JOE
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of the blood and pus hitting the floor from my raised hands echoed around the silent hospital corridor. I sighed. The fight was quickly leaving me. I just wanted this all to end. I was exhausted from trying to appear stronger than I felt.
"How can I help you, Dr. Ly-" I began but felt the needle jab quickly into my external jugular vein and felt the fluid penetrate my blood. "Ow, what the hell?!"
I flung my arms out to try and grab my attacker but my socks, which were also filling with blood and pus from my frostbitten feet, slipped on the sleek tiles. I toppled over, hitting my head on the elevator door.
"I wouldn't fight too hard," chuckled the grim voice of the Doctor, "it will just course through your veins quicker if you do."
I looked up at the man, a crazy glint from his eyes permeating the dim hallways. I went to stand up but my muscles protested.
"What did you give me?" I growled, sitting with my back to the elevator.
He chuckled again, "Oh don't blame this on me," he smirked. "This is your body telling you it is time to rest. No, it'll be a few minutes before you start to feel the effects of this cocktail," he waved the empty syringe around.
I flinched away from the needle.
"Oh the great Joseph Hardy is afraid of a little prick," laughed the Doctor manically in his Irish-Boston brogue. "This is too funny!"
"I wouldn't say that," I mumbled through gritted teeth as I attempted to stand up again. "I'd call you something much worse than a prick."
My legs shook and I collapsed again. As I lay panting on the floor, I began to feel it, the warm pinpricks on my cheeks that was the telltale sign of an anesthetic. I lifted my hand to my neck, feeling the puncture wound before my arm fell lamely to my side.
"Ah," smiled Lynch, "I see it is starting to take effect."
"What did you give me?" I demanded again through gritted teeth, urgency in my voice. It wasn't like a normal anesthetic, where I'd be out cold in less than a minute. It was slowly incapacitating me but it didn't feel like a muscle relaxant either.
"Rohypnol," shrugged the doctor.
"That's illegal in the US, even for medical work!"
"Because of my research, I have a permit to use it. It is almost eight times stronger than Valium and has some interesting effects in lowering inhibitions and causing temporary amnesia which my team has been studying," he pointed at the labs behind him as he spoke. "It shows promise as part of the memory erasure and implantation treatment in mice."
"Is that why you stuck me? To make me forget what I know?" I breathed, trying to slow my heart rate to inhibit the spread of the drug.
"Honestly, it was the inhibition lowering that I was going for," grinned the Doctor.
"Isn't that why roofies became illegal in the first place," I mumbled, trying to move my legs but feeling them heavy as stone.
"Mr. Hardy, I gave you a full dose so you will be asleep in," he checked his watch, "ten minutes. In these ten minutes you are going to tell me what you know."
"Okay Doc, what do you want to know?" My mouth said as the small part of my brain that knew this was the effect of the drug lowering my inhibitions got choked off.
"How did you get in?"
"Cleaning staff was careless," I smirked, "How'd you know I was here?"
"I have one of those Ring doorbell cameras hidden in the window of my office," he said puffing out his chest in pride. "I guess you and Miss Drew missed it."
"Huh, George didn't know about that one," I mused, feeling the dizziness associated with passing out start to take over me. "What are you going to do to us then?"
"That really depends on your next answer," stated the Doctor, looming over me. "Why are you here?"
"To save your son," I answered simply.
Lynch looked pained, "Yes, but what gave it away? How much do you actually know?"
I tried to clear my head but the easy embrace of pure honesty beckoned, "He sent an email to me. I followed it here."
The old man's face widened in shock and he quickly knelt down beside me, "That little fucker emailed you?!" He shouted, barely a foot from my face.
"Hey, that's not a nice thing to call your son," I chided, the roofies making me giddy. "Why are you being so mean to him?"
The Doctor's cold eyes narrowed, boring into mine, "Mean? I saved his life even though he doesn't deserve it," he spat, specks of saliva landing on my face dancing with the feeling of the anesthetic.
"I dunno," I mused, feeling my jaw begin to loosen. "Being locked away in a basement doesn't seem like much of a life to me."
"He's safe now," growled the older man, clenching his hands like he'd had this argument a hundred times before. "He was running around doing stupid things, but now he is going to be all right."
"As someone who has spent most of their life running around doing stupid stuff, I resent that," I grinned widely, as my brain screamed for me to do something, anything.
"Yes," said the Doctor pensively. "It is so fitting that I chose him."
My brain struggled to comprehend the statement as my body struggled to remain upright, "Huh?"
Pádraig Lynch stopped and looked at me like he'd never seen me before. I stared back at him bleary-eyed. "You, you… you don't know, do you?" He intoned slowly, his voice quiet before breaking out into a raucous laugh, collapsing beside me. "Holy shit, you really don't know!"
I turned to face my laughing captor as fast as I could (which wasn't very fast), "What's up Doc?" I muttered as the old man giggled helplessly beside me.
"Oh this makes things so much easier," he said breathlessly between giggles. "I thought I was going to have to do something drastic, but you're nothing but a small blip. My plan can still work!"
My brain fought to absorb the information, "What plan is that Doc?"
But the man was in a world of his own, "I was so sure you had recognized me. I've been stressed out since you came but it was all legitimately because you were trying to save my son!" He giggled again.
"Know you?" I mumbled, confused.
"Yes," the old man chuckled. "I recognized you immediately. You were being teased by everyone over lusting after the blonde girl the day I saw you."
It took a moment but as realization penetrated my brain the fog of the drug seemed to lift for a second and I saw Frank's face in my mind. "You were there the day he disappeared?!"
The Doctor clapped his hands like a small child, "Very good Mr. Hardy. Do you remember where?"
I struggled, the fog rolling back in. "Pizza," I said slowly, "you were eating pizza." Then it came to me in a flash, Chet, Tony, Frank, Nancy, Bess, George, and George's other half Izzie sitting in a stifling hot restaurant. Doctor Lynch had been there. He'd laughed at me while sipping wine and eating pizza. He'd been watching our table the whole time we'd been in the pizzeria.
"You do remember," smiled the old man mirthlessly, watching realization come to my face. "But it is too late now."
"Did you kill my brother?" I asked slowly, fighting off the full effects of the drug, desperate for the answer to this one question even if I was facing my death.
"Tell me before you pass out," calmly intoned the calculating Doctor, "did the Rohypnol make you horny?"
I shook my head confused by the left-field question and angry at the doctor's avoidance of my query.
Lynch leaned in and peered into my eyes with scientific curiosity, "You see it has been reported that Rohypnol can sexually arouse people, but I have never seen it in my research," he said, in full know-it-all doctor mode now. "When I slipped it into your brother's drink at El Horno Pizzeria he went crazy over Miss Drew. I wasn't sure if it was because it was a low-level dose or because he wanted to do it anyway and the Rohypnol lowered his inhibitions enough for him to act. I thought it might have been genetic but given that it isn't affecting you the same way…" He petered off deep in thought.
But his words had been enough to blow the fog from my brain and replace it with anger. With every fibre of my being, I lunged sideways at him. I barely had any muscle control and as I collapsed on him I felt the last vestiges of my strength leave me. The elderly man may have had a strong mind, but he had a weak body. He struggled under my 230 pounds of dead weight muscle, but couldn't move. Age and bias may have robbed him of reason, and drugs may have robbed me of strength, but he was not going to escape. He was going to pay for what he had done to his son. And he was going to pay double for what he had done to my brother.
