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.
They damn near kill me, but it's nothin' that I can con¬
trol. Besides, I'm hurtin' way too much right now for
this bullshit. Give me my meds and an hour to let them
kick in and I promise I'll try anything you want. N o t
now, though. No way."
The old physiotherapist shot a look of pure hatred
toward me, then shook her head in disgust. "You're
pitiful, Mike, but the whining stops today. Right now.
You want your pain medication? Here, come an' get 'em
for yourself."
She walked over and placed the familiar plastic con¬
tainer containing my multicolored happy pills on the
roll-away wooden meal tray, positioning it against the
side wall of my room, about seven feet to my right.
Then she turned to leave.
"You can't be serious," I said. Junie didn't answer me.
She was already out the door and gone.
It took a full fifteen minutes before I finally accepted
this wasn't some sort of weird trick and she really wasn't
coming back. Junie the resurrectionist was gone and
my pain meds weren't doing me a lot of good sitting
halfway to the door.
SOB ofa bitch Now what am I gonna do?
I stared at the plastic cup holding my pills—close,
sure, but they may as well have been on the other side
of the planet. My eyes wandered to the emergency call
button attached to a long white cord beside my bed. All
I had to do was push that little red button on the end
and one of my regular nurses would come running.
Surely they'd give me my pills. But first I had to get a
hold of it, and in my condition that was impossible. Or
was k? I had a sneaky feeling trying to use my new
arms would hurt like a bastard, but what alternative did
I have? I had to at least try. Either that or j u s t lay here
and suffer.
Okay then, finger first.
No real reason for it, but I made up my mind to try
wiggling my index finger on my right hand, then work
my way up to trying to move the whole arm. Seemed as
good a plan as any. If crazy old Junie was telling the
truth about them working my muscles while I'd been
napping, this should be a piece of cake.
My finger moved; wiggling on command like it was
nervous. Trouble was, it was the wrong finger. I'd wanted
the index, and the one wiggling was my middle finger.
N o t too bad—just one digit off. I concentrated harder
and really focused on moving my index finger. The
middle finger danced again.
Fuck!
Either I wasn't trying hard enough, or somewhere
along the line I wasn't hardwired up quite right. That
seemed possible. More than possible—inevitable, really.
With all the millions of nerve connections and neural
pathways inside a human body, it only stood to reason
some mistakes would be made when Dr. Marshall stitched
me back together. The question was, how many? H o w
many mistakes and bad connections made up my new
bastardized nervous system? With the kind of luck I'd
had lately, I didn't even want to think about it.
Back to the fingers.
I tried to bend them all this time, not be so picky.
Clench up my hand into a fist and—
Hey, it worked!
I could open them too. Maybe it would j u s t take a
while to fine-tune things and get my dexterity back. I
spent a minute playing with my new hand, smiling
happily, a boy again with a macabre new fleshy toy. It
hurt a bit, a stinging j a b in my knuckles every time I
bent my fingers, but it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined. In
a way it felt good. That might sound ridiculous but it's
true. After months of living in a bodiless state, it was
nice to feel again. Feel anything, even pain.
' Before I realized I was doing it, my right arm was
sliding across the sheet and I was making a grab for the
call button. It took several tries to grab and keep hold
of the small plastic object, but I finally managed. My
entire arm was tingling, a hot funky pins-and-needles
I started to feel a cramp coming on, the ache starting
in my fingers and getting ready to spread up my arm. I
concentrated as hard as I could and felt elated as my
t h u m b acted like a good boy and started clicking the
red call button just like I'd wanted it to. A buzzer started
ringing outside my room, somewhere down the hall,
presumably at the nurses' station.
I let my arm flop to the bed and relaxed. I'd actually
done it, and damned if. I wasn't feeling proud of myself.
I'd used another man's arm, hand, and fingers to do my
bidding. Might not seem like much, but to me it was an
incredible achievement. Surely someone would be along
to answer the buzzer and see what I needed. I j u s t had
to kick back and wait. I kept my eyes on the pill cup,
anticipation bringing a light sheen of sweat to my brow.
A mouthful of saliva, as well. Once a j u n k i e , always a
j u n k i e .
Nobody came.
N o t right away. N o t a few minutes later. N o t ever.
The buzzer rang for several minutes and then went
silent. That got my hopes up, but no soft-soled shoes
came to my door. No nurse, pretty or otherwise, came
smiling into my room to hand me my pills. Instinc¬
tively, I knew I was on my own, j u s t as Junie had said,
but I refused to accept it. Getting out of bed to walk
across the room wasn't something I even wanted to
think about, much less do. Just moving my arm ten
inches across a smooth flat sheet had caused my hand to
cramp. W h a t would happen to my legs if I were stupid
enough to
try supporting my weight on the cold hard
floor?
Ten more minutes passed before I closed my eyes,
gritted my teeth and slid my right leg off the side of the
bed. It moved slowly and sluggishly and I couldn't re¬
ally feel my foot. Everything felt n u m b below my knee.
As soon as my knee cleared the edge of the mattress,
my foot fell limply off the side of the bed and firecrack¬
ers of pain shot through my knee and up my thigh.
' "God dammttl" I screamed, loud enough that I'm
sure the entire floor heard me.
I could j u s t picture the nurses sitting with old Junie,
having a good laugh at my expense, and I vowed right
then and there I wasn't going to cry out anymore.
Bitches! I hated them all—everyone in this psychotic
place. I wasn't gonna give them the satisfaction.
Somehow J managed to get my left leg off the bed
too and shimmy my butt over to the edge. There was
no way I could sit up. No way in hell.
But I did.
My desire, my craving—my need—for the pain medi¬
cation was so great I was willing to try j u m p i n g through
hoops if that was what it would take. My body was on
fire; every muscle, every bone, every j o i n t hurt. My
eyelids fluttered and I came close to passing out, but I
refused to let that happen. Instead I pushed hard with
arms that felt like fifty-pound lead weights, and found
myself standing on my feet. Tears were streaming down
my face from the pain, but I was pumped up now—the
joy of being out of that damn bed overwhelming, an
adrenaline boost for my weary body.
I still couldn't feel anything below my right knee, but
I took a small shuffling step onto it anyway. I had no
choice—my body had started to sway and if I hadn't
stepped forward to balance myself I would have been
sprawled face-first onto the floor. W h i t e - h o t pain blazed
in my knee again and I nearly went down. I swayed, bit¬
ing the side of my cheek, fighting to stay upright. I knew
if I tumbled to the floor I was there to stay. The pain
subsided and I moved on to another step.
The physical pain was horrible, but maybe worst was
the disoriented feeling of moving around in a borrowed
body. These weren't my arms. These weren't my legs.
These weren't my feet. On and on the list went. N a m e
it, and chances were that body part wasn't mine and
deep down on some cellular level I think they knew it.