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Please note: Chapters Eight and Nine are in the same post for logistical reasons
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Eight

Down the hall again to the stairs. Upstairs to the sunroom. I walked by rote, memory guiding me while my mind tried to refuse looking at anything. I almost slipped on some blood that splashed along the stairs but caught the handrail and kept moving. The sunroom door was open, propped that way by Horatio Fersetter, my old next door neighbor, his body inert on the ground. His eyes had rolled back in his head and his hands clutched at air dangerously, as if it had knives and teeth. I stepped over him, not wanted to, muttering an apology to him while I did, and took in the room.

The sunroom itself was largely untouched. Fairly clean and, except for Horatio, devoid of bodies, the only issue was a few broken window panes. The sky was dark, bruise colored and heavy with clouds sprinkled throughout. It didn’t look like rain; it didn’t look like much of anything except bad. I stared into the dim sunlight a while, closing my eyes and just breathing but I couldn’t relax. I knew I had to keep moving, to try and work out what had happened and make some sort of sense out of things.

More importantly, I had to find her. Alive or dead, I had to know. Everything was so dangerous now, even if the danger felt like it had passed. I wasn’t sure what happened, no, I had no idea what had happened, but it was obvious that fights broke out. Deadly fights, the kind that no one walks away from.

So how had I missed it and why didn’t I remember it? I didn’t remember anything leading up to it, the concept simply wasn’t there before… before what? Before the changes, the shifts and the swirls.

My tongue felt large in my mouth and I worried it along the side of a tooth, the structure of the problem feeling like a sliver of vegetable caught in my mouth. So I worked at it, rubbing my tongue. It wasn’t really caught there of course, I knew that, but it felt like it and if pretending was going to help me solve this then I would go for it.

I wondered what time it was as I left the sunroom and headed for the stairs again, down to the basement. We weren’t allowed in the basement, but we all knew it was down there, heavy and solid like a fist of emotion. We weren’t allowed down there but I was sure that didn’t matter any more. I really wanted to know what time it was.

Nine

Doctor Vandrell came and got me for a second treatment. I didn’t want to go. I really wanted to tell him no, and started to, but I got nervous. The doctors had always been nice to me, for the most part. When did I start thinking that addition to it? When did the “for the most part” creep in? Doctor West was watching my case, even if I kept trying to see her and couldn’t seem to make a time with her. That was strange to me, too, since before this she would make time for me.

I followed Doctor Vandrell down the hall to the examination room. The table he had me sit on was in the same place as the table from before—it was the same room, I was sure it was—but it was dented around the edges now. The straps looked more worn and the room itself seemed to have seen a few bad days, but there hadn’t even been a few days between sessions. I shook my head and shut my mouth and sat down, giving Vandrell a hint of a smile. He didn’t even bother to talk to me as he was putting me under and I closed my eyes.

*****

I woke up in my room. No, that was wrong, I regained conscious control of my mind in my room, but I had obviously been awake before then since I woke up standing up in the room, looking out the window. The time between didn’t exist for me, lost again, but a bigger slice of time than had been lost previously. It scared me and made me hide my smiles, even from myself. Clock number three went off and I hit the button to silence it.

I had to eat dinner. Still, my nerves were jangly and a smoke might calm them some. I wasn’t sure I could get anything down if I didn’t stop and have a cigarette before I tried to eat. The hallway was mostly empty and the lobby was even more bare, having only Sally, Clyde and a new guard I didn’t recognize. I smiled at Sally, giving her a small hello wave but she glared at me in return, so quickly my hand fell down by my side and my smile hid itself again.

“Mister Dillon,” Clyde said from behind me as I walked past him and put a hand on the door, “you know occupants aren’t allowed outside.” I froze and moved my hand off the door, turning to Clyde and the new guard.

“What? But I always go outside to smoke.” I held up my pack of smokes and my lighter to show him, shaking them slightly. “Always, every morning before breakfast and after dinner and sometimes, if I really want one at other times but I don’t know when those will be, like now.” I tried to catch the other guard’s eyes but his were hard and challenging so I looked somewhere else.

“That simply isn’t true Mister Dillon, the Facility has never allowed smoking inside and does not allow occupants to go outside without escort.” For the life of me, I could not work out why Clyde was being this mean and telling lies. Clyde looked at the other guard who nodded.

“Mister Dillon,” the other guard said softly. His voice was a lot nicer than Clyde’s even if he looked somewhat colder, “you know that is how it has always been here. I don’t know how or where you got those cigarettes but you aren’t allowed to use them here. We’ve had this discussion before.”

“We have? We’ve never even met before…”

“Now, Mister Dillon… John,” he gave me a patronizing look, the kind of look they weren’t supposed to give you at all, “why don’t you go get some dinner. Clock number three must’ve gone off, right?” For a new guy he did seem to know a lot.

I nodded dumbly and left, heading to go get dinner and figure out what was wrong, outside or inside, something was wrong.

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Crazy Little Thing is copyright Adam P. Knave.