Die, Dr. Krone

The reaction was instant. Blink-instant like everything else had been. He typed in the command: Dr. Krone will suffer the nightmares of everybody who’s ever been hooked up to the machine. Craig felt the heat emanate from the device. The crown of needle prongs was inserted into the doctor’s head with a teeth-grinding thack. The circle of low-gauge needles was rammed into his eyes. The thrust shook the doctor in place. He was stunned. The man drooled and moaned, “Uhhhhhhhnnnnnn…”

Craig attempted to look away, but it was too mesmerizing.

Milky foam spittle launched from the man’s lips. His face scrunched with each seizure-spasmodic twitch. “Whuuck—whuuck—whuuck!”

Dr. Krone went stiff, his mouth quivering. His skin changed from white to raw-meat red to cut-circulation purple. His eyes gushed blood and so did the needles that penetrated his brain. The stink of singed hair and burning plastic followed.

WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!

The machine smoked and static electricity branched out from all directions and cracked in lightning-sharp crackles. Craig fled from the scene, but not before catching Dr. Krone’s final moment. The machine was clearly overloaded by Craig’s command. The needles in the doctor’s brain were wrenched out so quickly, his skull cap was removed and the boiling soup-mush-for-brains billowed down his face in steaming clotted lines. Dr. Krone’s mouth was locked in agony, his tongue rigid and extended.

Craig couldn’t dote on the man’s death when blue-white branches and webs of high voltage electricity—unnaturally bright and near-blinding with each crackle and surge—randomly spat out across the room. He dodged the machines and anything metal. He was near the double-door exit. The walls were blanketed by flames. The electric jolts ended once he crossed the door and threshold. He pounded down the rubber-matted floors and doubled up the stairs. He stopped and looked about the living room with relief. The bars over the windows and doors were missing.

It was the machine the whole time. Dr. Krone wanted to protect his investment. The machine was his security system.

He lunged out the door in case the electricity decided to shoot out at him without warning. Escaping through the front door, the night was thick and starless. He viewed the treetops of woods. The mansion was unassuming, he thought. The air was still. Absolutely calm. The din of fire eating the walls, the foundation expressing its distaste of its slow disintegration, Craig looked on down the long gravel driveway and snow-covered lawn. He shivered in the freezing cold. There were lights on in the far distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile from his standing point. He could knock on a door for help.

He watched the smoke pour from each window and the fire climb to the upstairs quarters. The electricity branches were gone. The machines had been damaged enough by the fires to be rendered useless, he believed. Craig prayed the secrets Dr. Krone uncovered about the human mind and their connections to the machine remained un-recovered.

Take your time getting help.

Let the house burn some more.