Hey guys! Well, this is my first fic, and it's about Renfield from Dracula. Knock is from Nosferatu. Enjoy and don't hate, please! :)
Sanitarium Crash
A Renfield fanfiction
Chapter One
The black patient stumbled to the hard, gray cement, drenched in blood and sweat. He got up, dizzy. His vision was blurred as he tried to make out the sea of jeering white faces. The white patient who had pushed him was yelling something, but he couldn't make out the words. It was probably just another "coon" or "nigger" anyways.
The black patient looked around again and saw a shirtless white patient suddenly dart through the jeering whites and punch the black patient's assailant. The man fell to the ground, bloodied and unconscious. A hush fell over the now wide-eyed crowd. The white man's blue eyes scanned the crowd coldly before turning to the black patient.
"Get inside," he said tersely. The terrified Negro ran inside.
The blue-eyed, shirtless, brown-haired white patient eyed the crowd again. Slowly they began to disperse, knowing full well that no matter how far they traveled, the cold blue eyes would remain on each and every one of them until he was sure they weren't harassing any more of the black patients.
Chapter Two
After he was sure that the crowd had dispersed, the blue-eyed white patient pulled his shirt from around his waist and put it on. He ran inside the sanitarium and found the black patient sitting in a corner of the main room, crying. The white man put his hand firmly on the Negro's shoulder as the black patient sobbed harder and buried his head in the white man's shoulder as he cried. The white man wrapped his arms around him and rocked him.
"What's your name?" the black man asked, wiping the tears from his eyes.
"Ryan," the white man replied. "But call me Renfield."
"W...why did you help me?"
"Use your head, man!"
"No one ever helps me. All they do is beat me up."
"That's cause they ain't got no sense, bro. What's your name, anyway? I've seen you around, but I never knew your name."
The black man coughed up some blood. "Shawn," he stuttered. "Shawn Rafferty."
"Nice to meet you!" Renfield said, sticking out his hand.
Shawn laughed. "Nice to meet you, Renfield!"
The two men shook hands. "Your English is very good for..." Renfield started to say, but caught himself.
Shawn put his hand up. "For a black person? I'm not stupid, you know."
Renfield knew he had crossed the line. "No, no, no! I'm not saying you were! I'm just saying that, you know, most black people..."
"I know what you were trying to say. I wasn't trying to defend myself, but I was saying that I'm not stupid to talk like that. I went to school and stuff, dude."
Renfield laughed. "So did I!"
Both men laughed. "Why does that brother have to beat me down like that?" Shawn asked.
"Ya see, there are some people like Roger who think they're better than everyone else because they're what they call white." Renfield said the last word with distaste.
"Hm...well, what about you? You look like you can hold your own with those guys."
Renfield removed his firmly-gripped hand from Shawn's shoulder and and sighed. "Because...because it happened to me."
Shawn squinted at Renfield with curiosity. "You? You ain't black."
"No. But I'm Irish."
Renfield sat down on his bed, sighed and looked down, and began. Shawn sat on Knock's bed and listened to Renfield's story.
"The neighborhood that the high school that Knock and I went to was really divided. Not just racially, but ethnically. Thing was, though, no one ever picked on the Mexican kids or the black kids or the Asian kids because they were too busy picking on the Irish and Italian kids because in our town, those kids were from the ghetto and they thought it was cool or something to pick on them."
"Knock is Italian?"
"Yeah. Anyways, Knock and I lived right across the street from one another. Knock's parents would invite my parents over for dinner or whatever and they would always fight and stuff, but me and Knock were best friends, and we're still best friends. Apparently we're both crazy too, so we thought it was pretty cool when they sent us packing in straitjackets." Renfield laughed. "Yeah, we thought it was pretty tight. Anyways, we never played outside and we could never hang out anywhere with the friends we DID have because whenever we did, there would always be some tough punk-ass that would jump us and beat us to a bloody pulp. School sucked ass cause the gangster kids who thought they were the shit would beat Knock up and call him names like dago and stuff. That's why you always seeing him fighting the gangster assholes. They didn't really beat me up, just made fun of me and stuff."
"Wow...how'd you do it?"
"Just plugged through, I guess."
"I've seen guys pick on you here," Shawn said quietly.
"Yeah. They make stupid-ass jokes about how I should grow potatoes or some stupid shit like that, I don't even know. I try not to let it bother me. But you can see how successful that strategy's been. But what can I say? Knock taught me how to fight," Renfield said coyly and showing Shawn his bruised fist.
"I've seen you, bro. You look bad some days."
"Yeah." Renfield pointed to his eye, where a fading black eye stuck out like a sore thumb.
"No. I was talking about that." Shawn pointed at Renfield's bloody lip.
"Just got it yesterday." Renfield said in a tone of pride.
"You say that like you're proud of it."
"Well, I kinda am. Before Knock smartened me up, I was afraid to fight, afraid to stand up for myself. But now...man, but NOW, I show the tough guys up, man."
"Will you teach me?"
"Teach you what?"
"To fight."
Renfield laughed. "So you want me to play Mr. Miyagi, huh? All right, fine, man. I'll show you. Knock'll help, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks, brother."
The two men shook hands and embraced. Renfield watched Shawn walk down the hallway, both men unsure of what they were getting themselves into.
Chapter Three
Over the next few months, Renfield trained Shawn hard and placed him on a rigorous diet. Occasionally, Shawn would get to to test what he had learned during outside hour against some of his white tormentors. Not only were they training hard, they were also becoming closer friends and were learning more about each other.
Shawn had been sent to Dr. Seward's Sanitarium for repeated cases of arson. On his tenth arrest, he had been deemed a pyromaniac and sent to Dr. Seward's. He was not allowed to use the stove. He was not allowed to use matches to light the patients' birthday cakes. In essence, he wasn't allowed to touch anything that contained fire. The day he was sent to Dr. Seward's, he was arrested for setting fire to his own mother and father.
Not only did his skin color make him a large target for the white patients, his illness made him an easy target as well. In the past, he had stood by while the white patients called him nigger and pyro-nigger, but now, with Renfield's help, he was fighting back. The only problem was, Renfield was never satisfied.
"Not good enough," he always said after a fight, even though Shawn was now easily defeating his attackers. Renfield would then take him behind the asylum, put up his fists, and say, "Punch me," and the two friends would enter into a sparring match.
Although Renfield had promised Shawn that Knock would help with Shawn's training, Knock hadn't done anything to hold up his end of the bargain. One evening Renfield found him down by the lake near the asylum, skipping stones.
"So you're teaching the nigger how to fight, huh?" came the gruff, Italian voice.
"He ain't a nigger, Knock," Renfield said quietly.
Knock violently splashed the stone he was holding and spun around to face Renfield. "Come on, man! You know why they keep us here? No? Because we're nuts! Insane! Crazy! Cuckoo! If you teach that pyro-nigger how to fight, there's gonna be a riot, and the lunatics will be let out of the asylum, literally!"
"Well, what do you wantme to do, Knock? Just let him get beat like that? He's gotta learn sometime! We did, and look how we turned out!"
"Yeah, we ended up here."
"Listen, he's not gonna start a riot, he takes his meds and shit, and he's a good kid! Just help me out! Please!"
Knock hesitated. "Fine. But if I don't see any progress in a month, the deal's up."
"Thank you." Renfield smiled and walked away.
He'll be ready, Knock, he thought, a wicked grin coming upon his face. Just you wait. When a month is up, he'll beat you into the ground.
Chapter Four
Lunchtime in the asylum cafeteria was not noisy, but hostile.
The tables were divided by race. Each table ate silently, shooting dirty scowls at the other tables.
Renfield and Shawn talked animatedly as they waited in the lunch line and got their food. They got to the end of the line and turned around, only to be met with hundreds of wide-eyed stares. Renfield looked at Shawn and shrugged. Shawn nodded solemnly and made his way towards the black table.
Renfield sat down next to Knock at the white table slowly, aware of all the eyes that were on him.
"This is some lame crap you're pulling," Eric muttered.
"So what if it is?" Renfield shot back.
"You teachin' that nigger to fight..." Joey mused. "Mark my words, there'll be killings next!"
Renfield laughed. "No one's going to get killed, Joey."
At that moment, a big black patient came over and grabbed Knock by his shirt collar, twisted him around and lifted him off of his seat.
"You was the cracker who beat up my homie yesterday, scumbag!" the big black man said, his rancid breath radiating onto Knock's face.
"Brother, I don't see any cows around here, so I don't know what you're talking about," Knock calmly replied.
It all happened so fast, so fast that Renfield didn't have time to react. The black patient punched Knock in the face. Knock fell to the ground. He scrambled back up, face bloodied, and charged against the black man. The situation would have been laughable if it hadn't been so serious, for the black patient was at least three hundred to four hundred pounds and six feet tall, and was clearly a match for Knock's short stature and slender frame.
Knock slammed the black patient's head into the black table. Silverware and dishes went everywhere as Knock dealt blow after blow to the black patient's bulky head. The black man spat out fresh blood with each new punch. He had sustained at least twenty consecutive punches when Renfield and the other white patients finally pulled Knock off of him. The black patient got up, face streaming with blood, and punched Renfield hard in the face. Renfield became enraged and tackled the man. Both fighters fell to the ground, quarreling with each other as the crowd around them cheered them on, while other patients of mixed races fought each other. The whole cafeteria was filled with the sound of punching and crashing silverware and plates.
"STOP!" a loud voice boomed out over the noise.
The commotion stopped and everyone let go of their victims and looked to see who had spoken. Dr. Seward looked out over the sea of bloodied, sweating patients. Renfield's argyle sweater had been ripped open and a large bloody stripe ran across his chest. He had several cuts on his face and his hair was disheveled. Knock sported several bloody lips and torn pants and a torn-off shirt sleeve. His black hair hung in bangs on his sweaty forehead, so that he resembled Colin Clive, in a way.
Dr. Seward was livid. "I don't know what has gotten into you gentlemen," he said in a quiet but angry voice. A look of malice came into his eyes. "Starting as of right now, each and every one of you is on probation."
"Till when?" one of the Mexicans in the back spoke up.
"Till I decide, Jose." Dr. Seward scanned the sea of patients. "Mr. Rafferty!" Shawn jumped. "Get up here, please."
Shawn slowly made his way to where Dr. Seward was standing, aware of the staring faces, the white ones with hatred, that followed him.
"Mr. Rafferty, do you associate with a person of a different color than yourself?"
"Sure do, Dr. Seward!"
"And who might that person be?"
"He goes by Renfield, sir. He's that guy right there, up front!"
Renfield kept his eyes glued on the conversation between Shawn and Dr. Seward, even though he could feel every eye in the cafeteria watching him.
"You've been spending a lot of time with Mr. Renfield, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what have you learned about him?"
"I learned that his momma used to give him warm milk before he went to bed and she used to rub his tummy-"
"I think we can live without those details, Mr. Rafferty," Dr. Seward muttered as the cafeteria burst into laughter and Renfield turned red with embarrassment.
"Tell me, Mr. Rafferty, what type of music does Mr. Renfield usually listen to?"
"Well, Dr. S., Renfield and I really dig Marvin Gaye!" Shawn and Renfield broke into a chorus of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
"Okay, okay, that's enough, boys," Dr. Seward smiled. "What's his favorite movie?"
"He can't choose a favorite, sir. He says he watches a lot of the Rocky movies and James Bond movies, though, and he loves Scarface..."
"That will be all, Mr. Rafferty," Shawn scurried back into the crowd. Dr. Seward's smile faded as he looked again at the crowd of patients.
"For the next month, each of you will be assigned a patient of a different race. You will learn about them. Their loves, their hatreds, their sorrows, their joys. Every Sunday for a month, you will report to me what you have learned. Until then, we'll go to three-a-day medications."
The crowd groaned.
"If you continue to ignore each other, we'll go to four-a-day medications."
The crowd groaned again.
"Now I don't care if you're black, white, yellow, blue, green, red, teal, orange, magenta, or purple, get back to your rooms. The rest of lunch is cancelled due to your appalling behavior."
The patients moved slowly back towards their rooms. Renfield glared at his large black attacker, sitting at the black table, and turned around and left the cafeteria, Knock following him, also glaring at the man.
"Renfield!"
Renfield turned to see Shawn running after him.
"I hope I didn't embarrass you or nothing."
"It's okay, kid," Renfield muttered wearily, turning his gaze away from Shawn and following the line of patients going back to their rooms, leaving Shawn to gaze after him, knowing that he had said something wrong.
Chapter Five
All of the patients-the whites, the blacks, the Hispanics, the Asians, and the Native Americans-were gathered in the sanitarium's 5th floor lounge. The 5th floor was where Renfield and Knock resided, and they had called the meeting. The large group huddled around one of the tables while Renfield sat on a chair, looking up at them. The lights were out and a sole candle dimly lit everyone's faces.
"This is all your fault, Ren," Brad, one of the white patients, complained.
"You don't think he knows that?" Knock fired back, leaning on the table next to Renfield.
"What are we gonna do now?" Pedro, one of the Hispanic patients who was diagnosed with anxiety, asked. "I don't want meds three times a day!"
"Shut UP, man!" Renfield hissed. "All right, here's what we do: just do what Seward tells us to do."
"That's it?" Kevin, an Asian patient, was puzzled. "Just act all goody-goody and everything will be happy and we'll all be in La-La Land?"
"You didn't let me finish. Now listen," Renfield leaned in and whispered, his blue eyes moving around to everyone. "I wanna teach Shawn to fight back, and you all wanna fight, period. I think Knock and I have a solution to both of our problems."
"A fight club," Knock said, his wide green eyes glowing with excitement.
"Yeah," Renfield nodded. "A fight club."
The group muttered amongst themselves excitedly and worriedly at the same time.
"Listen up," all of the gleaming eyes quickly focused back on Renfield. "Friday and Saturday nights starting at quiet hours."
"Where we gonna do this?" Kevin asked.
"Yeah, man," Darryl, a black patient, butted in. "There's no place TO do it."
"Ever been in the basement?" Renfield asked with a wicked grin.
The crowd looked at one another with excited faces.
"Wait a minute," Joey interrupted. "How we gonna make sure no one finds out about this?"
Renfield and Knock looked at each other. They hadn't thought about this.
"Well, obviously, you don't talk about fight club..." Renfield began.
"No shirts, no shoes!" Jose piped up.
"Only two guys to a fight," Renfield added, standing up, smiling and looking up.
"One fight at a time," Lucas, an Asian patient, added.
"If someone says stop or someone keels over," Greg, a black patient, added. "the fight is up."
"Okay, that's good," Renfield said, writing everything down on a piece of paper. "Anything else?"
"If it's your first night, you HAVE to fight," Knock offered.
"Anything else?"
"The fights go on as long as they have to," Shawn added in a sinister voice.
The patients grinned wickedly.
"But what about the chicks?" David, a white patient, asked.
"Who gives a crap about the chicks, man?" Knock said. "This is about US, man."
Chapter Six
On a hot, muggy Friday night, the shirtless mixed-race crowd gathered in the sanitarium's basement. They took the oath. A shirtless, sweaty Knock went around with a knife and cut each man's wrist.
"Any man who cries when I slice 'em," Knock called before he began walking around. "He'll be the one who fights first." The men gulped.
"If you fall, you lose," Renfield announced solemnly.
As efficiency would have it, only two men whimpered when he cut them. A shirtless Renfield went behind each of them and pushed them hard into the "ring." The first fight featured Troy, an Asian patient, against Rodney, a black patient. The Asians and the blacks cheered on their respective parties, while Renfield and Knock and the rest of the white and Mexican patients cheered on whoever seemed to have the upper hand.
Finally, Rodney fell at the hands of Troy's big, muscular body. Renfield came into the circle and thrust Troy's arm in the air. The crowd cheered. The cheering subsided and a hush fell over the crowd as Renfield and Knock looked at each other, deciding how they would choose who fought next. Suddenly, Shawn strode defiantly into the ring where Renfield and Knock stood. He tapped Renfield on the back and said,
"I want to fight you."
"Shawn…"
"I want to fight you," Shawn repeated.
Renfield frowned hopelessly and turned to the crowd. "The next fight will be between me and Shawn!" he called.
The patients muttered to each other with curiosity. Renfield and Shawn squared off in the ring, fists up. The white crowd cheered on Renfield and called Shawn all types of racist names as the two fighters punched each other. Every blow they threw connected. The fight continued for a good twenty minutes, the crowd cheering and hissing and both fighters drenched in sweat and blood. Finally, Shawn drew his fist back and laid a hard, powerful punch to Renfield's face. Renfield fell to the ground, unconscious, shirtless, and dripping with blood and sweat.
"He's still breathing!" a Mexican patient called. The crowd continued to cheer Renfield up. He lay on the ground breathing quietly for a few minutes, then he rolled onto his back. A furious look was on his boyish face. He let out a yell, scrambled up onto his nimble feet and punched Shawn as hard as Shawn had punched him. Shawn fell to the ground. He wasn't breathing.
Anyone could hear a pin drop; the basement was completely silent. All of the faces were wide-eyed and open-mouthed with fear.
"Get up," Renfield said quietly through gritted teeth, his face caked with both dry and fresh blood.
"Ren, stop it, you're killing him!" Knocked yelled in the silence.
"I SAID GET UP!" came the command again, piercing the silence this time. The crowd was shocked; none of them had ever heard Renfield yell this loud.
Finally, Shawn staggered up, panting. Renfield punched him again and he fell back to the ground.
"STOP!" Knock yelled again, and pulled Renfield back to where the rest of the white patients were standing.
Shawn got up, panting and coughing up blood. His hazy vision could just make out Renfield, the only white patient who was looking at him with a look of sheer malice and hatred. The rest of the room, even the white patients, looked at him with looks of worry and concern.
He turned and ran away.
Chapter Seven
Shawn woke up in the sanitarium hospital. The sunlight streamed through the windows opposite him. He still had several scars from the fight on his face and several cuts on his lips. His body ached as he sat up in bed. Both of his eyes throbbed, still swollen with the black eyes he had sustained. He couldn't see well because of his still blurry vision, but he could just make out the hospital wing around him.
The combatants from the night before lay broken and damaged in the hospital beds. Most of them were unrecognizable, faces a patchwork of bandages. Shawn could see Knock in the bed across from him and to the right. He was still asleep, his head bandaged from when he had been thrust headfirst into the ground during his fight the previous night. Shawn saw something out of the corner of his eye, and he turned his head slowly to his left, knowing he would have to face the cold blue eyes.
Renfield stared at Shawn. Shawn stared back. Renfield held an ice pack to his black eye. His entire left cheek had been torn off his face. What remained to be seen was the inside of his cheekbone. X-shaped bandages adorned his forehead. Renfield looked around warily to see if anyone was watching, and they weren't; everyone except for Renfield and Shawn was still asleep. Renfield quietly got out of his bed and made his way over to Shawn's and hovered over his apprentice. Shawn looked away for a moment, and then looked at Renfield with a reproachful look.
"You do realize that now everyone's gonna be like, 'Oh, that's the douchebag that beat up the black kid,' right?" Shawn asked in a quiet monotone.
"Yeah, but wasn't that the whole reason we started this?"
"Yeah, but I didn't think it would get that intense."
"Don't give me that bullshit. You knew what you were signing up for the minute you walked into that ring and said you wanted to fight me. You wanted to test yourself, and you failed."
Shawn sighed and looked away. He looked back at Renfield again with a pleading look. "Train me harder?"
"No way, man. We all killed ourselves last night, and with all of us in here" Renfield waved his hand at the rest of the patients in their beds. "Seward is bound to find out."
"Or John."
Renfield turned around to see John Harker standing behind him. John shook his head and glared at Renfield sternly.
"Ren, you're my bro, but seriously, what the HELL were you thinking? And speaking of hell, you look like it. What the hell happened to you all? Bro, you gotta stop this. Screw anger, screw race, just stop this. Why can't you just do what Seward tells you to do for ONCE, Ren? God, every time he tells you to do something, even the SIMPLEST LITTLE THING, you go all crazy dude angst rebel or whatever on him and don't do it!"
Renfield didn't answer. He just stared at John with dark blue eyes and gritted teeth. The gaping hole in his cheek seemed to flex and pulsate. All of a sudden, he jumped on John, bringing him to the floor, choking him. Knock and the other patients woke up and pulled Renfield off of John just as John was turning blue. John scrambled to his feet and glared at Renfield.
"That's it, Ren! I WAS gonna cover for you-AGAIN-but that was the final straw." He turned his angry gaze upon the rest of the patients.
"I want names! Who started this little 'club' of yours?"
The patients that were standing near Renfield and Knock pushed them forward.
"Yeah," John said, almost disappointed. "I thought so. What IS it with you two? You guys used to be so awesome...are you doing this because you don't like Seward's new rule? Be honest, it's okay."
"Honesty? You want honesty?" Knock blurted out, green eyes glinting from below his bandaged head. "All right, honestly, we all think the new 'rule' is a piece of shit."
A faint "yeah" mumbled through the crowd of patients.
"And we thought we should do something about it, so we started the fight club," Renfield finished. "And we were doing just fine until you showed up."
"Well, sorry to ruin your plans, Renfield," John said sarcastically. And then hopelessly. "I have to tell Dr. Seward about this. You know that, right?"
"He's gonna do fuck all. You know that, right?" Knock mimicked. Some of the patients snickered.
John shot Knock an angry look, turned on his heel, and made his way to Dr. Seward's office to betray the secrecy of the fight club.
Chapter Eight
Lunch in the sanitarium cafeteria was much more lively now than it had been three weeks before. It was Friday. Dr. Seward had been watching the patients' progress throughout the week, and he was happy with what he saw. Little did he know how this peace had been attained. There were no longer any segregated tables. Patients of different races sat across from one another, eating and talking animatedly. Some of them were still bandaged. Others were on crutches. Still others wore neck braces and one patient even rode around the cafeteria in a wheelchair.
All of a sudden, the doors to the cafeteria flew open and the heads that were able to turn completely around did so and the patients wearing neck braces turned their bodies completely around to see what was happening.
Dr. Seward, Martin and some other attendants and John stormed into the cafeteria and stood at the head of the room. He glared at the patients. The patients stared back, unafraid.
"It has come to my attention..." Dr. Seward began.
"Go jump off a cliff, Seward!" a white patient in the back yelled, and the whole cafeteria erupted into raucous shouting.
"SILENCE!" Dr. Seward yelled. The cafeteria immediately fell silent.
"Now," Dr. Seward started over. "It has come to attention that some of you have started a 'fight club.'"
The patients looked at each other, faking confusion.
"I urge-nay demand-that the leaders of this 'fight club' step forward immediately, lest they face greater consequences."
Renfield and Knock looked at each other, sighed, and made their way to the front of the cafeteria. The patients looked at the two men, Renfield in a black, skin-tight V-neck T-shirt, his arm muscles on full display, and Knock in a gray shirt covered by a blue-and-white plaid loose jacket. Dr. Seward noticed that the patients looked upon the two men with an air of reverence. Dr. Seward realized that these two were gods to them, idols that they worshiped and swore their earthly existence to.
Renfield and Knock reached the stage in the cafeteria and faced the silence. Shawn, sitting in the back, rose to his feet and began to clap slowly. An Asian patient rose and followed suit. A few more patients stood up and the clapping became increasingly faster.
Soon everyone in the cafeteria was standing, applauding and cheering madly. Dr. Seward, John, and the other attendants looked upon the spectacle with astonishment. They had seen some rebels in their time, but none were venerated as much as Renfield and Knock were being venerated right now.
"Come on, boys. We got a fight night tonight," Renfield announced to the patients, and, looking Dr. Seward up and down, walked out the door, Knock following him, also looking Dr. Seward up and down. The other patients, still clapping and cheering, followed them, leaving Dr. Seward, John, and the other attendants staring after them, gaping, wide-eyed, in disbelief.
Chapter Nine
The energy that Friday night in the basement was the highest it had ever been. The patients cheered on their respective parties with a fiery, vengeful fervor. They were beginning to realize that the fight club was not only allowing them to take out their anger against the opposite race, it was bringing them all together. They were no longer fighting in competition, they were fighting for fun. Now that the racial differences between them had subsided, the patients discovered that they enjoyed the pain that came with beating each other up. They had been mentally tormented by the sanitarium staff for years. Now they were physically and mentally tormenting each other, and it felt terrific.
The patients banged on the walls of the basement, louder than they ever had before. A Hispanic patient and a white patient are in the ring. The white patients still shouted "wetback," but there was something different about the way they shouted it. They didn't shout it. They chanted it. They were chanting it with a sort of newfound respect.
"Wet-back! Wet-back! Wet-back!"
They were cheering for the underdog, and they didn't mind. The Mexican patient, whose name was Lorenzo, prevailed and delivered the final blow. The white patient fell to the ground and everyone cheered. Renfield walked into the ring, the inside of his cheek pulsing with energy, and lifted up Lorenzo's arm, causing the other patients to roar.
Lorenzo left the ring and John stormed in and punched Renfield. Renfield collapsed, unconscious. The basement fell silent. John's punch had rocked his exposed cheekbone so hard that he coughed up blood.
"Llamar a una ambulancia!" one of the Mexican patients who couldn't speak English shouted. It didn't matter; everyone knew what he meant.
"Now listen to me! All of you!" John shouted angrily to the bewildered patients. "Look at you all!" he shouted, his tone turning to one of sympathy. "You're killing yourselves! Stop this! Please! We don't want you dead!"
The patients' bewildered faces turned into neutral, hard stares. Finally, one of the white patients stepped forward: Knock. The two men faced each other, both shirtless and sweating due to their physical activity and the heat of the basement. Knock's black hair hung in sweaty bangs on his forehead.
"What do you want, Harker?" Knock challenged.
"I want you to stop this," John answered quietly.
"You're too stupid to realize what's going on here, aren't you?"
"Believe me, I do."
"No you don't." Knock waved at the bruised, tattered, destroyed, but still standing patients. "This has been bringing us together this whole time. Not Seward's retarded proposal."
"This has been bringing you together? Killing yourselves has been bringing you together?"
At that moment, Renfield weakly staggered to his feet and stumbled over to Knock and held on to his shoulder, panting heavily. His lips and mouth were filled with blood, and he had suffered some new scars above his open, stinging cheekbone. He didn't wince, but everyone knew he felt intense pain.
"You'd be surprised," he choked in a ragged whisper. "Look at all of us." He turned around and looked at the patients all around him. "Look at them, John." He paused and looked at all the patients, turning to nod at each of them slowly before turning back to John. "They're different races, of course. But they all have their own stories. They're all here for different reasons. They're not here because they're different. That kid over there? The one we always used to call nigger?" he pointed at Shawn. "He's an arsonist, but his parents abandoned him when he was three. That guy over there? The one we always used to call a wetback?" he nodded at Lorenzo. "He used to come home every night to an abusive father, and it drove him to insanity. Sure, we're all different, but we're all the same at the same time. Can't you see the resemblance? We're all brothers, now. Look at us. We're standing together. Three weeks ago, we avoided each other like the plague. We're not stupid, John. We knew that something needed to be done, and, like Dr. Seward, we were willing to go to extremes to bring us together. Yeah, I don't like being in pain 24/7 either, but I've gotten used to it. This fight club has brought us together, whether you and Dr. Seward like it or not."
John looked around at the patients. "I see," he said, looking at their proud faces. He turned back to Renfield. "I see it's made you tougher."
"It has."
"I challenge you to fight me, then."
Knock and all the other patients stepped back as Renfield and John stood in the ring, facing each other. Renfield lunged forward and delivered a surprisingly strong punch to John's cheek. Blood splattered out of his mouth. John laid a punch right smack into Renfield's mouth. A scarlet waterfall oozed out of Renfield's mouth. He recovered and punched John in the left eye. Blood ran down John's face, trickling into his mouth. He tasted it and, letting out a yell, charged at Renfield, bringing him to the ground. The patients gathered around the two combatants as they wrestled on the hard cement. Finally, after a few minutes, John let go of Renfield's throat.
Renfield lay motionless on the floor. The crowd gathered around him as Knock and Shawn knelt beside him, urging him to wake up. Renfield wouldn't budge. John stepped back slowly and ran away, leaving the patients to mourn their fallen leader.