“Not really,” I lied, still not wanting to mention what I’d seen happen to Harrison, or my visits from Ted.
“Are you sure? You haven’t been having nightmares? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“No. Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said, and that wasn’t really a lie. Seeing the melted face and ghosts was once my normal life; or at least how I perceived it.
“And you never saw anything happen to Harrison lately? You didn’t see his face melt the way you saw the boys change in the LCBO?”
I was shocked, and I couldn’t make my own face do as I wanted it to, so he saw it. He leaned back in his chair and gave me a long, hard look. He was obviously concerned, and I was sure I was about to be put on the mind-numbing meds again.
“When did you see it?”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Dillon, I need to know when you saw Harrison change. I saw the way you were looking at him when they wheeled him out of the TV room. Was that the first time you’d seen him like that?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to do this. I couldn’t admit it to him, or to myself. I wanted it to be gone, for things just to go back to normal. I wanted to eat my dinner, ignore the disgusting Jell-O, talk to Ted, and sleep. I didn’t want to look into the void. I didn’t want to lose control of who I was again.
“I’m not going to put you back on the drugs, so you can stop worrying,” he said, as though he’d read my mind. “Dillon, I need you to open up right now and stop worrying about what you think I’m going to say. I…I don’t think you’re crazy at all. I’m almost certain everything you think is real is real.”
“What?” I’m sure he could see the shock on my face, but he clearly wanted to move forward.
“Just tell me when you saw Harrison change. How long ago did you first notice it?”
“It was when he was wheeled out of the TV room. His face started to melt and he had the stuff coming out of his mouth. What’s going on? What are you trying to get at here?”
“Well, there’s no sense to be made of the timeline. Were Harrison and those kids the only ones you saw change in that way?”
“No. There were three people in the shopping mall a few days before, and there was a police sergeant when I was arrested; the one who tasered me.”
“I can look into the officer, just to make sure, but I think I already know what the answer to that is going to be. What are we talking about here, Dillon? I’ve been doing this a long time now, and never once have I been so sure something so impossible was actually true. How can anything you’ve told me be real?”
“I think we need to back up, Doctor. I’m still on medication, so I might be a little slow here. What is it you know?”
He took a deep breath and laughed to himself. “If I tell anyone this, I’m likely to be rooming with you. You know that, right?”
“Depends on what you’re saying.”
“I watched the video on YouTube, the one where you fought that monster. You mentioned it in a few of our sessions, and I hadn’t yet seen it. After I saw the way you looked at Harrison, though, and then his passing, I was compelled to watch it. Turns out a lot of people have watched it.”
“Oh Jesus! I just wish that was gone already.”
“Well, it might be a good thing it’s up. I had a hard time believing what I was watching, but if you were mentally ill, I can’t see you going through all that, creating some very believable special effects, just to convince others of what you think is real. After I watched it I called Detective Garcia. You also mentioned him a few times in our sessions. He’s wasn’t in the office, off for a vacation, so I asked another detective I know to pass a message on to Garcia. I told the detective to let Garcia know I had some questions about you and where you were. He called me right away. How is this all true? Monsters? Demons? It’s impossible, but Garcia said it’s a hundred percent legit. I feel like everything I know is falling apart.”
“Makes you wonder how many people in here are mentally ill and how many have just seen things the human mind isn’t meant to,” I said, feeling electricity run through me. Pro-Monster Me laughed somewhere in my head and stomped Pro-Medication Me to oblivion. It felt good. “There’s something more though, isn’t there?”
“Those three boys you saw in the LCBO… they died. It was maybe a week after you were arrested. They died in a car crash. You saw them melting, and then they died. You saw Harrison melting and he died. And I bet if I call the station and ask about the sergeant, she’ll have passed, too. It has me thinking there’s some connection there.”
I was floored.
I never thought of that. I might never have added those things together. The people I’d seen melting died soon after. It made sense the second I heard it, but I immediately began to wonder why one led to the other. Was I somehow the cause? Did I infect them with something I picked up from Chance which led to their death, or was I seeing the fact that they were already marked for death? I remembered their melting faces. They were mirrors of their dead selves. Dead and in their grave, rotting, mouths full of dirt, their touch making me feel as though death and darkness was consuming me.
Oh my God!
“I think I know what this is!” I blurted out, and was floored by the idea of it.
“What is it?”
“I need to get out of here, to Niagara Falls.”
“I’m not sure it’s going to be that easy,” he said, and I nearly laughed at that.
“How so? You know I’m not crazy. And if I’m right, there’s something in Niagara Falls that will continue to kill innocent people if I don’t stop it.”
“You were charged with assault and with carrying weapons. They’re not just going to let you walk out of this place. You’re here for an assessment, and if they think you’re good enough to be released, they’ll lay charges on you.”
“That’s if they ever find out you let me out. You get me out of here, and I’ll have Garcia fix the charges for me. You just let them think I’m still here for the time being.”
“I could be fired and lose my license for this,” he told me, not sounding convinced.
“You could. But you could also let me out and help stop more people from dying. There might be a gate opened just a crack, but eventually, it could fly wide open and start spilling out things that’ll make you want to start medicating yourself.”
He was quiet for a while, but I knew he’d see reason eventually. Admitting monsters are real is just the first step, but it’s the most important one.
Wednesday
I stepped out and took a deep breath of chilly air, and it felt so good. Fresh air! After being stuck surrounded by the same walls and breathing recycled air that always smelled of stale piss, sweat, and some sort of medical ointment, it was wonderful to be outside. It was as amazing as if I’d been dying of thirst and been offered a drink, or starving and had a buffet laid before me. I closed my eyes, and enjoyed the moment, revelled in it before I finally had my fill and was ready to move forward.
Garcia was with me, and said nothing as I enjoyed myself. He’d managed to get me out, which he said hadn’t been all that hard.
“I’ve gotten people out clean with deeper charges on them than you have, Dillon. You’re free and clear, just try not to make this a habit.”
I had no plans of that. As it turns out, I really enjoyed my clear-headed freedom more than I would’ve guessed. When you get everything taken away from you, even the simple joy of feeling the wind on your face makes you really appreciate all that you have.
As we walked away from the main doors into CAMH, I asked Garcia about my belongings.
“They’re all in the trunk of your car. I got everything for you from holdings, and your car is right over there in the lot. Here’s your keys.” He tossed them to me and I would have kissed him if he wasn’t the mean-looking, super masculine man h
e was. “I’ll warn you though, your phone is toast.”
“Shit. You have a spare one on you?” I asked with a laugh. Who had a spare phone on them?
“There’s one with your stuff. I went into property where they hold lost and stolen phones. It’s been there a while. It’s a flip phone, even you can believe that. But you can switch your SIM card out for now and at least be able to make calls.”
“You’re a lifesaver. You didn’t have to cut your vacation short for this, did you?”
“Yes and no. It’s not like I was at Disneyland with my son. It was more of a staycation, so no worries.” I thanked him for everything, and despite myself, hugged him. He didn’t return it. “Unless you want me to take you back in there, you’ll stop that, Dillon. Come on.”
“Sorry,” I said, and we headed to the parking lot.
“So, are you going to be okay now? I read the file before coming to get you, but I also spoke to the doctor in there. Sounds like some weird shit, but you have this, right?”
“I hope so,” I told him, but my head was still a bit of a mess. There was a lot of fogginess upstairs. The doctor told me it would take a while to get the remains of the drugs out of my system, but I’d be fine after a few weeks. I would’ve loved to recover fully before getting back into my life, but there was no waiting around: I needed to get to work on the cause of all this misery. I wanted to deal with what was going on with me, and finish my job in Niagara Falls. My client might be dead, but since I’d been affected by the same thing, I’d have to do something about it. “I have to do a few things first, but then, I hope to end this madness and get on with my life.”
“If you need any help, let me know. I still owe you for everything you did, Dillon.”
“You want to help me with something? There is one thing that would make the next day or two easier.”
“Name it, unless it’s killing someone, then no.”
“I don’t need him dead, but I do need someone out of the way until I can get out to the Falls.” I explained to Garcia all about Don Parks, who he really was and what he was doing on Earth. I held no details back, even telling him about how he’d been harassing Rouge before I ended up in CAMH. “So, I just need you, or one of your uniform guys to scoop him up on something and hold him for a day or two, tops. Try and make him a suspect in some stupid thing. It doesn’t have to stick; it just has to get him out of the way.”
“Easy enough. We pull people in all the time on bogus charges. You have his address?”
I gave it to him and he jotted it down. “You should call Rouge soon too. She was pretty freaked out, seeing as you’ve been gone for two weeks.”
Two weeks!
It felt like so much longer, but it had also felt like one long, never-ending day at times. My plan had been to call her the second I got in my car. I could barely hold back the urge not to get into the car and drive right to her house. The way things were when I’d be arrested and locked away, my two weeks of silence must’ve made her terrified that I’d either abandoned her, or had been taken off the planet. I hoped she was okay, but felt nervous about letting her know everything that had happened.
“Have you talked to her since you found out where I was?”
“No. I only talked to her twice. She’s really worried, but I told her she should trust you’d get word to her when you could. You think this Parks guy has been bugging her?”
“Not until you mentioned it. Damn it. Well, thanks for everything, Garcia. You ever need help with anything, let me know. I’ll be there, and you’ll get a nice discount.”
“Cheap bastard. After this, you should take at least one case for free.”
“That doesn’t sound like something I’d do, but hey, you never know. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching in my therapy sessions. It could happen. I doubt it will, but you can dream.”
I left him and went to my car. I took everything out of the trunk and was happy to see it was all there, especially my gloves and the Tincher. I took it all into the car, switched out my SIM card with quick, fumbling fingers, as I tried not to look at how decimated my old phone was. I saw my reflection in the spider-webbed screen and didn’t like how broken, shattered it made me look.
I tossed the useless one onto the back seat, then flipped open the old school monster cellphone and called Rouge. I was nervous, but excited too. I had no idea how much to tell her, but I want to tell her so much. I wanted to hear her voice, hoped she would be okay with me going to see her. Most of all, I wanted to know she was okay, and hoped hearing I was fine would bring some sort of relief to her.
She answered on the second ring.
“Dillon?! Jesus! Where are you?” Her voice was loud and frantic, and she sounded on the verge of crying.
“I got arrested.”
“And you didn’t think to call me?”
“I tried to, but something happened, and I wasn’t taken to jail. They wouldn’t let me near a phone.”
“What are you talking about? Oh God, you’re okay though, right? It wasn’t that Parks guys, was it?”
“I’m fine. Really. I’d rather not do this on the phone, though. It would be easier face to face. I’d love to see you. And I really want to get away from here.”
“I want to see you too, but we can’t meet here. He’s always driving by, checking up on me to see if you’re around.”
“Parks?”
“Yeah. He even came up to me in a coffee shop the other day when I was with Jill and Drew. He asked me where you were, when I talked to you last, he even asked to see my phone. I told him to take a long walk on a short pier. I would’ve said more, but I didn’t want to have to explain things to my friends. Eventually he left. He’s lucky we were in public or I would’ve knocked his perfect teeth out of his stupid face.”
“I don’t doubt it. You’re more badass every day.”
“I have to be. The world isn’t getting any better. So, if he’s smart, he’ll keep his distance with me. By the way, he’s been bugging Godfrey, too.”
Of course he had. I hoped Garcia was already working on scooping him up so he wouldn’t be a concern to any of us. He was such a pain in the ass, and Garcia was about to be my topical cream.
“Okay. Well, maybe you should take a cab somewhere and I can meet you there. I’ll go ahead of time, and when you arrive, I can make sure he didn’t follow. I have the cops going to arrest him, so he won’t be in our hair for much longer.”
“Arrest him for what?”
“Whatever they want. I need him out of the way for a little while. I need to finish that case I started in Niagara Falls.”
“Does that have anything to do with why you were arrested?”
“It has everything to do with it. So, where should we meet?”
We decided to meet a little out of the way. At first, Rouge suggested we meet at the Eaton Centre, but the idea of getting there and losing my mind seeing more melted-face people ended that as a possibility. I though a more low-key place would be better. Even though I knew, or at least had an idea of what was causing the horrible visions, it didn’t make it any easier to deal with. I figured it was best to just limit my exposure to crowds. When she asked about it, I told her I’d explain it all when we were together.
We agreed on meeting out by Bluffs in Scarborough. There was an old artists’ hotel on Morningside Avenue, a place called the Guildwood Inn. She knew the place and would get ready and leave soon. I hung up, and sat back in the front seat of my car, looking down at myself.
I wished I could’ve gone home to change into something of my own. I guessed that since I’d fallen into the broken bottles at the LCBO, the things I’d been wearing, aside from my jacket, were tossed. Instead of what I’d normally wear, I’d been given bright red jogging pants, a Blue Jays T-shirt, and running shoes so neon the ’80s were offended by how loud and obnoxious they were. At least I st
ill had my lucky jacket, though the worn leather just didn’t go very well with the free clothes the hospital had given me. I was sure it’d give Rouge quite a laugh when she saw me, so that was something.
Well, there was no way I was going to try and go back to my place. I had no idea where Parks was, or if he’d be watching my apartment, but I guessed he must swing by now and again. If he was checking up on Rouge, he was certainly doing the same to my place. And Godfrey’s.
Damn.
I drove towards the Bluffs, and as I did, I called Godfrey’s shop. I put him on speaker phone so I could keep both hands on the wheel. I was still not seeing quite as clear as I normally would, so better safe than sorry. It wouldn’t do me any good to get into a wreck after everything it took to get me out of the hospital.
“Where the fuck have you been?!”Godfrey blared into the phone when he answered it.
I told him the whole story, from the lake, to the drive, to the LCBO, all the way to the adventures in mental breakdown lane. I gave him the whole rundown of events, even the visits from Father Ted; he didn’t come on that last night there, which kind of proved his visits were drug-related visions.
“Well, I guess I can excuse you then. You had me freaking out.”
“Sorry. I want to stop by there before the sun goes down, but I’m on my way to meet Rouge right now.”
“Not a good idea.”
“What part?”
“Either. That other hunter is out for blood, mon. He’s here three or four times a day, saying I’m hiding you and if I don’t give you up, then I’m going to be sent to some mining planet, or turned into a porter. He actually tore my store apart last week thinking I had some secret compartment where I hide assholes like you.”
“He won’t be a bother for long.”
“Are you going to kill him? I’d pay to see that.”
“Killing him won’t do a thing except get me into more shit with the Collective. No. I have the cops looking for him. They’re going to grab him and lock him up for a few days while I go and try to close whatever door is open, and end this. It might even be enough to get the Collective to lighten up a little. That’s my hope, at least.”
Altered Gate Page 17
