Beast Machine (20 page)

The nurse couldn’t believe
the substances that this man had put inside of his body. He should
have been dead a decade ago, yet the man the stands here blabbering
away. He needed to hurry up, though, because she was going to
miss
Jeopardy
and
Wheel of Fortune
if this went on too much longer.

“
I’m not sure if this is a
drug or nuthin’ but I ate a fried squirrel’s tail that had some pot
sprinkled on top of it. Hmm. Then a month ago I did some more blow
off Tracey’s backside – my sister’s friend with huge knockers and a
sweet ass – and that pissed off the Missus, but we settled that out
with a nice eighth I stole from my buddy Roger-Dodger. That was
some primo-ass weed!” Mandrake slapped his leg and laughed
hysterically. His teeth were various shades of yellow and his
nostrils were slowly oozing out mucus. “It had little purple specks
all over it and smelled like Jesus Christ himself! I swore I saw
Jesus Christ that night too, but it was just my cousin Merle being
a dick pretending to be Christ and everything while I was fucked up
on the purple speckled weed. Merle said something retarded like,
‘It’s me, Jesus! I was the first-ever zombie and you better believe
it!’”

“
Okay, sir, I think that’ll
do,” said the nurse.

“
But I ain’t done yet! I
haven’t even got to the party at Big Pete’s yet! That’s the best
part.”

“
What you’ve told me is
more than enough. Also, no, a fried squirrel’s tail is
not
a drug. It’s just
rather disgusting and the fact that you’re alive is nothing short
of a miracle.”

Mandrake was satisfied with
himself. He finally admitted to some of his transgressions, albeit
in a self-aggrandizing way, and someone actually listened to him,
rather than scolding him or putting him in a jail cell. “This felt
nice,” he thought.

“
When will I get this
filter-doo-hickey put in?” asked Mandrake.

“
Right now,” the
broad-shouldered nurse grinned. “It will begin in a few moments
once Doctor Silva is done implementing the filter in a previous
patient.”

“
Don’t I gotta fill
something-out or whatever?”

“
Nope. I did all the
paperwork for you. Now will you please lie down on this operating
table,” said the broad shouldered nurse. She pushed a black button
near the room’s door and slowly an operating table descended from
the peerless white ceiling.

“Whoa, that is some’uh
nifty shit!” exclaimed Mandrake. The scrawny man with an apparently
indestructible digestive system climbed onto the operating table.
He relaxed as the broad shouldered nurse procured blue straps from
a cabinet and strapped Mandrake in tightly.

“
Do the straps feel
secure?” asked the broad shouldered nurse.

“
What’s that about’uh
strap-on!?” joked Mandrake. His mood kept elevating – happier and
happier he became. “Life was going to get better for old Charlie,”
he thought.

“
I’m sorry ma’am but yes it
feels right. No tightness across the privates.”

The broad shouldered nurse
stepped back over to the black button and stated, “Thank you! I can
finally go home!” She pushed the button with a strange finesse and
Mandrake slowly rose up to the ceiling by way of the operating
table. The machine that lifted the operating table up made no
noise.

Up went the operating table
into another spotless white room, which had to be the operating
room. There were no visible tools or cabinets but the spotless
white room smelled faintly like iron.

Mandrake was greeted by a
masked doctor in dirty green scrubs. Mandrake couldn’t decipher if
the dirty scrubs were from blood, guts or actual dirt. The doctor
appeared to wait for Mandrake to shriek or act surprised but not a
peep came from Mandrake. He didn’t seem disturbed by the doctor’s
dirty scrubs.

The doctor pulled his mask
down. “Charles Mandrake, I presume?” asked the doctor. The mask was
gently positioned back over the doctor’s mouth.

“
Yes sir, I am him,” said
Mandrake as he stared at the ceiling. “Am I going to be getting
that new filter thingie-ma-jig now?”

“
Yes you are! I am Doctor
Takeo Silva and I am here to change your life for the better.”
Silva spoke much louder when the surgical mask covered his mouth.
It made him sound more aggressive than he needed to be toward his
patients. More powerful, more manly.

Mandrake squinted, still
looking up at the ceiling. “You what?”

“
Darling Takeo,” a voice of
a woman echoed throughout the operating room. “How much longer in
here until you’re off? I want you to tell me more stories and sing
me to sleep. Please!”

Mandrake craned his head in
every direction he could, but could not find the source of the
woman’s voice. He figured it was a nurse that was just out of his
line of sight.

“
Not too much longer, my
darling Chelsey!” stated Doctor Silva with his surgical mask pulled
down.

“
What the hell is going
on?” questioned Mandrake. “This ain’t no social gathering, doc!
This shit is s’pposed to be taken’uh seriously!”

Silva stuck a syringe in
the fold of Mandrake’s elbow. “This will keep you sedated. You
won’t remember a thing.” Silva pushed down on the plunger, forcing
the liquid into Mandrake’s bloodstream.

“
Ow!” screeched Mandrake.
“What the fuck, doc? Gotta warn me when you do that junk! I’m used
to th’needles but still need’uh warning, damn.”

“
Don’t kill this one!”
laughed the woman’s voice. “Chairman Obelis will need people to
vote for him, after all!” Mandrake felt uneasy by the presence of
this woman. She wasn’t speaking like a nurse. She was just speaking
nonsense.

“
Oh, hush darling,” said
Silva to the voice of his deceased lover. “Someday, I’ll be able to
hold you as you fall asleep.” The woman’s voice swooned
loudly.

“
I didn’t think I’uh needed
to be put to sleep for this’n?” asked Mandrake. He suddenly began
to flail his arms as the fluid from the syringe burned his insides.
His arms couldn’t flail much since his arms were bound. “What is
this stuff!? Fuck man! Ow! This ain’t right!”

Mandrake squealed loudly.
It was an eerie mix between a pig squeal and a child crying.
WeeeeOW, weeeeOW, weeeeOW.
Silva smiled contently.

“
Ah, I see that the nurse
didn’t ask you about your allergies! You must be allergic to the
anesthetic,” said Silva. Silva leaned in as closely as he could to
Mandrake, “Extremely rare condition.”

“
Why are you so happy ’bout
that?” howled Mandrake. A force inside of Mandrake shot up from his
stomach and into his throat. He vomited a gooey black mass all over
his own face and Silva’s face, though the surgical mask protected
Silva’s mouth.

“
God damn it,” said Silva.
“Now I have to clean that shit. I only have to worry about this
being clean and you go and fuck it up!”

Silva had regained his
arrogance as a surgeon after it had been buried with the death of
Chelsey many years ago. “A surgeon and scientist of my caliber
should not be getting puked on, especially by lesser beings like
this Mandrake fellow,” he thought. His renewed arrogance often
brought out a crass fury, except when facing off against people
that scare him – those more powerful than him.

Fuming, Silva said, “I’m
going to make your surgery a bit more painful than it is for the
rest.”

Silva grabbed a sterile
towel and briskly wiped Mandrake’s face clean. Mandrake began
convulsing slightly. Silva disposed of his mask in a waste bin next
to the operating table and grabbed a clean mask out of a nearby
cabinet.

Mandrake slowly began to
drift off into another dimension. “It’s finally… finally working,
Doctor Silly,” said Mandrake drowsily. “Is this…” Mandrake was out
cold.

“
I was going to tell you
that I was happy because I get a little kick out of others’ pain,”
said Silva, “especially when it’s a garbage person like yourself.
But you didn’t need to know that, did you?”

“
You’re so confident and,
oh, so devilishly handsome, Takeo!” the still swooning woman’s
voice said. “I will reach out of these speakers to get you if you
don’t sing to me soon!”

Silva walked over to
another cabinet which revealed a slew of vibrantly colored buttons
and levers. Silva pulled a blue lever down and pushed a green
button. The operating table began to tilt forwards until Mandrake’s
head was level with Silva’s eyesight.

“You are an ugly fellow,
Charles Mandrake. Is it the drugs that you used or just your
horrible genes?” laughed Silva. “I think I can give you a little
something to fix that; first I need to put in the filter.” Silva
inserted the nasal filter into Mandrake’s nose. He made sure to
hear a
click
and
then removed his fingers from Mandrake’s nostrils.

Silva snapped his fingers
together and shouted, “
Voila!
”

“
Takeo, you’re so wonderful
at what you do!” whispered the woman’s voice seductively. Silva
enjoyed the constant compliments from the voice, even if they were
generic.

“
We didn’t have to put you
under for
that
but
it made the procedure much easier – for me.” Silva spun around
Mandrake and focused at the base of Mandrake’s neck. Silva needed
to get into the neck to reach the brain stem and spinal cord, but
needed to do so carefully as to not cause permanent damage to
Mandrake.

Silva procured a large
surgical object with rigid teeth from another cabinet. It resembled
an alligator’s mouth but with metal teeth and at a considerably
smaller size. He stepped behind Mandrake and gently lined up the
teeth to Mandrake’s neck.

“
Now begins your new life,
Charles.” Silva let the teeth snap on Mandrake’s skin then slowly
pulled back on the tool causing Mandrake’s neck skin to come off as
gently as peeling an orange.

Mandrake’s muscle tissue,
vertebrae and other body knick-knacks could be seen. Silva wiggled
around one of Mandrake’s vertebrae with surgical tools to find the
spinal cord. The wiggling of Mandrake’s vertebrae caused a
spattering of blood to shoot out at Silva’s face.

Unaffected by bodily fluids
shooting at him this time, Silva kept wiggling vertebrae after
vertebrae to find Mandrake’s spinal cord. “Ah, yes, there it is,”
said Silva happily.

“
Now for my device that
will change the way humans think, the way humans act, and the way
humans will survive for beyond the next millennia! This is the
Carda implant, Mister Mandrake.”

Chapter 20

Details

It had been a few days
since the first kill on Gora’s revenge tour. She had slowly reveled
in the death of Doctor Spotila, especially after witnessing his
bestiality tendencies firsthand. Still, it was a disgusting event
that Gora wished she never had to witness. “That poor lizard and
all the other poor lizards before it,” thought Gora. “At least
Spotila is dead now.”

Gora had thrown out the
clothes she wore that night into a nearby dump, and she used some
of her ingenuity to place the sedan she stole into a car compactor.
She wanted any physical evidence of that night gone; not because it
was evidence, rather, so she would not have any items to spark the
emotional disgust of that night. She hoped the panic that swelled
within her that night would die with those clothes as
well.

Each beast had thoroughly
rested their mind and body before returning to any pertinent
research. Hitbear, still with fur matted with blood, prowled the
woods surrounding Gora’s laboratory, under strict orders to not be
seen by anyone. Though he was glad to be outside, his trudging
through the woods was uneventful as he became infested with burrs,
ticks, and leaf detritus. On his small trip through the woods, he
found the same species of tree over and over again, and one small
headstone. The headstone read:

Here Lies Penn And His Dog
Jake: They Are Adventuring In The Afterlife

Tubman got more attuned to
her body by jumping on various objects placed around the
laboratory. She jumped on a table, a box on top of the table, a
table on top of another table, and she nearly reached the top of a
tall bookshelf in one leap. She would often test her limits like
this on days where the others were resting or researching, or would
try her hand at yoga – something Gora introduced to her.

Owlbert had been resting
along with his companions, though he was in deep thought about a
plan for the next kill mission. He didn’t do much during the last
mission and wanted to make more of an impact on the next one. He
wanted to prove his worth physically and strategically, not just
intellectually. Gora’s library, for once, did not provide him a
book on proper strategy during an assassination attempt, so Owlbert
was left with drawing his own conclusions on what would be a
perfect strategy.

The radio was on and blared
about the death of Doctor Spotila. Most of the news regarding his
death was not about his spectacular efforts in herpetology, but
about how gruesome his death was in his secret reptile chamber. The
radio duo, like much of the public, did not know Doctor Spotila was
found dead in a reptile
sex
chamber; instead, the police relayed that Doctor
Spotila was merely found “inside his facility in a previously
unknown basement chamber.” Technically correct.