Praise God.
He bubbles up into consciousness, like oil rising to the surface of water. Later, he’ll remember that his name is Caleb, that he lettered in track for the last three years, and that his best friend was stolen by sleepwalking apparitions. Right now, though, all he knows is that his head is vibrating with poisonous agony. When he opens his eyes—it isn’t for a few minutes—the world is blurred, like a sidewalk chalk drawing after a storm. This would be very frightening if he could formulate the thought of panic, but it seems his brain has shattered and the piece holding fear, along with the piece that focuses his eyes, is missing. Instead, the guy who’ll soon realize he’s Caleb lies still, listening. There’s the rattle and hum of an electric fan. A bird sings far away, and a heavy door closes. Footsteps echo in a hollow place.
The guy who is Caleb tries to get up, but his legs are liquid, and a sizzling brand of pain slashes through his arm and he falls back. The clacking stops, and there’s a voice, smooth and even and deep.
The guy who is Caleb remembers a wood-shop teacher he used to have, a really odd, skinny guy with buggy eyes, thick glasses, and a million bizarre quips. His main focus in life, it seemed, was getting pieces of wood very smooth. That was all that seemed to get the fella off. He’d rub the project, whatever it was, a cedar box, a pine cutting board in the shape of a pig, or a small stool, and shake his head, “Needs more sanding, needs more waxing.” But when he was finally pleased, there was only one phrase he used without fail: “Slicker’n snot on a doorknob,” he’d say.
And that is the only way to describe the voice that fills the guy’s (Caleb’s) head now.
Slicker’n snot on a doorknob.
“Relax, don’t try to get up,” the slick voice says. “You’ll just injure yourself further. The doctor says you only have a mild fracture, but we wouldn’t want to make it any worse.”
He (Caleb) tries to see the face of the person talking to him, but all there is is a grotesque white blur that looks nothing like a person.
The voice must’ve read the look of concern on his face, because it says:
“The medication causes some blurring of vision. It’s normal, don’t worry. You might close your eyes for a while; sometimes the distortion can cause nausea.”
(Caleb) does as the voice bids him. It continues:
“It will dull your pain, though, even render you unconscious in large doses, as I’m sure you observed. In some military circles, it’s also used as a truth serum. Interesting, how as complex a thing as a human being is ruled by simple chemicals. And most of us fancy ourselves to be unsolvable riddles. But let’s try an experiment, shall we? Just to see. Just to know if it works. Are you ready? Let’s see, let’s just start with your name. What is your name, although I already know? This is what, in science, is called a ‘control question.’”
“Caleb,” he says. He had forgotten he was Caleb, so it was strange to hear the word coming out of his mouth. It sounded a little foreign, a little distant, as if somebody else were saying it across a bad phone connection.
“And where are you from?”
“Hudsonville, Florida.”
There’s approval in the voice: “You see, that’s interesting, because you could have just as easily said ‘Malibu, California.’ But you aligned yourself with your birthplace. How interesting. Let’s make things even more interesting. What is your father’s profession?”
“Attorney.”
“Do you consider yourself an attractive person?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have sexual fantasies about men or women?”
“Women.”
“Do you believe in evil spirits?”
“No.”
There’s a smile in the voice. “Interesting. Where is the friend who came to town with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did you see him last?”
“In the tunnel. In the dark.”
“What happened to him?”
There’s a hesitation.
“Answer. What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“They took him.”
“Who are they?”
“Pale and sleeping.”
“That’s interesting. Very interesting,” says the voice. “Where is your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you trust the witch, Christine Zikry’s mother?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She’s a drunk.”
There’s a long pause. Some talking, far away.
“Do you believe that you are the key to everything, that you have the power to set whole universes in motion and bring them to a halt?” asks the voice.
“No.”
“Did you know that the dead sing of you?”
“No.”
“Do you believe you have the power to bring about the end of the world?”
“No.”
“Well, you do.”
Pain is seeping back in for (Caleb), seething deep in his left wrist and melting through his head.
Feels like a cat is chasing a mouse inside his skull, knocking things over.
Tom and Jerry.
“Open your eyes,” says the voice.
Caleb does. He blinks, then sees. He’s in a small, sparely furnished office. There’s a steel desk, a file cabinet, a floor lamp with a Tiffany glass shade, probably (but maybe not) a fake. Caleb is lying on an ancient, stained puke-green couch. There’s an ACE bandage wrapped around his aching left wrist, wound from the knuckles of his hand three-quarters of the way to his elbow. And sitting on the desk in front of him is an old-fashioned-looking white intercom box.
“Well, good morning,” says the voice, crackling a little now as it buzzes cheerfully from the slats in the box face. “My name is Barnett DeFranklin. I’m director here. You, young man, are at the Dream Center. Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”
Chapter Ten
Ron sits in his idling car, staring at the huge building in front of him. He has to lean forward to see the upper stories through his windshield. It reminds him of the old VA hospital he spent all those months in, and that thought alone freezes him in his seat. The bad memories come floating back, along with that black cloud of desolation that hung over him during those long days.
He remembers the phone call to his old buddy Casey, who called him a baby killer and hung up on him. He remembers calling his old girlfriend (Cheryl was her first name, but her last name? Funny, that year and a half in the jungle she had been his beacon, tinting his every waking thought with the promise of something better. Now he can’t even remember her last name . . . Walters. Cheryl Walters. But that was a whole world ago). She hadn’t even bothered with the “baby killer” justification, she had simply hung up, and the next time he called back, a man had answered and said Cheryl didn’t want to see him anymore. In that big hospital full of echoes, some guys were quiet; they’d just sit there and stare at their oatmeal in the morning, and their hand’s would shake just slightly as they brought the spoon to their mouths, and you knew there was a horror playing itself out behind their eyes. Some guys would talk up a storm, brag and joke, then at night you’d hear them crying, wailing like babies.
In the dark of that hospital, in the glow of an exit sign, Ron wakes up. He has to take a leak. He stands up and has to steady himself with one hand on the bed—the pain meds make him dizzy—and in that minute, that pause, he happens to glance over at the bed belonging to
Private Ned Felspauch. Ned’s a good guy, tells funny stories at mess. He took shrapnel to the head, and his nose is messed up; otherwise he isn’t that bad off. He’s one of the loud ones, one of the braggers, one of the ones who’s going to be okay, get a good job selling insurance or something like that and do well for himself. He’s always writing letters to some blond back home with big hooters. In fact, she’s one of the things he brags about most.
L
ooks like he fell asleep writing one of those letters tonight and the ink spilled out of his pen, because there’s a big ink stain all over his sheets. Ron leans close in the dark. The exit light is red, and casts uncertain shadows, warps colors, but— Ned’s mouth is gaping, open and still. The stain on his sheets isn’t from ink. The razor is still in his hand, shining red in the light. Ron sits back on his bed and stares. Another twenty-one-year-old, one who had seen less, might panic. He might yell, run for help, try CPR. But not Ron Bent. He’s already seen enough to know a dead man when he sees one.
Ron didn’t cry when he lost his hand—at least not that he remembers. He didn’t cry when his number came up and he got shipped out; he just got drunk and packed a bag. He didn’t even cry when Dirty got killed. But now, sitting on that bed in that big, dark hospital full of echoes, Ron’s face gets hot, and the tears keep coming and coming and coming.
And it’s not because he lost his hand.
And it’s not because he hasn’t had one visitor since he’s been back in the States.
And it’s not because Ned Felspauch is dead.
It’s because Ned was supposed to be one of the ones who would be okay.
And if Ned isn’t okay, maybe nobody will be.
In the driveway of the Dream Center, Ron is already out of his car. He hates hospitals, hates his life, hates everything—but if God gives him wheat, he’s gonna bake bread.
And if anybody thinks they’re going to do anything bad to one more kid, they’ll have to literally do it over his dead body.
He pulls back one of the heavy double doors and walks in. Smells like Pine-Sol, medicine, and something else . . . dust? Decay?
“Hello, sir,” says a voice.
To his left, behind a counter, sits a man with a tweed jacket and a shaved head.
“Welcome to the Dream Center. How can I help you?”
“A boy was just brought in here,” Ron says. “I need to see him right now. Bring him out.”
“That’s against our policy, I’m afraid,” says the man behind to counter. “Only immediate family members are allowed to see the patients here, and then only on assigned visiting days.”
“Okay, I’m his uncle. The kid’s name is Caleb. Let me see him.”
“Sir, today is not a visiting day. If you’d like to fill out a visitation request form, you might be able to see the patient on Wednesday.”
“Goddammit,” says Ron. “He is not a patient. He was just brought in here. I found him out in the woods, and I took him to the doctor because he was hurt. Now, I watched the doctor drag him out to the car, I followed the car here, and I watched them drag him inside through these doors. Now I ask you again, where is he?”
“Sir, only approved relatives may visit patients.”
“He’s not a patient, I just told you.”
“You also said you were his uncle and then that you found him wandering in the woods. Did it ever occur to you, Uncle, that he could have been a patient here who escaped?”
Ron straightens up. In fact, that hadn’t occurred to him.
“You’re telling me that Caleb, the kid who just came through these doors, is a patient here.”
“I’m telling you, sir, that we do not share information about patients unless it is with an approved relative.”
Ron is paralyzed by the thought that perhaps the kid was here for some kind of therapy. After all, he had seemed pretty out of it, pretty disturbed. Maybe there was no lost friend, maybe it was just some psychosis in the kid’s mind. But no. Ron doesn’t think so. He believes the kid.
And when a belief takes root deep inside him like that, he’s inclined to think that it’s God who planted the seed. So he puts his misgivings aside.
The man with the shaved head, apparently taking Ron’s silence as acquiescence, has gone back to reading an issue of Guns & Ammo magazine. With shocking quickness, Ron reaches through the open window of the glass booth and snatches it out of his hands.
The man’s eyes are huge.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he says, once he’s composed himself, and he slides the window down, separating himself from Ron.
“I’m not going to,” says Ron. “Not until I see my nephew. And if I do not see him, I’m going to call every government agency, every private investigator, and every parent in the northern half of this state and come down on this place like a hammer.”
Two big orderlies round a corner, one black and one white, each equally huge and menacing. They come with long, purposeful strides, clearly ready to take Ron apart, but before they can, the man with the shaved head stays them with a gesture.
“You say you’re the boy’s uncle?” he says. “Let’s hope for your sake that that’s the truth.”
“What are you going to do to me?” Caleb asks.
The speaker box sitting on the desk crackles back: “What makes you think I’m going to do anything to you?”
Caleb doesn’t know how to respond. His mind is clear now. He can vaguely remember answering some strange questions, but for some reason he can’t seem to remember any of the questions or his answers to them.
The director seems to sense his confusion, and the box says: “You were found injured and dirty, and on top of the broken arm, which my good friend Dr. Rodgers was nice enough to patch up for you, you were diagnosed with a sleep disorder. So, he sent you here for a brief evaluation. Nothing to be alarmed about, I assure you. The sooner begun the sooner done I always say, so let’s begin, shall we? You’ll find a sheet of paper and a pencil in front of you.”
Caleb looks down. For some reason he hadn’t noticed it before, but there is indeed a paper and pencil in front of him.
“Pick it up. And begin.”
Caleb picks the pencil up.
“Thank you,” the box says.
Caleb stares ahead. The wall behind the speaker box is entirely dominated by a huge mirror. He stares at it, knowing it’s staring back at him. He glances around the room, looking for something to defend himself with if he has to. There’s nothing; the place is next to empty. But his gaze lingers on a hat rack by the door with a rope looped over it.
“What?” the box asks, “admiring my lasso, are you? I promise I’ll tell you all about it—once you’ve taken the evaluation.”
Caleb takes one more look around the room, then looks down at the paper and sees:
Patient name_____________________________________________________
Birthdate________________________________________________________
City of origin_____________________________________________________
PATIENT EVALUATION
STANDARD FORM 1A
DIRECTIONS: Please select the most appropriate answer by filling in the corresponding circle.
When he’s finished, he sets the pencil down. Already, he’s forgotten how he answered each question, as if the test were a dream that he hardly remembers upon waking.
The box crackles to life:
“About the lasso. Before I became director here, many years ago, I was a rodeo clown. That was during some of my wandering years, although some would argue that all my years have been wandering ones.
Rodeoing is tough business. I saw one man break his back, and another was gored to death not three feet from me. It was unsettling. The man who broke his back was a cowboy, but the one who got gored, he was a clown, like me. It’s funny, or rather not funny, because the clowns are taking on almost as much risk as the riders themselves, but, but, they get no respect, no fans. No love. But what nobody knew the whole time was that the man behind the makeup was actually faster and better than any of them, and could rope any living thing in the whole world. I always took pride in that.”
“What are you talking about?” says Caleb, confused.
“It’s just a little parable about making judgments before you fully understand things. And it happens to be a true story from my life.”
“What’s going on?” Caleb says. “How do you know all this
about me? Did Christine tell you?”
The box crackles. “You’ll see,” it says.
“Look, you can keep me here, that’s fine. Just let Christine out. She doesn’t belong here. Take me instead.”
From the box comes the sound of a phone ringing. “Yes,” says the director’s voice, “ . . . his uncle, eh? Well, I don’t know . . . Let me ask him. Caleb? What’s your uncle’s name?”
Caleb frowns, not wanting to say the wrong thing. Given the paper on the desk, he figures if he lies, this man will know.
“I don’t have one,” he says. “Both of my parents are only children.”
“Did you hear that?” The director laughs. “Looks like we have an impostor. Let’s detain him and have our good friend, the sheriff, come and arrest him.”
“Arrest who?” says Caleb.
The box hisses in silence for a moment. “The gentleman who took you to Doctor Rodgers, a mister Ron Bent, I believe, seems to be posing as your uncle. He seems concerned for your well-being, isn’t that funny? He doesn’t know you’re safe and sound. Don’t worry, we’ll handle him.”
“Please,” says Caleb, “just let him go.”
“No,” the box says, “I don’t think so. Karl, please call Sheriff Johnson. And as for you, Caleb, you’re free to go. We don’t want to detain you. You have work to do.”
Caleb’s many questions (What do you mean, work? Where’s Christine? Why are you arresting that guy who helped me?) are left to wheel about in his brain, unanswered. The intercom box clicks off, and despite all Caleb’s efforts at communication, it won’t click on again.
Caleb just sits there for a moment, stung, staring at the piece of paper in front of him with his eyes half-closed, guarded.
When he finally gets up and approaches the door, he expects it to be locked. Instead, it opens right up, revealing an empty, darkened hallway. Caleb peers out into the hallway, and then glances over his shoulder, back at the office he had been sitting in. This might be the time to make a run for it, but his curiosity gets the better of him. He has to know what’s happening. It’s the budding journalist within him, he knows, the part that wants—needs—to make things coherent, to give them order, to put them together with a premise, support, a logical conclusion. Except he has no premise, only nonsense, a string of non sequiturs as far as the eye can see.
The Sleepwalkers Page 14
