“This is Madness!”
“Madness…? This. IS. SPARTAAAA!”
Great movie, great movie. 😀 A new post from me! Found this semi/old story concept, re-worked it into a short story, and thought I’d share it with you guys! Expect the usual weirdness, and what I do believe is the best ending I’ve ever written!
So, without further ado, let “Madness” begin!
______
[Madness]
Monarch woke up in a good mood. The hospital bed had been unexpectedly comfortable, and the ambient noises of the goings-on outside his room hadn’t interfered with his sleep. The clock on the wall read 7:30 Am. Two hours left.
He stretched his arms, and felt momentary weakness pull at his muscles. The doctor had said that the pre-op medication would have such side effects. It would be worth it, though. After the operation, he would be pain-free. No more cancer. No more radiation therapy. No more grim surgeons quoting figures and statistics, telling him that he only had so long before the tumor in his brain grew large enough to…
But it wouldn’t matter. In two hours, the procedure would commence. It was a new sort of treatment, something to do with lasers and focused magnetism. It hadn’t been cheap, but the money had already been transferred, so no sense in worrying now.
Monarch swung his legs out of bed, surprised to find that he had gone to sleep fully clothed. It didn’t matter, really. The surgery was non-evasive, and it didn’t matter if he was wearing a lead helmet while they worked, the machine would fix him all the same. A revolutionary device, or so they said. Monarch didn’t really give a darn at this point how or why it worked, he just wanted the cancer out of his head.
To kill time, he walked down to the waiting room. The hospital itself was small, its rooms devoid of windows to keep out the sun. Sunlight was something he had been warned about. The rays would break down the chemicals in his bloodstream, rendering the procedure lethal. He didn’t miss it; the rooms were well-lit with artificial lighting, just as inviting as the warmth of the outdoors.
The waiting room smelled of fresh coffee, and Monarch eagerly poured himself a cup. The bitter brew was the same as the stuff he had at home, and he was quite happy to fill a second one. No solid foods before surgery, just fluids. There didn’t seem to be any food around to tempt him, anyway. No vending machines, no bagels, just the coffee pots and the sugar. It didn’t matter. Monarch wasn’t used to eating that early, anyway.
There were four other people in the waiting room, two women and two men. The women were reading magazines, most likely taken from the reading rack by the door. The men were playing chess in a corner, each wearing the small smile of a person assured of victory. Perhaps a game worth watching.
“Mr. Monarch?”
Monarch turned. A short man in a white jacket stood by the ICU entrance, peering over a pair of round spectacles. His left hand grasped a small clipboard, upon which were affixed a number of important-looking papers.
“Mr. Monarch? Is that you?” He spoke with a slight German accent, barely noticeable.
Monarch nodded in reply. “That is my name.”
“Ah, very good, very good. We may begin early, if you feel ready.”
Monarch let out a long sigh. Finally. It was time.
“Yes, doctor. That will be fine.”
“Excellent. I will have Caroline escort you, if that’s alright. Nurse?”
Something wasn’t right. Monarch felt it suddenly, a weird tingling sensation creeping up the back of his neck. He sensed it without turning, a sudden surge of panic gripping his chest. There was something looming up behind him, something massive, something monstrous. He turned quickly, the sudden motion causing him to lose his grip on his coffee.
The cup turned over once, landing upside down on the white tile. Its contents splattered just inches from the feet of the young nurse who now stood before him.
Monarch blinked in surprise, feeling his face begin to get hot. “Ah, sorry, miss. I seem to have… ah, something startled me…”
He bent down, grabbing his now-empty cup from the floor. At the same time, he shot a cursory glance around the room, but everything was as it should have been. Whatever had startled him, if there even had been anything, was no longer there.
Yet he was sure there had been something…
The doctor adjusted his glasses. “Mr. Monarch? Are you feeling alright?
“Yes. Sorry. I’ll clean this up.”
“Oh, no, no. Leave it. We’ll have our maintenance take care of it. We have to begin now.”
The nurse gestured to a set of double-doors on Monarch’s right. He nodded and smiled, still rather embarrassed, and followed the doctor through.
After a short walk, they arrived at their destination. The surgery room had been designed specifically for the use of a single medical device; the “cure for all ailments”, the TANDEM system. The thing looked a little like a sixteen-legged glass spider, perched on a web of wires over the headrest of the surgery bed. Its “legs” dangled down limply, brushing against Monarch’s face as he lay down beneath them.
“The procedure will take five minutes, Mr. Monarch. It’s completely painless. If at any time you feel discomfort, we’ll shut it down at once. Are you ready to begin?
Monarch nodded.
“Good. I’m going to turn it on now. This may feel a bit funny.”
Something clicked, and the appendages came alive, scrabbling across his face. He jerked in surprise, then tried to relax. This was how it should be. Everything was alright. In five minutes, he would walk out of here a healed man. Five minutes…
The machine stopped moving, its legs having found whatever they were searching for. For a long time, nothing seemed to happen.
Then came the noise, a low electric humming from within the machine above him. Lights traced lines on his face, centering on his forehead. The machine began to move, slowly, steadily, as if it were weaving an invisible tapestry across his head.
The noise ramped up, and a vein began to throb in his left temple. At first he paid it no mind, but eventually it grew to the point where it was starting to hurt.
“Doctor… I think it’s… I think something’s wrong. Little bit of discomfort… in my…”
The doctor did not reply.
“Hey, this thing is…”
“Just hold still.”
Apprehension shot through him, and he turned his head, trying to see the doctor. The machine’s legs came loose, wafting over his face, trying to re-connect. It was in that split second that he caught sight of the doctor, and Caroline…
His eyes widened, and he tried to sit up, but his arms and legs seemed to be tied down. He opened his mouth, but his vocal chords were paralyzed, puffing out little more than a strangled gasp.
“Goodnight, Mr. Monarch.”
Monarch screamed, but only in his dreams.
Monarch woke up in a good mood. The hospital bed had been unexpectedly comfortable, and the ambient noises of the goings-on outside his room hadn’t interfered with his sleep. The clock on the wall read 7:30 Am. Two hours left.
His head hurt slightly, a quiet pain that waxed and waned as he sat up on the bed. The doctor had said that the pre-op medication would have such side effects. It would be worth it, though. After the operation, he would be pain-free. No more cancer. No more radiation therapy. No more grim surgeons quoting figures and statistics, telling him that he only had so long before the tumor in his brain grew large enough to…
Something was off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something wasn’t right. A quick search turned up no memory of the day before, or the day before that. His last thought before waking up had been one of contentment as he drifted off to sleep.
“Doctor?”
Receiving no immediate reply, Monarch swung his legs out of bed, surprised to find that he had gone to sleep fully clothed. It seemed odd that the hospital hadn’t given him a gown. It seemed even odder that he couldn’t remember checking in, or who had shown him to his room. He was here for surgery, he knew that much. A tumor in his brain, slowly growing, slowly crushing the soft tissue around it. Perhaps that was the source of his memory loss.
“Doctor?”
Standing with some effort, he walked down to the waiting room in search of medical personell. The hospital itself was small, its rooms devoid of windows to keep out the sun. Sunlight was something he had been warned about. The rays would break down the chemicals in his bloodstream, rendering the removal procedure lethal. How he knew that, he didn’t know.
The waiting room smelled of fresh coffee, but Monarch wasn’t hungry. He ignored the room’s three other occupants, heading for the exit. If he could find the front desk, maybe they could sort things out…
“Mr. Monarch?”
Monarch turned. A short man in a white jacket stood by the ICU entrance, peering over a pair of round spectacles. His left hand grasped a small clipboard, upon which were affixed a number of important-looking papers.
“Mr. Monarch? Is that you?”
“Yes, ah, that is my name.”
“Ah, very good, very good. We have elected to begin your procedure early, if you feel ready.”
Monarch frowned slightly.
“Ah, yes. Actually, I’m feeling a bit out-of-sorts. Is there any way to ensure that the medication is working correctly?”
“Oh, don’t worry. As long as you’ve been staying out of the sun, it should be fine. Are you feeling ill? The compounds have been known to cause minor nausea…”
Monarch almost replied, but in the end, he never got a chance. A very strong sense of deja vu washed over him, as well as a sense of what was about to happen. He whipped around, half-terrified of what he would see, half-crazed with the need to see…
There was nothing there.
“Too soon,” sighed the doctor.
Monarch turned back to him, confused. “What?”
“Hm? I didn’t say anything. The TANDEM is primed and ready, so we should start at once. I will have Caroline escort you, if that’s alright. Nurse?”
“Yes, doctor.”
The nurse was behind Monarch. There had been no one there only seconds earlier, he was sure of it. No one had entered the room, he would have heard the door. Yet there she was, her almost-pretty face expressionless, her eyes burning into his.
“Wait, I need to…”
Caroline placed a hand on his shoulder, her grip like steel.
“Come along.”
Monarch slumped slightly. His head felt foggy, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His feet moved by themselves, pulling him along behind the doctor as they walked. His next conscious thought was the realization that he was now on the surgery bed, the TANDEM dangling over his face.
“The procedure will take five minutes, Mr. Monarch. It’s completely painless. If at any time you feel discomfort, we’ll shut it down at once. Are you ready to begin?
Monarch didn’t reply. His arms and legs felt heavy, his breathing slow and thick.
The machine began its work, appendages whisking about, gripping at his skin. The humming rattled his eardrums, blurring his vision. As the world began to spin, he heard the doctor say, “We’ll have to change it. He’s not following the program. If he remembers, everything will…”
Then there was nothing.
Monarch woke with a gasp, lurching up in the hospital bed. He hadn’t forgotten this time, at least not entirely. He had already undergone the procedure, yet his brain was still running the same thoughts as the day before. Anticipating the treatment, watching the clock, wanting the tumor removed.
He wondered briefly if he even had a tumor. That question brought a sea of others; why was he still here? Why did the doctor keep running him through the same procedure over and over? Why did he have two sets of memories, one insisting that he was here for the first time, the other telling him that he had been here far longer than he could remember?
Whatever was going on, it was clear that they hadn’t anticipated his sudden recall. Otherwise, he had a feeling he would never have woken up. Things were moving forward on a schedule, a schedule that hadn’t changed for days, maybe weeks.
It hadn’t changed, but it was about to.
With a sudden burst of energy, Monarch leapt from the bed, hurrying out into the hall. He knew exactly where to go. The hospital layout was in his head, every room, every hallway. There were only two exits, and the closest was through the main lobby. That was also where the doctor appeared like clockwork every single day. Or was it day? It could have been night, for all he knew. No way to tell. Either way, he had to hurry.
The waiting room had changed. He noticed it as he rushed through, the exit sign shining before him. There were only two people now, down from the three the day before, and the four the day before that. He didn’t stop to wonder what happened to them.
The door was operated by a push-bar. The bar stuck briefly as he pushed against it, heavier than he had expected. Panicked, he struck it with all his strength, actually bending the bar and causing the door to snap open in a rush of air.
He stepped through… into the waiting room.
It took him a minute to comprehend the fact that he was right back where he had started. He turned, staring back the way he had come. The waiting room was there, too. Two identical waiting rooms, except the new one was empty. In the new room, nothing lived, nothing moved. It was spotlessly clean, yet had the air of a place long devoid of attention.
After a moment of indecision, he pressed on into the “new” hospital. They would be looking for him any moment now. He had to move quickly.
Assuming the design was the same, the second exit should have been down the same hall as the surgery. It was down this hall that he raced, feeling as if some great monstrosity were even now at his heels.
As he passed the surgery, he heard a familiar sound: there was a TANDEM on this side, too, droning away as it worked. He stopped briefly, wondering if the doctor had another prisoner here as well. The need to save whoever might be within the surgery overrode his fear, and he tiptoed back, peering in through the glass.
His eyes processed a single image, taking in everything in a millisecond. His altered brain perceived two realities side-by-side, one false, one true.
The false was the strongest. The doctor sat within, monitoring the TANDEM on a laptop; Caroline stood by the bed, holding the patient’s hand as the machine worked; and where a person should have lain, there was nothing. A human-shaped hole in the air, where Monarch’s mind told him that no person existed.
The truth was harder to see, but it was still there. The doctor sat within, his clothes ragged and dusty, his spectacles cracked, his ancient fingers tapping on the TANDEM’s control console. Caroline was as she always had been; a monster, a hulking thing that had at some point been a woman, but was now an over-muscled freak, towering almost to the ceiling.
And on the bed sat not a man but a corpse, a dried, skeletal body, decaying where it lay.
Even as the grotesqueness of what lay before him began to register, the TANDEM finished its work, cycling down with a rattling hum. The crystalline legs drew up into the frame, the blue lights winking out one by one.
The doctor turned, speaking two sentences.
“All done, Mr. Warmine. You can return to your room now.”
To Monarch’s horror, at the doctor’s words, the corpse sat up on the bed. It ran its dry fingers across its face, leaving rents in its paper-thin skin. The withered mouth opened, rasping words through black teeth.
“Thank… you… doctor. I… feel… much… better… now.”
“Indeed you should. We’ve completely cured your liver failure! The TANDEM truly is a miracle of modern technology. One more night’s rest, and you can go home.”
The dead man nodded, its shriveled eyes turning to the door. “It… will… be… good… to… see… Moyra… again. I’m… finally… better…”
It lurched from its perch, tottering to the door. Monarch had enough presence of mind to duck back out of sight, allowing what was left of Mr. Warmine to move past without spotting him. The corpse staggered through the double-doors, presumably returning to its room.
Back inside the surgury, Monarch heard the doctor speaking to Caroline. “Prep the machine for Mr. Warmine’s treatment tomorrow. I’ll go get started on Mr. Monarch.”
“Yes, doctor,” rumbled the behemoth woman, reaching down to type on the computer with disproportionately small, delicate fingers.
The doctor (and Monarch now realized that he didn’t even know the doctor’s name) left the operating room, walking calmly towards the waiting room. Monarch followed several steps behind, his footfalls noiseless. He had to have answers. He had to get the truth, even if he had to beat the life out of the doctor to find it.
The doctor passed through the waiting-room doors into Monarch’s side, stopping just inside. His face registered brief confusion, his hand pulling a pocket-watch from his right front pocket.
“Mr. Monarch? Are you here?”
He turned… and saw Monarch, looming over him, a chair gripped in both hands, poised to strike. The doctor’s mouth formed a wordless “o”, and he fell back, dropping the watch in the process.
Monarch had no interest in hurting the old man, but at that point he was so angry, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He took a step forward, shouting down at the old man. “Who are you? Why am I here?”
“Mr… Mr. Monarch! What are you doing? You have a tumor, remember? We were-”
“Lie to me again, and I will bash out your brains. What is your name?”
“I swear to you I have none! I haf\ve cast aside my humanity, my life, to make the world a better place.”
Monarch brought the chair down, smashing it to pieces beside the doctor’s head. The doctor covered his face with one hand, scrambling away from the menacing figure before him.
Monarch hefted a splintered leg, following the doctor.
“What are you talking about? Explain this to me! Tell me! TELL ME!”
He struck a nearby lamp with his chair leg for emphasis, sending glass shards bouncing across the floor.
The doctor couldn’t get his words out fast enough, his German accent becoming more pronounced in his agitation. “You, you were selected from many others! You had a terminal disease, a tumor in your brain. You were going to die. So I took you from your home. I saved you.”
“Saved me?”
“The TANDEM, it grants, it grants eternal life! It resets the brain, doesn’t let it age! The tumor can’t grow! The machine restores you to how you were the day before, puts your memories back, reverses aging! That and many other good things!”
Monarch frowned, still holding his makeshift club at ready. “So, it just… sets me back a day? Why didn’t it work this time? Why do I remember?”
The doctor pulled himself into a chair, visibly perspiring. “Something wrong.. with your tumor. Because it was in the brain… blocked some of the treatment. Left a… ghost imprint, like a shadow. Memories on top of memories. I thought we had fixed it… tried several times. Seemed to work this time.”
“Several times… how long have I been here? Weeks? Months? Does my family know I’m alive?”
The doctor adjusted his spectacles. “You have been here thirty years, Mr. monarch. I have taken good care of you all this time.”
Monarch stood frozen, the color draining from his face.
“My family… My children…!”
“They do not know you live. They think you died a long time ago.”
It couldn’t be. That couldn’t be right. There was no way.
“And what of that… that thing? The dead man, Mr. Warmine? And Caroline…”
“Caroline is my… how you say…? My wife? She was going to die. She vas so very very weak. So I brought her back. I made her strong. The TANDEM can make you strong, Mr. Monarch, and smart, and fast. As to Mr. Warmine… he was my first client. He wanted… to live forever. So he does. I remake his brain, day to day. He thinks he has a very small liver disease. He thinks he is only forty years old. He is one hundred and ten, and he has been physically dead for fifty years. I do not allow him to see his old body, to see the rot. To him, in his thoughts, he is happy, healthy. As the mind thinks it is, so it is.”
The entrance door opened, and Caroline lumbered through. Monarch turned in terror, raising his chair leg to defend himself.
“Wait, no! She is harmless! She will not hurt a fly. Do not hit her!”
The monster that had once been Caroline cowered back, putting out arms the size of tree-trunks to protect itself from the little man before her.
Monarch had had enough. “How do I get out of here? HOW?”
The doctor rose to his feet, alarmed. “If you leave, you will die. The TANDEM is all that keeps you on this Earth! Without it, you have days, maybe hours before you die. All my work, in vain! I can cure you, Mr. Monarch, but you must give me time!”
“No! No more! I won’t end up like that… that thing! I want to live. I want to be free! This isn’t life! This is perpetual death!”
“A death you vould never know! You would always be happy. Always alive!
“Tell me. Now!”
The doctor shrugged helplessly. “Through the back. Past surgery. It leads to the TANDEM’s heart, and the way out. Stairs that take you up to the world.”
Freedom. Freedom from this madness. Monarch took a step towards the door, then hesitated.
“The other man. Is he the only one?”
The doctor seemed to be recovering from his fright, speaking easier. “No. No, there are others. About twenty. They were all to perish, and I saved them. Some paid me to keep them. Some I go out and get. Most are asleep under their TANDEM, forever to live until we can heal their bodies. I keep them until they rot to dust. Others are awake. They fight it. So I must reprogram them day to day. Like Mr. Warmine. Like you.”
Monarch felt anger curl inside him. “You turn it off, you hear me? You stop this. You let them die. This thing, this TANDEM… it’s beyond evil. Shut it down.”
“I… I cannot.”
Monarch’s eyes grew cold. “Then I shall.”
And he began to run. Down the hall, past the empty surgery. Around the corner, through a large steel door marked “employees only”.
The TANDEM’s heart was there, just as the doctor had said; a towering apparatus, all silky strands and multifaceted, shimmering glass, droning like a nest of hornets. Its size gave him pause, but the memory of that awful walking cadaver gave him the strength to do what was necessary.
The brittle machinery caved under the first blow, smashing to bits. The cacophony of breaking glass rattled Monarch’s eardrums as he rained blow after blow on the demonic device, until at last the infernal hum ceased, and the construct lay in ruin before his feet. Something in the mess caught fire, and acrid smoke curled lazily around his torso.
He turned, and saw the doctor and Caroline, watching him. Caroline’s face was blank, staring into the flickering fire grow. The doctor was silent as well, his eyes on Monarch, a single tear rolling down his ancient cheek. Monarch felt only disgust, turning away, walking over the shattered hopes of a twisted old man.
The rest was like a dream. He remembered vaguely climbing a long, long ladder in near-darkness, then the blinding light of the evening sun shining through the branches of an evergreen. He remembered walking a long, long way, through grass and streams and forest, his head feeling as if it had been struck by lightning.
In the end, he found a road. There were few cars at that time of day. None stopped for the stranger by the roadside, standing there in tattered clothes, a broken chair leg in his hand. It was only after he collapsed to the ground that one family did stop, their children concerned about the “homeless man” lying by the road.
The first responders pronounced him dead at the scene. The cause of death; the combination of a sizable brain tumor in his frontal lobe and exposure from days of starvation and dehydration. A month later, he was identified by surprised relatives as Mr. Jarrod L. Monarch, a wealthy businessman last seen preparing for brain surgery at Warren General Hospital thirty-four years ago. According to several astounded doctors, there was no possible way that “the alleged Mr. Monarch” could have survived that long with a deadly tumor in his brian. Yet there he was, almost seventy miles and thirty years from the place of his disappearance.
His death was filed as “suspicious”, and the paperwork was placed in a drawer and forgotten. Eventually, it would be moved to the archives, on top of two other files; one, that of Mr. Charles R. Warmine, a wealthy gentleman kidnapped a long, long time ago; and a second, that of Rueter Deitrick, MD, who vanished in a fire that took the life of his wife, Caroline.
There, in that library, the four names would sit, never to die, forever outside of time.
Forever immortal.
