Treatment

THE REST ARE MISSING

Nicole Davis

Logan wakes up in a dimly lit hospital room. He is alone and his eyes are blood shot, sweat drips down his face. He looks down at his arms and he sees that he is attached to dozens of tubes that snake down the bed and into the darkness to a large blinking machine. In a panic, Logan sits up and attempts to free himself from the strange looking machine, but removing the tubes is painful. As he struggles, he hears footsteps approaching his door. He lies back down in the bed instinctively and quickly. He closes his eyes just as a gas-masked figure looks through the door window. The heavy breathing of the masked figure makes Logan’s heart race.

The masked figure walks away and Logan sits up again, this time more determined and panicked.  He looks around the room and imagines for a moment that he in the lair of a mad scientist. He rips the tubes out of his arms and chest, and winches in pain but tries to avoid calling out. After removing all the tubes Logan stands up, he is momentarily unsteady on his feet. He is wearing a white jump suit with a black barcode on the back and a pair of flimsy white shoes.

Logan moves quietly to the door and looks out the window. His fingers tremble as he rests them gently against the door. He sees nothing but the dingy and decaying hallway, it looks endless. He opens up the door and slowly steps out. The very instant his foot crosses into the hallway a deafening alarm goes off. Logan slaps his hands against his ears and bends over in pain. When he opens his eyes he sees one of the masked figures standing completely still 20 feet away, looking directly at him, and breathing heavy breaths. Logan returns the figures gaze for a moment before turning around and sprinting as fast as he can down the hallway. At the end of the hall there is a door and Logan bursts through it into a spiral staircase, he runs in dizzying circles until he reaches the bottom. At the bottom of the staircase there is a large door and with out hesitation, Logan runs through the door out into the abandoned city.

As Logan stumbles through the front door of the facility he is met with an eerie image of stillness and decay in the mid-day sun. He pauses and catches his breath for a moment because he does not hear the masked figure, or anyone behind him. He looks around looking for signs of life, but he only sees empty streets. He calls out for help, and he hears nothing. He calls out again and again, each time sounding more desperate. As Logan walks along the silent street he sees movement in the shadows and stops. A moment later, 15 figures wearing all black, gas masks and armed with an array of weaponry begin to march out of the ally way and into the street. As they march out, Logan takes off sprinting down the road.

He does not wish to hide, he feels there is no hiding, the urge to run away overcomes him and he runs until his chest burns.  His pulse is visible in his neck. More masked figures start to appear behind him. They peruse him, but they do not run. They simply march together, 100 yards behind Logan. Feeling hopeless and out of breath Logan resorts to banging on doors of abandoned buildings and yelling for help. No one answers him and the masked figures continue to march slowly towards him. Standing on the street, alone, Logan looks at the

masked figures 50 yards away, then looks out beyond the city and sees nothing but desert. Sweat drips from his face; he takes a deep breath and beings running towards the emptiness.

Logan reaches the edge of the city and continues running into the open landscape ahead of him. He is exhausted and barely jogging at this point. Soon he comes to a stop and turns around and he sees that the masked figures have stopped at the edge of the city. He can see their small figures in the distance, and yet he feels as if they can sense him, because they all seem to be staring in his exact direction. He pauses for another moment then drops to his knees and tries to catch his breath. After a few minutes, he stands up, looks up at the sky, then begins to walk for miles, until he comes up over a large hill and sees smoke in the distance. Elated, he heads towards the source of the smoke, which is a small abandoned desert town.

Logan walks into the town and looks around, he doesn’t see or hear anything and the fear begins to set in again. As he tries to find where the smoke is coming from he begins to hear movement. Suddenly more masked figures appear from behind buildings and cars and begin surrounding Logan. He backs up slowly, paralyzed with fear. They were so close. The figures begin to reach out for him but he works up the strength to run between two figures, knocking them over. He pushes through the crowd of bodies and frees himself from their grasp.

His clothing torn, Logan begins to run out into the barren landscape. The masked figures follow him to the edge of town but, again, they do not peruse him and only their gaze follows him into the desert.

Logan runs looking for something, anything, he is weak, tired and exposed. He is hopeless now. The sun is going down and there is no civilization in sight. Logan reaches the edge of a cliff, looks left then right, the cliff seems to go on forever. The cliff is also too steep to climb down and there are jagged rocks across the whole face. He looks back towards the city and sees the masked figures barely visible in the distance, waiting. Logan realizes there is nowhere to go. He sits on the edge of the cliff and watches the sun set. At twilight he stands up and turns around and takes a few steps back in the direction of the city, but at the last moment, he turns to face the cliff again and a few rocks fall over the edge.