6.

The black shit is seeping through the towel I shoved into the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door. The stench is palpable. I can't seem to get myself to leave this bathroom. It feels like the stink is stuck in my throat. I can't escape it. I try and put my arm to my nose, but it almost smells like my skin is absorbing that black smell.


Trevor won't respond to anything. I keep trying to talk to him, to coax him out of this state he is in. But he just keeps pounding the door.


WHAP.


I'm still stuck in bathroom. Posting here for help and to spread truth. Some of the on-line papers say 'get out of town.' Some say 'stay in you're apartment.' Some are saying there are others like Trevor. Some are saying it is nothing. No one is saying what it is. Every time I try to open the door to get away my gut turns while I slide down the door into the fetal position.


I got a text from my girlfriend's mom that said, "Get here fast Dee is sick bitten hurt bad going to metro hsptl." God. Oh God. I hope Dee is okay. Trevor said he was bitten, too. I should save her. I should go save her.
  
She's dead. I know it. 


Or worse. The hospital may be able to help. I love Dee. We've been together for... for...Oh, shit. I forgot.



I can't concentrate with Trevor banging on the door. It's been almost 12 hours now. My mind and body are shutting down but every time my eyelids close... WHAP and then this liquid squish. I have to assume his arms are cut open from repetition and that flesh is spreading around the door. WHAP, again. Then I wait. Sitting down with my back to the door. Eyes drift close, but I know what's coming. No sleep. WHAP.


When I was a kid I used to read about means of torture. Never performed it, just studied it. I thought about the kind of people that are strong enough to live through the suffering or possibly die without giving in and the people that cave. I thought about the torturer's pursuit of crippling the tortured's mind and body by dragging them through the depths of pain and hell until their face to face with their end. Kneading them into submission. And I thought about the tortured's pursuit to endure, live, or die. Secret safe. Those two forces driving into one another. Battling.


I always wondered how I'd respond and that's what fascinated me. In the face of unconscionable pain and inevitability our resolve is tested. My response, I always thought, would be the person I really am inside. Not someone I feel I have come to know very well.


One method of torture was called Chinese Water Torture. You can read more about it here. The basic idea is that someone is strapped down to a bed such that they are completely immobile. Slowly, and in random intervals water drips onto the subjet's forehead. Some would have you believe that after a long enough time the water creates a cavern in your head causing brain damage. But the truth is that this was a psychological form of suffering, not a physical one. 


See, the torture wasn't the actual drops, but the time in between them. At first you think it will stop, then you hope it will stop, and then you pray it will. Then another drop falls. There would be no escape from the inevitability of that next drop and you had no idea when it was coming. Eventually you come to learn there is no stopping that next drop from falling. In the face of that you loose your mind... or you endure.


WHAP... another rap at the door.


In between those drops there was a truth that you were forced to look straight in to as you lay there tied down. And in the face of that truth you acknoledge it or you crumble. A truth that, in life, we go to great lengths to avoid so much as the line of thinking. And spend most of our lives avoiding and denying the end of that line. Then there would be another drop. It was coming. All you could do is wait. There would be no break long enough to escape the reality of the situation. In between those drops, in between these smashes at the door, is my mortality. And the very second I get the luxury of my mind running away with a thought that's to do with anything but what comes next...


WHAP... another rap at the door. And another is coming. I don't think I can stop...


HOLY SHIT! Someone is knocking at the door. The other door. The front door. He says he has a gun. He wants to know if anyone is in here. 


Oh God.


I'm talking to Trevor now. I'm telling him to snap out of it. I'm telling him this guy says he has a gun. He says if anyone comes after him he'll shoot 'em. I can help you Trevor. I can make this go away. Trevor, this guy is going to kill you. You can't go after him. Trevor? Trevor?


Shit, he kicked in the door.