Trauma (23 page)

“Hey, put some zip in this pig,” Abington shouted.

Somebody chortled to Abington's right. Only now did Abington become aware of the other passenger sitting beside him. He was a muscular white male, with a square, chiseled face, and prominent nose. The man's mouth broke into a crooked smile and beneath his shades Abington imagined a playful glint in his eyes. Abington had never seen this man before. Or had he? He was confused. Disoriented.

Where had he been before riding in this Humvee? Abington searched his memory, but came up blank. In fact, he could not come up with anything at all. His brain felt like a sieve trying to collect water. He knew only that this was Afghanistan, though he could not recall how long he'd been there, or when he'd arrived. It felt like the whole shit mess had blended into one endless day. Maybe that was why he could not remember how he got here. The sameness of it all made it easy to forget one moment from the next.

Abington blinked to clear his vision. For a second, the man to his right looked to be wearing civilian clothes—black shirt and pants under a dark zip-up jacket. A second later that changed, and Abington saw the man wore camo and Kevlar like everyone else. But why was he wearing a boonie hat. He should have had on a Kevlar helmet.

Steady gunfire ripped up the air and pockmarked the ground on the side of the road. Spires of red clay and dust sprayed skyward like earthy geysers. Abington could not believe this vehicle was not riddled with bullet holes, nor could he understand why the driver seemed so unconcerned.

“Hey, the speed limit here is get the fuck out. Let's step on it!”

The driver nonchalantly craned his head and cocked a quizzical eyebrow in Abington's direction. The driver was a black man with short hair and almond-shaped eyes. He had a pleasant face, showing no grit, grime, or even traces of fatigue. He looked soft, like someone who did work other than the business of war. He showed no particular concern about the bullets, either. If anything, Abington detected an officious air about him. Maybe this man was someone important, an LTC or even a full-bird colonel. Whoever he was, Abington withered slightly under the man's hard stare.

“We're going fast enough,” the driver said. His tone served to placate Abington and end the discussion at the same time.

The man seated to Abington's right—Boonie Hat—started to laugh.

Abington heard, “We're going fast enough … we're going fast enough…” repeating in his left ear. But the voice, like the bullets, seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

“This guy might be the most gone of the whole bunch.”

“Yeah, he's struggling for sure,” the driver said.

It was difficult for Abington to follow the conversation, because everything they said kept repeating.

Boonie Hat said, “Well, at least some of them come out all right. For a while anyway.”

Driver chuckled. “Yeah, it'd be a pretty messed-up gig if they were all like him.”

Abington squinted, straining to make sense of the odd exchange.

“What do you mean?” Abington asked. “Did Roach make it? Is he alive? Where's Roach? Where are the others?”

Abington heard, “Where are the others … where are the others…”

Boonie Hat laughed even harder this time. A stab of pain focused Abington's attention. He looked down at his leg in time to see the man extract a needle from his thigh, the contents of the syringe evidently emptied into his bloodstream intramuscularly.

“Hey, what's that all about?” Abington cried out.

Boonie Hat smirked and tapped the driver's shoulder. The driver looked back at Boonie Hat and the empty syringe.

“I can't listen to this nut job for the next five hours,” Boonie Hat said. “I just can't do it.”

Nut job? Why would he say that?

Abington asked, “What did you give me?” Already his speech sounded thick and slurred as his tongue swelled inside his mouth. A bitter taste soured the back of his throat.

“Just a push of adrenaline,” Boonie Hat said in a semi-mocking tone. “Um … all the Special Ops guys are using it.”

“Special Ops? What are we doing? Where's Roach? I was with Roach when we took fire.”

Took fire … took fire … took fire …

“Yeah, you were with Roach,” Boonie Hat said, sounding unconvinced and uninterested. “Whatever you say.”

Abington blinked in rapid succession, trying to keep alert, but his eyes grew heavy just the same. He wanted to sleep. Soon enough, the sound of gunfire receded into the background until, like Abington's other senses, it all just faded away.

*   *   *

WHEN HE
came to, Abington was lying on the ground. He recognized this place right away. This was where he and Roach had done battle with the Taliban, the same place where his best buddy got his stomach shredded by bullets. The Humvee was parked nearby and the sound of gunfire still filled the air, but Abington could not see any tracers. Boonie Hat and Driver sure did not act like two guys about to get shot.

“We got heat coming in!” Abington shouted. His voice came out thick and garbled. His body felt flulike, achy joints and all. He still heard the echo, but it was fainter, easier to ignore.

Abington looked around for a place to take cover and saw a hole dug in the earth, but it looked different than what he was used to seeing. This hole was longer, more rectangular, more like a coffin.

Boonie Hat approached, his face hidden in shadows. “Climb in,” he said, pointing to the hole. The driver leaned against the Humvee, feet out in front of him, arms folded across his chest, looking as unhurried as a Sunday morning.

Abington hesitated. Something was wrong here. Something was horribly wrong. But his thoughts were scattered. He was seeing something between the slivers of his recollections. For a moment, he seemed to be experiencing a different reality. There were trees, tall pines encircling an open enclosure. Sure, Afghanistan had large forest trees, but this terrain had been more desert. Or was it? The strange image Abington saw fell away, and the desert returned. Then the trees came back. It was like a light switch being turned on and off, and each time it happened the scenery would change. Could it be from that adrenaline shot?

Boonie Hat rolled his eyes. He looked frustrated about something.

“Enemy fire,” Boonie said without a hint of anxiety or enthusiasm. “Get in the foxhole, asshole.”

Abington held his ground. The man's appearance changed with his surroundings. It kept shifting between tactical gear and black-colored civilian clothing.

What the hell is happening to me?

“Maybe it's wearing off,” the driver said. “Talk him up, Curtis. Play it real. I don't want to have to chuck him in there by force. I'm beat from all that driving.”

Curtis. Boonie Hat's name is Curtis.

Abington had the distinct impression he had seen this man before. The name was familiar and it had triggered some memory. The memory felt real, not like the shifting scenery, but it was not from this place. No, it had happened elsewhere. A dark place. A cubby, almost. No, more like a cell. Why would he have been in a cell? Who was Curtis? He was feeling for something that was lost within an impenetrable fog. For a second he thought he had latched on to it. The name Curtis came at Abington like a speeding train, but the clarity lasted only a moment, and soon it tumbled off into the dark corners of his mind.

Curtis … Boonie Hat is Curtis … who is the driver?

“Get in the hole!” Curtis shouted.

No, Abington was not going to budge. Not without answers. Like where was Roach? Why did these two not care about getting shot?

The driver and Curtis exchanged looks.

A sly smile creased the corners of Curtis's mouth just before a panicked look overtook his expression. “Enemy fire!” Curtis shouted, in true terror. “Get in the foxhole, Stevie! Hurry!”

The ground around Abington's feet erupted with bullets. Nothing made sense to him anymore, but he jumped into the hole anyway.

“Stay there! Stay there!” Curtis yelled. “Help is coming.”

Then Curtis laughed. Inside the hole Abington clutched his legs to his chest, taking an almost fetal position. This was a womb of sorts, a safe place. Above him he heard footsteps whenever the spatter of gunfire died down enough.

Something liquid poured down on him. Was it a chemical strike? It smelled like gasoline and it got into Abington's eyes and stung. His vision went white and the horrible burning sensation continued no matter how hard he rubbed.

“You're a sick freak, you know that?” the driver said. “We can do this the humane way. Like shoot him first.”

Abington yowled in agony. The gas stung his eyes and singed his mouth as if he had dove headfirst into a pool of man-o'-wars.

Curtis said, “I've been thinking about it. I just want to know what happens.”

“I repeat, you're a sick freak,” the driver said. “I'm going to wait in the car. I don't want to see this. Make sure to pulverize the bone into ash before you finish burying him.”

Through a film of tears, Abington saw Curtis toss a metal lighter into the hole. The top was open and the flame was lit. The lighter touched gas and bright orange flames erupted all around. Abington screamed as his skin began to bubble. It peeled first down to muscle and then to bone. His cries turned into something animal-like, savage, primal. Curtis watched from the lip of the hole.

At some point the driver reappeared. Abington saw him, but his brain could only process the pain. He saw the driver take out a gun and point his weapon into the hole, but didn't understand it. Abington could smell his own burning flesh and hair—an awful, abhorrent odor. His bubbling, iron-rich blood gave off a coppery, metallic smell.

“Man, you are really messed in the head, Curtis.”

The driver fired a single bullet that ended Steve Abington's misery.

 

CHAPTER 32

“That just doesn't make any sense,” Carrie said. She studied the papers clutched in her hand, head shaking slightly, incredulous.

Dr. Finley's deeply troubled expression mirrored Carrie's growing dismay. He bit the tip of his reading glasses, and rotated his chair to face Carrie.

She looked up from the medical discharge forms to see his puzzled expression. “Goodwin signed off on this?” she asked.

“She did,” Dr. Finley answered.

Carrie lowered her gaze and rested her chin on her knuckles, striking a pose reminiscent of Rodin's
The Thinker
. She recalled a lecture from medical school that included the fact that 1 to 2 percent of all hospitalizations resulted in the patient leaving AMA—against medical advice. The percentage was skewed to those with alcohol and substance abuse problems, which applied to both Abington and Fasciani. It was not an entirely surprising statistic, given how powerfully some patients needed to get back to whatever substance they abused. But her two DBS patients had exhibited no notable withdrawal symptoms. Something else was going on with them—confusion and agitation for sure, but she did not believe they left AMA to go get high.

Carrie leaned across Dr. Finley's desk and pointed to the box on the AMA form indicating the date for a follow-up visit. “Do you think they'll show?”

Dr. Finley looked sad. “This is a large program,” he said. “Cal Trent has a number of different specialists involved. I do my part, but that's certainly not the whole. We're a part of a much larger effort involving VR technicians, accident reconstruction specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and even biochemists. Each patient knows they're going to receive monitoring and study over the course of many months. But not everybody is diligent about coming to the VA or DARPA's other facilities for the follow-up appointments. In this case, I'm afraid we might have lost two of our participants. And it's not going to reflect well on us. Cal will be most displeased, I'm sure of it.”

Carrie thought back to the presentation Dr. Finley had given in the grand rounds during her first week on the job. She remembered the bald man with close-set eyes and a round face who'd sat next to Trent. At the time she'd found it interesting Dr. Finley did not introduce him, but it made more sense to her now. The scope of this effort extended far beyond the confines of the VA, and Dr. Finley probably did not even know Trent's companion. The insight did nothing to assuage her concern for these missing patients.

“Why would they leave? Where would they even go?”

“I'm as troubled as you are. We've got two guys out there with wires stuck in their heads who are technically our responsibility. I want to find them as much as you do. Goodwin had no choice but to let them walk. This isn't a prison. But the behavior is highly anomalous. We've treated dozens of vets in the DBS program, and these are the first two who have done anything like this. Sure we have to coddle and remind them to come in for follow-up appointments from time to time, but to leave like this? To just walk out? It hasn't happened. Not ever.”

Carrie shrank in her seat, but Dr. Finley did not appear to take notice. It was his word choice that had really struck her.
Anomalous.
The palinacousis was beyond strange, but now each patient had exhibited what appeared to be extremely poor judgment. If it had never been observed before, then the only common factor, the only real link, was Carrie. She had done both surgeries only to discover each patient had presented with the same bizarre set of symptoms.

“Well, I don't have any idea what Abington was like when he requested to be discharged,” Carrie said. “But I had just seen Fasciani last night, and I don't think he was coherent enough to do something like that.”

“I know what you say you saw, Carrie,” Dr. Finley said. He took the papers from Carrie's hands to look them over again. “But here are the forms. Signed by Abington and Fasciani. Look. Their signatures match with the pre-op releases.” Dr. Finley turned the pages so that Carrie could see where his finger was pointed. “Both have been countersigned by Dr. Goodwin. She told me she tried to convince them to stay and admitted they both seemed a bit wifty, but she made the judgment call that they were sufficiently compos mentis to leave AMA. Evidently, after you left, the overnight night nurse called Navarro and he went to Goodwin because Fasciani was demanding to be discharged.”