slowly adjusted, and he saw that the faces belonged to children. All of their teeth were missing. The kids sat in a circle like ring-around-the-rosy. The center of the circle was completely clear with a large bright light hanging high above a cold, metal table filled with instruments.
He was in an operating room.
A doctor waited for him in full surgical scrubs, his face covered by a white mask. Christopher couldn’t see the doctor’s eyes. The nurse pushed Christopher through the circle as the children surrounded him. Their eyes glowing.
Christopher turned away, terrified. The kids began to howl, jumping up and down like monkeys at a zoo. They tried to scream “Just tell us where he is, Christopher!” but with no teeth, they sounded hideous.
The nurse wheeled Christopher into the middle of the operating room. She locked the gurney wheels right next to the cold metal table. The doctor held up his hand, asking the room for silence. The kids obeyed. The doctor slowly walked to Christopher on the gurney. His shoes made an echo with each step in the silent room. The doctor held up his scalpel, silver and gleaming.
“Christopher,” the doctor said in Bad Cat’s voice. “We don’t want to hurt you, buddy, but we need a worm to catch the fish. Just tell us where he is, and it all goes away. We don’t want to have to do this. Oh gosh, no we don’t.”
Christopher looked over and saw David Olson on the cold metal table. David’s eyes were closed. Was he asleep? Was he dead? Did she find out that David helped the nice man escape? Was this his punishment? Was David being tortured?
“Christopher, we’re running out of time. So, if you don’t tell us where he is, we’re going to cut out your tongue. Maybe it’ll start talking, buddy.”
Christopher searched the crowd, hoping to find his friends. His mother. The nice man coming to save him. But he was all alone.
“Oh, nobody can help you,” the doctor said. “Not until you tell us where he is.”
The whites of the doctor’s eyes started to change as if someone were pouring black paint into them.
“So, use your tongue, or I’ll cut it out,” the doctor said.
“I don’t know where he is! I swear!” Christopher said.
The doctor sighed. “Very well. Nurse…the gas, please.”
The nurse nodded and wheeled over the gas tank. She took the plastic mask and opened the valve, which let the vapor out in a long snaky hsssssssssssss. She brought it to Christopher’s mouth. He turned his head.
“NO! You won’t put me to sleep!” he shrieked.
“This gas doesn’t put you to sleep, Christopher. It makes you extra awake. We want you to feel this.”
The nurse slammed the plastic mask down over his mouth and nose. The children jumped up and down, howling. Christopher held his breath, struggling against the mask. The doctor waited patiently for him to breathe. Christopher’s face turned red. His lungs felt like they would collapse. He finally couldn’t take another second of it.
Christopher took a deep breath.
The gas hit his lungs. Within seconds, he felt AWAKE! His eyes opened as if he’d eaten a million Pixy Stix. He tried to stop, but he filled his lungs with more and more gas, making his heart feel like it would explode. But there was something else he could sense. The gas reminded him of something. It smelled like…it smelled like…
It smelled like old baseball gloves.
Christopher looked back to the room, and that’s when he saw her.
It was his mother.
She was dressed in the same outfit she wore when she was driving the car. Yes. The car. That’s where I was. Her forehead was cut. Windshield glass in her hair. From the accident. And now she was crawling on the floor like a soldier. Past the kids screaming like monkeys. Using the shadows of their bodies to hide herself from the light.
Just as the doctor brought the scalpel to Christopher’s tongue, Christopher’s mother leapt up and rushed at him.
“Get away from him!” she shrieked.
Christopher’s mother slammed her body into the nurse and grabbed the scalpel out of the doctor’s hand. She drove the scalpel into his shoulder. The doctor screamed as his lab coat turned from white to a dark blood red. Christopher’s mother unlocked the gurney. The children rushed at her, trying to stop the escape, but Christopher’s mother was faster. She pushed the gurney out of the operating room.
“Are you okay, honey? Are you hurt?” Christopher’s mother asked.