Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

The Pain Killer by Charles Carpentier

The man was screaming now and struggling violently, his handsome face distorted with fear. The doctor pressed down on the plunger and smiled soothingly. “Don’t be silly. It’s only a pain filler... to keep you from hurting.”

“Got a couple more for you, doc,” said one of the ambulance attendants, wheeling the woman in. “This one looks like a shock case. The guy, though, he’s banged up a bit. But not real bad.” The two attendants went back out to the ambulance after the man.

Dr. Edward A. Keyes glanced up from the desk where he was filling out accident reports. The woman looked small on the stretcher: everybody looks smaller on a stretcher, he thought.

She had nice hair. That was all he could see of her. He always noticed women’s hair; it was the first thing he noticed about them. Then he thought what he always thought when they brought someone in: Why do people insist on getting out on the highway and messing themselves up? — so I can make a living, I suppose.

He went to the woman, turning her head toward him. She had such nice hair and he was hoping her face wasn’t marked up.

“Doc.”

He just stood there staring at her face.

“Hey, doc,” the attendant repeated impatiently. “Where do you want this guy?”

Dr. Keyes pointed to one of the five beds along the wall; that was all the Briscoe Emergency Center had — five beds. “Put him over there,” he said. “Put her down at the other end.”

They lifted the man onto one of the beds. “Same old story every night,” the talkative attendant said. It was ritual with him — he said it every time they brought someone in. “They plaster themselves all over the highway and we scrape ’em up.”

“They were together, were they?” the doctor asked. “In the same car?”

“Yeah. This guy must have been dreaming. Either that or putting the grab on his wife there. Can’t say as I blame him, though. Real good-looking dame. Anyway, they were coming down from Barnsdahl Crossing — what folks up there call Motel Row. You know the place.”

The doctor nodded.

“Ran off the road and smack into a telegraph pole. Take ’em a week to put that car back together.”

They lifted the woman off the stretcher and onto the bed at the far end of the room. “The cops said they’ll be in after your report soon as they get the car pulled off the pole.”

The attendants wheeled the empty stretchers back to the door. “They gonna be okay, you think, doc?”

“Huh?” Dr. Keyes had to force his attention to keep listening to the ambulance man. “Yes, I guess so, It’s a little early to tell.”

“Sure hope so,” the attendant said. “Sure is too bad. Such a nice looking dame.” He pushed his stretcher through the door. “Well, back to wait for more carnage.”

After they had gone, Dr. Keyes, went over to look at the man. He was out cold, but the doctor could tell he’d be coming around soon. He was dark and he had a face that women would think of as romantic.

The doctor made his usual quick preliminary check for injuries. Several ribs were broken — painful, but not serious. The man had evidently been thrown hard against the steering wheel. There was a dark, spreading bruise on his forehead where he’d hit the windshield. That accounted for unconsciousness. Of course, it was impossible to tell about internal injuries, but the doctor wasn’t worried about that right now.

From the inside pocket of the man’s coat, the doctor pulled out a wallet. He dug around in the wallet until he found a driver’s license. He wrote the man’s name on a tag and hung it on the foot of the bed. Under the name he wrote, SUSTAINING INTERNAL INJURIES. CONDITION-FATAL.

As he moved away to attend to the woman, the man moaned softly.

Taking a medical bag with him, Dr. Keyes checked the woman over quickly. Except for unconsciousness and general shock, she had nothing more serious than a few minor contusions.

The doctor took a hypodermic needle from the bag and injected her with a pain-killing sedative. He waited a moment for the sedative to take effect. Then with a small, sharp scalpel, in imitation of the careless artistry of accidental occurrence, he cut a long scar down one side of her face. Not quite such a good-looking dame now, he thought, remembering the words of the ambulance attendant. He wiped the blood expertly from her face, mopping gently to stem the flow.

Across the room, the man was moaning loudly now, returning to consciousness.

Dr. Keyes went to his desk and made out a bed tag for the woman. He squirted the residue of the sedative from the hypodermic needle into the wastebasket. He didn’t bother to sterilize the needle.

The man was saying, “Oh God, what happened? It hurts... it hurts so. What happened?” He tried to sit up.

The doctor hurried to him, pushing him back down on the bed. “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right now.”

“It hurts... through here,” the man groaned, drawing his hand carefully across his ribs. “My God, it hurts. What happened? I remember the car... the car, oh my God, where’s Jean?... Jean—”

“She’s all right,” the doctor said with calming reassurance. “Hardly hurt at all. She’s fine, just fine.” He drew the plunger back on the hypodermic needle. “This’ll take the pain away. Make you feel a lot better.” He pushed the man’s coat sleeve up.

At the sight of the needle, the man struggled up. “What’s that? What’s in there?” he demanded clearly and sharply.

Dr. Keyes pressed down on his shoulder. “This will stop the pain. It’ll keep it from hurting so much.”

“There’s nothing in there!” the man shouted, fighting to sit up. “There’s nothing... that’s air!”

The doctor drove the needle with deadly accuracy into the man’s arm and rammed the plunger down. “Don’t be silly,” he said soothingly. “It’s only a pain killer. To keep you from hurting.”

The man was screaming now and struggling violently, his romantically handsome face distorted with pain and fear. The doctor threw a strap across the bed over him and cinched it down tightly.

“You’re killing me — you’re trying to kill me!” he screamed. “I saw it, I saw it — nothing in there... nothing but air! Why?... why?... why are you trying to kill me. Please — why...?”

His struggling subsided. And with it, his screaming. Slowly his body relaxed, his pleading voice sank through a whisper into silence.

The doctor stood impassively over him until he was completely still — in the stillness of death.

Dr. Keyes went back to his desk and put the hypodermic needle underneath all the other equipment in the bottom of his medical bag. He took the woman’s tag and hung it on the foot of her bed.

FACIAL LACERATION AND SHOCK, it read. INJURIES SUPERFICIAL. NAME: Mrs. Edward A. Keyes.