By Al Bruno III
January 26th: By the time Kris Halloran reached the building on Thornburg Street, the bullet wound had dulled from searing pain to a steady ache. He'd made it home without drawing undue attention, managed a clumsy but functional job of bandaging himself, and changed into a clean—albeit stolen—shirt. Now, his only problem was figuring out how to get the bullet removed. He couldn't go to an emergency room; even if he weren't a paroled felon, there was no way he could get away with the 'I was cleaning my gun when it went off' excuse—not with a bullet wound from a botched convenience store robbery.
In situations like this Dr. Thiesen was your only option. Every shady character in Albany knew that. All you had to do was meet his price and keep your mouth shut. Dr. Thiesen's three-story home was in one of the worst parts of Albany, but neither he nor his patients were bothered. Since Kris's ill-fated stick-up happened in Schenectady, the trip to Thornburg Street had been one of the most miserable experiences of his life.
In the end, it all seemed worth it, both figuratively and literally. Despite the late hour, Dr. Thiesen was awake and ready to help. Kris was broke, so Dr. Thiesen agreed to accept payment in trade. The price? Twelve swatches of skin from various parts of Kris's body. It was a creepy as hell commitment, but Kris felt he had no choice. He'd heard stories of people paying with kidneys or worse. At least Dr. Thiesen promised not to touch Kris's elaborately tattooed arms, opting instead for skin from his belly and back. Even Dr. Thiesen had taken a moment to admire the intricate ink patterns stretching from wrist to shoulder—interlocking roses and barbed wire twisted in designs that drew the eye over and over.
Hours later, Kris awoke from the anesthesia to find himself alone in a cramped makeshift operating room. The gurney was bare, and the IV bag hooked to his arm was empty. What had woken him?
The transition between the two paragraphs is fairly smooth, but you could improve it by creating a clearer link between the noise and Kris's growing concern about time. Here's a revised version that tightens the transition and maintains narrative flow:
There was a noise coming from upstairs—a sharp, shrill sound that evoked the buzzing of cicadas but with a distinct metallic edge. It reminded Kris of something from his uncle's Lou Reed albums, though he couldn’t quite place it. Was it called metal music? Could that be how the stuffy Dr. Thiesen unwound after a grueling day at the office? Kris found the thought vaguely amusing.
However, the amusement quickly faded as he realized he had no idea what time it was or even what day. The windows in the room were blacked out, and there were no clocks in sight. Kris had a crucial meeting with his parole officer that he couldn’t afford to miss. If he’d slept through it, then all of this would have been for nothing. He called out for Dr. Thiesen, but received no response. Upstairs, someone was shouting—no, it was two voices. Kris wondered who it was, but then he realized he didn’t really care all that much. His main concern was finding his clothes.
It turned out that locating his clothes was the easiest part. Putting them on was agony. His shoulder hurt worse than before, and the places where the skin had been removed made everything worse. Dr. Thiesen had promised he'd take no more than a few inches here and there, but the pain and the bandages covering his body seemed enormous. Finally, Kris was zipped and buckled up; he couldn't find the stained stolen shirt but was glad to lose it, so he eased himself into his leather jacket. That done, he jammed his feet into his shoes like they were backless slippers.
The piercing wail stopped abruptly, and he heard someone scream. Was there another patient upstairs? Gruesome images flashed through Kris’s mind, throwing him into a panic. He yanked the IV out of his arm and started at a slow hobble for the door. He willed himself to move quickly and quietly, but a sudden flare of pain made him groan audibly.
As he struggled toward the door, a silhouette appeared in the doorway. The figure didn’t make sense—tall and lanky, with stooped shoulders, twitching arms, and slightly bowed knees. As the shape stepped into the light, Kris was able to make out its face clearly.
The sight set Kris running for his life, pain be damned…
###
...The police found Kris Halloran stumbling through traffic, his stitches torn open and his expression wild. He raved about having escaped from a house full of monsters, but when the police investigated his claims, they found nothing to support his story. There was no record of a Dr. Thiesen in the tri-city area, and the supposed house of horrors turned out to be an empty building. The property was owned by a Mrs. Mary Ingolstadt, a very elderly and confused resident of Switzerland. By the time the police sorted out these details, it was already too late. Kris Halloran, possibly anticipating his probation being revoked, had left the hospital and vanished without a trace.
I had been trying for weeks to speak to Ashley Fowler. I had visited her office a dozen times, called her, sent emails, and sent a fruit basket. But she didn’t respond in any way, not even with a nice civilized restraining order.
Feeling discouraged, I decided to distract myself. And what better distraction than a story that starts with a man screaming about monsters and ends with him vanishing without a trace? I wasn’t the only one captivated; other members of the FEAROFTRUTH message board had also become obsessed with the story, finally derailing the endless debate on "Is the Mothman gay?" that had been dragging on for months.
You see, Kris’s tale wasn’t unique. For nearly two years, stories had been circulating around the Tri-City Area about a physician who offered his services to those who couldn’t go anywhere else due to lack of resources or respectability. The doctor’s name changed frequently, but his modus operandi remained the same. You either paid in cold, hard cash or you gave up a pound of flesh—give or take a few ounces. There were rumors of criminals donating kidneys for plastic surgery and desperate parents sacrificing an eye or a limb. The message board was abuzz with speculation about what he was doing with all those spare parts.
I kept my eyes peeled and my ears to the ground—at least, in the social media sense.Inevitably the secret sawbones surfaced again, this time in Hamilton Hill. If you don’t know anything about the neighborhood of Hamilton Hill let me give you this succinct description- stay the fuck out of Hamilton Hill. The crime rate is high, the landlords are all scumbags, most of the businesses are shuttered and the population is either desperate or demoralized.
Ironically, the location where the man now calling himself "Dr. Ernest" chose to operate was just a block and a half from where Kris Halloran had lived. After trading notes with the TrueSeeker from the message board, I decided to dive into some serious investigating.
That’s how I found myself sitting in the stained barber chair that Dr. Ernest used as an examination table. I was a bit dazed and pretty drunk, with a bloodied, possibly broken nose, possibly a sore wrist and a strong possibility of a cracked rib—again.
“So,” Dr. Ernest leaned over me. He was fat with wavy black hair and a thick mustache. His voice, thick with a Turkish accent, carried no compassion, only boredom. “You get into bar fight?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you should see the other guy.” And by that, I meant the other guy didn’t have a scratch on him.
“Did anyone see you come here?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
“How did you hear about me?”
“Word gets around.”
He frowned at that. “And you’re on probation, yes? Do you have health insurance?”
I shook my head. This was my cover story: I was a broke ex-con struggling to stay out of trouble. The cover story and yet another fake ID from Cousin Roy were all well and good, but where did I get the injuries to match my little deception? Well, I actually did get into a bar fight. I had a few drinks to dull the pain and then went looking for trouble. I didn’t throw the first punch, but I did hurl a lot of profanities and committed the cardinal sin of praising the Boston Red Sox.
That remark got some attention, alright—attention from the largest Yankees fan I had ever seen. He took me down with his beer in one hand and a knuckle sandwich in the other. The bouncers quickly tossed us out of the bar. My sparring partner thought we were going to finish our fight in the street, but instead, I thanked him, handed him a small token of gratitude, and made a quick escape to my car while he stared in confusion at his brand-new fifty-dollar Denny’s gift card.
"Your nasal fracture is displaced." Dr. Ernest walked away and returned with a metal tray brimming with medical supplies. "And you’ve dislocated wrist."
"Dislocated my wrist?" I lifted my arm and winced.
Dr. Ernest said, "My rates are simple. I need seven hundred dollars in cash right now, or I take it out in trade. An ear will suffice."
"An ear?" My stomach went cold at the thought. "Why would you want one of my ears?"
"That is not your concern," he said. "Now, how do you plan to pay me, or are you wasting my time?"
"I’ve got the money," I said, pulling a handful of hundreds from my pocket. Dr. Ernest inspected them, checking their authenticity. They were real. Investigating the unknown can be pretty damn expensive.
Dr. Ernest retrieved a large needle from his tray. "Let us begin then."
The syringe was buried in my wreck of a nose and back out again before I knew what was happening. “What the hell was that for? What was in that needle? Are you crazy or something?” I sat up, then laid back down again, “I... I’m... what?”
“Just a little morphine,” he said matter-of-factly, “I need you to speak to me with more candor.”
“Candor...” I repeated, my voice slurred and mirthful. In that moment I loved the sound of that word more than anything else, “...candor candor candor.”
He held my fake ID up between his forefinger and thumb as though it was something rotten, “It says here you are Nathaniel Blades.”
I giggled, “Yeah it’s cool isn’t it?”
“It also says you were born in 1968. You don’t look 47 years old.” Dr. Ernest’s expression darkened, “You don’t look 47 years old.”
The jig was up. I wanted to make a break for it, but my thoughts felt like they were slogging through molasses, taking what seemed like an eternity to travel from my brain to my limbs. By the time I finally managed to summon the will to move, I found myself already strapped into the barber’s chair. Meanwhile, the morphine haze was growing thicker.
As he fastened my feet down, Dr. Ernest asked, “Who are you really?”
“I’m… I’m totally that guy you mentioned,” I stammered. A chill swept over me as it dawned on me what was happening. “Why are you taking down my pants? That’s silly!”
Dr. Ernest called out to a shadowy corner of the room, “Gorto! Stop lurking about. You can come help me if you want.”
The face that suddenly loomed over me was straight out of a nightmare—The face that suddenly loomed over me was straight out of a nightmare—shriveled yellow skin stretched tight over a bald, angular skull. Metal bolts stuck out from the sides of the head, each capped with a riveted top. Watery eyes glared from under a pugilist’s nose, and the mouth was filled with metallic teeth. Despite its grotesque appearance, there was something eerily baby-like about it.
Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so giggly anymore. I screamed and began thrashing, desperately trying to free myself from the chair.
“What are you gonna do?” The voice that came from the nightmarish face was slurred and childlike. The figure wore a too-small Limp Bizkit t-shirt, which revealed patches of flesh on their too-long arms that didn’t quite match.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded again as Dr. Ernest placed a plastic saucer on my belly. “I just wanted my nose fixed!”
“And your wrist,” he added.
“Can I have my pants back?”
At that, Gorto said, “Baba, you’re scarin' me again...”
“You’re scared?” I looked from Gorto to Dr. Ernest and back again, “Did you just call him Baba?”
Dr. Ernest said, “No one comes to me for somethin' as simple as broken nose—”
“—and a dislocated wrist.” I added.
“—and they certainly don’t come to me with a wad of brand new hundred dollar bills.”
“That’s how they came outta the ATM!”
“But Baba...” Gorto’s features were hard to read, but the worry in their voice was unmistakable. “Whatcha gonna do?”
Dr. Ernest brandished a scalpel, waving it as he spoke. “I’m going to open up his scrotum. If he does not tell me exactly who he is and who sent him, I’ll put his testicles on this dish and let him stare at them while he waits for morphine to wear off.”
“No!” I tried to cover my groin with my hands, but the straps on my arms held me fast. “No, no, no! There’s no need for that. My name is Brian Foster, and I’m just a blogger looking for a story.”
Gorto looked genuinely curious. “What’s a blogger?”
“It’s like journalism, but way sadder,” I explained. “Everyone’s heard of your Baba—the doctor who takes his payments in skin and bone. He changes his name, but they always call him the same thing.”
“Do they now?” Dr. Ernest glowered. “What do they call me, young man?”
“Uh...” I hesitated, wondering if sharing this would amuse him or make him angry. “They call you—well, not me, of course—Doctor Dread.”
“That is mean,” Gorto frowned.
“Yes, I agree,” I said quickly. “Now, can we get back to the testicle situation?” I added, “And by that, I mean, can you leave them alone?”
“I am not sure if I believe you,” Dr. Ernest turned his attention to my ever-shriveling groin. “I have many rivals. How do I know you’re not trying to steal my research?”
“That’s not true!” I looked pleadingly at Gorto, “I didn’t even know he had research! You believe me, don’t you?”
“Baba,” Gorto reached out and grabbed Dr. Ernest’s wrist, halting the scalpel’s advance. “We can’t do this. Only volunteers, you promised.”
Dr. Ernest replied, “He knows too much.”
Yes, I can’t believe people actually say that in real life either. Maybe it was the morphine talking, making me an even more unreliable narrator than usual. But I knew one thing for sure: the danger I was in was real, the cold air on my exposed groin was real, and the sight of Gorto’s arm stopping the scalpel from cutting into me was all too real.
As I mentioned before, their arm was unnaturally long, with thick elbows and hands ending in sickly, spidery fingers. The flesh was a patchwork of scars and mismatched skin tones, with one section even sporting a swatch of black ink—just a tattoo.
The realization of what Dr. Ernest had done made me angrier than scared.
“Wait! Just wait!” The drug and adrenaline were waging war inside me, and I didn’t know if I was going to scream or pass out. “I thought you said only volunteers?”
“I think in your case we can make exception,” Dr. Ernest said, pulling his wrist free, but Gorto grabbed it again.
“What about Kris Halloran?” I asked.
“Who?” Dr. Ernest snorted.
“The last patient you saw before you closed up shop on Thornburg Street.”
“Oh. Him.” Finally, he looked away from my groin and shot a resentful glance at Gorto. “The one who nearly ruined everything.”
Gorto looked genuinely remorseful, or as close to remorseful as their face could manage. “I jus' wanted to talk to him.”
“I had to sacrifice months of work just to get away,” Dr. Ernest said.
“Is that why you killed him?” I asked.
“Are you some kinda idiot?” Dr. Ernest retorted.
Gorto released Dr. Ernest's wrist. “He ran away an’ went to the police.”
“And then...” I paused for effect, “...he disappeared.”
“Are you gonna believe him or your own father?” The scalpel was heading for me again.
At moments like this, just before something terrible is about to happen, a strange feeling of being trapped takes over. It’s because you have a body that can be tortured and wounded, while your mind and soul are stuck in a front-row seat. That’s where I was at that moment—front row, waiting for the next horror. “He had some very nice tattoos!” I said quickly. “Roses and barbed wire!”
Both Dr. Ernest and I watched as Gorto studied their lower arm. Then they glared at him. “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else. You promised that if I performed to your specifications, you wouldn’t hurt anyone else!”
“Performed?” I said.
Dr. Ernest’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally said, “Go to your room. I don’t need your help anymore.”
“Why do you always lie to me?” Gorto asked.
Dr. Ernest shouted, “I do what I have to, for the future of all mankind.”
Again, who the hell talks like that?
This guy, I guess.
“You said,” Gorto’s eyes were full of tears, “you said you’d stop.”
He pointed the scalpel at them. “Go. To. Your. Room. You need to get ready. We have company tonight.”
When Gorto leapt over the barber chair, they looked like something out of a low-budget horror movie, but a horror movie nonetheless. The sobbing scream they made, however, was very human...
###
...and then I woke up.
Now, before you start getting annoyed, let me clarify: I woke up in that same makeshift operating room, in that same barber chair, but I was no longer tied up and pantsless. I don’t remember passing out; one moment I was witnessing that classic tableau of a monster rising against its creator, and the next was nothing but blackness. Just as well, I suppose; I’m not sure I would have wanted to see what happened next.
The streaks of blood on the walls and floor told me everything I needed to know. Gorto had saved my life, but it looked like they’d stolen my wallet. I still had my watch, though, and it told me it was eleven in the morning.
Since I was already four hours late for work and I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to have a look around. I woozily headed for the basement stairs.
Item: Fingerprints recovered at the scene revealed that Dr. Ernest, aka Dr. Thiesen, aka Doctor Dread, was actually Elyas Yavuz. He had been a renowned surgeon about twenty years ago.
Item: Shortly after his wife gave birth to triplets, Dr. Elyas Yavuz began suffering from late-onset schizophrenia. His fellow surgeons noted that his work was becoming dangerously slipshod, and his wife reported that he spoke to her less and less and took to sleeping in his office.
Item: Dr. Elyas Yavuz began submitting long, rambling articles to medical journals and other doctors he thought might share his views. These articles quickly became infamous and a cause for concern.
Police photographs of the second story reveal a wall stacked high with medical supplies. On the opposite side, three freezers stood. One contained pharmaceuticals that could only have been obtained illegally. The other two held more organic materials, including two highly preserved bodies of young adults, each showing signs of considerable and repeated vivisection. Finally, there was an oil drum filled with acidic chemicals. A very fresh-looking arm protruded from it. Just a few hours ago, that arm had been poised to use a scalpel on me.
Item: Before Elyas Yavuz could be committed, he fled his home city of Izmir, taking his young children with him.
Item: The good doctor’s papers revealed that he had become obsessed with the works of William Sharpe Shaver. He was convinced that by the year 2025, the beings described would rise from the depths of the Earth and humanity had to adapt to 'the Great Becoming' by any means necessary.
Item: Several times in these treatises, he stated his willingness, in fact his eagerness, to subject his loved ones to these alterations.
The same set of police photographs shows that the basement had a large sinkhole that seemed to go down at least thirty feet. A ring of Tesla coils surrounded an altar made from a strange alloy that required samples to be sent to a cryptic, yet intimidating, federal agency for definitive identification. Atop the altar were several artifacts that defied easy explanation: metal pieces with intricate designs, shimmering crystalline shards set into metallic frames, and a perplexing device with interlocking rings. Nearby were segmented tubes etched with shifting lines and twisted metallic baubles with cryptic markings. A compact box with a complex lock sat among them, its purpose unknown but clearly important.
These objects were later carted away by well-dressed agents from the same cryptic, yet intimidating, federal agency.
Item: Several police officers assigned to the case were severely disciplined for discussing the oddly feline-looking tactical headgear they wore. Someday, I need to look into what the hell that was all about.
But for now, I’m sitting on my couch while Cousin Roy and Sara are engaged in a very aggressive game of Gin Rummy, and thinking about Gorto. Were they really what was left of Dr. Yavuz’s children? My instincts tell me yes, and I can’t imagine the agonizing medical impossibilities inflicted upon them.
If I think about it too long, I find myself hoping that the sonofabitch was still alive when Gorto shoved him into that oil drum.
Where is Gorto now? I can’t say. I hope they find someplace... someplace good. To help them along, I’m not going to cancel my credit card. They can run those babies right up to the max. I’ve always wanted to see what it felt like to declare bankruptcy anyway.
Not every monster is out to get you, and not every healer is a saint. Lesson learned.
I guess that’s about it.
Except...
Gorto, if you’re somehow reading this, thank you.
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