Something to Die For by Kaye Blue

Five

Lucas

“What the fuck?”

“That seems to be the question of the hour,” Dr. Albert, Angel, said.

I glanced at her quickly and then looked back at the scene before me.

Moose, a lifer who was one of the inmates that didn’t have a problem with anybody, with blood splattered across his teeth and lips. Franklin, who had to be eighty and was dead or close to it last I’d heard, bleeding from a gaping wound on his neck.

Both of them trying to get to the doctor, or would be if Moose wasn’t handcuffed to the hospital bed.

“Where are the other guards?”

“I don’t know,” she responded quickly, not taking her eyes off Moose and Franklin, still trying to step back.

“Stay where you are,” I said, my voice deep, booming, the threat in it clear.

My words had no impact.

If anything, Franklin tried to move a little bit faster, which wasn’t too fast at all.

“I don’t think they can hear you,” she said, her voice shockingly calm.

So calm that I had to look at her.

I could see her fear, but I could also see that she was fighting to hold it together.

“What the fuck is wrong with them?”

“I have no idea,” she responded.

Her voice still held that same calm, but underneath I could hear the fear that was threaded through it.

Franklin got even closer, close enough to try to lunge at the doctor.

She pushed the stand that she had been holding onto and Franklin grabbed at it, then stumbled, losing his balance.

He fell, but even though he seemed confused, he also was determined.

“Franklin!”

No response.

“Moose?”

His only response was a sound, a gurgle-croak-moan that made my skin prickle with disgust.

“Something is wrong with them,” she said, her voice coming out almost quizzical, like she was trying to work through a problem as she spoke.

“You think?” I said, not taking my eyes off Moose and Franklin.

“We need to get out of here. Where is everyone?”

“I thought you’d be able to answer that,” I said.

“Well, I can’t. And how are you out of your cell?” she asked, alarm that had only barely been there before rising.

“I thought you’d be able to answer that too,” I said, daring to look away from Moose and Franklin for a moment, long enough to see the worry on her face.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice deepening.

For a moment, a fleeting moment so fast that I almost could have missed it, worry and panic, sparked in her eyes.

She seemed to physically push it down, and I saw as she gained control of herself.

Probably figured it wouldn’t do for me to know how scared she was.

I understood.

My reputation, and my family’s, preceded me. And if nothing else, Dr. Albert was smart, smart enough to know that a woman, seemingly alone, in a prison, was in a whole world of shit.

“Watch out!”

I shifted, saw that Franklin had gotten closer, that he was lunging at us again.

I moved again, and he fell forward clumsily, his hand sliding down my pants as he hit the floor.

The impact didn’t seem to slow him down. Unfazed, he continued to reach for me, teeth clicking as he tried to pull me closer.

“He can’t…”

I didn’t look at the doctor but instead kicked at Franklin and then stepped on one of his hands, trying to do anything to get a response.

There wasn’t one.

He just continued to claw at me.

To try to bite me.

“Move,” the doctor said with such force and authority in her voice that I found myself complying, something that surprised me.

But not as much as what she did next.

Just as I had, she stepped on Frank’s hand, gingerly at first, but when he didn’t respond, harder, then harder still.

She backed up and circled him, careful to keep Moose in her periphery and to keep out of his reach, and stepped on his ankle, watching to see how he would respond.

He didn’t.

Instead, he continued to reach for me, something that I forgot about until he scraped a hand down my pants again.

I jumped, for the first time thankful for the stifling, heavy twill material, then stepped around Franklin, giving him a wide berth.

The doctor poked at him again with her foot, didn’t get a response.

I kept an eye on Franklin but also an eye on her as she circled to the portion of the infirmary that was behind lock and key.

She quickly unlocked the door, ducked inside, and came back, all in less than thirty seconds.

I saw a dull glint, realized she held the scalpel, and watched her while keeping an eye on Franklin, curious as she again circled him and then reached down.

“This is on me,” she said.

She didn’t move, kept her eyes locked on mine until I nodded.

Then she knelt down, swiped the scalpel across Franklin’s ankle.

I involuntarily flinched, knowing that a scalpel across the Achilles had to get some kind of reaction.

It didn’t.

I’d seen some shit in my life, including guys so fucking high they couldn’t feel anything. But I’d never seen anything like this.

“No pain response.”

She was talking, but it seemed mindless, almost like she was thinking out loud.

She went for Franklin’s other Achilles and got the same response, or lack thereof.

“No pain response,” she repeated.

Then she stood, went back to the locked cabinet, and returned a few seconds later with something bigger in her hands.

A handsaw.

“No pain response,” I said, mirroring her and sounding like a fucking moron.

I wasn’t sure why I was talking but felt compelled to say something nonetheless. Not like me to babble, but then again, this situation was like nothing I’d ever experienced, so I decided to cut myself some slack.

She murmured a noncommittal response but then went quiet. I watched as the doctor knelt next to Franklin, careful to stay out of his reach.

Saw in hand, she then looked up at me.

Held my gaze for a long moment, longer than she ever had before.

“This is on me,” she said slowly, enunciating every word.

I didn’t say anything this time, for some reason the gravity of the moment making me keep my words to myself.

Instead, I watched as she leaned forward, pressed the saw against Franklin’s head, then pulled down a plastic shield over her face.

“Watch the spray,” she said absently.

Then she turned the saw on.

A low whirl and a slight crunch filled the infirmary, but Franklin didn’t seem to notice.

Didn’t seem to notice as she pushed a little bit harder.

Or when his skull gave way.

Didn’t seem to notice when the sound changed and she reached brain.

For the first time since I had come into the room, he went still.

One moment he was there, reaching for me.

The next, it was like someone had turned off the lights.

Franklin, whatever he had become, was gone.

“I ground through until I got to the brain stem,” the doctor said by way of explanation, though to me, or herself, I wasn’t sure.

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked her, finally looking at her again.

She shook her head then discarded the plastic shield.

“Nothing good.”