Sleepwalker

by Michael Laimo

  “Well...everything seemed to be working perfectly. Richard the scientist ran into no problems while carefully manipulating the balance of matter and dark matter between his own reality and the first alternate timeline he created. His goal to become Richard Sparke the family man, seemed to be coming true. Bleeding between the two of them grew heavily, and so did their exchange of thoughts and memories. Soon thereafter they began to exchange consciousnesses, whereas Richard the scientist began to see the alternate world through the eyes of Richard the family man. He would be inside his body! These exchanges at first lasted only a few minutes, but soon time expanded and Richard the scientist had actually become the family man for longer periods, sometimes even days at a time. It was truly remarkable. His dream was fast becoming a reality--all he had to do was keep the experiment alive and eventually the two would trade places, indefinitely. The scientist would become the happy healthy family man, and the family man would become the dying wheelchair bound scientist.”

  “It seems to me then that the experiment was a success. Why did he then create additional timelines?”

  “He hit a big snag.”

  “What happened?” Richard’s blood raced with the incredible desire to know.

  “Well...Richard our beloved scientist had thought the experiment to be over. Everything seemed perfect. He’d spent nearly ten months in the family man’s body, living his life, enjoying his children and making love to his ‘new’ wife Samantha. There were no signs of him having to return to his old consciousness. Memories of his past life began to fade altogether, and new memories of a normal, content, secure life flourished. He was becoming the family man. He knew that very soon he’d retain the family man’s entire consciousness, and that all memories of his scientific existence would vanish. Thankfully, however, he was able to recall some of the more painful memories of his past life, because these ultimately blocked him from having to relive the torment he was so desperately trying to escape.”

  “How?”

  “Because he remembered what it felt like, the pain. The agony. Once Richard the family man began to suffer early symptoms of ALS, he knew he couldn’t stay.”

  “Oh damn...”

  “You see the problem here? In this timeline he created, Richard Sparke the scientist would also suffer from the debilitating neuromuscular disease. The family man’s body would begin to deteriorate in the same fashion as the scientist’s did. The only difference was that the scientist’s consciousness would suffer all the pain, and no way could he endure that all over again.”

  “So,” Richard said, “he had to create more timelines, hence more Richards, in order to begin the process all over again.”

  “Correct. Only it was much easier said than done.”

  Richard grinned. “I figured as much.”

  “Once Richard the scientist realized he couldn’t live the life of the family man he created, he came back into his own body. A year after creating the first timeline, he ran the process again, creating additional timelines, three more in all. He then disrupted the balance between matter and dark matter in effort to exchange consciousnesses with all other Richards involved. What he found was quite alarming. Of the three additional Richards, one was a heroin addict. He was homeless, naked and bleeding, dying in a refuse-filled alley in the city. Obviously, he couldn’t assume this man’s perceptions. Then, you came along. Your life wasn’t what he fully desired, but you seemed healthy, and at the point of growing desperation, that was all that mattered. He figured that once he got into your head, he could change the way you lived, make things more desirable for himself.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “The fifth Richard Sparke. Although Richard the scientist saw your life as a suitable replacement, he still looked into the fifth universe to see if Richard’s life there might be any better. He never expected that the decision to do so would trigger his ultimate demise.”

  Richard searched his thoughts, and soon found the piece to this part of the puzzle. “The fifth Richard Sparke was the man in black, right?”

  Pam nodded. “That’s right. And like the scientist, he was truly brilliant. The only problem was that this fifth Richard Sparke was a serial murderer who’d spent his entire life eluding the law. Whereas Richard the scientist spent his life utilizing his genius toward scientific purposes, this man used it to satiate his primal urges to torture and kill and evade authority. There was no way the scientist could assume this man’s consciousness. Or his life. Once caught, he’d be put in jail.”

  Richard ran a nervous hand across his shoulder. “Yeah, that could be a problem.”

  “A big one, it was.”

  Richard moved his hand to his brow, tried to rub away the mounting confusion. The pain in his body had settled to a dull ache, the throbbing evenly distributed from head to toe. He shook his head with disbelief. “If I understand this correctly, then there must have been a good deal of bleeding between all five timelines. I was gathering clear memories and thoughts from all of these men. I was obtaining a piece of all their consciousnesses. This explains all my memories, and the voices in my head. My conscience. The voice of reason.”

  “And they were gaining your memories as well.”

  “All five Richards, learning about one another. It must have been utter chaos.”

  Pam grinned and nodded. “It was the bleeding that set all five timelines into disorder, to the point where Richard the scientist’s efforts to regain the balance between matter and dark matter between them all became a mathematical impossibility. Too many combinations between the five alternate universes made the feat hopeless. All Richard the scientist could do at the moment was sit back, watch, and let the scenario play itself out.”

  “Let me guess...more problems.”

  “Correct again. All having to do with the fifth Richard.”

  “The serial killer.”

  “The bleeding from the scientist’s world into his was very heavy. He gained a great deal of knowledge. Soon he discovered exactly what was happening, with the whole alternate timeline occurrences, and did everything in his power to capitalize on the situation.”

  “Wow...so, unlike myself and presumably the other Richards who chalked up their abnormal experiences to either supernatural activity or psychological complications, our serial killer was able to unearth the truth of the matter.”

  “And explore its every possibility. He gained every bit of knowledge from the scientist, and, in a matter of months, had begun his very own experiments, in his own home, in his own universe.”

  Richard shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  “It gets even more incredible.”

  “Jesus, we had it all wrong.”

  Pam gave him a quizzical stare.

  “Myself. Doctor Delaney. All the effort, the research we did in attempt to find out what was wrong with me. It was all way off base. We spent two years barking up dozens of wrong trees. I’ll bet you won’t find anything even remotely pertaining to this in Delaney’s notes.”

  “No, you probably wouldn’t.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “What happened was that Richard the serial killer--the man in black--eventually absorbed full knowledge of the timeline experiment. Not just those elementary features lying on the surface of the project, but every intricacy, every scientific detail there was to know. Capitalizing on this, Richard the serial killer was not only able to continue the scientist’s work--without exchanging consciousnesses, mind you--but was able to take it a step further and achieve something our scientist had only posed through theory. And it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Two years after the first timeline had been established, the scientist had finally resigned himself to defeat. His movements were limited to eye flutters, his speech a series of one-word sentences through the use of an electronic communicator. He was able to keep mental tabs on his adversary’s progress, and could divulge the details of his actions in only the most basic of terms. But it was enough to know exa
ctly what he was up to.”

  Richard was riveted. “Tell me.”

  “Whereas Richard the scientist had only been able to achieve the exchange of thoughts and memories between the fluctuating timelines, the man in black discovered a way to physically trip between the alternate universes. He could travel from one time line to the next. In his mind, he realized he could forever escape the world where he was a wanted man, the world that inhibited his passion for torture and murder, and find a new existence in a place where he could begin his exploits from scratch. Begin his reign of terror all over again--”

  “Knowing what he knew now. There’s the ‘what if’ concept.”

  “Right. But the only way he could gain complete control of his being was to kill off the four other Richards. This would eliminate bleeding beyond the scope of knowledge he’d already obtained, and also end any confusion that would no doubt manifest from all those voices in his head. And, as we learned soon thereafter, would give him the perverse pleasure of killing himself and living to tell about it.”

  “How was he able to go from one timeline to the next?”

  “Utilizing the knowledge he absorbed through Richard the scientist, he was able to build a device that enabled him to manage this very feat.” She reached sideways alongside the couch and dragged her knapsack in front of her. She fished inside the large pocket, but Richard already knew what she was looking for. The device she had in the motel room. The one that made the blue light they escaped into.

  She pulled it out and placed it on the floor between them. Sighting it for a second time was no less monumental. His heart fluttered knowing now, without question, that this device had been the source of the blue light that’d haunted him for two years.

  The blue light.

  “It’s beautiful,” Richard said, marveling at its electronic complexities.

  “This unit is a duplicate. Not as complex as the original, but just as useful. It does the job. Well, it used to anyway. It’s stopped working.”

  Richard eyed the object with awe. He then said, “If this isn’t the original the man in black built, then where’d it come from?”

  “The secrets on how to create such a device bled from the man in black back to Richard the scientist.”

  “So...through bleeding, the man in black learned everything there was to know about the project from Richard the scientist, who then continued experimenting in his own universe to a point where he was able to take the science a step further. In turn, the information of this discovery bled right back to Richard the scientist. Makes sense, I guess. But I thought you said Richard the scientist was disabled and virtually uncommunicative?”

  “He was. Still, through his communication device, he was able to forward all pertinent information to a computer in the lab. Remember I told you about Brutus? Head of security? He and I were able to construct a second time-trip device. Which is why it’s probably unusable now...we did the best we could with it, but our knowledge is limited.”

  Richard hesitated. He pinned Pam with a stunned gaze. “Wait a second, Pam...I never thought to ask...”

  “What?”

  “What is your involvement here? How do you know all this?”

  She hesitated, blew out a deep breath, then said, “Richard the scientist had only two people working intimately with him. The only two people he trusted. Brutus. And myself.”

  “But why you, Pam? How did you get so wrapped up in all of this?”

  She paused, took another deep breath. “Richard Sparke, the scientist, was my husband.”

  Mewl

  It took Leonard thirty minutes to find enough courage to come out of hiding. Lying unseen in the shrubbery, he’d spent the entire time trying to regulate his quickened breathing as the nightmare-image of his body double walking nonchalantly down the precinct steps haunted his mind. Then Kevin, walking beside the imposter

  (twin nemesis)

  as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Well, to these folks, these aliens that now occupied Fairview, nothing was wrong. Not at all. There had been no murders, no crimes whatsoever. Like the people walking their dogs and riding their bikes and shopping along Main Street and Park Avenue, it was just another typical day in Fairview.

  Yeah, right.

  He took a quick stride away from town into the surrounding neighborhood, pacing the streets that looked so familiar yet carried an ambience of something gone hideously awry. Len, get a grip on yourself. You got sucked into that blue light in the hotel room and somehow you ended up ninety miles away, back in Fairview. But not really Fairview. An exact duplicate of the town you lived in your entire life, where the people are slightly off kilter (in your family’s case, picking daisies way out in left field) and a man wearing your clothes, driving your car, fucking your wife, lives and breathes the air that was meant for you. Other than that, you have nothing to be afraid of.

  Or do you?

  As his mind tested reality over and over again, he walked, blindly passing people and trying hard not to make eye contact for fear of being recognized by someone--for fear of having to speak to someone unrecognizable that claimed to know him. His eyes stayed pinned to his shoes that tackled the cracks of the sidewalks on Fairview’s friendly streets, his steps tapping out a rhythm that carried him all the way to Culver Street, number 338. Presidential Studios. Washington Building.

  Pamela Bergin’s home.

  What was the phrase? Déjà vu, all over again? That’s what it felt like as Leonard tackled the cement walkway to the entrance, into the foyer without a security lock, then past the doors through the hallway with the dated motifs and dust-coated sconces.

  He stood in front of the door labeled 5A, realizing now that although the scene played itself out almost identically as it did yesterday (minus Kevin’s presence), one clear distinction became suddenly obvious. The aroma of chicken soup was absent. In its place: cool damp must.

  He knocked on the door.

  He heard a shuffling noise inside--not the quickened pace of someone answering the door, but a multitude of tiny muffled patters and scratches. He placed an ear to the door.

  Then he heard it. A faint mewl. A cat.

  Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch, Kevin. That nose of yours is sensitive.

  He knocked. No answer.

  Tried the knob.

  The door opened. He pushed it gently, slowly revealing the interior of Pamela Bergin’s apartment. Slightly more furnished than the apartment he’d been in yesterday--he’d come to the indecisive conclusion that everything and everyplace he’d been to yesterday was indeed an entirely different world-he worked hard to control the smile creeping up on his face at the occupants residing here. Cats. At least two dozen of them, doing what cats do best. Cleaning themselves, napping on the sofa and chairs, taking snacks from the metal bowls assembled near the sliding closet doors to the left. As he stepped inside, one pranced over and nuzzled his leg, leaving a trace of gray hair behind.

  There’s no plausible explanation for this, he thought, stepping further in and taking in the whole apartment. Some of the cats eyed him curiously, ready to spring into action just in case he had a treat of cold-cuts in his pocket. Leonard sneezed a couple of times, wiping the tears springing from his eyes. He walked to the refrigerator, opened it, saw not only cat food but food fit for human consumption as well.

  He looked at the bathroom door. It was shut. “Pam?”

  He paced toward it, shooing away an affectionate tabby trying hard to be Leonard’s friend. He reached out for the bathroom doorknob.

  The door slammed open and from within burst a crazed Pamela Bergin. The first thing he thought--all he really had time to think about before she laced into him with a powerful right hook--was that she looked entirely different (what else was new?). Her hair was mussed, both eyes blackened above a makeshift bandaged nose that must’ve been broken just recently. Dried blood caked her cheeks and mouth. Her attempt at first-aid had been shoddily performed.

  The pain was ala
rming, Leonard never having remembered taking such a blow all his life. A bump on the head, yes, perhaps an accidental head-butt. But never such a purposeful shot intended to cause pain. He staggered back, tripping over a screeching feline. He fell to the floor, butt-first, his journey down seeming an eternity as time appeared to slow, Pamela’s looming form above, approaching fast with outstretched arms ready to inflict damage.

  The fall knocked the wind out of him, but didn’t hinder him from doing what came naturally. He pulled his gun, pointed it at Pamela who seemed to take it as no threat, hurling herself on top of him, clawing his eyes, screaming like a demon and trying damn hard to take a bite out of his ear. Leonard, arms pinned between them, tried to buck his way out of the situation with no avail. Pamela grasped his head by the hair and slammed it against the floor. The pain was difficult to endure, and in the fear of the moment Leonard knew that if he didn’t make his only possible move, within seconds he’d fall victim to Pam’s aggression.

  Between their bodies his hand still gripped the gun, the barrel facing slightly outward, away from him, angled just enough to cause her damage--to get her away from him.

  It’s self-defense, he mentally convinced himself.

  I only pray my gun works in this world.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Yep. It worked. Her body stiffened, arms slightly outward and trembling as if seeking balance on ice. Her face showed utter surprise, mouth open and unable to replace the air escaping the hole in her chest. Like dim spots on a deserted island, her eyes searched the room as if it were a vast ocean, desperate in their hope for a boat in the night.

  Leonard managed to wriggle away, Pam’s body slumping sideways, the thud of which sent a few cats scurrying. Some felines, freaked by the sound of the gunshot, scratched furiously at the door, gouging the paint. He watched as Pam, leaving a crooked trail of blood behind, crawled to the corner of the apartment and collapsed, tears and sobs escaping her face moments before her life escaped her body.