The final chapters.

Chapter Fifty-Three

I woke up staring at my shoes, my head lolling forward, slobber dripping in a long string from my lower lip down to the lapel of my suit coat.  My nose was running.  My chest felt like it had a large stinging burn on the outside and a large black bruise on the inside.  

I had been around law enforcement my entire career, but never before had I been tasered.  Not pleasant.  I managed to get lift my head, breaking the sting of mucus.  I tried to move, couldn’t. My arms were pinned behind me.  As sensation retuned to my extremities, I felt handcuffs on my wrists. 

I wanted to look around.  I had to consciously make the effort.  My head hurt at the exertion.  As I turned my head to the left to survey the room, I was met with the smiling face of Mrs. Vuitch, sitting behind a desk.  Further to the right, a good ten feet away, I saw Big Donnie Babcock, who, like me, was also bound to a chair.  The look on his face was a mix of confusion and fear.  Lastly, there was the non-committal countenance of the traitorous Agent Lee, standing on a raised platform with his hands folded behind him like he was a soldier at “parade rest.”  Off to the left side, standing in front of large door were two big men, muscled up in tight T-shirts.  Evidently, her guards, or retainers, or assistants, at any rate, a couple of thugs I assumed under her control.  

I squinted like someone trying to figure something out.  It wasn’t an act.  My brain wasn’t working right. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that I was trying to figure out, but it had something to do with these people in the room with me.

“Welcome back, Nick.” It was Mrs. Vuitch’s voice.  “You’ve been sitting there quite some time.”  There was no reason to doubt her observation.  As a matter of fact, I had to pee like a racehorse. 

I thought I would try out my language skills and speak a sentence.  I reached for something to say that would be indisputably profound.  

“What the fuck?”

Even Donnie smiled at that.  Mrs. Vuitch cackled.  Agent Lee raised an eyebrow.  I wasn’t sure what was so funny, though I had to admit my voice sounded weird, like a myna bird’s high-pitched jabber.  I wondered what had been in the hypodermic.

“I guess you are wondering about an explanation for all this,” Mrs. Vuitch said.  “You would have to be.  Haven’t figured it out yet have you?  You were never that bright anyway.  Never like one of my smart kids.  I never understood why you were one of the popular ones.  No justice in this world.   No justice at all. And to think it bothered my kids that you took no notice of them.  Haunted some of them for years.  Well, we changed all that.  For some of them at least.  Brought things into balance the way they should have been.”

As confused as I was, I knew I should say something.  I suspected I had just been insulted.  I needed to stand up for myself.  Being a lawyer, I resolved to assert control of the conversation by asking a penetrating question.  

“What kind of shit is this?”

Mrs. Vuitch, evidently not impressed with my perspicacity, merely shook her head, pushed her chair back and walked over behind Donnie Babcock.  He looked concerned and tried to turn his head to watch her.  No, it was more.  He was very scared.   Scared of her and afraid of having her behind him.  

Agent Lee stepped off the platform as if to approach Donnie’s chair from the opposite direction.  It took Donnie’s attention away from Mrs. Vuitch.  That’s when she did it.  

She pulled out a short black truncheon.  Where she had been concealing it, I didn’t know.  She looked directly in my eyes and raised the blunt instrument high in the air over her head, turning her shoulder slightly to put a good swing into it. I opened my mouth to try to get a warning out.  Donnie saw my attempt too late. His eyes got big, but before he could turn back toward Mrs. Vuitch the baton came down hard on his skull.  I saw it penetrate an inch or two, a delay, then I heard the loud pop of his skull cracking.  I had closed my eyes when the baton made contact.  When I opened them, Donnie’s head was forward, and blood was coming from the wound on his head as well as his mouth and nose.  

The old lady deftly twirled the baton in her hand not unlike a baton twirler in the high school band.  Maybe she had been one once.   She was most assuredly fluent with her club.  Agent Lee looked down at the body that had been Donnie Babcock.  He shrugged.

Instantly, I was in a state of shock, but the confusion had dissipated and my mind was now working at full speed. A lawyer attempting to analyze a fact pattern.  Maybe a drunk of a lawyer but I was trying.  I was mystified.  Why would she kill Donnie?  That he was dead there was no doubt.  But why?

Didn’t matter that he was dead.  That didn’t stop her.  She walked to his other side.  She pivoted back and gave his head another hard whack scattering bone and brain matter all over the floor.  There was a cruel gleam in her eyes.  She stood proudly contemplating her handiwork.  Her breathing was audible.  Agent Lee absentmindedly reached up and flicked a piece of something off his coat sleeve. 

As I watched, I could see her reasserting conscious control over her anger.  As she returned to a calm state, she looked at me.  

She said, “This one is on you.  Don’t even think about blaming me for this.  He’s the one,” and she used the bloodied club to point at Donnie’s body slumped over in the chair, “He’s the one said you wouldn’t be a problem.  Even said he got that little slut Tammy to say she would keep you distracted.  Well, he was wrong.  You were a problem.  You still are more of a problem than he promised and to think you were planning on getting him to go against me.  Against us.  And he would have too.  He was smarter than you and he had no moral compass.  Nothing was important to him other than money.  Well, he’s not going to get a second chance.  Good riddance.”

There was no longer any doubt about her state of mind.  She was completely mad.  My mind might be dulled at the edges by whatever it was she shot me up with, but I had no doubt she was insane.  Crazy as hoot owl.  

But I still was fascinated by Agent Lee.  He at least seemed to have all his faculties.  Was taking the whole thing in stride.  Remarkably calm and self-possessed considering a brutal murder of a person critical to the case had just taken place in front of him.  But then I thought what case?  

The fogginess in my mind had completely dissipated no doubt aided by the rush of adrenalin coursing through my veins.   Seeing someone getting his brains bashed in, will do that.  

Agent Lee walked over to the corner table.  He picked up a phone.  Someone automatically came on the other end of the line.  He spoke sotto voice.  I was unable to make out anything he said. 

I noticed he was looking in my direction and I looked up to see the menacing Ms. Vuitch approaching me twirling her truncheon.  I braced myself for the end I figured was coming.  She drew back and smacked me with it across my check. It hurt like hell but nothing broke.  I knew from what I had just witnessed that she could have busted my face completely opened if that had been her intent.  

I heard a door closing and glance around in time to see Agent Lee leaving through a door at the back of the huge room.  But my focus returned immediately to Ms. Vuitich. Twirling the baton again she walked away from me.  She had a real talent for twirling.  I idly wondered about her being a song leader in the band.  Or maybe she had wanted to be.  I pitied whatever song leader she was jealous of if she had ever caught up to her for a little vengeance.  Maybe this whole thing was about her desire for vengeance on some clueless song leader. As clueless as I had once been.   I guessed I had just been punished for something. It was unclear what, but not as bad as whatever it was than what had just befell Big Donnie.

She returned to the desk and pulled out a side drawer.  She tossed the baton in the middle of the desktop and drew something out of the drawer.  Like a coquettish little high school girl, she held whatever it was behind her back and approached me.  Not a good look for her.  She went to the side and then back of me.  

Well, I thought, this is it.  I’ve got lots of questions that aren’t going to be answered.  As the song goes, “A lot of great thoughts I hadn’t thunk. A lot of good whiskey I hadn’t drunk.”  I wished I had opted for the drink instead of all this.  That’s when I felt something plunge into my neck, there was a sting, and all was dark again.  This time it was peaceful enough.  It seemed like I slept a long time.  Pleasant enough dreams.

Chapter Fifty-Four

“We all have choices to make in life.  Makes things interesting.  Makes dull colors sharp, brings it all into focus, defines the edges of our existence.  Else what’s the use?  More dreariness, more pettiness.”

The old crone was in her lecture mode.  Again.  Like she had been at the sidewalk café.  She walked back and forth with more energy than I would ever expect.  Cheerfully busy like a bustling clerk about her routine mundane tasks, taking inventory, dusting the shelves, welcome little jobs, well known and well worn, familiar and mastered.  In this domain she was all knowing and happily at her task.

“The grand illusion though, the big lie, is that we freely choose.  We don’t though, do we?  How we choose is in our nature.  Dictated by our chemical and physical makeup.  We are pushed a certain way.”

I followed her with my eyes only.  My head was secured to the chair with a strap.  

“Now some can resist, some can fight it, some can overcome the dictates of their make up; the way their unique synapses fire off.   But not most.  Most think they choose.  They don’t though, do they?   As I said, they just follow the dictates of their DNA.  The triggers are pulled, the switches flipped, and they choose to rush toward the burning car to rescue the child or they cower back in abject fear and cover their ears from the screams.  It’s all about survival.  Both ways and either way.  They survive by dragging the kid out or they survive by letting the kid burn up.  Chance plays a role, the role as to which choice, you see.  The gas tank will explode or not; judgment plays but a small role, thinking about the chances it will explode in the next few seconds, and the risk it will or won’t.  But even at that how you make that judgment is dictated  by a chromosome somewhere.”

I was pretty sure she wasn’t paying any attention to me anymore.  She was lost in her thoughts and her voice.  Ugly old hag.  I hated listening to her.  And I hated her.  Some righteous anger was flowing in my veins.  I pulled at my hands.  There was a little give, but they were as securely fastened to the chair as my head.  I had no choice but to listen.  I had no idea what she was talking about. 

“But it gets down to choices.  We want to influence those choices and to do that we truly must eschew philosophy and psychiatry.  All those old schools are dead and tired and wrong, just totally useless tripe.  You influence choices by influencing the switches, natures’ switches, influencing when they are going to be flipped or not.”

She had walked to the door, the large shinny steel door, looking like the entry to a meat locker.  She grabbed the handle and pulled it hard toward her with a flourish and I could hear the air release as the seal unlocked.  The huge heavy door swung wide open and she stood there looking inside as if surveying her very own Rembrandt.  It was as if she was examining her art, her creations.

Just past the entry, I could see Wanda strapped to a chair, a wheelchair, a sturdy one with big wheels.  She was naked and tears of humiliation were in her eyes.  

“Ah, take our baby whale here.”  She threw her arms out in front of Wanda like a side show barker pointing at the bearded lady.  I saw a hardness in Wanda’s eyes.  She wasn’t just humiliated; she was mad, angry, vengeful, dangerous.  But she was incapacitated. Someone had done a good job of immobilizing her.  Vuitch certainly showed no concern for her own safety as she waltzed toward Wanda and spun the wheelchair around with alacrity.  Like it was all just for fun. She laughed and yelled “Whoo Hoo!”  Though her head was strapped still, like mine, I could just imagine how Wanda was grinding her teeth.

I tested my own bonds again, but they gave only slightly, and I knew I didn’t have the strength or will power to strain against them in some vain hope they would break.

Vuitch was laughing out loud now. She was having quite a chuckle as she wheeled Wanda into the room.  She even tipped the chair back a little then let it fall back down and then with a hard shove, she slammed Wanda’s chair into a metal table, right at the level of Wanda’s knees.  Had she not been so tightly gagged, she would have had to cry out. I winched.   That had to hurt and hurt a lot.  Just for good measure the witch pulled back the chair and slammed it again into the table.  She spun Wanda around toward me and I could see her knees were bleeding; the table was not only hard steel, it was sharp edged, and her knees had been cut deeply.  

There were tears leaking from Wanda’s eyes and down her cheek.  Don’t think I had ever seen her cry before.  It got to me a little.  I had seen women cry before.  A lot of women, but my general reaction had usually been impatience that the awkwardness of the moment would quickly pass.

“Oh yes.  Well, here we are,” and here she acted like she was looking around the interior of the room, “the lawyer among us” and her she looked at me and giggled, “has to make a choice. A choice like I was talking about.” She paused for effect.  “And to have a choice we need an alternative, don’t we?”

And with that she traipsed back inside the huge locker.    I could only hear a squeaking and then the other Wanda was being wheeled in.  She was similarly bound and gagged.  Her chair was smaller, and she looked very small.  Naked and subdued.  Her whole posture seemed to project defeat.  Like some of the victims of my clients who would march their wives or girlfriends into the office ready to sign a form for me to present to the D.A. asking him to drop the charges.   Little Wanda had been abused before, it was going to happen again, and she knew what was in store for her was not going to be pleasant. 

Vuitch rolled her up next to big Wanda.  She didn’t bother inflicting additional pain on Little Wanda, as if she knew she had beat her already and it wouldn’t be sporting to break down what had already been broken.

“Well, here you have it, Mister Big Time Lawyer Easley.  A choice for you.”  She again assumed the pose of a model on T.V. displaying wares for the viewer.  She was a regular Vanna White.  She was old and ugly, but she had the posture and pose down pat.

“And most interesting of all, for you, Sir.  Is what will your make-up, your chromosomes, your trigger, cause you to do; what choice will be made for you?  By you?  No.  For you.  And if you fight that old thing, we used to call instinct, will you be fighting the right thing, is that a real choice or driven by a biological switch?”

She walked behind big Wanda, and pulled an ink pen out of her pocket and pointed it at Wanda like a teacher would to a formula on the black board.  She lifted the pin up to her own face and examined it by slowly rolling it in her fingers.  But then she looked down at Wanda with malevolence in her eyes and jammed the pen into Wanda’s jaw.  She twisted it.   Wanda’s body strained against the chair to no avail. I couldn’t help myself.  I strained against my bonds and the chair. There was no way to get loose.

“Oh my, what I meant to do was give you a choice here, you know, by marking the merchandise.”  With that she took the pen and pressed into Wanda’s forehead and wrote, slowly, one letter at a time, the word “One.”  When she was done the blood from the letters carved on Wanda’s forehead was joining the wound to her cheek and dripping down on her breasts.

The old crone smiled as she surveyed her work and then watching me, walked over to little Wanda. I shuddered a little.

“And here we have another choice but let’s not mess up the art of this.  She’s someone’s creation.  Whose you ask? Why mine of course!  And she is a beauty.  Isn’t she?  Unlike this fat disgusting pig over here.”

She wrote out the number two on Little Wanda’s forehead.  She wasn’t gentle, but she didn’t intentionally etch the numbers in the forehead and only broke the skin in a couple of places.  The bleeding was minimal.

“And your choice is Nick, my boy, drum roll here, who dies?”

Vuitch pointed to big Wanda with the pen.   

“You want this old sow to live?  All marked up now, permanently.  Wasn’t much good to begin with.  Very flawed.  But now, who would want her?  Or . . .” and she walked over and pointed the pen at Little Wanda, “Will you choose the new and improved version.  And not that I want to influence your choice you know, but this big one over here, if she is chosen for ending, termination, well, we are going to take our time and have some fun.  I owe her that.  For Arnold.  Remember Arnold, Bitch?”  And with that she jammed the pen into one breast.  It left a wound and more blood when she withdrew it.  She turned back to little Wanda.

“The new one?  Well, she is kind of a creation, a creature of imagination.  I mean we can and will kill her, she went bad on us after all, but if that’s the choice you make, no use to mess up the merchandise.  She can live.  Not go free but she will be alive.  And if she is to die, we’ll do it quick.  Hurt sure, a little pain, but quick.”

By now Vuitch was having a real good chuckle at her cleverness.  The two retainers weren’t laughing.  They seemed to be totally disconnected from the events taking place before them.  Disinterested.  Observing and waiting for instructions.  I had no doubt they would carry out those instructions with efficiency and grace.  

I found my voice.  “I won’t do that.  I can’t.  You are insane and need help.”

“Oh, you will do it alright.  It’s what you deserve.  In a way you caused it, brought us to this place, this point.”

She stared at me.  It was harsh glare, not unlike the one she gave students who answered wrong when she expected them to get it right.  

I didn’t know how brave I was.  Deep down, I never sincerely believed, when faced with a tough situation, I would turn out to be very brave.  I had never seen the percentage in courage, but I had never been tested.  I was about to be. 

“I can’t and there is nothing you can do to make me.”

“Oh, but there is.  Let me show you.  We will test our hypothesis.”

And with that she started walking, slowly, deliberately, like a diva on stage back toward the locker.

After a moment, I heard more wheels squeaking and there she was, wheeling another being into the room. Smaller much smaller than the two Wandas.  Vuitch immediately turned and returned to the locker and another creature was wheeled right next to her.  Both of them were hapless beings.  There was something wrong. They were tied to the chairs but carelessly.  There wasn’t a need really. They weren’t going anywhere.  They couldn’t. 

Both listed to the side barely able to keep their heads up. A string of fluid flowed out of their mouths and down to their chests.  One had a severely malformed arm, the other had only one arm and two club feet.  Their joints stuck out at odd angles.  One of them seemed to be trying to communicate, but only weird sounds emerged like its tongue could not put itself in position to modify the keening sound emitting from its voice box.

“Trial and error.  So much of science is trial and error.  With these two we tried and I’m afraid we errored rather badly.  Notice anything, Nick?”

I had looked away from the two people in the chairs.  I now looked back at their faces at least as much as I could see.  There was familiarity there.  I shook my head.  I was denying to myself what I knew to be true.

“Oh yes.  I’m sure you’ve guessed the right answer.  And, therefore, we can have a trial run.  Look them over.  Do you have a favorite?  Go ahead.  I’ll give you a couple of minutes.”

“What are you talking about?”

As I looked, one of the women, the one who had been croaking, managed to get her head up and her eyes found me.  Her face was disgusting.  It was misarranged.  Her nose was misplaced, she had only one partial lip, one eye was askew.  But in her other there was a kind of pleading and a tear.  And recognition.  Of me.

“Okay.  Enough time.  Choose.  Which one of these will you choose to live.”

I shook my head.

“I can’t.  I won’t.  You’re crazy.  Who are these people?”

“Watch closely.”

With that she walked over and pulling a scalpel out of her white coat, she deftly flipped it from hand to the other, reached over, pulled the head back on the first person and slit her throat, slowly, cutting deep and sure.  Without any hesitation, she took one more step and pulled the head of the croaker back, there was a pitiful sound coming from the creature.  In any language it was fear and pleading, and Vutich did the same to her throat, with a long slow cut.   She stepped back and admired her handiwork.  Blood was rushing down the front of both women.  The first had stopped moving and was slumped over. The second was still struggling.  It wanted to live.  And then it too slumped and became very still.

“You are a complete Bitch!”

I was angry.  I knew who she had killed.

“Yes.  Perhaps, but the question is, did you learn the lesson?  You did, didn’t you?”

I looked at my big Wanda.  Her eyes were on me.  Intense. Afraid.  

I looked away. 

“Yes.  That’s right.  You will choose because if you don’t choose, they both die. And see that’s the third choice.  You make it by not choosing.”

She walked around the spreading pool of blood on the floor and over to the two Wanda’s.  She tossed the scalpel lightly back and forth between her hands.  She turned to me and smiled brightly.

“So, which of these will you choose for life?  Say the number, Nicky boy.”

“Please,” I pleaded.  I knew I had begged before but couldn’t remember the last time.  But I was definitely begging now.

“Choose.  Choose.  Here we go.” And she reached and grabbed Big Wanda’s hair and pulled her head back.  

“No. Please.  Don’t.”

“Say the number, Nick.  Say the number you want to see live or they both die.”

She pulled Wanda’s head back further and the scalpel was suspended in air.

“One. One.  Don’t kill her please.”

She stopped.  “Well, well, isn’t that one for the books.  You could have chosen improvement, perfection really,” 

I looked at Wanda two and she looked back at me, but without any shock, with no animosity, with acceptance, “but you chose a big, fat ugly, beat-up scarred hag.”  I looked at Wanda. There was a strange look in her eyes.  It was surprise.

Vuitch stood there and looked at me.

“Of course, you see, I have choices too.  And I’m afraid my choice does not conform to your choice.  I choose evolution.  I choose perfection over imperfection” and with that she pulled Wanda’s head back again and directed the scalpel at her neck.  I yelled No! I yelled it as loud as I could.  She jumped a little at the sound of my voice, and then she slipped and fell.  She went down hard.  She was lying in the blood.  She had slipped on the blood.

Suddenly the chair Big Wanda was strapped to crashed into the old witch.  Somehow as all this was going on, Wanda had got one leg free and was scooting the chair with it.  Vuitch fought to get purchase but was sliding and being covered more and more in blood.  Then she was hit with another chair.  One of the creatures was still alive. The croaking one.  And she was fighting.  She had her teeth gritted.  Both hands were on the wheels and she was pushing, pushing, backing up and pushing.  Vutich was lodged against the table. And finally, one of the wheels popped up and on to her neck. There was a pop.  Her windpipe was crushed. She started gasping for air but was unable to let it out.  She was strangling.  The second creature slumped over again, but her chair remained on Vuitch.

And then all was quiet.  Only my breathing and the two Wanda’s.  I looked from one to the other.  One, the big one, covered in blood, and tears, smiled at me.  The other, was working her hand loose and there it was. She was able to reach over and get at the binding on the other wrist and then it too was loose.  She pulled the gag.  

“Here.  Wanda.  Wanda.”  And she got her legs loose and stood up.  I couldn’t help but look appreciatively at her naked body.  It was nice.  She got the gag out of Big Wanda’s mouth and all that came out was the welled-up groans and crying.  

Fully loose Big Wanda pushed herself up and out of her chair and lumbered over to me and got me loose. She was a mess. A big fat mess for sure.

She wiped the blood from her forehead and pulled me into her huge bosom.  

She blubbered, “You pretty bastard.  You chose me.  But you better not think I’m going to go any easier on you, hero boy.”

I mouthed a witty reply, but it was muffled, most pleasantly muffled.

Chapter Fifty-Five

My Wanda had found some hospital gowns on a table along the wall.  She had wadded up a few and used them to wipe off as much of the blood as she could.  She put the other one on. It was too small.  No surprise there. 

I watched as Little Wanda stood naked in front of the two retainers. Her body was magnificent.  I let my tired mind rest as it examined her womanly curves.  No one was paying any attention to me anyway.  Which was okay with me.  I had never felt so tired.  

She was talking to them, but her voice was so low I couldn’t make out what she was saying.  Strangely the two had not made a move to help Vuitch when she had slipped in the blood and my girls had launched their desperate attack.

One of the retainers walked over to the outer door.  He opened it and into the room stepped Agent Melrose Flannigan.  I could see behind him.  Agent Lee was in handcuffs and being secured by two other men in dark suits.  F.B.I. for sure.  The door closed behind him and Agent Flannigan followed the two retainers toward the big room.    

Absent the silliness that occasionally occurred to me when I had too much drink, I was seldom confused, but I was confused now.  Grateful to be alive.  Grateful others were alive but confused, nevertheless.

I walked over next to Wanda.  I picked one of the unused gowns off the stack and wiped some of the blood left on my chin by Wanda’s mighty jug.  She was blotting her forehead where the deep scratches were still oozing.  The hole in her cheek had quit bleeding. Up close it didn’t look as bad as I thought it had been.  I took a clean gown and started to help her clean herself.  She looked at me.  No more tears but she was subdued.  She put her hands down and let me minister to her.  Unusual.  She even bent down a little so I could reach her wounds.  I smiled at her and she smiled back at me.  Not so unusual. 

“Okay, Detective.  The wicked witch is dead.  Now what?”

She closed her eyes.  She liked me ministering to her.   I decided on a discreet inquiry.

“Wouldn’t turn down a little drop of magical nectar, would you?”

She opened her eyes and smiled at me.  She bent down and gave me a kiss.  It was lighter than usual.  The effect was more than usual.

“Yeah, Counselor, we need to get you a drink and, yes I will join you, but we still have some things to do first.”

“Even after I vanquished all our attackers?  A heroic effort I point out.  I still have to wait?”

She laughed a little at that.  “Yeah, hero boy.  Just wait.  We will get you that drink and more.” 

She pulled away from me and walked very slowly toward little Wanda.  She stood there and soon she was also talking to the two retainers and Agent Flannigan.  

I looked over at the dead bodies and watched as the blood continued to pool and spread.  I didn’t like looking at the bodies, but I did anyway. 

I had many questions, but some of them I didn’t want to ask.  There was one question that kept occurring to me.  That question more than any other generated that old intense desire for liquor.  And I knew it would for the rest of my life.  I thought I knew the answer.  I walked slowly over to the three dead creatures.  Two malformed of body.  The other a monster with a malformed soul.  I waited at the very edge of the spreading pool of blood.

I looked closely.  I forced myself to look. To not turn away at the face of the creature in the chair still parked on the Vuitch’s neck. I examined the features.  Yes.  It was her.  And I knew I would always wonder; did she have the memory of the one she was made from.  Did Dora’s want, her need for me to just see her, acknowledge her existence, transfer to the new form in the tube.  I hoped not, but I knew better.  Low, so nobody could hear.  I looked at her open dead eyes and said, “I’m sorry.”

When I turned back, I found the two Wanda’s standing at the door to the giant room.  The two retainers were across the lab, but they were starting to wheel some wheelchairs toward where the two women were standing. Agent Flannigan was speaking into a phone. 

I joined my two Wandas.  I looked inside.  I wanted to look away again.  So many others.  So many malformed.  Others formed well enough but staring out of blank eyes.  Row after row.  And toward the very back were a dozen or so that looked normal.  I thought I recognized some of them.  They looked defeated though.  Those must be the ones who had been lied to.  Their improved doubles had been released into the world. They had been left behind.

“Is this all of them?”  I asked.  Neither Wanda answered me at first.  Then little Wanda walked over to the first, a small boy, who looked up at her.  He lifted his arms to her.  He was afraid.  

“No. These are just the ones’ left behind.  Some of the ones they made are out there in our world.”

“You mean the ones that were changed?” 

“They are the improved models.  They might be good, and they might be evil.  But, yes, they have been changed.  And they are with us now.”

THE END

For Earlier Chapters of The Alumnus and other writings by Phil Cline visit my FB page at PhilClinePage or my website at philcline.com