Voices in the Darkness

That was my chance to convince Liz that she should let me go, so I nodded my approval and she did as she had promised. I didn't cry once until I tried to speak. I became very emotional as I tried to talk with the woman I married: "Why did you have to do this Liz? I don't understand how you could do this to me and Jill. We both loved you."

She looked down on my outstretched body and avoided eye contact with me and said: "Chris, I never wanted to be a part of this. My brother and Michelle cooked up this plan when he realized that he was going to be fired from Southland Hospital. He figured that his career was in deep trouble and this one scam could set him up for life. He knew he might have to do some jail time, but he also knew he could plead it down to a light sentence. Then he and Michelle were going to have millions."

"But why did you have to kill everyone? There was plenty of money to go around."

"I understand that Chris. When my brother first approached me I didn't know any of the other girls. He wanted me to be involved because he knew he could trust me, and he needed someone on the inside of a long term care facility. Michelle originally wanted Jill to find an unmarried patient without any immediate family in the area. You fit the criteria perfectly Chris. Then she was to seduce you and get you to fall in love with her. But she was involved with Nancy back then, so she only agreed to the initial seduction. It then became my job to get you to love me, and trust me enough to participate in the plan."

When I heard her tell me that it was her job to make me love her I broke down. Tears streamed down my face and I whimpered: "That's impossible Liz; I know you really loved me. It wasn't just an act."

"Chris, I had real feelings for you the very first night we met. I tried to do everything I could to warn you not to participate in this plan without violating the trust of my own brother. I was in a terrible position; my loyalty to my brother required me to tell you about the plan, but my fondness for you made me try and warn you away. So I did both at the same time. Chris, I was very upset that you agreed to do it. I didn't need any of that money to be happy."

"Why didn't you warn me that I was going to be killed? I would have given you the money and moved away."

"I tried to convince Michelle that you and Jill should be allowed to live. I offered her more money but she wanted you dead and she would have killed me too. But when Bobby got out of prison he made sure Michelle left me alone. I begged him to let you live Chris, but he said he wanted all of the girls, except for me, out of the way. He told me I was the only person he ever trusted."

"Oh Liz, please let me go darling, I will sign all of the checks and then disappear. You and your brother can have the money and I will never say a word to anyone about it."

"You know I can't do that Chris."

"If you truly love me, you would save my life."

"I do love you, and I'm trying to do just that. You must trust me now. I know you think I'm going to kill you as soon as you sign over the money, but I'm the only one who can save you now. Ever since we got back from Hawaii my brother has planned the plane crash. He forced me to get the three of you together so he could take you all out at the same time. That was why I was behaving so strangely. In my heart, I was willing to do anything to find a way to let you escape from what my brother had planned. I tried to force you to leave me and run off with Jill. But no matter how badly I acted, you stayed with me. I prayed this day would never come."

"Liz, I stayed with you because I loved you and we exchanged vows to be together. Why didn't you honor your vows to me, and protect me from your brother?"

"Chris, he would have killed you in some other way if I didn't agree to get you on the plane. He planned this out while he was in prison. He took courses in small aircraft maintenance while he was incarcerated and had the job at John Wayne arranged as part of his release program. My brother placed a small explosive device in that plane's fuel tank when it had its last overhaul. Then he used a very limited range transmitter to set a timer right before the plane took off. The people onboard were doomed the second they took off."

"So you weren't really sick."

"Bobby gave me two small doses of a drug that makes a person vomit about two minutes after it is swallowed. I took one that morning and the other at the airport. Chris, I'm sorry I tried to make you get on that flight. I thought it would have been a quick painless death. I know you will never forgive me, but besides trying to convince you to board that plane, I have protected you."

"Protect me now Liz. Please let me go."

"Listen to me Chris; in a few minutes my brother is going to return and I need you to sign the checks. Please don't give him a reason to kill you. Then he will give you the paralysis drug. Since we are married I will be allowed to visit you, and I will have to keep injecting you everyday in order to keep you in the coma. I will slowly start to give you less and less of the drug so that you can begin to wake up. Then I will tell Bobby that the drug isn't working anymore and that we need to clear out. He might think that your body built up a natural immunity to the drug's effect. I hope he will want us to leave, and then you can recover. If my plan works, please don't try to find us. I will get him to move out of the country and find some nice beach where there is little or no contact with the rest of the world. I think I can keep him interested in me and surfing if I play him just right."

"Will you really do that for me Liz?"

"Yes, I will do it for you. It is the least I can do for you, my love. But I have to gag you again so Bobby doesn't know we talked." With that she placed the gag back in place and silenced me. I knew I had probably spoken my last words.

*

Chapter 30

I started to remember the agonizing pain I suffered in my last coma, and I knew that I would have to relive that horror all over again. Even if Liz did exactly as she said I wasn't sure if I was strong enough mentally to cope with what was about to happen to me. I could only pray that God would direct Liz to let me recover quickly and escape the effects of muscular atrophy.

Doctor White returned and he brought all kinds of gear into the bedroom. It took him at least an hour to set up his equipment. Our beautiful bedroom looked like a laboratory by the time he was finished. He looked to Liz and said: "Okay sis, get Chris to sign an entire book of checks."

Liz approached me with a handcuff key and said: "Chris, don't try anything funny, my brother will not give you a second chance to do this." She unhooked the cuffs from my wrists which allowed me to sit up. Liz placed a tray on my lap which held a pen and our checkbook. I knew there was no chance of escape, since my ankles were still cuffed and Liz's brother was only a few feet away. I was still gagged but I started to sign the checks. Liz watched to make sure that I signed in the proper place and with my correct signature. It took me about two or three minutes to complete the process.

Liz looked at her brother and said: "She signed them all."

"Good, now cuff her wrists back to the head board. I need to get the drug ready for injection. This has to be done very precisely or it won't work. I can't believe that your girlfriend thought that Michelle was smart enough to know how to use this drug. Or that she could adjust the monitors to fake her condition in the operating room." Then he looked at me and said: "Hey sexy, I'm the one who masterminded this. You were just a pawn in my game."

My beautiful spouse looked back to her brother and said: "Okay, she is ready. Do you want me to do the injection?"

Her brother had a strange look on his face and then he shouted: "Oh shit, this plan won't work at all sis. The hospital will run blood tests and Nancy isn't there anymore to fake the test results. They will detect the presence of the drug."

"I thought you said they wouldn't know what it was, even if they detected it."

"They don't need to know what it is, the doctors will know it is abnormal, and they will treat it as a possible cause. We can't have this present in her blood when she is admitted."

"Bobby, what are you going to do?"

"There is still a way it might work. I could give her a large initial dose which could basically destroy the neurons in her cortex. Then she would never recover from the coma. The trick will be to give her enough to fry her brain without killing her. If she remains alive the drug will break down in a few days and not be detectable. But if she dies they will find it in her autopsy."

"Can you be sure the dosage is correct?"

"I'm pretty sure I can do it sis. I need to do some additional calculations and then I need to prepare the drug. In its pure form this stuff would always be lethal, but I will dilute it with a saline solution. A single drop of extra saline might make it too weak, and not enough saline would leave it in its lethal form. So I need to get this right on the first try."

My fate was sealed. Liz could no longer help me escape the clutches of her evil brother. I was going to die and I knew it.

Liz looked very sad and asked: "Is she going to feel any pain Bobby? I don't want her to suffer like she did in her first coma."

"She won't feel a thing. An hour after I inject her, it's going to be lights out forever."

All I could do is watch. He read something from some papers and then used a calculator to perform some calculations. Then he used a test tube to mix the drug with the saline solution. When he finished his work he said: "Lizzy, it's perfect, I need to let it sit for about ten minutes and then I can inject her. I'm going to go outside and have a smoke. My nerves are shot."

Liz watched her brother go outside and then I saw her do something that renewed my faith in her love for me. She took the pipette which her brother had used to measure the saline. He had counted every drop which had gone into the mixture. She added two additional drops of saline into the test tube, and then carefully replaced the pipette to where it had been placed by her brother. She came over and whispered in my ear: "I love you Christine, I hope you will forgive me for betraying you." Then she kissed me on my forehead and said: "Be strong my love; you are going to make it through this."

Doctor White returned and said: "Times up." He looked at his sister and said: "Do you want to eat her pussy one last time before I inject her?"

"Don't be so disgusting. It's bad enough what we are doing. Now get it over with."

He filled his syringe with a precisely measured dosage from the test tube. He then injected the solution into my thigh. I had to pray that the additional saline would allow enough of my brain cells to survive the onslaught of the paralysis agent, to permit me to subsequently recover.

I could hear them talking about me as I waited for the drug to take effect. They were planning on how long they should keep me at home before calling 911. They discussed that once I was comatose that all of the restraints and all of the medical equipment had to be removed from the apartment. They decided to have Liz say that I had been working very hard with all of the media appearances, and that I had appeared to be very tired for a few days. Then Liz would go on to say that I simply wouldn't wake up after a day and a half in bed.

There was nothing I could do, but I hoped to hear them say where they would go after they had the money. I was determined to get my revenge if and when I recovered. I still had a lot of money from the fees I had been paid from the personal appearances. Liz had no idea how much I had secretly saved up. But Liz and her brother never said a word about their plans beyond getting me admitted to the hospital.

I felt the drug start to take hold of my body. It became difficult to use my muscles and I couldn't even keep my eyes open. I could still hear, but I couldn't move. For just a few minutes, I was back into that same world where I was surrounded by voices in the darkness. In the past, I always wanted to hear Liz's sweat reassuring voice tell me I was going to be alright. Now I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to hear her voice again.

Liz sat down beside me. I could hear her crying as she spoke to me for a final time: "Bobby has stepped out Chris, and I need you to hear this from me. I'm so sorry this had to happen; loving you has been the best thing that has occurred in my life. I hope what I did to the drug works, and you recover because you deserve to live and be happy. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. I love you very much Christine."

I never heard another sound after that nor felt another touch. I had no way of knowing whether I was dead or alive. But I was still able to form thoughts and remember my past. I didn't know if that was my soul in some form of afterlife, or whether my brain was still functioning. There was one thing I remembered from my trail which gave me hope. I remembered how Dr. Stevenson said that as the brain was deprived of oxygen that there was a biochemical reaction that caused patients to see a white life immediately prior to death. I hadn't seen that white light in my first coma and I subsequently recovered. I also hadn't seen the light this time, and I wanted to believe in my chance for resurrection.

Life was precious and I had participated in a scam that had claimed the lives of seven people. I was to have been the eighth victim, but I wasn't going to give up and die. I knew I had to wake up before twelve months elapsed, but I was a strong willed person and desperately wanted to recover. Then I could seek revenge on the people who tried to kill me. I knew it would be difficult to ever trust anyone again; but maybe after I evened the score, I would try to love again.