The Collapse

“He fought hard Doc.” Harder than most, actually, thought Raille.

“What does that tell you?”

Raille Hubbard looked seriously at the doctor stitching up the deep gash in his side. DocJaw knew two things, Raille never asked a question unless he knew the answer and this man was crazier than two mice screwing in a wool sock. He looked briefly into the big man’s weird, amber colored eyes before answering, “He had something to fight for.”

“Exactamundo Doc! The real question is what?”

DocJaw continued with his series of sutures, as always amazed at the way Raille was able to handle pain. Honestly, Doc thought, he simply didn’t feel pain except for the occasional wince Raille would let show across his weathered face as Doc was adding yet another suture or resetting another bone. He felt pain alright, he just seemed to...swallow it? He didn’t know how else to describe it. Raille had a tolerance for pain that made him extremely dangerous in a fight of that he knew first hand.

Hadn’t Doc himself shot Raille during their first encounter? What choice did he have? The big man had charged into the makeshift triage and started killing his patients with that goddamn cleaver he loved so much. All of those innocent lives taken for what, exactly? Raille said he did it to cull the world of the final weakness. The weakness of heart, whatever that means. So, he shot him.

He had meant to shoot him in the heart, if the giant even had one. Instead, he slipped on the bloody floor and shot Raille in the hip. A hit like that would have spun most men off of their feet, but not Raille Hubbard. He had continued his charge and picked Doc up lack a sack of flour and tossed him against the wall hard enough to knock the breath loose from his lungs. Doc had recovered quick enough and at 6 feet 3 inches he had never been considered a small man. He had always prided himself on being athletic even before The Collapse but the truth of it is that he had been beaten unconscious and possibly only the bullet in Raille’s hip had saved his life.

When he came to, every patient was dead. His acting nurse too. Poor sweet Carrie. Doc supposed she was lucky to have died the way she did. In the years since he had witnessed Raille absolutely brutalize women and then throw their broken bodies to his men like one might throw a bone into a pack of ravenous dogs.

The stench of blood was so overpowering that his first instinct was to vomit but he could feel that his jaw was broken and he knew vomiting would be excruciating so he swallowed it down. That’s when he noticed the beast sitting on a table in a pool of his own blood, with his pants around his ankles quietly staring at him.

“There is strength in you Doc. I see it in your eyes even now, you are looking for a weapon to renew your attack. I like that. I can use you Doc. What do you say?”

With that he stuck out his big calloused hand as if they were closing a negotiation.

Doctor William Stevenson eyed that big hand for a moment, did an assessment of his personal health and the situation he was in and wisely chose to live over being beaten to death. He hauled himself onto unsteady feet, took a deep breath, and gave an agonizing and blood-soaked grin as he accepted the offer. Loretta Stevenson didn’t raise any fools. She raised survivors and by the grace of the Almighty he had survived The Collapse and he would goddamn sure survive this brute. If only he’d known then he’d made a deal with the devil. His momma would be turning in her grave if she had one.

His first task was removing the bullet lodged in Raille’s hip. The second was finding a way to isolate his jaw so it could heal. The former was done in absolute silence from the patient. It was unnerving actually to be that close to a human who could sit so still while he dug the twisted metal of the 38 caliber revolver out of this enormous man. Raille didn’t even flinch. He just watched, much as he was doing now as the doctor performed the tasks necessary to repair a wound that would have stopped, no let’s be honest here, killed most people. Raille Hubbard was not most people.

Doc’s preliminary diagnosis was a condition known as CIP. Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, also known as Congenital Analgesia. His first impression had been that this man simply lacked the neural pathways that triggered the brain to feel pain. Lord knows DocJaw didn’t lack them. Fucking “DocJaw”. He hated that name. He had been unable to wire his own jaw together to facilitate healing. His alternative option had been to fashion a device out of leather and metal that would hold his jaw in place until it healed. Hence the moniker “DocJaw” that the men of Raille's militia had given him.

To be fair, the men respected him. They relied on him. As the only medically trained person in the compound they depended on him to keep them alive. Not just to keep them away from deaths door due to any number of possible illnesses a normal human might contract, but to keep them healthy enough to not be culled from the ranks at the blade of that nasty fucking cleaver. Jesus Raille really is a crazy bastard and he considered sickness and pain a weakness. Weakness is not tolerated. What is not tolerated is culled. That is what he called that cleaver, The Culler.

DocJaw finished his final tie and neatly clipped the suture. He chanced a glance and smile up at Raille and was rewarded with one of the rare smile/smirks that Raille would let cross his countenance. It was both terrifying to behold and exhilarating to witness. Doc supposed that before “The Collapse”, Raille would have been considered handsome. Something about the way he smiled lit up his strange eyes, yet the way his smile also seemed to smirk could curl a man’s testicles with fear. Doc felt as if Raille could read his thoughts. Actually, he knew enough about the man and had administered enough medical attention to survivors to believe that Raille may actually have acquired extra sensory abilities.

“So?” prodded Raille,

“What do you think he was protecting?”

In the jumble of his own thoughts DocJaw had actually forgotten about the conversation they were having. That is a very dangerous habit he absolutely could not afford to develop when dealing with this beast. His ever so perceptive eyes lighted on Raille's big hand and the blood- stained, heart shaped locket he was currently rubbing. He looked from the locket to those amber eyes and his heart sank. Suddenly, as if he were the one who had developed extra sensory abilities, he understood the smile/smirk on Raille’s face. The locket, it was the key after all.

He mustered his courage to meet those eyes again and replied, “A man who fights that hard can only be protecting his heart.”

Raille threw his head back and laughed, a rare sight that Doc had only witnessed once in the seven years he had been attending this lunatic.

As his laughter bellowed through the halls of the transformed school nurses office that had become his operating room, Raille thumbed open the locket to reveal the pictures of what was undoubtedly the daughters of the man who had sliced him open. His eyes danced gleefully as he stared at the pictures inside the locket and his laughter trailed off into a deep chuckle that sent shivers down Doc’s spine. He knew the cruelty this man was capable of, especially when it came to women who he considered “especially weak”. Doc also knew the trackers would find them.

For just a moment DocJaw let his thoughts stray to the plan he had so carefully hidden deep in his psyche. Inevitably he would have to treat this man’s wounds. Usually sooner than later. All it takes is an infection. The right infection could be fatal, but any infection could weaken the beast enough to defeat it, couldn’t it? As quickly as the thoughts raced through his mind, he squashed them.

“Well,” began Raille, “Now we know!”

With that exclamation the big man snapped the locket shut, met the good doctors gaze, and grabbed that goddamn cleaver. “Let’s cull some weakness!”