Numb
by D. Grant Mulhern

              He could tell by the look on her face that she didn't believe him.

            "You wouldn't..." Emily said, urgency creeping into her voice.

            "Try me," Charlie McDermot replied.  He'd had his suspicions for awhile, but now he knew for sure.   She had all but admitted it.  She was running around on him. 

            He could feel the dull throb in his forehead now.  The one that told him it was time to take it easy before he popped an artery.   He was a big man, with an even bigger temper and an enlarged heart to match, and his doctors had been warning him for years about two things: controlling his salt intake, and controlling his temper.  The salt part was easy enough, but now, staring at this  bitch's lying, cheating, whoring little face, Charlie thought that his doctors could take their warnings and shove them directly up their fat, seventy-five-bucks-a-visit, asses.

            Charlie threw open the screen door, almost tearing it off of its hinges.   He was halfway down the front steps when Emily grabbed at his shirtsleeve and tugged futiley,

 tears streaming down her pale face.  She tried to pull him back inside and keep him there, but it was no use.

            "No!  Please!" she begged.  "You'll kill him!"

            Charlie tore his arm viciously from her grip and shoved her to the cement walkway.  She landed hard on her backside and skidded to a stop in front of the rose bushes that ran alongside the house.  There she sat looking vague, almost disconnected, whimpering.

            Emily was a slight woman, much smaller than Charlie, and this made her chances of stopping him from paying a surprise visit to Dr. Ted can't-keep-his-dick-in-his-pants Winchel very poor, if not damn near impossible.

            "You'll kill him," she repeated, almost a whisper now.

            "If he's lucky," Charlie smiled humorlessly.  Then almost as an afterthought, he reared back his foot and kicked her high and hard in the hip.

            Emily let out a small yelp and clutched her left leg.  In the morning she would find a bruise there roughly the size of New Jersey.

            "After I'm done with yer boyfriend, I'm coming back, and you'd better be here or God help you." he said a little too calmly, and disappeared into the night.

            Emily shivered.  She believed him.

             Charlie shot down the deserted streets of Gryphon Falls in his old, beat up half-ton, which, as he put it, could still punch it like a whore at a wedding.  Whatever that meant.  He managed to get the old heap to push ninety, and blasted through three stop signs.  He wasn't particularly concerned about the police either.   In Gryphon Falls, a town of only a thousand and change, the local fuzz went off duty at one a.m.  It was well after two.                                                         

            Charlie went over in his mind how he was going to break that little weasel Winchel's neck.  Plan # 1 had Charlie beating him with the two by four in the back of the truck.  Plan # 2 had him jamming it up the fucker's scrawny little shit shoot.   He was just about to settle on Plan # 3 (an interesting combination of both Plans 1 and 2) when he realized he had an even better method of extracting vengeance.  The large, black beretta in the glove compartment.  The one he had won in a poker game at Red Sutton’s place two months ago.  The one he'd kept wisely hidden from Em.

            "Stupid bitch," he muttered between clenched, tobacco stained teeth.

            Dr. Ted Winchel was only thirty-one, closer to Emily McDermot's age of twenty-five, and although Charlie was only thirty-nine himself, the years of overeating and drinking had not been kind to him.  So in a small way, he didn't blame Em for what she'd done.  But that was a very small way, and it wasn't going to stop him from going over to Winchel's house and tearing him a new asshole.

            Charlie was so deep in these thoughts that he almost didn't notice the light that was radiating from the window of Dr. Winchel's office, as he rocketed past it down the main drag.

            Slamming on the brakes, Charlie made a screaming U-turn in the middle of the street and did a half-assed parallel parking job in front of the small stucco building that was the local clinic.

            Charlie opened the glove compartment and grabbed the gun, stuffing it into the waistband of his jeans.  He made his way into the building and untucked his shirt to hide the gun.  No need in tipping the doc off.  Not that there would be much the little fuck could do to big Chuck McDermot.  He tried the door, half expecting it to be locked.  It wasn't.  And Charlie strolled in, just as big as Billy-be-damned.

            The reception area was almost completely dark, save for the dull amber glow of light that seeped from the crack beneath the door of the good doctor's office.

Probably thinks he's gonna get fucked tonight, Charlie thought.  Well he ain't gonna.  Least, not how he thinks.

            Charlie approached the door quickly and quietly, no small feat for a six foot two, two hundred and twenty pound farmer.  He stopped just short of it.  Winchel was in there all right.  He could hear the little faggot whistling.

            Charlie took two almost comically large steps back from the door, then hurled himself at it.  The door never had a chance.  It didn't break open so much as it exploded from the impact of Charlie's ample frame.  Charlie, not expecting it to yield as easily as it did, almost went ass over tea kettle into the room, but managed to right himself before he went sprawling across the office floor.  He wanted to scare the little bastard, not kill himself in the process.

            At first glance, it appeared that the doctor wasn't even in, and the predatory grin that had formed on Charlie's face died there just as quickly.  Shit.  Now what?

            Charlie weighed his options.  There was no point in staying here, but by the time he got to Winchel's house all the way up on Sundry Crescent, he might not have much fight left in him.  He could already feel the anger ebbing, almost against his will, and that just wouldn't do.  Wouldn't do at all.

            "Good evening Mr. McDermot.  How are you tonight?"  The voice seemed to float out of nowhere.  It was Winchel.  He was there after all.

            Problem solved, Charlie thought.  But where—?

            Charlie took a surprised step back as Winchel spun his leather swivel chair around to reveal himself.  The greeting was warm and calm.  Strange considering Charlie had just smashed the man's door in.

            Ted Winchel was a tall, slim man with slightly thinning blond hair and small, circular wire rimmed glasses.  That combined with his thin blade of a nose made him resemble a small bird.  Charlie couldn't see the attraction.  Of course, Charlie couldn't see his dick either, but it didn't mean it wasn't there.

            "I’ve been expecting you, Mr. McDermot."

            Charlie wasn't surprised by this news.  He'd expected the little slut to warn her young lover.  He wasn't really angry.  It only meant she'd get it worse when he got home.  Much worse.

            "Have a seat."  Winchel motioned toward one of the two wooden chairs in front of his desk.

            Charlie pulled out the beretta like an aging gunslinger, not a quick fluid motion, but a herky-jerky movement that caught the gun first on his belt buckle then on his shirt.  Once it was free, he pointed it at the good doctor's head.  He might not have been as smooth as Clint Eastwood, but it got the point across.   "This ain't no social call, doc."

            The doctor only nodded, seemingly unfazed by the gun.  "No, that it isn't.  This is very serious business indeed."

            "You bet yer ass."  Charlie took a menacing step forward.

            Dr. Winchel leaned forward himself and rested his chin on the top of his laced hands.  He was surprisingly calm for someone who now had a large gun pointed at him.  A little too calm for Charlie's liking.  It made him nervous.

            "Mr. McDermot," Winchel said slowly.  "Let’s cut to it shall we?  I want something that you have, correct?"

            "Looks that way to me," Charlie replied dryly.

            "Something you're not willing to give up."

            Charlie snorted and waved the gun as if to say "yoo-hoo".  "Gee, what was yer first hint?"

            Winchel smiled wanly.  "Touche, Mr McDermot."

           Charlie advanced another step.  "Cut the shit, Doc."  He was beginning to get a trifle annoyed.  "No joke."

            "First put the gun away."

            Charlie only snorted.  Was he kidding?

            "You know as well as I do you have no intention of using it, so put it away," Winchel said, a trace of steel in his voice.

            Winchel was right of course.  He hadn't really intended to use the gun.  He only wanted to scare the little shit and maybe rough him up a bit.  Apart from the old .22 rifle he used for partridge hunting in the fall, Charlie had never fired a real weapon in his life.  He was a dairy farmer for Christ's sweet sake.

            He lowered the beretta and stuffed it back into the waistband of his Levi's.  He didn't mind putting it away.  It would still be there if he needed it, but he doubted it would come to that.  Charlie had three inches and about seventy pounds on the little man behind the desk.

            "Please have a seat, Mr. McDermot.  You're making me nervous."

            This struck Charlie funny.  Nervous was the last word he'd use to describe Ted Winchel.  Smug?  Maybe.  Nervous?  Not on your life.

            Charlie didn't move.  He hadn't come to chat.

            "Please, just hear me out," Winchel asked, and motioned toward a chair.

            Charlie didn't budge.

            Winchel chuckled.  "You're a man of business, I see."

            That was it.  Charlie had had enough of this cocky little son of a bitch.  He advanced, leaning forward over the desk.  His face was now bare inches away from Winchel's.  "You don't wanna be jerkin' me around Doc, believe it."

            The young doctor eased back in his chair.  It made a sound like fwoosh.  The easy smile was gone, replaced by a cold, hard stare.   "Oh, don't I then?"

            Charlie straightened up—although stiffened would be a more accurate description—and squinted warily at his adversary.   Things weren't going quite as smoothly as he'd planned.

            "You see Mr. McDermot, I have more of a vested interest in this community than simply your wife.”  He gestured around him expansively.  “You see, I'm quite happy here.  I make a fine living.  And I have no intentions of leaving under any circumstances.  And as you no doubt are aware, this community is comprised of many fine, upstanding, church minded people, and though my relationship with your wife is sordid at best, I do not want to do anything that would jeopardize my position in the community.  Not with a brand new clinic opening in Ravenhurst."

            He paused briefly to allow Charlie time to catch up.  Charlie grunted.

            Winchel continued.  "So my only options would be to either give up the lovely Emily McDermot, pack up my shingle and move along, or simply eliminate the problem and enjoy a long and fulfilling career.  You being the problem, of course."

            The doctor stood up quickly, causing Charlie to take a cautious step back.   Winchel laughed coldly.

            Charlie could feel fear clawing at his insides like a caged rodent.   His heart was beating so strongly that he swore he could hear it.  The tide was turning, and Charlie had missed the last boat.

Winchel walked slowly toward Charlie, hands deep in the pockets of his white lab coat.  Charlie drew his gun, needing it after all.

            "Kill me and you'll go to jail for a very long time, Mr. McDermot, and you know it."

            "Self defense."  Charlie glanced nervously about.

            "I'm unarmed."  Winchel smiled his thin scar of a smile.

            Charlie raised the gun slightly, in front of Winchel's view.  "You'd better just step back, 'less you want me to shoot you a new asshole."

            Winchel kept coming.

            "I'm not kidding, Doc!"  A dark tide of panic was welling up inside him now, threatening to overcome him.

            Winchel was still coming.

            "Don't make me shoot you, Winchel."  Urgent now.  "I will if I have to!"

            But the doctor didn't stop.

            Charlie pulled the trigger.  A pitiful metallic click was the only sound that issued from the gun.  He stared dumbly down at the treacherous piece of useless metal.

            Winchel smiled.  "There's no clip in your gun," he offered, smugly.

            Charlie pulled the trigger again and again only—to his growing despair—hear the same dull click-click-click, like some nonsensical Morse code signal.

            Oh shit, Charlie thought, and silently cursed Red Sutton for not loading the damn thing, and himself for thinking the idiot had.

            Charlie drew back his right arm to strike.  Like lightening, Winchel's own right hand came from his pocket and caught Charlie's fist in mid flight.  Then, with serpent-like reflexes, Winchel withdrew his other hand from his labcoat pocket, producing a small hypodermic needle.  He jabbed it into Charlie's upper right arm before he even knew what had happened.

            So...strong. Charlie's confused mind had trouble wrapping itself around this sudden change of events.  The room was swimming in front of his eyes.  He could see Winchel in front of him, but he seemed very far away now, like the room had doubled,even tripled, in size.  Charlie took a few weak, drunken swings at nothing in particular and fell to his knees.  He clutched at Winchel's labcoat, missed, and fell over, just before the darkness enveloped him.

Charlie awoke to find that he could not move.  He'd been placed on an examining table in a small, brightly lit, white room.  He glanced down at himself.  But it was all the movement he could manage.  He hadn't been bound by any type of restraint, he simply could not move.   It was as if his entire body was numb.  

            His head was propped up on a pillow, and from this vantage point he could see that he was clad only in his underwear.  A blood filled I.V. bag hung above him and to his left.  A long thin tube with a needle in the end was stuck in his hand, held firmly in place by a piece of adhesive tape.  From what he could tell, he was alone.  He now wished he hadn't come.

            Shoulda let sleepin’ dogs lie, Charlie, you ijit, he scolded himself.

            He tried to get up again, but it was no use.  He absolutely could not move.

            Charlie had just enough time to wonder if this might be Hell.  Although it wasn't quite how it had been described to him as a child in Sunday school, he found that it was quite possible.  Then again, if it was Hell, then Satan was a tall, blonde, birdy looking man, because not long after, Ted Winchel entered the room.

            "Ah, good.  You're awake," he smiled as he pulled on a pair of rubber surgical gloves.  "I was afraid I'd lost you there for a second, and that just wouldn't do now, would it?  Shall we continue then?"

            Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but Winchel put an oxygen mask roughly over his nose and mouth and strapped it around his head.  "So you don't pass out on me," he offered.  "I wouldn't want you to miss anything."

            Charlie tried to scream, but the oxygen mask did the job of muffling his voice quite nicely.

            Winchel smiled.  "Don't waste your breath, Mr. McDermot."

Charlie struggled to get up.  He barely moved.   The only movement he did achieve was due only to the mad thrashings of his head.  Finally, he dropped his head back to the pillow, exhausted.

            "And don't waste your energy trying to move, either," he added.   "What I have injected you with is a basic ester of a para-aminobenzoic acid.  Its crystaline hydrochloride is commonly used as a local anaesthetic.  Once injected into the spinal column, it renders the entire body insensate. I rather like it."  As if to demonstrate, Winchel playfully tickled the soles of Charlie's feet. 

            He couldn't feel a thing.

            Charlie mumbled something, but Winchel ignored him and continued on as he paced the room.  "There are a more than a few doctors who do not believe in the use of a general anaesthetic for minor surgery, feeling that it puts patients at unnecessary risk.  Rather, they opt for a local anaesthetic."

            Winchel stopped pacing in front of a tray set on a rolling stand.  On it were apothecary jars with tongue depressors and cotton swabs, and various surgical instruments laid out on a long white towel.  He picked up a scalpel and held it up to the light, allowing the bright, overhead light to gleam off of the shiny blade.  "I am one of those doctors.  And I take the risks to my patients very, very seriously."  He smiled gently.

            Charlie screamed then, but the sound was so muffled through the oxygen mask that it sounded like someone playing the kazoo.  And quite badly, at that.

            He's a fuckin’ psycho!  Charlie's mind felt like it was spinning out of control.  He had to get the fuck out of there right now.

            Winchel wheeled the tray over to the examining table and began sorting the instruments, whistling while he worked.  When he was finished, he picked up the scalpel again and grinned cheerily.  "Shall we get started then?"

Charlie tried to scream: "Take her, Doc!  I don't want her!  I won't say a word, I swear!  She's yours!   Christ Jesus!  No!" but again it only came out as a kazoo-like mumble.

            "Enthusiasm.  I like that."   Winchel nodded and brought the scalpel down to Charlie's chest, just below his violently bobbing Adam’s apple.

            Winchel made an incision from Charlie's ribcage to his pubic bone.  Charlie watched the thin red line trail behind the blade as it glided effortlessly through his flesh.  Dark red blood spilled down his sides, soon covering his entire abdomen like thick syrup.

            Charlie almost grayed out at the sight.  This wasn't happening.  Couldn't be happening.  It was a nightmare, plain and simple.  Soon he would wake up in his own bed, beside his own wife, and it would all be over.  Then he would get up, check on the livestock, and continue on with his life, business as usual.  Yes.  That was exactly what he would do.  Because none of this was real.  Not real.  Not real!  NOT REAL!

            But he knew with almost sickening despair, that this was all too real.

            "Did you know," Winchel asked pleasantly, "that the human body can live without its flesh for up to six hours, sometimes longer, Mr. McDermot?   Isn't that fascinating?"

            Charlie's eyes widened, unbelieving.

            Winchel saw the alarm in his eyes and only smiled gently.  "Imagine that.  Six hours without the body's most vital organ.  It boggles the mind, really.  But don't worry, Mr. McDermot.  That sort of thing is much too messy.  And how ever would I explain it?"  He giggled as if he'd just told a particularly naughty joke.

            Charlie watched the ever-increasing amount of blood, and knew that if he could feel his body, he would be near vomitting at the sight.  He closed his eyes tightly and tears rolled lazily down his pale, sweaty face.  The blood was everywhere.  His blood.  And he couldn't bear to look at it.

            Please God, make him stop!

He opened his eyes again, only to see the hideous sight of Winchel reaching into his belly with two hands and pulling up a handful of what looked like linked sausages.   Like the kind his mother would bring home from the butcher shop when he was a boy.  Only these ones were slick with blood.  His blood.  And they were now in the hands of a complete lunatic.

            "We have to work fast," Winchel frowned with mock concern.  He severed Charlies intestines with a nonchalant flick of the scalpel and threw them into a nearby waste bin with a sickening smlat!  "Before the anaesthetic wears off."

            Charlie lifted his head with a start.  In his shock he hadn't even considered the pain that would come once the anaesthetic wore off.  He considered this now, and began to sob.

            No!  Please! she had begged.  You'll kill him!

            But she had been wrong.  Or, at least, had gotten it backwards.

            Winchel continued to probe Charlie's insides with his hands, and frowned as if not quite able to find what it was he was looking for.  He dug both hands in, grasping the parted flesh, and pulled, tearing the skin farther apart.  Charlie, hearing the loud, wet ripping sound, passed out despite the oxygen being fed to him.  But there was no escape, even in unconsciousness, because, seconds later he was relentlessly reawakened with smelling salts.

            "Do you know what the wonderful thing about living in a small town is?"  Winchel asked Charlie, eyes sparkling.  "My being the only practicing doctor also makes me the town coroner.  I'll simply call Sheriff Brigham and inform him of the unfortunate passing of Charles McDermot.  I'm sure the good sheriff will come up with a convincing back up story for me, considering the number of times I have treated him for various venereal afflictions, if you see what I'm saying."  He smiled coldly.   "I'm sure you would agree with me that being an elected official, especially a happily married elected official, he would not want that kind of information getting out, wouldn't you?"

            The doctor continued the removal of Charlie's internal organs, throwing them into the waste bin in a bloody pile.

            "I'd never get away with this in the city of course.  You're not dealing with rubes when it comes to the police or the general public there.  No, give me a small town any day."

            To Charlie's abject horror, he found that he was slowly regaining sensation in his toes.  It was only a matter of time before the anaesthetic would wear off.  He'd lost a lot of blood, but the doctor had skillfully avoided any major arteries.  That, combined with the constant flow of blood from the I.V. drip would probably prolong Charlie's life for an hour or more.

            "Well, I think we're finished here," Winchel said.  "Time to get you stitched up."  He began to gather what he needed from the tray, then began to "sew".

            Charlie's feet were really regaining sensation now; working it's way up his legs.   He didn't even want to think of the agony in store for him.  He only hoped the Lord would take his life quickly and mercifully, before the real pain started.

            Winchel worked quickly, with the skilled hands of one who has stitched up more than a few cut knees and lacerated scalps.  Once he was finished, Charlie noticed with a weird detachment that his abdomen now oddly resembled a laced shoe.

            "There, all done."  Winchel winked and pulled the oxygen mask off of Charlie's mouth.

            "You crazy fucking bastard!"  Charlie screamed.

            Winchel pretended to be taken aback by such harsh words, then chuckled.  "The surgery went well, Mr. McDermot.  You should be pleased."  Winchel removed his blood-slimed gloves and started to wash up.

Charlie began to sob.  Big braying sobs.   The anaesthetic was wearing off more.   It was no longer working its way up, but slowly dissipating throughout his entire body.  The pain was only a dull throb now, but it would escalate very, very soon.

            "I must be going now."  Winchel took off his bloody lab coat and straightened his tie.  "I'll be back later to clean up this mess."  He swept an arm around the room, generally regarding the blood, and Charlie in particular, with a disdain that was almost comical.  "Feel free to scream as much as you like.  This room is almost completely sound proof, and the streets are quite empty at this ungodly hour."

            "You fucking cocksucker!"  Charlie wept, looking down at his collapsed abdomen, where most of his insides used to be.  Minus the stitching, Charlie would have appeared to have lost a good fifteen pounds.  And he had.   Just not the conventional way.

            "You should be very proud, Mr.McDermot.  The shock alone would have killed a normal man.  You must have great—" he paused, "Intestinal fortitude."  He smiled.  "You have a nice evening.  Or should I say morning?  No matter."

            He turned to leave, then back to Charlie, as if he'd remembered something.  "I'll say good-bye to Emily for you."  And at that, he was gone; flicking the lights off behind him and locking the examining room door.

            Elvis has left the building, Charlie thought almost giddily, and laughed a laugh that soon gave way to bitter tears, and then screams as the intense agony swept over him like white heat.  He screamed for what seemed like hours, gaining the sympathetic howls of every dog within canine earshot.

            He was not an overly religious man, but for the first time in his life, Charlie McDermot prayed.  Prayed for the Lord to spare him.  Prayed for death.   At four fifty-six on that warm July morning, his prayers were answered.