The John Doe Read online

  Chapter 2:

  He was tied up again, and again John fought desperately against the restraints and begged for release. But Rebecca wasn’t there and nor were any of the other nurses he knew. None of them were even female. The hated tube was back in place. Cameras were pointed at him, fixed only a couple of feet above his face and working continuously, but his sight was poor, and they were only vague shapes to him. Other cameras kept the whole of the room under a constant surveillance. John Doe was very closely watched.

  Enquiries were made, trying to ascertain his identity, but without result.

  Colonel Mark Bedville was put in charge of Facility 19, where John Doe now lay. There were no other beds, no other patients. One of the walls was of a clear pale shade. It was kept free of furnishings. Behind the wall, there was a room where observers could watch every move the subject made. There were two male nurses on duty at all times. They were army nurses.

  Isaac Berg was an army doctor, a man of about thirty, who looked solid, reliable, kindly. But he had an intense curiosity, too, and had been transferred to this duty from a hospital where research was being undertaken into the treatment of mental diseases. Neither Isaac nor the nurses were dressed in army uniform, Isaac in civilian clothing, the male nurses with white tunic tops over grey trousers. Two armed soldiers guarded the room, but outside the door, out of sight of the subject.

  Outside, repairs were being made to the high fence, and the barbed wire that had been long removed, was replaced. The soldiers who guarded Facility 19 were armed with rifles, with batons, and with stun guns. The border patrol had attack dogs. The soldiers were subject to the Official Secrets Act, though hardly any of them knew why they were there. The Facility had been originally designed for bacteriological warfare research, though it had never been used for that purpose, and was more recently used to train commandos to take control of a building filled with ‘hostiles.’ There was a lot of repair work and modification going on, cameras were rigged in many areas, and those on the gates were briefed on the need for utmost security.

  Again, there was an audience when one of the nurses removed the restraints. Joe Price called the attention of Colonel Bedville and the doctor to the scars that encircled the wrists of their patient.

  “Probably why he fights against being restrained so much,” remakred Isaac. “He’s been traumatized at some stage.”

  “It can’t have been from the rape,” said the Colonel. “Those scars have to be more than a few months old.”

  Isaac agreed.

  “White in his hair, too,” commented the Colonel. “How old do you think he might be?”

  “About twenty-four, twenty-five, not much older,” said the doctor. “Take out the Nasogastric tube as well, Joe,” he instructed. “We’ll try feeding him normally. It seems they managed it the day before he was brought here.” He added to the Colonel, “He might do a lot better now he’s not restrained, especially if we can feed him by mouth. He urgently needs to put a bit of weight on.” They had full notes, the originals from the hospital. The amended notes left with the hospital records no longer mentioned anything unusual.

  Price told John that he needed a shave. He repeated it, speaking in a firm tone. The Colonel took over. “John, it’s time to shave. Shave yourself.”

  The patient turned his head away. There was a continuous EEG reading now, the electrodes attached here and there on their patient’s head. Isaac watched the readings attentively. Usually, they still mostly showed the characteristic coma pattern, but at the moment, it showed merely a sleeping pattern. He thought that John could wake up now, if he chose. But maybe, it would be better if they just waited.

  Even the Colonel hadn’t lost the soldier’s ability to be patient when required, and now they stepped back from the bed, and waited. Two on one side, two on the other, none of them in front of the observers in the next room, and none of them obscuring the path of the several cameras in the room.

  A half hour of silence passed. They waited. The movement from the man in the bed was convulsive as he wrenched himself over, pulling his arms up in a violent movement. But he was free and he stopped moving almost straight away, only looking around quietly. His hand went to his cheek, but he was only touching, feeling for the presence of the hated tube. It wasn’t there. He didn’t like these men who surrounded him. He wanted Rebecca, and he said her name, questioning, “Rebecca?”

  They stayed silent. They had a suspicion he didn’t see very well and still hoped he might perform that behavior that was so incredible. There had been four witnesses, but they wanted to see it themselves and they very much wanted it on film. Film was firm evidence. As intended, the beard growth was obvious now. They’d left him restrained for four days, making sure that the film would show clearly the phenomenon.

  John stared at the ceiling, and spoke in a low voice, but quite clearly. “I don’t like to be watched.”

  Isaac shrugged and went to him, saying who he was, and saying who his nurses were. John looked fully at him and then away. “Why did you tie me up?”

  Isaac adopted an even more soothing tone. He said that he’d had to be restrained because he was not being sensible. They were only able to take off the restraints when he’d calmed down. John looked at him and said nothing. He was quite unable to be sensible when tied up and the doctor was lying. He could feel it.

  Isaac was looking at him with an understanding half smile. It seemed his patient bore a grudge. “Would you like something to eat?”

  The grudge was forgotten as John turned a delighted smile to him. He definitely wanted something to eat. He was very hungry.

  Afterward, they helped him to the bathroom and he showered. He felt so much better. He slept again when he returned to bed and they readjusted the electrodes for continuous EEG monitoring. He’d been awake forty minutes, far longer than on any previous occasion.

  Only his nurses were in the room next time he woke, and Price nudged Rockdale and pointed. Still with eyes shut, John passed both hands over his cheeks and the dark growth was gone. He was as smooth cheeked as a child. But their silent jubilation apparently penetrated the sleep of John, who turned his head toward them and spoke in an irritable tone, “What?”

  They didn’t answer, but his eyes were open, looking at the ceiling. A knowledge seeped into him. He was not supposed to shave like that. When people watched, he had to always use a razor. It was the first of April.

  The watchers were disappointed that they didn’t see the weird phenomenon again. But they had it on film, and the film was watched again and again. They didn’t know what they had, but they knew it was not a normal human.

  John was doing well, awake longer each day, eating well and beginning to put on weight. But when he asked for a razor so he could shave, they denied him. He stared at them in puzzlement. He had to be able to shave, he hated himself unshaven, and somehow the knowledge that he had a different way of shaving was lost.

  On the fifth day he peered at the dark beard growth in the bathroom mirror. The see-through wall was right beside him and a man watched from just behind. Slowly, John turned toward the man and abruptly slammed his fist against the wall. The man behind the wall flinched and retreated.

  John was looking black, peering at the wall, totally opaque from his side, and then returning to the bedroom area and striding up and down next to the wall, his head turned to it, appearing to be looking straight through.

  Price and Rockdale pressed a button, otherwise just watching. Price finally asked, “What’s the matter, John?”

  John spared him a bare glance. He didn’t like his nurses, any of them. He preferred Rebecca and Josie and Taylor.

  Abruptly, he strode toward the door, trying it and finding it locked. He turned, leaning back to the wall, and started to tremble. He was staring at his nurses. He still had little strength and they were the ones who helped him shower, helped him dress, kept his room clean and tidy and brought him meals. They’d not been cruel or bossy,
but they were not female. John didn’t like them.

  Isaac was in the observation room now, watching.

  John said, “I want to go out.”

  Rockdale said, perfectly calmly, “You can’t go out, you’re not well enough.”

  John was already feeling the crippling weakness flooding his body. He turned to the door again, wrenching at the doorknob. It was opened. He tried to brush past Isaac, but Isaac put out a hand and caught his arm. “You’re being silly, John. If you want to go out, we’ll organize a wheelchair and your nurses will take you out.”

  John stood still, trembling. He was beginning to think he was a prisoner and was feeling the same fear as when he was tied.

  He gave a deep sigh of relief when he was taken into the open. He felt with his senses and pointed where he wanted to go. Isaac nodded at Rocky. The area of grass felt good to him. Shakily, he stood out of the wheelchair, Isaac helping support him.

  “I want to sit on the grass for a little while,” he explained. And when they helped him down, he lay on his back, put out a hand and touched the living grass. He closed his eyes. The sunshine warmed him. It was a good feeling.

  Isaac sat on the grass next to him. John still had his eyes closed. “What sort of a hospital is this?” he asked. “Where are the other patients.”

  Isaac said calmly, patiently, “It’s a research hospital. The other patients are in other wards, but there are not many, as we only take those who are interesting cases.”

  John frowned. “Am I an interesting case?”

  Isaac said, still in that calming voice, “Total amnesia is very rare.”

  John still frowned. “Have I got amnesia?”

  “Do you remember who you are, where you came from?”

  John thought for a few minutes, but then shook his head. “I haven’t lived very long. There’s nothing to remember.”

  Isaac nodded. Total amnesia was very rare, but it wasn’t why John was carefully guarded in a large, secure facility, with no other patients. But it was obvious that he was worried about being a prisoner and the illusion would be maintained as long as possible, that it was just a hospital.

  On re-entering ‘Ward 3,’ as they described it, John frowned again at the bare wall. “Why am I watched all the time? I don’t like being watched all the time.”

  Isaac was still with him. “We’re looking after you. You would never have had such careful treatment in the public hospital.”

  But John declared, “I prefer the other hospital. I’d like to go back, please.”

  Isaac gave him a lengthy and entirely fictitious explanation of why a patient could not be in a public hospital when there was a private hospital willing to take him. He finished, “Do you understand?”

  John said no, but there was a lot he didn’t understand, and he only looked to the table where a meal waited.

  He’d been awake nearly three hours. It was a rapid and consistent improvement, although he was still quite unsteady on his feet. But now, when he rose to his feet, he stopped, looking uncertain and a little frightened. For a moment, he just stood, swaying, then he clapped his hands to his head and gave a strangled cry of pain, falling to the floor, writhing in agony.

  He quietened after a few minutes, staying very still, but with his body tense, and when Isaac felt his pulse, it was racing. He was in a very great deal of distress. They put him in bed, though he resisted slightly when they first touched him and muttered that they should leave him alone. But it seemed that even those words cost him too much and Isaac felt his body become more limp as he lost consciousness.

  It was only for a few minutes, as it seemed the pain was too great for such an easy release. The painkiller administered didn’t make any difference, and when they started to fix the electrodes for continuous EEG monitoring, he started fitting. The first seizure went for a long time.

  There were more in the next hours and days, periods of head pain, then seizures, followed by hours of unconsciousness.

  He was sensible for brief intervals, though it seemed he was never sensible enough to leave the feeding tube in place. The third time he pulled it out, roughly, hurting himself, they decided to leave it out. Feeding him that way didn’t seem to do him much good in any case. He wouldn’t tolerate an Intravenous Drip at all, and if they tried to make him leave it in, he only panicked in the same way he panicked if he found himself restrained.

  They handled him with tact and efficiency. He began to have more trust in Isaac and in his nurses, the four regular ones, and the ones who came to relieve when they went off for meal breaks.

  As soon as he seemed to be over the episode of head pains and fitting, they started taking him outside every day. On several occasions, he saw men and women in dressing gowns, escorted by nurses. They were beginning to find him more cheerful, and he seemed to be ignoring the wall that hid the watchers. But the watchers were no longer continually observing, spending most of their time editing film that was taken. All the cameras were in continuous operation, and there were cameras everywhere. All film that showed the subject was retained, parts copied and edited as a separate record of different behaviors. Film where he was just sleeping or eating or showering was not very useful, but collections of instances where he appeared to show some sort of unusual ability, such as looking through the opaque wall, were collated and closely watched.

  He still needed building up, and as he still spent large parts of each day sleeping, there was no attempt for the time being to give him meals at regular times. He was eternally hungry, it seemed, and never declined a meal.

  He asked to see a book that Price was reading one day, but only gave it back. “I can’t read,” he said.

  After that, Isaac put him through a series of eyesight tests, which served to confuse the doctor greatly. Sometimes, it seemed that John could barely see, falling over a chair if it was moved, for instance, and yet he always knew who was around him and sometimes he could apparently see perfectly well. He ran through the eyesight chart perfectly, for instance, then misjudged the doorway as he started to leave the room, bruising his side.

  A few days later, Isaac had an array of pairs of glasses for John to try, handing him the pair he thought most likely to be effective. If it seemed to help, he could organize a professional optometrist. But John tried the pair of glasses, gave a yelp of pain, and clutched his head as the glasses fell to the floor. He tried again with a different pair, but the stab of pain was fierce enough to bring tears to his eyes.

  Isaac quietly packed them away. John looked at them sadly. It would have been nice to have been able to read, or even just to see the films they put on for him sometimes. He could see them better if someone watched with him, though he kept that to himself. He didn’t know why it was.

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