Sekou M. Black
Chapter One: The Doctor’s Visit
Sample Chapter of: The Cursed, the Damned and the Blessed
The Cursed, the Damned and the Blessed
Chapter 1: The Doctor’s Visit
He arrives at his appointment since his body had been aching, for he, Sway, short for Swaying Palm Santana, believes that he might be coming down with something harsh. Being a tall, brick-red-skinned, charming young man in his late twenties with a bad-boy demeanor and motor bike, leather jacket and shoulder-length hair will not help him now. Believing the onset of flu, he makes an appointment at the last remaining sterile hospital in Los Angeles. The year is 2036 and a few wars have rocked planet Earth something serious. Since “The Last Mistake,” when the Earth was prematurely opened to molten rock a decade earlier, more than just rock had been awakened to come to the surface. Different species of human had surfaced, showing that we indeed were the true aliens, the feeble minded children species of many pasts, the last to evolve.
Taking a seat he is weary since there is no reason with today’s technology issues, mishaps and monsters amongst men present, that a place as clean as this should still exist. He was warned about rumors of disappearances of children here yet with him being an adult, he had little fear. “Did you sign in?” asks the somewhat heavy set nurse with short cut dirty-blonde hair in a swoop. “Fat nurses still make no sense to me,” he thinks, “especially since the last of humanity has learned to supplement themselves,” proportionately for survival and lack thereof.
“Oh, I forgot, I’m not used to doctors,” he explains.
He knows hospitals are known to be sterile environments however it is so chilly in this medical establishment he is moved to unfold his leather coat with wool sleeves and metal buckles. He almost puts on the hood but does not want to seem unkempt from the one staff member he can see on the opposite side of a large Plexiglas window with small opening for sliding. The window quickly slides open for him to hear “Be right with ya,” from the intake nurse. To his surprise, he is the only one in the waiting room. “Must be an end of the day thing, luckily I waited,” thinks Sway.
The nurse stands up, enters from a door on the left, walks up to him and shoves a clipboard in his lap, rolling her eyes. “Is this your first time to the doctor or something?” she inquires with a straight face, absent of a grin.
“No, I used to go to the doctor as a kid, asthma issues and bad air,” he answers.
“Is this your first time here?” she asks.
“Ye…”
“Then fill these forms out front and back, and don’t take all day,” she rudely interrupts even before he could finish, pushing a short questionnaire with blank pages attached to the first page.
“I wonder what the children think of her, they must be scared shitless?” he thinks to himself.
Upon filling out the forms, he notices questions that seem a bit strange to him such as…
- Quarantine History, if any, please list below?
- How many times have you had your blood drawn in the last five years?
- List of parent names, maiden names included.
- Adoption history, if any.
- Blood type?
- Have you been detained by government forces or any other organizations within the last seven years? If so, where and when were you detained?
- Have you visited Northern Africa or Southern Eurasia within the last five years?
- Have you ever been prone to violent acts with intense strength? If so, please state when?
- Do you own a jet?
The last one had him thinking much and caused him to want stand up quickly, reading…
- Do you currently have any offspring? If so, how many? Please state sex and race?
“Offspring!” he thinks, then he bolts up to his feet.
The door to the nurse’s station swings open for him to hear the nurse say “Done already sweetie? Then come follow me, the doctor should be in soon,” she assures… with a smile only held for a second.
“I didn’t complete the forms y…” he is cut off once again.
“Don’t worry hun, you can finish them waiting for the doctor,” she instructs.
There are few fish that can be safely eaten in the seas or farms however, for too many reasons, things seem fishy. Sway, wants to dart in the opposite direction yet does not want to seem rude or scared. Even if this place stashes children away, he is sure that they displayed more bravery than he at times like this, but something just is not right. First of all, why would they ask him if he owns any jets when the Elite Brigades issue improved jets, and aerial craft, no one owns them. Secondly, when he read the term “offspring,” he was sure that this was not a human-owned or ran hospital. None, no one refers to human children as offspring except the “Older Children of the Earth” and perhaps “Body suckers,” a degenerate breed of ghoul-like vampires that he has been forced to fight a couple of times when cornered.
He thought the detainment question was a logical one, especially since prisoners receive forced vaccinations as well as come down with all sorts of illnesses, out of this world as well as unearthed viruses, bacteria and spores not registered on the common Infection Watch List. What also stirred his mind were the odd questions about blood, especially since all blood is said to be screened for pathogens at least three decades prior. There was no way that Mr. Palm Santana was planning to give blood. “Oh what the hell,” he thinks and follows the nurse into the back room. He looks around and sees some of the same warm-fuzzy posters depicting family scenes he remembers in the hospitals as a child, except these are worn and some with green moldy edges.
“Have a seat,” she commands, “this will only take a second and will hurt only a pinch, unless you are scared of a little blood,” she concludes. Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out a large syringe, one so large that he as never before seen containing clear fluid, separated by milky looking fluid. Sway, at the sight of this decides not to sit down but to ask a few more questions for reassurance. One, he will have to pay in gold and lithium, both too valuable to just give away, secondly the needle is larger than he ever remembered, even as a young man. Third, there were no visible vile, or bunches present for specimen collection.
“Whatcha got in there lady?” he asks as she begins to walk forward towards him. He cautiously takes a step back, in case a tray or something was in his way behind him.
“Just a saline solution to help the blood flow easier,” she says while taking a step closer.
“But that’s one big ass needle, are you sure that is necessary?” he asks with shaking voice. He takes another next step backward landing him, plopping against another door leading to another room. Just then the nurse pulls off a metal pin covering the top of the needle, points it at Swaying Palm Santana and away shoots half of the sharp object in his direction. Quickly moving his head to the side, the needle sticks in the door behind him.
Noticing that it would have landed in his neck, he then bangs against the door with his shoulder. Swaying Palms then bangs the door both with his hand on the handle, turning and clenched fist against the place where the metal plate is, next to the handle and uses his shoulder once again at the same time. The nurse then smiles a big smile as the door opens and she yells to him as he runs into the next room, “You can run…”
To his surprise, is a strange looking tall man in a doctor’s uniform with his bloody gloved hands raised over a small grammar-school aged child on the table. The child is wiggling and moaning as if they failed to use the proper amount of drugs and anesthesia for the surgery procedure. Next to him glared a little fat man with pointed ears in a neat sharp metallic business suit with oddly long arms. The doctor reaches at the metallic table adjacent to him for the large knife, used to cut bones and open skulls. Sway kicks the table and the short little man with pointy ears lets out the strangest ear-piercing scream, with eyes lighting up, a pinkish red.
The little strange man with funny pointed ears then lunges across the table to grab Swaying Palms, but sway, with very quick thinking and reflexes, grabs one of the scalpels on the floor and chucks it at the shiny suit man, landing it right in the left side of the shiny-suited, strange looking man’s neck.
“Sheeeeaaaaaarrrrr!” screams the small, well dressed creature as the doctor then decides to run at our guy with good aim. Sway kicks the doctor into the wall, causing his butt to get stuck in the white plaster wall in a sitting stance. Sway kicks the door next to the doctor, finding his way into a long hall. While running an alarm begins to sound and red lights begin flashing down the hall, causing other doctors and pointed eared creatures of all type to emerge from rooms. Running for his life, he has no choice but to jump-kick the tall doctor in his way, sending the doctor to the floor and sliding on his back on the unusually clean, white marble floor.
He needs to find an exit yet this hall seems endless, like two mirrors facing themselves. He leaps over the doctor, purposely stepping on the deranged doctor’s face on the way down, causing the doc in white coat to shriek in pain. Just then another pointy eared creature, familiar to one he has seen and fought before in a bar, growls at him and runs forward from a door to grab him. He punches the pointy eared beast in the neck and then upper cuts it, causing it to fly up and down the hall, sliding on its ass. He noticed a familiar sign, one his mother taught him as a child labeled “LMaP’QoNeA,” meaning EXIT in Aramaic. He, as a young man never understood why his mother insisted on teaching him these seemingly useless languages, such as Navaho, Arabic, Amharic, Ancient Aramaic as well as Lakota, the native language from the plains peoples, that is until this moment.
Although the plains folks were the first to attain office in the newly established government, there were few that survived the Big Pour from hotspots in the previous states surrounding what was known as Yellowstone Park. He definitely wanted to be one of his relatives from strong spirits and deep souls that survived this strange mess. Moving to the left and kicking the bar of the door with all of his might, the door violently swung open, nearly ripping it off of its hinges; however it held on, closing slowly with a pressure sensor. This offered just enough time for another creature to come running behind him. Seeing his self-built motorcycle a half a block away, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him, leaping between running to get there faster.
Swaying Palms Santana jumped on his air-chopper. Starting it up, with a whirling sound and a plume of bluish-green plasma below to ride on, instead of tires, he sped off just as one female creature grabbed ahold of the hood of his leather and wool jacket. Swaying Palms reached behind him, grabbing her wrist and crushing it with his strong grip, causing the female creature-thing in a white lab coat to scream and fall off, tumbling behind him on the pavement. Fluffing his hood to put it on, he noticed that her hand was still attached. He then let out a cry of uneasiness, disgust and at the same time terror, “Uuuagh.” Sway then pried the hand with claws off and threw it on the bumpy road behind him, as the brush with death he would like to, yet knew would never forget.