Chapter 2

When Marns finally came to consciousness a wave of pain flowed through his body and he tried to reach up a hand to grab his head where he had been hit earlier. He had no memory of what had happened, but his head still throbbed. His eyes flew open though, when he realized that he couldn’t move his arm, because it was tied behind him. As his eyes opened the preceding events all came back to him and he searched the dark room for Johnson with his eyes. He finally began to relax when Johnson’s familiar voice quietly rang in his ear.

“Are you alright, captain?”

“Silent, Johnson. We don’t want him to hear us.” His old training came back to mind as he began to assess the situation.

“He won’t hear us. He went out just a couple of minutes ago to get some blackberries that he saw earlier. Besides, we’re allowed to talk. I mean, he’s really a nice guy, considering.”

“What do you mean, nice guy?! He killed nine people, and has us tied up in here!”

“I said considering! Besides, he explained to me why he killed those people, and although he was wrong in doing it and he should be punished, I can see why he did it.”

“What do you mean he explained it to you?! You talked to him?!”

“Oh yeah. I woke up about an hour ago and we’ve been talking since then.”

“Johnson! You know the first rule is not to talk to your kidnapper about his police record!” Just then a very disheveled Lance walked in the room with an old plastic bag full of blackberries.

“Just let us go and no harm will come to you,” Marns directed at Lance in a soft monotone voice. He was given a simple expression of confusion in return, before Lance turned to Johnson.

“What’s he talking about, Paul?”

“He thinks that you’re going to kill us.” Lance chuckled to himself while turning back to Marns.

“I’m not going to kill you. Not since the voices left.” Marns gave Johnson a look before asking a question.

“What voices?”

“I really don’t like talking about them, but these say a lot about them, if you’d like to read them.” He tossed his psychological analysis into Marns’s lap, and then laughed when he realized that the man’s hands were still tied behind his back.

“Do you think I can trust him without his hands tied, Paul?”

“To tell you the truth, Lance, no.” Marns shot him a glance of disapproval, and then began going over the top paper on his lap. What he read scared him even more then he had been. The man holding him hostage was a convicted murderer, and had been diagnosed with one of the most severe cases of schizophrenia the hospital had seen in its history. After about ten minutes a pale hand grabbed the top sheet for him to read the next. This one was discussing the origins of the voices in Lance’s head. They were believed to be the psychological manifestations of his dead friends, the ones he had killed. There were officially four identifiable voices that mentally tortured the young man. The voices never came forward with names, but Lance told the doctors that they sounded like his friends. One, the most prominent was believed to be his manifestation of Justin Timberlake. It tortured him day and night with its taunting catcalls, and humiliating insults. Marns looked back up to Lance and observed the dirty former pop star as he sat down to eat the berries that he had just collected.

“I don’t want to kill you, but I can’t have you turning me in either. I would rather die than go back to the asylum.” He said it rather calmly as he kept his eyes to the table in front of him.

“How long are you going to keep us here?” Lance looked at him blankly and then swallowed before answering.

“I don’t know. I guess you’ll just have to hope that I die young, because I’m not letting you go until then.” He sighed and then lied back against the wall as he went over plans of escape. Johnson or Paul as Lance called him was no longer tied up and sat beside Lance eating the sweet berries. Marns watched this and decided that his only hope of escape would have to be through Johnson, because Lance obviously did not trust him. His thoughts were shaken though, by a voice beside him.

“I’m going to bed soon. Do you want to eat before I go to sleep?” Marns shook his head yes, and opened his mouth as the hand holding several berries headed towards it. He felt a piece of fabric brush over his lips, and then the voice spoke again.

“Thirsty?” He nodded again and gulped down a few mouthfuls of water before leaning away from the plastic cup in front of his face.

“I’m sorry, Paul, but I’m going to have to tie you up for the night, too, because I don’t know you that well and all, okay?” Marns cursed his partner’s helpfulness to their kidnapper and leaned against the wall to observe in the soft moonlight. He saw his young kidnapper curl up into a tight ball in the corner and fall almost immediately asleep as if he hadn’t had a peaceful night in years. It wasn’t until early that morning that he saw why Lance’s nights had become so hectic.

Lance struggled against the arms grabbing him as they pulled him onto the stretcher and strapped him down with the thick leather straps.

“No! Please, no!” They stopped holding him as the straps did the job for them, keeping his struggling to a minimum. They seemed to be ignoring him, except for one kind nurse who got as close as possible to comfort him.

“It’s part of your treatment, Mr. Bass. It’s going to help you get better.”

“No! It won’t!” He pleaded with the nurse, as he kept kicking and pushing against his restraints, but she backed away as he was wheeled into the room that all of the patients dreaded. He felt his clothes being stripped from his body, and the rubber cord being wrapped around his head and forced into his mouth. He tried to scream again, but was forced to stop when the rubber mouthpiece pushed back his tongue.

“Alright, Mr. Bass, brace yourself,” a calm doctor’s voice informed him of the pain awaiting him, but before he could comprehend the statement a painful shock went through his brain, and his vision dissipated to blurred streaks of white across a field of black. He felt himself seizuring, but could not concentrate on it as the shocks shook his brain, and his entire body was enveloped in a world of intense pain. His head felt as if it would explode and there was nothing that he could do about it. Even as the mouthpiece was pulled from his mouth the pain held onto him and his vision did not clear.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it Mr. Bass?”

Chapter 3