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Ben made his way down Sweetwater’s murky, deserted high street, now barely visible through the fog. He took a long, hurt look at the doorway of The Black Cat before approaching it. He tried the door, but it was locked, so he hammered on it and waited.
“Jo,” he called. “Jo, are you in there?”
There was no response.
He tired the door again in frustration, but it wouldn’t give. He backed off and circled around, wondering what to do next, but his frustrations got the better of him and he returned to pummel the door with both fists. There was still no answer from inside. After a minute, he lowered his hands to his sides, feeling flat and defeated.
The squeak of a slowly turning bicycle wheel, badly in need of oil, caught his attention. He turned around in time to see an amorphous figure on a bicycle sail past through the fog.
“Excuse me,” he began. “Have you seen...?”
It was no good. The rider was already gone, dissolved into the fog. Only the sound of the squeaking wheel lingered for a few moments, growing weaker and weaker, before fading away to nothing. Ben sighed and limped off in its direction.
Ben approached Mrs. Olander's general store and tried that door too. Again, it was locked. He cupped his hands against the window and peered in through the glass at the darkened interior, but he could see no one inside. The thick, heavy pull of dread was in his belly and his chest now. He knew nothing for sure about Jo’s whereabouts, but he felt in his gut that the longer he waited the less chance he would have of talking her back round. That was, if she hadn’t left town already.
*
Ben walked along the coastal road, limping downhill through a thick, silent haze of fog. The town had been useless to him in his search for Jo. It seemed everyone in Sweetwater was conveniently out and there was no help to be had anywhere. He decided he needed to find Harris. He still wasn't sure what was real or imagined from his fragmented, and frankly, wild recollection of the night before, but the doctor had certainly featured heavily in the bad dreams that had followed. He would find Harris and shake the answers out of him if he had to, but first he'd need to find someone to tell him where the doctor lived.
The straining buzz of an overtaxed little moped engine climbed towards Ben through the thick fog. Desperate to interrogate somebody, anybody, he positioned himself out in the centre of the road with his arms outstretched, ready to stop the rider.
Leyton was doing no more than thirty when he emerged from the fog, but visibility was so poor that he didn’t spot Ben until the last minute and had to swerve sharply to miss him. Leyton pulled the moped sharply away to one side, but Ben sidestepped back into his path to block him again. This forced Leyton to lean in even further to avoid him, forcing his moped so far over that the angle was too steep to recover from. Leyton lost control of the moped and slipped away from it as the two parted company. He rolled over and over across the gravel, as the moped crunched on to its side and slid to a halt ahead of him. Ben followed Leyton and stood over him, waiting for him to recover. The surfer groaned and struggled to his feet, his elbows and forearms skinned and raw and pitted with gravel.
“What’s wrong with you, man?” he moaned.
“Tell me you didn’t make a move on Jo last night,” said Ben.
Leyton stared at the scraped moped lying on its side ten feet away, and suddenly forgot all about his injuries.
“Aw man, my bike” he said. “Was that fucking deliberate?”
“Where’s my girlfriend?” said Ben.
Leyton frowned at him and braced up. He marched towards Ben, spoiling for a fight.
“Did you just fuck my bike up on purpose?”
The two men squared up to each other, though Ben's aggression was winding down, as Leyton began to pump his up.
“Just answer the question.”
“Why you Pom-fuck...”
Leyton threw the first punch, but Ben saw it coming and pulled back, almost out of range, so that it glanced off his jaw. Leyton over-extended himself in the process and Ben quickly ducked in under the other man's outstretched arm and took advantage of the clear shot at his chin, catching Leyton with a hard uppercut. Both men then grabbed on to each other and hit the ground wrestling, rolling over and over, back and forth, each trying to dominate the other. Leyton took two fistfuls of Ben’s hair and smashed his head back against the road. Ben tried to push Leyton's face away, but the surfer cracked Ben’s head against the ground again, stunning him. Ben felt dazed and disoriented as he struggled against the Australian, trying to stop a third attempt. As they grappled, Ben reached down past Leyton’s board shorts and found the straps securing the other man’s prosthetic leg. Ben closed his eyes and moaned, as his skull thudded back against the ground again. He continued to work at the straps, as his head began to swim, and he felt himself slide towards unconsciousness. Then one of the straps on Leyton's prosthetic leg gave way in his hand.
Leyton instantly stopped fighting and looked down at Ben with surprise. Ben used the distraction to hit him with his free hand, knocking Leyton right over to the side and on to the ground. Before Leyton could recover, Ben ripped off his adversary’s prosthetic leg and swung it at him.
Hard.
There was a sharp knock, as the leg caught Leyton full in the face. Ben immediately swung again without thinking, wielding the leg like a club. Leyton screamed out in pain, as two of his front teeth flew out of his mouth and across the road. Ben stood up, breathless. Leyton groveled on all fours beneath him, spitting gobs of thick, dark blood on to the gravel. Ben raised the leg, ready to strike again.
“Now,” he said. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Where’s my girlfriend?”
“Fucking hell,” spat Leyton. “I don’t know, OK. I never touched her.”
“You better not be lying,” said Ben.
“I’m telling you,” whined Leyton. “Have a go at the Doc if you’re going to have a go at anyone.”
“Harris?”
Leyton laughed, then coughed and spat more blood.
“You don’t remember,” said Leyton. “Do you?”
Ben ignored this, tried to stay on target.
“Where’s he work?” he said.
The surfer gave him a surly look, so Ben wound back the leg and prepared to swing again.
“He’s got a house over the back there,” said Leyton quickly. ”First, no, second left turning off this road, on the way out of town.”
“Thanks,” said Ben.
“Can’t remember,” said Leyton, now chuckling to himself. “Some heavy drinker you are mate. Yeah, you’re the real fuckin’ deal alright.”
“Mind if I borrow your bike?” said Ben.
Before the other man could reply, Ben struck him again with the prosthetic leg, swinging it like a golfer teeing off. Leyton groaned and hit the ground, out for the count. Ben threw the prosthetic leg to the side of the road and walked over to the stricken moped. He righted it and kicked over the engine. To his relief it started first time. Ben revved the moped and skidded away into the fog, disappearing in the direction Leyton had pointed out.
Ben struggled to see much of the road ahead through the continuing fog and found that he was already past the first turning before he even knew it was there, so he slowed the moped right down to a crawl and remained watchful for the next turning. A couple of minutes later it emerged from the fog, and he leaned the moped over in plenty of time to take the side road on offer. Within a few moments he sensed something looming up ahead in the fog. It was no more than a vague impression, but he slowed the moped again, just to be sure. As he idled forwards with the engine sputtering, a large structure began to take the shape of a solitary, white homestead. Ben rolled the moped to a halt and stared up at the big house’s weathered facade, with its peeling white paint, cracked windows and crooked wooden fence that lay flat in several places, no doubt felled by the strong coastal winds. He left the moped and approached on foot, ascending a series of wide steps to a large, tired looking front door. He knocked and waited, but no one came. He looked around, then tried the door and found, to his surprise, it was already open. Ben hesitated, then warily stepped through into a dim, unlit hallway, complete with dusty framed paintings and faded Mackintosh print wallpaper, lined with a row of cheap looking plastic chairs set back against the wall. Bland muzak, straight out of some forgettable sixties romantic comedy, bled through from a wall mounted speaker by the doorway at the far end of the hall. Ben followed it.
“Hello?” he said.
Ben made his way down the hall and reached the door at the end that had been left slightly ajar. There was a tarnished bronze plaque on it.
It read:
Dr. Robert Harris
“Hello?” he said again.
He pushed the door open to reveal a large doctor's office, complete with writing desk, high-back leather chair, examination table and sleeping practitioner.
Harris was dressed in his white lab coat and slumped on his side across the examination table. He was out like a light. Ben waited for a moment, watching the man sleep to be certain he wasn’t about to wake up, before he crept into the room. Something on the wall behind the doctor's desk caught his eye and he moved closer to examine it. It was a framed color photo of a man lying on an operating table. A cropped, faceless nurse’s hands held up the patient's injured left leg for the camera. Most of the underside of the thigh was denuded of flesh, presumably removed by a large shark judging by the size and shape of the bite mark, exposing the shiny, porcelain colored bone beneath. Ben looked at another picture that hung next to it. It was the same table with the same framing, but the patient was different. This one was a cadaverous rendition of the Venus De Milo. The grey skin and total absence of both arms made Ben suspect this female patient hadn't lasted very long. He traced numerous other framed photographs of shark attack victims arranged around the surgery’s walls, until he found himself coming full circle and facing Harris again. To his surprise the doctor was now awake and sitting up.
“Pretty, eh?” said Harris. “They don’t work though. People don’t take any notice. They still go out there.”
The doctor seemed like a different person today. It was almost as if the man didn't recognize him. Ben watched him carefully.
“It looks like they keep you busy,” he said.
“Not so much now, but those last couple of seasons when Sweetwater still had tourists...” Harris said, shaking his head. “...things got so bad, the government paid for me to be stationed out here permanently. It seemed like a dream gig at the time. From a research point of view anyway.”
“For some reason I didn’t think you were a real doctor.”
Harris tapped his chest.
“Real enough.”
Ben smiled, playing along.
“So, what happened after our little competition last night?”
Harris stared at him with what appeared to be genuine confusion. Ben noticed something different about Harris’s eyes. Other than being blood-shot, the real difference was that they seemed much calmer and kinder than he remembered.
“In particular,” he continued. “What happened to my girlfriend?”
“I'm sorry,” said Harris. “What do you mean by competition?”
“Our drinking competition. In The Black Cat.”
A look of shameful regret descended on Harris's features, and he turned away.
“I thought I recognized you,” he said.
Harris paced away from Ben, then circled back to the examination table. He hopped up on it and began rubbing at the back of his neck. He showed Ben an embarrassed smile.
“I’m afraid you probably remember more about last night than I do,” he said.
“Well,” said Ben. “I remember that you were rude and aggressive. And that your hands were all over Jo. Does that help?”
Harris sighed, but didn't look surprised by the revelation.
“I’m really, really sorry. Please believe me, I don’t remember anything.”
Ben heard a woman's voice behind him.
“The doctor has a little problem with blackouts. Maybe I can help?”
Ben turned to see Kim, the beautiful Asian woman who was at Harris's side the night before. It turned out she really was his nurse, or at least she dressed like it.
“Blackouts?” said Ben. “You mean you’re a drunk.”
Kim slid between the two men, as Ben advanced on the sheepish looking doctor. Something in her dark eyes held him in check.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t give a flying fuck about your little nighttime games or your bad behavior. I just want to find my girlfriend.”
“Easy,” said Kim. “I don't like your tone.”
“And I don't like being drugged and waking up to find my girlfriend gone.”
“Nobody drugged you,” said Kim. “You just couldn't handle your drink. You turned into a complete asshole and your girl left. That’s it. Ask anybody.”
“Yeah?” said Ben. “Then how come I remember you two putting moves on her?”
“In your sick little head maybe,” said Kim. “Listen cowboy, you were in such a state last night, you insulted the whole bar, pissed your pants and then passed out. Anyone will tell you that.”
“So you keep saying,” said Ben. “I guess you won’t mind if I take a look around then.”
Ben marched towards a second door set in the far wall of the surgery and snatched it open.
“Don't,” said Harris.
Ben flinched, as a tide of severed arms and legs spilled out of the storage room and tumbled towards him. He instinctively thrashed against the wave of limbs burying him, but it took several frantic moments to free himself. When he finally managed to scramble clear of the limbs, he looked down to see a pile of medical prosthetic arms and legs scattered across the floor. A sigh of relief escaped his lips, and he felt his breathing slow and his shoulders slump. He stood and turned to apologize to Harris, but found Kim up in his face instead.
“Get out,” she said.
“I just wanted...” he began.
He stopped when Kim pulled a scalpel from the pocket of her nurse’s uniform.
“Now listen,” he said.
But Kim wasn't listening.
She advanced on him, slashing the scalpel across his path. The steel flashed in front of his eyes, as he raised his hands to protect himself. A thin whip of pain flared in the palm of his right hand, and he staggered backwards cradling it. He looked at Kim in disbelief and saw that she was more than willing to strike again if he pressed his luck.
“You must have a phone, or a radio here,” he said, still backtracking. “At least let me use it to...”
Kim advanced on him again and raised the scalpel. Ben quickly retreated into the hallway, where the waiting room muzak still played like a long joke gone bad. Kim kept coming at him, forcing him all the way back to the door.
“Please,” he began. “I just need to...”
“Get the fuck out,” said Kim, quietly.
Ben stumbled out backwards through the door and quickly closed it behind him. He retreated down the front steps and looked up at the large, white, flaking house with a forlorn expression. Was his booze-soaked mind creating memories of things that hadn’t happened, illusions designed to protect him from the ugly truth? The truth that he was a coward, a weak and abusive liar that had promised Jo a fresh start and then turned around and publicly spat in her face. The truth that he had drunkenly dismissed their relationship in one night, that he had discarded all that they had, all that they worked for. The truth that it was over for good this time, and that it really was all his fault.
No.
She wouldn’t just disappear, he told himself. If she really was leaving him, she would want to look him in the eye first, when he was sober. She would want to make sure he fully understood what he had done, what he was losing; she would want to end it properly, for good. There must be more to it.
This last thought should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. It just convinced him that despite their problems and his recent behavior, Jo’s disappearance wasn’t voluntary. Someone had taken her. He tried to imagine all the other possibilities for her disappearance, and how he might narrow them down to the true cause, but in his heart, he knew she had been taken. A thick, heavy, bleak feeling of helplessness began to slide over him as he felt overwhelmed at the conclusion.