Fan Fiction
Splatterhouse - Dark Horizons
=============================
Chapter 3: New Beginnings
-------------------------
The trial, when it came, was a short affair. Senator
Willis was baying for blood, given that Jennifer had ended up in
a coma
from which doctors didn't realistically expect her to emerge, so
he wanted someone's head on a plate, preferably Rick Taylor's, and
Senator Willis was a man who brooked no argument.
The prosecution team encountered some difficulties,
and if Rick had ever been given anything like a fair chance he would
have
been acquitted. But the Senator's influence, coupled with the voice
of anger rising from the ranks of the FBI, meant that Rick didn't get
a fair trial. No experienced lawyer wanted the case, so it was
left to a recently-graduated and inexperienced lawyer to defend
Rick. Because he was inexperienced, he didn't know enough to shoot
down the preposterous theory suggested by the prosecution, and so
their version of events was recorded as history.
According to that version, Rick was described
as genetically predisposed to catatonic schizophrenia. After some
unspecified
incident in May 1988 at West Mansion, he was exposed to an
unidentified hallucinogenic chemical which triggered a psychotic
reaction during which he killed Jack Gordon and Dr. Edmund Mueller
and kidnapped Jennifer, possibly drugging her with something like
rohypnol to remove her memories. He was arrested and taken into
care at the Belmont institute, where he exhibited schizophrenic
behaviour, and then had another psychotic episode three months
later.
During this episode he escaped from Belmont and
returned to West Mansion. Dan Loker and Carl Manthey were sent to
capture him,
but Manthey was almost killed and Loker didn't survive his foray into
West Mansion. Of the other thirty five agents who were sent as
back up, only six survived, all of them suffering from severe
schizoaffective disorder, presumably brought on by exposure to the
same chemical which had triggered Rick's first episode.
Then, five years later, Rick suffered another
episode. This time, Jennifer was the only victim. Agents had again
died,
but this time there were survivors who retained their sanity. Rick
was assumed to have caused the exposure to the hallucinogenic agent.
A more experienced lawyer would have known several
ways to get Rick off the hook.
Known to ask for some scientific evidence of
this "unknown
chemical agent" that formed the cornerstone of the prosecution's
case.
Known to get James Turner to testify as to Rick's
mental condition.
Known to go through the confidential files relating
to the history of West Mansion, and highlight the confusion of its
history, what with it being destroyed once, then found still
standing, then ordered to be torn down yet never destroyed.
But Rick's lawyer didn't know this, because he
had just finished law school. He tried his best to build a solid
case
for the defence, but his lack of experience was the crucial
factor.
The implication of mass murder was enough for the judge, who
decided that Rick would spend at least 15 years, preferably longer,
in the maximum security wing of the Belmont Home for the Emotionally
Troubled. He was not to be placed under the care of Dr. James Turner,
who had proved his incompetence when dealing with Taylor previously.
Most damaging to Rick, however, was the decision that David be placed
in the care of foster parents, allocated according to a decision by
the Department of State. Rick would be allowed no visitation rights
in the event that he was ever released from Belmont.
Rick felt as if he was watching a rather boring
courtroom drama on television while he was on trial. Nothing really
seemed to
be connected to him, and the feeling was that he would wake up
tomorrow and everything would be alright. Deep down, of course, he
knew it wouldn't be - the Mask had tricked him utterly and used
him for its own ends, and while he had stopped it from inflicting
its will on the world, his life had been taken from him.
Even the news, three days after the trial, that
Senator Willis had collapsed and died of a massive heart attack failed
to rouse Rick
from his dissociated state. He couldn't handle thinking about anything
that had happened to him, so he didn't.
Meanwhile, David's future was in jeopardy. Initially
he was to have stayed with Senator Willis, but that option was now
gone. The
Department of State was anxious to put a stop to the amount of media
attention currently focused on what the press were referring to as
the
Splatterhouse Psycho.
It was decided that, if David were sent away,
the media would lose its human interest angle. The case had attracted
much attention,
from provoking a national debate on whether horror literature should
be
banned to questions about how efficiently the FBI was operating. David
was the image that people remembered, a photo of him clutching his
teddy bear, waiting for his coma-bound mother, unaware of how much
his
world had changed.
Rick was not informed of the final decision reached
by the Department of State, which was to secretly smuggle the recently-renamed
David Foley to the United Kingdom, where adoptive parents were arranged
for him in Oxfordshire. Money from Rick's personal bank accounr was
put
into a trust fund which would pay for David's education. It was felt,
in the Department, that this arrangement best suited David's needs.
Had
he been asked, he would have merely asked, in a heartbroken voice,
when
his mommy was going to be alright.
* * *
When the decision came to have Rick put into
custody in Belmont, Manthey was in the courtroom, having been a key
witness for the
prosecution, and he had a terrible urge to applaud when the judge announced
the verdict. He had to satisfy himself with staring at Rick, steely-eyed,
a look of grim satisfaction on his face.
Edgar Dempsey was also present at the trial,
although his role had been less important, since he had waited with
David for Rick to return
to
the car rather than go anywhere near the house.
As Manthey drove back to work after the trial
had ended, Dempsey felt it might be his only chance to ever find
out what the hell had
made
Manthey bear such a grudge against Rick, given that Manthey was, for
the
first time since Dempsey had known him, actually cheerful and willing
to
talk about Richard Taylor.
"Why don't we stop off for a coffee, instead
of heading straight back to work? I got a doughnut-shaped hole in
my belly," suggested
Dempsey,
knowing that Carl was a doughnut junkie.
Manthey nodded, the grim smile still on his face,
and headed for their regular coffee joint.
"Thank Christ that judge was bright enough
to see what the truth was,
and not be taken in by Rick's bullshit, that's what I say", Manthey
commented.
"That's a little.....harsh, isn't it?"
"Harsh? What the hell do you mean? We lost
almost fifty men overall
in the lunacy surrounding West Mansion, or the 'Splatterhouse', as
I hear
the gutter press referring to it now, and one of those men was my old
partner,
Dan Loker. So pardon me for being glad that the motherfucker responsible
is
where he belongs! In fact, where he *belongs* is in the goddamn electric
chair, but sadly this ain't Texas," exploded Manthey.
Something about the slight change in his voice
when he spoke about Loker made Edgar curious, as if he almost but
not quite understood.
He knew
that if he wanted to get to the root of Manthey's hatred of Rick he
would have
to be careful.
"Would I be right in saying that, since
you first met Rick, things
have gone wrong in your life? That he could be considered as the catalyst
for
the changes in your life?"
Not a great line, a little too clinical, but
hell, if it got him talking, it'd do.
"Well, gee, let me check, Edgar. He shattered
my neck, nearly killing
me and putting me through about two years of hell where I had to learn
how
to walk again like a goddamn baby, he killed Loker, my partner, and
as a result
of what he did to me my wife decided she wanted a divorce and she's
now living
in California on the alimony my sorry ass has to pay her. What the
fuck do
you think?"
"I'd say that's a yes, although you never
really...explained about the divorce. I mean, I don't want to pry
-" Dempsey paused, since they had
reached
the donut place.
They walked inside and sat at their usual booth,
and once they had ordered, Manthey gestured for Dempsey to repeat
the question.
"Well, I never really understood about your
divorce with your wife."
"What's not to understand? The bitch claimed
she loved me for years,
then suddenly jets off to California to fuck some bronzed surfer boy
and live
off my money. What part of this don't you get?" came the answer,
muffled
occasionally as Manthey chewed hungrily on his donut.
"Well, why? I mean, you can't get a divorce
without a reason, right? I
remember you mentioned something about effects of what Rick did to
you years
ago," Manthey's face clouded at this, but Dempsey plunged onwards,"but
I never
really felt right asking. But if we're partners now, it might be worth
us
knowing this kind of stuff about each other."
"The reason I told you, and the reason my
wife gave the court was that
after what I'd been through, I was infertile, and she wanted children.
Court
found in her favour, the rest has been explained at more length than
i care to
consider."
"Really? You hate Rick that much because
he made Nicole leave you? All
I've ever heard is abuse for that woman from you....seems kinda hard
to believe
you loved her that much before."
"Well *duh*, asshole. You never knew me
before she divorced me, did you?
Look, I'm sick of going over all this old bullshit, can we change the
subject?
Anything would be preferable than this, its like watching the fuckin'
History
channel or something," snarled Manthey, his lip curling into its
usual sneer.
Sighing, Dempsey nodded. He could tell when to
stop pushing, with Carl. It wasn't exactly hard - you just had to
watch his eyes. You
could almost
see the defensive walls going up behind them when his mood changed.
It was
as if a light went out.
They finished up their coffee and doughnuts,
paid, and left. They didn't
say a word to each other in the half hour it took to get back to their
office.
* * *
Rick arrived at Belmont in a straightjacket and
remained so for his first night, and such was his state of mind that
he didn't even complain the
next
morning after having been forced to sleep in it, when none of the attendants
dared go into his cell to remove it for him.
He had been placed under the care of Marcus Contino.
The two met on the
second day of Rick's time in Belmont, and from the beginning, they
didn't get
on. Contino didn't like Rick simply because Rick had been a patient
of James
Turner, who seemed to go out of his way to spite him. Rick didn't like
Contino
because of his habit of treating Rick alternately as a mentally deficient
doorknob or a psychopathic killer.
Given the debilitated and broken state of Rick's
mind, Contino oughtn't have been surprised at his lack of reaction
in their first interview
session,
but he initially chose to interpret it as a wilful act of awkwardness.
Rick spent that entire hour-long session staring
with sightless eyes at
the diplomas on the wall in Contino's office. He didn't utter a word,
though
his lips silently traced their way around two words, alternately.
David.
Jennifer.
Frustrated after an hour of one-sided and extremely
biased conversation, Contino eventually dismissed Rick, summoning
orderlies to escort him
back to
his padded cell, and made some brief notes. After several more sessions,
he
changed his mind and decided that Rick was in fact catatonic, perhaps
due to
delayed shock. He didn't yet know why, but he resolved to find out.
He would
find out, and he would prove that Rick was criminally insane, beyond
all doubt,
and that would prove that James Turner was a fool, not a psychiatrist,
and he,
Marcus Contino, would finally begin to gain the respect of the experts
of the
psychiatric world.
He picked up one of the many textbooks on his
bookshelf and started reading about psychotic disorders again, not
so much to gain any new
knowledge
as to focus his mind onto the problem at hand.
On the wall, above his desk, a clock ticked the
minutes away, as Contino read his textbook and thought about Rick
Taylor and James Turner.
* * *
To tell the truth, those years under Contino
were not the hell that James Turner later imagined, at least not
at first. I was utterly catatonic,
lost in a world of my own devising, barely responding to external stimuli.
I
don't know the words for it exactly as I'm not a psychiatrist, but
Dr. Turner
tells me that I was suffering from a form of disossiative amnesia -
but I don't
want to get too far ahead of myself.
The important thing about the Contino sessions
was that due to a petty
yet enduring rivalry between James Turner and Marcus Contino - most
of which I
believe to have been on Contino's side - Contino never actually spoke
to Dr.
Turner about the three months where he had first tried to figure out
what had
happened to me, or the subsequent therapy I underwent.
Instead of this, he took as gospel the words
of the prosecution, who had
in an extremely biased form - so I am told, anyway - made enquiries
about
psychotic disorders and distorted the answers they received to make
my behaviour
appear to be evidence of a psychotic disorder. He started out my treatment
with an assumption that I was a delusional murderer, with the intention
to cure
me of my delusions and make me fit to re-enter society, or some cliche
like that.
Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at his job.
After the...well, the
series of events that ended the Contino sessions for good, an investigation
found
out that he had obtained his job under false pretences. He didn't have
half the
qualifications he listed on his CV, but someone in Belmont HR owed
him a favour
or something like that.
It might appear an insignificant detail, but
it becomes very important when you consider how the man attempted
to treat me. It took him three
years
to get me to say something other than the two words which had become
my mantra.
Even then, he didn't get much out of me. My name, recognition of my
adress.
He was always too...too blunt, too clinical, when he tried to ask me
about
Jennifer or David.
I don't think he actually thought of me as a
human being. I was more like a test that he had to pass to be a respected
psychiatrist. It
sure felt
that way, at any rate.
He used me as a test for a variety of treatments,
more out of a desire to try them out than out of any real hope that
they might cure
me. He
discarded the notion of regressive hypnotherapy, instead pumping me
full of
whatever the new wonder drug was. Often the effects wouldn't kick in
until I
was back in my cell, at which point I'd scream myself hoarse, and then
two
orderlies would come into the cell, put a straitjacket on me to stop
me from
hurting myself - and them, probably - and then they'd leave me to sleep
it off.
I think my sanity was actually in more danger
while I was being treated by that maniac than when I was in West
Mansion. I'm glad, in
some ways,
about what happened. I know I shouldn't be, but on the other hand it
was him
or me, towards the end.
* * *
Edgar Dempsey sat in his office, long after the
majority of his co-workers had left the building, and for the most
part swore at the monitor he sat in
front
of. His fingers danced across the keyboard in short bursts. He was looking
for
something that he had no tangible reason to need, and had no right to be looking
at, which was why he was "working late". He didn't want to get caught
in the act.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for,
although it was almost one
in the morning when he did so. He grinned faintly to himself, and then
set
about the task of removing all the computer's evidence that he had
been in that
afternoon.
The next morning he came in looking unusually
chirpy for someone who had
been up until about two am. He slurped down his coffee and read his
morning
brief with more aplomb than usual, and it wasn't long before his naturally
irate
partner Manthey brought it up in his usual fashion.
"What you so happy about, Dempsey?"
"Oh, nothin'."
"Bullshit. You're not even this smug on
the rare occasions you get laid.
Something you'd care to share?"
"Not really, to be honest. I'm sure it'd
only annoy you. You know the
way you get when Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking at your door? I'd
rather not
be to blame for invoking that on this lovely morning."
"Suit yourself," replied Manthey, muttering "High
as a kite," to
himself, and resuming his reading. Dempsey started whistling a cheerful
little tune which bore into Manthey's brain and scrambled all attempts
at
intelligent thought.
"Ok, asshole. Seriously, this time. What
the hell have you been smoking
that you're so cheerful? I refuse to believe that you just woke up
with this joy
for the lot of mankind burning in your breast this morning."
"I-know-something-you-don't-know," replied
Dempsey in a sing-song
voice. "Well, that's not entirely true. It's more like you know
something I
don't know, but I know that you know it now, so I'm going to annoy
you about it
until you tell me."
Manthey stared at him.
"Sometimes it amazes me that they let you in this job," he
deadpanned.
"A little birdie tells me that you haven't
been entirely truthful with
me when we've talked about Rick Taylor and why you hate his guts so
much."
"Oh, Christ, not this again."
"Yes indeed. Anything you'd care to share,
Carl? Go on, you can trust
Uncle Edgar."
Manthey stared at Dempsey and recognized for
the first time the devious intelligence at work behind those eyes.
They were boring into him and
reading
his mind from the inside, or at least that's what it felt like. But
he was
damned if some little upstart was going to get him like this.
"Yeah, there is, actually."
"Do tell."
"Your breath stinks."
Manthey resumed his reading. Dempsey tutted under his breath.
"I expected better than that, Carl."
A raised middle finger answered him. He grinned.
"More your style, yes, but still lacking
a certain panache."
He let Manthey read in silence for a few minutes,
even doing some reading of his own for the look of it, then casually
re-started the
conversation.
"Carl?"
"Yes, Edgar?"
"Why did you lie to me about your divorce?"
"Huh?!"
Manthey frowned, but Dempsey had seen the signs
he knew to look for, just for a split second. The "I've been found out" look
on Manthey's face,
that look like a deer caught in headlights, just for a second, before
it was
carefully replaced with surprised ignorance.
"No games, Carl. I have it on good authority
- don't ask me how, I
wouldn't tell you, but now I know I'm sure I can get the information
legitimately - that you and Nicole didn't split up due to your infertility.
The
officially given reason was," he cleared his throat, and continued
in a mock
serious voice,"irreparable breakdown of marriage," he finished,
and let silence
reign for a few seconds before continuing.
"Not an uncommon reason for divorce, I agree,
but often there's something of an explanation appended to the file.
Not so in your case.
Not one
word about infertility, which makes me wonder. It makes me think 'Why
would
good ole Carl Manthey, who's got nothing to hide, tell a pointless
lie like
that?'"
Manthey stared at him with furious accusation in his eyes.
"You have no right. No right to go reading
about me like that. That's all you're getting out of me. I suggest
you drop the subject,
unless you
want me to drop you instead," he said, his words edged with steel.
Dempsey stared back, and saw the walls in place.
Still, it had worked to an extent. Going behind Carl's back would
only get him part of the
way.
Whatever his secret was, it was of an evidently personal and painful
nature.
Tact would get him further than forcefulness.
* * *
"Mister Foley, I can assure you that you
will learn more in my class if
you actually pay attention to what I am saying."
The words snapped David from his trance, and
he looked up guiltily at his
teacher. Blushing, he mumbled an apology and tried to concentrate on
the history
book open in front of him.
He always seemed to have this problem in history
class. He tried his
hardest but he just couldn't help it. His mind would conjure up images
which he
didn't recognise but felt to be half-memories, perhaps fragments of
a forgotten
dream. Or nightmare, rather. A sense of loss permeated the trances,
along with
various monstruous creatures, and beating at the centre of them like
a distorted
heart, was the mask.
The mask scared David, and he didn't know why.
It seemed to have an evil
aura, and David was always right about auras. He didn't know how he
knew, but he
was certain the mask was evil, and it troubled him that he saw it so
often in
these daydreamed trances.
Staring at the page, he shifted his hand slightly,
and began to give himself papercuts on his thumb, to keep him awake.
He knew he couldn't
afford
to fail history class or he would be kept back a year. It was already
bad
enough for him at school, with the other kids too afraid of his weird
behaviour, but he didn't want to be called a retard as well.
By the end of the class his thumb was seeping
blood slowly, and he knew
he would have to go to the nurse before his next class to get plasters
put on
it. He sighed. Life wasn't meant to be this miserable for a twelve
year old.
That afternoon he was again sent home with a
note from the nurse for his
parents. He didn't give it to them - he never did. He was already alienated
from
the kids in his school by his behaviour, and he didn't want his parents
to send
him to a boarding school or some institution to deal with it. He hoped
that it
was just some sort of pre-pubescent phase, but he wasn't too hopeful.
Feeling drained, he lay in bed, hoping to revive
his flagging spirits after a nap. At first he couldn't sleep, but
eventually he drifted
off into an
uneasy sleep.
* * *
He was standing alone in the driving rain. Looking
around, he found he was somewhere he didn't recognize, some deserted
stretch of road in the
countryside. The rain was driving the cold into him, and it was a dark night,
clouds covering the sky so that the moon and the stars were invisible.
The only source of light around was an enormous
house, almost more of
a fairytale castle than a house. It loomed before him, towering above
him in
impossible ways, seeming somehow to be larger near its peaks than at
the base.
Forest surrounded it on the east side, eventually giving way to a large
lake,
and on the west side-
He recoiled in horror after trying to survey
the land immediately to the
west of the house. An unbearable aura of death emanated from the place,
leaving
an effect in his mind akin to the stench of rotted flesh. It wasn't
just death,
either. It was death and something else, some eldritch evil that fed
its hunger
on death and suffering.
A roar filled his ears, and he saw enormous doors
open at the base of
the castle. A tide of creatures poured from it, accompanied by swarms
of
flying monstrosities descending from the twisted turrets of the place.
In the
middle distance, the surface of the lake was disturbed by a multitude
of small
splashes, suggesting that creatures were abandoning it.
He was rooted to the spot, his fear anchoring
him. He could see an entire army of monsters heading towards the
spot where he stood in
the endless
rain, knew that he was surely doomed, and yet beneath it all there
was a
sensation of something else.
He felt a peculiar itching in his brain, as though
something were trying to break through into his head. After a few
seconds the sensation
changed, and now it felt as though he was moving some hitherto at speed
through
some viscous medium.
The foremost of the monsters were almost upon
him. He could see along their ranks, beyond just the first wave.
He could *feel*, rather than
see,
their mad angry animalistic hunger, could see in his head how those
in the
middle ranks were attacking each other, devouring the weakest. It was
still
a shock to see the ones at the front of the column in their full horror.
The
shock was such that time seemed to slow for him, as though he were
observing
the scene from far away.
There were enormous sloth-like creatures, seemingly
all stomach, with
an enormous mouth and several arms. Around them were clustered scores
of small
creatures which looked like mutated and decayed crows, pecking the
flesh from
the teeth of the sloth monsters. Occasionally one of the crow-like
creatures
would not retreat with sufficient haste, and the larger monster would
take a
bite at it, usually crushing it into two. Whenever this happened, the
surviving
creatures would chirp with glee and dart in, to try and steal a few
morsels
of flesh from those crushing jaws.
Around them crawled strange six-armed spiderlike
creatures with eyes between their arms and an enormous mouth as a
stomach. Far more agile
than
their appearance suggested, they crawled, bounced or in some cases
pinwheeled
their way around the other creatures, never missing a chance to devour
any
fallen comrade mercilessly, the six arms tearing flesh from flesh with
consummate ease.
The bulk of the marching masses were shambling,
decomposed corpses. They might once have been human, but were on
the whole missing too
many body
parts for him to be sure. None of them had skin, and very few of them
seemed
to have heads. Their flesh seemed to crawl and glisten even in the
near-
darkness, and his stomach churned when he realised that the effect
was due
to maggots feeding on the creatures as they stumbled blindly towards
him.
The only creatures not feeding on each other
were the most humanoid ones. Their bodies appeared to have been rotting
underground for several
weeks, and their skin was unpleasantly sallow, but they were the closest
things to humans in this hellish landscape. Their heads were oversized
and
the reason for this was horribly apparent - the top part of their skulls
had
been removed to make way for the things' oversized brains.
He tore his gaze away from the creatures on the
ground to try and observe some of the screeching horrors flying inexorably
towards him
from the
twisted Escherian nightmare of the castle/house's upper reaches, but
as he moved
his head upwards slowly, the strange sensation in his head suddendly
increased to
a fever pitch and he screamed, at the same time as something small,
warm and
strangely sticky flew out of the darkness at what felt like an appreciable
fraction of the speed of light, striking him in the face and knocking
him to
the ground.
He lay on the floor struggling with whatever
it was, trying desperately to
wrench it from him, as it bored into him with its warm gooey tentacles,
and then
there was just darkness, suffocating him-
* * *
"Well, Mr. Taylor. How are you feeling today?"
I shrugged, mutely. I'd long ago learned that
complaining about the medication would do nothing to stop Contino
prescribing it to me. If
anything,
he seemed to regard negative reactions as a positive sign, and usually
increased
my dosage.
"Oh, come now. This petulant silence is
so unbecoming in you, after the
progress we've made in recent weeks."
Progress, he called it.
After months of having my veins crammed with
just about every medicine he could lay his hands on with never a
care as to the side-effects
or efficiency,
he spoke to me of progress. I imagined he was referring to the fact
that I had
recently started speaking to him in the sessions. The constantly drug-addled
haze
in which he had previously kept me had become if anything worse than
the waking
world, and on some level I suppose I realised that the only chance
I had to
retain any vestige of sanity was to play by his rules.
"I've not been sleeping well," I said
coldly.
"Oh, really? Why?" he replied, not
even pretending to be concerned.
"Well, spending the night gibbering about
big green monsters coming out
the walls to try and eat you has this way of stopping you from sleeping," was
what I *wanted* to say. I didn't say it, instead just shrugging again,
staring at
him in the way that I had found made him uncomfortable enough to not
really fuck
with me.
"Perhaps it's a side effect of your medication...it
is after all still
in its experimental stages. I may move you back to a straight dosage
of valium
and some psychotic suppressant if the sessions continue well."
If that was the best he could do in terms of
dangling a carrot in front
of my nose, he could go try to fuck a rolling doughnut. I was in no
mood for the
man's childish games, but I was also aware that not going along with
him would only
get me spiked with more random chemicals. There seemed to be a strange
and no
doubt intentional correlation between the probability of my medication
being
hallucinogenic, and how much attitude I displayed during the sessions.
After seven years of this bullshit - a fact which
I am only aware of
because Contino keeps a calendar behind his desk, I might add. The
drugs
completely erased several years of my life in Belmont - I had had enough,
and I
was perfectly prepared at the time to make him treat me like a human
being either
by being sullen and childish or by beating his brains out with whatever
blunt
instrument was at hand.
I stared into his eyes, those small piggy eyes
in that strangely puffy
face of his, and I knew what sort of opponent he was. The bullied kid
who finally
got a little power, a way to make himself feel better. But no-one had
ever made
him feel good about himself, so the way he assumed it was done was
to bring his
power to bear on other people. Power equals fear equals respect. That
was the
fundamental equation of Marcus Contino's soul.
Exhaling heavily, I tried to calm myself, aware
that killing this miserable
wretch would be betraying myself. I knew that I was more than this.
But I couldn't
shake the ire that his dull goading instilled in me. Unable to think
of a better
course of action, I decided to voice my thoughts.
"I don't like you, and I think you know
it."
He looked minorly taken aback at that statement,
as if he genuinely hadn't
expected it.
"Wha-why not? I thought we were getting
to be friends. I talk to you, don't
I? And I'm trying to make you better, Rick. You know that you're a
very sick man,
don't you?"
I snorted my derision.
"Oh, please. You've thought I'm a psychopath
since the day I was put in your
care, and the only reason you make such a show of trying to cure me
is to further
your career. I don't like you and you don't like me, and there's no
point
pretending that the two of us are buddies, so you can drop the act."
After a few seconds, Contino smiled nastily.
He raised his eyebrows as he
spoke.
"Finally decided to open up then, Rick?
Why don't you tell me what's really
on your mind?"
"I'm about to. I want to complain about
whatever extract of magic mushrooms
you've prescribed me this week, on the basis that it's causing me to
have
nightmares and hallucinations that are interfering with my sleeping
cycle. I can
barely close my eyes without having these visions-"
"Describe these visions for me, please," Contino
interrupted, suddenly
interested. I sighed in exasperation, then carried on speaking.
"In the most common one, I find myself standing
in the dark, somewhere in
the countryside. The sky is clouded over and it's raining. My clothes
are soaked
through. I'm standing outside a large house or mansion, but there's
something
strange about it. There's a forest on one side of it, and....a barren
wasteland on
the other side. There's an aura of old evil around the wasteland," I
said,
shuddering as I recalled the vividness of the dream.
A couple of seconds passed, then Contino goaded me again.
"Go on."
"I look up at the house and it seems wrong,
distorted, in its upper regions.
It seems more like a castle than a house the farther up you go, all
twisting
spires and turrets. It seems wider the farther up you go, and some
of its
architecture makes no sense, in the same way as a Mobius strip. The
nearest
I can get to it is by comparing it to one of those Escher paintings.
And then-"
I gasped as my description of the dream bloomed
into a full-blown flashback,
the office falling away from me, my world darkening. Seconds passed
and then the
darkness lightened into the scenario I had been describing for Contino.
I looked
up at the nightmarish spirals and turrets of the demented building
before me, and
heard again the horrendous clanging of its gates opening. Hordes of
monstruous
creatures poured from its gates as winged demons flew down from the
heights, and
this time a new detail became firmly etched in my head.
Every single one of them bore the face of Marcus Contino.
I screamed.
"They're all around me! Everywhere! They're
pouring from the doors and the
windows and the turrets and they're flying towards me and they're so
hungry that
they eat each other along the way and they're coming for me and I can't
move and
something else is hunting me as well, something even more evil and
I can't move to
escape-" I gibbered, trailing off as I began to hyperventilate.
I was dimly aware of someone holding me by the
shoulders, shaking me, but
I couldn't see. Something dark and sticky had struck me in the face
and covered my
eyes, rendering me blind, and I panicked as I felt gooey tendrils snake
into my
mouth and down my throat.
I struck out and hit something solid. The tendrils
paused, uncertain. I
groped blindly in front of me, clawing uselessly at my face in a futile
attempt to
clear my eyes of their obstruction. I was certain that at any second
hordes of
infernal monstrosities would be fighting each other for scraps of my
flesh, unless
I could run away. And I couldn't run blind.
My seeking hands found flesh, and rained blow
after blow upon it. Despite
my blind state, I could feel red all around me, a hazy fog in my head,
driving me
to desperate acts in a last effort of self preservation. My mouth was
watering,
saliva dripping down my jaw, and my breath came in heavy ragged gasps.
Eventually I realised that whatever I had been
fighting was no longer moving. I slumped to the floor, exhausted,
and passed out, all thoughts
of
escaping the monsters forgotten. For their part, the creatures seemed
to have
retreated, perhaps wary after seeing the fate of my most recent victim.
* * *
"Mr Foley!"
David blinked repeatedly, looking around him
as if trying to work out where
he was. His classmates were staring at him, in fear and morbid fascination.
He
swallowed and realised his chin was slathered with saliva. Self-consciously,
he
wiped it on his sleeve.
His breathing was ragged and his pulse was racing,
but he had no idea why.
It must have been a daydream of some sort. Whatever it was, old Hardy
was seriously
angry with him, which wasn't a good sign. Boring as the old codger
was, usually a
light reprimand was the most he administered, but this time he had
shouted.
Presumably less fierce comments had passed unnoticed.
"I-I'm sorry, sir," he mumbled. Hardy
frowned, staring hard at him.
"I'm afraid sorry really isn't good enough,
mister Foley. You have been
persistently inattentive in my class, and now you are actively preventing
others
from learning by means of utterly vulgar and childish pranks. You may
find those
noises amusing. I do not. Save your heavy breathing for prank phone
calls, if you
don't mind. And see me after class for detention."
"I-yes, sir," mumbled David, blushing
under the unwavering attention of his
classmates.
What did he mean, heavy breathing? And childish
pranks? He was dimly aware
of having daydreamed recently, but it seemed like the same nightmare
he kept
having. Something had been different this time, though. He couldn't
pinpoint what,
exactly, but some little detail had been different.
From what he could remember of the dream, he
was usually frozen in fear,
waiting for a horde of monsters to tear him to pieces. But if his breathing
was
heavy and his pulse was still faster than normal, then he must have
overcome that.
They had talked about the fight-or-flight reaction in biology class
recently. He
must have fought, this time.
He couldn't work out whether that was a good
sign or a bad one, but opted to
try and not think about it until the end of the class. With the mood
Hardy was in,
it would probably pay to at least appear to study.
* * *
"Carl?"
Dempsey stood at the door to the office he shared
with Carl Manthey and
called over to his partner, a cup of coffee in one hand and a fax in
the other.
There was no discernible response from Manthey, but something about
his body
language suggested that he was now paying even less attention to the
world in
general and that part of it occupied by Edgar Dempsey than usual.
"Carl, damnit, it's been a month. Can you
get over this drama queen thing
you have going on and just acknowledge me when I talk to you? This
is important."
No response. Edgar sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Look, Carl, I've already apologised repeatedly
for rooting in your past
without your permission, but I told you why. We can't keep secrets
from each
other if we're going to be partners. I'm not asking you to tell me
your favourite
sexual deviance or anything like that, but you have to fucking *trust*
me-OW!" he
yelled, as his coffee spilled over his hand in response to being waved
in the air.
"Motherfucker!" he grumbled, putting
his coffee and the fax on his desk and
then nursing his hand. Looking up, he saw Manthey grinning.
"That's right, you bastard. Laugh away.
Let me guess - it serves me right.
Well now that you're in a better mood, take a look at this. I thought
it might
interest you," Dempsey said, proferring the fax to Manthey.
"What is it?" asked Manthey, grabbing
it.
"Report from the Belmont Home for the Emotionally
Troubled. I'm not sure
why they sent it to us, but I presume it's because of our past on the
Rick Taylor
case. Read it."
Manthey scanned the page, skipping the introductory
waffle, and whistled when he reached the main paragraph. Eyebrows
raised, he put the paper
down and
took a deep breath.
After a minute's silence, Dempsey spoke.
"So what do you think?"
"What do I think? I think what I've always
known - that Rick Taylor is a
psycho, and that his killing of this shrink is only surprising in that
the idiots
let it happen. Says here he was 'exhibiting classic symptoms of chemically
induced
hallucinations'. With his background, and they give him hallucinations.
Probably
didn't even keep him in a straightjacket. Well, I'm not surprised."
"You want to know something interesting?" asked
Dempsey.
"Try me," replied Manthey, frowning
as he stared at the fax on his desk.
"I phoned the Massachussets Housing Development
Board just after the chief
passed this on to me. You remember that after the trial the order was
re-issued
for West Mansion to be torn down? Guess what."
"The house is still there?"
Dempsey smiled mirthlessly.
"You want to go check it out?"
Manthey stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded.
* * *
"Ah, David. Good. I've been meaning to speak
to you for some time about your inability to pay attention in my
class."
"Yes, sir," replied David, staring
at the floor. He had been forced to
resort to cutting his fingers again to stop himself drifting off into
a day-
dream, and his fists were tightly clenched to prevent Hardy from seeing
the
slow ooze of blood.
"Quite frankly, David, I wonder why you
come to my classes. On the rare
occasions that you pay attention you seem able to cope with the subject,
but
most of the time you'd rather be staring into space. I've spoken to
your
other teachers and this behaviour is becoming more common, but apparently
it
crops up mainly in my class. Now why is that, do you think?"
"Don't know, sir," mumbled David, still
staring at the floor.
"If you don't like the material we're covering,
that's quite understandable,
but you should say so. Daydreaming won't help you, and I have to remind
you
that if you don't do well on your end of year exam you will be held
back a year.
Now I don't think that would do you any good, but those are the rules
and there's
not a lot I can do about them. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," he mumbled again. His hands
were really hurting now, and he
wished he could get home to the first aid box and patch them up. The
sweat in
his palms was making the cuts itch.
"David..."began Hardy,"is everything
all right?"
David looked up, a frown of confusion on his face.
"How'd you mean, sir?"
"At home. Are you...are things ok for you?
No...rows with your parents? No
problems?" Hardy said, as gently as he knew how. David returned
his gaze to the
floor.
"No, sir. No problems."
"Show me your hands please, David."
His eyes shot up at that.
"Why?"
"I'd just like to see them please, David.
You've had your hands bunched into
fists this entire conversation."
Reluctantly, David opened his hands out, exposing
the smears of blood on his
palms and the jagged papercuts with which he had kept himself awake
during the
class. Hardy gasped, eyes widening, eyebrows raised.
"Good lord! What happened to you, my boy?"
David swallowed. "I,um, did it myself, sir.
To keep me from daydreaming in
class again, sir." Hardy looked at him sharply, but David held
his gaze.
"Are you serious?"
David swallowed again. "Yes, sir. I- I can't
help it, sir. I don't mean to
be rude, sir, but it only happens in your class. I try to pay attention,
but I
keep getting these daydreams, sir, like the nightmare I keep having-"
"Nightmare? Are you *sure* things are alright
at home, David?"
"Yes, sir. I've just been having nightmares
recently. But, I don't know
why, history class seems to make me daydream. Sorry, sir," David
said, smiling
apologetically. Hardy looked down at his hands and then at the boy's
face.
"Well from the look of things there's something
rather more serious
going on than I had assumed. From what I saw in class today I assume
these
daydreams are fairly vivid, yes?"
David nodded.
"I'm worried, David. Very worried. This
isn't normal. I'm going to have
to arrange to speak with your parents. I think that a few sessions
with the
school psychologist might well do you good."
"Please, sir. Don't tell my parents, sir.
I don't want them to worry."
Hardy looked at the boy's worried expression and sighed.
"David, your parents have to know about
this more than anyone else. It's
important that they know what's going on in your life so that they
can help you.
But...if you feel that strongly about it, I can try to organise sessions
for you
directly with the psychologist. I can't promise that he won't tell
your parents,
though. And now I suppose you should go to your next class."
David smiled. "Thanks, sir."
He extended a hand after wiping it on the seat
of his trousers. After a
second's hesitation, Hardy gripped it gently and shook hands with him.
His eyes
widened after a second, and his mouth formed an 'O'. David gasped and
tugged
his hand back, as if from a hot stove.
"Wha-" began Hardy, but David had already turned
and run from the classroom.
|
