Here's part two, everybody!
Unrecognized Screams Part Two
Rated: PG
A soft, white haze enveloped MacGyver when he slowly opened his eyes. The room was white, the bed he laid in was white, the sheets were white—even what he wore was white. He felt something around his wrists and looked down at them. White bandages encircled his wrists, yet he didn’t feel any pain. He was drifting, and everything seemed out of focus. Was he dead? He couldn’t quite understand what had happened to him. His eyes scanned the room, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He had no idea how he got there. It was almost like waking from a particularly vivid dream and having difficulty adjusting to reality once again, feeling completely disoriented. The room was completely silent. He wondered if anyone was nearby. He tried to call out, but he felt too weak and too exhausted, and his throat was dry. Giving up, he closed his eyes.
***
Cathy, now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, followed Dr. Swanson down the corridor in the wing of the hospital where the man she found was kept.
“How is he?” She asked.
Dr. Swanson looked at her with the same grave expression he looked at others inquiring about his patients. He stopped and placed his hand gently on her shoulder. “He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s very lucky to be alive,” he said. “If you hadn’t found him when you did…” his voice trailed away.
“I know,” she said. “I guess my dog running away so many times actually proved to be a blessing.”
Dr. Swanson smiled at her slightly, and then returned to his sober expression. “I have him placed under observation,” he said. “With these suicide attempts, you never know if they might try again when they learn they’ve survived.”
They reached the room where MacGyver was and looked in, finding him still unconscious. Cathy stared at him. She frowned when she thought about how she’d found him. “It seems like such a strange place to commit suicide,” she said. “In a field in the middle of nowhere? It doesn’t make any sense. Something is really strange about this whole thing.”
“We think so too,” another man said, approaching them, wearing a police uniform. He flashed his badge. “I’m Duane Colvert, sheriff of Claxton County.”
“What is it, Sheriff?” Dr. Swanson asked.
“We found an abandoned vehicle just a few miles away from the location where you found this man,” Duane said, glancing at MacGyver briefly. “It was a jeep. We didn’t find any registration or any other indication as to who might own the vehicle, but we did find a set of footprints leading from the vehicle towards the direction of the field.”
“So, what are you saying?” Cathy asked.
“I’m saying, ma’am, that it appears this man deliberately took steps to erase all trace of his identity. You didn’t find any wallet on him, did you? Any driver’s license or other form of identification?”
“No.”
“My theory is that he drove out to the middle of nowhere to commit suicide and destroyed all forms of identification. He wanted to make it seem as if he never existed.”
Cathy looked back at MacGyver sadly. She couldn’t understand why anyone would take such pains to get rid of themselves. The man lying unconscious in the hospital bed with bandages around his wrists didn’t seem like someone who would commit suicide. As he slept, he looked peaceful, healthy, and handsome despite his pallor from loss of blood. She couldn’t imagine someone like him having any problems that would drive him to such desperation as killing himself. Why should someone like him be depressed or suffer from any serious problems at all? Then again, she knew that everyone had their secrets, and she didn’t know the man at all.
“Of course, we’re still investigating the jeep and the surrounding area for other clues, but as it stands now, this appears to be a case of attempted suicide. Only his fingerprints are on the knife.”
“It still seems odd to me,” Cathy said.
“I know, ma’am,” Duane said. “Although we’re treating this as a suicide attempt, we haven’t completely ruled out other possibilities.”
“Such as?”
“That this act was committed by someone else trying to disguise it as suicide.”
“Murder?” Dr. Swanson asked.
Duane shrugged. “It’s a possibility, as I said, but we’re too early into the investigation yet to know for sure,” he said. “What I would like to do is ask the man a few questions and see if we can begin to understand what exactly happened.”
“I don’t believe that would be a good idea at the moment, Sheriff,” Dr. Swanson said, looking in at his patient. “Whatever happened, he’s been through a great deal and needs to rest. I’ll let you know when he regains consciousness.”
***
When MacGyver opened his eyes again, he saw a man in a police uniform sitting by his bed, staring at him. Groaning and feeling groggy, he rubbed his face with his hands, feeling the bandages around his wrists press against his skin. He pulled his hands away and stared at the bandages again. His wrists were beginning to throb and feel sore, dull aches pounding through the bandages. Whatever had been given to him earlier to stop the pain was slowly wearing off, and he no longer felt as dazed as he had the first time he regained consciousness.
“I’m Sheriff Duane Colvert of Claxton County,” the sheriff said, watching MacGyver carefully. “Do you know where you are?”
MacGyver looked at the sheriff with tired eyes. “A hospital, I think,” he said with a faint voice, licking his dry lips.
“Here,” Duane said, offering MacGyver some water from a pitcher.
“Thanks,” MacGyver said, taking the water, surprised at how much it hurt just to hold a glass in his hand. He could feel the tight stitches in his wrist pull.
Duane propped his head up so he could drink. When he was done, Duane carefully set the glass aside on the hospital tray. MacGyver watched him, blinking slowly.
“Am I in some kind of trouble?” He asked.
Duane shook his head. “No son,” he said, scratching the bridge of his nose from beneath his glasses. “I just want to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“About what?” MacGyver asked, still surprised by how distant and faded his voice sounded.
Duane looked at him, puzzled. “About what happened,” he said. “Do you remember what happened?”
MacGyver looked down at the bandages on his wrists again. Increasingly, he was beginning to consider them a puzzle to solve. “No,” he said. “I don’t even know how I got here.”
“A young lady found you in an open, empty field in the middle of the night. From all appearances, it seemed you cut your own wrists in an attempted suicide.”
“What?” MacGyver asked, looking at the bandages again. “How? I mean, I don’t even remember…” his voice trailed away.
“What’s the last thing you do remember?”
“Driving. I was…driving…somewhere. I don’t know where. I can’t remember.”
“Were you driving a jeep? We found a jeep nearby with no registration. Is that your jeep, son?”
“I don’t know.”
Duane rubbed his face with frustration. He was trying to be as patient as he could. He knew the man had been through a lot of trauma, so he was doing his best not to push too hard, but he still wasn’t getting any helpful answers.
“We didn’t find any identification on you, either,” he said. “What’s your name?”
MacGyver struggled to think, but nothing came to him through the cloudy haze of his mind. Panic rose in him as he tried to grasp for an answer, but nothing came to him.
“It’s all right, son,” Duane said, watching as the man’s brown eyes widened in fear and confusion. “You can tell me. You’re not in any trouble.”
“But that’s the thing,” MacGyver said, staring at the sheriff with pleading, lost eyes. “I really don’t know. I…I don’t know who I am!” MacGyver’s agitation grew, and he struggled to sit up, feeling waves of dizziness and fatigue sweep over him.
“Whoa, easy there, son!” Duane said, putting his hand on MacGyver’s chest, trying to push him back down onto the bed.
MacGyver stared at him with frightened eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I tried to commit suicide? Why? I…I don’t understand…” feeling exhausted, he sank back onto the bed. “I have to know…”
“Don’t worry, that’s why I’m here,” Duane said. “I’ll help you figure it out. For now, why don’t you rest, okay?”
“No, I have to know…” MacGyver’s voice drifted away as he slowly went back to sleep, feeling too weak to fight.
Duane watched him as he fought to remain conscious and lost. He’d interrogated many suspects and questioned many witnesses and victims of crime, and he’d seen everything. Sometimes, people wanted to lie, to pretend that they’d never seen or experienced anything that was too traumatic for them to deal with, but when he saw the genuine look of fear and bewilderment in MacGyver’s dark brown eyes, he knew the man was telling him the truth. He really had no idea what happened to him or who he was, and it was going to make his investigation more difficult.
“What happened?” Dr. Swanson said, entering the room, leaving Cathy to watch from outside.
Duane sighed and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “He says he doesn’t remember what happened or who he is,” he said. “I’m telling you, Doc, he has amnesia. But he can’t. That’s something for soap operas.”
“Just because it’s used a lot in daytime drama doesn’t make it any less real, Sheriff,” Dr. Swanson said, monitoring his patient. “Deeply traumatic events such as suicide attempts have been known to block memories for a time.”
“Well, any idea how long it might last?”
“It varies. He has to find his own way.”
“Great,” Duane said, putting on his hat and standing. “And I have to find mine. I’ll keep digging. Thanks for letting me talk to him.” He looked at the unconscious man, feeling some sympathy for him, wondering what really did happen that night in that open field in the middle of nowhere.
To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
