Area 51

CHAPTER 20

There was something stuck in both his arms and on the inside of each thigh. Johnny Simmons also sensed tubes between his legs — a catheter, both fore and aft. There was also some sort of device hooked in the right side of his mouth, giving off a very light mist of moisture. Another tube ran into the left side of his mouth and that was how he was breathing. There was something over his face, covering it, pressing his eyes shut and blocking off his nose. Beyond that Simmons didn’t have a clue as to his condition. And those discoveries had been made only in those few breaks between periods of excruciating pain.

He assumed that at least one of whatever was stuck in him was a nutritional IV. He had no clue as to the passage of time, but it felt as if his entire existence had been spent in this darkness.

If it had not been for the needles and catheters, Johnny believed he would have thought himself dead and his soul exiled to hell. But this was a living hell, a physical one.

He felt a coppery taste in his mouth. He didn’t even wait for the pain now. His mouth contorted open and he silently screamed.