wet with tears and distorted by anger. “Don't you speak of him, you monster!”

“The needle he used shattered, and immediately afterward his bones broke one by one.” Alister opened his eyes and focused them on Henry.

The woman slapped her hands over her ears. “I don't want to hear this!”

“The sound of the bones snapping and the sound of his screams were horrible,” Alister said.

“Why are we listening to this?” the thin man said. He struggled to free himself from the muscleman's grasp.

“I can still hear his screams inside my head, and I don't think they will ever fade.”

“Shut him up,” the thin man said.

“No, you shut up,” Henry said to the thin man. “We need to hear what he has to say.” He gave Alister his full attention. “Why? What could cause such a thing to happen?”

“The curse.”

“Ridiculous,” the thin man said, laughing. He stopped trying to break free of the muscle man's grasp. He bent over and grabbed his knees. “I can't believe we're sitting here listening to this.”

“I know it sounds unbelievable,” Alister said. “I would beg you all to take my life and bring mercy upon this world if it could be done.” Tears rolled down his face and wet the mattress. “But death is something I'll never find comfort in because it keeps me alive to see me suffer.”

“What you are saying is preposterous,” Henry said.

“I don't blame you for disbelieving the things I am saying,” Alister said. He looked at Henry out of the corner of his eye. “I would think you were crazy, too. But you need to know that I am an incurable disease that will infect anyone that comes near.”

“Why do we continue to listen to this nut?” the thin man said.

“He has a point,” Alister said. “I need to be locked away somewhere where no one will ever find me or think to look. It needs to be a place I could never hope to escape.”

Henry stood, paced and rubbed his chin in a long moment of quiet contemplation. “You do realize what you are asking us to do?”

“I do.”  Alister paused to search for any hesitation within and couldn't find any. “I'm smart enough to know that is the only way.”

“And you're certain about this?”

“Why don't we give him a lollypop on the way out?” the thin man said.

“Quiet,” Henry said. “We need to consider what he is saying. We don't have a logical explanation to rationalize what is happening here.”

“By my count,” Alister said, “there is only one person in this room that hasn't said anything to me. And that means that there will be only one left standing at the end of this day.”

“Who?” Henry said, pointing at the muscleman.  “Milos?”

Alister did not look at him. “If that is his name, yes. And if he was smart, he'd leave it like that.”

The thin man looked to Milos. “You see that? You're the lucky one.”

Milos smiled and relaxed.

“Well,” the thin man said. “If I'm going to die, I might as well take him with me.” He sprang forward and before Milos and Henry could react, he was on top of Alister. His hands were wrapped around his unprotected throat and he squeezed as hard as he could.

“Die, you son of a bitch!”

Alister's lips flapped, thick saliva flew from his mouth and he struggled to breathe. Blackness started to fill his vision, and he no longer wanted to resist it, believing that if he could reach its source, he wouldn't have to come back.

Henry and Milos reached the thin man and tried to pull him off of Alister.

The woman jumped up and down. “Kill the bastard,” she said. “Choke the life out of him!”