Vanessa wasn’t in love with Corey. That was ridiculous.
Just lonely. Very lonely, and afraid.
The clock is ticking.
That theme kept coming back.
Nurse Charles stepped from the shadows of a narrow cluster of trees, near the place she’d imagined Hank Cowles. Vanessa stared down the mirage until it became a white cat. It noticed her stare, returned it with a belligerent flick of its tail before running across the yard and disappearing into the woods again.
There had been the expected barrage of objections from Jim Chen in response to her request. He didn’t like what she was doing and took every opportunity to tell her. Vanessa didn’t lie to him, though her explanation was a watered down rendition of how she actually felt. Hank Cowles was the catalyst. He had set the clock ticking towards the end of Corey’s world—both real and imagined. He was both figuratively and literally the Destroyer of Worlds and she couldn’t touch him, could only coax Corey Union from the old man’s grip and towards… (towards what, Vanny, your own waiting arms? Grow up…).
Confronting the man face-to-face would be risky, on some level she wouldn’t fully grasp the extent of the risk until the meeting occurred. She’d never been anywhere near him physically. No words had ever passed between them. Ironic, really, the idea of two people in the universe who had the most influence on what was happening never once laying eyes on each other.
Until today. If for no other reason than to dispel any illusions about the man—the demon, the monster—that had taken root in her sleep-deprived brain thanks to Corey. Hank Cowles couldn’t hurt her. Both of them knew that. Or they would, soon enough - she needed to believe that fact if she ever hoped to make it back from this surreal week in one piece. Already, she felt herself coming undone, losing her true purpose. Vanessa only had a couple more days to finish the destruction of Corey’s world, of everything he pretended to love, in order to save him.
She was doing it for him.
No one else.
She took another sip of coffee when the distant whine of a motorcycle reached her from up the road. She smiled again and got up, slowly, walked around the house to meet Andrew Booth as he killed the engine and swung off the seat. Her knight in shining armor riding on his steed, coming to her rescue. He’d appreciate the image. That would send the wrong signal, however. Still, seeing his large, dark face emerge from under the helmet, she didn’t care. Maybe, she thought. Maybe when this is all over…
V
Corey
Corey sat cross-legged on the living room floor, wearing only a pair of boxers long past their prime. Everything he owned was old, worn out. Including the clock in front of him. He watched the second hand count out the moments of the day in quick jerks while the minute hand crawled towards another hour. He’d not been sitting here more than ten minutes, but his body felt heavy, weighted into the rug as if inexorably sinking into the fibers, melting like the walls had done last night—just a dream. Just a bad dream.
The house was quiet without the girls. He’d managed to fall into a rough sleep after calling work. Was he sick? Not physically. Now that he was aake again, and staring at the old clock, he wondered what he was waiting for. The bees to return? Was the swarm going to return every time he didn’t wind this stupid piece of junk? He hadn’t wound it this morning. Corey stared at the ugly finish, gaudy design. Everything about the clock was awkward and poorly made. Just because something was old didn’t make it worth keeping. He would defy it, wait for whatever entity, God or the devil or the Ghost in the Machine to demand he do his duty. And for what? So the stupid thing could still lose five minutes a day?
Corey sighed, feeling stupid, then got up and wandered back into the bedroom. He didn’t consciously know what he intended to do, not really, until he’d lifted a discarded pair of chinos from the floor and pulled out his wallet. His fingers found the compartment behind the credit card where he kept random papers. Movie rental ID, AAA card. He thumbed through the small stack, pulled out the tattered business card of the woman who had treated Samantha after the miscarriage. The business card for someone whom Corey found himself thinking about a lot lately, though Sam had never thought too fondly of her. Looking at the card, he realized Doctor Reilly was more than a simple therapist. The name had the suffix of “MD.” Psychiatrist, then? A professional, someone who might be able…
Don’t. You’re just tired, a lot on your mind. The house, a million details and decisions during construction, the world burning and curling up like a piece of paper on fire.
He’d bent the card between his fingers. You need help, a new voice, distant in his head, told him. A woman’s voice. Maybe the person printed on the card, speaking to him through the talisman he held between his thumb and finger.
Corey walked slowly down the hall, glanced at the clock and decided Story Time would probably last a while longer.
The phone hung on the wall just inside the kitchen. It was suddenly in his hand, though he didn’t remember picking it up. Nothing was in his control anymore.
That thought pushed him to dial the number. As it rang, Corey prayed she wouldn’t answer. If he got a machine, he wouldn’t leave a message, lie to himself that he’d tried.
A woman answered after three rings.
He could hang up. What if she had Caller-ID?
“Hello?” she said a second time.
“Doctor Reilly?” This was wrong. He was fine. For Abby. He was doing this for Abby, and Samantha.
“Yes, who is this?”
He could still turn back. The phone was slippery. He said, “Corey Union. You treated my wife once. Samantha?”
“Samantha? Samantha Union. Yes, I remember. You said your name is Corey? Is Samantha all right?”
“She’s fine.” Jump right in or hang up. “I’m calling for another reason.”
Silence. The woman was waiting, as only a psychiatrist-therapist-whatever could do, and there was comfort in that fact. “I - ” he swallowed, licked his lips. Every word had to be pushed like a reluctant mule. “I seem to be… having problems. Relaxing. I’m afraid of things. I have a clock. And there are bees. And…“ He wanted to say, and an old man named Hank Cowles stares at me from imaginary cabs or from sidewalks with his little monster dog. But it wasn’t true. None of it was true.
None of it is real.
“Yes,” she said, confirming his thought. “And… what?”
He pulled the phone cord to its breaking point in order to keep an eye out the living room window, making sure Sam and Abby weren’t coming up the driveway.
He pushed more words loose. “I don’t know what is going on. Nothing is normal, not anymore. I’m seeing things. They can’t be real.” Rotting peanut butter sandwiches and stained notebooks and cabs and dogs and bees. “The bees are real. At least, they look real.” He sobbed, swallowed it down, squinted, looked outside again. He was becoming confused as to what he was actually saying aloud and what had only been thoughts.
“Corey, where are you now?”
In my living room.
“In Hillcrest?”
“Yes.”
His heart rate picked up. Something wasn’t right. “How did you know…“
After a pause, “How did I know what? Corey?”
How did she know they’d moved to Hillcrest?
“You must have told me,” the voice said.
The bees announced themselves from inside the fireplace. Corey heard their angry whine, a thousand small planes diving down the flue, hitting the trap.
The woman answered a question he never asked.
“Mister Union, wait.”
“What the hell is going on? Who is this?”
“You called me, remember?”
He looked out the window again. Hank Cowles was standing in the driveway. The old man raised his long-sleeved arm in a slow greeting. He was laughing. Nurse Charles, what a stupid fucking name, wagged her tail beside his ankle. Corey could just make out her horrible pink tongue.
Reilly’s voice was a tinny whine, bees trapped in the earpiece. The buzzing inside the flue was getting louder, tapping against the vent hood, trying to get inside.
The clock. Wind the clock.
“No!”
He pressed the disconnect button and tossed the phone onto the couch. The cord tried to curl back in on itself, pulling the handset to the carpet. Corey walked slowly—show no fear—into the kitchen, away from the front of the house where the terrible old man, none of this is real; he is not real, was watching and waving and laughing.
When he reached the kitchen table, Corey froze. Vanessa was on the porch, staring at him though the picture window. Her beautiful face was stone, expressionless. She wore the same neck-buttoned dress, long black hair loose and blowing in the breeze.
The sound of the bees faded, then was gone. Only the ticking of the clock remained. He shouldn’t be able to hear it, not from here. Corey dared not break eye contact with his neighbor, even when the rotted smell returned. The stench filled the room until he covered his face as he’d done last night and squeezed his eyes shut. Blinded, wandering sideways along the kitchen, his hip collided with the kitchen counter. He slid down, the cabinet handle pressing into his back.
Bird song through the window. Corey opened his eyes, the dream sinking away. Morning air blew into the kitchen like Sam’s kisses over his skin, bringing him back to reality. To here. The real world. Not any safer than the nightmare, but normal, sometimes even happy. For the moment, perhaps for the last time, he was safe again.
VI
Vanessa
After lingering for a few minutes with the air conditioning on high, Vanessa killed the ignition and got out of the car. Summer heat poured over her in a wave, but that was good. Woke her up. She had to stay focused.
Corey had come so close! He’d made the call; had actually gotten up, lifted the handset and returned with it to the couch, though he’d never actually dialed a number. Not that it would have made a difference; the house’s phone service had been long disconnected. Vanessa had played along with the scene, and in the process managed to ruin everything. All this time, to confuse actual dialogue with his thoughts. Such an idiot!
She closed her eyes. It was a success, no matter how brief. What too many people in her profession would call a “breakthrough.”
She took a deep breath outside the front doors, let it out. The people inside, not the least of whom was the man waiting to introduce her to Hank Cowles, were protective of their residents, loathsome and vile as most might be. Vanessa straightened her blouse, brushed non-existent lint off the black skirt before stepping into the lobby. The air inside was bitter cold, helped to mask the myriad of scents, of emotions, lingering in every corner.
Bad sign. She was starting to think like Samantha Union.
The security officer looked up from the desk. His gray hair sharply contrasted his deep black skin. Aside from this single piece of furniture, the oversized foyer was stark save a series of cameras mounted in the corners of the ceiling.
“May I help you?”
Vanessa handed him one of her business cards. “Hi. I'm Doctor Reilly. I have an appointment with your Deputy Director, John Soames.”
VII
Judging by the tang of disinfectant and wet streaks along the floor, the hallway had been recently mopped. The walls, however, hadn’t been painted in over a generation. They were beige, faded and stained. Voices drifted out from behind each door as they passed. Some sang; others shouted unintelligible words, sermons offered blindly through the thick walls, begging for attention. Centered above Vanessa and Soames, the wire-meshed lights were caked in dust, casting the depressing atmosphere with a garish, yellow glow. One bulb flickered in a silent death throe as they passed beneath it.
John Soames was a thin man in a suit that did not fit. He walked with arms at his sides, fingers flicking and curling over themselves like snakes.
“We’ll wait for Martin before opening the door. I wouldn’t say he’s dangerous - not here I mean. Out there, well,” the snakes ceased their dance for a moment, then resumed. Soames let his sentence die under the dusty light. Vanessa didn’t need him to finish. The man whose cell they were approaching had been, for the past two years, Venning Memorial’s most famous, or infamous, patient.
She fought the urge to whisper. Instead, she said, as casually as possible, “If he’s not dangerous, why is he in solitary?”
Soames did not answer immediately. They rounded a corner into a hallway much like the previous, dimly lighted, in need of paint. The odor was stronger here, air stale. The passage ended at a reinforced, electronically locked door after only two cells on each side.
A large Latino man with fat arms waited by the first door on the left.
“Oh, Martin, you’re already here. Good; that’s good.” This served as their only introduction. Soames turned back to Vanessa. “We keep the patient in here because he was causing undue hardship,” he italicized the words by forming flaccid quotation marks with his fingers, “among the other residents when we let him mingle for very long.”
“Undue hardship?" she said. “You mean violence?”
Martin laughed. “No, Ma’am. Just freaky.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t him, anyway. It was Nurse Charles.”
Vanessa tightened her mouth, tried not to show surprise. “You let him keep the dog?” If they had, they were as insane as Hank Cowles.
Soames said, “Martin, please. No, Doctor. We didn’t. They never found the animal, to be honest.”
“Probably ate it for lunch,” Martin said, chuckling. At the director’s glare, he moved to the second door.
Soames said, “Everything will be clear when you meet him.” He nodded to Martin, who pulled a set of keys from a retractable wire attached to his belt. After spending a few seconds looking for the right one, he inserted it into the lock but did not turn it. He said to Vanessa, “The guy’s not known for violence, but I’m going inside with you, anyway.”
“No argument,” Soames added before she could reply, fingers resuming their dance at his side.
Martin continued, “If I sense anything wrong, or you give me a nod, I’ll get you out of there before the old man can blink twice. Got it?”
Vanessa tried to smile, gave it up and said, “Got it.”
He looked at his boss. “You going in, Doctor Soames?”
“I’ll wait out here if that’s OK.” He turned to Vanessa, eyebrows raised. “Doctor?”
“That’s fine.” Vanessa couldn't take her eyes off the door.
Martin nodded. “OK. Show time!” He turned the key, but before opening the door slid aside a small panel at the top and said, “Mister Cowles? We’re coming in, sir. You have a visitor.”
He glanced inside, shook his head with some unspoken irritation, then slid the panel close and opened the door, leaning back into the hall to wave her inside. “After you.”
Vanessa stepped in. The room was known in most circles as a Quiet Room. It had once been solitary for the more violent patients, as evidenced by the markings on the wall where padding had once been fastened. The padding was now gone, no rubber room here, but apparently no one felt the need to scrape the walls clean of old adhesive nor add paint. A unsheltered toilet had been installed in the corner with a fixed seat, no lid. Hank Cowles had forgone the room's only chair and sat on the floor beside the bed, opposite the door. Clad in the institution’s standard gray pajamas, he leaned against the wall with both legs straight out in front of him.
His left arm was limp, hand resting on the floor, palm up. His right, however, moved steadily back and forth a few inches above the floor. The pantomime was obvious. He was petting an imaginary dog, over and over from the head (Vanessa assumed) down the back, returning to the head, down again. Gently, steadily. A small dog, Shih-Tzu if she remembered the reports in the papers and, of course, what she’d learned from Corey during their sessions.
Hank Cowles didn’t look as old as she’d imagined, though his records
pegged him at eighty-three. He was balding. Whatever white tufted hair remained on his scalp was wild from neglect. His face, however, was alive and bright. After so much time in his situation, most people would have the characteristic sunken eyes, lost look or blank stare. Some clear sign of defeat.
The old man was very alert. And smiling.
“Mister Cowles, this is Doctor Reilly. She’d like a few words with you. I trust you’ll give her the same courtesy and respect that we offer you. OK?”
For such a large man, working in one of the toughest wings of the institution, Martin was a regular gentleman.
Hank nodded, said nothing.
Vanessa knelt, then sat back on her calves. She had not moved much past the door, which Martin now closed behind her.
She said, “Mister Cowles,” keeping with Martin’s etiquette. “I promise I won’t take too long. I just - ”
She just what? All she wanted was to look at him, preferably through a two-way mirror, prove to herself that he was real, harmless. She did not like to admit the latter. But it was there, the need to see and to know that he was harmless to everyone, including Corey.
She swallowed. Hank watched her. His smile dropped a little but still held an amused smirk. Perhaps he was pleased to have company. The right hand continued patting the non-existent dog. Up, down, perfectly matching what she assumed was his old pet’s contours. It was disconcerting, the exactness of the movements. Vanessa was beginning to understand what Soames had meant, why he chose not to spend much time here. She sniffed, considering her options.
Honesty was the best approach. What the hell did she care what this monster thought? Vanessa broke eye contact for only a moment, realizing this was the wrong thing to do, forced herself to look up. His eyes, blue and clear, had not shifted except to blink. “Actually, I’m not entirely sure why I came. I suppose you might say I have a professional interest in your case.”
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