Love Gone Mad

by Rubinstein, Mark

  But no one can see into the room. She’s on the third floor. There’s a huge parking lot across the street, and it’s surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Beyond that, darkened warehouses, low-lying buildings, and in the distance, cars are snaking along in a pall of fumes on I-91, their headlights piercing the night air. In the other direction, a ribbon of red taillights stretches to a black horizon.

  She decides to close the drapes. Pitch blackness is better than those ghostly shadows on the ceiling. Slipping out of bed, Megan turns on the bedside lamp. Feeling weak, she plods unsteadily to the window—a double-paned glass expanse. About to pull the drapery rod, she peers down at the parking lot. The sodium vapor lamps cast pink, pyramidal-shaped spotlights, and amid the bleached-looking tints of a hundred parked cars, she sees him. A large man, he wears a hoodie and jeans, stands stone stock-still. She can’t make out his face. Is he looking up at her? Megan’s heart falters and then flutters in her chest. She feels every nerve ending in her body fire. As her heartbeat drubs heavily, she squints, trying to focus on him, but everything’s blurred and then seems to tilt. Megan blinks a few times and then closes her eyes, rubs her face, opens her eyes, and looks again.

  Yes, he looks up, right at her. She realizes she’s backlit by the bedside lamp, so she backs away from the window. She stands there for a few moments, trembling. Then she moves slowly back to the window, angles herself to the right side, and peers down to the parking lot.

  He’s gone.

  She looks left and then right, cranes her neck, presses her cheek against the cold window glass, and peers down the street, both ways. She sees no one. How can that be? She’s certain she saw him. Was it her imagination? Can she even trust her senses now? Between the double dose of Xanax and then the Ambien and her fear, the anticipation of terrible things, and after what happened tonight—was it tonight or forever ago?—she can’t trust her senses. Everything’s disjointed, so out of place, and here she is, uprooted and alone in this dreary hotel room. Maybe she is going crazy.

  She slides the drapes closed and turns off the lamp.

  Back in bed, Megan’s thoughts swim back to high school, to Mom and Dad and Erin back in those days, and it occurs to her that the Ambien, now mixed with Xanax, is doing its thing. She’s floating languidly through space, and there’s a brief flash of Adrian as she recalls their first meeting that day in the cafeteria—Your soup’s getting cold—and everything tumbles in some pleasantly cascading stream.

  It’s so drifty-dreamy, and there’s no linear thread; everything’s a delicious hodgepodge of stuff. Even as it’s happening Megan knows she’s hovering in a silken web of sleep—some netherland. It’s almost like being drugged. Yes, she’s getting deliriously bombed by the Ambien and Xanax and fear-driven fatigue, and she’s thinking about another movie—not something scary for a change. She won’t do that to herself again. Instead, she recalls Hope Floats. That line: Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome …

  But right now, Megan’s no longer certain where she is, and nothing is quite real. She’s just floating in darkness … somewhere …

  It must be much later—she can’t tell after that Psycho shower; everything’s so hazy, so completely lost in time, and she thinks she’s been dreaming. Megan’s eyes open even though she may still be sleeping—she really isn’t sure. Her eyes sift through the darkened room to the drapes, then the ceiling, then slowly to the door.

  A man stands there.

  Fear ramps through her like a squall. It’s a body-numbing fright mixed with a shivery feeling, like icicles beneath her skin.

  He stands there, unmoving. She blinks, thinking for a half second that her eyes are deceiving her.

  But he’s there.

  Megan doesn’t move—not a single fiber in her body—because it’s an all-encompassing paralytic fear, a terror so primal, she feels like a trapped animal. Like when she was on the elevator, but worse. There’s no barrier. Megan lies there with her mind racing, her thoughts plummeting and churning like a heaving ocean. But through it all, Megan wonders if she could slither out of bed, slip to the floor, and crawl to the bathroom.

  She could grab her cell phone, make it to the bathroom, slam the door, lock it. But she’d never be quick enough. Conrad’s lightning fast, and he’ll be on her in a second. And even if she does make it, he’ll shatter the flimsy door with one malletlike punch. So she lies there, frozen, in a state of terror-stricken inertia.

  Play possum. He wants to torture you with fear. So if you stay asleep, you’re safe … for a while.

  He’s toying with her—and she realizes that while she was sleeping, he’d slipped stealthily into her room. In the dark, Megan can make out the thick slope of his shoulders, his powerful arms and chest, and there’s that horrible ski mask with its rounded contour. She can see his eyes through the holes, those dull, penetrating, bluish-gray eyes.

  Through the current of her fear, Megan hears a mousy voice. It says, Isn’t this just a dream, Megan? Isn’t it some stupid mix of fear and fatigue and Xanax and Ambien working in the dark?

  Then another voice, this one stronger, more confident. It’s Megan’s from when she was captain of the girls’ basketball team. It says, Don’t be a jerk, Megan. He’s here, and he’s going to kill you … so you’d better get with the program, girl.

  But the mousy voice whispers, It’s your imagination, Megan. Remember when you were kids in the darkened bedroom, how you and Erin thought the clothing on the chair looked like Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man, or one of those ghouls after you watched Night of the Living Dead on television?

  Megan knows it’s the voice of capitulation, and she can’t let that happen. So, in an adrenaline-fueled moment, with her blood surging, she rolls out of bed and leaps toward him. She’s amazed at the power in her legs and arms. In a blind fury, crazed by fear and rage, knowing her life’s on the line, and Marlee’s, too, she pummels him furiously, but feels nothing. She crumples against the wall, breathless and spent, and flips on the light. Gasping and trembling, with her knees buckling, she realizes she’s alone and there’s no one else in the room—it was a fear-fueled dream.

  Swooning, with her back against the door, she slides down, reaches the floor, her knees at her chest, and sobs, waiting for the night to end.

  Twenty-one

  Adrian pulls the Altima up to the cottage. No Simpson police officer on stakeout. Not yet, even though it’s been hours since the attack. It’s a typical miscommunication. Happens all the time in the hospital. Why not with the cops? Mistakes are a part of life. But it doesn’t matter; Adrian will be in and out in three minutes—just grab a few things and then head for the Fairfield Holiday Inn.

  He gets out of the car and stares up at the autumn night sky. A bone-colored full moon gives the cottage roof and woods an eerie luminescence. An unending carpet of stars is visible on this clear, warmish October night. A few strands of clumped clouds drift by, heading east, their fluffed edges backlit by the moon’s radiance. A breeze swishes through the swaying tree branches and rustles the desiccated leaves. The windswept redolence of a fireplace is in the air. Someone at the Gibson mansion is burning oak mixed with ash. It melds with the scent of pine needles, dried leaves, and lichen.

  Thinking of Megan fills Adrian with an aching sadness. He feels her absence like an open wound. And when she said, Adrian, with you it’s different. I let you in. I let you into our lives, he felt a sob deep in his chest. The image of her after the attack brings a surge of melancholy that makes him want to cry for every sadness he’s ever known. Like losing Dad and then seeing Mom’s shriveled life. Like the patients he couldn’t save and their loved ones lost in grief. Adrian knows when this outbreak of madness is over, he and Megan will change everything. It’s time to make a commitment—to Megan and Marlee.

  In the cottage, Adrian deactivates the alarm. He’s struck by a sense of estrangement. It occurs to him that he’s lived here for two years, but never really grew attached to the cottage.
Yes, it’s been a pleasant, homey place—but it’s always seemed temporary, transitional in his journey from life with Peggy to whatever would await him. Here he is, forty years old, and it’s all transient, lacking permanence. He’s still foraging for meaning beyond the operating room, still searching … for what? Happiness? Contentment? The pleasure of settling into a life of stability? Maybe now—in the middle of his life—he’s closing in on what he’s always wanted. Adrian is certain Megan has changed everything for him.

  He’s made a mental checklist of things he’ll need: his laptop and a few other things, just basics. Anything else, he’ll buy in Eastport. And when Megan and Marlee are back, they’ll all go on with their lives—together. When he looks about the cottage, it occurs to Adrian that it makes no sense for him to have come back here. There’s very little he needs. Maybe it’s his way of saying goodbye to the life he’s been leading. Yes, he decides; it’s a final farewell.

  He pulls a small duffel bag from a closet and goes upstairs to the bedroom. He grabs underwear and socks. In the bathroom, it’s a toothbrush, razors, dental floss—slipped into a plastic bag and then into the duffel. He skims through some hanging shirts, trousers, a belt, and his New Balance running shoes and stuffs them into the bag.

  There’s nothing else he needs. It’s only for a few days, and there’s always Walmart or CVS. It occurs to Adrian right then that material things are trifles, utterly replaceable. It’s easy to figure out the things that count—the people who have meaning in your life.

  He glances at the living room, thinking this is the end of the line for life in Simpson. The horror of what happened to Megan forces things into focus. That’s what facing death can do to you. Adrian realizes his patients deal with it every day—clogged arteries and failing hearts put them at the edge of that dark precipice. They know how fragile—how precarious—life can be.

  Then he hears it.

  The warning buzzer rasps. The photoelectric beam’s been broken.

  The police car’s arrived. Some poor son of a bitch’ll spend a lonely eight-hour shift in a patrol car outside the house, sucking down Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and killing time.

  He hears tires crunching on the gravel pathway.

  Adrian drops the bag and moves to the front window.

  A monster-sized Hummer appears. Adrian’s insides jump.

  The thing swerves amid a cloud of gravel dust, stops suddenly and sways in place, facing the cottage. The headlights are brilliant, blinding. Dust particles swirl in the light shafts, clearing slowly in the night breeze. Suddenly spotlights detonate on top of the Hummer. Blinding illumination floods the cottage. The living room seems superheated in strobelike incandescence.

  Adrian reaches for his cell phone.

  Beep, beep, beep … Nine-one-one.

  With the cell to his ear, Adrian looks through the window.

  A man stands beside the truck, his silhouette hulking, ominous. It’s him. Wilson. No doubt about it. Adrian can make out his face; he sees the brutish, bulked-up build. It’s the same guy from King’s Corner and the interrogation room. He’s unmistakable.

  “Simpson Emergency Service …”

  “Officer, this is Adrian Douglas at 38 Turtleback on the Gibson estate in Simpson. I’m in the gatekeeper’s cottage. Conrad Wilson’s here.”

  “Hold on,” says the officer.

  Adrian squints through the glare; white halos dance before him in a nimbus of dust and vapor—blurred and hazy. His heart slams in his chest, sending a rush of blood to his brain, where his thoughts whirl in a frenzied tumbling.

  “You’re sure it’s him? It’s the guy who attacked the nurse at Eastport General?”

  “It’s him,” Adrian says and feels his breath coming in short bursts.

  “We’re on the way,” says the officer.

  “Make it quick,” Adrian says, his heartbeat throttling through him. With his hands going weak, Adrian backs away from the window, the phone still at his ear.

  The officer says something, but it’s garbled. Adrian hears mangled voices, excitement, and there’s static on the line. The connection’s breaking up.

  A flame flickers in Wilson’s hand.

  Holy shit … He’s gonna burn me down.

  “We’re dispatching officers,” the cop says.

  The flame sputters. A cloth ribbon ignites. An orange tongue licks its way up the strip.

  “He’s gonna firebomb my house!” Adrian yells, snaps the cell shut, and pockets it.

  Then he sees it: a shotgun in the man’s other hand. Wilson strides toward the cottage, rears back, and the lapping flame arches through the night air.

  Adrian bolts to the back of the cottage. At the rear door, he rushes into the night as he hears glass shatter; then a muffled whoosh comes from behind him and sounds like a blast furnace. An intense heat wave hits his back, and he smells gasoline and smoke.

  He’s out the door, running into the moonlit night.

  Out back, he sees a police cruiser parked at an angle. He rushes to it and peers inside. The front seat’s empty, and where the on-board computer screen would be is a hole; tendrils of ripped wires dangle in disarray. On the rear bench seat, a cop lies facedown. He’s hog-tied—feet bound with wire, handcuffed, gagged. With fear-filled eyes, the cop peers up at him. Adrian yanks at the door handle; it’s locked. He runs to the other side and tugs. It’s locked.

  “Help’s coming,” Adrian yells, then turns and dashes toward the timber line.

  He glances back. A red-orange glow fills the cottage. Flames lick up the walls as an instant later, a firestorm engulfs the cottage. It’s an inferno.

  Adrian stops, gazes at the blaze, and then sees Wilson circle the flaming cottage, his silhouette shimmering in orange heat waves. Wilson advances with the weapon—it looks like a stubby shotgun.

  A flashlight beam pierces the night.

  Adrian whirls and sprints toward the woods.

  The light shimmers on the tree trunks, swiveling right, then left—searching him out.

  Adrian crashes through underbrush, deeper into the forest, his thighs pumping as he churns his way through dried leaves and a fungal smell, with branches snapping, whipping at his face, his legs pistoning over pine needles, stones, jagged rocks, roots, and damp soil.

  A hasty glance back: Wilson’s coming. A light beam flickers through the tall timbers and shimmers on gray tree trunks, white pines, and a twisted tangle of honeysuckle tendrils and climbing vines.

  Keep going. Don’t stop.

  The clear starlit night sky and moon illuminate the woods.

  Adrian rushes, turns one way and then another, and keeps going as his legs churn through brush and bramble. He’s run a few hundred yards, trampling through the woods. The burning cottage is no longer visible but for an orange halo in the night sky.

  The light blinks behind him, casting flickering shadows slanting through the trees. The forest is filled with rocky outcroppings, bushes, and a meshwork of tortuous vines, broken tree limbs, and vegetation. The smell of pine resin fills Adrian’s nostrils. His face burns where branches lashed him. He scrambles over a hillock and then half tumbles down a leaf-strewn swale into the woodland.

  Just keep moving; don’t stop. This bastard’s come to kill you. He didn’t want the cop. He wants you.

  The blinking flashlight is far behind, but coming.

  Adrian comes to a steep, leaf-covered gully. It dips to Comstock Brook far below. Adrian’s been here before; he hiked in this area a few times last summer. He drops to his haunches, then onto his butt and skims down the embankment. Soil, dried leaves, and pebbles sift up into his pants. He descends amid cracking twigs and rustling leaves. The sound of rushing water caroms up from below.

  At the bottom, the brook roils in white fury. Moonlight shimmers off rushing water, giving off a blue luminosity. Eddies swirl and boil with agitation. The air feels cold and damp. There’s no real room to run, so he sloshes through the shallows. The embankments form a sheer drop on each side
. White birch trees overhang the water in an arching canopy. He lurches through the ankle-deep water, then onto solid ground, running at the brook’s edge.

  He comes to a waterfall, maybe ten feet high. The brook rushes and tumbles to a turbulent pool below. White foam gives off moonlit phosphorescence.

  He slides down a leaf-strewn path beside the falls, following the water.

  Keep going. He can’t be far behind.

  The brook narrows and the water rushes faster. He leaps to the other side, where the bank is less dense with underbrush. He trots along a pebble-strewn path, using the thudding water rush as a guide. At one point, the brook slows to a gurgle; water slaps against the rocks.

  The light flickers through the thicket. It’s far behind now, but still coming.

  Why am I following the water? He just moves along the brook and keeps coming after me. Didn’t Megan say he’s a hiker and cross-country skier … a goddamned mountain man? I’m making it too easy for him.

  Adrian knows the trail. He’ll head for open ground and trek over Ambler Hills toward Bald Hill. It’s near Route 33, a country road with traffic where, if he’s lucky, he can stop a car and get some help.

  The brook widens. Massive moss-covered boulders jut from the water. The banks grow steeper. The current pounds its way over rocks and broken tree boughs. White water swirls in truculent eddies, sloshing back and forth.

  The terrain is rocky now, covered with moss—wet and slippery. He could fall, sprain or break an ankle, twist a knee; then it’s over. He’ll lie there helplessly as Wilson advances. He edges along the water, weaving among the rocks. Adrian has no idea how far he’s gone. Now everything looks different, foreign. And he’s lost all sense of time—distance, too.

  Just keep going … Don’t stop.

  Adrian knows, too, that a hiking trail meanders high above the brook. He looks up through the pale cast of moonlight. It’s maybe twenty feet to the top. Looking at the steep wall, he finds a spot that looks scalable. He claws and kicks his way up the embankment. Soil crumbles in his grasp. He slips back.