The warty, tenacious frog in her throat felt like a bull, eating up her words, making speech close to impossible. Bully, the bullfrog didn't appear to be in any hurry to release his fierce grip anytime soon. Words would form in her mind, but when she tried uttering them, the big, bad bullfrog would devour them. Shame on him; the critter had an insatiable appetite. Kate's coughing fits weren't stopping, and that mean, nasty frog wasn't going anywhere.
Kate's long-haired caretaker...how old was he, she had fallen to wondering. Well, whatever his age, she knew the kindly man, at least he seemed kind, was waiting for her to say something, anything, as he tended to her.
From what Kate could tell as she lay upon this bed, he lived alone, save for his dog that had licked all the blood off her hand. Then, after the blood had run out, the dog still came around, and if her hand happened to be hanging off the bed, the animal would lick it anyway, maybe hoping more of her blood would appear from somewhere. She'd surely bled enough to perhaps have him think so. Kate wrinkled her forehead, straining to think if the man had told her his name, or the dog's. She drew a blank. Even if he'd identified either himself, or his frisky dog while seeing to her, she may have forgotten what those names were. Her mental state was far from coherent. Her memory resembled a patchwork quilt. Pieces were distinct, while the majority of short-term recollection was sketchy amid the fuzzy scape of consciousness. Having a name to go along with his weather-beaten, craggy face would suit her. She knew lots of people, in her checkered experience. Was it possible she knew him, a kindred spirit, now a waif-like phantom of his former self, who'd gotten lost in the shuffle of life?
She sneezed several times, triggering fresh, pitiless pain knifing through her sore, stiff body. She wasn't running a fever. She would have preferred it to feeling so cold. The guy had piled five blankets on top of her, like they were helping. Maybe one more might do the trick, but Kate doubted that.
Thus far, he'd fed her soup, and terrible fare it was. It reminded Kate of her uncle's 'mystery consommé,' which could have passed for aged piss warmed over. As the adage went...'beggars can't be choosers,' so she didn't turn her nose up when the old guy ladled his brand of nourishment into her mouth.
Trembling atop the bed, Kate realized master and dog had returned from who knew where. Their habit seemed to be leaving this gloomy, light-dappled place, and staying away for long periods of time. An aura of foreboding hung over this drafty place with its drab sticks of furniture and creepy acoustics. How far away was she from where Reddington had shot her? En route to this place, she hadn't been able to determine that, nor in what direction they'd traveled. Instinct niggled that she was somewhere deep in this forest.
He was standing close to the bed now. Kate felt herself shrink, not in fear exactly, although her preoccupation with what was coming next thrummed beneath her skin.
"You're a toughie, Darlin'," the geezer capriciously muttered, more to himself than to her, Kate speculated. Forlornly, he rasped, "Shame about your face...you're a pretty thing." Again he told her, as he'd told her before, "You've got a lot of grit for a little girl."
He didn't know the half of how tough she was, with a backbone of tungsten steel. Once, she'd had her head cracked wide open in a street. The left lobe close to her temple would always bear the brutal, radiating scar. Having survived that, this was a walk in the park. Of course, she had recuperated in a sanitary, medically-equipped hospital, not a pigsty such as this.
His breath reached her as he stood staring into her face, bearing more of his steaming, unappetizing soup. Through her cracked lens, his smile was crooked. No more soup, Kate thought, I can't stomach it. But when he helped her to sit up, which was agony all over again, and he carefully began feeding her, he asked her if she could talk. He asked that often. She nodded. Between sips, she paused long enough, struggling to say until she finally did, "T-thank you..."
"What's your name?" he asked patiently. "I can keep calling you, 'Darlin,' but I'd much rather call you by your given name." He might have thought she couldn't remember it, so he blandished, "It's all right. No worries. Maybe you'll remember later." Spoon-feeding her more soup and softly-spoken encouragement, the man said to his dog, "She likes my soup, so who are you to reject it?"
When Mr. Kaplan pushed out, "K-Kate," she looked pleased with herself, it was an accomplishment of the ages. An audience that her mind fabricated cheered. "I'm Kate. Kate Kaplan." Raymond Reddington's fool, writhed in her brain, and her grizzled new friend gave her a warm, commensurate smile that spread over his face like silk.
She had her fill of his unctuous concoction, and he let her rest, but not before he asked her again: "Are you sure no one's coming back for you?"
Three hours later, she awoke, startled by the vivid, ugly dream she'd had, wherein she relived the events leading up to, and the actual shooting. Sweat saturated her forehead, and she discovered that all of the covers she'd been given, save two, were gone. She felt as if she were floating, falling back to earth upon a cloud. The prism vision of her right eye wavered, and the left eye was watering. In the dream, Red, dressed all in red, blood red, slickly promised her his unfading loyalty. She heard herself promise the same. Than, like a bolt of lightning striking, he angled the gun to her head and laughed like a maniacal fiend when he fired his weapon. She didn't die in her dream, or so she imagined she hadn't. She'd woken up.
Where was Mr. Campbell's, as she'd taken to thinking of him as. She would have much preferred the canned version rather than his misconception of soup. His dog must be with him because there was neither hide, hair, nor sound of him anywhere.
Why not get out of this bed to have a look around the place? Not a bad idea, Kate thought, gearing herself up mentally and physically for the riveting ordeal. She stirred, and hurt worse than giving birth. Her face clouded in misery. Her iron will commanded that she keep going, despite her suffering.
Her glasses were on the night table; going for them, Kate set them on her diminutive face. "Oh-oh," she groaned, a miserable shriek tore from her lips as she fought with herself to rise up and make it to the right side of the creaking metal frame bed. Its saggy mattress listed to the right as she maneuvered to the mattress edge. She was in no shape to leave this setting; her body wouldn't survive the stress of trying to make it through the woods' tangled undergrowth, and she had no idea where this neck of the woods was. If a wild animal happened to come upon her, she'd be their meal. A scrawny one, true, but she intended keeping the little meat there was intact on her skeletal frame.
She shuddered at that grisly thought. No, she'd just have a quick, albeit strenuous look around, and then hop...and that was strictly figuratively speaking, back into bed before Mr. Campbell's and his overly-slobbering cur returned. Gingerly, she set the foot of her right leg, which was encased in its blood and mud-stained, ripped stocking, down on the dusty floor's moldy throw rug. She had to give herself several minutes to collect herself. Even this small expenditure of exertion was daunting. The thought of Raymond Redding having gunned her down in callous audacity galled her to get going again.
Her left leg...it felt as though it weighed a ton when she tried to haul it down to the floor. What was the problem?
The discovery of the ponderous shackle and chain-link tether, looking to date back to the Civil War, jolted the tiny hairs on the back of her neck erect. Gasping in horror, Kate crumpled as the insane idea of his being a-serial killer-sprang to mind. Mr. Campbell's...that's what he was! He was only ministering to her, nursing her back to health, so when he tortured her like a monster, there'd be some fight in her, and he'd like that!
Kate gasped again, shaking violently, cursing Red's bullet for not doing what it had been designed to do. Better she be dead, than suffer mercilessly at the hands of this monster! Once done with her, what was next? Cut her up, chop her into bite-sized pieces and toss her minced flesh in his soup?
More violent shuddering followed those gruesome ideas.
"No, no, no-" Kate moaned tremulously, gritting her teeth as her eyes rolled heavenward. Her breathing was labored. "Help-help me! Help me, please!" she supplicated before collapsing back on the bed. Her swollen, ruined cheek burned underneath the dirty, foul-smelling gauze bandage.
And oddly, her mind anxiously transported her back to when she'd been a little girl. One who used to have a wooly, round-faced teddy bear she would cling to when things went 'bump' in the night. Here, in this uncertain time, and godforsaken place, she reached out for that cuddly stuffed animal, and in this depressing darkness, 'Gafferty, the Great,' which was what she had called him, embraced her, somewhat calming the frightened, little one deep inside.
