The Jigsaw Man (18 page)

voice. "Where's Drake?"

"Right behind you," I answered, and as soon as he

spun his wheelchair around to look, I turned tail and

took off at full speed the opposite way.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Dr. Marshall pull a

Iong-bladed knife from under the cushion he was sit¬

ting upon, clamp it in his teeth so he could push with

both arms, and race after me. I was out in front, but the

small lead I'd bluffed for myself wasn't enough to stay

in front for long. W i t h every push of his powerful arms,

Dr. Marshall was m a k i n g up ground, closing in on me

at an alarming rate.

It was hard to run last with my arms no longer there

to pump back and forth. I felt constantly off balance, and

was having a heck of a time trying to run in a straight

line down the hall without veering off to one side or the

other. This wasn't going to work. I had to find someplace

to run where Dr. Marshall wouldn't be able to follow me.

W h e r e , though? W h e r e could I go, that a wheelchair

couldn't?

The stairs. He can't fallow me on the staircases.

I'm not the greatest with directions, but I'd been

around this building a time or two since arriving, and I

was reasonably sure I was heading toward the front of

the medical center. Running past several lab rooms on

both sides of the corridor, I now knew that the surgical

recovery room I'd been kept in was located on the sec¬

ond floor of the complex. There should be a stairwell

not too far ahead on my right. It would lead down to

the short concrete hallway that served as an entrance to

the four-story glass-roofed atrium I'd stood in when we

first arrived. The front door to the parking lot would

be there as well.

Sure enough, the door to the stairs came into view,

and when I made my cut to the right, bashing through

into the stairwell, Dr. Marshall had been so close to me

he couldn't turn the corner in time. He took a wild swipe

at me with the knife as his chair rocketed past the open

doorway like a Roman chariot, but his aim was way off.

N o t wanting to stand around and give him a second

chance, I started down the winding staircase, but

screeched to a stop. I could hear voices below me around

the bend in the stairs, male voices, two of them, maybe

three. I couldn't see them or tell if they were guards,

doctors, lab technicians, or D a r t h Vader's Imperial

Stormtroopers, but whoever they were, they were com¬

ing up toward me and I didn't want to run right into

their arms. To avoid them, my only choice was to turn

and head
up
the stairs instead of down. Maybe I could

hide out for a few minutes on the third or fourth floor,

j u s t until the men approaching from below made it to

wherever they were headed. Once the coast was clear, I

could shoot back down the stairs and try making it to

the front door.

Up I climbed, panic at being caught pushing me

along like a strong hand on my back. W h e n I rounded

the curve to the level area where the door to the third

floor opened, I started to realize I was in more trouble

than I'd thought. All the doors in this stairwell opened

inwardly from the various hallways, and in my panic to

evade Dr. Marshall I hadn't stopped to consider exactly

what that meant.

I'd had no trouble using my body to push down the

latch-releasing bar to ram my way into here, but from

this side to open the doors a person had to grab a little

handle and depress a small t h u m b lever as they pulled

backward. With no hands to grab the handle—and ob¬

viously no thumbs to depress the lever—there was no

way to open any of these doors and get back into the

hallways. I was trapped, with no other option than keep

climbing stairs until I ran out of them. If the men be¬

low were headed all the way to the fourth floor, I was

screwed.

I got lucky, for once. I'd j u s t started heading up from

the third-floor landing, when I heard the door below on

the second being pulled opened, and the mysterious

voices of my unseen pursuers fade to n o t h i n g as they

moved off into the carpeted hall. I paused, halting my

ascension, straining to hear if all the men had exited

onto the second floor, or if maybe one or two were still

climbing up. I heard a long, drawn-out squeak that had

to be the door swinging closed again, but once the

latch clicked, everything was quiet. No voices. No foot¬

steps. Nothing.

Pheeeew. Thank God!

That could have gotten ugly, but I was still okay.

N o w with the staircase all to myself, all I had to do was

make it down to the first floor, and hope I could find

some way to get to the front door of this creepy place. I

cautiously started back down the winding stairs, fully

expecting to hear one of the doors bang open at any

second. W h e n n o t h i n g happened, my hope was renewed.

I might make it out of here, after all.

That was when I rounded the corner leading to the

second-floor landing and saw Dr. Marshall sitting con¬

tentedly in his chair, waiting for m e , effectively block¬

ing my path with not only his body, but with the large

serrated knife he held casually in his lap. My feet grew

roots quickly, stopping me midstair. I shouldn't have

been surprised, but I was. Had I thought he'd j u s t let me

walk away?

Idiot!

W h e n he saw me, a huge feral grin spread across the

mad doctor's face, and in that second our eyes met, I

understood he knew I was trapped in this staircase, and

the only way out was through him. To tease me, he be¬

gan playing with his large knife, picking imaginary

dirt from under his fingernails with it. He was putting

on a show, trying to scare m e , but I tried not to let him

know it was working.

"Get the hell out of my way, asshole, or I'll give you

and your wheelchair a ride you'll never forget."

I half meant it too, considering charging into him

and trying to knock him backward off the level landing

area. I could imagine the satisfying scene of his arms

pinwheeling for balance as the wheels of his chair

tipped over the edge of the first stair, the overly smug

look on his face replaced by sheer terror at the knowl¬

edge he was in for a painful, potentially fatal spill.

Dr. Marshall j u s t laughed at m e , my threat having no

effect on his confidence. That was when I should have

charged, should have caught him when he wasn't pre¬

pared, but I didn't. I might have—probably
'wouldhsve.—

but he asked me something so odd and began doing

something that seemed so strangely out of place consid¬

ering our situation, it knocked me completely off guard.

"Tell m e , Mr. Fox," Dr. Marshall began, taking his

knife and j a b b i n g it into the blue denim material of his

pants near his left hip, and starting to cut down toward

his knee. "Have you ever stopped to think about my

legs?"

"Your legs?" I muttered, trying to figure out why Dr.

Marshall was in the process of cutting his pant leg off

before my bewildered eyes.

"You should have," he smiled, calmly starting to cut

into the fabric of his right pant leg now. "When we first

met, I told you I lost the use of them in an accident,

remember?"

I did, but I didn't bother answering. I was a little

freaked out as to why we were having this calm friendly

discussion in the first place. It was too surreal, Dr. Mar¬

shall's thin smile a little forced, and I didn't want to say

anything that might trigger his murderous rage.

Why the hell is he cutting off his pants?

"I was only forty-five when it happened. That's a long

time to live without legs, Mike. Too long, don't you

think? Especially if you happen to have the skills, cour¬

age, and the means to do something about it. Under¬

stand what I'm getting at?"

Dr. Marshall began to rise out of his wheelchair, the

shredded denim of his j e a n s falling to the floor as he

stood, the jagged pink scars encircling his upper thighs

clearly showing me where he'd grafted the new set of

legs onto his still-healing body.

Mother of God! He experimented on himself!

"It took three attempts, three pain-filled failures, be¬

fore I figured it out. I'd rushed into it, you see, too anx¬

ious and nowhere near ready. I learned from my mistakes,

though, waiting patiently this time until I worked out

the kinks, until I was sure it would work. My most

trusted surgeon did the operation for me and I've been

healing for about five months, working hard in physio¬

therapy before you even arrived here. It's working,

Mike. This time it's working. This time I can stand up.

I can walk." Then, holding up the long bladed knife t o

ward me, "And I can even climb stairs."

C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N

It wasn't until Dr. Marshall took his first tentative step t o

ward me that the full impact of what he'd just said hit me.

He can climb stairs.

If I'd been thinking clearly, I might have still decided

to charge the doctor, knock him flying while he was get¬

ting his balance, but I was scared, more than a little

confused, and instead of charging I fled up the stairs,

away from the doctor. Big mistake. Running away wasn't

going to help me. W h e r e was I going to go? I was trapped

in the stairwell, nowhere to go now but up, while Dr.

Marshall closed in on me from below. At some point,

we'd both end up at the top of the stairs, and using only

my legs I would have to fight off a knife-wielding mad¬

man.

Up the stairs I went, desperately trying to think of

some way to get out of this death trap I'd snared myself

in. Luckily, Dr. Marshall was having difficulties with

the stairs, his legs not quite healed enough to move as

quick as he wanted. I could hear him cursing below, as

he slowly inched up the stairs at a snail's pace, a deter¬

mined killer on feeble, fledgling legs. This would buy

me time, a reprieve at best, but not the full pardon I was

looking for.

Think, man. Think!

And I was, but thinking about various nasty scenarios

all ending with me being stabbed to death wasn't much

help, so I concentrated on climbing the stairs, deciding

to put as much distance between me, my pursuer, and

my morbid thoughts as I could.

I rounded the third-floor landing, wistfully eyeing

the door leading to the hallway, but it may as well have

been a solid brick wall, for all the good it did me. Grit¬

ting my teeth in panic and frustration, I continued on

up the stairs. W h e n the fourth-floor landing started to

come into view, I fully expected to see the inevitable

dead end that would seal my fate. There would be the

last of the stairs, the closed steel door, and then the

concrete wall where I'd have to make my stand.

What the hell?

Something wasn't right.

The stairs were there, and the steel door too, j u s t as

I'd thought, but there was no wall. No dead end. In¬

stead, there was another flight of winding stairs disap¬

pearing around yet another corner. Had I miscalculated

what floor I was on? N o , I was sure of that. This was

the fourth—and final—floor all right.

Then where do these stairs go? The roof? Heaven?

Did it matter? Up I went, but slower now, not sure

how there could be a fifth-story staircase in a four-story

building. Halfway round the bend the answer hit me.

The Tower Room.

The room on the front corner of the building with

the tattered flag flying on its roof that I'd spotted on

the day I'd arrived. That had to be it. My mind started

whirling, wondering if maybe this presented me with

any new options for survival, or if it j u s t delayed the

inevitable. Up I went.

As I rounded the corner where the next landing

would normally be, the staircase opened up into a large

room. There was a low h u m m i n g noise coming from

somewhere, j u s t barely audible, but loud enough that I

quietly crept up the final few stairs, pausing to peek

over the floor level stair to check out my surroundings

before I went any further. The tower room wasn't as

large as I'd pictured it from the ground, maybe twenty

feet by twenty, with a twelve-foot-high ceiling. It was

oval shaped, with two large stained glass windows set

into the wall farthest from the stairs. The room was

spotlessly clean, but filled to the point of being clut¬

tered with furniture, clothes, an expensive-looking ste¬

reo system, a computer terminal, lots of medical supplies,

free-standing oxygen tanks, and a brass-railed bed.

There was other stuff j a m m e d in the room, too, but

once I spotted the bed—or rather, who was lying on

the bed—nothing else in the room mattered.