by LK Walker
“How about you leave now or I call the police?” the doctor replies.
“How fast do you think they’d get here? Under normal circumstances that might be a threat but they’re busy with other priorities right now.” JT says.
“Get out of my house.” The doctor’s voice doesn't rise, but it is firm and direct.
“Still don't remember me do you. It's James Tyrell. My hair was a little longer and I used to be toothpick skinny.” I see a spark of recognition in Doctor Abrams eyes. “I dealt with a hell of a lot of shit that a kid shouldn't have to see, let alone deal with. Do not, for a second, think that I would make empty threats.”
The doctor says nothing. His eyes do not move from JT. He appears to be evaluating what JT has said, perhaps trying to recall the details of his case.
“I strongly suggest you take JT and me somewhere where we can sit down like three adults so we can ask you a few questions.” I try to emulate JT’s calm demeanor. “The last few days have been hell enough without having to deal with the crap you’ve put in our heads. And if I don't get some answers from you now, I swear I’m going to go bat-shit crazy here in your house.” I add a bit of anger back into the conversation to keep him on his toes.
“But...,” the doctor stammers.
“There is no way you’re calling the cops on us. Not when we can tell them that you’ve been fucking with your patients’ brains.” JT steps forward. This makes the doctor’s eyes pop out.
“I haven't.” Doctor Abrams’ says, with a look of astonishment.
Footsteps tap their way up the polished floorboards of the hallway towards us. The doctor’s shoulders slump as if the fight has been taken out of him. Our best leverage has walked up behind him, his son’s face now concealed behind a Spiderman mask.
“Go back outside with your mother. I need to talk to these people. I'll be there soon, okay?” The boy says nothing in response to his father calmly spoken words. The footsteps retreat. “You’d better come through to the study and explain what this discourteous interruption is in aid of. You have ten minutes. Anything more and I'm calling the police—understood?”
“It’s not your place to threaten.” I glare at him.
Doctor Abrams leads us into a sitting room off to the right of the hallway. A bookcase covers one complete wall. The bottom row is lined with old books, their spines fraying as if someone once loved them. Now they appear to be nothing more than decorations, their words hidden from the world. A low, mahogany coffee table sits between two faded green leather couches. A stack of books sits perfectly on one side of the table top, like a child's pyramid stacker toy. The top book is full of photographs of flowers. I mindlessly flick the pages before returning the book to the table, skewed out of place. JT sits next to me, his legs crossed, so his right ankle sits atop his left knee. He is leaning back, arms spread along the top of the couch behind me. I realize how little I know about him. I have no idea if he’s dangerous. I don't assume he’s simply the fun-loving persona he exudes at the gym and yet I trust him implicitly.
Doctor Abram sits opposite us. “What is it you kids want?”
“We're not kids and it might pay you to remember that when you try to weasel out of answering our questions.” I glare at him. “Now—what the hell have you done to our heads? Why are we dreaming the same thing?”
“Take a breath and slow down,” Doctor Abrams replies to my frenetic questioning.
“Why do we dream of the same place? Have you put something in my head—in our heads—what’s doing it?” It doesn’t come out any slower, just more forceful.
“No.” He grimaces, as if repulsed by the mere idea.
“It must’ve been you. What about all the questions you asked about my dreams? What—did someone else do this and you’re only the observer?” I ask accusingly.
“What? No.”
If he’s acting, he’s very good. But he looks uncomfortable, like there’s something else he’s keeping from me. His eyes are darting around the room.
He looks guilty.
JT sits up. His head tilts forward and he glares through his eyebrows. “What are you hiding, Doctor Abrams.” Only a few words but they are laced with venom.
Doctor Abrams rubs his forehead. I wonder whether he’s giving himself more time to work out what to say next.
“I have no clue about the dreams, why you both could be having them. The chances of them being exactly the same? Well, the odds are astronomical.”
“They're not exactly the same.” I concede. “It's the same place, though.”
“That’s more probable. Perhaps they are merely similar and one or other of you is projecting their thoughts onto the other, through suggestion.” Doctor Abrams is tugging at his top lip making his words muffled. I’ve seen him do this enough times when he’s deep in thought.
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Why were you so interested in my dreams then? Huh?” I ask.
I swear he’s blushing, right before he looks away and gazes out the window. We wait to hear more but the devious doctor sits silently. I stand up and stroll towards the writing desk in the corner of the room. It faces out the same window.
My movement draws his attention back into the room.
“What are you doing?”
Going into his work space makes him nervous.
“Shuffling around your desk. A bit like you do with my head.” I open the laptop sitting in front of the high backed chair.
I have his attention now. He jumps from his seat and swiftly shuffles around the coffee table towards me. JT is quicker. He blocks the doctor’s way like a bodyguard would, with his parted legs planted firmly on the ground and hands on hips making his torso look as solid as a brick wall.
The screen of the laptop lights up and there is a picture of a family—Doctor Abrams’ family, out boating, all smiling with their flawless pearly whites, like the world is a perfect place.
“Do they know what you are?” I ask.
“It’s not like that,” he replies. “It’s not what you think.”
Then I see the file on his desktop labelled ‘Sullivan, C’. There’s one other folder, directly below mine, buried amongst the program shortcuts. I don’t recognize the name— ‘Mitchell, K’. My eyes shoot from the laptop to his face. He must know what I’ve seen.
“There is a rational explanation, Cara.” Doctor Abrams makes another attempt to get to me, but JT is built solid, there’s no way around.
“What is it, Cara?” JT’s out of the loop. He doesn’t turn to look at me. His eyes are firmly on the doctor.
“He has a file with my name on it, right next to the picture of his smarmy, smiling face.”
I double click my folder and it springs open. It’s full of movie reel icons. All of them are video files, the whole bloody lot, and the labels are gibberish. I double click one at random. My face appears on screen. The picture quality is poor due to the streaming light coming in over my shoulder through the large window. The angle, which the camera captures the Golden Gate bridge, leaves me in no doubt as to where I have been filmed. I don't know which of our therapy appointments has been filmed until I see the time and date stamp at the top right of the screen. It’s two and a half months old. The time bar at the bottom of the picture is ticking up twenty-three seconds of sixty-four minutes. He's recorded the whole freaking session. I click unmute and the doctor’s monotonous tone drones through the speakers.
It takes a while to notice my mouth is agape. I snap it shut and slowly turn my head to glare at the doctor. He’s taken a step back from JT, hands up in a defensive pose, apologizing to him as he moves. JT glances over his shoulder, thunderous eyes meet mine. I can hear my voice come from the laptop speakers, answering one of the doctor’s questions. Words I never expected anyone other than him to hear.
The doctor cowers at the sight of JT. “Please,” he begs.
“You better hurry doc.” JT is only inches from his face now. Doctor Abrams tries to disappear between the couches,
nearly stepping back into the coffee table. I can see both their profiles. JT’s scowl is frightening, even to me, and I’m not the one he has his eyes trained on.
The doctor drops back down on the couch behind him, resting his head in his hands.
“Please don't tell anyone. It could be my career,” he implores.
The man has gall and it ignites a fire in the pit of my stomach. “Your career? I couldn't care less about your pathetic career,” I yell. My voice reverberates in the small space. That he thinks his career is a relevant consideration at this point makes me want to trash every piece of his work I can find.
There’s a knock at the door. In my anger, I’ve forgotten there is a world outside this room.
“Is everything okay in there, dear?” I assume it’s his wife. Perhaps I should have kept my voice down.
I think of JT's scowl and aim to replicate the look. My face feels deranged rather than furious. Deranged is good. Deranged is unpredictable.
“Get rid of her.” My teeth are clenched, but the words still come out crystal clear.
“It's fine honey.” His voice is shaky. “Just ignore us for a while. I'll be out as soon as I can.”
“But I heard yelling.” She doesn’t open the door to find out why.
“It’s not completely undeserved. I'll tell you all about it when we're done. Now please go back outside.”
There’s a pause. “If you need help, call for me.”
“I will. But it won't come to that. I'm fine—I will be fine.” Doctor Abrams looks over at me hoping that I can confirm he’s telling her the truth.
How can he be sure? At this stage, I'm not. The interruption has worked in his favor, my thoughts have caught up with my anger and I feel rationality creeping back in. It’s a shame really, there’s a nice glass paperweight on the desk that I was looking forward to flinging across the room. I pick it up in my hand and examine it, definitely a gift. His son’s face smiles back at me through fragments of gold glitter. I intentionally drop it next to the laptop and it lands with a thick sounding thud. It will be in easy reach if I have the urge to fling a heavy object later.
Chapter 16
“It's time you started talking, mate,” JT uses the word as a weapon.
I look back at the screen. “You've been screwing with my head. JT's too. And probably…K Mitchell’s, whoever that is. What have you done?” Doctor Abrams is not forthcoming with any answers and silence hangs in the air like a fog, but I know he’s heard—his face is screwed up.
“Talk,” I boom.
“I haven't done anything to you.” He squares his eyes with mine. His glasses are askew on his face, he uses his forefinger to prop them back up on his nose.
“Then why the hell do you have these?” I spin the laptop around on the desk so he can see the screen, ripping the power cord out. The jack snakes off and coils limply on the floor next to my foot.
“Look at all these files. Every session we’ve had must be on here.”
“It's research,” he says.
I can’t comprehend how he thinks that’s a viable answer. “I never said you could record me.”
“It's only research, honestly.”
“Honestly? You’re going to suggest you are an honest person? How, in any way, can that be true?” My hands are shaking with fury. I grab the paperweight and heave it as hard as I can at the bookshelf behind him. To my utter disappoint, it smacks heavily against the books and thumps down on the floor without cracking the stupid child’s smile. I should have aimed for the window.
I could erupt with frustration.
JT must see how close I am to losing it. He takes over the interrogation and I use the time to get my crazy under control.
He slams the doctor’s shoulders back onto the couch.
“How is it that two people.” JT holds up two fingers and taps them against the doctor’s glasses. “Two people who had never met before, could dream of the same place, the same people.” The doctor opens his mouth to speak. “Don't even think about saying it’s a coincidence. The people, the places, they all have the same names, same looks. It’s the same place.” JT kicks the couch next to the doctor’s legs. “It is the same place. Now start spilling—what did you do to us?”
The doctor's face momentarily changes. Inquisitive features stare back at JT.
“The same?” he asks.
JT grabs his shoulders and smashes him back against the couch again.
“Answers. No bloody questions. Just answers.”
“Nothing. I did nothing to you.”
I’ve walked around to stand next to JT, laptop balancing on the palm of my left hand.
“Tell me this is nothing.” I push the laptop towards him so he can get a better look. It slides precariously on my hand, almost toppling onto him.
“Hones...,” he stops short from repeating his earlier mistake. “I mean, it was only research.”
“For what?” JT asks.
“I talked to you about it, Cara.” The doctor looks at me. His eyes are pitiful. “The effect of the new VR gaming software. It’s having some interesting implications for dream content and control. I told you I wanted to consider it further.”
“That's it?” I ask.
“The applications of such research are far more widespread than you could expect. We still have no conclusive theory of sleep. Potentially, this is the key that will unlock the knowledge. I could lead the way.”
“You breached her human rights so that you can do some pathetic research?” JT asks incredulously.
“It's not pathetic.” The doctor picks an odd time to be defensive. “Look in my documents, you will see all my research saved there.”
The files are well labeled. I’ve clicked into K. Mitchell’s file. The K is for Kaleb. There are a lot fewer files under his name.
“Who is Kaleb Mitchell?” I say, poking my finger at the screen, creating a small ripple from the moving crystals in the LCD display.
“Another client.”
“Another client that you were recording without his consent? Is he new to your game? You only have three videos of him.”
The doctor lets out a deep sigh. “He’s been coming a while, his sessions aren't as—interesting as yours.”
“Interesting?”
“His dreams are clearly a repetition of the games themselves. He sounds as if he has some control over what is happening. But they are merely a re-creation of a world that he spends his days in. Not like yours. Your world was new, even to you. And two of you are dreaming it. That's fascinating.” There is that inquisitive look again. The urge to wipe it off his face strains heavily against my attempts to calm down.
“I could help you. Help you both. We could try to work out what this is. Together.” The doctor says his words carefully.
“No.” I don't need to consider the offer. “We have different goals. I want to know what is going on inside my head. You want to get rich and famous.”
“But,” he looks at JT.
“You heard her.” Thankfully JT isn’t willing to consider the offer either.
I close the laptop. It fits nicely under my arm. “I'll be taking this with me.”
“That's theft. You’re not a thief Cara.”
“Before this week, I wouldn't have thought that you were an unethical twat. Appears neither of us are very good judges of character.”
“It's got my research on it.”
“Research you can never use. It's worthless.”
“Please, Cara, be reasonable.”
“Reasonable? I'm not reporting you to whatever professional board you belong to. Although I may have to reconsider.”
That shuts him up.
“If I ever see or hear of any research that looks like it might have come from you, I’ll scream from the hilltops. Is that understood? And this is my insurance.” I waggle the laptop at him.
His eyes, magnified by his glasses, flicker between JT’s and mine. Perhaps he’s expecting one of us to relent. When
it isn't forthcoming, he finally gives in.
“Fine.”
Doctor Abrams doesn’t hide his relief when we leave, nor does he see us out the front door. He might not have been doing what I’d suspected, but his invasion of my privacy is still nauseating.
“Let's get out of here.” I don’t want to look at his expensive house any longer, even with its damage. He was trying to make money or fame off my pain. I envision his house burning to the ground. Definitely, time to leave.
Being on the back of a motorbike has a number of benefits, including being able to dodge the newly formed cracks and slumps in the road and weaving through very slow-moving traffic. And I don't need to hold a conversation. I don't feel like talking. JT pats my hand where it clings to his waist. The laptop is wedged down my jersey and pinned between our bodies. I need to go through it, to make sure Doctor Abrams is telling the truth. Deep down I think he is.
Time to get out of this city, leave it all behind. There’s nothing left for me here. I squeeze JT's waist a little tighter.
Nearly nothing.
*****
Eli was right, the drive up to Seattle is excruciatingly long. The car is packed full of Jack’s and my belongings. There was no hope of booking a moving truck so we stashed as much as we could in Dad’s shed and whatever didn’t fit we gave to charity.
The traffic is crawling. Finally, a few hours out of the city we can pick up speed. Not quite moving at the speed limit, but a lot closer than we were.
Jack and I take turns at driving. Every couple of hours we have agreed to swap over. Jack currently has the wheel. He has his elbow up on the window framing and is picking at a scab on his forehead formed by the blow he received trying to pull our suitcases down from the top shelf in the cupboard.
During my “packing”, while Jack was out of the room, I downloaded Doctor Abrams files onto my phone. I have my headphones in, listening to them. When Jack asks what I’m watching, I tell him it’s the news reports on the quakes. He nods. His focus is on the road ahead and not the destruction we’ve left behind.
I feel like I’m invading Kaleb Mitchell’s privacy by watching his videos, especially after the rant I delivered to Doctor Abrams about recording them. But I need to see them myself, to make sure they’re harmless. I’ve now skipped through two of them and it appears they are just what the doctor said.
