Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (24 page)

I open the pharmacy door and step inside unnoticed. Dr. Graham is behind the counter talking with the pharmacist. Their conversation is casual. I can tell they are old friends.

“So, this is for the DH perp?” The pharmacist says.

“He’s not a perp, Bill. He’s a patient.”

“He killed two people, Doc. He’s dangerous.”

“All of our patients are dangerous,” Dr. Graham says as he scans the shelves.

“Yeah, but most of them can be managed,” he says as he shakes a bottle of pills to emphasize his point.

“Mr. Griffin can be, too,” Graham replies. “We just haven’t found the right cocktail.”

“Chester says he thinks he’s twelve, and he has no idea what he’s done.”

Dr. Graham looks angry. “Chester talks too much, and he thinks he’s fourteen.”

The pharmacist snickers. “He has no idea that he killed his wife and best friend?”

I swallow hard. My wife and best friend? My memory conjures up the time jump. I was standing over Lou with J.J. in my hand, and Canter had Gordy pinned against the wall.

“It’s a traumatic event in his life. It’s not unusual for a person to block memories he can’t bear to relive over and over again.” Dr. Graham joins the pharmacist and places three white bottles on the counter. “We’re close to a breakthrough. He’s looking for something he calls the Source when I have him under. I really think he wants to remember. Something in me believes he wants to get better.”

I start to go cold. I don’t want to hear what they are saying. I am Oz Griffin. I live on 334 Terrace Street in Tullahoma. I am 14 years old.

I close my eyes tight. I am not what they think. I open my eyes and watch from my darkened corner of the room as the pharmacist dumps the pills on a tray. He divides them into two groups with a straight-edged plastic tool.

Dr. Graham reaches for the second bottle and reads the label. For the first time, I notice his black fingernails, and the purple rash on his hand.

I can’t take it anymore. I move quietly to the pharmacy door and exit. Chester is still chatting up his friends. They are practically giddy about the murder. They have forgotten I even exist.

I follow the yellow line to a long corridor with a half dozen doors on either side. Flickering fluorescent lights hum above my head as I tiptoe down the hallway. I can see my distorted reflection in the laminate flooring. I am not the man staring back at me. I can’t be.

A familiar sound comes from the door to my left. It’s a highpitched sucking noise. There is a porthole window in the door. I slide my feet closer and press my forehead against the glass. A young boy lies on a metal table in the middle of an otherwise empty room. There is something on his face.

I push the door open and step inside. I am strangely detached from where I am and what I am doing. It’s as if I’m not here.

I reach the boy on the table, and I am not surprised at all to see a shunter attached to his face. The jellyfish blob seemingly screams with delight now that it has an audience. I look through the purple transparent flesh and see my eyes staring back at me. I am the boy on the table. I am the boy whose humanity is being sucked from his body. I stumble away from the table. There is a tightness in my chest that smothers me. I breathe in thick uneven waves.

“What is real?” A voice whispers in my head. Canter steps out of the darkest corner of the room.

“What’s happening? I don’t understand.”

“Time is a funny thing when it doesn’t matter any more. It comes and goes as it pleases.” He strolls around the table. “You can be in two places at once.” He gently strokes the shunter with one of his spiked fingers. “Three even.”

The dark corner of the room lights up and reveals a large warehouse. I see myself again. I am pulling J.J. from Lou’s stomach. Gordy is screaming bloody murder from the far end of the warehouse as Canter is mutilating him.

“Stop it! I don’t want to see anymore.”

“What are you feeling?” Canter asks.

I think about his question. I look down at myself on the table. The shunter is sucking with a grotesque fury. “Ashamed,” I say.

I feel Canter smile. “He likes that answer.”

“Who?”

“He would have accepted humbled, but ashamed is so much better.” Canter moves away from the table. The warehouse gives way to the darkness.

“Who is he?”

Canter glides effortlessly toward the harsh shadows. “He is why you are here.”

“What…”

“Did you really think you could drive a retarded boy to suicide and survive the guilt?”

The room begins to morph before my eyes. I slowly fade away from the table. The table shifts to an iron cot bolted to a padded wall. The room shrinks to a quarter its original size. My ankle is shackled to a bolt in the middle of the room.

“You’re crazy, Oz Griffin. That’s all you are.”

I fall on the spongy mattress. The room is a bright haze of white. I am haunted once again by the flickering, humming fluorescent light above my head.

I chuckle. I’m crazy. That’s all I am.

The End of Book Two