WITHIN HIS REACH

By Steve Gerlach

Arnold Enright has been a prisoner for the past six years, confined to a cell not of his own making. Sentenced to viewing his world’s reflection in a mirror and with little hope of escape, he is a man whose whole existence can be measured in feet and inches, his only companion the relentless wheeze of an iron lung.

In this hopeless l

• Language: English
• Publisher: Probable Cause Productions
• Release date: Dec 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9780648490920

Steve Gerlach

Steve Gerlach is one of Australia's few thriller writers. Born and bred in Australia, Gerlach's fast-paced, cut-to-the-bone style is a refreshing voice in the dry, barren Australian literary scene. Steve's background includes many varied roles. He has worked as an editor for a book publisher; as the editor-in-chief of an Australian motorcycle magazine; editor and publisher of an international crime magazine, Probable Cause; a researcher and columnist for a major Australian daily newspaper; a Technical Publications Officer in the security industry; marketing executive for an international telecommunications software company; a writer for Australian Defence training and software producers; and currently works in the Integrated Facilities Management sector. He was also the Historical Advisor on the Australian film, Let's Get Skase. Steve Gerlach lives in Melbourne, where he is currently working on a new novel or two.

Book preview

Probable Cause Publishing

Published in Australia by Probable Cause Publishing

[e-mail]

stevegerlach.com

Copyright © Steve Gerlach 2017

The moral right of this author has been asserted

Art copyright © Alan M. Clark

Design copyright © Matthew Revert

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher and author, except where permitted by law.

Typeset in Janson

All characters in the publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-0-9578641-9-1

ISBN: 978-0-6484909-2-0 (e-book)

"Why are we here? Because we’re here,

Roll the bones, roll the bones.

Why does it happen? Because it happens,

Roll the bones, roll the bones…"

-- Rush, Roll The Bones.

To Whitley – the boy with grand plans for the future,

And Rain – the girl whose colors always stay within the lines.

In…out…in…out.

The repetitive wheezing sigh.

In…out…in…out.

They say it sounds like a heartbeat. My heartbeat.

In…out…in…out.

Truth be told, I never heard it. Not anymore. It just fades into the background.

Until, of course, it stops.

The gears, the cogs…the mechanism all slowly ground to a halt. Then the silence was like nothing I’ve ever heard in my life. So silent. So…deathlike.

Suddenly I realized how comforting that repetitive background noise had been to me the past six years, and how the absence of the telltale heartbeat stroke fear into me. How many days, how many hours I’d cursed it and my fate? But with it gone I wished it back like I’d never thought possible.

My eyes were shut tight, like I was bracing for some sort of pain, or agony; something to tear through my soul. As if anything could be worse than this. As if I could fall even lower into a hell world of solitude and second-by-second existence.

But then as quickly as the fear struck, it left me. I opened my eyes and stared upwards into the mirror, watched the movement all around me, let my ears register all the other sounds in the room – magnified – louder than I’d ever heard them before.

I looked at my face in the mirror, and I blinked once, then again. Nothing happened to me. I was still there. I saw Nurse Sloan smiling at me, her reflection in the mirror and her body standing beside me, Doctor Resling walking towards me, wearing his blue gown and his hands gloved in white.

You ready, Mr. Enright? he asked as his face loomed above me.

I nodded as best I could, my eyes blinking twice more.

We don’t have a lot of time, the Doctor continued.

I knew that. The nurse knew it. We all did. Just more words for word’s sake, to try to calm the man whose life was mere seconds away from ending now the machinery had stopped.

As if I could be calm now.

We’ll put you out, he continued. Then remove you from the lung.

I nodded again. It was all I could do. But inside I was screaming for him to hurry. Without the repetitive wheeze of the lung to count my life in seconds, I had no idea how much time was passing.

Hurry hurry hurry! For God’s sake HURRY!

Mr. Taylor is administering the anesthetic now, Dr. Resling was saying.

I couldn’t see Mr. Taylor, he wasn’t in my line of reflected sight, but I knew he was somewhere in front of me, probably with his hands through the access holes at the side of the lung, digging a needle into my arm or hand.

I could feel the pressure increasing on my diaphragm. Almost unnoticeable at first, but I was sure my chest, my stomach, my whole body was slowly compacting, and I knew there was nothing I could do about it. Time was crushing me. The very gravity of the earth was slowly drawing out my last breath, and I was powerless to stop it.

Close your eyes, Mr. Enright. Try to count back from ten.

I wasn’t a vegetable. I could count. I didn’t have to try. But they didn’t know that. I did as I was instructed to do. I closed my eyes as it was the only way I could show Doctor Resling I was obeying.

When you wake from this, you’ll have a new lease on life.

I could sense the nurse still by my side. I could hear the slow release of the two latches on each side of the lung, and the slow turning bolts as they unscrewed the brace from around my neck. I imagined feeling the anesthetic, hoping it would work. I pictured what it was doing to my lifeless useless body.

I counted.

Ten…nine…eight…

And as oblivion overwhelmed me, I couldn’t tell if it was the anesthetic taking hold, or my last dying breath; my life slowly leaked from me like I had prayed that it would every damn day for six years.

Ever since I was struck down… like so many others.

So many unlucky ones… so many whose lives had ended at the hand of Fate.

Seven…six…five…

Or worse. Condemned to spend the rest of their lives like me, in this ward, this deafening and depressing ward, filed away with the others, forgotten by the world and studied by doctors who had no solution. Lab rats that no one cared about any longer.

The unspeakables.

The stolen.

There was nothing I could do. I just waited like I’d waited for six years. Hoping something would happen. Hoping something would take me away from the ward and the lung and the upside-down reverse world I watched every day through the mirror.

Praying something would happen. Sometime. Anything.

And then it did.

I slipped away before they had me out from the lung.

I was gone. So quickly. So easily.

And then there was nothing…

***

It was the taste of dew, I think, on my top lip.

First, darkness and then the wetness on my lip.

I remember moving my tongue, slipping it out of my mouth and dabbing at the dew. It tasted fresh, clean, like dew would on an early Fall morning when I was a child. The kind that would evaporate just minutes after the sun would rise, and leave no trace of its existence.

I opened my eyes and was blinded by the light. I had to squint for a moment or two, to give myself time to adjust.

I sat up and used my hand to shield my eyes. I was lying on a park bench, and overhead was one solitary streetlight, its light flooding the area and shining down on me. I looked around, the rest of the park was in foggy semi-darkness, and there was no one I could see nearby.

I sat up and tried to shake the cold from me. It had to be early morning and I’d obviously lost my way.

Swinging my feet to the ground, I stood up slowly and rubbed at my stiff neck. My hat was resting on the ground by my feet, and my coat was folded on the park bench, where I’d used it as a pillow.

I bent down and picked up the hat, quickly running one hand through my hair before putting the hat in place. Then I unfolded the coat and climbed inside it, trying to find as much warmth as possible to remove the cold morning air from my bones.

Turning full circle, I scanned for anyone else in the park, but it was empty. There was no one within sight, but the sun was only just rising and the fog limited my view.

A drop of dew hit the brim of my hat and dripped down in front of my eyes. I lifted my head and stared back up at the streetlight, as another drop fell from the light, and I noticed for the first time how strangely shaped the streetlight was. Round instead of elongated, over-sized and very bright indeed.

Just like the ones found in an operating room.

It hit me then. So hard I think I staggered slightly, like