Brooks stood and sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know why she would come here instead of seeing someone through the agency. No offense, but they already have her records. They know what she’s been through.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to trust strangers who don’t have an agenda, as opposed to an employer or a government agency.”
Brooks narrowed his eyes at the man. “You had no agenda when you called me?”
“My agenda is only what’s best for my patients.” Ashmead said. “As it happens, the administrators and I disagree on what that is. I think Becca would be safest to remain in our care. In a more controlled environment than before, of course.”
“And what does the management think?”
“That she’s a danger to the staff and other patients. That she has already caused too much damage and disturbance for someone barely insured.”
“They want to send her home.”
“She admitted herself voluntarily. I think they’re hoping that SPECTRA will intervene and take care of it now that you’re aware. I thought, perhaps, if you confirmed there might be more than mass psychosis at work here, some phenomenon worthy of research…it might sway them. Perhaps a partnership with the agency could be arranged? If they detected even a whiff of potential grant money… I believe I could help her.”
“And what does Becca want?”
“She’s not talking much today.”
“Maybe she’ll talk to me.”
* * *
Brooks thought the intern had showed him to the wrong room. The woman curled up on top of the neatly made bed matched Becca’s basic size and shape, but looked thinner and aged beyond her 26 years—hair stiff and unruly, unblinking eyes as vacant as blue marbles. She wore gray flannel pajama pants with the drawstring removed and a white V-neck T-shirt. Her door, unlocked, was watched by an orderly stationed in a molded plastic chair at the end of the hall. They had moved her from the sleep study wing to a room that was little more than a cell. Brooks swallowed hard and raised a hand to stop his escort from following him in.
“I can find the way back to Dr. Ashmead’s office on my own,” he told the intern, closing the door on her before she could argue.
“Becca,” he said. Her eyelids twitched at the sound of his voice, but her stare remained fixed on the wall, a shade of green that was probably named something like Sea Foam on the swatch; chosen, no doubt, for its soothing hue.
A quick scan of the room revealed no reflective surfaces except for the tall window overlooking the icy parking lot. Brooks thought of a visit he and Becca had paid to the home of one of the Boston event witnesses. Tom Petrie, a mild-mannered IT professional whose exposure to harmonically charged incantations had briefly endowed him with the Extra Dimensional Entity Perception that Brooks and Becca still retained. Tom had been treated with Nepenthe after the crisis, but his child, born the following year, seemed to have inherited the perception, as well as an innate ability to chant incantations from some combination of deep cellular memory and mutant vocal cords. Brooks remembered asking Tom why he and his wife had removed all the mirrors from their home and even taped up the reflective hardware of the kitchen sink. The answer had chilled him: little Noah saw things in mirrors, terrible things that gave him nightmares. The child also produced paintings of these creatures that exceeded the artistic abilities of a normal toddler.
Brooks took a step toward Becca. “Knock knock,” he said.
No response, not even a blink.
“Your line is ‘Who’s there?’ And then I say, ‘It’s your emergency contact, Jason.’ Even though I could never get you to call me Jason.”
Becca blinked at the wall.
“You in there, Philips? Anybody home?” He tapped the corner of the bedframe with his shoe. She closed her eyes and a tear slipped out, darkening the pillowcase.
Brooks sat at the foot of the bed. “So who’s taking care of Django while you’re in the loony bin?”
Did that grimace contain the ghost of a smile?
“Let me guess: Neil?”
Becca nodded.
“I was surprised when the doc called me instead of him.”
“Sorry.” Her voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in a hundred years.
“Don’t be. I’m flattered. I hear you had a rough night.”
She swallowed. There was a plastic cup of water on the night table beside the bed. He almost passed it to her, but then decided against it. Too much proximity, any sudden movements, might close that tiny crack he’d wedged open in her armor.
“Doctor Ashmead tells me you sang in your sleep and broke a mirror.”
Under the T-shirt, her ribs rose and fell with a deep breath that she didn’t waste on words.
“It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about it. But I’m glad you put my number down. I wish you’d called me when you needed help, before checking in here. That dream…same time, same channel? I have it too, if I don’t get hammered.”
Brooks laid his hand on the blanket beside Becca’s knee. She opened her eyes, grasped his rough fingers in her clammy hand, and squeezed them fiercely.
“Scared,” she said, and her lip quivered.
“Me too,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Chapter 3
Brooks called Heather from the hallway while Becca dressed. “Hey, I need a favor. You mind if a friend of mine borrows some of the clothes you packed up for the move? I’ll wash and fold ‘em after I pick up her own stuff. And maybe a hairbrush?”
“This the friend you had to go and see so urgently? She’s moving in with you?”
“Yeah. No. She’s in pretty rough shape and needs a hand is all.”
Heather made a sharp sound that might have been a laugh. Brooks scratched the back of his head and looked at the orderly, who had his eyes on his paperback, ears on the conversation. “Just for a little while. She’s someone from work. Needs a safe place to clear her head. I’ll explain more when I can.”
“She’s an agent?”
“Not exactly.”
“Recovering cultist? Gambler?”
“No and no.”
“Dad, what are you getting yourself into?”
“I’ll explain when I can. Look, I know it’s shitty timing with me trying to help you get off to grad school. I’d say I’ll make it up to you, but that sounds like the kind of crap I used to not deliver on. It’s just… I’m trying to help someone who is actually a hero, okay? Truly. What happened in Boston when you were living there…it could have been worse. That’s all I can say.”
Nothing but breathing on the line.
“Heather?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you help me?”
“Yeah. A change of clothes and what else? She need a toothbrush and shampoo?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll pick those up and leave some clothes out. I’ll be gone before you get home.”
He thought of telling her she didn’t have to leave but knew it would be better not to tax Becca with meeting anyone in her current state. Maybe Heather sensed it too, or maybe she was sparing herself. Either way, he was grateful.
* * *
Brooks drove with the windows cracked open in the hope that the cool air might do something to rejuvenate the stranger in the passenger seat. Becca, with the collar of her army jacket turned up, blinked at the brightness of the day. By 4:10, when they left the psych center, most of the ice on the road had melted and a hint of spring wafted off the misty trees lining the grass islands in the highway. To Brooks, it felt like they might be driving out the far side of the last winter storm.
When they turned into the driveway of Brooks’ house—a two-story Craftsman in Malden with beige vinyl siding and a built-in garage—Heather’s Toyota was already gone, presumably back to her near-empty apartment in Jamaica Plain. Brooks killed the engine and looked at Becca. She stared up at the house but made no move to unbuckle her seatbelt. “You live here?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah. I moved the family out here after the old house in Revere flooded. Heather was almost out of school by then, so my only criteria was higher ground. When Heather moved out to college, Nina followed and filed for divorce. She bought that brownstone in Brookline, closer to her practice, and I kept this place. It’s too big for me but I like mowing the little backyard. Crazy, huh? Anyway, plenty of room for you while we figure out what to do.”
Becca bit her lip.
Brooks glanced at the rearview mirror. “Listen,” he said, “you sit tight while I run in and hang sheets over the mirrors, okay? Would that make you feel better?”
She nodded.
“Probably an unnecessary precaution,” he said. “I mean, you’re not gonna start singing the Cthulhu Blues if you’re awake, right?”
She let out a little laugh, music to his ears.
“Just in case. Back in a flash.”
Brooks hadn’t looked for guest bedding since before Nina moved out. In Heather’s old room, there was a mirror attached to the dresser on metal tracks. He slid it out and stowed it facedown under the bed. A few closet searches later, he was loaded up with an assortment of short blankets and pillowcases. He tacked two of these up over the bathroom mirrors, above the counter where Heather had left a CVS bag of travel size toiletries.
Back outside, he found Becca sitting on the porch in the whitewashed rocking chair, scratching her arm like she did when she was nervous.
“Come on in,” he said. “You hungry?”
* * *
They sat at the dining room table Brooks hadn’t used since his marriage ended, between the kitchen with its curtained off sliding glass door and the living room where the flat screen TV was draped with a bed sheet. Brooks watched Becca across a collection of beer bottles and plastic containers from the local Indian restaurant as she cleaned the Tandoori sauce from her plate with the last scrap of naan bread. It was good to see her eating after the weight she’d lost. His worry at not having anything in the fridge suitable for a vegetarian had dissipated when he remembered the menu in a drawer of the little desk where they used to keep the landline phone.
Brooks took a pull on his bottle of Harpoon and set it down beside the rice. “So when did you start having the dream?”
Becca looked up from her plate. “First time was in the Wade House. You?”
“Same. The details have changed some, but I had a dream there about a public pool my ma used to take me and my brother to. In the first dream, I was underwater in that pool. That’s when I first saw it. The temple.”
“R’lyeh,” Becca said.
“Gotta be.”
“I remember you told me about it when Tom’s kid, Noah, was making bubble bath islands and calling them that.”
“That’s right.”
“I looked into it after. Went back to Arkham and spent a day at Miskatonic combing through my grandmother’s collection looking for references to it.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“Probably nothing you don’t already know.”
Brooks shrugged. “SPECTRA’s been sifting the web for descriptions of the dream on blogs and social media. There’s been a spike in those.”
“Do you have it at the same time every night?”
“When I have it, I wake up at three-thirty-three in a cold sweat.”
“So it’s sporadic for you.”
He picked up his empty bottle and shook it like he was ringing a bell. “Drinking before bed helps. But if I have to get up to piss, it can go either way. You’d think that waking up to take a leak would reset my sleep cycle and throw the timing off, only it doesn’t. If I have the dream after getting up, it still comes at the same time.”
“That’s because it’s telepathic, right?” Becca ventured. “The dreams all come from the sunken island, from R’lyeh. From the temple of the high priest of the Great Old Ones. That’s what the books say, anyway.”
“Dead but dreaming,” Brooks said.
“Maybe self-medicating isn’t the best idea.”
Brooks smirked at the bottle. “That’s never been my problem.”
“You still off gambling?”
“Yes. Not that it’s changed much more than my bank balance.” He waved a hand at the empty house.
For a moment, the icy water gurgling down the gutter downspout beside the sliding door in the kitchen was the only sound between them.
“Why didn’t you go to Nina when you needed help?” Brooks asked.
“How do you know I didn’t?”
Brooks scoffed. “After all we’ve been through, you still think I’m spying on you?”
“No. Sorry. Old habits. It just got too complicated with Nina. I knew too much about her. And the more I got to know you, the weirder it felt. You’re not really supposed to be friends with your shrink’s spouse. Then there’s the little fact that she did work for SPECTRA. They’ve been pretty good to my bank account, but I still can’t say I trust them. What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing. I’m glad you consider me a friend, that’s all. You trust me. Finally.”
“Dude. I wouldn’t go that far,” Becca held her fork like a dart and pointed it toward a container at his elbow. “You gonna eat that last pakora?”
Brooks returned the smile with genuine relief. She was going to be okay. “You have it.”
She speared the morsel, took a bite.
“I made up Heather’s old room for you. No mirrors. She left some clothes for you that should fit.”
“That’s kind of her.”
“She’s a good kid. I’m gonna miss her when she’s on the West Coast, but it won’t be that different from when she wasn’t talking to me. Maybe now she’ll call.”
Becca pointed the fork at Brooks this time. “You call her.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I think we should sleep with the doors open. My room’s just down the hall.”
“I should probably be sleeping in restraints. You know that, don’t you?”
“They don’t know the first thing about what you’re going through at that psych center.”
“Don’t you mean what we’re going through, Mr. Bottle Before Bed?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not singing in my sleep.”
“Not yet.”
“That was the first time for you, last night? You’re sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything. All I know for sure is it’s the first time it happened while I was being monitored. And the first time I woke up looking at something I’d conjured.”
“Jesus.”
“What? You don’t think that’s what happened?”
Brooks propped his head up on his fingertips, elbow on the table. “No, I do. It’s just…to hear you say it…it’s fucked up. I think you’re better off here for now than in a hospital, but you should think about talking to somebody at the agency. Maybe take that Nepenthe after all.”
“You didn’t take it after the Wade House, did you?”
Brooks shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Early detection. If something comes through again I want to know about it.”
“Exactly. I might take something if it would stop the dreams, but not if it shuts off EDEP.”
“Well, maybe we can get you something for dreamless sleep at least. And you’re gonna need supervision for more than a few days. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“…Thanks.” Becca ran a fingernail over the tablecloth.
“But?”
“I don’t want to impose on you. With a sleep drug, I could get back to my apartment with Django, where I belong.”
“You want to have Neil drop the dog off, he can stay here, too. It’s no trouble.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Let’s give it a night or two first to see what happens. I miss him, but I don’t want him sleeping with me if it might not be safe for him.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll se
t my alarm for 3:15. If you start singing or showing signs of distress, I’ll wake you.”
“Why don’t we both get up at 3:15 and ride out the dream time? I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before now. I’m not thinking clearly, Brooks. It scares me.”
“You’re tired. We could do that, but I think I should see it, hear it, for myself. Who knows? Maybe it won’t happen again.”
“And what do you hope to learn if it does?”
“None of the people at the psych center had EDEP. I do. If I see something even without any mirrors in the room, I’m going to be a lot more concerned with what’s happening to you.”
Becca wrapped her hand around her throat like a scarf and met his eyes with a glint of fear. “I can feel something different sometimes. When I drink water. And in the shower…in the humid air, it’s like it opens up more. Something’s changing in me.”
“It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out, get you help.”
“Why would it change now? And why not for you? We were both exposed in ’19. And we banished them. Twice. Why are the dreams more active now? They went away after that poisoned house burned down, and it’s been years. I was getting better. Stronger. And now I’m a wreck again. Why now?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
Becca removed her hand from her throat and placed it on the table. Brooks patted her wrist. She flashed him a sad grin, sighed and said, “Maybe we should talk to Northrup tomorrow. If it happens again tonight.”
“Yeah. About that… There have been some changes at the agency.”
Becca cocked an eyebrow.
“Northrup is out.”
“Out? Like retired?”
“He’s had some setbacks. His health isn’t good. And then there’s the politics.”
“Just when I was starting to trust him. What’s wrong with his health?”
“I don’t know the details. Maybe ‘health issues’ was just a smoke screen for replacing him with some dignity intact. People talk. I take it with a grain of salt. I got no use for gossip. But I’m feeling the wind blowing from a different direction under the new guy, I can tell you that.”
Spectra Files 03 Cthulhu Blues Page 3
