by Dan Hawley
“Lunch is almost ready.”
Samantha looked down and motioned to leave when Jason said, “Thanks, babe.”
She stopped and looked back into his eyes. They were tired but kind, softened by thoughts of the day ahead.
“You’re a saint for putting up with this, with me. I know it’s hard, but you are still there for me, for us. God, it’s corny, but you are my rock, you know, my lighthouse. You guide the way. I will get better for you, Sam. For you and the baby.”
His eyes moved from hers to her stomach. A little pang of fear gripped his insides. It was the first time he mentioned the baby directly to Samantha. When she broke the news two days ago, he had simply hugged her tight and whispered in her ear, “It’s going to be ok.”
Samantha’s smile was kind and soft as she stepped towards Jason to ruffle his scruffy hair. She brushed it to the side, and its natural oils kept it in place.
“I love you,” she said and kissed his forehead. Samantha turned and left for the kitchen, leaving Jason sitting at his desk, looking out the now empty doorway.
* * *
“Drive safe,” Sam said as Jason stood at the apartment door.
“Thanks,” he replied. “I don’t know how long it will be. The receptionist said it’s just a consultation today, so we’ll see. You’ll prolly be back from your thing before me.”
Samantha nodded. She had an ultrasound appointment three blocks away, but not for another hour. It was the final step in the ‘am I really pregnant’ process. Blood and urine can give false positives, but there’s no denying the picture up on that screen—it’s either there or it’s not.
Jason rode the elevator down to the parking garage. He exited the lift and headed towards the black SUV. Another person was getting into their car a few stalls over, and their door shut with an echo that bounced off the grey concrete walls.
Jason’s footsteps also echoed as he pulled out the key fob to unlock his vehicle. The locks opened with a whir and a click, and he opened the door and got in. While pushing in the brake and ignition button to start the car, Jason wondered how long it had been since he last drove. Almost a week, he figured. It was strange to go from driving every day to barely driving at all.
Jason pulled out of his parking spot, mentally calculating how much money they had saved on gas in the last three months. Driving felt foreign, and Jason was awkward behind the wheel until the large metal gate pulled up and open and he entered the street.
There were more vehicles on the street now than at the beginning of the pandemic. However, there were still noticeably fewer than before the lockdown. Usually, a typical Friday afternoon in the city would be quite busy, but with nowhere to go and thousands of people now out of work, Jason was at the sleep clinic twenty minutes early. He pulled into the lot and parked in a spot that faced the front of the building. It was a standalone three-story building, quite old, with brown bricks, a flat roof, and several large, single-pane windows. There was no big sign announcing the building’s occupant, just letters on the door’s window: Dr. Luu, sleep therapist.
Jason pulled out his phone, typed in his password, and opened his conversation with Samantha.
“Here now, a little early,” he wrote.
The ellipses appeared beside her name to indicate she was typing.
“Ok. Good luck!” Samantha’s words appeared on the screen, followed by a thumbs-up emoji.
Jason took a breath, put his phone in his pocket, slipped his surgical mask over his mouth and nose, and went inside.
The front door that Jason entered through opened into a lobby waiting area. He was a bit surprised at how new and clean the inside looked compared to the outside of the building. The old building’s main floor seemed to have recently been renovated into what looked like a regular doctor’s office.
Red plastic chairs with low backs were spaced apart on the glossy black and white checkerboard linoleum floor tiles. A red leather couch rested against a side wall with a Ficus tree standing guard beside it. Jason’s footsteps rang loudly as he walked past an older woman and a child on his way towards the reception desk.
The boy looked ragged, dressed in cheap hand-me-downs and a newsie hat, like he had been transported from the dirty thirties. His pale face and sunken eyes followed Jason as he passed. The boy’s mother reached down and put a protective arm around the child. She did not make eye contact, but Jason noted that she looked just as tired as the boy.
There was something else, though.
Behind the tired, wrinkled face was fear. Jason could sense it right away; how she grabbed the kid and recoiled from Jason’s presence. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, Jason saw the fear in those eyes.
Maybe the kid was delivering newspapers in his sleep, Jason mused.
Normally he would smile to himself after a joke like that, but the child and his mother were so pathetic-looking that it seemed cruel.
Hopefully they get the help they need, he amended internally.
“Good day, can I help you?” The receptionist was an older lady with grey curls cut short. Jason wondered if there was a specific age when women cut their hair short or if it was more of a feeling they got rather than a hard-and-fast rule. She looked at him through the plexiglass with sharp blue eyes. A white surgical mask covered her face, while a white, knitted sweater covered her bright red scrubs.
“I have an appointment at four with Dr. Luu?”
More of a question than a statement. “Jason Steele,” he added after noting she would likely need his name. “Dr. Luu will be with you shortly, please have a seat.”
The receptionist’s voice was high-pitched and nasal, and it sounded far away through the holes in the plexiglass.
Jason nodded, said thank you, and sat down on a chair near the Ficus—on the opposite side of the room from the boy and his mother.
As Jason sat down, he looked up to see the lady looking at him now. She stared at him with her beady black eyes and hard face while clasping the boy close. Her black mask covered most of her face, but Jason pictured a big, witchy nose and a snarling mouth, half filled with decaying teeth. Probably unfair, but he didn’t like how she was looking at him. She held his gaze until Jason started feeling uncomfortable and looked away. He pulled his phone out as people do when bored, needing to look busy, socially awkward, or scared of human interaction. It was the latter for Jason currently. He definitely did not want to interact with those two.
“Sir?” said the nasal voice from far away. “Sir, you can’t have your phone out in here. Sorry. It’s for privacy concerns. Thank you.”
The steely blue eyes penetrated the plexiglass all the way through to Jason’s nerves. They gave him the willies. “Oh, sorry,” he said as he dumbly noticed the several signs on the wall showing a picture of a cell phone with a line through it. He deposited the phone back in his pocket and sat back.
The red plastic chairs were remarkably comfortable, as if made for his exact ass shape. There was no tv on the wall and no magazines. He couldn’t use his phone and hadn’t brought a book. The woman was still observing Jason with an offending glare. There was only one thing left to do—close his eyes and try to relax.
Green blurred all around Jason as he ran. The thin brown path ran under his feet like a dirt treadmill. Jason ran and ran. He gasped for breath, and his lungs burned and wheezed.
On and on the forest passed as he sprinted. His muscles screamed from the exertion as his heart pounded blood through his veins. His face was calm though, almost serene. His dark-blue eyes were fixed on the path ahead. He knew what he was looking for, and he was on the right track.
Up ahead, in a small clearing, his eyes found the prize, splayed out amongst the dirt, rocks, and dead leaves. The deer had run out the last of its strength and collapsed here, succumbing to its injury. The bullet hole oozed dark crimson, which was beginning to pool on the ground.
The young doe struggled to breathe; snot and steam poured from her nostrils while her tongue hung limp and
lifeless from her mouth. Jason approached her, and she didn’t have the energy to escape. She simply lay there with one terror-stricken eye staring up at him.
Where had he seen that before?
Jason bent over with his rifle in one hand, looking down, into the eye.
Where had he seen that before?
So familiar.
He watched with morbid fascination as she struggled to hold on to life. The pool of blood grew and grew and started to swirl. The swirl hypnotized Jason. He stared, his face expressionless and dumb. He felt cold and weak, and his rifle fell to the ground.
“Jason!” shouted a familiar voice from far away behind him. “JASON!” Was that Samantha?
“SAM!” he screamed.
He drew a deep breath, and his bloodshot eyes refocused on the pool of blood that continued to swirl. But the swirling pool was no longer fed from the hole in the deer; it was flowing from the front of a woman; the hiker. The liquid was pouring from so many holes, like a dozen bloody streams feeding a red lake of death.
Jason recoiled in horror.
“Oh God, what the fu…”
He fell back onto his tailbone, sending a shooting pain into his skull.
“No, no, no…”
His eyes slowly made their way up her bloodied torso to her face. He was terrified of what he would see, but he couldn’t stop himself. Finally, past the pale, sunken cheeks and blue lips, his eyes locked with hers. Dull and deep, her eyes locked him in and wouldn’t let go. Jason stared, breathing sharp, deep, and labored breaths.
Into the abyss.
He felt it call to him, beckoning. It seemed…peaceful. Even the cold nothingness would be better than this hell.
He succumbed.
Jason’s taut muscles relaxed, his breathing slowed, the beads of sweat dried on his brow, and he fell in.
CHAPTER 16
“Jason.” The name seemed familiar.
“Jason?” The voice was echoey and distant but soon drew nearer. Jason opened his eyes to the bright lights of the sleep clinic waiting room. Realization dawned on his face and he took in a deep breath—the kind you take after holding your breath underwater for some time—and straightened himself up in the plastic red chair. Cobwebs and faint memories of a forgotten dream cleared from his mind as a short man in a white lab coat stood over him.
“You should save that for the tests, Jason.”
Dr. Luu’s eyes squinted against the raised cheeks of the smile that hid behind his mask.
“All is well?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, sorry. Nodded off there,” Jason said, mildly embarrassed.
“Happens all the time, not to worry. Now, please join me in my office.”
Dr. Luu turned and headed towards the door beside the receptionist’s desk. Jason shook his head slightly and stood up. The woman and the child were gone. He wondered how long he had been asleep.
As the two men entered Dr. Luu’s office, the doctor gestured for Jason to sit and closed the door. The checkered tiles clicked as their footsteps fell. The room was bright and minimalist. In the middle of the room was a chrome-legged desk with a white top. Two chrome-legged chairs faced the desk. The seats were black, not red as Jason half expected. He took a seat in the one on his right. Dr. Luu went around the desk and sat down in his modern, ergonomic, high-backed chair. He wiggled the mouse to wake up his sleeping computer. It came alive with a flicker of the screen. Jason rubbed his palms on his knees as he sat, looking around the sterile-looking room.
The walls were a crisp white; its only adornments several diplomas and awards.
Dr. Luu looked up at Jason and then at the framed documents on the wall beside him.
“Oh, those? Those are to hopefully put you at ease more than an obvious boast about me,” he chuckled. Jason allowed himself to relax into the chair. The diplomas and accolades did help after all; good to know this doctor wasn’t some quack.
Dr. Luu typed for a moment, then looked from the screen to Jason.
Slipping on his clear-rimmed glasses, Dr. Luu observed his new patient.
“You look tired.”
Jason noticed that he didn’t feel insulted, likely because a doctor had said it. Dr. Luu had an accent, but his English was excellent, and he spoke loudly and with purpose through the white surgical mask.
Jason fumbled with how to begin. So much had happened in the last three months. Enough to fill three years, he thought. His time in Seattle seemed to have crept along, deadly slow and mundane until sporadic sparks of insanity woke him from his slumber. Yet the three months had also passed so quickly. In what seemed like an instant, he had gone from starting a new, exciting life to sitting in a cold, bright doctor’s office trying to explain how fucked up he was. He shook his head.
“It’s ok, Jason,” the doctor said, obviously aware of Jason’s struggle to find the right words. “Just start where you can.”
“Truth is, Doc; it’s hard to know where to start. I mean, when I moved in with Sam—that’s my girlfriend—three years ago or whatever, she brought up that I talked in my sleep. She said that I sometimes moved around a bit; like I elbowed her once, all herky-jerky in my sleep. It came up in conversation with my dad, and he said I’d been doing that since I was a kid. Nothing to worry about.”
Jason paused, cleared his throat, and then continued.
“Dad said he does it, and his dad did it before him. I didn’t think about it much. And it didn’t seem to bother Sam, before.”
Dr. Luu quietly typed as Jason spoke.
“Then we moved here, and I dunno. It got worse. Like a lot worse.”
Jason’s pace quickened.
“I move stuff in my sleep. All the stuff on top of my nightstand ends up inside my nightstand. Oh, and I sleepwalk now, I guess. Sometimes I wake up on the floor in the bedroom or the bathroom. And I don’t remember how I got there.”
Jason stared at his hands as he described the time he fell asleep in his office in the middle of the day and then woke up, mid sleepwalk, to see Samantha staring at him with fear in her eyes. Jason paused, then opened his mouth as if to speak again and stopped. He decided to omit the most recent disturbance during which he had apparently sleep-cleaned his gun. That was not something Jason was ready to accept or discuss. He wasn’t sure how the good doctor might react. He might label him insane on the spot and in need of padded walls.
“She said I do it all the time now. She says I stand beside the wall with my ear up against it, listening, I guess.”
Dr. Luu stopped typing.
“Listening?”
Jason looked up at the doctor and then away, embarrassed. His cheeks flushed and tiny beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. His beard felt itchy and dry.
“Well, listening, I guess. To the hum.”
Dr. Luu listened intently while Jason spoke. He touched on his relationship with his father and how his mother left them when he was a child. He discussed the stress of moving. The new job, new apartment, new city, and the fear and unknown of the pandemic. Jason went on about the stifling lockdown and its negative effect on his relationship with Samantha.
He told the doctor how they had wanted to get away to explore some of the beautiful scenery Washington state had to offer. And how they had happened upon a waking nightmare when they all but witnessed the murder of that poor hiker up in the mountains.
He described the gnawing, relentless hum as if it were something alive. Something that knew its own evil nature and basked in the triumph of its exquisite torture.
The doctor interjected here and there to ask a question but mostly let Jason vomit words all over the office. Dr. Luu’s fingers tapped frantically on the keyboard to capture the words and record them on the screen.
Jason finally finished. He realized he was now sitting on the edge of his chair, leaning forward. His breathing was labored and shallow as if he had just run the quarter mile. Jason shot the doctor a meek smile and relaxed back into his chair. The muscles around his lungs rela
xed, and he took in a deep, calming breath.
“Wow,” he said. “Seems like a lot when you put it all out there, huh?”
Dr. Luu finished his notes and looked over at Jason, observing the young man silently.
“It actually feels…pretty good to get that off my chest, Doc. Damn! It’s like the foot that’s been standing on my throat has eased off the pressure a bit.” Jason rubbed the back of his head as he spoke.
Dr. Luu sat quietly a moment longer. The room was silent as he thoughtfully watched Jason.
“There is a lot to unpack here, Jason,” he began. “Thank you for coming in and trusting me enough to share your experiences. There is no doubt that stress is a major factor affecting your sleep right now, but I would like to run some tests to find out more. I do have a room available tomorrow night if you would like to come back and spend the night?”
Dr. Luu’s eyebrows raised with his voice as he asked the question.
“Whatever I gotta do, Doc. I just want to get better, I…I feel like I’m going nuts over here.”
“You aren’t going nuts, Jason,” Dr. Luu said with a slight smile, “but you are under a great amount of stress. We will see what the tests say and go from there. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like hope,” Jason said, semi-sardonically. He wanted to hope, but he didn’t know if he could fully allow it.
“Good. Here is some information for you, along with some instructions to follow before your appointment. Please look it over when you get home.”
Dr. Luu opened a drawer in his desk, took out a folder, and handed it to Jason as they both got up. “Oh, uh…hey Doc,” Jason stammered. “You think you could give me something, you know, to help me sleep better tonight?”
There was that feeling again: hope, hope that the good doctor had some blue liquid gels laying around somewhere that he could kindly gift to Jason.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” Dr. Luu said, “You must not change anything about your sleep routine. Don’t take anything you don’t normally take. No sleeping pills. Not even a chamomile tea or hot bath if that’s not your normal routine, ok?”
