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
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 lon
g, 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.
No way. I can't be that unlucky.
Sure I could. Fourteen feet from me, Drake was
sprawled out, lying naked on top of the sheets, prepar¬
ing to have a nap. Just my luck, but this junk-filled
tower room was apparently his private apartment.
N o w what was I going to do? W i t h Dr. Marshall
slowly gaining on me from below, and Drake the Nean¬
derthal waiting above, my chances of getting out of this
mess were close to nil.
Fuck!
Looking back over my shoulder, Dr. Marshall was
still nowhere to be seen, but I knew he was coming—I
could hear his slow, lurching progress echoing up the
stairwell. At any second, I expected to see him round
the corner, a vicious grin plastered on his face.
Anoise above me brought my attention back to Drake.
The head of security was sitting up now, his back to¬
ward m e , facing the front windows. He stood u p , yawn¬
ing loudly as he stretched. It wasn't until he walked
over to a nearby table that I noticed he was sporting a
woody—his large penis fully erect, pointing at the roof,
slapping his belly with every step.
Just-what I need to see.
There was something set in the middle of the table he
was standing beside, something large covered up with a
white blanket. Drake carefully started removing the blan¬
ket. W h e n he did, I had to bite my lip not to shriek.
Oh my God!
Concealed beneath the blanket was a severed head
perched atop a glass, milky liquid-filled tank. Hundreds
of colorful wires ran from within the ragged neckline of
the head, down into the tank where they connected
along the length of barely visible spine. Wires also ran
away from the head, connecting into a circuit box be¬
side a computer terminal. Several large crimson-filled
tubes ran to and from the neck, over to one of the same
machines I'd been shown in the video we watched our
first day here. It was this machine that was making the
low h u m m i n g noise I'd noticed a few minutes ago.
Blood supply.
That thought made me realize what I was seeing.
This wasn't j u s t any severed head, this was the severed
head—the same guy I'd seen in the video. I recognized
the poor man's face. I could remember how it had given
me the creeps back then, when I still thought every¬
thing was on the level here. Seeing it now with my own
eyes, it was even more horrifying. H o w could someone
do this to another human being? It was viciously cruel.
Hell, it was diabolical!
Unfortunately, not nearly as diabolical as what Drake
was doing. The sick pervert was rubbing his t h r o b b i n g
cock on the side of the glass tank, slowly working it up
closer and closer to the head above. The defenseless
man's eyes were wide open in fear, his entire head and
spine thrashing about in a futile attempt to get away.
My mind flashed back to the day I arrived here, and
how Fd thought Drake had left the video show with an
erection hidden in his tracksuit, I hadn't been sure at the
time, wondering what he could possibly find erotic in
Dr. Marshall's body parts presentation, but now I knew.
Drake crawled right up onto the table, and was try¬
ing to put his engorged dick into the disembodied man's
tightly closed mouth, who was resisting the only way
he could. Drake laughed at his defiance, and started to
threaten him with a knife held to one of his eyes.
"Open up sweetie, or you lose your eyes," Drake
whispered, his voice dripping with lust.
Stop it, you sick perverted fuck!
I wanted to scream that out loud, and almost did, but
a shimmer of motion in the corner of my eye caught my
attention. Dr. Marshall, covered in sweat from his ex¬
ertions, was standing four feet away from m e , the large
serrated knife raised above his head, preparing to stab
me in the back.
I did scream then, long and loud, my reasons for
stealth now gone. I bolted up the remaining stairs, ran
right past Drake, and didn't stop until I had my back
pressed against the far wall. Drake looked shocked for a
moment, but regained his cool, climbing down from the
table to help Dr. Marshall up the last few stairs while at