Endurance - Jack Kilborn [78]
The pain went deeper than just Mal’s nerve endings firing off signals. The pain was also mental. The memory of what this monster had done to him—cutting the skin, snipping the muscles with scissors, using a hammer and chisel to get through the bone—that would haunt him for as long as he survived. Mal’s begging and pleading had devolved to incoherent bawling. Staring at the monster who had done this to him, the monster who gleefully held up his severed hand like a prize fish he’d just caught, was almost more agonizing than the physical hurt.
“Excellent work, my boy,” Eleanor said, setting down the camcorder. “Momma has to go check on the guests upstairs. But you might want to give your patient another examination.” Eleanor looked at Mal and smiled. “I think he may have some cancer in his feet.”
Eleanor patted Mal on the cheek, then waddled off, leaving through one of the operating room’s two doors.
“Foot cancer?” Jimmy said, his expression grim. “That’s a very serious condition. We’ll have to begin treatment immediately.”
Jimmy went to the instrument table, gripping a hacksaw in his oven mitt.
Mal cringed away, starting to babble again, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
And then his arm, bloody and missing a hand, slipped out of the leather strap binding his wrist.
Without thinking, Mal thrust his traumatized arm at Jimmy as he inspected his saw, jabbing his protruding unla bone into the hunchback’s neck.
The pain was otherworldly. But the bone—sharp as a splinter from the chisel—cut deep into Jimmy’s flesh.
Jimmy grunted, stumbling backward, pressing both mitts to his wound. The blood gushed right through them.
“Laceration… to the… internal jugular vein… Need… QuikClot… to stop the bleeding…”
Jimmy reached for the bowl of powder on the instrument cart. Mal, his vision red with agony, thrust out and knocked the bowl away, upending it onto the floor. A plume of white dust hung in the air, then settled.
“Gone…” Jimmy’s red eyes grew wide. He stared at Mal. “You… knocked it over… The styptic…”
One of the hunchback’s hands stayed pressed to his pumping neck wound. The other picked up a scalpel.
Mal watched him stagger forward, the scalpel raised.
“You’re a doctor!” Mal managed to say. “You can stitch yourself up!”
Jimmy halted his advance. “Stitch…?”
“You can do it! You can sew up your wound! There’s a needle on the cart!”
Jimmy looked at the scalpel again, and Mal was sure the crazy son of a bitch was going to plunge it right into his heart.
But Jimmy didn’t. He dropped the scalpel, shook off the oven mitts, and grabbed the large, curved, surgical suture. He lifted the needle up, the thread dangling down, and stared at it.
“Do it,” Mal said. “Stitch up your neck. You can fix it. You’re a doctor.”
Jimmy nodded several times. “I’m… a doctor.”
Then he pinched the wound closed with his free hand and gouged the needle into his skin.
“Keep going,” Mal said. “You can do it. In and out, just like that.”
Jimmy pierced his flesh, again and again, showing a fair amount of enthusiasm. But enthusiasm didn’t replace skill, and after six stitches the wound was still gushing.
He’d also sewn his fingers to his neck.
“That’s it!” Mal said. He felt both ready to laugh hysterically and sob at the same time. He shook away both emotions, forcing himself to stay in the moment. “You’re doing it, Dr. Jimmy! A few more stitches and you’re done!”
Jimmy lasted one more stitch. Then he dropped onto his face.
Mal let out a breath, his head resting back onto the table. He closed his eyes.
It’s over.
Now I need to get out of here.
Maybe I can escape.
Maybe I can even find a doctor to reattach my hand.
It’s over.
The worst is over.
Then his eyes went wide with panic when he heard the door open.
Deb stole a glance at the framed poster of Ulysses S. Grant facing the toilet as she hid in Florence’s bathroom. Like the poster in the Roosevelt room, it seemed to be looking right at her.
Then she stared at the door, straining to hear what was happening.
“Granny, that was a big mistake.”
Florence was in trouble.