Chapter 22
Confusion ranged through me. My chest felt like I’d been rammed by an SUV, I wasn’t sure if I was in a hospital or clinic. Remembered the bar, the girl, the owl. Attacking the three men. Gasped. Flew up from the bed in a panic and met the restraining arms of a nurse, doctor, or orderly. Cohen was there and the man she’d called the Colonel.
“Take it easy, Daniel,” he said and I twisted to look around the room. It looked like a doctor’s office and a hospital room.
“Where am I?” I glanced at the BP cuff on my arm as the cardiac monitor beeped busily away in a normal rhythm. My BP was 110/60, pulse sixty-five and respirations, thirty-two. I was hyperventilating.
“Calm down, Daniel, you’re okay,” the Colonel returned.
“What happened, Daniel?” Marian asked.
“I was there. In the dog, Sassy,” I shuddered. “He locked me out of the house so I went into a crow. Flew through the upstairs window. Down into the hallway. Someone whacked me with a broom. Broke my neck.” My hands raised to feel, but the bones were intact. “The crow died. Me, too. I felt what it felt.”
“Gaines house is over 2000 miles from here,” the Colonel murmured. “Daniel, could you hear and see them clearly?”
“I couldn’t hear them outside and only caught a few words inside before he killed me,” I said wearily. My head was splitting and my entire body felt the aftereffects of being shocked. All I wanted to do was roll over and sleep.
“What did Gaines say?” The Colonel insisted.
“Something about Puerto Rico and second honeymoon,” I mumbled. I don’t know why I lied but the voice in my head that was the other me, smiled and gave me a high five. I’d meant to say Washington, DC and Jake James but those words never made it past my lips.
She slapped me lightly, but I was sinking so deep I barely felt it. “Let him sleep,” she said. “His body needs it. In the morning, we can…”
*****
The smell of bacon woke me. I rolled over and pulled at an IV line in my arm. It burned. I was in a hospital bed in the infirmary of some government installation. I saw armed guards outside the glass fronted door. A private in BDUs had brought in a tray, laying it on the swing out table.
“Breakfast,” he said and before I even thought about anything, I was diving in cramming my mouth full before he could take it back. Although I didn’t know where that thought came from. “Hey, dude,” he laughed. “Slow down. Plenty more where that came from.”
Eggs Benedict, Maple bacon, hash browns. Coffee, juice, buttered toast with jam. No calorie counting here. Ate all of it, the voice in my head telling me I should be wary of drugged food.
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m too hungry to care.”
“What?” The soldier asked.
“Not you.”
He looked around. “Just you and me here, kid. No one else.”
Careful, he warned. They’ll think you’re crazy if you talk to me.
“Just who are you, anyway? I asked and the airman replied.
“AFC Billy Steinglass.”
“No. Great, hiya,” I dismissed him, waiting for the other dude to answer.
Dunno, he said. Seems like I’ve always been here but asleep. Woke up when you called the owl down.
“You got a name?”
“Billy,” he repeated. I ignored him.
Same as yours. You’re me but not me.
Oh man. I was creeped out. “You were watching when I fucked that chick?”
Now, Billy AFC stared at me. “Dude, you aren’t talking to me, are you?”
No, the other, Danny said. But I can sometimes see your memories. The strong ones. I had some. They faded. I can’t remember anything. He sounded lost and sad. I just know I came in here to escape bad things. I want to go home!
“How old are you?” I asked him and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the AFC head for the door. Heard it lock behind him.
Fourteen, he told me. I closed the vault door on fourteen. I’m still fourteen I think. Did you like what you did to that girl? Did it feel good?
“Didn’t you ever jerk off, kid?” I asked him, feeling the urge to piss. Climbing out of bed, I dragged my IV lines and found they reached the toilet. Did my business, washed my face and opened the new toothbrush and paste as I stared at my face in the silvered mirror.
My contacts were out and I felt vaguely naked, since both my eyes were exposed to the world as one blue and one brown. Cohen had stressed that I was never to go out when my blue contact lens wasn’t in. Touched my reflection.
My eyes are like that, too, he said sadly.
“Are you me?”
No. I think… you’re a part of me.
“No way, dude. I’m not rolling over and giving a voice in my head the steering wheel!” I protested. Turned around as the door opened. Cohen and a doctor stood there, eyeballing me. I looked for the Colonel, and he was just outside the door waiting.
“Daniel, who are you talking to?” She asked calmly.
“Myself.” I leaned against the porcelain sink, my insides clenching as adrenaline flooded my system.
“You’re hearing voices, Daniel?” she questioned, and made a gesture with her hand.
Danny, he said. She’s going to say three words. The winter ice. It’s the trigger. Come with me. He held out his hand just as she said them. My fingers brushed his as my mind fractured. I’ve got you, he said calmly.
I stared at the vault we were in filled with light and impregnable, images so faded and blurred you could only tell they were vaguely human, mostly just blobs of color. He was nearly as tall as I was, pretty in a soft boyish way, sweet faced and scared. I wanted to reassure him, but in truth, I was scared, too.
What’s happening? I asked and he shook his head. Dunno. Without your eyes open, your ears hearing, I’m blind in here.
Can’t you do your animal mind meld thing?
He laughed softly. That was you Danny.
What are we doing now, if not reading minds?
Internal dialogue.
What do you think she's doing to me? To us?
I don't like her. She made me hide in here. She's a bad person. I tried to warn you about her. You listened twice, but it made you want to do bad things.
The barn and the rope?
You thought maybe if you killed us, the pain would go away. Who is Mitch?
My dad. Adoptive dad. It’s weird, like I have two sets of memories, me and some French kid who was abused.
That’s another construct she made. Neither of you are real, Danny.
And you are? I sneered. You’re just a voice in my crazy head.
If you think that, go back out there! He snapped and he pushed me out.
*****
Cohen was staring into my eyes as the two orderlies manhandled my body onto an exam table strapping me in. By the time I was back and started to struggle, I was already restrained. She and the doc hooked my IV up to a drip and injected the port. In seconds I was floating in the remembered haze of Thorazine.
“Daniel.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Do you hear voices?”
“Just… one,” I returned.
“Whose voice, Daniel?”
“Mine.”
“Is it the same thing as Hutton?” The Colonel demanded. I tried to spot where he was standing but couldn’t turn my head. My mouth filled with saliva and she wiped the drool from the corner of my lips.
“What do they tell you, Daniel?” Her tone was patient.
“Lies. He tells me lies. His eyes are so pretty. Like mine. But sad. Did I try to hang myself, Mary, Mary, Marian. Maid Marian.” I looked at her, brought up images of her doing things to me I thoroughly enjoyed at the time, but knew were totally unethical and illegal. All the more titillating. “Was my Robin Wood performance adequate, Maid Marian?” And snickered, although it came out as a soft snore.
She flushed and tried to divert my attention with another question.
The Colonel asked, “Were you fucking him, Doctor Cohen? That’s what the paid hooker was for. Or did you add that cash to your escape fund? Was that part of his therapy, too?”
“Yes,” she returned. “It bonded him even further to me. Made him eager to come back every time and reinforce the programming.”
“Did you wait till he was sixteen, doctor? Seventeen? Or did you start molesting him at fourteen?” The Colonel yelled.
“She likes it doggy style,” I added helpfully as she flushed a deep, angry red.
“You can’t listen to him, Colonel. He’s displaying all the signs of the schizoid break. He’s confusing reality with fantasy!”
“She has a birthmark on her pussy shaped like a rose. She shaves her pussy bare so she can show it to me,” I mumbled. She went for my face and they hauled her off me, but not before she smashed her hand into my nuts. I barely felt it, the Thorazine muted everything. Last I saw and heard was her shrieking as they carted her away.