Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1)

by Michael Stiles

  “I want you out of my head.”

  “My brain fits with yours. I can’t talk to anyone else the way I talk to you. You and I are the same!”

  This idea was enough to turn Ed’s stomach. “I’m nothing like you,” he breathed.

  The smile melted from Nathaniel’s face. “You don’t know anything. Look at this! Look!”

  The brilliance of the light that suffused Nathaniel’s body grew to such a blinding intensity that Ed had to close his eyes. A part of him knew the light wasn’t real. He was still standing in a pitch-dark cell.

  After a moment, there was a change in the nature of the light beyond his eyelids. Ed opened his eyes and found himself sitting in a chair in a small room. At first he thought Nathaniel had somehow passed him another of his own lost memories, but this felt different. He wasn’t himself. He was seeing one of Nathaniel’s memories, Ed reasoned, looking through Nathaniel’s eyes—two of them. The thought of being trapped in the same body as Nathaniel made Ed want to throw up.

  He was sitting in something like a dentist’s chair, gazing upward at a ceiling of plain white panels interspersed with fluorescent lights that buzzed softly in the quiet room. His body ached all over.

  A man was speaking from beyond his field of vision. “He’s responding slowly. I’m having a hard time making it stick.”

  A deeper voice replied, “Keep at it. He’ll come around.” Distantly, Ed thought he recognized that second voice.

  “He’s not retarded, is he?” asked the first one. “If you take them off the street, a lot of them are going to be retarded, and those aren’t any good to us. They need to understand who the targets are.”

  “He’s not retarded, Bill,” the deeper voice said in a tone that suggested that this topic had been discussed many times before. “I’m not finding these people randomly. We screen them. Just do your thing, wind ’em up, and I’ll make sure they zip off in the right direction. You’ve got to trust me to do my part here.”

  “All I’m saying is, they have to understand enough to make up their own reasons why they’re doing it. Otherwise my work won’t have any effect. I can only plant the seed. The rest has to come from the subject.”

  “Just get him programmed. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Nathaniel tried to move, but his arms and legs were strapped to the chair. When he tried to turn his head, something around his forehead prevented him from rotating it more than a tiny bit in any direction. He was completely immobilized. Wild panic pierced him like a cold needle puncturing his heart. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind and float free of his bonds, but his head was spinning and he couldn’t concentrate.

  In the midst of his fear, he realized he could feel the weight of something on his lap. He opened his eyes. His old stuffed kitty was sitting there, gazing up at him with its huge, glossy plastic eyes. Stuffing peeked out through a hole in its side. He had never been so happy to see it.

  Help me, he thought, since speaking to it would draw attention from the men. Please help.

  “Don’t be stupid,” the kitty replied. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

  You have to get me out of here.

  “You know how to protect yourself,” it said. “You’ll be fine.” Then it vanished.

  “I think he’s awake,” the first voice said. The speaker, an immensely fat man, eclipsed the flickering fluorescent light as he leaned over Nathaniel. A drop of sweat quivered on the end of his nose, threatening to break loose and fall onto Nathaniel’s face. Nathaniel watched that droplet, knowing he would be unable to wipe it away if it got on him. He shuddered at the thought.

  “Take it easy, friend,” said the other man, the one he couldn’t see. “Nothing to be afraid of here.” The fat man straightened and stepped away. Nathaniel had to strain to turn his eyes far enough to see his second captor. A man wearing a dark suit and a congenial smile leaned against a table, watching Nathaniel with great interest. His face didn’t look old, but his slicked-back hair was completely gray. Nathaniel felt like an entomologist’s specimen, pinned down for examination.

  He tried to speak, to tell the man not to call him “friend,” but his throat was too dry to produce a sound. All that came out was a raspy, undignified squeak.

  “You’ve been selected to take part in a study,” the gray-haired man continued. “I apologize for the restraints. You thrashed about quite a bit when we brought you in. We had to tie you down to keep you from hurting yourself.” He picked up a glass of water from the table behind him and offered the straw to Nathaniel, who sucked at it until the water was gone.

  “Untie me, you piece of shit,” Nathaniel said once he had enough moisture in his mouth to speak.

  “What’s your name, buddy?” the gray-haired man said in lieu of a reply.

  Nathaniel spat in his direction, or as close as he could manage. Nothing much came out.

  “That’s an unusual name,” the man said with a wry smile. Without breaking his composure, he took two steps toward Nathaniel. His fist flashed out with such speed that Nathaniel never saw it coming; it rocked his head against the restraints and made his ear ring. The pain followed a moment later, and good God, it was an exquisite pain. His face still absolutely calm, the man with gray hair settled back into his position, half-sitting on the edge of the table.

  “My name is Tom,” he said. “If you show me any more disrespect, I will personally beat you to a bloody pulp. Bill,” he said, addressing the other man, “no more water for our friend till I say so.” The fat man grunted. “Now,” Tom said, fixing his narrow eyes back on Nathaniel, “what is your name?”

  “Gannim,” he replied thickly. He could taste blood. “Nathaniel Gannim.”

  Tom took off his jacket, slowly and casually, and loosened his tie. His fatherly smile was back again. “Nathaniel, I don’t want to be your enemy. I have some work for you to do, and things will be a lot easier if you work with me instead of against me. Can you do that?”

  “Maybe it’ll help if you hit me again.”

  “Ha! How ’bout later.” He reached behind his back and took out a photograph, holding it up in front of Nathaniel’s face. It was a black and white image of a man he’d never seen before—a smiling gentleman with wavy hair. “Have you seen him before?”

  Nathaniel tried to shake his head. It was held too firmly in place; all he could do was wiggle his chin a little. “No.”

  “He’s a Senator from Texas. You’re going to kill him for me.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Nathaniel, partly out of a desire to be difficult, but mainly out of a perverse curiosity about what the man would do next.

  The gray-haired man smiled once more. He leaned in close. “When I’m done with you,” he whispered, “you’re gonna do whatever I damn well tell you to do.” He jerked his head sideways—a signal to the other man—and stepped aside. The fat one came over with a syringe in his hand.

  With a great effort, Nathaniel forced his mind to stillness. He was one with the universe beyond the concrete walls of this prison. He couldn’t do anything about the bonds on his arms and legs, but his mind was his own. He drifted up, out of his body. Looking down from above, he saw himself strapped to the chair, the two men looking down at him.

  “This will help you relax,” the fat man said. The pinprick brought Nathaniel forcibly back into his body. “Nathaniel,” continued the fat one, “I want you to concentrate on the sound of my voice. All you can hear is my voice.”

  He tried again. Whatever the man had injected into him felt very good and was making him woozy. It took a great deal of effort to pull himself away. Once free of his body, he fled through the ceiling and out of the little room. He sought the safety of the space beyond, where the souls of all people lay around him like points of light in an infinite firmament. Whatever they did to his body, they couldn’t reach him as long as he stayed here. But the medicine they had given him was strong, and his mind kept drifting back and forth between the room and the void. After t
hat his thoughts became muddled, and he lost track of where he was.

  The world shifted, and Ed was someplace else.

  It was sunny and hot. A brown haze of smog hung over the city like a snug, carcinogenic blanket. He sat on the curb, feeling the heat of the pavement burning him through the seat of his pants, and watched the people and cars go by.

  No, Ed thought furiously. Don’t show me any more! But his demand was met with silence.

  As Nathaniel, he watched the girls walk by and admired their miniskirts and high heels. No one noticed him; he was just another drifter selling stuff he’d stolen somewhere. Trinkets, souvenirs, whatever. The money all went to the Society. His wares were laid out on a filthy blanket next to him. Every so often, when a nice-looking girl came close enough, he’d lean over and pretend to organize his inventory while stealing a glance up her skirt. They never noticed. They never even looked down. He was so much better than they were, he was a warrior in the Army of Orc, but they never saw him because they were too busy looking over his head. So he sat there, rearranging his trinkets, undressing the girls in his imagination and trying to decide which one he should kill.

  A particularly tasty one caught his eye just then, crossing the street toward him. Dark hair, slender hips, hemline showing off several inches of her thighs. His gaze lingered on her for a time before he noticed that she was with someone. The man didn’t seem remarkable in any way at first—medium height, a little skinny, kind of shaggy in the haircut, but when he turned his face to look at Nathaniel the whole world stopped.

  Nathaniel had seen a gifted man one time, an honest-to-God holy prophet, singing at the front of a rock band at Manhattan Beach. That guy had given off vibrations that made Nathaniel’s head ring, and he’d glowed like a firefly to Nathaniel’s eyes. Pure energy had been rolling off of that singer in waves. He was nothing compared to this. This one was shining like the sun. Nathaniel forgot all about the girl and stared at the man, even though looking at him made Nathaniel’s brain hurt.

  Whoever he was, the guy was the most powerful Prophet Nathaniel had ever seen. Maybe even more than Nathaniel himself; certainly more than Arthur. And he obviously had no idea what he was, what he could do. Well, Nathaniel was going to show him.

  “Buy something, please?” Nathaniel put a pathetic whine into his voice to catch the attention of the girl. She kept right on walking. The man gave Nathaniel no more than a passing glance.

  Nathaniel tried again. “Help me out, lady! I got two babies going hungry at home!” That did it. The girl stopped and looked back at him. Chicks were always suckers for starving babies; the more starving babies you had, the more they wanted to give. She stopped and came back over to Nathaniel and his blanket of treasures.

  “Ellie, we’re going to be late,” said the man. That’s me, Ed realized distantly from inside Nathaniel’s head. I remember that day.

  “We’ve got plenty of time,” the girl snapped. She knelt on the edge of the blanket, looking through the items that were arrayed on it. Nathaniel stared hungrily down her top as she bent over to pick up a tiny model of City Hall, which she looked at from a couple different angles before setting it back down. “How much you want for this little guy?” she asked, indicating a gaudy ceramic garden gnome Nathaniel had swiped from someone’s yard in Beverly Hills.

  “Two dollars,” he said, expecting her to counter with fifty cents at most, but she pulled a pair of dollar bills out of her purse and pressed it into his hand. He saw her wipe her hand surreptitiously on her skirt to remove any unpleasant residue that might have been transferred during the transaction. Everyone who touched him always felt the need to wipe themselves clean afterwards, but the polite ones tried to hide it from him.

  “Are you nuts?” the scrawny man said.

  “What’s it to you, bucko?” she replied.

  “You are not putting that ugly thing in my apartment.”

  The girl, still kneeling on the edge of the blanket, barked a laugh. “Your apartment! I’m putting it in the garden, not inside your apartment,” she said, oozing sarcasm. “It’s my garden, and I want a gnome in it.”

  “It’s not a garden, it’s a box of dirt.” But he clearly realized the argument was already lost. The girl cradled the gnome in her arm and stalked away, forcing the man to hurry after her or be left behind.

  From that moment, Nathaniel knew what he was going to do. He would find a way to be that man.

  The world shifted again. Ed was himself once more, but Nathaniel’s illusion was still before his eyes. Thousands of points of light flickered and danced before him. He was back in his Dream City, surrounded by yellow lights that rose up all around him in the shape of a vast bowl. At the center of the bowl, a warm light pulsated in a rhythm that felt like it was just beyond Ed’s hearing. As before, there was a deep, rhythmic rumbling sound from somewhere out beyond the lights, like the footsteps of a huge beast approaching.

  “You still haven’t found the city,” the killer muttered. Ed turned to see Nathaniel standing nearby and basking in the glow. His left eye socket was a dark cavern in the flickering light.

  “No. I don’t think it’s even real.”

  Nathaniel rushed toward him so suddenly that Ed took two steps backward in surprise. “Of course it’s real!” Nathaniel spat. “And Urizen is getting closer. He’s right outside!”

  Ed thought back to his book of Blake, in which Urizen was sometimes depicted as an enormous dragon.

  “Urizen will attack this place,” Nathaniel growled, “and Arthur’s counterstrike will continue the cycle. This is not what Blake wanted!” He grabbed Ed’s arms, his eye practically glowing with emotion. “It’s up to you and me to break the cycle! The Guru knew this!”

  At that moment all the lights went out, leaving Ed and Nathaniel standing together in an almost total darkness. The only illumination came from Nathaniel himself.

  “See what they do to the prophets,” Nathaniel said. He strode ahead into the blackness while Ed hurried to keep up. They stopped in front of a man lying face-down on the ground, a puddle of blood spreading from his head. Ed got down on his knees and rolled the man over. He was dead; his open eyes glinted dully. His face was well known to Ed.

  “One of many,” Nathaniel explained. “Kajdas will do this to all of them. Including you, eventually. You have to kill him. That’s first. Second, we have to destroy Arthur.”

  Ed closed his eyes to avoid having to look at the corpse any longer. “Arthur’s too strong for me. And Tom―” He didn’t think he could kill Tom, even after all he’d learned.

  “I’ll take care of Arthur. All you have to do is set me free.”

  “And that will break the cycle?”

  Nathaniel smiled, displaying his rotten teeth. “No. There’s always another one to take his place. But it can’t hurt.”

  Ed got slowly to his feet. He’d had enough of Nathaniel’s visions. It was time to do what he’d come to do. “There’s one more person who needs killing,” he said softly.

  His thoughts returned to Eleanor. Seeing her through Nathaniel’s eyes had reopened every wound that had almost healed. Everything went quiet, except for a persistent and annoying ringing in his ears. A pungent smell was burning his nostrils. He turned around; Tom was saying something to him. Yelling, actually, but Ed couldn’t hear him over all the ringing.

  He turned back to Nathaniel, who was reclining on his cot with a dark stain growing on his chest. His eye was open and lifeless, and the light that had illuminated the little cell was growing dim. After another moment, there was nothing but darkness.

  Someone grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backward. “Did you hear me?” Kajdas was saying. The noise in Ed’s ears was subsiding a little. “We need to get you out of here.”

  Ed looked down at his hands. He was holding the gun. He stuck it back into the waist of his jeans and felt the hot barrel burning him.

  Tom was still pulling at him. Ed found this vaguely irritating, but he stumbled along under Kaj
das’ guidance, back to the elevator and out of the building. The guard at the side entrance watched them go, but didn’t say a word. Did he know what had just happened downstairs? If so, he gave no sign. The steel door latched shut, and they were alone in the loading area once more.

  A wind was starting to blow out of the west, cool but not uncomfortably so. The eastern sky was clear, revealing the glow of the coming sunrise, but the rest of the sky remained dark under clouds that were rolling in off the Pacific. As soon as they were outside, Tom gave Ed a gentle push toward the car and fumbled in his pocket for his keys. He looked shaken. Ed stood next to the car, lost in thought, making no effort to get in.

  “Ed,” Kajdas said in a strained voice, “we have to go.”

  “He wanted me to shoot you, you know.”

  Tom made a sound of exasperation. “Well, you’re obviously not going to do that, or you’d have done it already. Look, we need to get you out of here. They’ll be checking on him soon.”

  “Did you bring me here just so I’d kill him?”

  “We have no time for this. Get in the car.”

  Ed leaned defiantly against the side of the Electra. “You could have stopped me if you’d wanted to.”

  “Okay. Fine. Mr. Wensel wanted him dead, and so did you. Everybody wins, and no one at the Bureau had to give the order to do it.” He cast a glance toward the hospital. So far no one had raised an alarm.

  “All the better to protect yourselves from being linked to the murder, right? Or is it just cowardice?”

  Tom’s face slowly turned a disturbing shade of red. “Jesus Christ,” he said, his voice trembling with anger, “where is your gratitude? All this time, I’ve been trying to help you! When you were strung out on the drugs, who saw you through? I saved your stinkin’ life, pal.”

  “You did,” Ed replied. “But then again, it was your fault I got to that point in the first place.”

  “And when Albert had you brought in, I fought for you. I nearly lost my job over it.”

  “Oh!” Ed cried, pouring derision into his words. “How terrible that would’ve been!”