“Make yourself useful and go pin him down.”
A syringe and a vial tumble into his hand, the clear liquid swishing ominously in the glass jar.
“We’re supposed to keep him alive.”
“Alive, but not conscious.” Inserting the needle, he starts to draw out the liquid, “It’s a new sleeping drug that’s not yet been released to the market. Eight hours predicted, with a ten hour maximum.”
“Oh.”
“A fascinated topic that won’t mean much unless you pin him down.” Marlin gives me a look that’s equal parts impatient and condescending, “Unless you no longer find yourself capable of completing that task?”
Dick.
Gritting my teeth, I veto my response for the sake of the operation at hand. Maddox is still screaming nonsense, lyrics and rhymes that have no meaning while his tea party goes from a smashing success to just plain smashing.
“Alright, mate. Let’s calm down and try to be civil.”
Plastic shatters on the wall and that’s my cue to throw friendly out the window.
Diving across the tables, I grab a skinny ankle and haul the man back towards me. Boots riddled with holes lash out, kicking and bucking against my grip as Maddox does his best to wiggle himself free.
Two blunt teeth sink into my flesh and I let out a curse.
“Can I get some fucking help?!”
A flash of gold is all I see before Maddox’s head gets ripped back. Tentacles dance across Marlin’s fingers as he jams the needle into the base of the old man’s neck, causing the madman’s screams to fade into a hysterical laughter.
“Up, up the stairs the nightmare crept. Hunting for where the child slept.”
His eyes fall inward, crossing and uncrossing themselves as the sleeping drugs take hold.
“The father screamed and the mother cried but no one...”Hiccups break through throaty gulps of laughter, the tendrils of mirth that don’t pair well with the scene in front of me.
A drop of blood leaks from his nose to the wide stretch of his lips, a permanent grin that doesn’t falter when his eyes roll into the back of his head.
“But no one knew the monster was already inside.”
Maddox sags in my arms, his head collapsing in the crook of Marlin’s elbow.
I blow out a breath, watching his chest continue to rise and fall. Silence descends upon the room, a heavy kind of silencethat makes you wish there was music or something to chase the feeling away.
“What the hell was he talking about.”
Goosebumps break through the surface of my skin, a shiver taking over my body. Marlin doesn’t answer for a while, his unusual eyes studying the man sleeping in his arms.
“I am not entirely sure.”
A confession laced with something deeper, a hint of suspicion that has my own increasing.
Before I can question it, Marlin bends down and throws the lump of flesh over his shoulder. The top hat tumbles from Maddox’s head to the dirty floor, his frizzy ends bursting from every stray pore.
“Time for us to go.”
It pains me to see the pink ribbon discarded so carelessly, the hat that brought so much joy diminished to an item lost and left behind.
I don’t think before I bend down and grab it, fuelled by the need for this man to have something to call his own. The faded green material looks just as wilted between my hands, a look that gets reflected through Marlin’s dismissive glance.
“Leave the garbage where it belongs.”
