Asper had never performed a lobotomy on someone so young before, but as one of the great men of medicine of the twentieth century, he was always up for a new challenge.

2

Dressed in a worsted suit and bowtie, Dr. Jerome Asper stood next to the school’s resident priest, Father Pardavé, in a classroom turned makeshift operating theatre. His patient, a twelve-year-old girl named María Diaz, lay supine on the teacher’s desk before them.

According to the priest, the girl had the IQ of a moron, participated in disruptive behavior, and was capable of violent outbursts. Moreover, she suffered several fits a week, during which time he believed the devil took control of her body and mind. Nonsense, of course. Religious gobbledygook. These fits would be the physical manifestation of the illness epilepsy, not some occult affliction. Even so, in his opinion the surgery was necessary. It would not only calm her down but also make her happier.

Looking up at him with frightened yet trustful eyes, the girl asked him a question.

Asper had learned enough Spanish in his short time in Mexico to know she was inquiring whether the procedure was going to make her more like her housemates.

“Sí,” he said, smiling as he slipped a mouth guard in her mouth and placed two paddles on her forehead. He gave Father Pardavé a brief nod. The priest held the girl down tightly by her shoulders. Asper adjusted the timer on the small ECT machine on the desk and flicked the main switch. The electrodes delivered an electrical stimulus of several hundred watts that caused the girl’s body to convulse powerfully, her jaw to clamp shut, and the tendons in her neck to stand out. The current flowed for five seconds before shutting off. Her muscles immediately relaxed.

Now that she was suitably dazed, Asper selected his icepick and hammer from his medical case and went to work.

Jack

1

The storm had attained Armageddon proportions, yet it showed no signs of relenting. The rain fell in diagonal curtains with amazing force, chewing the ground and flooding shallow depressions. The wind, vicious and cold, threatened to strip leaves from their branches and uproot the smaller vegetation. Yellow bursts of lightning tortured the sky and lit the frenetic faces of the dozens of dolls dangling from nearby trees. Thunder boomed and crackled.