EPILOGUE

Three months later
Connecticut Mental Facility

Simon hated this room. It smelled of disinfectant, but it wasn’t clean. He could see cobwebs on the ceiling in the far right corner. And the nurses or wardens or what ever they called them weren’t very clean, either. The one with the tattoo had greasy long hair and bad breath. But at least they treated him okay. And Dr. Kramer had even given him something for his stomach that seemed to make it better…sometimes. It still hurt once in a while. Once in a while around midnight.

They had brought in two trays of food, which meant he was getting a new roommate. Already he had drunk his juice and hidden the plastic cup under the bed, under a floorboard he had worked on and pulled up. That’s where he kept his new specimens. He had to pace himself, but it was getting easier and easier to steal jars from the supply closet. The night clerk, better known as Broom Hilda, forgot to lock it sometimes.

He heard the door locks click open. They still made him jump.

“Simon.” And here she was now. “Here’s your new roommate. I want you to meet Daniel Bender.”

He looked like a kid, skinny and pale with shaggy brown hair and empty brown eyes.

“Hi, Daniel,” he said, standing up to shake his hand and disgusted to find it sweaty and cold. Simon wiped his hand off on Daniel’s bedspread while Broom Hilda showed the kid where to put his few things.

After she left, Daniel sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the tray of food.

“The soup is usually good,” Simon told him. “It’s hard to screw up soup.” He picked at his salad, poking the wilted leaves with his fork and pushing them off to the side of the tray.

“I can’t eat just anything,” Daniel said in a little bitty voice. “I have a bleeding ulcer.”

Suddenly, Simon was interested, and he shoved his salad to the side.

“Tell me about your ulcer,” he said, while he slipped his fork under the mattress until he could put it in his secret place.