Chapter 3
Marns and Johnson awoke to a long solid wail, and they both stared over to the source of the noise, their kidnapper was curled up in a ball with his head in his hands and his mouth wide open. Johnson screamed for Marns.
“What’s he doing? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know! It looks like some kind of nightmare!” As his sentence died out so did the scream that had awakened them. As it did, their kidnapper’s body slowly uncurled and flopped out across the floor as if dead. They both stared at it in silence before Johnson whispered slowly.
“Do you think he’s okay?” Before Marns could reply they were interrupted by a deep voice from the corner.
“I’m fine. I just had a flashback.”
“A flashback?”
“Yeah, from the hospital.” Lance stood up and went to sit in the solitary chair of his home. Johnson was about to ask another question, but decided not to when he realized the note of finality in Lance’s voice. Marns either did not hear it or did not care, though.
“What kind of flashbacks?” Lance hesitated and then looked over at Marns.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I might.” Lance sighed and then looked Marns straight in the eye.
“Have you ever been ever been strapped down and given sedatives for the simple reason that you were scared? Have you ever been forced to spend entire days in a solitary confinement room naked? Have you ever been given electroshock therapy?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“That’s what I thought.” He sighed again and then looked down at the magazine sitting on the table in front of him. He was immediately faced with the smiling face of his former self and he threw it across the room whirling toward a wall. He felt a lump rise in his throat as he looked back up at the two men across the small room from him.
“I’m never going back there. I’d rather die.” Johnson and Marns stared at each other with confused looks on their faces. Johnson quietly cleared his throat as if to speak, but Lance interrupted him abruptly.
“I have to go and get some water. I don’t want either of you to move.” He didn’t look up, but just left the room in a hurry. They sat in silence and Marns closed his eyes as the sound of crying softly permeated the air.
“Marns?”
“Yeah, Johnson?”
“You know that stuff that he said before about what happened to him… Do they really do all of that?” Marns looked over to his partner who had fear lacing his eyes. He sighed as he answered the fear-induced question.
“It’s what the CCHR is fighting against. ECT or electroshock treatment, and psychoactive drugs are two of the most commonly used treatments of psychiatrists in this country, so I wouldn’t doubt it.” Johnson looked back to the door, and waited for Lance to come back as he gained a new respect for the shattered young man. When he finally did return Johnson spoke up in sad tone.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Johnson looked toward Marns and Lance did too.
“What is he sorry about? Did you guys mess with something while I was gone?” Lance glanced around the room nervously taking in his surroundings to check for any kind of disturbances.
“No. He’s sorry for what happened in the hospital. I’m not sorry, though. You got to go there instead of prison. They couldn’t just let you go as an admitted murderer.”
“I would have rather gone to prison.”
“You’ve never been to prison. You wouldn’t have wanted to be there.”
“Anything would have been better than the hospital.”
“Please… You were coddled there. You were protected.” Lance looked over to him with an air of defiance and anger surrounding him, but it quickly changed to shame and submissiveness.
“Are you hungry?”
“You changed the subject.”
“No, I didn’t. I just thought that you might be hungry.”
“What about that water you were going to get.”
“I forgot to get it.”
“You weren’t going to get it.” With that they both locked eyes in a kind of a stare down as Johnson looked on in amazement.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You weren’t there, and you have no idea what I went through! You have no fucking idea!”
“Stop trying to get sympathy from us. It’s not going to work.”
“I’m not trying to get anything from you!” Lance grabbed his head and fell to his knees, hyperventilating. Johnson pulled against his ropes and tried to make his way to their kidnapper. Before he made it over to Lance’s side a scream even louder than before emitted from the sniveling mass before him.
“No!!” Lance’s vision was flooded with a bright white light and he tried to pull his hands up to his face, but then he realized that they were wrapped in thick leather restraints and he felt a stern hand pushing down against his chest making it hard for him to breath.
“Calm down, Mr. Bass, or we’ll have to give you another sedative.”
“No! Please, no!” One of the doctors pulled a hypodermic needle out of his pocket, and Lance attempted to pull away from him, but he soon felt his shirt being lifted up and a needle was plunged into his side.
“No!” He felt the contents being injected into his bloodstream, and his vision began to waiver. His eyelids felt heavy, and he slipped into unconsciousness.
“Lance, what are you doing?” He looked up with tear-filled eyes at his hostage, and whispered to him in a hoarse voice.
“Don’t let them take me back.” Johnson looked up at Marns and gave him an evil scowl as he recalled the screaming fit that Marns and Lance had recently had.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to try to make him mad. Isn’t that what you told me?” Marns shrugged his shoulders and commented in a soft tone.
“I got personal with him. That’s how I would have acted toward any normal person.”
“You are a monster.”
Chapter 4