with plastic blood bags that had surely j u s t been har¬
vested from the group of cruelly vivisected men strapped
to the beds inside.
. "What are you doing up here?" the nurse said in a
tone that made me want to beat the life out of her with
my bare hands. W h o the hell was she to treat these
men like this, robbing them not j u s t of their life juices,
but of their dignity—hell, their humanity—as well? I
kept my cool, though. No sense blowing things now,
not when I was so close to success.
"Mr. Drake told me to deliver a message to one of
the guys in there. Said he'd be up soon to talk to him
personally. I'm supposed to wait here."
Pretty crappy cover story, I know. W h a t possible
message would the chief of security want delivered
up here, and even if he did, why would Drake pick me
to do it? In my winter coat and boots, no less. I was
counting on the fact that this nurse—whoever she
was—wouldn't really give a shit what I was doing. She
had work to do and probably wanted to get it done and
over with so she could go home. Thankfully, I was
right.
"Well, hurry up then," she said, already dismissing
me and moving away. "Don't you stir them up, or trust
me it'll be your ass, not mine."
With that rather empty threat, she wandered off to¬
ward the front of the building. I slipped inside the
Bleeders' room before she thought things through and
turned back to ask me anything else. So far I'd been
lucky—major league lucky—but I knew it wouldn't last
forever. Time was r u n n i n g out.
Just give me another half hour, I prayed to the ceiling
tiles, then looked around the sterile white room into a
hellish scene I remembered all too well.
There were ten of them now—four on one side of
the room, six on the other. Ten limbless sacks of meat
that had once been decent men but had now been r e
duced to kegs of blood for Dr. Marshall to tap any¬
time he needed. It was diabolical—there was no other
word for it—and it made me sick to my stomach to
look at them. I couldn't suppress my shudder when I
realized I knew most of these guys. His flaming red
hair drew my eyes to Red Beard first, and then old
Lucas, too, in the bed right next to him near the back
window. Charlie, the confused guy whose shouts had
led to my capture, the first t i m e , was still h e r e , blankly
staring at the ceiling along with at least four other men
whose faces I recognized but whose names I couldn't
remember.
Shit!
This wasn't a homecoming, or, for that matter, a
friendly reunion, and I'd actually been hoping to walk
into a room full of strangers. That would have been
easier for me. Familiar faces only made things harder
and pissed me off more. These same poor bastards had
been lying here all this t i m e , day after day,, week after
week, month after month, doing n o t h i n g but getting
slowly bled dry and hoping to die.
I was here to answer their prayers.
I didn't want to do it—hell, I wasn't even sure I could
do it—but I was here to try. These men had suffered
enough and although I'd only promised Lucas I'd help
him along to a better place, I felt I owed this same act of
kindness to all of them. W h a t other choice did I have?
I couldn't save anyone, or make things better, but I could
damn well put a stop to their endless misery and guar¬
antee they wouldn't somehow live through the coming
explosion. That was the last thing any of them would
want. Death and, well, me were the only friends these
guys had left.
Lucas must have heard me come in, because he
turned his head and looked my way. I raised my hand
and waved, moving toward him, but my smile froze
half-formed, when I noticed the look of fear on the old
man's face. He looked like he was about to scream.
Didn't he know who I was? Or maybe his mind had fi¬
nally shut down from the constant abuse.
Thisplace wears a man down after a while. Wears him
I could still remember the day he'd said those words.
Seemed like yesterday, and certainly n o t h i n g had
changed around here to make me think his assessment
wasn't bang on. I stopped walking and held my hands
out in front of me. Hopefully he'd understand I wasn't
here to hurt him.
"Don't be scared, Lucas, it's j u s t m e , Mike."
At the sound of my voice, Red Beard opened his eyes
and looked at me from the next bed over. His eyes
opened really wide and I was scared he, too, might be
considering screaming. His mouth dropped open and
several long seconds passed before he said, "Mike? Is
that really y o u ? "
Lucas's head snapped toward Red Beard and some of
the worry left his wrinkled brow. "You see him too,
Red?"
" 'Course I see him," Red Beard's deep voice boomed
in the quiet room. "He's standing right in front of us,
ain't he?"
"You two okay?" I asked, not knowing what else to
say as I walked up to stand at the feet of their beds.
Lucas flinched again at the sound of my voice, but he
followed it with a nervous laugh that answered my
question better than any words could have.
"Jesus, Mike, I thought you were a freakin' ghost. No
foolin'. Red and I thought you were dead a long time
ago and then you j u s t show up out of nowhere, walking
in like y o u ' r e — "
Then he stopped, dead, the color draining from his
already pale face. Both Lucas and Red were eying me
up head to toe, a bit of fear creeping back into their
eyes, and I knew right away what was going through
their minds. Last time they'd seen me, I'd been getting
wheeled out of this room strapped to a leather gurney,
and I'd had the same number of arms and legs, as they
had—none! N o w here I was standing in front of them a
whole man again. No wonder they were freaked out. I
would have been too.
I really didn't have the time or energy to go through
the entire story and, in the end, it didn't make a hell of
a lot of difference bow I'd walked in here; the important
part was what I'd walked in to do.
"Listen, guys, it's a long story and I j u s t don't want to
get into it. The short, no frills version is that Dr. Mar¬
shall is still up to his old tricks and he pieced me back
together again using a lot of different people's body
parts. I've been through hell and back so don't go think¬
ing I'm luckier than you guys j u s t because I'm standing.
Trust m e , I'm not."
The room was silent for thirty seconds as they chewed
on what I'd j u s t told them. They looked at each other a
few times, puzzled expressions on their faces, but both
seemed to buy it without any more questions. For that
&n
bsp; small mercy, I was grateful.
"Why are you here, Mike?" Lucas finally asked.
"Yeah, what's up?" Red chimed in.
N o w how was I supposed to answer those questions?
H o w do you tell y o u r friends you've come to murder
them? Damned if I knew. Instead of answering, I turned
and went to the empty bed directly across from them. I
paused for a moment, still fighting my inner demons as
to whether I should be doing this, but in my heart I
knew a mercy killing was the proper thing—the decent
t h i n g — t o do.
I bent down and picked up the thin white pillow.
"Pillow fight?" Red asked, laughing hard at his j o k e .
"I have a feeling you'll win that one, buddy."
Ignoring Red Beard, I turned and looked at Lucas,
stared straight into his eyes, and in that instant knew
he understood exactly what I'd come here to do. If he'd
screamed, or showed me any trace of fear, I might have
backed out and tossed the pillow away, but only one
emotion was shining clearly in his eyes—hope.
"Bless you, lad," Lucas whispered.
It was barely audible, but those three small words gave
me the strength I needed to see this awful task through.
Even Red Beard had caught on, and was nodding his
head, smiling at me as tears started to run down his once
jolly cheeks.
"Do it, Mike. Please,," Red Beard begged.
I looked at them both, nodded my head, and then
went right to work before my nerve deserted me.
For no reason at all, I chose to do Charlie first. I knew
he was basically comatose back when I'd been sleeping
here and was probably worse now, so I figured he'd be
as good a place to start as any. I'd already decided I
would be leaving Lucas and Red Beard until last. These
other guys were three-quarters dead already and j u s t
needed a little push to send them on their way. Putting
the pillow over my friends was going to be a whole
different ball game, so like the coward that I was, I
would avoid it as long as possible.
Charlie never moved. Didn't struggle at all when the
pillow covered his gaunt face. I wasn't even sure I was
accomplishing anything until I noticed his skinny chest
had stopped expanding and contracting. He'd died si¬
lently, in less than a minute, and tears sprung to my eyes
as I realized I'd j u s t murdered another h u m a n being.
Jackson I'd killed in self-defense, and that hadn't both¬
ered me in the least, but Charlie's death was my first
murder. The first of many on this day but I forced my¬
self not to think about it, tried to shut it out of my mind
and j u s t flick the switch over to autopilot. I hated my¬
self, sure, but I truly believed I was doing these guys a
favor—one they'd do for me if our roles were reversed.
Still, murder was murderA no matter how hard I tried to
justify it. But. there was no t u r n i n g back now. W i t h
shaking hands, I moved to the next bed.
Thirty minutes later, seven more men were dead.
Some I knew, some I didn't, but all of them went to
their great reward silently and without a fuss. Well, al¬
most all of them. One man—his name was Glen, or
maybe Ben—fought me a little, twisting and wiggling
weakly beneath my hands, but it was his body reacting
more so than his mind. I'd looked into his eyes before
placing the pillow over his face, and I knew the lights
were out upstairs.
Eight down. Two to go.
Ah, man!Here we go.
The entire time I'd been playing God with a pillow, I'd
intentionally avoided looking at Red Beard and Lucas. I
wasn't ashamed of what I was doing, and I wasn't afraid
I'd lose my nerve, I j u s t didn't want to see the look of
anticipation on their tired faces. I didn't have to look to
know they would be smiling, crying, and practically
salivating at the prospect of escaping this rotten plane
of existence for a chance at a better one Unfortunately,
I couldn't avoid Lucas and Red Beard any longer. Hold¬
ing the pillow in front of me like a shield, I walked over
to them and looked up.
It wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Sure, they looked
excited and happy to see their suffering come to an end,
but they also looked scared, not sure what—if anything—
waited in the afterlife. It was a sobering thought, one
that hit me equally hard as I expected to be j o i n i n g my
friends in death shortly myself. Would we recognize
each other if we met up on the other side? N o t my con¬
cern. Hopefully Heaven had a nice place waiting for
Lucas and Red, but I was surely headed straight to Hell
for the things I'd done today and I doubted I'd see ei¬
ther one of them again.
Stop stalling, Mike. Do what you gotta do.
"It's okay, Mike," Lucas said in a soft voice, seeing
my trepidation at approaching any closer. "We've been
dead for a long time already, our bodies j u s t won't let
go. N o n e of this is your fault, lad. I know it's a lot to
ask, but you gotta help us."
I silently nodded my head. W h a t he was saying was
true, but I still couldn't find the strength to make my
legs take a step closer. Lucas had more to say.
"I never told you this before, but my wife, Charlotte,
she died eight years ago from the cancer and I j u s t
know she's waiting for me on the other side of death's
door. Help me open the door, Mike. I don't have the
hands to do it myself and I miss her. I miss her so damn
much!"
Lucas started to cry then, and I couldn't bear to see
him suffer for one more minute. Before I chickened
out, I walked over and kissed him on the forehead.
"Kiss her once for me," I said, my own tears running
freely now.
" T h a n k y o u , Mike," he said, "I will."
Then I put the pillow on his smiling face and pressed
down with all my might. It hurt so much inside but I
smiled, too, thinking the whole time about Lucas walk¬
ing through that door, seeing his wife's beautiful face
and r u n n i n g to throw his arms around her. Maybe that
would never happen, but it was nice to think about and,
for Lucas's sake, I sure hoped it would. Either way, Dr.
Marshall would never hurt him again and I guess that
was good enough. The rest was out of my hands.
Red Beard had been quiet for a long time, but he
spoke to me now. "I think he's gone, Mike."
I checked to see that Lucas's chest had stopped mov¬
ing, and it was still, but I held on to the pillow another
minute before I took it off his face. I'd failed him last
time and I wanted to make damn sure I'd done the j o b
right this time. No worries, Lucas was gone and had
died with a smile on his face.
"You got anyone waking on the other side for you,
Red?" I asked, hoping for the best.
"Not really. My parents, I guess. Be nice to see them
again. Maybe a
few old firemen buddies. W h o knows?
How about you?"
"My wife and little boy. Car accident. I don't know
much about this stuff, Red, but if there is a Heaven,
and they'll consider letting a fool like me in, I'm look¬
ing forward to seeing them soon too. It's crazy to think
about, but it helps, you know?"
Red Beard nodded, tears flowing down his cheeks al¬
most as much as mine. "Let's do this, Mike. I'm ready"
I waUted over beside him, kissed him on the forehead
too, and was about to put the pillow on his smiling face
when I saw his eyes open wide in surprise. There was
fear in those eyes as well. W h e n I turned to follow his
gaze, I understood why.
Drake was standing in the doorway.
Too long, Mike. You took too long.
The head of security looked astonished to see me.
He was still sweaty and breathing, hard from his search
in the forest, and finding me standing here in the castle
had him at a temporary loss for words. He got over it,
though, quickly.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Mike?"
I didn't say anything.
"You somehow get the j u m p on Jackson, and instead
of hightailing it away from here, you. decide to come
back to say good-bye to y o u r friends?"
Then he took a few steps into the room and a closer
look at the men lying in their beds, then down at the
pillow still clasped tightly in my hands, and he started
laughing. Laughing hard, the thought of me killing the
Bleeders somehow hilarious to him.
"You are crazy I knew it. Hot damn! This is one for
the record books. We're out r u n n i n g around in the
damn forest, and here you are playing Kiss-the-Pillow
with your old buddies. Dr. Marshall's gonna love this."
"How'd you find m e ? " I asked, stalling for time.
"Nurse Harper," he answered. "She mentioned some¬
one delivering a message up here for me and I knew it
was bullshit. Tell you the truth, though, I thought it was
one of my guards slacking off. I came up here to rip him
a new asshole for not helping us look for you, I damn
near fainted when I saw you standing there. You're full
of surprises; I'll give you that. It's almost a shame to kill
someone like you, but I gotta—"
"Leave him alone, Drake, you bastard!" Red Beard
shouted, his voice seemingly far too loud and powerful
to have come from such a small, wasted body.
Drake laughed again. "Fuckyou, Torso Boy. Shut your