About Henry Fellows

Post 115:

On Killing and Innocence: The Chronicles of Henry Fellows

Episode 26:

Chapter 9 Begins

Chapter 9: Memories

            Believe it or not, the ridiculous plan to capture my pursuers was a huge success. It was great. I turned into a dead-end street that felt like Jack the Ripper’s home away from home. Dark. Smelly. Rainwater and foulness collecting in little pools of broken concrete. A mixture of stone and brick walls rising up on both sides.

             Took off my helmet and shook out my hair, playing like I had triumphantly eluded the bad guys. Then made a show at throwing myself up against a sheet metal door as they turned down the alley to box me in.

            Then the enjoyment of watching my compatriots box in the boxers.

            I was surprised at how good I was at faking. Kind of stupid for a person that’s been pretending to be another person. A person who used to be a freaking covert operative.  

            Everything should be copacetic. It’s answer time, get to the bottom of things time, but once again I’m clutching for pills.

            I can see Floyd, Marie and Billy tying up a man and woman to chairs in the middle of a room that has the feel of a medieval dungeon.

            I can see them, but things are getting hazy. It’s hard to tell if it happens fast or slow, but my world is different all of sudden. It’s hotter. Like an oven. The sweat is pouring off my chin and the tips of my burnt fingers and the ends of my hair. I’m in a chair. Unable to move. Somebody is hurling questions; they seem to be coming in my direction. I can feel the urging cries, like the next thing I say will determine the fate of the human race. It’s a scene straight out of hell. Imagined or real, I can’t say for sure.  

            Then I’m back. It wasn’t real. I don’t think. I’m looking at Floyd, who’s looking at down at me with a face that says, what the hell Henry?

            “What happened?” I ask, moving fingers and toes. They’re kind of numb, like my brain. “What’s with the third degree?”

            “What third degree?” he asks.

            “The questions and the yelling? Not cool, man.”

            Floyd’s face is doing an epiphany thing. Like he’s figured out how to turn water into wine. “Oh. I get it,” he says.

            “Obvious you’re getting something. Why don’t you curl your mustache and dance a jig while you’re at it? I’m freaking out over here.” Behind Floyd the noises of a full-on interrogation are firing off. It’s starting to get ugly. My eyes squint down as the sound of flesh and bone being pounded reverberates around the room. “Have they given us anything?”

            “It’s just starting—Deer, you know how these things go. Let’s head upstairs. Marie’s got an apartment up there. Beats the hell out of this pit.”

            They’re starting to scream. Part of me wants to join in, but the other part is following my old mentor up creaky wooden stairs and into a drastically different environment. Fancy. Loft style, I guess. Modern kitchen and amenities, intentionally scuffed up hardwood. Turning around I see Floyd closing a heavy cast iron door that’s flush with the floor. A carpet and couch has been moved, obviously there for concealment. “How’d we get into the cellar?” I’m trying to decide if I’m waking up from a nightmare or just plain losing it… again.

            “You were just in this room, Henry. For God’s sake, it was less than five minutes ago.”

            To another person this might elicit shock. I answer with a casual nod.

            “This is Marie’s place… one of them,” Floyd says. “You know—the plan?”

            It’s all still wearing off. Like I was dosed with drugs. Different than the ones I’m dosed on. “Lost time or something.”

            “No, kid. I’m thinking you went back for a minute or two.”

            “Back to—” My mouth stops moving as the realization comes home. Floyd’s in front of me, clear as day, but he’s not Floyd. He’s the shrink from the agency. Not the good one my family endowment paid for. The onsite shrink, some 28-year-old captain with too little experience and too many freaked out soldiers on his docket. I’d been fifty days inside some bunker when they finally got me out. That was their estimate, anyway. Beaten. Starved. Beaten some more. Used a cheese grater to grind layers of skin off. After it was over, they made me talk about it. I heard some poor bastards going on about waterboarding being the worst of it. Nah. The electrocution was worse. You could smell the hair on your balls as it singed. And the trunk. Metal. Like an oven. Not big enough for even a small guy to fit in. Nothing left of the skin of your knees and elbows. Then they’d lift you up and drop you while you were still in it. The concussions. Like nothing I’ve ever felt since or after. The questions. As if I knew anything. Can’t remember. Whatever. They drugged the hell out of me—amphetamines to keep me awake in the box, pentothal to ask me questions—pretty sure they even dosed me with LSD-25 and mescaline one time or another just to make it interesting. Hard to really say. Time wasn’t exactly a “thing” in there. And they didn’t label the pharmaceuticals…