Digger - The Doctor Will See You Now by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 24

With blood drying on his face and clothes, Ryan spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes sitting on his front steps. He held up his hands, rubbing them together, and realized the fluids from Theresa's chest cavity had left them sticky. Even in the cool breeze of the nighttime woods, his hands were quickly beginning to smell as the dried fluid started to break down. A feeling of disgust rose from the pit of his stomach, pulling him off his feet and through the front door. It led him through the house and into the bathroom. In the shower, he scrubbed until his skin was nearly raw, and having swallowed more than a few drops of blood, Ryan brushed his teeth furiously. It did nothing to eliminate it from his body, but it did act as something of a psychological pacifier. After a change of clothes, Ryan returned to the basement. He looked at Theresa's disfigured face and head, knowing that he had likely injured her brain during his angry tirade. But having just passed, he also knew that Theresa's brain was intact. There was blood everywhere. It had a run down the wall and dripped from the ceiling. The surgical towels he placed around her body were saturated, as strings of clogged blood dangled off the table's edges.

Picking up the scalpel, Ryan became resolute in his intention to finally get what he had been wanting. Wanting it to the point of obsession. Grabbing her by the hair, Ryan lifted Theresa's head off the table and, burying the blade in her scalp, carved a deep incision around the back of her head. It was deep enough that once he pushed the tissue over her forehead, he realized that he'd dug a deep scratch around the skull. The next thing he noticed was a slightly curved impression near the front of her skull. Only now did he discover how much force he used during his assault against Theresa's inanimate remains. Removing the skullcap, he found a quarter-sized flake of bone had injected itself from the underside of the skull, landing against the brain and digging his way in, causing catastrophic bleeding. He picked out the bony shard and let the clotted pool of blood slide down the side of the brain. Retrieving a long pair of scissors and a retractor, Ryan clipped just below the brain stem. The organ dropped out easily into Ryan's gloved hands. The experience of holding what was until recently a living brain led Ryan to an epiphany of sorts. He was fascinated with that structure, how nearly every part acted to govern some part of the whole, working in a biochemical symphony of balance and function. Certainly, the key to understanding the universe lay somewhere among the multitude of connections within its pasty matter. Exploring further, he carefully set the organ on a surgical towel, and reaching for a knife he'd brought down from his kitchen Ryan began cutting quarter-inch-thick slices from front to back. Theresa's brain was marvelously symmetrical -- a work of art. No sculptor’s hand could touch the perfection of its many shapes and structures. It is the most efficient and fastest processor on the planet, unmatched by any computer.

Ryan laid the slices out side-by-side. His eyes moved from one layer to the next as he admired its beauty and complexity. Stacking the slices back together, Ryan immersed the reassembled organ into a specimen jar and covered it with alcohol. Setting the jar at the head of the table, Ryan realized that this organ represented the crown jewel of his collection. To have in his possession what was, in effect, the pinnacle of evolution left Ryan in a state of wonder. It brought up so many questions and issues that tied together matters of theology, philosophy, religion, and science. But Ryan also knew that he was not the one who would unravel its secrets, to untie the knots of questions that surrounded it in age-old mystery. Even the mystics of times past were unable to uncover its secrets.

Although Ryan had his prize, there was no one to share in his celebration. No one but the dead. And they were insistent on maintaining a non-negotiable silence, being entirely unsympathetic to what Ryan considered his grand achievement -- to explore the human brain, untethered by rules and policies or people in high places who believed their words to come from the mouth of the Almighty himself. Placing the jar with the rest of his collection, Ryan stepped back to the table. He replaced Theresa's breastbone and ribs, fixing them in place with common coat-hanger wire. He closed the flesh and skin with black, braided silk suture. Then, back to the head, returning the skullcap to its place. Ryan pulled the scalp back over and sutured the edges together. He bound Theresa's arms to her sides and tied her feet together, and, lifting her body up, hung it by the ankles from another screw hook inserted into one of the ceiling beams. After wrapping her body in plastic, Ryan looked around the basement. He'd been so focused on the collection and study of Theresa's brain that the full impact of what was left of her heart escaped him. Ryan would need to bleach down the wall, ceiling, and table. But this would not be enough. Blood contains a protein called hemoglobin and can be easily broken down with saltwater. Ryan prepared a fifty percent salt and water solution and sprayed it on the affected areas. He did this several times before mopping the floor with the same mixture. Then came the bleach. It killed anything that was leftover. The intensity of the last several hours left Ryan exhausted, and when he was finished, he retreated to the living room and fell asleep on the couch.