Dark Side: The Haunting

by J. M. Barlog

  Warren was quick to assist Jenny into Sy’s office with a steadying hand tightly around her waist. Once inside, he helped her into the chair directly across from the doctor’s and drew the side chair to be right beside her. Jenny’s eyes never left Rosenstein’s; Warren’s eyes never left hers.

  Save for the half-dozen framed degrees on the wall behind his desk, the walls remained barren and faded from the sun’s influence over the years. A man of frugality seemed to be an understatement in Sy’s case. He refused to afford himself even the slightest luxuries that one would have thought he would be entitled to by his profession. Sy obviously sought the inner satisfactions of the work he performed over material gain. And his gentle manner certainly supported his profession.

  “How are you feeling today, Jenny?” Rosenstein asked, as if they had known each other for years, when in fact this was the first time either had laid eyes on each other. Rosenstein’s voice was as light and as gentle as his smile. Though, in fact, it seemed to ease Jenny little under the circumstances.

  Warren remained silent, reached for a cigarette pack in his pocket but stopped when Rosenstein’s eyes indicated a THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign on the edge of the desk. Warren thanked Rosenstein for seeing them on such short notice while he unobtrusively returned his cigarettes back to his pocket.

  “You look wonderful for someone having come through what you’ve experienced?”

  “I-I’m g-getting b-better.”

  “Would you care for coffee, or perhaps some tea?”

  Both Warren and Jenny declined, Jenny breaking Sy’s eye contact and looking at her balled hands in her lap when she detected Sy’s eyes moving to the scar on her face. She forbade herself from covering it with her hand.

  Jenny knew she was expected to start. Would he believe what she needed to tell him? For a long moment, Jenny considered abandoning her whole story, reaching for Warren’s assistance and leaving this place. But the hardest part so far had been in just getting here.

  “Warren has filled me in about your accident, and I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing your medical history,” Sy said, keeping his eyes on Jenny.

  “Jenny’s been having...” Warren started.

  “Perhaps, Jenny, you’d like to tell me?”

  Sy’s words brought Jenny’s eyes off her hands and back to his. His smile seemed to indicate his willingness to, at least, listen. Sy leaned slightly forward in his chair, which turned him more toward Jenny and seemed to indicate he wished for her to begin.

  “Where s-should I-I start?”

  “Anywhere you feel comfortable.”

  “As I told you over the telephone...” Warren injected.

  “Warren, perhaps you might wait in the reception area. There’s an ashtray out there and you are free to smoke.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll be quiet.”

  “After m-my a-accident,” Jenny already needed to take a breath, “I was recovering in the hospital when I thought I saw a ghost. It wasn’t a ghost. This i-is...”

  “It’s okay, Jenny.”

  “It w-was me. I saw a ghost of myself standing in my room staring at me.”

  “You said you thought? When was this?”

  “I don’t know exactly when. The first time I saw it was when I awoke...after the accident. I’m not even certain I saw it or just thought I saw it. But it appeared again outside my door about a week before I was discharged.”

  “Did it remain?”

  “No...yes. Only for a few moments. I’m certain I saw it the second time. She—it was looking at me—but it didn’t have eyes.”

  “How was it looking at you?”

  Sy remained calmly dispassionate during Jenny’s telling of her story. His eyes emanated trust, his voice though, never conveyed the same feeling.

  “With black holes. I mean I could tell it was looking at me.”

  “Why do you say it was a ghost of yourself, Jenny?”

  “It was me. I’m sure of it. The hair, the face—it was me.”

  Rosenstein remained expressionless behind his desk, always listening, but never once did he pick up his gold-plated pen sitting on a yellow lined pad an inch from his hand.

  Warren shifted in his chair. His untimely movement stole the doctor’s attention from Jenny as if there had been something to read in Warren’s sudden gesture. Was that his way of demonstrating silent disbelief in what she had said?

  “Jenny, can you tell me what you remember about your accident?”

  “Nothing. I can’t remember anything of the days leading up to the accident, either.”

  “Please go on.”

  “At first, I thought maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. The ghost I mean. I-I, but when I came home the ghost appeared in my bedroom.”

  “How did she appear?”

  “Sitting in a chair near the door watching me.”

  “And this was during the day?”

  “No, the middle of the night. A stabbing pain awakened me, and she was sitting there...staring at me.”

  “Your hospital records indicate you’re still taking Demerol for pain. Had you taken pain medication prior to this episode?”

  “Earlier in the evening.”

  “The prescribed dosage?”

  Jenny nodded, growing uncomfortable and shifting in the chair herself. Warren, too, seemed to display a sudden restlessness.

  “Was this...”

  “It a-appeared again the next night. I t-thought it was Warren. I said, ‘Why don’t you come lay beside me in bed.’ I thought it was Warren.”

  Jenny’s hands trembled, her voice weakened. Her constricting chest made breathing difficult. It seemed to Rosenstein that Jenny was reliving the episode in her mind as she spoke.

  Sy scribbled for the first time on his pad. His eyes, though, never left Jenny’s. He saw something in her eyes; something that conveyed an undeniable terror rising up inside her as she related her story. The horror she felt in the presence of her ghostly self was returning to her now.

  “It touched me. It touched me, and when I opened my eyes she, it, was before my face.”

  Jenny was teetering....

  “What did it look like?”

  Jenny hesitated.

  Sy could see fear swirling behind her eyes. A fear that bonded truth to her words.

  “If this is too diffi...”

  “No. It was my face. Without eyes. My hair was long, like it was before the accident. But her face—my face—was mangled, ripped open.”

  Jenny reached out suddenly, snared Warren’s forearm and gripped it so tightly that her nails dug into his skin.

  “Jenny, what did you feel when it touched you?”

  At first Jenny said nothing, looking instead toward Warren, who slid his hand over hers. The contact allowed Jenny to loosen her grip and release him.

  “I was eight when my mother died. Breast cancer, though I didn’t know that at the time. My Aunt Theresa said I had to touch my mother’s cheek as a way of saying good-bye one last time. I didn’t want to, but I did as she told me. I never forgot what it felt like...to touch a dead person. It was cold and like clay. That’s what it felt like. I felt a cold, dead hand stroke my cheek.”

  “Jenny, why do you think your aunt insisted you touch your mother?”

  “I don’t know.” Jenny’s voice began to crack and quiver.

  Sy recorded another few lines, then rose from behind his desk. He rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses before he spoke.

  “Warren, I wonder if Jenny and I might have a few minutes alone together.”

  “Sure,” Warren said.

  But Sy detected an uneasy edge in Warren’s manner. He agreed but found discomfort in leaving Jenny alone to talk to him.

  Jenny’s eyes caught Warren’s as he departed.

  “Jenny, I’ve read through all your medical records from the hospital. I’m sure you understand that you suffered a very severe head trauma in the accident, and it is very possible that certain brain tissue was d
amaged as a result.”

  “M-m-morrison s-said the s-stutter...”

  “Yes, your stutter is one result. A brain injury, unlike other injuries, takes a very long time to heal after such an accident. During this healing process, you may find that things will happen in your life that you are unable to understand. I think maybe these manifestations of yourself are merely the result of that healing process.”

  “You think what I-I’m seeing...is from the injury?”

  “It’s not so important what I think. But looking over your records, and knowing the types and dosages of drugs administered to you in the hospital, it is possible that these visions are simply hallucinations caused by the drugs.”

  “But what about what I saw in my house? I’m only taking pain killers now. Could they affect me like the drugs in the hospital.”

  “Very possibly. But I’m afraid our time is up for now.”

  “But I also hear strange voices inside my head.”

  The words stopped Sy.

  “What kinds of voices?”

  “I don’t know...voices. Voices I’ve never heard before.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Just words. Parts of words. I can’t understand them. But they’re there. I know they’re there.”

  Rosenstein said nothing. But as a result of Jenny’s latest comments, he added a few more words to his pad.

  “What do you really think, Dr. Rosenstein?”

  “I think we should get together again next week. Do you have any trouble traveling?”

  “A little.”

  “Jenny, are you afraid of what you saw?”

  Even coming from a trained clinician, the question seemed stilted and clumsy.

  “I don’t think so. I never got a sense that the thing wanted to harm me.”

  “Good, because I don’t believe there is anything to be frightened of. I’ll set you up for an hour next week.”

  Sy secreted a pleasure derived in the contact of assisting Jenny out of her chair. He opened the office door, but remained in his office while Warren hastened over to take Jenny’s arm.

  “Warren, could we have a moment together?”

  After Warren helped Jenny to the anteroom sofa, he returned to Rosenstein’s office, where they stood just behind the closed door.

  “Jenny may have sustained more damage than the physicians originally thought. The problem we have is that there is no way of knowing for certain if brain damage has occurred,” Sy said.

  “How do I deal with this? Morrison told me what to do for the stutter and the memory lapse. Tell me what I’m supposed to do about this.”

  “I don’t have answers for you right now. These episodes are most likely hallucinatory in nature. They might be brought on by drugs or by a change in the brain’s chemical makeup. Very likely Jenny is just receiving jumbled electrical signals from her brain.”

  “Sy, when I held her the other night...after she screamed...she was trembling out of control. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s scaring the hell out of Jenny.”

  “I’m afraid I’m without an explanation that addresses this. But remember, Jenny’s mind is undergoing tremendous change that is likely to last for months. Her vision could be a residual effect of the drugs. It could be her mind healing, trying to fit pieces back together again. It could be piecemeal memories of the accident. Sometimes those pieces don’t fit right—maybe Jenny’s witnessing just such a mismatch.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Just stay with her and see she convalesces. The best thing for Jenny now is time for her body to heal. I’ve asked Jenny to come back next week. We’ll see what happens then. Sometimes just vocalizing these things can make them go away.”

  7

  It was too late to even try to cook something for dinner and Warren seemed to lack the enthusiasm anyway. So, he brought in Chinese, and afterward handed Jenny tissues while she cried during the colorized version of Casablanca, though he never could figure out what had brought on the tears. Then he tucked her in for the night at ten o’clock. Jenny began nodding off around nine, but forced herself to remain awake to see the end of the film despite having seen it in its original black and white splendor years earlier.

  It had been an exhausting day for both, though when Warren reviewed the day’s events, he realized he had accomplished little. His trades had soured early in the day and he had to drop off before he wanted to in order to get Jenny to Rosenstein’s office.

  That night, Jenny fell off to sleep without the aid of pain medication, and Warren hoped she would sleep through the night without waking. In truth, he was hoping the previous night’s episode would not be repeated.

  In his makeshift bed in the den, he lay awake long past midnight, staring at the ceiling through the darkness. Sleep taunted him from beyond his reach. Would she see it again? Would she scream again? Warren wrestled with his blanket, while outside gnarly bare branches scraped across his window. He seemed unusually alert to the night sounds and to the changes in light as clouds crossed before the gibbous moon outside his window.

  He flipped his mind from Jenny to his business. Everything was going wrong at once. His dealings were suffering dearly at a time when his attention needed to be at its sharpest. His primary bank had called twice in the past week. He was overextended—way overextended—and sinking fast.

  “Them shits,” he muttered out loud.

  Jenny had no inkling of the precarious threads he had been clinging to for the last six months. And now he must keep it from her until she grew strong enough to deal with it. Only Jenny’s agency income had prevented them from losing the house.

  Two secondary banks held notes over Warren’s head, and they, too, were getting nervous about his loans. They would require reassurance, Warren thought, before being convinced that Warren could pull himself out of this slump. He took stock in himself while he sought the outline of the window. He had recovered from difficult stretches three times in the past four years, and he had survived the cyclical downturns in the market that were inevitable. He knew with time and tenacity he would do it again.

  But did he have the time?

  Caring for Jenny was proving more of a burden than he had thought. The trades had to start going his way soon, or else he’d need a large infusion of cash. Before falling off to sleep, he ruminated over the ways he might get his hands on cash in the six figure range.

  ****

  Jenny awoke with a start as bright sunshine streaming through her window. Mr. Chips pawed at her bed, beckoning to be put outside for his morning constitutional.

  “Go see Warren. He’ll let you out.”

  “Let’s go, Chips,” Warren growled from the doorway, while he scratched at his ruffled hair and tried to shake the fatigue off his body. Dark circles rimmed Warren’s eyes; he looked as though he had slept in his clothes. That was one of the perks of working at home. Nobody cared how bad you looked.

  “Breakfast coming right up,” Warren offered through a yawn and a pasted-on smile. “You sleep okay?” he asked with a glint to the obvious.

  “The entire night.”

  “No pain?”

  “No.”

  “No any...thing else?”

  “No.”

  Warren made no attempt to hide the relief pouring out of his eyes.

  ****

  Writing intently in his notebook, Rick Walker took over most of a lavish, leather loveseat. The sultry secretary behind the desk a few feet away typed happily away on her computer keyboard, occasionally lifting her eyes to the detective. Her smile was slight and all-business, though it failed to conceal her interest in him. He figured it came more out of curiosity than anything else.

  The ultramodern furnishings surrounding him offered his first indication as to the type of person he was waiting to see. Impressionist paintings that look like they might have been created by a chimp, reading lamps that drooped off wrought iron stems, and a tile pattern on the floor reminiscent of Alice’s Wonderland all c
ombined to generate an ambiance of a place far removed from the grime of the city outside the windows. As did the precisely placed display of magazines on the table: Fortune, Business Week, Forbes.

  He had been waiting since nine, hiding his displeasure. It was after ten. The secretary paused momentarily when the determined click of high heels on tile became apparent.

  Rick rose in anticipation.

  Kate Matheson’s stunning face, resplendent in corporate war paint, shot a ‘who’s this?’ look to her secretary. Then, with a smile more plastic than her lips, she took in Rick Walker’s full-muscled physique as he stood before her.

  “If he doesn’t have an appointment, I won’t be seeing him today,” she fired off with the demeanor of an executive irritated by a salesman’s unwanted presence. And a rather shoddy salesman at that.

  “It’s Detective Walker. He’s been waiting to see you,” the secretary said barely above a whisper, as if she wished his presence be kept secret. She shuffled papers as she spoke in some vain attempt to appear efficient.

  “Detective Walker?” Kate said with a trace of interest. Her eyes captured his and held them steadfast.

  “Kate Matheson?” Rick asked, extending a hand more as a courtesy than a greeting.

  Kate shifted her black monogrammed briefcase onto the desk before taking Rick’s hand with a grip that surprised the detective. She stood squarely facing him with her legs in a spread stance. Her hand took hold of his with a surprisingly determined grip and not so much as a trace of apprehension. Something most unusual in a woman. Her eyes delved into his as if she were seeking to uncover his purpose. Something else unusual for a woman. Most women averted their eyes quickly when forced to confront the law.

  Kate exuded the confidence and stature of the consummate executive, replete with all the accouterment of a corporate warrior, and by her determined walk, she made certain those around her knew she had no intention of moving aside for anyone. Those dazzling green eyes could smile—if they wanted to. But for now, Kate reserved her judgement of the detective.