In the last few days, Hunter would sometimes see ghostly images of the boy, flickering through his mind like some kind of residual image seared onto his cornea after staring at the sun for too long. They had grown stronger since the boy was last here. It reminded Hunter of the way Clifton Walker in C-14 would beg for food right before lights out, fearful he would starve to death before morning. Was that why ghostly images of the boy were flitting through his head? Was Brenda begging for something to eat? Not physically, of course. This was Sunnybrook, after all, and not some backwater UN outpost in Central Africa. The physical changes in her had been remarkable after Kavi’s visit. But if that was so, then how was she continuing to feed now that Kavi was gone? If not the boy, then who? She must have a proxy. The thought made Hunter smile and he felt his dry thinning lips split in three places. Hunter saw the pale, translucent flesh on his hands and suddenly knew then that she had chosen him and the realization left him positively gleeful.
A series of pictures began forming in Hunter’s mind, like a video of bursting soap bubbles played in reverse.
Brenda was speaking again.
She was showing him her room, the one he was in now. Her lying in bed. The sun was gone and heavy shadows played against the walls. Her son Tyson was padding determinedly across to Brenda’s body. In this daydream Tyson stopped and examined the equipment. He was poised over her body for several moments before he plucked the sensors off her chest and attached them to his own. It all seemed so strange to Hunter until he saw Tyson pulling the feeding tubes out of her nose. He pressed on her chin with the fleshy part of his thumb until her mouth opened and he removed her breathing tube. He was killing her. Removing the heart sensors and attaching them to his own chest suddenly made sense. Tyson was making sure that none of the attendants knew there was a problem until it was too late.
Brenda’s body hardly moved. The machines had been the ones breathing for her all this time and now that Tyson had stopped that, Brenda’s chest had simply fallen and failed to rise again. Hunter was shaking his head, mumbling to himself and it was a minute before the words finally took some kind of coherent form. “You know I love you more than anything in this whole wide world,” Hunter whispered. “I’d never let anyone hurt you.”
The images flashed again in his mind, this time more rapidly, more emphatically.
“No!” he shouted. “I will not let anyone hurt you, not again.” For the first time he became consciously aware that he was speaking out loud. He also had her cold, limp hand clasped in his own, but to Hunter it felt warm and full of life. For a reason he didn’t quite understand and would never be able to accept, Brenda wanted to die. He knew that he would never be able to forgive himself if he stood by while the woman he adored was summarily executed. The images were cycling through at the speed of light now. Each time, reset and played back a second faster. And now Hunter could see there was something different. Tyson’s face had melted away, replaced by his own. She wanted him to do it. Wanted him to end it right now.
“Never,” Hunter screamed again and then grabbed his head, doubling over. The pain was excruciating. A thin stream of blood began trailing from his left ear. He had time for one last thought before he collapsed onto the floor. Before the world went black.
He had one more person to kill, to make her safe.
Brenda wasn’t nearly as powerful as she used to be and the pain in his head gradually eased and then stopped altogether. He righted himself, brushed the dust off his lab coat and kissed her hand.
Not long after, Hunter was down the hall seeing to a schizophrenic named Joel Marsh; a middle aged man who had hacked six of his relatives to death because the letters in his alphabet soup had told him to.
Cindi Jaworski came in then. She was doing her rounds and desperately trying to play hard to get. Hunter hadn’t returned a single one of her twenty-eight phone calls since the night he had…done what anyone else in his position would have.
Cindi was emptying Joel Marsh’s biohazard bin when she said: “Al’s still looking for the key to that storage closet on sub level 3. He’s been bitching about it all morning, driving us bat shit.” She was trying to make some form of conversation to fill the cavernous silence in the room and it took a full second for the significance of what she had just said to register. Hunter felt the muscles in his face suddenly stiffen. Sub level 3 was where Hunter had stashed Bowes’ dead body and the demands of his work day had made it impossible to return to dispose of it properly. Oh no. The keys Al was talking about had come from the janitor’s own ring. Hunter he had found them in the maintenance lunch room and tried each key until he had found the one that worked. Then he had returned the chain where he had found it, minus the single key he had been searching for.
“Yes, I know how stubborn Al can get,” Hunter said, “when the smallest thing is out of place.” He was trying to sound calm and agreeable.
Cindi smiled weakly. “Well, knowing how impatient Al can be, he might just use a crowbar to get in.”
Her eyes locked on his face and for a moment Hunter could see she was disturbed by his haggard complexion. A thin film of sweat was forming over Hunter’s brow. “What’s his goddamned rush?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, ‘parently there’s some kind of master water valve or something he needs to get at.” She swapped the bag to her free hand. “You sure you’re all right, you really don’t look so good.”
Hunter smiled and his thinning lips pulled back from a set of darkening teeth. “Never felt better.”
Chapter 38
“Look Ty, we’ve known each other for how long now?”
Tyson eyed Skip suspiciously. “Fifteen years, at least.”
“Things have been…difficult lately, I know that.”
Skip was choosing his words carefully, Tyson could tell, and normally his friend’s deliberate sensitivity was a welcomed thing. Between the two of them, Skip was always the more thoughtful and responsible one and it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Skip was a few years his senior. Of course, Skip had always been more than a close friend. He’d been a surrogate father, but right now Tyson didn’t need a father. He needed a friend.
“I’m worried you’re about to go and do something very stupid,” Skip said slowly. “I’ve seen that look in your eyes before and it’s usually a sign you’re about to do something you’ll regret.”
“I never expected you to believe me when I told you what was happening.”
“I didn’t, not at first. Then I remembered our lunch at Le Bernardin and that thick stack of twenty dollar bills you threw at me after the meal.” Skip was keeping his voice down because Kavi was in his bedroom, watching Toy Story for the nine hundredth time.
Tyson shook his head. “I’m sorry, Skip, I wasn’t trying—”
“I only ended up needing about half of them,” Skip cut him off. “Stashed the rest in an old jar above the fridge and I kept trying to remember to give them back to you each time you swung by, but you were always in such a…rush.” Skip went into the kitchen and returned a second later with a jar in his hands. He held it up for Tyson to see.
“It’s empty,” Tyson said.
“Then I remembered you telling me how the money had vanished from your apartment. How it had faded, the way dreams start to fade after you wake up.”
“So you know now I’m not crazy.”
“Money, toys and then people coming out of dreams. I can’t believe it, Tyson, but I also don’t know how I can deny it.”
“You know, up until now, Judy’s been the only one to stick by me and I’ve known her all of a week. I’m glad we’re not alone anymore.”
Skip smiled. “And where is Mrs. Perfect? I’m starting to think it’s some kind of conspiracy with you two.”
“Not on my part. Look, Skip, right now, I really need you to keep Kavi while we go and do this thing.”
“You still won’t say what it is you’re up to.”
“I don’t feel that I can. Not yet
, at least. I just need for you to trust me on this.”
Skip set the jar down on the kitchen table. “After what happed to Ruma, I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“Only one more person’s gonna get hurt and then everything will be back to the way it was before.”
Skip fell into a chair and didn’t say anything.
Then: “You know you’ve just gone and made me an accessory.”
Tyson was shaking his head. “I wish there was some other way…”
The phone in Tyson’s left pocket was vibrating. He removed it and flipped it open.
“I’ll be right down.”
The voice on the other end surprised him.
“Pardon me, Mr. Barrett.”
“I thought…who is this?”
“This is Dr. Elias Hunter. We met the other day when you came by Sunnybrook.”
Tyson was suddenly gripped by a horribly irrational thought.
She knows. Somehow she’s read my mind and she knows what I’m about to do.
“What is it I can do for you, Dr. Hunter?”
“There’s been a change in your mother’s condition.”
“Oh, what kind of a change?”
“One for the worst, I’m afraid.”
Tyson was quiet.
“At this point, she’s well past the state’s time allowance for patients in Glasgow level three comas. I’m sorry, but we don’t have any other option than to terminate her life support.”
Tyson switched the phone to his other ear. “You have my permission, go ahead.”
“I’m afraid it’s not quite that easy. You see, there are legal issues to observe, paper work to fill out and signatures. Lots of signatures.”
The line was quiet for several moments.
“As her only surviving relation…” Hunter went on.
“My father,” Tyson spat. “He’s gotta be around somewhere.”
“I’m sorry to inform you that he passed away not long after your mother arrived at Sunnybrook.”
Tyson checked his watch. “Then it’s gonna have to be today.”
“Very well, Mr. Barrett.”
“See you in an hour,” Tyson said and slid the phone back into his pocket.
Skip was shaking his head. “Looking at your face right now I can’t decide if you’re happy or scared shitless.”
Tyson ran Skip through his conversation with Dr. Hunter.
“And you think killing your mother will stop these things from coming out of your dreams?”
“It has to.”
“I never got along with my father,” Skip said quietly. “I certainly don’t have to tell you that?”
“Course not.”
“I can remember getting the call from a doctor over at Lennox Hill hospital after my parents’ car crash. They never were able to figure out quite how it happened, but the one thing the cops could see was that the ol’ man was probably hitting my mother just before they went off the highway. One of his hands was off the wheel, probably along with both of his eyes. She went through the windshield and well, you know the rest. His catatonic state lasted only a week before they said he was brain dead. A stopped heart can be started again, but when the brain goes… Even though I knew what the ol’ man had done to her, pulling that plug was till the hardest damn thing I ever did.”
“Because you still loved him?”
“Hell no, I hated the son of a bitch. But he was the only family I had left. Never had any kids to come home to.”
Skip stuck his hand into the pocket of his sports coat and came out with a fountain pen.
“This pen you bought me for my birthday, I’ve started to grow attached to it.”
He handed it over to Tyson.
“Skip, I can’t.”
“Take it. For your sake, I hope you’ll have an easier time signing your name than I did.”
Tyson took the pen and was staring at it when Skip said: “Maybe after all this is done you’ll be able to get some real sleep.”
Tyson smiled. “I think I’ll sleep for a month.”
Skip came forward and grabbed him in a bear hug.
“You look like shit, not sure if Judy has the guts yet to tell you.”
Tyson left a few minutes later, feeling an odd mixture of apprehension and euphoria. Furthest from Tyson’s mind was the possibility that this was the last time he would see his friend alive.
Chapter 39
It was evening when Tyson and Judy arrived at Sunnybrook. They had sat for nearly an hour on the Henry Hudson Parkway at a near standstill, hardly saying a word to one another. They were both deep in thought. For all Tyson knew Judy was probably wondering why she couldn’t ever meet a normal guy.
The parking lot at Sunnybrook was deserted. Above them rose the asylum’s imposing battlements. It almost felt as though they were about to enter a fortress. But the entering part wasn’t what worried Tyson. It was leaving.
The Eagles had writing a song about that back in the ‘70s.
Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
A cracked lamp cast a pool of shadow over the front doorway.
Tyson turned to Judy and saw the tension in her face.
“I don’t trust this Dr. Hunter,” she said.
“Neither do I, which is why you’re gonna wait in the car.”
“Tyson, I didn’t come all this way to wait in the car,” she snapped.
“Listen to me,” Tyson said taking off his seatbelt. “I might be blowing all of this way out of proportion…”
“Yes, I think you are.”
“And if I’m not?”
Judy was quiet.
“If I don’t come back out I want you to go to the police.”
“And tell them what?”
“That I’ve gone missing and this was the last place you saw me.”
“And after what’s been happening, they’ll think you’re right where you belong.”
Tyson burst into a fit of laughter. He felt all the blood go rushing to his face. When he settled, the tension had dissipated a little.
“See what happens when you get yourself worked up over nothing,” she said.
He slid his hands behind her head and brought his lips to hers. Then he forced himself to pull away and rubbed his hands together against the cool air creeping in from outside.
“It must be something about this building,” Judy said somberly, staring at Sunnybrook. “I hate it.”
Tyson watched a shadow flit passed one of the second story windows. “Me too.”
• • •
If Tyson had found Sunnybrook unsettling during the day, the sun beating down from above, doctors and orderlies filling the asylum’s guts like so many bacteria, then what he saw now was nothing short of frightening. The only soul was an emaciated front desk security guard named Joe who pointed him toward a bank of elevators.
“Dr. Hunter’s new office is on the eighth floor.”
Hunter must have told him he was coming. It was beginning to look like the sort of place where you didn’t stick around after your shift was over. The kind of place you ran from as soon as you could, maybe never completely sure why you were running in the first place. The elevator doors opened onto the eighth floor and right away Tyson could hear the sound of someone screaming. Couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female and frankly he wasn’t interested in finding out. Someone else was calling for help. Then he heard a small voice, like a child, sobbing.
Help me. Somebody please help me.
The smell of disinfectant was strong here and the odor made Tyson’s nose curl. He associated it so strongly with his mother it might as well have been the perfume she wore.
He came to room H-16. Beside it was a name. Barrett.
Tyson stopped and peered into the concave porthole. The room was empty. Along the far wall was a bookcase and near that a simple wooden chair. But his mother was gone. Even her bed was missing.
“This Hunt
er’s one efficient SOB,” he thought. “I guess for him signing those papers isn’t much more than a formality.”
Three doors down Tyson came to Hunter’s office. He studied the name plate before knocking.
Elias. What kind of a name was Elias? Sounded like his parents were a couple of bible nuts. And then he saw the tiny Post-it note clinging to the door and on it in tiny curling letters a message he practically had to knock his head against the door to read.
Mr. Barrett,
Please meet me in room 373 on S3.
Regards,
Dr. E. Hunter
Tyson ripped the note off the door. “Where the hell is S3?”
He was heading back to the row of elevators, suddenly aware that the screaming from before had stopped. He depressed the descending button and waited as it called the elevator. The silence was hard to ignore. Even harder was the overwhelming sensation that he was being watched. He glanced down the corridor. It seemed to stretch on forever. At the end was an emergency exit and the dull red glow from the light overhead. It was empty and Tyson felt a ting of relief. And what would he have done if he’d seen someone or something in the distance shambling toward him?
Figure or no figure, that uneasy feeling wasn’t going away. His scalp felt tingly and far too small for his head. He had a sudden, burning urge to look behind him. God, the elevator was taking so long. There wasn’t anyone here, why was it so slow? That disquieting feeling was growing stronger.
A buzzing noise started in his ears and he felt his breath begin to quicken. He fingered the reassuring contours of the inhaler he kept in his pocket and hit the elevator button again in the illogical hope that mashing it over and over might get it here sooner. That urge to look behind him wasn’t going away. Count to ten, isn’t that what they say? Then Tyson felt his head begin to turn almost in spite of himself.
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