The Variant Effect: PAINKILLER (5 page)

Zombie’s age
...

Borland glared at the young man’s back.

He needed a drink
.

His sanity was peeling off as he sobered
up.

He got to his feet.

Who’s next?
Spiko?

Borland lumbered toward the edge of the lawn
where the trees grew thick. He’d seen the map on the brochure,
where the path wound through a forest. There was a stream back
there that ran along the property’s edge.

The setting sun would be obscured; the
shadows under the trees would darken.

If he was quick about it, he could get a
couple blasts into him before the next patient appeared.

As he slipped into the woods the path began
to meander and make turns and loops so patients kept popping up—his
way grew increasingly unpredictable.

He was running out of time
.

The damn Shomberg treatment boasted a fast
recovery aided by promoting post-operative activity.
Swell
.
The end result was a jack-in-the-box population that appeared every
time Borland was poised to take a drink.

Can’t screw this up again
.

And Brass told Borland that he was out of
chances. Soon his duties with the new Variant Squads would dominate
his time. And why bother pulling strings for a drunk?

Especially one who knew too much
.

But Borland needed a drink—just a touch, just
a taste. He moved around the tree trunks, backtracking one moment
and hurrying forward the next until he heard the distant babble of
a stream.

That’s more like it
.

Trees grew thick along the water’s stony
edge.

Perfect
.

He hurried off the path and ploughed through
some bushes, then found the asphalt again as it wound back around
and on through deepening shadows toward a bridge. The Shomberg
brochure mentioned the stream and the bridge—patients were not to
cross it.

Warnings are for the little
people
.

Trees overhung both ends of the structure.
Metal uprights and railings held the span of planks over the
stream, some 30 feet in a single arch.

Borland started up, the noise from the stream
echoing all around. He slipped a hand into his jacket and pulled
out the flask.

He got the cap off, licked his lips and
froze.

A sound.

Under the bridge
?

A deep gasp followed by fragile keening,
almost a pitiful shivery pause, and then a soulful wail wore down
to silence. The process repeated.

A woman.

The far side of the stream.

Weeping
.

Borland moaned, capping the flask. He
pocketed it and pushed himself along the railing, sliding, keeping
his head down, until he could part a tangle of branches that grew
low over him.

There, kneeling on the small round stones by
the stream, the strange woman from the dining room.

She can’t eat chicken
.

Her hair was wet and pasted over her face.
Her skin had flushed the color of strawberries where her features
melted into the open neck of her shirt. She leaned forward, rocking
and weeping, her arms wrapped around her ice pack like it was a
baby.

She used to be a cop
.

Borland pursed his lips, started to form a
word or whistle—he didn’t know what, but he had to do something to
attract the woman’s attention.

Wasn’t that what normal people did?

See if she needed help...

But at the last second, a sinking feeling
pulled at the pit of Borland’s stomach and he shook his head
silently, watching the woman’s lean body shudder with sorrow.

He stooped by the railing, winced at the
mangle of pain in his gut, then he hurried back the way he had
come; hiding himself in the trees to avoid the woman’s
troubles.

Normal people avoid trouble
. He got
past some low bushes and turned to peer back through their
leaves.

She needs a psychologist not a Variant
Squad Captain
.

The woman’s sadness followed him, as he
hurried among the tree trunks, shaking off whatever hooks her tears
had set in him.

She’ll be okay
.

He turned in the shadow of an old oak and
glanced back at the bridge. There, standing center to the span was
the strange woman, with legs wide spaced and both arms crossed,
pressing the icepack against her belly. Overhanging leaves obscured
her face but Borland was sure he could feel her eyes on him.

He clambered through branches until he found
the path and started back to the clinic. If he saw Rough-trade
again, Borland would decide then whether to tell her what he
saw.

CHAPTER 8

A gorgeous Asian nurse shaved Borland’s
crotch and belly. Patients who were getting operations that day
were told to stay in their rooms and await this preparation and
others while the rest of the patients had breakfast.

The nurse spoke quickly, almost anxiously
during the procedure. Her small hands were warm through the vinyl
gloves as they pressed Borland’s round and wrinkled flesh flat to
run the blade over it. He stared at the woman. Forced her to keep
her attention on the task, and embarrassed her enough that she
refused to look him in the eye.

That way he wouldn’t have to claim the old
body she was working on.

Then his intimidating glare worked against
him, unnerved the woman enough that she hurried to complete the
shave, scraping at the furry mounds of skin with reckless swipes of
the straight razor. Terror rode up Borland’s spine, forced him to
look away until she finished, packed up her gear and hurried out of
the room.

I hope nothing’s missing
.

Then some sick voyeur in him pushed his belly
down, peered over it at the naked areas.

He felt an immediate twinge of shame at how
things looked down there—gray and lifeless butcher shop structures.
A broken and battered opposite of erotic—like the carcass of some
dinosaur, fossilized and frozen in the act of eating another.

Barely sexual—not even pornographic—an image
from a
worst-case-scenario
journal of medicine and
aging.

He quickly pulled his pajama pants back into
place and tied them.

About thirty people were going to get their
hernias fixed that day by four operating teams. He had to wait his
turn.

At least you’ll have painkillers
.

He looked over at the empty bed beside his.
Roommate number ‘1’ was delayed and missed his place on the
Shomberg assembly line. Borland would have a new roomie by the time
he got back from his first operation.

Perfect
.

They were going to start with the umbilical
hernia. The left and right inguinal would follow with days off
between procedures. It was a longer than average stay, but Borland
wanted to get it over with in one shot. He had no interest in
coming back. The dull old men who made up most of the Shomberg
population made him want a drink, and his gun.

You can be old. Do you have to be
boring
?

The old duffers left him anxious for any kind
of release. Even having his abdominal wall cut open and sutured
shut sounded like fun.

At least it was evidence he was alive.

And there would be some high-yield
pharmaceutical painkillers.

Who needed a drink when the medicine cabinet
was open?

Sobriety was killing him
. He still
needed a drink, but seeing the strange woman by the bridge the
night before had unsettled him, made him too jumpy to take an
illicit swig with all the other patients moving about on their
evening walks. The path had grown crowded with them, so he relented
and returned to his room.

The sleeping pill was bliss.

Borland heard the Asian nurse knock on
another door down the hall, warn “Mr. Arnold” that it was time for
his shave.

Borland got up, walked to the bathroom and
tried to empty his bladder. He didn’t want any accidents and he
felt like he had to go. So he stood there almost five minutes with
nothing happening. His nerves must have already been working on him
because he couldn’t squeeze out a single drop.

Or it’s the prostate
...

As he tied the strings on his hospital pants
something on the tiles between his socks caught his eye. A
centipede, crushed into a twist of gore and spray of wiry legs. He
could see how the mop had shaped its mangled body, combined it in
layers of wax and cleanser—a fossil record on a bathroom floor.

The Age of Infection
.

He thought of signs and omens.

“Mr. Borland?” A voice at the door drew his
attention away from the bug. “It is time.”

A pleasant-looking nurse in her fifties stood
there. She gestured toward his bed and told him to sit. She was
covered in sterile gear, the rustle of her nylon booties made him
think of the bag-suits of his profession.

Which made him think of Zombie.

Sacrifice. Keep giving
.

She read through a checklist on her e-reader
in a thick German accent. The way she stamped on the hard
consonants reminded Borland of World War Two downloads: swastikas,
whips and barbed wire.

He had answered all the questions before, but
they were just double-checking, making sure the cuts they were
about to make matched up with the guts on the table. She handed him
a pair of nylon booties to slip over his socks and complimented him
for being in his hospital
blues
when she arrived.

She didn’t know that Borland didn’t need more
enemies. She didn’t know how bored he was.

She didn’t know what a guilty conscience
could do with all that time off.

She didn’t know about the
centipede
.

The nurse led him out of the room and along
the chilly corridor and into a waiting elevator. She hit a button,
and they began their descent.

Borland’s hospital
blues
consisted of
a smock top that tied up the front and a pair of loose pants that
tied at the waist. He had no doubt that the setup would provide a
carnival atmosphere once he was medicated.

At least he’d be medicated
.

Borland didn’t care about the weather—good or
bad—but the nurse talked about it anyway. Hurricanes and tornados
were nothing; they were fun compared to what was coming. The
Variant Effect was on its way back.

Time for the painkillers.

Time to get cranked
.

The elevator shuddered and doors opened in
the wall opposite the one they entered. A puff of cool air drifted
in. Dim light came from pot lamps paced at intervals along the
ceiling. When they stepped out, the light barely penetrated the big
dark room.

Then it hit him.

The smell of blood.

Thirty operations a day, five days a week,
fifty weeks a year
... The coppery smell was permeating the
darkness. There was disinfectant and other medical odors, but the
blood was unmistakable. They spilled a lot of it down there.

The nurse led Borland to the right, past
several beds that held drugged old men. She stopped him at an
unoccupied cot and helped him in. She said she’d get his
painkillers and left.

It’s about time
.

On his back, his new vantage point showed a
drop ceiling setup of white tiles.

Everything else was green—painted and
glistening with a thick shiny lacquer. There were lamps overhead,
sunk into the ceiling and dimmed to an infernal orange.

Let’s do it
.

The nurse returned with a tray of goodies on
a rolling table: syringes, paper cups with pills—lots of little
cranking
toys.

The sight of this selection brought a broad
smile to Borland’s face that he quickly covered with the thin
blanket. His eyes must have glittered with glee.

So he couldn’t drink.
Big deal
.

The nurse lifted a needle off the tray and
squirted a fine thread of clear liquid.

“Morphine,” she said, pulling at Borland’s
hospital pants, indicating she wanted him rolled on his side, “and
I’ll give you Ativan pills for anxiety.”

“Sure,” he said and chuckled as the needle
drove home. A pocket of heat grew molten in his left buttock.

Morphine
...

CHAPTER 9

Borland laughed his way out of a haze.

A pair of doctors helped him from the bed,
slung his arms over their shoulders. Their faces were hidden behind
surgical masks. One set of eyes was Asian; the other, well he
couldn’t see the other that was turned away. So he giggled and
swayed as the two smaller men struggled to walk him to the
operating room.

He chuckled as he passed along the line of
beds. Men of all kinds: either sleeping, cranked and manic or
looking worried, peeking out from their covers. Like the
seven
dwarves
...

Borland laughed as they passed through a set
of doors.

Then he smiled at nurses and at a group
gathered around a tabled patient on his right.

“Is that the buffet?” he said through gritted
teeth.

The morphine was crawling around in his body,
cleaning his joints and filling his muscles with delicious comfort
and spectral strength.

Borland took a deep breath to clear his head
and found his legs, steadied himself as he limped between the
doctors through another set of doors and into a simple room with IV
stand, table, a few machines and little more.

“
Sssk...sss... Centipede
,” he slurred
the word and chortled. “My roommate needs medical attention.” He
laughed.

“Up on the table, Mr. Borland,” the doctor
with dark Asian eyes said in an incongruous Scottish brogue. “Then
we’ll talk.”

“Well, my room-bug doesn’t speak English so
you have to translate.” Borland’s knees buckled as he laughed, and
the doctors groaned under his weight. “
Room-bug
...did you
hear me?”