Rather, it was a splinter of my consciousness that had been transplanted into Nelson’s own. My body remained in the chair where it lay. The gas acted as a conduit, a bridge between our two minds. I could go into further detail but not without involving some rather advanced theoretical physics and intimidating equations. Suffice to say that, in layman’s terms, I had stepped into his mind and could proceed to stroll around there.
In order for my consciousness to perceive anything of Nelson’s mind, it had to be translated into a form that I could readily process. His mind painted a setting, my mind observed and codified it. As I intimated earlier, each mind-scape varies wildly due to the individual natures of the observer and the observed. One man’s inner pastoral field is another’s blasted heath.
Stephen Nelson’s mind-scape was neither. If anything, it was disappointingly mundane. Casting a glance about myself, I found that I was standing in what appeared to be a small village square. The handsome cobbled streets were narrow and lined with quaint stone and wooden houses. No other persons could be seen, but this was not unusual and caused no alarm. It was rather still, tranquil even. If I strained for a moment, I could hear birds singing and, faintly, a dog barking in the distance. These were probably manifestations of something or other. I paid them no mind, choosing instead to drag my feet along the cobbles.
The initial few minutes of every delve into a mind is always spent adjusting to one’s surroundings, allowing your mind to interpret the strange sensory ghosts you come into contact with. Tactile sensations help in this grounding period. I stooped and plucked a dead leaf from the gutter, crumbled it between my fingers. A sudden breeze stole the fragments from my hands, carrying them away down the road. I took a breath and could smell a delicious home cooked meal being prepared in one of the nearby homes. Such a wonderful experience, secondary sensory sensation. I wasn’t smelling a real meal, I was ‘smelling’ the memory of a meal. Fascinating, really. I had written a few papers on the subject during my time at the Institute, but they were stolen and burned before they could be sent off for publication. Shame.
As delicious as it smelled, the meal would not be worth investigating. It would provide no substance, no sustenance. It could also provide a sinister trap; a mind is always on the lookout for anchors, evidence that it can use to convince itself that its surroundings are real. An explorer of minds can find himself trapped if he is not careful. I have always been careful.
I left the smell behind and walked up to a short squat building I guessed to be a village hall of sorts. A noticeboard by the front door announced it as such and listed certain advertisements for local businesses and services. A post office. A dry cleaner’s. Ah, perfect – a tobacconist.
I took note of the address on the advertisement and glanced about myself for the street name. It was not readily apparent, but I imagined it would not be too far away; Nelson’s mind was unlikely to be a sprawling metropolis. He hadn’t struck me as a highly imaginative man, capable of weaving rich tapestries and landscapes with his inner eye. Though I was pleased to be proven right, I was somehow slightly disappointed. The cobbled streets, quaint shops and pastoral setting was mundane and predictable. No doubt it was a scene from his own childhood, replicated in perfect boring detail.
I strolled along the streets, peering around street corners to find the shop. As expected, it didn’t take long. I examined the shop window and was slightly concerned to find inky black pools of tar seeping out from under the pipes and cigarette packets on display. Bilious clouds of ill-looking smoke swirled noxiously behind the glass panes. Nelson’s anxiety about smoking had manifested itself quite plainly.
Looking at the fearsome sight, I was rather nervous about going in. Still, I had my job to do. Despite my ulterior motives I was no charlatan; all who came to me seeking aid from some sort of malady got what they were after. That some weren’t quite aware of the full scope of my treatment was hardly my problem. If they had been willing to allow themselves to be hypnotised then this was not very much different.
I reached out with a curiously hesitant hand and laid my fingers on the doorknob. I could feel an odd vibrating sensation coming from within. I shrugged, turned the handle, entered.
I was instantly struck by the foulness of the smell within. The smoke was noisome and rank, not in the same way as normal tobacco smoke can be strong but with a sense of something rotten and spoiled. My stomach clenched violently as my eyes watered. It took an almost superhuman resolve not to flee the room instantly. I wondered fleetingly whether or not I would be able to vomit in a mind-scape. I was certainly able to choke.
I held a handkerchief to my mouth and nose, pressing further into the room. Through the roiling fumes I could make out a counter – and behind it, the figure of a man. I had found the source of the fumes and, it seemed, the proprietor of the shop.
He was a short, squat fellow with a face and figure that suggested a sluggish manner and unfriendly thoughts. He was smoking, belching out huge ashen clouds with every breath. He eyed me warily as I coughed politely (and somewhat inevitably).
“Are you the owner of this shop?” I spluttered. He blew smoke directly into my face and my eyes stung bitterly. I cast about myself with angry waves, trying to clear the air.
“Now look here, my man,” I began, soon dissolving into a choking fit. Over the sounds of my attempts to draw breath I could just barely hear chuckling. The impertinent lout was laughing at me!
Angrily, I leaned forward.
“I say,” I said, but got no further. The clouds closed ranks before me, masking the slimy grinning man entirely. I batted them away, and miraculously they began to clear a little. I was relieved to find an electric fan on the counter. I switched it on and fought my way to the front door, flinging it wide.
Within moments the smoke had all spilled out in huge great snakes, coiling lazily into the beautiful cloudless sky. I took deep lungfuls of healthy clean air, purging my throat of the awful burning and stinging. The air tasted sweeter than any I had ever breathed. It was a moment of simple and utter bliss.
I turned to enter the shop once more and saw it was suddenly empty. No smoke, no cigarette packets, no oily puddles. No proprietor, either. While I could not say I was displeased that he was nowhere to be seen, I was certainly unnerved. I could not yet say with certainty whether or not he was at the crux of Nelson’s smoking habit, but he was certainly a foul manifestation of something deep-rooted.
I poked around the now-empty shop cautiously. Though the owner had disappeared, it was not without a trace. He had left behind him a trail of footprints of the same black substance that had formerly been on display. I knelt and poked one gingerly. The liquid clung to my finger like treacle. It seemed, on close inspection, to writhe and wave slowly of its own accord. I wiped it hurriedly off and followed the trail carefully.
The prints led to a singularly dismaying sight: a long, long corridor lined with a seemingly endless parade of doors.
“For goodness’ sake,” I wondered aloud. “Can there be anything more dull than a mind so orderly it must present itself in this way?”
It was such a nondescript passageway. The carpet was no more than a thin maroon strip, and the doors were all identical. It was practically featureless save for the occasional light fitting that jutted from either wall. After the rich detail of the village square (and even the loathsome shop-keep), this was quite a let-down.
I pressed on with a sigh, keeping a close eye on the prints as they proceeded wetly down the corridor ahead of me. No sound could be heard but my own footsteps, the creaking of the floorboards beneath my feet and the gentle pounding of my own heart. I walked.
After what felt fully five minutes I stopped, disconcerted. Surely no corridor should continue for so long? After all, the building itself certainly hadn’t seemed this deep when viewed from outside! I turned to look behind me and was rather concerned to see only the corridor stretching out ahead of me. I turned back and was greeted by the same identical vi
ew. I felt a queer nausea and a sense of vertigo. I steadied myself against a wall and forced myself to be calm. I couldn’t allow myself to forget where I was, what was happening. The corridor was otherworldly because this was quite literally an otherworldly place. Nothing could hurt me here any more than smoke and shadows could. There was nothing to fear here.
By way of reassurance, I tapped out my name on my palm with the tips of my fingers. Once … twice … three times … four … I soon began to feel the lighter-than-air sensation that would precede my return to the physical world. Excellent. I stopped before the sensation could deepen and whisk me away.
Once I had steeled myself, I set off again. I stopped in front of a door chosen at random, deciding that no headway would be made until I had investigated at least some of the adjacent rooms.
I stopped before one and took a deep breath. As my fingertips brushed the round brass handle I felt a strange tingle run along my arm, as had happened with the outer door. I recoiled for a moment then grasped it with renewed vigour.
To my surprise, as I opened the door I entered a bright and breezy garden. It was astonishing. Flower beds were tended by industrious bees, a soft and gentle breeze setting their slender stems swaying. There was grass underfoot, growing from actual soil. I looked up and saw no ceiling, just the bright blue sky in all its infinite majesty. The door was still there behind me, its dismal view of the corridor a reminder that this bizarre outside vista was housed inside a building.
In the far corner of the garden I could see a woman, her back towards me, on her knees in a small patch of herbs, working the earth. I couldn't see if she was weeding or planting but I could see a thin plume of cigarette smoke. I cleared my throat softly.
“Hallo?” I called. There was no reply. “I say, madam?” Still nothing.
I walked towards her, taking care not to trample the flowers. As I got closer that awful cloying stench appeared again. The smoke, it had to be. If I was to get to the bottom of his cigarette addiction, I was going to have to get used to it.
I was almost upon her now and she hadn't yet paid me any mind. Her movements were odd, stiff and jerky. She was plunging her hands into the earth and out again with clumsy gestures, more like a marionette than a human. I touched her gently on the shoulder.
“Madam?”
She turned her head slowly, revealing the full horror of her face. Her eyes were missing and her throat was slit, cigarette smoke pouring from each jagged hole. With a vacant smoky smile, she held her hands out to me, even as I backed away. In her hands was the object she had been burying – her own heart.
With a shriek of terror I fled from the garden back into the corridor, slamming the door behind me. I doubled over and discovered the answer to my earlier question. After a few moments I shakily wiped the vomit from my lips and stared at the door in shock. What on earth had I just witnessed?
I decided that that would be the end of my adventure. I had expected strangeness and mystery, but this? No, I was unprepared for this. Let the damnable man choke on his cigarettes. I was done.
I tapped out my name. I tapped it out four times, five. Nothing. No light-headedness, no feeling of elevation. I kept tapping frantically, with no effect other than my increasing desperation.
I was trapped.
I took a deep breath. This should absolutely not have been possible, but it wasn't an unmitigated disaster. The gas would run out and the procedure would run its course. I wouldn't be trapped in here indefinitely. But being unable to leave at my leisure was certainly not an experience I would relish.
I dragged myself to my feet and dusted myself down. If I couldn't leave, I would have to explore further. As I certainly wouldn't be going through that door again, my next course of action was unclear. I had lost the entrance to the shop and was stranded in a corridor which appeared to stretch out to an improbable infinity. The only thing for it was to try more doors.
The next door I tried opened onto a brick wall with some ornate markings scribbled on it. Pretty enough, but ultimately useless. The next door wouldn't budge, though the high-pitched giggles that crept through the keyhole after I tried the handle made me glad it didn't.
The next door opened onto a reassuringly normal study. Bookshelves lined the walls and bizarre objets d'art were displayed in glass cases on plinths dotted about the room. As I progressed deeper into the study, the items on show became more unsettling. There were grimacing death masks, and mummified limbs. Here, a sticky bundle of blood-stained pound notes, there a scrap of cloth clutched tightly in a severed hand. A cut-throat razor, nicked and worn. A chisel with a clump of hair and flesh stuck to the end. An unidentifiable lump of quivering meat.
I stood in this chamber of horrors and wondered about the man whose mind contained such things. We are all of us creatures of darkness and light, but I had never come across anything so disturbing in my previous jaunts. What was this madness?
As if in answer, I heard a booming voice ring out.
“Ah, I see you have found my trophy room, Dr. Armitage.”
I turned to see Stephen Nelson leaning casually against a set of shelves, eyeing me with bemusement. His whole demeanour was somehow changed. Gone were the nervous mannerisms and the darting eyes. This was a Stephen Nelson full of easy confidence and dread purpose.
His appearance in his own mind-scape was unusual but not unprecedented. I had not previously experienced it myself, but my colleagues at the Institute had spoken of patients manifesting themselves in an act of resistance to the entry. Nelson did not seem to be aggrieved at my presence in his mind, though I wondered if the macabre visions had been symbolic of his rejecting me.
He smiled and stepped forward, stretching an arm wide.
“What do you think? It's a little drab, I feel, but it serves its purpose.”
“And what purpose is that, Mr. Nelson?” I asked. He laughed.
“I already told you. It's where I keep my trophies.”
He picked up the hand, pried loose the scrap of cloth. He tutted.
“I did so love this shirt,” he murmured. “Daniel bought it for me. I thought wearing it while I killed him would be a nice gesture. He liked to see me using the presents he bought me. He'd bought me the hammer, too.”
I stood dumbstruck, paralysed with fear as he moved to the razor.
“And dear, sweet Lucy. I believe you met her in my garden? She was so very pretty, and yet I think I prefer her as I made her. A perverse creator's pride, do you know?”
He fingered the razor and glanced at me slyly.
“The poor fool loved me. She was my last. I was very careless, leaving a cigarette butt at the scene. Stupid, and not for the first time. It won't happen again. I'd hoped you would be able to help, but instead you came prying. I did ask you not to, Doctor.”
I tried to turn and run, but it wasn't fear that held me still. I was rooted to the floor, unable to move a muscle even to defend myself. Nelson advanced on me, weapon in hand.
“It was a risk, coming to you. I'd hoped you would be a man of scruples, a trustworthy man, but I can see I was mistaken.”
He ran the razor down the side of my face, teasing the corner of my mouth with it as my eyes widened in terror.
“M-Mr. Nelson,” I stammered.
“Ssssh,” he said, drawing the razor up to my left eye. “I know. You kept your word to an extent. You didn't use the hypnosis to pry. You used your marvellous apparatus. Oh yes, I know all about that. Modern medicine, indeed! Your method is a far older process than you think, older than your friends at The Institute even know.
“Surprised? Oh, but I know all about you, Dr. Armitage. Oxford graduate, of good hardy stock, a lineage that can be traced all the way back to Charlemagne if you bothered to check. Doting mother, controlling father, brother long dead of a heroin overdose. I know things, oh so many things you wouldn't expect me to know, and a fair few things you don't even know yourself. I know about your time at the Institute, your dismissal, the disgrace. I know
about your time on the streets, scavenging from bins, the temptation to follow your brother to the grave. I know about the deal you struck and the money that came of it. Oh, Dr. Armitage, I know you inside...OUT!”
With this he slashed with the razor, slicing my cheek under my eye. I howled in pain but could do nothing to stop him. With another savage movement he sliced into my mouth.
“A linking of minds, a fascinating bridge between psyches,” he whispered. “You can cross a bridge both ways, Doctor. Perhaps you should have thought of that? Too late now, of course. Ever the man of science, but never actually particularly good at it, were you? Criticised by peers, held back by professors, bullied by playmates. You're a pitiful man, Armitage.”
He held the razor to my throat, its sharp edge biting deep.
“Haven't you considered the implications of a device such as this, a procedure that allows the merging of minds? If you'd had any sense of decency you would have stayed with the Institute, working for the betterment of mankind. You could have put up with the screaming and the petty moral quandaries a while longer. Goodness knows you weren't bothered much when you first joined.”
Had I been capable of coherent thought, I suppose I would have found it laughable that such a scolding could come from this monster. As it was, I felt nothing but blinding pain and sheer animalistic terror that my life was at an end.
“You had a responsibility to plumb these depths to their limits, a responsibility that you have squandered and wasted. Shame on you. Shame.”
Suddenly, he grinned.
“I wonder … if you die here in my mind...”
And he drew the razor across my throat.
* * * *
I did not die that day, though there have been times when I wished that I had.
My neighbours, alerted by a series of high-pitched keening screams, had contacted the authorities. By the time they had broken down my door and burst into my sanctum, Stephen Nelson had bolted, taking with him several canisters of my gas.
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