Cookie Cutter Man by Elias Anderson

shaking his head. “I’m supposed to be the one in the chair, that right?
Getting a confession or something beat out of me? It’s over for you, see?”
    “What do you want?” Bailey moaned.
    “We got some questions, and you better hope you have some
answers.”
    Bailey started to whine about something but Daniel had no
time for the incessant squawking of an oversized tattle-tale child. How would
he get him out of here? He couldn’t very well carry him, and he wasn’t about to
try and walk him out. Daniel looked out the window and down at the assembling
crowd of residents on the street. He heard sirens in the distance, probably
fire and ... ambulance .
    Daniel smiled and pulled the walkie-talkie off his belt.
“Send me the ambulance.”
    Bailey started to moan again. Daniel re-clipped the
walkie-talkie and turned on him.
    No, he wasn’t sure yet if he could kill this man, say cut
his throat ear to ear, but Daniel found hurting the bastard didn’t turn his
stomach in the least. And maybe he was enjoying it, just a little?
    This is in your head, Daniel.
    “No it’s not.”
    He’s no more real than I am.
    “We’ll see about that.”
    “Who are you talking to?” Bailey screamed
    “Shut the fuck up!” Daniel punched the G-Man in one
eye, then the other, closing them both. He smoked a cigarette, admiring the way
Bailey’s eyes were swelling up and turning purple. There was a knock on the
door, followed by Simon’s voice.
    “Somebody call for an ambulance?”
    “We’re going for a little ride now,” Daniel said, then
thumped Bailey a good one across the temple with the butt of his gun. The chair
tipped over backward and took the agent with it.
    Daniel opened the door and Simon and Ebin came in dressed as
paramedics. Simon was carrying a little black bag and Ebin the folded-up
stretcher.
    Simon pulled a syringe out of the little black medical bag
he was carrying and checked the dosage, and injected Bailey with about a
quarter of the contents.
    “What’s that?” Daniel asked.
    “Sedative,” Simon said. “He’s out now, but we don’t want him
waking up when we’re carrying him through all those fucking people downstairs.
    “We have time to look around?” Daniel asked.
    “Couldn’t hurt,” Simon said. “We gotta move, though.”
    It turned out to be a wasted effort. The only personal items
in the apartment were toiletries in the bathroom and the clothes in the
bedroom. There were no pictures on the wall, no photograph albums. There were
no books, and no CD’s. It was as bland and empty of personality as a hotel
room.
    “OK, let’s get out of here,” Daniel said. “Ready?”
    “Let’s do this,” Ebin said.
    Daniel nodded, and they loaded Bailey onto the stretcher. In
the confusion on the street, they simply carried him out the front door, Daniel
climbing in the back of the ambulance as though he were family, and no one even
asked a question.
    The agent remained unconscious all the way back to the large
Victorian house that he would never leave.

Chapter Six
    Bailey’s eyes rolled wildly within his swollen face.
    “Who do you work for?” Ebin asked.
    A slow, high-pitched sound escaped the G-man, and they
realized it was laughter. Ebin grabbed the pliers off the bench and squeezed
Bailey’s hand between them. Daniel grimaced when he heard the dry-twig snapping
of bones over the screams.
    “Which agency?” Ebin held Bailey’s face so there was no
place for the agent to look but up into his empty grey eyes.
    “N ... not an agency!” Bailey sputtered.
    “Goddammit, you’re going to tell me!” Ebin held the
bridge of Bailey’s nose in the pliers. “Tell me or I squeeze.”
    “I am telling you!” Bailey said. His eyes crossed
trying to look at the tool his nose was clamped in, then fluttered and his head
began to droop. “We’re not controlled by the government! We’re above the FBI, the ... oh man I think you really broke my hand.”
    “I’m gonna cut it off if you don’t