Fanfic: A Hunter Captured Chapter 4: A Hunter Paralyzed
A hunter paralyzed
Chapter 4
The operation room-slash-doctor’s office was a hodgepodge of mismatched medical equipment, biohazard trash bags adorning every corner. Cots pilfered from medical supplies stores stuck in a corner; oxygen machines from an old folk’s home; a stack of first aid kits, even some meant for pets that came from a vet’s office. Automated external defibrillators taken from ambulances, portable dialysis machines from a medical salesman’s home, even an ultrasound machine dragged in by a hopeful scavenger whose wife was in her first trimester.
Against the far wall of the room, there were five large totes stacked on top of each other, each labeled ‘Over the Counter’, ‘Vitamins’, ‘Antibiotics/Antiviral’, ‘Doctor’s orders ONLY’ and ‘Look it up’. Each held a toss up of bottles and salves, chucked in by Dr. Stacey as he sorted the heavy bags brought to him by the trusted soldiers allowed by Jameson to raid pharmacies. ‘Look it up’ and ‘Doctor’s orders’ were under heavy lock and key.
The doctor was a tall man and fit, his fading tan still prominent against his brightly white labcoat. He had insisted on getting plenty of medical uniforms, scrubs and labcoats, fresh and new, just for him. Good for moral, better for patients not to see accumulating stains of blood and bile. Truthfully, it was a selfish endeavor. Back at his practice in LA he always kept everything immaculate.
Glossy floors shined in the operating room and hallway enough to be a slip hazard. Plush carpet in the reception area as modern art adorned the walls, ever changing with the latest trend, a wide wall to wall mirror his best patients always appreciated. Not cramped and stuffy, the smell of medicines coalescing into a pungent odor his body absorbed into itself, machinery with too many cables and tubes creeping their bionic tentacles out, one trip away from mashing his head into irreplaceable lifesaving gizmos.
Yes, he felt bitter about it, but at least he was alive and safer than most of humanity. A medical conference had unquestionably saved his life, one in the mountains with a promise of hiking and breathtaking views. LA became a bloodbath pretty quick; close quarters, too many people, too many gangs and guns and plastic filled people with no idea how to solve a problem without throwing money at it, god bless them.
Not that the doctors at the ritzy hotel lived that long anyway. Most hurried to nearby hospitals to help, heading towards the hungry maw where most of the zombies would emerge. Becoming one themselves, dying at their hands when their patients feverish minds switched off the human factor. All fury and noise, the moans and gibbering screams howling long and far in the fetid air.
The memory forced his mind into a dark place. Taking note of his corporeal identity in a small stand mirror on his desk, he grounded himself into the here and now. The right side of his face displayed high cheekbones and a strong chin, nose sharply angular. The eye was red rimmed and slightly sunken from exhaustion, his bleached hair showed dark brown roots. Back then he was healthy and rested, attractive in that fake way that puts people off, but he loved it anyway. He hadn’t headed to assist right away with the rest of his peers. He was a plastic surgeon after all. Gastric bypass and tummy tucking his specialty. Nonetheless, he had a hand in every other little procedure and was good at all of it. Even did some pro bono, reconstructing the faces of domestic violence victims. Good for business, that. Good practice, too.
Irony is a cold hearted bitch when she feels like it. The left side of his face was a puckered mess; jagged scars gouged his upper cheek, the lower part a crosshatch of raw stitches as his remaining flesh was pulled taut to seal his mouth away. Under his clothes, he had bite marks and missing skin, the mottled bruises a mere echo of their once throbbing selves. His self-preservation had relented and he had gone to help a small clinic at the hotel, cries for help ringing in his ears as dozens of people poured in from surrounding towns. Tales of unbelievable horror spewing from them as their hurt loved ones became monsters in front of their unseeing eyes.
No one doubted that Dr. Stacey was immune, no siree.
His fingers, long and nimble, were whole and manicured. His last vanity, the last thing he held near and dear, that kept him sane. He had actually asked every possible candidate that came into his care if they had any nail care experience and found himself an old, yet spry, grandma to care for them every couple of days. Her small surviving family ate considerably better than the rest of the refugees.
Medical text books surrounded him, emergency procedures and intensive surgeries, everything he didn’t have to worry about since medical school and internship. He wasn’t a stupid or inept man; plastic surgery is about sculpting the human body and making it look natural, a steady hand to keep scarring to a minimum. Something incredibly difficult to pull off with a different person each time; many body types striving to be one. It was about achieving perfection, not the harsh and hurried business of saving lives.
Now he had to relearn how to pinch severed arteries and kludge together organs, tedious tasks like monitoring dialysis and heart rates and blood pressure and things he would kill to have a nurse do. This is why he took some time for a makeshift class, smoking out the people with the aptitude for the job. So far, the best he could get out of them was a paramedic-wannabe; good enough to stabilize the patient and let him handle it.
The heavy tome before him detailed how to perform a lumbar puncture, the contraindications and the risks. A lot of yadda yadda since he was going to do it anyway. Benstein wanted some samples and there were plenty more Jumping Jacks to catch if this one died from an infection or spinal damage. He had fought long and hard to beat down his neatness a.k.a. work ethic a.k.a. OCD, settling for passable surgery that fixed boo-boos in a hurry. People got injured in bulk nowadays, specially those crazy mo-fos calling themselves recoverers or raiders or whatever, dying while waiting on him to finish up their buddy. Too many molotovs, bullets and special infected breaking bones and bursting organs.
Nobody wants to be beautiful anymore, just alive. Breaks his heart, it does.
He twiddled the small bottles of iodine and pancuronium between his agile fingers; the first a simple disinfectant, the second a fast acting neuromuscular blocking agent. A paralytic agent that doesn’t alter the level of consciousness, that doesn’t numb the pain away. Just keeps the subject still so his needle doesn’t rip the inside of its spinal cord since he couldn’t very well ask it to take a deep breath and hold on. It should be used with an analgesic, the procedure is painful after all, but those rations are too dear to waste on something that is chemically resistant.
He would inject twice the recommended dosage first; see if that’s enough to paralyze its muscles. Hope that its heart and lungs won’t succumb to it. He wasn’t an anesthesiologist, so educated guess work was as close as it was going to get. He should be able to maintain that paralysis indefinitely as long as he injected it at least every half hour to be safe, give the dentist time to do her job. Something Dr. May deemed necessary and humanizing.
At least he had that, eh? Not having to deal with rotting teeth and halitosis. No, Gwen the dentist can be the necessary evil of the camp. He’s happy with the title of life-saver, thank you very much.
----
Quiet. Still. Wait. Waitwaitwait. No cover. No escape. No kill. No prey. Only trap. Only pain. Want free, the high, the dark, the hunting grounds, want brothers and mobpack, want runjumppounce. Womantrap, smallstrongbeast, too strong. Want old cover, shredded. Want new cover, taken. Want any cover. Pleasepleaseplease. Free.
Still shackled and bound, Peter was mostly clean now, his skin a light brown with a tinge of sickly yellow, hair thick, wavy and long in the front. The bruised body evidenced its recent ordeal, a purple boot print at his back and ribs, his brow swollen and red, angry red belts crisscrossed his legs, the nylon rope still tightly wound as Dr. Stacey stipulated that it was best to get him into a fetal position to keep his back aligned, the knobs of his spine protruding. So the rope remained to be readjusted later so that his knees would meet his chest.
Since Reilly had washed and dried him up, Peter was deathly quiet. So still and limp, his body seemed lifeless, eyes closed and mouth lax. The slight rise of his chest, as he shallowly breathed, the only visible sign of life. Originally she thought that he was asleep, but the soldier guarding him said Peter opened his eyes and looked around when she or Jameson wasn’t near. “Maybe he can’t rest unless I’m around. Too scared to let his guard down. This is a rather unsettling experience.”
A roll of his eyes, a dismissive scoff, Jameson leaned in close to the hunter’s suspended body. “He’s playing possum. Not many of the mutts do it, but I’ve seen it. Lay low with nowhere to hide when guns are a-plenty and the survivors are too well organized. Waiting for the group to move on and catch the stragglers.” Exhausted from a long night, never wanting to leave the infected alone too long till it was secured in a cage; he lazily rattled the muzzle back and forth once. Its neck thrummed lowly, tendons and muscles standing out of its neck as the adam’s apple bobbed. “This little bastard wants to escape us, Dr. May. Must be your bed manner.”
Her face momentarily creased as a small sneer sneaked past her composure, appalled but too weary to put up a fight. They have never spent this much time in each other’s lovely company and it really is a test of endurance to remain defensive and quarrelsome for hours on end. Jameson didn’t trust her not to loosen the restraints in a moment of sympathetic weakness; Reilly didn’t trust him not to throttle poor Peter in a flash of paranoid idiocy. It was getting old.
The tension was relieved as a rhythmic clackety-clack rolled into the room, a small pushcart followed by a cheerful doctor; eyes alight even through a rim of dark, lower half of his face covered by a surgical mask. “Where’s my patient, huh? This him? Heck of a catch, Sir. Saw the video of you wrangling him. Blew my mind how you pulled that off. Doctor Reilly, look at you! Standing next to a rabid infected and not batting an eye as you tied him up. Didn’t know you had it in you, crazy girl.” Friendly, disarming, voice muffled by the mask and slurred by his wounds. He was obviously high.
Jameson took note of the man’s hands, stable and sure, a good sign that he wasn’t too far gone. Stacey was perpetually under the influence of some prescription drug, mostly Oxycontin and Valium. He was upfront with the leadership here about it. It was an addiction that preceded the zombie apocalypse and if they wanted him functional, he couldn’t very well deal with withdrawal on top of all the pain that racks him from bad infections and messy patchwork to close his injuries. Doctors with MDs were a hard commodity to find as most died in that first wave. As long as Stacey was discreet and didn’t deal any drugs to anyone, and he meant anyone, he’d let it slide. He kept his flock clean, destroying any useless drug catches he found, keeping alcohol and cigarettes to a minimum, any severe addicts to go cold turkey under 24 hour watch. He didn’t keep people in line through fear; he did it with stern discipline, the force of his personality assuaging people’s distrust of authority. Toe the line he dictates and they’ll be safe under his wing. Rock the boat and he’ll personally change their mind.
Reilly glanced at the cart and saw only vials for samples, disinfectants, gauze, and a long packet with the words Spinal Needle bolded on the upper left corner, underneath an illustration of the tip, sharp and wide. “Where’s the portable MRI that the scavengers managed to get from that medical university?” A curiosity, an advancement in technology, medical marvels to go.
Pristine latex gloves wrapped his hands which filled up a syringe with a clear oily liquid as he then deftly found a thumping vein in the hunter’s arm. “Sad to say that contraption is still in its developmental years. It’s not strong enough to get a good scan, too much distortion.” He tapped the hypodermic once, squeezing slightly as a squirt of liquid jetted into the air. He swabbed the area with alcohol; a quick squeeze emptied the syringe into its blood, sleekly pulling it out of the vein, not a drop of blood spilled. “I’ve tried it out on my foot. Took forever and I was as pleasantly still as can be. Still looked like rubbish. Could need calibration, but it’s too new to find in any of the books I have and I definitely don’t have a clue how to mess around without breaking the thing.” He placed the syringe in a red biohazard bag to be incinerated once they were done. A dime a dozen, no need to save up on them. Probably more syringes in the world than people right now. “You want an accurate result, you need a big one, and I’m not going to go anywhere near a hospital. Scratch that out of your report.”
A stethoscope now dangled from his ears as he warmed the pad against his wrist, his spirited heartbeat thumping loud and clear. Stacey placed it on the hunter’s chest, listening as its lungs inhaled furiously, its heart a frantic beating drum. “Ok, good news. Shot didn’t kill the guy, tough little trooper that he is. Bad news, we need to do a little test, make sure he can’t move even a toe.” Stacey straightened up, patted his thighs and nodded at Jameson.
A turn of a key loosened the chain on the right hand side. The arm, now free, slumped to the floor, the body angling lopsidedly. The hunter’s breathing sped, a guttural moan slipping past its lips, jaw open and lax. “I say that works pretty well. Help me get him on the stretcher.” The improvised manacles were unlocked; red welts a tight band around Peter’s wrists. Before the powerless man’s face smashed against the tiled floor, Stacey placed a stabilizing hand on a lean shoulder as Jameson hooked his arms underneath the hunter’s armpits to haul it up.
What? Nononono, move, attack, jump, run, slash, moveattackjumprunSLASH... MOVE... No. Dead, killed me, dead.
----
The moan had never ceased; melancholic, desperate. At times, a sharp breath would try to fill Peter’s lungs only to hobble out slowly. “Bet when he does that, he’s going for that screech. Trying to scare us off, huh? Not gonna work, buddy. Need a fully working diaphragm for that.” From the stretcher they made a quick trip to a long table in an adjacent room. There were two stainless steel sinks with a long-necked faucet each, two sets of valves for gas and air, two small electrical outlet towers next to those. An everyday laboratory table, now the stage for a medical first; the controlled removal of cerebrospinal fluid filled with a mind and body altering virus.
“A bit cramped, but what isn’t these days?” Silence met the doctor’s remark. He glanced behind himself, took note of Jameson’s sour look, Reilly’s worried inquisitiveness, the soldier with the big gun freaking out by his lonesome; all tired and too wired to loosen up a little. “Ok, so I guess these Chatty Cathys aren’t here for a conversation, huh buddy?”
The restraints by the hunter’s legs slackened, blood rushing to its extremities as a growl rumbled faintly. “What’s this? Getting to use some vocal cords there? Not even ten minutes in, drugs already wearing off.” He maneuvered the naked limbs around, muscles shuddering softly as neurons flashed incomplete messages to each other, and retied the rope.
A spark of consideration crossed Jameson’s eyes. “It put the mutt down long enough to restrain it if need be.” A dark red-brown swirl of iodine circled the hunter’s lower back, Stacey’s light fingers counting down the vertebrae from the neck down to find the right niche to pierce through. Every touch an electric jolt to the immobilized hunter, fearful adrenaline pumping throughout its being, stirring muscles into urgently desired action.
Spot found, Stacey plucked the spinal needle from the tray and aligned it, a quick unwavering jab punched through flesh and cartilage. “Yep, but I doubled the maximum allowable dose for his size and we don’t have barrels of the stuff just sitting around.” A white spike of pain ricocheted inside the infected man, muscles tensing against the ropes as an inhuman bawl croaked from its throat.
Dr. May paced towards Peter’s head and smoothed his hair back. Slight trembles coursed up her hand. “It would be better to save it for occasions like these. Delicate times. Besides, he’s not going to escape. I already assured you of that.” A curved tap was placed at the end of the needle as drops of a viscous liquid seeped out into a glass vial.
Stacey filled another syringe with the paralyzer, tapped the crux of the arm for another vein and halted, laying the full hypodermic onto the tray on the cart, unseen by everyone else except the apprehensive soldier, breath held and eyes wide.
A beat of silence crossed the room, tension like a morning tide leaving behind oddities of thoughts. Ugly things from the depths. It passed. “I can’t say I’m surprised that you disagreed with me.” A quick dismissal. “Doc, keep some handy.” A standing order. “Lee, after this take a sit down with the doctor to learn how to use it, you’re now head dog catcher.” An unwavering ultimatum.
Lee, who spent hours looking up scary things online for the thrill, read about hauntings and exorcisms for fun. Who marathoned his way through classic zombie movies every Halloween with friends, all joking about how they’d survive. This Lee right here wanted border patrol and crowd control duties, even shit clean up. Not this, not with these people and their crazy, not with a zombie who might infect him. Oh, yes. Lee wanted a big gun and bullet proof body armor, so he lied and claimed that a bite mark he gave himself was from infected stereotype #3. Blood drained from his face as his words stumbled out. “But sir…”
Jameson smiled wide, understanding and petrifying at once. Like that of a loving father that beats his kids when drunk. “No excuses. You haven’t taken your eye or aim off it since the clearing. I can see that you know what’s at stake here. You just need to realize that ASAP, understood soldier?”
“Yes, sir!” Too late to come clean, really. In too deep, seen too much. Seen way too much. Being a disappointment was a likelier death sentence than guarding a convoy to save people at a city.
At around fifteen minutes from the initial injection, Stacey administered the second shot. The first vial containing the spinal fluid was half full. It was going to take a while to fill up three, so he adjusted the tap to pour more quickly. The sudden depressurizing of fluids around the cranial membranes was going to give Peter a hell of a migraine till the body replenished itself, but he wouldn’t hear any complaints, so what the hell?
----
The short body was splayed on the X-shaped table, strapped in as a precaution. Stacey wondered why a scientific outpost in the middle of nowhere had such a table, but who was he to ask those questions. Too big for a rhesus monkey, that’s for sure. Maybe they experimented with orangutans or gorillas, or this CEDA subsidiary had a hand in illegal human experimentation and that’s why they’re better prepared at dealing with a zombie virus, who knew? Who cared? Not him. Now let’s be a dear and pop our pills.
Gwen the dentist sat the ready, all of her tools by her side. Hair in a net, surgical mask and face shield concealing her terrified face. Thick latex gloves rubbing against her rubber apron, worried fingers that didn’t want to go anywhere near the bloody mess with human bits stuck inside.
Lee, the lucky soldier, was standing by the door. Wired, awake and about to collapse, he looked like he wanted to be here as much as Gwen did. Dr. May and Jameson had left to their quarters. Doctor’s orders, tomorrow was going to be a big day. Announcements to make to the camp and over the radio, reports to be filed and catalogued. High command wanted an info packet sent to them by the end of the week; a 700 mile trip, passing three survivor camps to a secure undisclosed location. A lot of coordination and resources to plan, human error to take into account.
The hunter was heavily sedated and paralyzed for this part, for Gwen’s waning comfort. A sheet placed across his midsection, his nudity embarrassed her to frantic tears. “I already cut off the muzzle from his skin, there’s a mouth retractor so no chomping down, ok? Waiting is going to make it worse”
Her hands reached up and placed a suction hose on the side of Peter’s mouth, a water spout jetted shortly against a bloody tongue. A splash of red dribbled off her face shield, her eyes crossed as she followed it down. “Why can’t we just leave it be?”
A beep-beep rang loudly from a metal detector wand as Stacey passed it over the hunter’s arm. A swab of alcohol drenched cotton wiped at the bump. “Carrion breath? Humanization? It’s disgusting to look at?” He swiftly split the skin with a scalpel and dug out a bullet with slim forceps.
The sharp needle end of her dental probe scrapped a hunk of stringy meat between the front incisors. Bile teetered at the edge of her throat as it was sucked down the tube. “But…”
Stacey waved his hand around and returned to delicately stitching the wound. “Get the ball rolling and your training will take over.” Another swab of disinfectant, another wave of the wand; done more as a pastime as he waited for her to finish her chore.
She pushed her chair back, arms outstretched, voice incredulous and high. “What training? I’m a dental hygienist student, first year. I can barely handle cavities and now.” The suction hose stuck to the hunter’s tongue, the sound a sickening slurp. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
The armed soldier walked around the table, eyeing up the hunter, placing the muzzle of his gun at the strapped head. “Just blast it with water or something. Make it look like you did something for Dr. May so she won’t bitch about it.” A quick poke and a step back, the stench emanating from the open mouth had hit him like a wave.
“No. Cut corners now and you’ll cut corners later. Have some pride in your work. Here, tell me what to do.” Stacey snatched the dental probe from her hand and scrapped sideways against the gumline, a fresh trickle of blood streamed down mingling with the old.
She watched him for a couple of minutes, wincing inside as he ineptly made a mess of gums, going in dry and forgetting to suck up debris. “You’re doing it all wrong. Give me.” She held the water spout and probe in a single hand, positioned a circular mirror inside the mouth and in speedy downward strokes removed layers of muck from behind the teeth and in between. Nausea forgotten, purpose remembered, she focused at the task at hand and ignored the little voice screaming that it was going to bite her fingers off.
Stacey smiled and nodded, pleased with himself. The metal detector beep-beeped again down the length of the lax body finding more fragments to extract. A shadow loomed from behind; he shared a look with Lee and shrugged when the soldier shook his head and doped the hunter up some more. Enough chemicals had been pumped into Peter during the last hour to kill a large horse.
Hopefully, Jumping Jack will wake up from this. Hate to go through all the clean up again.
---
A/N:
This is the last chapter of A hunter [past-tense verb], since now we’re moving up in pace and plot, skipping days and weeks as the experimentation progresses. The chapter titles will represent the passage of time, i.e. Day One: Accommodation, Day Five: Reeducation etc.
The cast of main characters have been introduced, their interactions with each other established to evolve from here on out. Is there anyone you’ve liked, whom you agree or identify with? Anyone you dislike?
What’s your favorite part? What bored you? I’d like some feedback to see what works. The storyline is pre-established. How I write it is not.
I know that slow-paced build up isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, so I thank those that have reviewed and favorited this story. It’s pretty different from anything else I’ve written and I’m glad to know people like it.
Chapter 4
The operation room-slash-doctor’s office was a hodgepodge of mismatched medical equipment, biohazard trash bags adorning every corner. Cots pilfered from medical supplies stores stuck in a corner; oxygen machines from an old folk’s home; a stack of first aid kits, even some meant for pets that came from a vet’s office. Automated external defibrillators taken from ambulances, portable dialysis machines from a medical salesman’s home, even an ultrasound machine dragged in by a hopeful scavenger whose wife was in her first trimester.
Against the far wall of the room, there were five large totes stacked on top of each other, each labeled ‘Over the Counter’, ‘Vitamins’, ‘Antibiotics/Antiviral’, ‘Doctor’s orders ONLY’ and ‘Look it up’. Each held a toss up of bottles and salves, chucked in by Dr. Stacey as he sorted the heavy bags brought to him by the trusted soldiers allowed by Jameson to raid pharmacies. ‘Look it up’ and ‘Doctor’s orders’ were under heavy lock and key.
The doctor was a tall man and fit, his fading tan still prominent against his brightly white labcoat. He had insisted on getting plenty of medical uniforms, scrubs and labcoats, fresh and new, just for him. Good for moral, better for patients not to see accumulating stains of blood and bile. Truthfully, it was a selfish endeavor. Back at his practice in LA he always kept everything immaculate.
Glossy floors shined in the operating room and hallway enough to be a slip hazard. Plush carpet in the reception area as modern art adorned the walls, ever changing with the latest trend, a wide wall to wall mirror his best patients always appreciated. Not cramped and stuffy, the smell of medicines coalescing into a pungent odor his body absorbed into itself, machinery with too many cables and tubes creeping their bionic tentacles out, one trip away from mashing his head into irreplaceable lifesaving gizmos.
Yes, he felt bitter about it, but at least he was alive and safer than most of humanity. A medical conference had unquestionably saved his life, one in the mountains with a promise of hiking and breathtaking views. LA became a bloodbath pretty quick; close quarters, too many people, too many gangs and guns and plastic filled people with no idea how to solve a problem without throwing money at it, god bless them.
Not that the doctors at the ritzy hotel lived that long anyway. Most hurried to nearby hospitals to help, heading towards the hungry maw where most of the zombies would emerge. Becoming one themselves, dying at their hands when their patients feverish minds switched off the human factor. All fury and noise, the moans and gibbering screams howling long and far in the fetid air.
The memory forced his mind into a dark place. Taking note of his corporeal identity in a small stand mirror on his desk, he grounded himself into the here and now. The right side of his face displayed high cheekbones and a strong chin, nose sharply angular. The eye was red rimmed and slightly sunken from exhaustion, his bleached hair showed dark brown roots. Back then he was healthy and rested, attractive in that fake way that puts people off, but he loved it anyway. He hadn’t headed to assist right away with the rest of his peers. He was a plastic surgeon after all. Gastric bypass and tummy tucking his specialty. Nonetheless, he had a hand in every other little procedure and was good at all of it. Even did some pro bono, reconstructing the faces of domestic violence victims. Good for business, that. Good practice, too.
Irony is a cold hearted bitch when she feels like it. The left side of his face was a puckered mess; jagged scars gouged his upper cheek, the lower part a crosshatch of raw stitches as his remaining flesh was pulled taut to seal his mouth away. Under his clothes, he had bite marks and missing skin, the mottled bruises a mere echo of their once throbbing selves. His self-preservation had relented and he had gone to help a small clinic at the hotel, cries for help ringing in his ears as dozens of people poured in from surrounding towns. Tales of unbelievable horror spewing from them as their hurt loved ones became monsters in front of their unseeing eyes.
No one doubted that Dr. Stacey was immune, no siree.
His fingers, long and nimble, were whole and manicured. His last vanity, the last thing he held near and dear, that kept him sane. He had actually asked every possible candidate that came into his care if they had any nail care experience and found himself an old, yet spry, grandma to care for them every couple of days. Her small surviving family ate considerably better than the rest of the refugees.
Medical text books surrounded him, emergency procedures and intensive surgeries, everything he didn’t have to worry about since medical school and internship. He wasn’t a stupid or inept man; plastic surgery is about sculpting the human body and making it look natural, a steady hand to keep scarring to a minimum. Something incredibly difficult to pull off with a different person each time; many body types striving to be one. It was about achieving perfection, not the harsh and hurried business of saving lives.
Now he had to relearn how to pinch severed arteries and kludge together organs, tedious tasks like monitoring dialysis and heart rates and blood pressure and things he would kill to have a nurse do. This is why he took some time for a makeshift class, smoking out the people with the aptitude for the job. So far, the best he could get out of them was a paramedic-wannabe; good enough to stabilize the patient and let him handle it.
The heavy tome before him detailed how to perform a lumbar puncture, the contraindications and the risks. A lot of yadda yadda since he was going to do it anyway. Benstein wanted some samples and there were plenty more Jumping Jacks to catch if this one died from an infection or spinal damage. He had fought long and hard to beat down his neatness a.k.a. work ethic a.k.a. OCD, settling for passable surgery that fixed boo-boos in a hurry. People got injured in bulk nowadays, specially those crazy mo-fos calling themselves recoverers or raiders or whatever, dying while waiting on him to finish up their buddy. Too many molotovs, bullets and special infected breaking bones and bursting organs.
Nobody wants to be beautiful anymore, just alive. Breaks his heart, it does.
He twiddled the small bottles of iodine and pancuronium between his agile fingers; the first a simple disinfectant, the second a fast acting neuromuscular blocking agent. A paralytic agent that doesn’t alter the level of consciousness, that doesn’t numb the pain away. Just keeps the subject still so his needle doesn’t rip the inside of its spinal cord since he couldn’t very well ask it to take a deep breath and hold on. It should be used with an analgesic, the procedure is painful after all, but those rations are too dear to waste on something that is chemically resistant.
He would inject twice the recommended dosage first; see if that’s enough to paralyze its muscles. Hope that its heart and lungs won’t succumb to it. He wasn’t an anesthesiologist, so educated guess work was as close as it was going to get. He should be able to maintain that paralysis indefinitely as long as he injected it at least every half hour to be safe, give the dentist time to do her job. Something Dr. May deemed necessary and humanizing.
At least he had that, eh? Not having to deal with rotting teeth and halitosis. No, Gwen the dentist can be the necessary evil of the camp. He’s happy with the title of life-saver, thank you very much.
----
Quiet. Still. Wait. Waitwaitwait. No cover. No escape. No kill. No prey. Only trap. Only pain. Want free, the high, the dark, the hunting grounds, want brothers and mobpack, want runjumppounce. Womantrap, smallstrongbeast, too strong. Want old cover, shredded. Want new cover, taken. Want any cover. Pleasepleaseplease. Free.
Still shackled and bound, Peter was mostly clean now, his skin a light brown with a tinge of sickly yellow, hair thick, wavy and long in the front. The bruised body evidenced its recent ordeal, a purple boot print at his back and ribs, his brow swollen and red, angry red belts crisscrossed his legs, the nylon rope still tightly wound as Dr. Stacey stipulated that it was best to get him into a fetal position to keep his back aligned, the knobs of his spine protruding. So the rope remained to be readjusted later so that his knees would meet his chest.
Since Reilly had washed and dried him up, Peter was deathly quiet. So still and limp, his body seemed lifeless, eyes closed and mouth lax. The slight rise of his chest, as he shallowly breathed, the only visible sign of life. Originally she thought that he was asleep, but the soldier guarding him said Peter opened his eyes and looked around when she or Jameson wasn’t near. “Maybe he can’t rest unless I’m around. Too scared to let his guard down. This is a rather unsettling experience.”
A roll of his eyes, a dismissive scoff, Jameson leaned in close to the hunter’s suspended body. “He’s playing possum. Not many of the mutts do it, but I’ve seen it. Lay low with nowhere to hide when guns are a-plenty and the survivors are too well organized. Waiting for the group to move on and catch the stragglers.” Exhausted from a long night, never wanting to leave the infected alone too long till it was secured in a cage; he lazily rattled the muzzle back and forth once. Its neck thrummed lowly, tendons and muscles standing out of its neck as the adam’s apple bobbed. “This little bastard wants to escape us, Dr. May. Must be your bed manner.”
Her face momentarily creased as a small sneer sneaked past her composure, appalled but too weary to put up a fight. They have never spent this much time in each other’s lovely company and it really is a test of endurance to remain defensive and quarrelsome for hours on end. Jameson didn’t trust her not to loosen the restraints in a moment of sympathetic weakness; Reilly didn’t trust him not to throttle poor Peter in a flash of paranoid idiocy. It was getting old.
The tension was relieved as a rhythmic clackety-clack rolled into the room, a small pushcart followed by a cheerful doctor; eyes alight even through a rim of dark, lower half of his face covered by a surgical mask. “Where’s my patient, huh? This him? Heck of a catch, Sir. Saw the video of you wrangling him. Blew my mind how you pulled that off. Doctor Reilly, look at you! Standing next to a rabid infected and not batting an eye as you tied him up. Didn’t know you had it in you, crazy girl.” Friendly, disarming, voice muffled by the mask and slurred by his wounds. He was obviously high.
Jameson took note of the man’s hands, stable and sure, a good sign that he wasn’t too far gone. Stacey was perpetually under the influence of some prescription drug, mostly Oxycontin and Valium. He was upfront with the leadership here about it. It was an addiction that preceded the zombie apocalypse and if they wanted him functional, he couldn’t very well deal with withdrawal on top of all the pain that racks him from bad infections and messy patchwork to close his injuries. Doctors with MDs were a hard commodity to find as most died in that first wave. As long as Stacey was discreet and didn’t deal any drugs to anyone, and he meant anyone, he’d let it slide. He kept his flock clean, destroying any useless drug catches he found, keeping alcohol and cigarettes to a minimum, any severe addicts to go cold turkey under 24 hour watch. He didn’t keep people in line through fear; he did it with stern discipline, the force of his personality assuaging people’s distrust of authority. Toe the line he dictates and they’ll be safe under his wing. Rock the boat and he’ll personally change their mind.
Reilly glanced at the cart and saw only vials for samples, disinfectants, gauze, and a long packet with the words Spinal Needle bolded on the upper left corner, underneath an illustration of the tip, sharp and wide. “Where’s the portable MRI that the scavengers managed to get from that medical university?” A curiosity, an advancement in technology, medical marvels to go.
Pristine latex gloves wrapped his hands which filled up a syringe with a clear oily liquid as he then deftly found a thumping vein in the hunter’s arm. “Sad to say that contraption is still in its developmental years. It’s not strong enough to get a good scan, too much distortion.” He tapped the hypodermic once, squeezing slightly as a squirt of liquid jetted into the air. He swabbed the area with alcohol; a quick squeeze emptied the syringe into its blood, sleekly pulling it out of the vein, not a drop of blood spilled. “I’ve tried it out on my foot. Took forever and I was as pleasantly still as can be. Still looked like rubbish. Could need calibration, but it’s too new to find in any of the books I have and I definitely don’t have a clue how to mess around without breaking the thing.” He placed the syringe in a red biohazard bag to be incinerated once they were done. A dime a dozen, no need to save up on them. Probably more syringes in the world than people right now. “You want an accurate result, you need a big one, and I’m not going to go anywhere near a hospital. Scratch that out of your report.”
A stethoscope now dangled from his ears as he warmed the pad against his wrist, his spirited heartbeat thumping loud and clear. Stacey placed it on the hunter’s chest, listening as its lungs inhaled furiously, its heart a frantic beating drum. “Ok, good news. Shot didn’t kill the guy, tough little trooper that he is. Bad news, we need to do a little test, make sure he can’t move even a toe.” Stacey straightened up, patted his thighs and nodded at Jameson.
A turn of a key loosened the chain on the right hand side. The arm, now free, slumped to the floor, the body angling lopsidedly. The hunter’s breathing sped, a guttural moan slipping past its lips, jaw open and lax. “I say that works pretty well. Help me get him on the stretcher.” The improvised manacles were unlocked; red welts a tight band around Peter’s wrists. Before the powerless man’s face smashed against the tiled floor, Stacey placed a stabilizing hand on a lean shoulder as Jameson hooked his arms underneath the hunter’s armpits to haul it up.
What? Nononono, move, attack, jump, run, slash, moveattackjumprunSLASH... MOVE... No. Dead, killed me, dead.
----
The moan had never ceased; melancholic, desperate. At times, a sharp breath would try to fill Peter’s lungs only to hobble out slowly. “Bet when he does that, he’s going for that screech. Trying to scare us off, huh? Not gonna work, buddy. Need a fully working diaphragm for that.” From the stretcher they made a quick trip to a long table in an adjacent room. There were two stainless steel sinks with a long-necked faucet each, two sets of valves for gas and air, two small electrical outlet towers next to those. An everyday laboratory table, now the stage for a medical first; the controlled removal of cerebrospinal fluid filled with a mind and body altering virus.
“A bit cramped, but what isn’t these days?” Silence met the doctor’s remark. He glanced behind himself, took note of Jameson’s sour look, Reilly’s worried inquisitiveness, the soldier with the big gun freaking out by his lonesome; all tired and too wired to loosen up a little. “Ok, so I guess these Chatty Cathys aren’t here for a conversation, huh buddy?”
The restraints by the hunter’s legs slackened, blood rushing to its extremities as a growl rumbled faintly. “What’s this? Getting to use some vocal cords there? Not even ten minutes in, drugs already wearing off.” He maneuvered the naked limbs around, muscles shuddering softly as neurons flashed incomplete messages to each other, and retied the rope.
A spark of consideration crossed Jameson’s eyes. “It put the mutt down long enough to restrain it if need be.” A dark red-brown swirl of iodine circled the hunter’s lower back, Stacey’s light fingers counting down the vertebrae from the neck down to find the right niche to pierce through. Every touch an electric jolt to the immobilized hunter, fearful adrenaline pumping throughout its being, stirring muscles into urgently desired action.
Spot found, Stacey plucked the spinal needle from the tray and aligned it, a quick unwavering jab punched through flesh and cartilage. “Yep, but I doubled the maximum allowable dose for his size and we don’t have barrels of the stuff just sitting around.” A white spike of pain ricocheted inside the infected man, muscles tensing against the ropes as an inhuman bawl croaked from its throat.
Dr. May paced towards Peter’s head and smoothed his hair back. Slight trembles coursed up her hand. “It would be better to save it for occasions like these. Delicate times. Besides, he’s not going to escape. I already assured you of that.” A curved tap was placed at the end of the needle as drops of a viscous liquid seeped out into a glass vial.
Stacey filled another syringe with the paralyzer, tapped the crux of the arm for another vein and halted, laying the full hypodermic onto the tray on the cart, unseen by everyone else except the apprehensive soldier, breath held and eyes wide.
A beat of silence crossed the room, tension like a morning tide leaving behind oddities of thoughts. Ugly things from the depths. It passed. “I can’t say I’m surprised that you disagreed with me.” A quick dismissal. “Doc, keep some handy.” A standing order. “Lee, after this take a sit down with the doctor to learn how to use it, you’re now head dog catcher.” An unwavering ultimatum.
Lee, who spent hours looking up scary things online for the thrill, read about hauntings and exorcisms for fun. Who marathoned his way through classic zombie movies every Halloween with friends, all joking about how they’d survive. This Lee right here wanted border patrol and crowd control duties, even shit clean up. Not this, not with these people and their crazy, not with a zombie who might infect him. Oh, yes. Lee wanted a big gun and bullet proof body armor, so he lied and claimed that a bite mark he gave himself was from infected stereotype #3. Blood drained from his face as his words stumbled out. “But sir…”
Jameson smiled wide, understanding and petrifying at once. Like that of a loving father that beats his kids when drunk. “No excuses. You haven’t taken your eye or aim off it since the clearing. I can see that you know what’s at stake here. You just need to realize that ASAP, understood soldier?”
“Yes, sir!” Too late to come clean, really. In too deep, seen too much. Seen way too much. Being a disappointment was a likelier death sentence than guarding a convoy to save people at a city.
At around fifteen minutes from the initial injection, Stacey administered the second shot. The first vial containing the spinal fluid was half full. It was going to take a while to fill up three, so he adjusted the tap to pour more quickly. The sudden depressurizing of fluids around the cranial membranes was going to give Peter a hell of a migraine till the body replenished itself, but he wouldn’t hear any complaints, so what the hell?
----
The short body was splayed on the X-shaped table, strapped in as a precaution. Stacey wondered why a scientific outpost in the middle of nowhere had such a table, but who was he to ask those questions. Too big for a rhesus monkey, that’s for sure. Maybe they experimented with orangutans or gorillas, or this CEDA subsidiary had a hand in illegal human experimentation and that’s why they’re better prepared at dealing with a zombie virus, who knew? Who cared? Not him. Now let’s be a dear and pop our pills.
Gwen the dentist sat the ready, all of her tools by her side. Hair in a net, surgical mask and face shield concealing her terrified face. Thick latex gloves rubbing against her rubber apron, worried fingers that didn’t want to go anywhere near the bloody mess with human bits stuck inside.
Lee, the lucky soldier, was standing by the door. Wired, awake and about to collapse, he looked like he wanted to be here as much as Gwen did. Dr. May and Jameson had left to their quarters. Doctor’s orders, tomorrow was going to be a big day. Announcements to make to the camp and over the radio, reports to be filed and catalogued. High command wanted an info packet sent to them by the end of the week; a 700 mile trip, passing three survivor camps to a secure undisclosed location. A lot of coordination and resources to plan, human error to take into account.
The hunter was heavily sedated and paralyzed for this part, for Gwen’s waning comfort. A sheet placed across his midsection, his nudity embarrassed her to frantic tears. “I already cut off the muzzle from his skin, there’s a mouth retractor so no chomping down, ok? Waiting is going to make it worse”
Her hands reached up and placed a suction hose on the side of Peter’s mouth, a water spout jetted shortly against a bloody tongue. A splash of red dribbled off her face shield, her eyes crossed as she followed it down. “Why can’t we just leave it be?”
A beep-beep rang loudly from a metal detector wand as Stacey passed it over the hunter’s arm. A swab of alcohol drenched cotton wiped at the bump. “Carrion breath? Humanization? It’s disgusting to look at?” He swiftly split the skin with a scalpel and dug out a bullet with slim forceps.
The sharp needle end of her dental probe scrapped a hunk of stringy meat between the front incisors. Bile teetered at the edge of her throat as it was sucked down the tube. “But…”
Stacey waved his hand around and returned to delicately stitching the wound. “Get the ball rolling and your training will take over.” Another swab of disinfectant, another wave of the wand; done more as a pastime as he waited for her to finish her chore.
She pushed her chair back, arms outstretched, voice incredulous and high. “What training? I’m a dental hygienist student, first year. I can barely handle cavities and now.” The suction hose stuck to the hunter’s tongue, the sound a sickening slurp. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
The armed soldier walked around the table, eyeing up the hunter, placing the muzzle of his gun at the strapped head. “Just blast it with water or something. Make it look like you did something for Dr. May so she won’t bitch about it.” A quick poke and a step back, the stench emanating from the open mouth had hit him like a wave.
“No. Cut corners now and you’ll cut corners later. Have some pride in your work. Here, tell me what to do.” Stacey snatched the dental probe from her hand and scrapped sideways against the gumline, a fresh trickle of blood streamed down mingling with the old.
She watched him for a couple of minutes, wincing inside as he ineptly made a mess of gums, going in dry and forgetting to suck up debris. “You’re doing it all wrong. Give me.” She held the water spout and probe in a single hand, positioned a circular mirror inside the mouth and in speedy downward strokes removed layers of muck from behind the teeth and in between. Nausea forgotten, purpose remembered, she focused at the task at hand and ignored the little voice screaming that it was going to bite her fingers off.
Stacey smiled and nodded, pleased with himself. The metal detector beep-beeped again down the length of the lax body finding more fragments to extract. A shadow loomed from behind; he shared a look with Lee and shrugged when the soldier shook his head and doped the hunter up some more. Enough chemicals had been pumped into Peter during the last hour to kill a large horse.
Hopefully, Jumping Jack will wake up from this. Hate to go through all the clean up again.
---
A/N:
This is the last chapter of A hunter [past-tense verb], since now we’re moving up in pace and plot, skipping days and weeks as the experimentation progresses. The chapter titles will represent the passage of time, i.e. Day One: Accommodation, Day Five: Reeducation etc.
The cast of main characters have been introduced, their interactions with each other established to evolve from here on out. Is there anyone you’ve liked, whom you agree or identify with? Anyone you dislike?
What’s your favorite part? What bored you? I’d like some feedback to see what works. The storyline is pre-established. How I write it is not.
I know that slow-paced build up isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, so I thank those that have reviewed and favorited this story. It’s pretty different from anything else I’ve written and I’m glad to know people like it.