Fic: Jabberwocky: Part 14b/?
Gene roared away from his officers, taking long strides down the hallway until he found the office labeled with the name ‘J.M. Barrie, Internal Medicine’ on its small brass placard. He rapped hard with his knuckles, and then opened the door, fighting the urge to kick it down.
Inside of the office, the small, pudgy doctor that Gene had nearly beaten the other night was sitting behind a desk that looked identical to Denslow’s, with a tall, slim, balding man sitting opposite him, sporting a three piece suit and a thin mustache. Both men rose as Gene entered the room, and the tall man stretched out his hand. “DCI Hunt, I presume?”
Gene stared at the proffered hand as if it were a coiled snake, and then turned his angry gaze upon the man’s face. “DCI Morgan, then? What the bloody hell is going on? Why the sodding hell did you tell this, this, this lardy cunt not to call me in case of any change in Tyler’s condition?” Gene’s voice rose as he spat it out, his chest and shoulders swelling and his shouts soon growing to boom throughout the small room. Barrie took a step back, the backs of his legs hitting his chair as he did so, but Morgan simply quirked an eyebrow.
“Mr. Hunt, if you wouldn’t mind keeping your voice down, I believe this conversation might best be kept private, don’t you?” Morgan’s tone dripped with condescension, and Gene felt himself prickle even further when he heard it. He stared back and forth between the two men, his chest heaving and then shook his head, straining with every fiber of his being against the urge to punch Morgan in the face.
“Don’t you dare come over all higher-than-though with me, you sanctimonious prick! You specifically told this wanker,” Gene thrust a finger at Barrie, “to contact you, instead of me. Tyler is my DI, has been so since March, so what the bloody hell are you doing countermanding my orders to be contacted about his condition?”
“Please, Mr. Hunt, if you’d just sit down, and… Have you been drinking, Mr. Hunt?” Morgan crinkled his nose at Gene, whose eyes flashed dangerously back at him.
“Don’t you even dare. I want you to answer the sodding question, and answer it now!” Gene screamed, and Morgan moved to take the chair he’d previously been occupying, gesturing for Barrie to sit down, as well.
“If you would only take a seat, Mr. Hunt, it’s perfectly simple: you’ve got a serial killer on the loose, a particularly nasty one, I might add, and all of your resources should be spent on catching him, shouldn’t they? I was merely doing you a favor by keeping tabs on our boy there, instead of having you spread your department’s resources even further than they’re already stretched.” Morgan continued to speak with the same haughty tone, and he again gestured towards the seat next to him. Gene threw him another angry look, then sat down, heavily, in the chair.
“If I need your soddin’ help, Morgan, I’ll bloody well ask for it, and I sure as all hell didn’t ask for that! That boy is a member of my team, and seeing as he’s my responsibility, and has been for seven months now, I’ll thank you to kindly keep your nose out of it! And so far as my department’s resources are concerned, you can just bugger off, because I’ll damned well ask for help if we need it, and we most certainly don’t. Gene Hunt knows how to catch a killer, and Gene Hunt looks after his own, and Gene Hunt bloody well knows when he needs to ask for help from some arse-faced pompous git from the suburbs!” Gene’s voice rose again until he was bellowing, leaning forward, spittle flying from his mouth and at Morgan’s face.
Morgan took a moment to wipe at his face, and cast a mildly disgusted look at Gene. “Well, Sir, I certainly understand your point, but perhaps you can understand mine. Frank Morgan likes to look on the practical side of all situations, and Frank Morgan was simply trying to do you a favor.” Morgan gave Gene another condescending look, and Gene fumed, his mind practically screaming ‘hit the bastard! Don’t hit the bastard! Hit the bastard! Must not hit the bastard!’ at him over and over again. He leaned back in his seat, and cast a much more obvious look of disgust at both of the other men in the room.
Gene sat fuming for a few moments, then slowly collected himself and fixed a hard stare upon Morgan. “I need to know about the cases that he worked in Hyde. Any killers with a similar pattern to this one, any that were sent to the nuthouse instead of to prison, any cases that were unsolved. We think the killer might’ve come from there.”
Morgan raised his eyebrows, then his gaze turned cold, “I can assure you, Mr. Hunt, if there were any similar cases to this one at all in Hyde, I would’ve been the first to call you the second that these murders started being reported in the papers.”
“I still want all the case files on all the murderers he ever knicked, anyone he got banged up at all, I want copies of the files sent to Manchester A division, immediately.” Gene tried to keep his voice level, a sick, twisting feeling spurning in his gut as he saw the look on Morgan’s face. The bastard was hiding something from him, but what?
“And I can make sure that it’s done, in the swiftest manner possible. In fact, if Dr. Barrie will permit me to use his phone, I can call now and have the case files copied and sent over. Every murderer, you say?”
“Every damned one. And every soddin’ unsolved case as well, anything that Tyler might’ve worked on,” Gene said, his voice leveling out as his mind latched onto the thought that Morgan had to be concealing something.
“Very well,” Morgan said, and he turned to Barrie, “If you would be so kind, Sir,” he said, and Barrie nodded at the phone. Morgan picked it up, and Gene watched him carefully as he requested a Hyde number, and then requested to be transferred to a DI Scarborough. Gene cast him a questioning look at this, and listened as Morgan gave the orders.
“Andrew, I need every case file on which DI Tyler was ever assigned to be copied and sent up to A Division in Manchester. Yes, that’s right, every one. And every unsolved case that we’ve ever had, whether or not Tyler worked on them. That’s right, every one. Murders to be given priority over all other cases. Yes. No, no, they believe there’s a connection to their current murder streak and one that we might have had in Hyde. Yes, I’m well aware of that, Andrew. No, I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Of course. Yes. No. Thank you.” Morgan set the phone down, and Gene cast him another cold, questioning look.
“You’re putting your DI on this? Wouldn’t a DC be a more sensible choice?” Gene asked, and Morgan scowled at him.
“As you said, Sir, top priority,” Gene’s mind reeled at the way that Morgan said it, and he suddenly wished that he’d heard the other half of the conversation. There had been incredibly long pauses between the short, clipped answers that Morgan had given over the phone, and Gene was now certain that he was hiding something from him. He pushed the thought aside and turned to Barrie.
“And where were you, then, this afternoon? All afternoon you’re gone, and they had to call in the lad’s surgeon to place that endo-whatever tube down his throat again. Shouldn’t you be here, ICU doc and all?” Barrie swallowed hard and straightened his tie, and Gene felt his contempt for the man raise up a notch.
“I do have other patients, Sir,” Barrie started, and Gene cut him off.
“Cobblers. Nurses said you were still out to lunch, not even in the building. I heard them scurrying after you over some other poor bloke in Room…” Gene wracked his brain, “Room 5, as well. You were nowhere in the building.”
“As I was saying, Sir, I do have other patients, as well as many other responsibilities. I was giving a lecture at the time, Sir.” Gene raised his eyebrows at this, still not believing a word that Barrie was saying.
“If you were givin’ a lecture, why the hell didn’t the nurses know that?” Gene’s mind was working overtime; both of the men in the room were hiding something from him, but he still had no clue as to what it could be, or why they would be doing so.
“I’d assume they’d simply misread my schedule, Sir, they are only women, after all,” Barrie said, and despite his own reservations about the opposite sex in the workforce, Gene felt his disgust for the man deepen at the way that he said it. He was suddenly filled with the urge to have Annie come in and punch the man in the face, and the hilarity of the thought helped to calm him. She probably would, at that, he supposed.
“So… How is he? You mind telling me something concrete, or is all you’ve got to offer more of your ‘maybe’ shite?” Gene crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, and Morgan cast him another contemptuous look at his choice of words.
“I’m afraid the antibiotics we were using previously have had no effect, and so we’ve switched to a rather strong cocktail of broad spectrum antibiotics. What this means, Mr. Hunt, is that we’re giving him the absolute best that we have. I had previous reservations about using this particular mix of drugs, due to the strain that it can put on Mr. Wi - Mr. Tyler’s other systems,” Gene cut him off.
“You mean to tell me you don’t even know the man’s name? You just caught yourself forgetting his sodding name, you daft arsehole!” Gene felt his hackles rise, and then he noticed Morgan’s face. For the briefest second, a look of panic seemed to have crossed it. Gene stopped in his tracks, wondering if he’d imagined it, but he was sure he’d seen it. There was something between these two, and he had no idea what it was. He felt his anger move back to a low, slow simmering in the background as his mind twisted through their odd reactions. Why was Morgan so panicked about the daft twat forgetting Sam’s name? Was it actual concern for his former DI, or something else? An uncomfortable silence enveloped the room as the three men stared back and forth at one another.
Eventually, Barrie cleared his throat and continued, “As I was saying, I was against using this particular combination of drugs in Mr. Tyler’s case, due to the strain that it will put on his liver and kidneys, but, in my absence, Dr. Denslow has seen fit to put him on it. At Denslow’s orders, he is also back under 24 hour surveillance, and you will, of course, be contacted if there are any other changes in his condition.”
Gene mulled over this, not liking the way that Barrie had stammered and stuttered through the entire statement. What was he so nervous about? Was he just that frightened of Gene, or was there something else? Gene stood then, his mind still sifting through the facts at rapid speed, his memory latching on to every little detail of his conversation with the other two men.
Morgan stood when he saw Gene doing so, and offered his hand again. “I am truly sorry to have upset you, Mr. Hunt,” Morgan said, and Gene reached out and shook his hand.
“Just doing what you thought was best, Copper,” Gene said, and then turned to face Barrie, “And thank you for all you’re doing for our boy there. If you’ll excuse me, I do have a bloody investigation to run, and an injured officer to look after,” he added the last bit with a very strong tone, hoping that they understood that Sam was completely and totally under his protection. He was still musing over this as he stood and headed for the door, “I’ll let myself out then, shall I?” and left the office, casting one last cold, quizzical glance at the other two men. Thick as thieves, and both hiding quite a bit. It continued to sit uncomfortably for him as he stared at them, and then latched the door behind him.
Gene was still musing over the strange conversation, and the bizarre reactions that the other two men had had with him, when Ray came running up to him down the hall. Gene’s eyes went wide as Ray reached him, “Something happen to Sam?”
Ray shook his head and caught his breath, “No, Gov, but the bastard’s been here.”
Gene felt the entire world stagger and sway as he heard this, and he grabbed Ray by the shoulders, “What the bloody hell do you mean, Ray? What the fuck do you mean?”
Ray gestured over his shoulder, towards Sam’s room, “The same symbol that you and Chris found on that sculpture thing, the one we think the killer made, it’s carved on the wall of the room. Can barely see it, but it’s there, and no one knows how long it’s been there. Same symbol - it’s definitely our killer, bastard’s been in to call on the boss.”
Gene took off running down the hall, Ray hot on his heels, and they both ignored the squeaking complaints of the nurses in their station as they raced towards the room and bolted through the door.
The small room was becoming incredibly crowded as Ray and Gene burst through the door; Gene’s nurse was talking with about five others in one corner, and Gene took a brief second to wonder exactly how many of them there were. Chris was sitting on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest and a blank expression on his face, and Annie was kneeling next to Sam, one hand clasping his, the other lightly stroking his face. Gene felt an odd twinge of jealousy as he saw this, and then buried it deeply, not sure where it could possibly have come from.
“Where the bloody hell is…” Gene stared at the wall and squinted his eyes, and then noticed the symbol carved there, barely visible. He looked down at the floor and noted that there weren’t any bits of plaster there, so it had to have been done before the last time the floor was swept - hell, how often did they sweep in hospitals? Had to be frequent, he reasoned, and he realized that the floor could have been swept multiple times between the time the figure was carved, and the time that they had discovered it.
“Right, Ellie, tell the man what you know, and don’t you be afraid of him, if need be I’ll put him in his place,” Gene’s nurse was pushing one of the young, timid ones forward, and she pointed at the symbol on the wall.
“I, I noticed it a few days ago, Sir, before we took him off of the respirator for the first time. I knew I hadn’t seen it before, because I helped set up the heart monitor with Dr. Denslow and Dr. Gale, and I was staring right there when I did it, and there weren’t no marking there then. I weren’t sure how it got there, but it just showed up.” The nurse took a frightened step back, and Gene’s nurse patted her on the shoulder.
“I thought you lot had him under 24 hour watch back then? Who the hell was on watch when it happened, then?” Gene stared at the pack of them, and then his nurse came forward, her arms crossed over her chest.
“There was always someone in the room, either one of the nurses or one of the doctors, we don’t leave a patient on watch alone unless it’s an emergency and we’re going for help. I’ll check over all of the charts, find out who was on duty then, and I’ll have name for you within the hour.” She turned then, and called out to the room, “Right then, Nancy, you’re still on duty here, the rest of you, back to your normal stations. And you lot, only one of you here. The rest can stay outside the door or in the waiting room if you like, but only one in the room. It’s far too crowded in here for the lad. All of you, OUT!” The nurses began filing out of the room, and Ray poked Chris in the shoulder.
“Come on, get up, you div. Chris. Chris!” Gene felt another strange feeling surge through him as he watched Ray grabbing Chris and dragging him up by his underarms, and he turned a questioning look to his youngest detective.
“What’s up with you?” He asked, and Chris finally snapped out of his strange trance and looked at Gene. “You’re even more of a space case than usual, you are. You come up with something about the case?” He asked this last bit hopefully, wondering if Chris’ odd behavior was just an effect of his brain working overtime. Chris shook his head at that, and shook Ray off, and then the two of them exited.
Gene’s nurse looked up from where she was taking Sam’s pulse on his hidden left wrist, and gave the two of them a strange look. “You two, one of you needs to shove off for the night. I don’t care who stays, we’ve put in an extra chair for you, and Nancy can answer any questions you have best she can.”
Gene nodded towards Annie, “This is WDC Cartwright. She’ll be staying until midnight, and then I’ve got four officers coming to stand watch outside the door, one in the room at all times. One of them two,” he gestured towards the door, indicating Chris and Ray, “or me, we’ll be back at eight o’clock sharp, and then we’ll be rotating throughout the day. He’s not to be without one officer in the room, and at least two outside the door. I’ve got two constables on the way now, for that,” he added, and the nurse nodded back.
“All right then. And I’ve got one of my girls in here all times.” Annie stood, finally letting go of Sam’s hand, and Gene nodded at her.
“Cartwright, the three of us are staying until your plod team shows up, and you’re not to leave until all four of the night shift shows, understood?” Annie nodded at this. “All right then, I’ll be just outside until they come, and then I’ll see you here in the morning. We’re meeting in the waiting area, and then heading to the station together.” Gene moved forwards and grasped Sam’s hand, running his own fingers over the backs of Sam’s long slender ones. He felt the three women’s eyes boring into him, and then lightly settled Sam’s hand back on the bed. He reached forward and cupped Sam’s cheek in his palm one last time. “Good night, and sleep well, pain in the arse named Sam. And remember your soddin’ orders this time,” he said softly, and then walked out the door.
Annie stared after him for a moment, and then moved to pick up the second chair and set it down next to Sam’s bed, facing the young nurse’s chair and with her waist level with Sam’s. She clasped both of her hands over Sam’s and looked at the nurse, “So, Nancy, is it?” Gene heard her striking up a conversation about the vital sign tests that were run every hour, and then let the door shut behind him. A moment later, his nurse came out, and looked up at him expectantly.
“Not going to have a go at my girls over this, then?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and he shook his head, still trying to take in everything that had happened. Something was incredibly wrong here, and it was right under his nose; and that was something that should never, ever happen.
“We need to move him; another floor, maybe the isolation rooms two floors down, yeah, the ones that we keep criminals in normally - they’re easier to guard, although it’d be best to get him to another hospital, if we can,” Gene said, and the nurse shook her head at him.
“Doctors wouldn’t allow it, and I wouldn’t, either. He can’t be moved, and we’ll likely not be able to for another few days, at least.” She looked up at him, an odd look on her dour old face that made him think of cogs turning in a machine, and he raised his eyebrows, daring her to voice what he knew she was thinking. “I’ll go and look through those files for you,” turned out to be all that she said, and then she walked off towards the nurses’ station.
Gene turned around and cast a glance at Chris and Ray, who stared back at him from their bruised faces. Well, that was one way to get your anger at the situation worked out, he supposed. He shook his head and pointed down the hallway. “All right, sod off, you two. I want you back here at eight o’clock sharp. Any later and you won’t need to go kickin’ each other’s arses, I’ll kick ‘em both to the bloody moon and back for you.” Ray nodded, and then toed the back of Chris’ leg. Chris’ head snapped up, and he nodded as well. Gene gave him another questioning glance.
“Bloody hell, Skelton, you’re even more loopy than normal. You’d better be putting your brain to work on this case; now I know it can actually function, I’m going to start expecting good shite from you,” Gene said, and Chris nodded. Ray started to walk towards the lift doors, and Chris followed.
Gene leaned his back against the wall, and as he did so, he saw two distant figures exiting one of the offices on the opposite side of the hospital floor. From the shape of the silhouettes, it was Barrie and Morgan, leaving together. Gene started to go over every detail of their conversation in his mind, and crossed his arms over his chest. Something was horribly askew with the entire situation, and he didn’t like it at all. He saw the two constables step off of the lift as Chris and Ray stepped on, and then watched them slowly approach him. A thought struck him then, and he smiled to himself. The Gene Genie had a definite plan brewing, at least a bit of one.
The woods were filling with the strange, frightening sounds again, sounds of slithering and hissing, of scrabbling and growling slowly coming in closer. Thunder continued to rumble in the distance, the low grumbling of it occasionally punctuated by a sudden loud burst of sound that split the air. The leaves of the trees shook as wild, violent winds whipped through them, clattering together and adding their rustling and the scraping sound of their branches to the mad cacophony. The sounds pounded down upon Sam as he slowly stood, feeling the ground beneath his bare feet, a disconcerting compound of pebbles, sticks, moss, moldering leaves and damp earth.
As Sam looked around him, he noticed that the light was fading away, the dim patches between the dense canopy of the forest fading to a thick red color above him, setting the horizon on fire. There was no sign of the double, or of the test card girl, and the old stone sundial was nowhere to be found. There was one difference this time, though: a path, narrow and dark, but obvious for what it was, curling away from the clearing and through the wood. Sam grimaced as he stared at it, and then started down in, listening intently for any sounds of approach.
The winds were picking up even further, rippling through the woods with incredible force, and the roots of the smaller trees seemed to be straining against the ground with the force that pulled upon their top branches. Sam wrapped his arms around himself as he walked, wondering what twisted part of his subconscious could have possibly deemed it appropriate for him to be stuck in such a wood, totally nude, and noticing that the forest was actually getting thinner, more and more of the thick, reddish light showing through the branches as he made his way along the path. He started to walk more quickly, taking long strides and eventually breaking into a jog down the path, watching as the foliage above him and the trunks around him grew less and less dense, and the light faded down to a deepening darkness.
Eventually, the edge of the wood was in sight, and Sam stepped out of it, an odd feeling of glee overcoming him as he stood at the edge, the sounds still thick in the wood, but not present in the land ahead, which appeared to be a field of incredibly tall grass. Sam paused to lean against one of the edging trunks and rest for a moment, and then heard another sound, barely noticeable above the howling of the winds behind him and the horrible, screeching symphony of the woods behind him. Someone was clapping, slowly, the sound of palms slapping together growing louder and more frequent as the applause picked up speed.
“Tell me, Sam, if I clap my hands in the woods and no one hears, am I really making a sound?” Sam whirled around and saw the double come striding out of the wood along the same path that he himself had taken, and he sneered when he saw that the double was still wearing his 21st century suit.
“It’s a tree, falling,” Sam said, and the double raised an eyebrow.
“A tree, falling, Sam? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”
“The sound, that isn’t a sound if no one hears it, it’s supposed to be a tree falling in the woods, not someone clapping in the woods. You’re thinking of the sound of one hand clapping,” Sam said, and the double gave him a wide grin.
“Doesn’t that mean that you’re really mixing your stories, and not me? I am, after all, just a figment of your imagination. The real question is, are you a figment of your imagination, as well?” The double’s grin was even wider, a twisted, manic smile that made Sam’s innards twist inside of him.
“You are just a figment of my imagination. This place is just a figment of my imagination. I’m real.” Sam said it defiantly, and the double started clapping again, even harder, the single applause seeming hideously out of place at the edge of the wretched woods.
“Very, very good, Sam. So, we’ve established one fact. What about the others? Where else is real, and where else is a figment of your imagination? Who else is real, and who else is a figment of your imagination?” The double smiled at him again, “Come on, Sam, I know you know this. You’re really not making my job very easy, you know.”
“Oh, well, sorry to inconvenience you,” Sam spat at the double, and then stared forwards at the immense field in front of him. The strange, tall grass seemed to be even taller than he was, and it continued on and on, stretching out like an ocean of green before him.
“It’s really very simple, Sam. You just have to tell me what’s real, and what’s not, make your decisions. Simple case, really. You should be able to solve it in no time.” The double moved towards Sam, but stopped, thankfully, at the next tree over, leaning against it in the same manner that Sam was leaning against his own tree. He looked expectantly at Sam, and then added, “So, can you solve the case, Sam?”
Sam shook his head, trying to make sense of the double’s words. “So I solve the case, yeah, and that’s it? Is that what I need to do to get out of here? Solve the case, tell you that 2006 is the reality, and then I get to go home?” The double gave him a very strange look at this, and Sam watched his own features twist into a strange, devious grin.
“Why Sam, I think you’re confusing things. But then again, you always did love a good puzzle, didn’t you? Think you can solve this one, do you? Because a lot of questions are going to be answered here, if you can get it all worked out. Why don’t we go and have a looksy, then?” The double stretched out his arms, and the world suddenly started to fade into black, the noises of the woods dimming away, and Sam felt the ground harden to stone under his feet, and then felt the strange feeling of suddenly being clothed.
A fluorescent light flickered to life above Sam and the double, and Sam found himself back in the small, square concrete room, damp still trickling down the walls and the eight flat screen televisions all blaring static around him. He looked down and noticed that he was once again wearing his 1973 clothes, and then looked up to see the double, still wearing his customary work garb of 2006. The double smiled at him again, and the two televisions on one wall flickered to life, each showing a small, private hospital room, and each showing Sam’s own form stretched out on a bed.
Sam moved a bit closer to the wall, staring at the two screens, frightened by the similarity between his body in both of the worlds. The double moved forward and stood between the two screens, giving Sam a knowing look and raising his hands so that one was beneath each screen. “You tell me, Sam, which one is reality?”
“That one,” Sam said, and he pointed to his still form in 2006, electronics and steel gleaming amidst the white walls, the ventilator a tall, thin shaft beside the bed, the tube snaking into his mouth thin and heavy. The other monitor showed a similar scene, but the electronics were missing, the ventilator was a huge thing, and the walls were white plaster lined with a garish, brown pattern of wallpaper. Sam noticed that the IVs were different, as well; in 2006, a thin plastic bag with a long cylinder beneath it was connected to his hand by a much thinner tube, and in 1973, the bag was replaced by an odd, hard glass bottle, the tube beneath it much heavier, as was the line going into his hand. Sam pointed again at 2006, “That one, 2006, I’m in a coma, there. The other one is just a figment of my imagination.”
“You’re so sure?” The double asked, and Sam shot him a questioning look.
“Of course I’m sure! Why else would I remember everything that I know? Why else would I know the history that fits into place between the two? I’m certain of it, 2006 is the reality.” Sam felt the certainty fading as he said it, and his gaze shifted between the two monitors. But 1973 felt so real…
“Ah, Sam, you’re really not certain, are you? And that’s the problem. You have to know,” the double said, and then turned around and stepped back beside Sam. “Not doing very well in either world, are we, now?”
“And whose fault is that? You were there! You were the one that did it to me!” Sam suddenly felt his anger rise, and he reached out to grab the double by the collar of his suit jacket. “You did that to me!” Sam was screaming now, and he released one hand from the double’s collar, and then drew his fist back, slamming it into the double’s face.
The double fell to the ground, and then started to laugh in response to this, “Oh, Sam, getting so violent now, aren’t you? All your new friends aren’t necessarily the best influence on your temperament, are they?” The double climbed to his feet, rubbing at his jaw and still grinning. “And why on earth would you blame me for what happened to you? I’m just a figment of your imagination, remember, Sam? So everything that happened to you, was that just a figment of your imagination?”
“Of course it was!” Sam was screaming at the double now, and he advanced closer so that their two faces were nearly touching. “The whole bloody thing was just some twisted nightmare that the darkest parts of my mind cooked up! Everything that happened to me there,” Sam gestured towards the 1973 screen, “all of it, it was just some damned nightmare that the worst parts of my brain cooked up, and so are you! You’re just a horrible hallucination, just something that crawled out of my brain, the result of too many, too many horror movies and suspense novels and reading reports on all the shit that can happen in the world, that’s all you are!” The double was still grinning as Sam gave into his crazed tirade.
“Sam, Sam, Sam, look, I want you to watch this,” the double said, and then he grabbed Sam by the shoulders and twisted him around, pointing at the two screens on the opposite wall. Both of the screens flashed to life. In one of them, Sam saw his body being hit, hard, by the passing car, saw himself roll up and over its bonnet, sliding back over its roof and boot to land on the road. In the other, Sam saw himself stretched out against the bizarre wooden cross, thick shards of glass rammed through his arms and suspending him against it. He saw hands moving along his shoulders, but couldn’t make out the figures behind his body in the image. Two pairs of hands, one incredibly large and calloused, the other much cleaner, smaller, although still larger than his. The smaller hands seemed to be directing the larger ones, pointing out places along his torso…
“Who the hell was it?” Sam whirled on the double and pointed at the screen, “Who the hell was there? Is that what I need to do? I need to figure out who they are? Myers, I know that name, the Gov mentioned it to me! So who was the other one? Is that what they’re still trying to find out? Is that what I have to do? Catch him, and then I can go back?” Sam’s eyes were wide and his face grew red with the force of his shouting, and he felt himself growing more and more crazed as he screamed at the double.
The double seemed unfazed by Sam’s shouts, and then moved forward, standing between the two screens, pointing at Sam’s body, laying on the ground in 2006, crumpled and bent by the force of the speeding car, and then at Sam’s form on the wooden cross, the smaller hands still pointing out places along his torso and back. “Why would you do that to yourself, Sam? Why would you do either of those things to yourself?”
“What the hell do you mean? I didn’t have that bastard catch me deliberately, nothing that happens in the whole cracked world there is under my control! It’s just some bloody stupid nightmare that keeps going on, and on, and on, and there’s nothing that I can do to stop it! And so far as what happened in reality is concerned, it was not, I repeat, it was NOT a conscious decision!”
“Oh, Sam, I know that what happened in reality wasn’t a conscious decision, but your stepping in front of the car certainly was,” the double crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at Sam, who grew more confused an angrier.
“What the bloody hell do you mean, reality wasn’t a conscious decision, but stepping in front of the car was? The car was reality! That’s how I wound up in this whole mad world in the first place! That’s how I ended up there!” Sam turned and pointed at the 2006 hospital, and the double gave a very frustrated, almost sad laugh at this.
“Sam, I need you to work with me here. I’m already giving you more hints than I really should, you know. I need you to try and focus, all right? Now, what really happened? In reality, what happened?” The double looked exasperated, and Sam moved forward and slammed the image of himself being hit by the car with his fist.
“What really happened? I was hit by a bloody car, is what really happened! And the only reason that this whole nightmare,” Sam pointed at the image of himself suspended, blood seeping through his wounds and the hands still moving along his body, their owners hidden in the shadows, “the only reason, that this nightmare started, was because I’m in trouble there,” Sam pointed at the 2006 hospital screen. “And that’s why I’m in the same type of trouble there,” Sam pointed at the 1973 hospital. “Once those morons in hospital fix this, then I’ll wake up in 1973 again, right? Yeah? That’s how it works? And then I figure out who the hell that is,” Sam pointed at the hands, “then I’ve solved the case. I know how this works. I solve the case, and then I can come home, wake up, there,” Sam pointed at the 2006 hospital screen again, aware that he was jumping about the room and shouting like a madman, his movements growing more and more hectic as he pointed at the different screens.
“Oh, is that how it works, Sam? I didn’t know you were the one making the rules. I told you already, you have to tell me what reality is, and then you get to make your decisions.”
“What decisions? There are no decisions to be made! This whole world, this whole clichéd version of 1973, that’s just my mind, I know it is! And it’s gone even more to shite than usual because something happened in hospital, to me in a coma, and once they fix that, it’ll go back to normal. And then I solve the case, and the nightmare ends! And then we’re back to just 1973, and 2006, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll fix it enough in reality so that I can wake up and go back there!”
“Is that what you want?” The double’s voice took on an odd, knowing tone, and Sam felt the last strand of his patience and sanity snap.
“What the fuck else would I want?” He was screaming at the top of his lungs, and then the double disappeared, fading into the background, the sound of his laughter still echoing in the room. Sam started to charge at the walls, smacking his fists into the televisions, trying to rip them from the walls and failing. He ended up dashing about the room in an insane frenzy, slamming his fists into walls and televisions alike, and eventually the crazed energy bled out from him, and he sat down, hard, on the floor, curling his legs up against him and sobbing. “I just want this to end. I want out of here. I want to go home… I just want to go home…”
The four lit monitors faded back into snow, and Sam was incredibly grateful for it. Suddenly, one of the televisions on the other walls flickered into a picture, and he slowly clambered to his feet, wiping furiously at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He moved towards the lit monitor and saw that it was displaying the 1973 hospital room, except that the tube had been removed from his mouth, and replaced by the oxygen mask. Was this what had happened before, in 1973? The picture came into crystal clear focus, and he saw that Annie was sitting next to him, and that she was crying. “No. No, whatever I did to the others, don’t tell me I did something like that to her. Please, don’t let me have done something like that to Annie…”
The room started to spin again, and Sam felt the ground give way underneath him. He paused to wonder where he was going, filled with dread that he’d wake up in the hospital room and have Annie tell him some horrible story about the nightmare past his mind had managed to cook up for her.
All comments and criticism are highly encouraged and appreciated.
And now I'm going to go curl up into a whinging little ball of misery.