Smoke rose from the floor and in the distance, a crimson light reflected off the hideous creature’s hunched back. The beast snarled and a sharp aroma of sulfur permeated the air.
“So you want to be left alone?” The beast cackled. “You still don’t get it, do you? I don’t care what you want. It’s what my master wants. And he wants you.”
“Why me?” Brian grabbed his chest. “Why not somebody else?”
“Because,” the beast hissed, “you gave us the key.”
“What key?”
****
“Doc?”
Brian felt something knocking his side. Opening his eyes, Jake came into focus. “Jake?” Brian stretched. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t we have an appointment?”
Brian sat up. “Well, to be honest, Jake. I’m not allowed to see you anymore.”
“What?” Jake clenched his jaw and fists. “Why?”
“Apparently, I’m on suspension.”
Jake shook his head and sat on the couch, arms crossed, determination on his face. “I don’t care. I need your help.”
“I can’t help you, Jake.” Brian rubbed his temples. A migraine lay imminent to the near future.
“Yes, you can. And will. I’m not going anywhere until you do.” Jake jumped up, grabbed the Bible and leapt back on the couch.
“Look, kid. I really care about you. We’ve had some interesting sessions, and I believe that you’re progressing. But I just don’t have the right to help you any longer. Someone else may be better for you and—”
“I don’t want anyone else. Please, just help me this one last time. Just talk to me.” Jake tossed the Bible on the couch and folded his hands in a plea. “Come on, Doc. Just one more hour. That’s all I ask.”
Brian looked at the door, and then at his watch. His heart raced. He stared at the desperate, pale adolescent. He’d never had to turn away a patient. It made him angry and sad at the same time. “I just can’t.”
Jake’s voice rose, agitated. “But you have to. You promised to be there for me until I got better. Well, I ain’t better, Doc. So, you’ve got to help me!”
“I have to let you go, Jake.” Brian grabbed a few framed pictures of Rhonda off the shelf and placed them inside his briefcase. “I have to get well myself. Don’t you understand?”
“No, I won’t let you just throw me out. We had a deal, remember?”
“And things change.”
Jake paced, fists clenched at his side, jaw flexing. “You can’t do this. I promise, you’ll regret it if you do.”
“Settle down.”
“Settle down? You’re tossing me out as if I was an obsolete computer.” Jake pointed his finger at Brian. “I won’t let you! You’re going to listen to me.”
“Jake, please. I can’t help you. Don’t you understand? I have to let everyone go. Not just you—but all my patients. I have to get well.”
Just inches from Brian’s face, Jake stopped and eyeballed Brian.
Brian’s heart pounded.
“Have you admitted it yet?” Jake asked.
Brian stepped back. “Admitted what?”
“That you killed her?”
“Killed who? I think we’re talking about you, Jake.”
“No! No! No!” Jake stomped his foot like a toddler. “Don’t you do that! Don’t you dare deny it again! You want to get better, right? Then admit you killed her!”
Terror griped Brian’s throat. “Jake, you’re scaring me. Now, just calm down. I haven’t killed anybody.”
Jake walked to the couch and hurled Brian’s Bible across the room. “Yes, you have!”
“Fine!” Brian held up his hands in surrender. “Who have I killed? Who?”
Jake smiled a sinister smile that sent a chill down Brian’s neck. “Your daughter, stupid. You killed your own daughter.”
Brian collapsed to the floor. “I didn’t kill my daughter,” he whispered.
“Oh, yeah? If it weren’t for you, wouldn’t your baby have been born alive and well?”
Brian shuddered. Perspiration teemed down his face, his heart pumped madly.
“Admit it, Doc. You killed your own baby girl.”
The world swam, and Brian was thrust back six months…
“Honey, where are you?” Brian yelled from downstairs.
“I’m here.” Rhonda yelled from the landing above. “I thought you weren’t going to be home for a while.”
He smiled. “I lied.”
“So, I see.”
Brian bounded up the stairs, took his wife in his arms and drew her into a deep kiss.
She pushed away. “You’ve been drinking.”
“I know. Don’t be mad. It’s for a good reason.”
She folded her arms, apparently not convinced. “And you drove home?”
He shook his head. “No, I took a cab. But all that doesn’t matter.” He took her arms. He was too excited to let her anger dampen the reason for his real high. “What’s the one thing that would make me the happiest man on earth?”
“Having a baby?”
He laughed. “Besides that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, think,” he said.
“I guess, getting published?”
“Yes.”
“What?” Rhonda shrieked.
“Yes! I’m going to be published.” He flung his arms out and bowed.
“But how?” she asked.
“The publishing company that edited my dissertation decided that my research would make a great book.” He beamed. “Can you believe it? I’m going to be published!”
“Oh my! That’s…that’s just so awesome!”
He grabbed Rhonda in his arms and spun her around, but her weight caught him off balance and everything slowed. He reached for her, but missed.
Rhonda hurled down the steps. Her head smacked the railing and her body went limp. One. Two. Three. Four. Her body tumbled off each step. Five. Six. Seven. Turning, twisting.
It was as if time stopped, and Brian could do nothing to move in it.
At the bottom step, she lay mangled. Blood seeped down her face and hair.
Brian ran down the stairs, stumbling over most of them. Everything in him wanted to scoop her up, but he knew better. “Rhonda!” he screamed. “Don’t you die on me!” He patted his jacket for his cell phone. As usual, he must have left it in his car. He stood to leave.
Rhonda moaned, “Wait.”
“You’re alive!”
“Something is wrong.” She clenched her stomach with a balled fist. “Take me to the bathroom.”
“But I shouldn’t move you.”
“The baby’s coming!”
Brian fumbled to pick her up, and managed to transfer her to their master bathroom. He laid her gently in the tub and grabbed a pillow for her head.
“Call 911.”
Brian nodded dumbly.
Rhonda appeared to be struggling to stay conscious. Her white dress hung heavy and wet in a pool of blood. She screamed.
Brian yelled frantically in the phone, “My wife… she’s nine months pregnant and fell down a flight of stairs. She’s in the tub about to give birth.” He paced, nausea and adrenaline coursed through his body. “Shouldn’t I just give you my address so you can get here and figure all that out yourself?”
Rhonda screamed again.
Brian entered the doorway and his face turned white.
A baby lay at his wife’s feet, blue and still.
“I can’t reach her!” Rhonda cried, pointing at the end of the tub.
With trembling hands, Brian lifted the small child to Rhonda’s chest.
“I don’t think she’s breathing,” she wheezed, stroking the blood-matted hair of her baby daughter.
Brian buckled to the tile, sobs shaking his whole body.
Rhonda stared at the blue, lifeless child in her arms.
A knock came at the door.
“That’s probably the ambulance,” Brian
said weakly. He lifted to his feet in a zombie-like daze.
A moment later, several paramedics enveloped their bathroom. They put Rhonda and their daughter, Lara, onto a gurney and whisked them off to an emergency room in the city.
They declared Lara dead at 9:05 PM on June fifth. It was one of the worst days of their lives.
Brian stayed with Rhonda, while they treated her for a slight concussion and some internal bleeding. After five days in the hospital, they allowed her to go home.
But life at the Manifold home changed.
Brian remembered very little after. Often he would stare at the wall for hours at a time. Eventually, he stopped talking to Rhonda altogether.
22
“How did you know?” Brian asked.
Jake laughed. “You still don’t know who I am, do you?”
“You’re Jake. Juvenile Delinquent. Accused murderer. And I’m your therapist.” Brian rubbed his eyes. “Look, I think you should go. It really isn’t a good idea for you to be here.”
Jake jumped up. “No, don’t start that again. I’m not leaving.”
“Please, Jake, I need to relax.”
“I suppose you need a drink, right?”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Or maybe it isn’t alcohol that you seek, but the sensual arms of my girlfriend, Krissy?”
Brian fumed. “You little twit. Have you been following me?”
“Are you going to get rid of me the way you got rid of your daughter?”
Brian pointed to the door. “That’s enough! Get out of my office.”
“No!” Jake walked toward Brian, chest out, hands in his pockets. “I’m not leaving.”
“Then I’m calling security.” Brian crossed to the phone.
Jake lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa. Fine I’ll go,” he said, and then looked at Brian with a glimmer of mischievousness. “For now.”
As soon as Jake was out the door, Brian snatched up the phone. “Hello? Bernie. This is Dr. Brian Manifold. There is a patient who just left my office. I need you to make sure that he leaves the premises. He’s about six-two, with dark spiky hair. He’s wearing a black trench coat and combat boots. He has about four piercings on his face and a tattoo of a spider web on the back of his neck.”
“Sure thing, Dr. Manifold,” Bernie said.
“Thank you.” Brian hung up.
His heart pounded. He walked to the door and locked it. He grabbed a box and started filling it with books from his shelf. He was almost done packing when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Your man never checked out.” Bernie said.
Brian felt sick. “What do you mean, he never checked out?”
“We never saw him come by, sir.”
Fear clutched his throat. “I’ll need an escort in about five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.” Brian hung up. His door was locked and they would help him to his car. Nothing to worry about. Brian grabbed the last picture from his desk and surveyed the room. The sight of the bare walls washed him in despair.
He rubbed his hands together and set the last box in the corner. A courier would pick them up tomorrow morning. Brian snapped his briefcase closed, turned off his lamp, and walked to the door.
Someone knocked.
“Who is it?” Brian’s voice trembled.
“Security.”
Brian breathed a sigh of relief and unlocked the door.
Jake stood in the doorway, red faced, eyes piercing, exerting quick breaths.
Adrenaline surged through Brian’s body. “Jake? What are you still doing here?”
The young man’s chin rested at his chest, but his eyes focused up at Brian. He said nothing, but pressed forward.
“You need to leave, son.”
Jake laughed an eerie laugh. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what, Jake?” Brian stumbled as he backed up.
“I’m not that easy to get rid of.”
“Look, I want to help you. Really I do.” Brian used the furniture to help him retreat. “But I can’t. It wasn’t by choice that I lost my license.”
Jake inched closer to Brian. “That’s where you’re wrong, Doc. It’s all your fault. If you weren’t so messed up, then you’d still be able to help me.”
Brian nodded briskly. “Yes, you’re exactly right. I’m a horrible mess. You’d do better in someone else’s care. Someone without all my baggage.”
Jake pushed Brian into a corner and slammed his hand on the wall next to Brian’s shoulder. “No one can help me,” Jake said.
Brian stared at the pitiable adolescent before him and wasn’t sure if he felt fear, or sympathy. Probably both. Brian inched past Jake and made a beeline for the phone. “I’m afraid I’ll have to call security.”
Jake followed close behind him. Brian picked up the receiver, but Jake shot the phone with a pistol.
Brian jumped back, ghostly white. “Where’d you get the gun, Jake?”
“I’m here to get help, and you’re going to help me.” Jake motioned for Brian to move to the chair. “Now sit down!”
Brian reached inside his desk drawer, but the gun was gone.
“You don’t think I could just bring a gun in here, do you?” Jake smirked. “Now do as I said. Sit over there!”
Brian tripped over own his feet and his chin hit the arm of the couch. He wailed in pain.
Jake ignored him and paced. “Why’d you even become a doctor?”
Brian blinked. Jake’s words would not register. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Jake obviously lacked patience. He waved the gun around and repeated his question. “I asked you, why’d you become a doctor?”
“To help people.”
“That’s the easy answer. Give me the real one.”
Brian looked away and sighed. “My mom was manic-depressive. I never thought anyone did enough to help her. I thought maybe I could change things.”
“But you messed up. You didn’t help anyone. You’re crazier than all your patients combined.”
Brian shook his head. “No, I’ve helped a lot of people…and I’m not crazy. I’m just going through a rough time.”
Jake howled. “Ha! First you invent a teenage daughter and now you have no idea who I am. Tell me, Doc, do you dream about demons, too?”
Brian’s head swelled. He tried to focus, but the room spun like he was on a Ferris wheel. “How do you know all that?”
Jake belted out a wretched laugh. “Poor little Dr. Manifold. Went off and killed his own baby and now he can’t function.”
“I’m warning you, Jake, stop talking about that!”
“You wanted me to talk, so I’ll talk. We killed her, Brian. We did.”
“What?”
“Your daughter. You and I killed her.”
“That’s impossible.”
Jake laughed. “You know how you can help me, Doc? You can make the pain go away. You can just stop living.” Jake put the barrel to his own temple.
Brian’s eyes went wide. “Jake, please put the gun down!”
“I’m so sick of feeling guilty. I just want to live happily ever after—to wake up in the morning and feel my wife in my arms—to know that we have a child growing up in the other room.”
“Put the gun down, and then maybe I can start to help you sort things out.”
Jake yelled, “No! We’ve been doing that for months. I’m tired of talking. We don’t talk. You won’t let us. You make me read that Bible, thinking that will take away the pain and guilt of what we did. But it won’t.” Jake leveled the gun at Brian. “Say goodbye.”
****
Dr. Raven’s eyes went wide. “Dr. Manifold, put the gun down.”
Brian held the gun to his own temple and trembled. Sweat and tears poured down his face. His body convulsed. “I can’t do this anymore. Don’t you understand? I have to get rid of all of them. If I don’t, I can never get well.”
Brian’s knees buckled.
Dr. Raven walked his way, but halted when Brian aimed the gun at him. “Brian, please.” Dr. Raven pleaded. “We can talk about this. This isn’t going to end well. You will lose everything you care about.”
“Oh, so now you’ll call me Brian. Now that you’re looking down the barrel of a gun you want to be friends.”
“Look, I’m here for you. We can work this out.”
Brian shook his head violently. “No! You’re about to tell the board to take away my license, right?”
Dr. Raven paused.
Brian cocked the gun.
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ll have to.”
“I need my job. It keeps me sane.”
“I assure you, Dr. Manifold, that’s not the case.”
Brian recoiled.
“It sounds like things are getting better at home.”
“No, things aren’t better because you’re still in here.” Brian tapped the gun on his temple, and then directed it again at Dr. Raven.
“Please, Doctor, let me help you. If you give me the gun, then maybe we can sort through this mess and…”
Dr. Raven took a step toward the phone.
Brian pulled the trigger. Dr. Raven reached for his stomach and went out of focus. Brian’s stomach burned. He looked down and screamed. He was bleeding.
Everything went black.
23
Danielle flipped on a desk lamp and walked behind the desk. The office felt still, just as she liked it. But the peace wouldn’t last. The rest of the staff would be along soon to start another—
An explosive blast shattered the quiet.
Her heart lurched as she dropped to the floor. What was that? She listened hard in the soft light, afraid to stand. Silence rang in her ears. Slowly, she stood and inched out from behind her desk.
A single light glowed from under Dr. Manifold’s door. Did she dare go down there? She eyed the elevator and then her purse. Leaving the building seemed better. But what if he was hurt? Compassion—or maybe curiosity—won out. On tiptoes, she crept forward, her rubber soles squeaking on the tile floor.
Dark Cognitions Page 14
