Breaking the Cycle



  Breaking the Cycle

  By: William Petersen

  Copyright 2014 William Petersen

  Breaking the Cycle

  1

  Mike adjusted the bandana that substituted for a surgical mask and refocused his attention to the task at hand. He positioned the scalpel at the conjunction of limbs protruding from what was, at one point in time, a normal human knee joint. The malformed mess on the table was just one of millions. Millions and millions of what used to be people, now just mutated masses of limbs and digits, repulsive and frightening.

  A sound from behind distracted him and he again lost his focus. Timmy was approaching with a wheeled table, another of the morphed and lifeless bodies on it, dragging his mutated leg behind him. Timmy was about eighteen, though his condition not only interfered with his physical state, but also affected his mental abilities, leaving him with the mentality of a child. His right leg, if it could be called that anymore, had two misshapen and underdeveloped leg-things dangling uselessly from the knee joint. They had little bone content, and while very much alive, they did not respond to commands from the body and did not move at all. One grew a full twelve inches longer than his existing leg, with the other stopping about mid-calf, both with deformed feet at the end.

  The 'Shhhh-shhhh' of his dragging leg let Mike know it was Timmy before he turned to look. He had grown found of Timmy, but each time he saw him, there was an involuntary moment of shock. The pant leg of his jumpsuit was split to allow the two new limbs to hang out, and he had to keep the longer one wrapped in cloth or he would drag it along until it was raw and bleeding. Not only did the boy have two defunct, extra legs growing from his left knee joint, but he had also begun to grow a third eye, which was trying to occupy the same socket as his left eye. This produced a dead, cataract covered orb that pushed down on the original, deforming it and causing both to bulge out disgustingly.

  “Hi Mister Crawford!” Timmy enthusiastically exclaimed, though it sounded more like, “Hee Mither Cwawfod” but Mike had worked with him long enough that his brain could now unconsciously translate the boy's jumbled talk into recognized words.

  “Hi Timmy” the muffled reply came from behind the bandana-mask.

  “You can just leave that there buddy,” Mike told him.

  “Id it oldmust tory dime?” Timmy asked, with much effort.

  Mike knew that he was asking about 'Story Time', where he would enlighten Timmy on the way things used to be. Timmy had been born as the troubles began and was much too young and affected too early for his now feeble mind to recall. The poor guy forgot it all within a few minutes of taking it in, so each story was essentially the same: How Did This Happen?

  “Well...” Mike began, pulling the bandana down around his neck, “...it all started with a frog.” Mike told the story again, not so much for Timmy's benefit, but more for his own, as the more he repeated it, he hoped, the closer he would come to understanding how to stop it.

  Timmy started the exhalations and snorting that was his version of laughing and asked, “Whadda fwog?”

  “Ah...that's not important,” Mike told him, grinning slightly, as he started to recall the events which began many years prior, simplifying them as much as possible, while recalling the details in his own head.