Sadistic prisoners were not Fred's strong suit.
He never got anything beyond a bruise from his patients, but a patient asking if he bled the same way they did was just plain damn unnerving.
So when he told to talk to an extremely, extremely dangerous criminal, the first thing he wanted to do was run. Then he would hide for a very, very long time.
But he had to. Doctor Thorne would find him, and kill him with the nearest blunt object if he didn't.
According to what she told him on their walk to his room, Caligosto Loboto was a serial killer.
Oh god. He was dealing with a serial killer. And not the breakfast kind, either.
"Fred. Fred! Quit spacing out." Doctor Thorne's voice drug him kicking and screaming back to reality. "Repeat what I just said."
"Uh... Repeat what I just said?" Fred replied, nervously trying to lighten the mode. The doctor merely glared.
"Where did you lose me?" the doctor said.
"Uh, around the serial killer part."
She sighed. "He was a dentist before he figured out he liked blood and screaming. A lot. Pulled teeth and gross things like that. He disguised himself as a back-street dentist, if that makes sense. Help a couple people to get word of mouth, kidnap and torture a few, then repeat." she turned a page in Loboto's file.
"And the body count?" Fred said, trying to ignore the ache in his mouth.
"Ten. But that's all they've found..." She said boredly.
"You've... Seen this type of thing before, haven't you?" he said, slightly disturbed.
"Eh." she shrugged."You get used to it. Now, go get 'em, tiger."
He was at the door to Loboto's room. Fred nervously glanced back to the Doctor.
"He's wearing a straight jacket." she said.
"That doesn't make any difference!" Fred whined.
"Get in there. Now. We'll pull you out if he tries anything fishy. Promise."
Fred sighed and opened the door. He took one final glance at the glaring doctor, then thrust himself into the room.
"Ah, hello my dear boy! Another one of the therapists, are you?" Loboto's scratchy voice came from the corner of the room.
Loboto definetly didn't look too old, as his hair was still pitch black and oddly well-kept. But that was basically the only thing remotely normal about him. His skin was a icy blue color, his mouth seemed too large, and his thin frame was not helped at all by the tight straight jacket. Then there were the eyes.
It was as if someone put the eyepieces of metal goggles on his face. One was a bright red, the other was a dark green, and he could've sworn they seemed to zoom in on him. "Please, please sit down!" Loboto said, motioning towards a single hard-looking chair in the room. Fred swallowed hard, scooted the chair towards Loboto, then sat down.
"Ah.. Alright, Mr. Loboto..." Fred began, holding his pencil over his clipboard.
"It's doctor." Loboto cheerfully replied. Fred raised an eyebrow. "They might of revoked my license, but I am still a doctor Mister.." his eyes seemed to focus on Fred's nametag. "Bonaparte, yes."
Fred swallowed hard. "Right. Anyway, Doctor Loboto, what was your life like before the, uhm, killings?" he said, wincing slightly. The doctor merely gave him a toothy grin.
"Well well well.. My parents were doctors. Like I. And, you see, they often brought their work home. Well, really, work was stationed at home. They disected things a lot. Not just worms and frogs, no no! That sort of thing was much below them.." The way Loboto breezed through this was disturbing Fred.
"Anyhow, they took a ton of animals, sometimes human bodies (Dead, of course) from the scientific institute of what-the-hell, mostly of them still alive. So, they'd kill it, open it up, and saw how it ticked. Us-u-al-ly, they'd be genetically altered, so you'd get different colors of blood and such, and eventually, you get used to the howled of pain and death rattles." Fred's hands shook as he jotted down notes.
"And, sometimes, they figured that dead human bodies weren't enough. So, sometimes they'd drag me down to their basement lab. And, sometimes, the experiments were sick and twisted. 'Does this hurt, Cal?' 'What does this feel like, honey?' 'On a scale of one to ten, how much does this burn?' And eventually I figured out they liked the look on my face when I screamed. They wanted a punching bag that could squirm and cry and pray that it could stop..." Loboto's tone made it seem like he was vaguely fond of these memories.
"But I got through it, all the torture and screaming and blood. They even improved me a bit, the better eyes, the robotic arm... And one can never truly hate their parents, can they?"
Robotic arm? They never said anything about a robotic arm!
"And, one day, I found the perfect occupation: Dentistry. I get paid for causing people pain... And one day, I completely forgot to give the patient knock-out gas. It just slipped my mind all together. And the next thing I knew, my hands were covered in blood and the patient was screaming, screaming..." his face darkened, but the slasher-smile was still there. "And damn, I was in ecstasy. The screams, the blood, the pain, oh, I finally understood why my parents loved their jobs so much, there's just something about scaring something beyond all repair... But I gave him enough knock-out gas to completely forget the matter... But I wanted to feel that.. That rush again!" Loboto shifted slightly in his jacket. "Soo, I became a dentist for poor people. Did my job for mere dollars. Save a few, take a few to the, uh, backroom, see what makes them tick. It was great, dull knives, rusty scapels, sometimes I'd play a game, guess what makes them scream the most, and I treat myself to icecream..." Loboto began pushing himself against the wall behind him, slowly but surely raising himself up.
"Tell me, my boy, what do you think makes you scream the worst?" Loboto said, standing now at his full, gangly height. Fred's eyes widened, and a sickening, tearing and whirring sound was heard, and next he knew, Loboto had ripped through the straitjacket with his robotic arm and holding Fred by the neck with his left hand, his claw menacingly pointed towards him. "Wildcats, bears, rats, crows? Maybe something non-animal related, like the dark, knives.. Madmen, maybe? Or have you gotten used to that...?" Loboto's grip tightened. "It's been a while since I've heard something scream, you know..."
In happened in a flash. The door slammed open. Loboto clawed, in a straight line, Fred's left cheek, slowly, savoring the moment, blood dripping down his wincing face, then suddenly he was on the floor, the perfect line on his cheek was a jittery scribble, there was the distinct sound of punches being thrown, partnered with yelling and cursing, and suddenly Fred was being drug out of the room, breathing heavily and pressing his hand to his bleeding cheek.
"Fred! Fred, holy hell, are you alright?" Doctor Thorne's voice yelled, sounding concerned for the first time in ever. He turned to her, shaking, blood staining his white uniform.
"I didn't... scream." he gasped. "I didn't scream."
Funfact: I wrote this while listening to a very upbeat song, "Go Out and Love Someone" by Pogo. Funny how the human brain works sometime, huh?