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ceiling. The sharp smell of spray paint permeated the boxcar, or at least Campbell thought it did, and while he recognized that this was probably an important detail, he no longer cared for such complexities and instead was content to slip back into a near-coma as darkness once again descended.

     
    At first, Campbell thought he was having another nightmare. Lashed to an ancient gurney, he was being hustled down a bland adobe-walled corridor while strange men, their features obscured by green surgical masks and 300-watt headlamps, stared down at him. His head, like the rest of his body, was held in place by a thick leather strap so when Campbell screamed, the only ones paying attention were crude images of angels carved into the patchworkceiling of dried earth and stone. From the corner of his eye, Campbell noticed a flicker of color; the adobe-induced monotony was shattered every few yards by a series of blurred frescos recounting the biblical punishment of Korah. The gurney, uttering terrible mechanical moans as the men in masks cajoled it across the rocky terrain, was held together by several pieces of dirty surgical tape slapped tightly around the essential load-bearing joints, and Campbell wondered if it was going to collapse, prayed it might collapse. The gurney men quickened their pace and everything around Campbell became a blur of light and pale surgical green. Nausea washed over him and just as the gurney slammed its way through a pair of plastic double doors, he lost consciousness again, slipping back into a darkness punctured by blurry images of Aaron swinging an incensor while the earth around him broke apart, swallowing men whole.

     
    Campbell’s eyes shot open, an involuntary response to the pain tearing through his entire lower left side. For a moment, the world was an explosion of hot light, the kind of light that illuminated dentists’ offices and convenience stores at three in the morning. Still strapped to the gurney, Campbell could sense people moving around him, hands passing objects back and forth over his body. He tried to shout out, demanding an explanation for any of the questions racing through his mind, but his mouth felt like it was stuffed with mothballs and his speech dribbled out in a series of whimpers.
    A single, massive light bulb dangled five feet above Campbell’s head, engulfing the entire room with its relentless illumination. Two of the men who had pushed the gurney were now hovering over Campbell, one on either side. Seconds later, a third gurney man entered the room pushing a stainless-steel cart, its wheels squeaking as it made its way across the room and toward Campbell. Partitioned by three shelves, each level of the cart was a mess of gauze, syringes, and strange instruments that looked as though they might be useful under the hood of a car. On the top level of the cart was the biggest saw Campbell had ever seen.
    “Oh God,” moaned Campbell, sweat cascading down his brow as he thrashed about on top of the gurney like a fish with lungs full of oxygen. The gurney men paid scant attention to these wild movements; his body ravaged by fever, Campbell was no match for the leather bindings securing him to the gurney. Instead, the man closest to Campbell picked a syringe filledwith murky brown liquid up off the cart and without warning slammed it into Campbell’s left thigh. Loaded with morphine, the needle pierced a large blue-green vein traversing the length of Campbell’s left leg, instantly flooding him with a twisted euphoria. Seconds later, entranced by the beautiful numbness blooming throughout his entire central nervous system, Campbell passed out.
    “You won’t feel a thing,” commented the gurney man closest to Campbell.
    And he was right; even when they re-broke the bones in his leg and began scraping away the destroyed ligaments, Campbell never felt a thing.

     
    For several nights, Campbell lingered in chemical twilight, drifting in and out of consciousness. At