|
|
John Carpenter's
 |
|
|
BLAIR'S PSYCHOSIS
by Jeffroi
It had been a while since the dark figure of MacReady had left
Blair alone to the confines of the cabin. He sat for a short period,
looking beyond the physical binds with a partially demented and
psychotic expression. The morphine had now taken its full effect.
Slowly, his fear and anxiety of Clark and the other crew members,
dissipated. He sat quietly in the chair awaiting. He was all alone
now, more than any other time in his life.
"Nothing to do... nothing to do," he repeated to himself, bringing his
weathered old hands up to his forehead, and massaging his temples for
some sort of relief. His eyes found the walls, noticing their uncanny
featureless attitude. But it was too dark to see anything, and the
horrific silence was beginning to settle in. The cold wisps of the
snow outside had become backdrop to the theater of Blair's wandering
drug induced thoughts. The warm filth in full circulation of his veins
began to take control of his reality.
"Where am I, how did I end up here?"
It seemed like an eternity before Blair realized the twofold nature of
his question. But the answers couldn't come. In the corner laid a ten
foot piece of rope that quickly drew his attention. He contemplated
the notion of suicide, and what an easy way it was to end it all. He
was hopeless, jailed and drugged. If the "thing" was coming for him,
it would have selected the ideal moment to do so. But, he couldn't
bring himself to do it. Outside the cabin, a struggle for survival was
transpiring, but inside himself, the drug was performing its own
assimilation. It was taking him over. He could literally sense his
endorphins being corrupted as the drug attached itself to his cerebral
receptors. A shift in his seat confirmed his motor skills had severely
depreciated, but he didn't want to think of it anymore, he didn't want
to think at all. He wanted to get out. Pressed down by what seemed
like a thousand tons, his eyelids succumbed to the fictitiously
magnified gravity, and shut closed. The cold wooden table in front of
him recoiled, as his head struck hard. Blair fell deeply into the
abyss of sleep.
Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump...
"Smiley abhors zero. Smiley is a vector space."
Blair raised his head in a fever, and with a brief twitch, realized
that he was youthful again. Through his mind's eye he was attending
one of the first mathematics courses he was required to complete for
medical school. But somehow the ambience was not inviting, and he felt
uncomfortable being there. There were students all around him,
attentive to the figure at the front of the room that was lecturing.
Like robots, their heads would lift up and down in harmony, jotting
down as much as they could in spiral notebooks. The professor began to
scribble more equations on the blackboard, but before he could read
any of it out, as though it possessed an entity to solve all his
problems, the image was gone.
His head started again.
(Pulmonary Wegener's Granulomatosis...)
It wants us...nobody understands. It wants to be us. It took the
lives of all the Norwegian crew members, and now us. And then... I
should've killed them all, while I had the chance. Logic dictated my
actions, to place all other life forms above mine and others, my whole
life has been devoted to this philosophy. Innocent people will always
fall in a crusade. Cause and effect... I should've killed them all.
"Trust in the Lord"... what was that MacReady had said, trust in the
Lord... put your trust in yourself MacReady, for when it's all over,
we only experience our own self.
Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump...
His beta signs fluctuated sporadically to alpha and gamma sleep
patterns. Terrifying images of the past began to storm through his
internal vision. He began reliving the horrible details of patients he
had lost in the emergency room, one in particular. A man who was
involved in a domestic dispute with a crazed and drunken lunatic,
ended up being stabbed with a fork in his upper lip, that pierced
straight through and into his gums. He recalled the inordinate amount
of blood that had gushed out in unrestrainable jets, soaking his gown.
He further experienced how his professional conduct, despite the
obvious horror of the situation and the nurse who couldn't stomach the
sight, had always remained intact. The man died within minutes on the
operating table after having lost too much blood. Blair remained
unshaken, seemingly inhuman.
It had to be Clark, it had to be...
Traveling the upward helical spiral of memory, from all his residency
years and training, operations and diagnostics gone wrong, to the
Norwegian dog, Clark and the blood tests, the synaptic voyage came to
a crushing halt on a specific afternoon, after performing his first
angioplasty back in the city. Leaning against a fence, a young and
vibrant Blair awaited the train home. A confident aura encompassed his
physically exhausted frame, due to having saved a middle-aged man from
almost certain death. The process entailed over nine hours of surgery,
leaving him tired, but proud. Three school boys, all of about ten
years old, stood near him chucking rocks at the dividing fence that
separated the tracks. Every second or so, a sharp 'clack' echoed
through the air as a rock struck the steel of the fence, sending
painful vibrations to everyone's ears that stood nearby. He wanted to
go over and scream at the kids for being disrespectful little
ruffians, but his energy was depleted.
Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump...
(...Intracranial Hematomas)
Before long, a well suited woman approached the young vigilantes, and
through a quick persuasive dialogue, she was able to make them stop
without even raising her voice. Blair wanted to approach her, to
commend her on her actions, but the train was approaching. It was only
about five meters away, when the man next to him, like something out
of a dark comic strip, plunged off the platform into the front of the
oncoming train. Upon impact, the man's head blew open like a rancid
pumpkin thrown against a wet sidewalk. All the commuters went into
emotional shock, crying, yelling and shouting, as the blood covered
everything in sight, while skull fragments went flying like shrapnel.
The screams were so agonizingly painful for Blair, he had to cover his
ears. All he could remember was the sound of the crowd... an
overwhelming chorus of hysteria... blackness.
Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump...
(...Intracranial Hematomas)
Before long, a well suited woman approached the young vigilantes, and
through a quick persuasive dialogue, she was able to make them stop
without even raising her voice. Blair wanted to approach her, to
commend her on her actions, but the train was approaching. It was only
about five meters away, when the man next to him, like something out
of a dark comic strip, plunged off the platform into the front of the
oncoming train. Upon impact, the man's head blew open like a rancid
pumpkin thrown against a wet sidewalk. All the commuters went into
emotional shock, crying, yelling and shouting, as the blood covered
everything in sight, while skull fragments went flying like shrapnel.
The screams were so agonizingly painful for Blair, he had to cover his
ears. All he could remember was the sound of the crowd... an
overwhelming chorus of hysteria... blackness.
Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump...
Clark, is it Clark... The chameleon strikes in the dark.
The door was ajar.
Pain shot through his heart. The morphine had worn off, or so it
seemed. His body immediately went into convulsions. His nerves cut
through with cindery pain, as though they were set on fire, but he
couldn't scream out. His toes curled up in reflex, with such strength
they tore a hole in his boots. All his muscles contracted beyond a
realm of physical hurt that was thought to exist, while his jaw bit
down with such force that it severed his tongue. Blood poured out of
his mouth as he tried to tear open his eyes, but darkness prevailed.
He couldn't see anything, just the recurring image of that man and the
train... flesh... he couldn't save him.
Thump-Thump...
His thoughts quickly turned to the corpse brought back from the
Norwegian camp, with the foul smell still right under his nose. He
hated that "thing," whatever it was and wherever it came from. It
represented an exponentially devouring and tenebrous virus. Mankind,
amiss this sort of existence, was just another node in the universal
food chain. Grass in a cow field. A mad-cow field.
Unfolding like a Kerr metric, space and time coalesced into a
perturbed biology being swallowed by a black hole. Quivering and
fighting... cells upon cells upon cellular wars. His heart was slowing
in a quietus thump, and the relenting anguish was beginning to
subside. The transient effect wore off. The deterministic chaos went
away for a brief moment. He saw a portrait of a boy, who he barely
recognized as himself.
An organism that imitates, and imitates perfectly.
Thump-Thump... Thump-Thump...
He was hungry now.
Return to the Fan Fiction
Index
|
|
