Aardvarks to Planet X (book 1 of the hexology in seven parts)
Chapter 11: Auto Psy

Michel Witting felt a sharp pain in his leg. Why weren’t they coming to his cries? He was shouting wasn’t he? But his lips didn’t feel like they were moving. Michel tried to open his eyes, why couldn’t he open them? “Did you see that?” A voice drifted into the void Michel floated in. “Help me,” Michel shouted. But the words straining to break free, just bounced round this undefined space.

Michel desperately tried to make his presence known. These unseen people had to hear him. The speaker, and he assumed the listener. “I’m sure his eyes moved.” “Involuntary muscle twitch” came the new voice. “Why can’t you hear me?” Michel cried in desperation. Then another pain splintered Michel’s world; into an endless explosion of torment. And just beyond the wave of nausea, he could just make out a faint whirring. It sounded mechanical, yet medical. Michel had memories of a trip to the dentist, but more threatening. And then it stopped.

“What happened then?” came the second voice. “I don’t know, the blade just jumped up. Look it’s all bent, I don’t understand it.” As Michel mentally panted in relief from this new torture, he tried to make sense of his surroundings. Then as if in a vague dream he saw a table with a body on it. Two figures clad in green were stood over it. They were inspecting a round bladed cutting tool, and glaring occasionally at the body’s head. Michel concentrated harder. It was like forcing his way through water, but eventually the face came in to view.

With shock he reeled back in to that dark place. “Am I in hell, that face, the cut on the forehead?” So familiar to Michel, for he had seen those slack features many times before. When he had looked in a mirror. “No I won’t end like this”, came Michael’s red-hot defiant resolve. Straining once more, he turned his attention to the abused head he must reside in. Then slowly the red line circumnavigating his skull grew faint. Until it was just a white line, and then it was gone.

Meanwhile the two green clad figures; that had been just beyond his field of concentration, turned back with a new tool. A short sharp saw. “Not on my head” shouted Michael, but his muscles failed to protect him. They simply would not respond to his desperate efforts, but then some thing happened. His two tormentors were down on their knees clutching their heads, and screaming in agony. It was like realising he had an extra arm he never knew about, and had suddenly been able to move it. Squeezing those tiny minds, he knew he was a mental giant compared to these torturing pigmies.

And then it was over. He could see the bodies lying on the floor, but he was still stuck in his head; looking at the body on the table. He concentrated again, but now on him self, or at least the tortured vessel he knew carried him. A little finger twitched, and the joy of it flowed through Michael. What if others came while he was still unable to move? He concentrated harder, and was rewarded when the figure lifted its arm. Then slowly his naked frame rose, and mechanically took the clothes from the shorter of the two bodies on the floor. “Yes those would fit” Thought Michael.

Suddenly voices burst in to Michael’s consciousness. A babble of many, and shifting his focus Michael could just make out various conversations. “So I said just put him on a drip.” “But he was fine only last night.” Instinctively Michael knew these sounds were not in normal hearing range. They were coming to him like radio waves over the air. He put on the boots, and to his relief found they fitted. Michael felt like he was pouring in to this form, and blinking he realised his view was now less vague, and more what he had been used to in the past. That was it; he was finally looking out through his eyes.

He moved round the table, and looked down. There was a clipboard full of notes on the smaller table next to it.. The notes had his name on them, and a time of death. What could it mean? He wasn’t dead, other wise why would he be walking around like this? It had to be a mistake. He read on. The patient had a previously undetected brain tumour, requiring immediate surgery. But he had reacted unexpectedly to the anaesthetizing process. Doctor Higgins tried several times to recover the patient, but all attempts proved unsuccessful. As per standard procedure, an autopsy has been ordered; as to the nature of the tumour, and the patient’s unusual reaction to the anaesthetic.

Michael rechecked the name and details. They were all correct, even his national insurance number. How could this be? Michael tried to think back, but there was a haze. He thought he was in for gangrene in his leg, yes that was it. He examined his leg; the gangrene was all gone. Had they sorted it out or, he remembered the pain that woke him. Had he in fact fought it off, like he just fought these two men?

He tried to think some more about the past, but some how it had faded. Michael knew who he was, but really how in all his years had he got to this point? No it wouldn’t come, but now he had more immediate problems. Stuck in a hospital room with two dead doctors, he’d need a plan. There was a storeroom just down the hall. Now how did he know that? It had just seemed like an obvious piece of information. Like gazing round at his surroundings. Somehow he knew no one would be in the corridor. So he left that room, and collected all the things he would need to be a cleaner; from overalls to the trolley he knew would be there.

Now Michael had to just walk out. And as easy as pie he wheeled that trolley through crowds of people; as they grew in number. Not once did one of them look his way, whether he played the part well. Or some influence was at work; Michael paid no heed. Then he was at an exit, and out into the afternoon sun. Where to go now? Would they look for him at home? Did people go looking for corpses? He must have shown up on the security cameras, but then if the people in the corridors had not noticed him; perhaps whatever power he wielded had done something to the cameras too. He’d take that chance.

Michael couldn’t think of anywhere else safe to go, and with no money a motel was out of the question. Dare he take public transport? It seemed to Michael a long way from here to his house. He’d try going home. So flexing his newfound muscle, he stepped on to the bus that would take him home. The driver seemed to look the other way, as Michael passed by to his seat. So he sat in the semi darkness as night drew on. Michael finally made it to a familiar street, and stepping off the bus; he walked the scant half-mile to his door.

He reached in his pocket, and then realised he had no key. That would be back at the hospital, with his personal effects. So staring in to the lock, Michael screwed up his face and heard a faint click; as the metal moved in to place. Then the portal swung in. Stepping over the threshold he pushed the bolt in to place, there was no spare key; his sister had it. Michael had a sister. Rachel she lived across town, now he remembered. Then entering the living room, he surveyed his familiar surroundings. Like a light bulb turning on, there was a rush of memories. Michael’s face grimaced at the flow of emotion, all that life. All those happy moments he had lived through, and the sad ones.

He must tell Rachel, she must think him dead. They always told the next of kin, didn’t they? But no the shock would kill her. A phone call out of the blue from your brother, who you thought was just dead. Dead, Michael thought about those two men in the hospital. They’d say he’d murdered them, but it was self-defence. No better for all to end this thing now. “If my time has come I’d better go, but how to do it?”

Michael had always been squeamish, so he plumped for drowning. He’d heard you had to take pills or some thing, to put you to sleep. Or you’d just thrash about when the final breath came. So proceeding up stairs he opened the medicine cabinet, and found a suitable bottle. Then Michael poured the stream of pills down his throat. He filled the bath next. “I might as well be comfortable” he thought, and mixed the water to a pleasant temperature. Next foregoing the need to undress he submerged below the water.

The wait seemed an eternity, so Michael amused himself listening snatches of conversation; that penetrated his mind from the surrounding neighbourhood. But finally after two hours under water, even he had to admit this just wasn’t going to work. So he sat in the pitch black of his living room. For Michael feared an untimely arrival of a curious police officer; attracted to a light in an untenanted property. As he sat, he pondered his problem.

I can’t die so I must be dead. I can’t live because of the trouble I’m in. If only I could be someone else, but no that wouldn’t be fair on them. Just then two green eyes stared in at the window, as a black cat jumped up on the sill. Instinctively Michael opened the window, and soon a furry mass was resting on his lap basking in the attention; if not the heat of human kindness. Michael blinked and looked up at the figure above him. At the human shell that had carried him so far, and he stretched his paws. “Yes this would work”, then he slinked off.