initial diagnosis can be misleading…”
“Listen to yourself, Mildred. It’s typical denial. We’ve run a full series of
tests. You have a cyst. It’s not major, and it can easily be removed. There
won’t be a problem.”
Mildred sat back and looked out of the window at the freeway beyond the hospital
entrance. All of a sudden she felt so lonely. Everyone out there seemed so
carefree, so untroubled by an invasion of possibly hostile cells within their
own body.
“Mildred?”
She turned back to the doctor opposite. Strange, but he seemed to know her well,
judging by his attitude, yet she couldn’t remember ever seeing him before.
“I’m sorry.” She smiled. “I was just…”
He nodded in a typically medical manner. So understanding, yet also so
impersonal. “Don’t worry about it, Mildred. It won’t be a difficult procedure.
In fact, we could do it right now.”
Before Mildred had a chance to react, he pressed a buzzer on his desk, and she
heard the oak double doors behind her swing open. She spun in her chair to see,
with some shock, a fully operational surgery in the room she was sure had been a
reception when… When she came in?
Mildred turned back. “Wait a second here. Don’t rush me on this. I—”
She stopped dead. The doctor was dressed in a surgeon’s gown, but instead of a
surgical mask and cap, he was wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.
“You’re not getting your hands on me, motherfucker,” Mildred growled angrily,
springing to her feet. But any attempts to escape were stalled by the iron grip
of two men who appeared behind her, seemingly from nowhere, to grasp her firmly
by the arms. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see that both men also wore
surgical gowns and Klan hoods.
“What’s this about?” she demanded, conserving any energy for an attempt at
escape when their grip was relaxed.
“Simple. We’re going to remove your cyst. But as you may have a reaction to the
anesthetic, we’re going to dispense with it.”
Mildred felt a cold sweat break out down her spine. From the tone of his voice,
she knew that he meant every word. They were going to operate without an
anesthetic. For the fun of it. The shock would probably kill her.
The two men dragged Mildred into the operating room and pulled her onto the
operating table. Not for one second did they release their grip. Mildred tried
to struggle as she was hauled across the table, but to no avail. They remained
completely implacable.
When she was on the table, one of them took full control of her, holding her
down with incredible strength while the other secured her hands and feet with
restraining straps. She kicked out at him, catching him under the chin and
snapping his head back with a force that should have rendered him unconscious.
He didn’t even pause in his actions.
When Mildred was secured on the table, the doctor walked into the operating room
with an almost obscenely casual air, humming gently to himself. He was carrying
a tar-and-gas torch—she could tell by the mixed odor in the otherwise sterile
atmosphere.
The sweat gathered in a tiny pool at the small of her back. The smell of the
torch reminded her of her father, and the way he burned inside his church. She
could imagine him, praying for his soul as the Klansmen gathered outside,
watching the building burn. She could imagine his prayers, desperate for his own
life but still pleading for forgiveness against the scum who were killing him
slowly and painfully.
With a flick of an expensive gold lighter, the doctor lit the torch, which
crackled and flared into life. The heat was noticeable even from several yards.
“If we’re not going to use an anesthetic, the least we can do is cauterize the
wound,” the doctor said, his eyes laughing behind his Klan hood.
One of the others picked up a scalpel and advanced toward her. He ripped off her
clothes and poised the scalpel, which caught the light of the torch and
flickered over her.
Mildred, knowing she was completely powerless and doomed, gave in to her