Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

Hold still, now. This won't hurt a bit.

Those were the only words Lonnie Durkin had heard for hours.

This won't hurt a bit.

Vincent always said the same thing just before he stuck the needle into Lonnie's arm and drew blood.

Vincent lied. The needles didn't hurt much, but they did hurt.

"Take me home! Please take me home! Please, please, please."

Lonnie leapt up from his bed, jammed his fingers through the metal wire fencing, and kicked the locked gate. He knew what a nightmare was. His mother had explained bad dreams to him when he was a boy and had begun waking up every night screaming. But he could tell that the cage was no nightmare.

The cage was real.

"Please!"

At that moment, the van swung a turn that threw him hard against the wall, banging his head and his shoulder. He cried out, fell, then crawled back to the bed.

The van was a house on wheels, like the one Uncle Gus and Aunt Diane had. But instead of a cage in the back, theirs had a nice room and a big bed and some closets. Five years ago, for Lonnie's sixteenth birthday, they had taken him to Yellowstone in the van and had let him sleep in that bed at night for the whole trip. The bed in the cage was too small for him, and the mattress was too hard. Beside the bed there was a chair, a pitcher of water in a holder on the wall, and some paper cups. On the chair there was a magazine called MAD, which had lots of weird cartoon drawings, but way too many words for him to read. And finally, there was the clicker for the TV that was attached to the wall outside the cage. That was everything.

Lonnie couldn't stop thinking about his mother and father, and the men who worked on the farm. The guys knew how much he loved M amp;Ms, and always had some for him when he walked down to the fields to visit them, and sometimes even help them out.

"Let me go! Please don't hurt me! Just let me go!"

Three sides of the cage were the walls of the van. The fourth side was the fence, made of chicken wire, just like the coop behind the barn at home. It completely filled the opening to the rest of the van and had a gate with a lock on the other side. There was a light in the ceiling just outside the cage, but no windows. Beyond the fencing was the bathroom, and just past that was a folding wall that pulled across the passageway to where Vincent and Connie were.

Frustrated, Lonnie rose and kicked at the fence. He guessed that he had been in the cage for three days, maybe four. The van had been moving almost the whole time.

He wasn't really cold, but he felt that way cold and frightened and lonely.

"Please! Please take me home!"

His voice was almost gone.

Except for the needles when they gave him a shot or drew blood, neither Vincent nor Connie had hurt him so far, but Lonnie could tell they didn't like him, either. They looked at him just like Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox in the house down the road from the farm looked at him, and once, while he was on the toilet, he had heard Vincent call him a fucking retard.

"Let me go! I want to go home! Please, please. This isn't fair."

The van slowed and pulled over to a stop. Moments later, Vincent opened the door beyond the bathroom. He was a big man with yellow curly hair not fat the way Lonnie was, just big. He had a tattoo of a battleship on each of his arms, right above his wrists. Vincent had been so nice to him at first. Connie, too. They had stopped the van where Lonnie was walking to the rec center, and had asked him directions to the farm. Cousins of his mother, they had said they were. Otherwise he would never have gotten in the van with them. His mother had taught him about going with strangers. But these weren't strangers. They were cousins, who knew his name and his father's and mother's, but had just never been up to the farm.

His hands on his hips, Vincent stood by the bathroom door. Lonnie could tell he was angry before he even spoke.

"What did I tell you about yelling?"

"N-not to do it."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"II'm scared."

In spite of himself, Lonnie felt his eyes filling with tears. Just the other day, his mother had said she was proud of him for not crying so much anymore. Now, here he was, about to cry again.

"I told you that you didn't have anything to be frightened of. One more day and we'll let you out."

"P-promise?"

"Okay, I promise. But if there's any more hollering or you give us any trouble at all, the promise is off and I'm going to take away the TV remote."

"The TV doesn't work good anyhow."

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"No more noise. I mean it."

Vincent spun around and left before Lonnie could say any more. After wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, Lonnie pulled the blanket over himself and drew his knees up, facing the back wall. One more day and we'll let you out. Vincent's promise played over and over through his head. He should have made him do a pinky promise. One more dayFor a time, the tears came even though he tried to stop them. Then, gradually, Lonnie's sobs gave way to a troubled sleep.

When he awoke, the van had stopped moving. His shoulder hurt from where he had fallen, and there was a sore lump just over his eye as well. He rolled over slowly, aware that he had to return to the bathroom soon to pee. A woman was standing outside the fence, looking at him. She was wearing the kind of blue hospital clothes that the doctors who fixed his hernia wore, and over them a white jacket. Her hair was pulled back and covered with a blue paper hospital hat. Vincent was standing behind her, tapping a short, black club against his hand. The door behind him was closed.

"Hello, Lonnie," the woman said, adjusting her glasses and looking down at him. "My name is Dr. Prouty. Did Vincent or Connie tell you I was going to be here?"

Lonnie managed to shake his head no.

"Well, then," Dr. Prouty went on, "you needn't be afraid. I'm going to take your temperature under your tongue, and check you over the way doctors do. Do you understand?"

This time Lonnie nodded. Despite the doctor's quiet voice and smooth skin, there was something about her that seemed to make it impossible for him to speak. Something cold.

"Good. Now, I want your word that if I open this gate and come in there with you, you'll be cooperative Cooperative, Lonnie. Do you know what that word means? Lonnie, answer me."

"Iknow."

"Good."

Dr. Prouty nodded to Vincent, who unlocked the gate and pulled it open, all the time keeping the club where Lonnie could see it.

"Okay, now, Lonnie," Dr. Prouty said, "I'm going to give you a shot and then I'm going to examine you. First I want you to get undressed and put this gown on with the strings in the back. Do you understand?"

"I have to go pee."

"Very well. Vincent will help you, then he'll help you get changed. First, though, let me give you this shot."

"Then I can go pee?"

"Then you can go," Dr. Prouty said, somewhat impatiently.

Lonnie only moved a little when the needle was jammed into his arm. Then he went into the tiny bathroom and peed. When he had finished, Vincent took him by the arm and led him back into the cage to change into the gown. Even with it on, he felt naked. The fear that had been building inside him tightened like a band around his chest. Dr. Prouty returned from the front of the van, closing the door behind her. As she examined him, he began to feel his eyelids grow heavy.

"He's going out," he heard Dr. Prouty say. "Let's get him up front while he can still hold most of his own weight."

Vincent helped him to stand. Then Dr. Prouty opened the door. It was the first time Lonnie went to the front of the van since the day it had stopped for him. Things there had completely changed. A bright saucer light was attached to the ceiling, and beneath it was a narrow bed covered with a green sheet. Beside the bed stood a tall doctor, wearing a blue mask over his mouth and nose.