Wednesday 1 August 2018

The Proposition

Jasper futilely clenched his fists again, straining at the leather straps that bound his wrists to the gurney. Each time he flexed, the pain in his chest and side burned like hell. Mainly his side. He knew they had pulled a slug out of him there, where it had obviously clipped his vest and bit home. Maybe he could rupture something for good this time and just bleed out. Maybe no one would rush in and jab him with fuck-knows what again when his life support starting whining. Maybe...
A camera in the room shifted to focus on him and a voice came over the PA system.
"Brian. Brian please don't do that. If you continue we will have to sedate you again."
They knew everything. His name, his address, his fucking tax ID number. They knew he was FBI HRT and they knew he was Delta Green.
He closed his eyes and shouted, yelled until his side felt like it was going to burst. He screamed because he had known this place had always existed. He screamed because he knew it had been in the water. He screamed because he knew it bothered them and they were listening somewhere behind those walls.
Those walls.
This room.
This cell.
This cell had been his life since he awoke, a week ago, two weeks, a month? He had no idea. His every waking hour had been spent in this fucking room, tied to this fucking bed, hooked up to this fucking drip, those fucking fluorescents burning through his eyes and into his fucking brain. Faceless fucking nurses in green scrubs, behind fucking face masks, scurrying in an out, jabbing him and checking his fucking vitals. All for what? Why had they let him live?
When he wasn't tied to the gurney, dribbling and staring into the lights, they had him jacked up on  a concoction of Christ knows what mind altering drugs. A cocktail of mescaline and scopolamine, he bet, because that's when the questioning began. The extracting. The digging through his mind. They asked him about what he had seen. Not just at the barn. Not just in Groversville, but what he had seen in his time with Delta Green. They had asked about Jason and Knight, about Bill. They had asked about his superiors, about the outfit. He told them nothing or at least he thought he hadn't. Nothing important anyway.
Above his own screams he heard the sound of the electrical lock to the cell door unlatch. He stopped screaming, unclenched his teeth and let his head loll towards the door. He slowly opened his eyes and through the red haze he saw him.
All his pain, all his hatred, all his fear, coalesced into a single man. A man with three gold teeth.
The man crossed to the bed and lent down, his face hovering close over Jasper's. He stood there, his lips curled into a wry smile, his eyes wild. Not wild. Insane. More insane than Jude's eyes had ever been, hell, more insane than Yarrow's had been when he'd hit Jasper with that log splitter.
"Kozak, have you reconsidered my proposition?" the man said in his sickening southern drawl.
Jasper knew how he should have replied, what would have been easier, but he didn't. He drew back to spit but the man with the gold teeth was quicker and he grabbed his jaw and mouth brutally in one large hand, clasping Jasper's face painfully in his palm. Jasper struggled to breathe but the man continued to hold Jasper's face in his clenched fist.
"I expected as much. I figured we'd got just about everything we're gonna get from you Kozak. I'm impressed. That's why my offer still stands."
Jasper frantically twisted his head in the man's grip, grunting and struggling for air. The man eventually relented and let go of his face, wiping the drool casually across Jasper's gown.
"Well, there's nothing left to do, I guess." the man with the three gold teeth turned back towards the open door and said "It's time."
A pair of masked orderlies hurried in and quickly took up positions on either side of Jasper's bed. In a matter of seconds they were wheeling him out the door and into the darkened corridor beyond. It was the first time he had seen beyond the door, but there was nothing to see. A sterile corridor and more doors, left and right, dim lighting overhead. And the man with the three gold teeth keeping pace behind. Jasper struggled, shouted, kicked at the bands holding his ankles, to no avail.
The frantic ride ended just as abruptly in a brightly lit room at the end of the corridor. A room arrayed with surgical equipment - an operating theater.
And then it was just Jasper and the man with the three gold teeth. He smiled that sickening smile, the gold dental prosthetics glinting under the bright surgical lights.
"I've arranged something special for you Kozak. Something that might help you make that decision and take me up on my proposition."
The man with the three gold teeth slowly shook his head, chuckled and turned away, walking out of the bright lights towards the door. Jasper watched him disappear, anger and terror building in him.
Three small figures appeared from seemingly nowhere at Jasper's side, their sickening, emaciated grey skin taunt over their fragile bony frames. In unison they bent towards the terrified man, their black unblinking eyes staring through him from their bulbous heads, twisted instruments grasped in their gaunt hands.
Jasper screamed and closed his eyes...





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