Sunburnt

by Joey Jameson

  There was something off-putting about his stance. He reminded Lenox of a predator preparing to battle a foe for food. His body had taken on a different shape, bent over slightly and almost menacing in stature.

  Lenox slowly pulled himself out of bed, still clutching the phone in his hand.

  “Lyric, why…?”

  “Stop calling me that,” he interrupted, his jaw clenched and his hands balling into fists at his side.

  “Calling you what?”

  “Lyric.” The word was spat out as if he couldn’t handle the taste of it on his lips.

  Lenox furrowed his brow in confusion, looking once again at the phone in his hand as if it held the answers to all his questions. “Have you been following me?”

  “I told him you were just like all the others. I always tell him. Always have.”

  “You’ve been following me,” he repeated. This time the words came out as a statement rather than a question. “You’ve been following all of us. Since we got here…But, why?”

  “I always try and warn him about you all. I don’t know why he won’t see…One day, he’ll learn his lesson.”

  Lyric was staring at the wall behind him, his eyes wide and manic. It was as if he was having a conversation with someone else who wasn’t in the room. Lenox regarded him cautiously, like a mouse would eye up a cat coming face-to-face. As Lyric took a step forward, Lenox took one back, retreating to the far wall inch by inch, his body quivering as his instinct for self-preservation kicked in.

  “Lyric, you’re scaring me. And that text, telling me to stay away.” He swallowed hard. “It came from you?”

  He wrapped his arms around himself for protection.

  “You needed to be told. I needed to put you in your place. Quickly. But you didn’t listen, did you?”

  “What do you mean, put me in my place? What is this all about?”

  “Why is it never me that anybody wants?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s always been Lyric. He always gets all the attention.”

  “I don’t…I don’t understand.” His back was pressed up against the wall now. The brick was cold on his naked back and it didn’t help the shivers that were snaking through him.

  “And they’re never good enough for him. They’re always trash. All of them. Sluts. Just like you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just once, I wish it could be me they want. Notice me. Not him. What about me? When’s it going to be my turn to be happy?”

  Lenox stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. Something was off. Very off.

  This wasn’t the man he was just lying in bed next to. Whoever this was, was someone else.

  “Lyric…I think maybe we should talk. Sit down. Maybe I could–maybe I could call someone for you…” Lenox began, the reality and potential seriousness of the situation coming to light in his eyes.

  “There’s no one to call,” he answered flatly, closing the distance between them even further until they were only metres apart.

  “This isn’t you. What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  “You should be scared.”

  A moment passed between them, their eyes locked on one another like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, then Lyric shot out his hands and gripped around Lenox’s neck.

  And squeezed.

  Lenox didn’t have time to react. He reached his hands up to try to peel Lyric’s off him, but Lyric’s grip was like a vice around his neck. He instantly lost his breath as Lyric choked him, squeezing tighter and tighter.

  His eyes were forced open, wide as saucers and filled with terror, and locked on Lyric. Petrified confusion gripped him as Lyric, or whoever this was, stared back at him with a crazed and maniacal look that was at once fury and disgust personified. His teeth were gritted and every muscle in his body seemed tensed and focused on crushing Lenox’s neck.

  He fought back uselessly, clawing and scratching at Lyric’s hands, reaching around to try to push his face away, find his eyes and put pressure on his sockets. But everything seemed useless as he fought for his life. The room went silent, all except for the strangled cries escaping from Lenox’s lips. He spat and dribbled as the life was squeezed out of him. His eyelids drooped and his body softened as he began to lose hope and, silently, give up.

  For a moment, it seemed that Lyric’s grip was growing tired. It loosened for a split-second, which was just long enough for Lenox to come back to life and wriggle free. He reached his arm around with all his might and dug his thumb into Lyric’s eye, driving it as far into the socket as he could, forcing Lyric to recoil backwards, a growl emanating from his twisted mouth.

  Lenox was free.

  He sprang into action, despite being deprived of oxygen, and flew around the bed for the door to the room. But Lyric was quick and was on him before he could reach the door. He grabbed him and shoved him onto the bed. Lenox hit his skull hard on the wooden bed frame with a sickening thwack. For a second, he was dazed and could only lie there, arms splayed out at his sides as he watched Lyric climb on top of him, straddling his waist and raising something metallic in the air above him. As Lyric paused for a second, Lenox’s eyes refocused enough to recognise the object as a huge kitchen knife, the thick blade gleaming in the light from the moon outside.

  “I warned you to stay away,” he muttered in a voice so quiet it could almost be misinterpreted as soothing, before bringing the blade down in one strong swipe, over his head and straight into Lenox’s heart.

  Lenox wasn’t sure if he cried out or not. There was nothing in his ears but white silence and nothing in his body but a sudden, incredible wet warmth as his life trickled away.

  An emotionless second passed. Then time seemed to stand still as all thoughts but one drained from his mind.

  I’m dying.

  Lenox’s limbs felt non-existent and he could do nothing more than look up and glimpse his attacker, standing above him; his once beautiful features now twisted into an evil grimace, and dreadlocks streaked, splattered, and stained with crimson blood.

  He watched as Lyric’s once brilliant blue eyes grew darker and clouded over. And as the heavy scent of vanilla began to fade and dissipate, he gave in and let his eyes blur and close.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  NOW

  The room grew oddly quiet for the first time in hours. Even the hum of the air conditioning seemed to still out of respect. Lyric’s head drooped once again as he seemingly came back into the room, his body language betraying his silence as if he took responsibility for the truth that had finally been told.

  Cedar was gone, but the reverberations of his words could still be felt by all those in the room. Lyric shuddered and cradled his restrained hands to his chest, shielding his heart like a child for protection from the horrible monsters who lived under his bed. As he returned, the cloud that hung over his mind burned away and he took heed of his whereabouts once more.

  After a moment of silence, where he allowed his breath to return to normal, he finally had the courage to raise his head and peer out at the officers from under his long lashes.

  Both were staring at him intently, their expressions stern but tinged with something that he couldn’t quite make out.

  Was it concern? But why would officers of the law show any sort of concern for a convicted criminal?

  His gaze drifted from the man to the woman, lingering for a moment on each, studying their expressions and trying to gauge something from them.

  The woman was the first to move, shuffling papers together and replacing photographs into their pristine manila envelopes that had been placed to one side. When she had meticulously tidied her area, she exchanged glances with the man to her side, their eyes speaking a silent language. He responded with a slight nod of his head.

  Lyric’s gaze continued to dart from one to the other, waiting for one of them to act. There was something strange about the way they were regarding him, as if there had been a shift in t
he room that he hadn’t noticed and the dynamic had changed. The more he stared at them the more nervous he got. He studied their faces. Stern and yet emotionless as if they were trying their best to remain neutral and unfazed in his presence. But there was something more. Something he couldn’t quite place.

  Something almost…clinical, about them and the way in which they now sat.

  The rhythmic beating of his heart that had just returned to normal began to spike as if it had realised something that had eluded him until now. From nowhere, a question appeared in his mind, like a light bulb switching on in a dimly lit room, illuminating a sudden doubt that he hadn’t considered before.

  It took him a moment to formulate the question in his head before his lips could figure out how to ask it.

  “I never did ask to see your badges…” he murmured, his voice hesitant and unsure.

  The man and woman shifted slightly in their seats, a movement so subtle it would have been unmistakable to the untrained eye. But Lyric had become quite masterful at reading people’s body language, and theirs spoke volumes of awkwardness and discomfort.

  There was another brief, silent exchange between the two before they returned their eyes to Lyric, brows slightly furrowed. It was the man who spoke first this time.

  “Badges?” he asked. The word lingered in the air around Lyric like a fly he couldn’t quite swat. “What sort of badges should we have, Lyric?”

  The question carried more weight than it should have and it forced Lyric to sit up straighter than before. He laughed to himself at the ridiculousness of the question, for the answer seemed like it should be fairly obvious to them all.

  He opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself when he realised that the man and woman didn’t share the humour he detected behind the question. The man looked once again to the woman, who had now sat back in her chair and crossed her legs almost too casually, as if her work here was done.

  “Lyric,” he began, choosing his words with obvious care, like one would if trying to explain something fairly complicated to a child, “do you know where you are?”

  Again, it was Lyric’s turn to guffaw at the ludicrousness of the question.

  Of course, he knew where he was. He smiled but couldn’t quite find the words to answer. Then he looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time.

  Somehow things looked different than he had previously thought. There was no two-way mirror as he had sworn there had been upon entering, or table with a coffee maker and mugs. The room was simple. Stark. White. Brighter than he remembered, with only a lone camera mounted on the wall pointing directly at him, a tiny red light illuminated on its side.

  He returned his gaze to the man and woman before him.

  “Of course, I do. I’m at the police station…” But as the words left his lips, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

  The man offered a tight-lipped smile at him, not one of amusement but more of pity or concern. The woman remained unfazed by Lyric’s admission, and continued to stare blank-faced at him.

  “Lyric, you know you’re not at the police station,” the man said, enunciating each word with much more careful consideration than he had before.

  “What do you mean? Of course, I am. You called me in…” Once more, his sentence was drenched with uncertainty. He laughed to himself as he looked them both in the eye.

  But after a moment, he noticed something he hadn’t registered before. He glanced down to the officer’s clothing and his mouth opened into a silent “o” shape as his pulse began to thump away inside his head, beating his temples as panic began to rise inside his throat.

  The officers weren’t wearing police uniforms. They were wearing white coats.

  Doctor’s coats.

  Crisp. White. Clinical doctor’s coats. Clipped to the breast pockets of each were identity badges displaying a photo as well as a name and title. Lyric’s gaze lingered over each in turn, trying to make sense of why officers of the law would be dressed in doctor’s coats, like they worked in some sort of…

  Hospital.

  The panic was getting stronger now, gripping his throat like a noose and sucking all the moisture out of his mouth to leave behind a sandy-like grit on his tongue.

  “Lyric, my name is Doctor Powell,” the man said, “and this is Doctor Sanchez.” He pointed to the woman at his side. “I am the Superintendent here and Doctor Sanchez is the lead psychotherapist of the long-term care ward of L’Institut Pere Mata.”

  He paused then, letting his words hit Lyric like pellets from a BB gun; sharp and stinging, leaving his skin hot and itchy like he was on fire.

  “Does that help you remember?”

  The woman, Doctor Sanchez, sat forward and put her hand gently on Doctor Powell’s arm as a way of shifting the power of the dialogue back to her. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, gentler, the way a mother would speak to her newborn child.

  “Lyric, I don’t want you to start to worry. First off, let me begin by reassuring you that you’re safe. You’re here, with us, and this is a safe place.”

  Lyric’s eyes were blurring as the familiar prickle of tears began. His mouth was ajar and a thousand thoughts were trickling through his head like drips from a leaky faucet.

  “I…I don’t understand. I thought…”

  “We don’t expect you to understand, Lyric. I’m so sorry we had to put you through all of this. But I’m afraid Doctor Powell needed to see for himself to judge the progress you’ve been making.”

  “Progress?” he asked, his voice small and insignificant.

  “Yes, Lyric. Progress,” she repeated. “Lyric, this may come as a shock to you, but I’m afraid you need to keep hearing the truth.”

  Her voice softened even further as if she didn’t wish to frighten him with what she was about to say next.

  “Lyric, you remember coming to stay at the Institute after your parents’ death, don’t you?”

  He nodded slightly, sucking back tears and wiping at his sore, burning eyes.

  “After your parents and brother died in the accident you were picked up on the beach not far from your family home. The reason you don’t recall any specific details about what occurred with Rodriguez Sanford was because I believe you had an episode after the accident which is when your Dissociative Identity Disorder, or multiple personalities if you will, officially began to manifest itself.”

  Lyric squirmed in his seat, his skin crawling as if he had been dipped in a tank full of insects and they were slowly worming their way around his body.

  “In the recollection of events you just gave to us, you were released from the hospital two years after first being sentenced, thanks to the progress you’d made and your good behaviour. Do you remember that?”

  Both doctors exchanged another telling look.

  “Yes…Of course, I do. I was twenty when I got out.”

  “Lyric, do you know how old you are now?”

  Lyric was getting angry at having to answer all these stupid questions.

  “Why are you asking me all this? What does my age have to do with anything?”

  “Lyric, if you wouldn’t mind just answering the question,” Doctor Sanchez implored gently.

  He let out a grunt of disapproval, his gaze shifting from one doctor to the other, the feeling of unease becoming stronger with each passing second.

  “I’m twenty-eight, of course.”

  The puzzled look the doctors returned to him made his hands tremble.

  “Lyric, I’m afraid I’ve got something to tell you, and it is going to come as a bit of a shock.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Lyric…You’re not twenty-eight years old.”

  “What? What do you mean? Of course, I am…I think I know how old I am, for Chrissake. What are you talking about?”

  “No. Lyric, you’re not. I’m afraid you’re almost forty.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous. What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been i
n the hospital for nearly twelve years now.”

  “No. Come on, that’s crazy.” His gaze darted around the room as he considered what she had just said. “Come on. That’s ridiculous. Forty? That’s insane. I’m not forty. I’m twenty-eight. My birthday was like, six months ago. Why would you think…”

  Doctor Sanchez was silent for a moment.

  “I’m afraid not, Lyric. You’ve been a patient here in the long-term care ward for almost twelve years.”

  “That’s impossible. That’s impossible. Why would you say that? Why are you lying to me? How could I be…No, that’s insane. What is this all about?”

  “I wish I were lying, Lyric. You tell me this exact story you’ve just recounted to us every week when we meet for your sessions. We’ve been meeting, you and I, every week since you were first admitted. And every week we go through this same discussion. I’ve been trying to get through to you for almost twelve years now.”

  Lyric could only stare now, his gaze flicking frantically around the room like an insect.

  “What are you saying? That I’ve been in a hospital for…No. I can’t listen to this…When do you think I got here, then?” His voice strained to sound sarcastic as if he were entertaining what they were telling him.

  “Lyric, you were picked up…By the police. It was late June in 2016. Do you remember what happened that year?”

  “Of course, I remember, because it just fucking happened! It is June 2016! What’s wrong with you both?”

  The panic in his voice showed itself as the threads in his mind unravelled.

  The doctors shared another all-knowing glance and Doctor Powell gave another very thin-lipped smile, casting his eyes down to the papers on the table.

  “Lyric, the year is 2028. I know you don’t understand what’s happening, and I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. But you need to start listening. You’ve been in this hospital for twelve years. Ever since the police found you near one of your parents’ apartments, in the early morning hours of Friday, June 28th, 2016.”

  “That was only fucking yesterday. Why are you saying these things?”

  Doctor Sanchez drew in a deep breath through clenched teeth, clearly determined to plough on.