Last Days by Brian Evenson;Peter Straub Page B

The missing flesh and bone above that, from elbow to shoulder, removed without his knowledge, just tingled slightly.
    He tried to clamber out of bed again, felt again the stabbing pain in his eye. When he tried again, he got a little farther, but then the pain grew so vivid that the room spun completely away.

    When he opened his eyes again a man was sitting beside him, wearing a blue smock and staring at a metal clipboard. He was frowning slightly. Kline watched him turn pages, light gathering and spilling from his glasses as his head moved. There was, pinned to his smock, a name plaque: Morand.
    "Ah," Morand said, and smiled. "Decided to live, did we, Mr. Kline?"
    His smile slowly faded when Kline didn't respond. "No offense," he said.
    "None taken," Kline managed. His voice, weak, didn't sound much like his voice.
    "You shouldn't have unwrapped that," said Morand, pointing to his shoulder. He came around to squint at it. "Healing nicely, though," he said.
    He drew Kline's foot out from under the blanket and removed the sock, then removed the dressing. Three of his toes were missing, Kline noticed, then remembered what had happened to them. "These were quite a mess," Morand said. "You're lucky not to lose the foot."
    He wrote something on the clipboard.
    "I have a few questions for you," Morand said. "First, how do you feel about what's happened to you?"
    "What exactly did happen?"
    "Your arm," said Morand. "It's not easy to lose such a large part of you. How do you feel, scale of one to ten?"
    Kline looked at the back of the clipboard. "Is ten good or bad?" he asked.
    "Seven or eight is good . That makes ten somewhere along the lines of superlative or never been better , depending on how effusive you are."
    "I was already missing a hand," said Kline. "I was mostly used to that."
    "Shall we call you a four then?" asked Morand. "Am I reading you correctly? I'm sorry we had to take the rest of the arm," he said, and leaned toward Kline's stump. "Though it came out nicely, if I do say so myself. Sit up, please."
    "I can't," said Kline.
    "Why not?"
    "When I raise my head, it feels like I'm being stabbed in the eye."
    "I see," said Morand, and smiled. "Probably due to your having been shot in the head."
    "Shot in the head?"
    Morand's smile faded again. "You don't remember?" He took from his pocket a round mirror about the size of an eyeball, affixed to a pen-like metal stylus, and held it out. "You've already seen the worst," he said.
    Kline took it awkwardly. "Isn't this a dentist's mirror?" he asked. "For mouths?"
    "Technically, yes," said the doctor.
    "I thought doctors wore their mirrors on their heads. For light or something."
    "Not this doctor," Morand said.
    Kline spun the stylus about with his fingers until he saw part of his face in the mirror, the reflection shivering slightly. His head, he saw when he turned the mirror minutely, was heavily bandaged. He watched Morand slowly unwind it, working down to a thick pad of gauze, dark with blood and flux.
    When Kline reached up to touch it, Morand stopped him.
    "We'll change the dressing in a moment," Morand said. "You can look then."
    "Where am I?" Kline asked.
    "Hospital bed," said Morand, surprised. "I thought that would be obvious. You seemed like you were doing all right, considering."
    "In a hospital?"
    "Naturally. Where else would a hospital bed be?"
    "Am I free to leave?"
    "We're hardly in a condition to leave, are we?" said Morand, and smiled. "By we, I mean you. Frankly it's a little surprising you're alive at all. For a while you were dead, technically speaking. Were you aware of that? Of course, technically dead is nothing compared to dead ."
    "Is that a threat?"
    The doctor looked surprised again. "What have I said to offend you?"
    "Will you open the curtain?"
    "The curtain?" asked Morand. "Why?"
    "I just want to see for myself what's on the other side."
    "But I've already told you, this is a hospital."
    "Please," said Kline, "open the curtain."
    Morand looked at