by Stephen King
“I love this guy, he’s so jive,” Barbara says as Judge Law boogies his way to the bench.
“Pete doesn’t agree,” Holly says.
“Yes, but Pete is white,” Barbara says.
Holly looks at Barbara, wide-eyed. “I’m white.”
Barbara giggles. “Well, there’s white and there’s really white. Which is what Mr. Huntley is.”
They laugh together, then watch as Judge Law deals with a burglar who claims he didn’t do anything, he’s just a victim of racial profiling. Holly and Barbara give each other one of those telepathic looks—as if. Then they burst out laughing again.
A very good day, and Chet Ondowsky hardly crosses Holly’s mind until her phone rings at six o’clock that evening, just as she’s settling in to watch Animal House. That call, from Dr. Carl Morton, changes everything. When it finishes, Holly makes one of her own. An hour later, she receives another call. She takes notes on all three.
The next morning she’s on her way to Portland, Maine.
December 16, 2020
1
Holly gets up at three o’clock in the morning. She’s packed, she’s printed out her Delta ticket, she doesn’t have to be at the airport until seven and it’s a short ride, but she can’t sleep anymore. She would not, in fact, think she had slept at all except for her Fitbit, which registers two hours and thirty minutes. Shallow sleep and precious little of it, but she’s made do on less.
She has coffee and a cup of yogurt. Her bag (overhead bin–sized, of course) is waiting by the door. She calls the office and leaves a message for Pete, telling him she won’t be in the office today and maybe not for the rest of the week. It’s a personal matter. She’s about to end the call when something else occurs to her.
“Please have Jerome tell Barbara that she should watch The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Harper for the ‘fiction’ part of her private investigation report. All three movies are in my collection. Jerome knows where I keep the spare key to my apartment.”
With that done, she opens the recording app on her phone and begins to add to the report she is making for Ralph Anderson. She’s starting to believe she may have to send it to him, after all.
2
Although Allie Winters is Holly’s regular therapist, and has been for years, Holly did some research and sought out Carl Morton after she returned from her dark adventures in Oklahoma and Texas. Dr. Morton has written two books of case histories, similar to those of Oliver Sacks but too clinical for bestsellerdom. Still, she thought he was the right man, he was relatively close, and so she sought him out.
She had two fifty-minute sessions with Morton, enough to recount the complete and unvarnished story of her dealings with the outsider. She didn’t care if Dr. Morton believed all, some, or none. The important thing, as far as Holly was concerned, was getting it out before it could grow inside her like a malignant tumor. She didn’t go to Allie because she thought it would poison the work the two of them were doing on Holly’s other issues, and that was the last thing Holly wanted.
There was another reason for going to a secular confessor like Carl Morton. Have you seen another one like me somewhere? the outsider had asked. Holly hadn’t; Ralph hadn’t; but the legends of such creatures, known to Latinos on both sides of the Atlantic as El Cuco, had been around for centuries. So… maybe there were others.
Maybe there were.
3
Toward the end of their second and last session, Holly said, “May I tell you what I think you think? I know that’s very impertinent, but may I?”
Morton gave her a smile probably meant to be encouraging but which Holly read as indulgent—he wasn’t as hard to read as he perhaps liked to believe. “Go right ahead, Holly. This is your time.”
“Thank you.” She had folded her hands. “You must know that at least some of my story is true, because the events were well publicized, from the rape-murder of the Peterson boy in Oklahoma to the events—some of them, at least—that occurred at the Marysville Hole in Texas. The death of Detective Jack Hoskins, from Flint City, Oklahoma, for instance. Am I right?”
Morton had nodded.
“As for the rest of my story—the shape-changing outsider and what happened to him in that cave—you believe those are stress-induced delusions. Am I right about that?”
“Holly, I wouldn’t characterize—”
Oh, spare me the jargon, Holly thought, and then had interrupted him—a thing of which she would have been incapable not so long ago.
“It doesn’t matter how you characterize it. You’re welcome to whatever you believe. But I want something from you, Dr. Morton. You attend lots of conferences and symposiums. I know this, because I researched you online.”
“Holly, aren’t we wandering a bit from the subject of your story? And your perceptions of that story?”
No, she thought, because that story is told. What matters is what comes next. I’m hoping it will be nothing, and it probably will be, but it never hurts to be sure. Being sure helps a person sleep better at night.
“When you go to those conferences and symposiums, I want you to talk about my case. I want you to describe it. Write it up if you like, that would be fine, too. I want you to be specific about my belief, which you’re welcome to characterize as delusional, that I encountered a creature that renews itself by eating the pain of the dying. Will you do that? And if you ever—ever—meet or get an email from a fellow therapist who says he has or had a patient suffering from that exact same delusion, will you give that therapist my name and telephone number?” And then, to be gender neutral (which she always strives to be): “Or her.”
Morton had frowned. “That would hardly be ethical.”
“You’re wrong,” Holly said. “I’ve checked the law. Talking to another therapist’s patient would be unethical, but you can give the therapist my name and number if I give you permission to do so. And I do.”
Holly waited for his response.
4
She pauses her recording long enough to check the time and get a second cup of coffee. It will give her the jitters and acid indigestion, but she needs it.
“I saw him thinking it over,” Holly says into her phone. “I think what tipped the scales was knowing what a good story my story would make in his next book or article or compensated appearance. It did, too. I read one of the articles and looked at one of the conference videos. He changes the locations, and he calls me Carolyn H., but otherwise it’s the whole megillah. He’s especially good when talking about what happened to our perp when I hit him with the Happy Slapper—that brought gasps from the audience in the video. And I’ll give him this, he always ends my part of his lectures by saying he would like to hear from anyone with patients suffering similar delusional fantasies.”
She pauses to think, then restarts the recording.
“Dr. Morton called last night. It’s been awhile, but I knew who it was right away, and I knew it was going to lead back to Ondowsky. I remember something else you said once, Ralph: there’s evil in the world, but there’s also a force for good. You were thinking about the piece of menu you found, the one from a restaurant in Dayton. That fragment linked the murder in Flint City to two similar murders in Ohio. That’s how I came to be involved, just a little scrap of paper that could have easily blown away. Maybe something wanted it to be found. I like to think so, anyway. And maybe that same thing, that force, has something more for me to do. Because I can believe the unbelievable. I don’t want to, but I can.”
She stops there and puts her phone in her purse. It’s still way early to go to the airport, but she will, anyway. It’s just how she rolls.
I’ll be early to my own funeral, she thinks, and opens her iPad to find the nearest Uber.
5
At five in the morning, the cavernous airport terminal is almost completely deserted. When it’s filled with travelers (sometimes absolutely bursting at the seams with their chattering bustle) the music floating down from the overhead speakers
is barely noticeable, but at this hour, with nothing but the hum of a janitor’s floor-buffer to compete with, Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” sounds not just eerie but like a harbinger of doom.
Nothing is open on the concourse except for Au Bon Pain, but that’s good enough for Holly. She resists the temptation to put another coffee on her tray, settles instead for a plastic cup of orange juice and a bagel, and takes the tray to a table at the back. After looking around to make sure no one is close (she is, in fact, the only current customer), she takes out her phone and resumes her report, speaking low and stopping every so often to marshal her thoughts. She still hopes Ralph will never get this. She still hopes that what she thinks may be a monster will only turn out to be a shadow. But if he does get it, she wants to make sure he gets all of it.
Especially if she’s dead.
6
From Holly Gibney’s report to Detective Ralph Anderson:
Still December 16th. I’m at the airport, got here early, so I have some time. Actually quite a bit.
[Pause]
I think I left off by telling you that I knew Dr. Morton right away. Had him from hello, as the saying is. He said he’d checked with his lawyer after our last session—out of curiosity, he claimed—to find out if I was correct when I said that putting me in touch with another patient’s therapist wouldn’t be an ethical breach.
“It turned out to be a gray area,” he said, “so I didn’t do it, especially since you elected to stop therapy, at least with me. But the call I got yesterday from a Boston psychiatrist named Joel Lieberman made me reconsider.”
Ralph, Carl Morton has actually had news of another possible outsider for over a year, but he didn’t call me. He was timid. As a timid person myself I can understand that, but it still makes me mad. Probably it shouldn’t, because Mr. Bell didn’t know about Ondowsky then, but it still
[Pause]
I’m getting ahead of myself. Sorry. Let’s see if I can keep this in order.
In 2018 and 2019, Dr. Joel Lieberman was seeing a patient living in Portland, Maine. This patient took the Downeaster—I assume that’s a train—to keep his once-monthly appointments in Boston. The man, Dan Bell as it turns out, is an elderly gentleman who seemed perfectly rational to Dr. Lieberman except for his firm belief that he had discovered the existence of a supernatural creature, which he called a “psychic vampire.” Mr. Bell believed that this creature had been around for a long time, at least sixty years and perhaps much longer.
Lieberman attended a lecture Dr. Morton gave in Boston. Last summer, this was—2019. During his lecture, Dr. Morton discussed the case of “Carolyn H.” Me, in other words. He asked any attendees who had patients with similar delusions to get in touch with him, as I had asked. Lieberman did.
Have you got the picture? Morton talked about my case, as I asked him to. He inquired if there were doctors or therapists who’d had patients with similar neurotic convictions, also as I asked him to. But for sixteen months he didn’t put me in touch with Lieberman, as I practically implored him to do. His ethical concerns held him back, but there was something more. I’ll get to that.
Then, yesterday, Dr. Lieberman called Dr. Morton again. His patient from Portland had stopped coming in for sessions some time ago, and Lieberman assumed he had seen the last of him. But on the day after the Macready School explosion, the patient called out of the blue and asked if he could come in for an emergency session. He was extremely distraught, so Lieberman made room for him. The patient—Dan Bell, as I now know—claimed that the Macready School bombing was the work of this psychic vampire. He stated this unequivocally. He was so upset that Dr. Lieberman thought about an intervention and perhaps even a short involuntary committal. But then the man calmed down, and said he needed to discuss his ideas with someone he only knew of as Carolyn H.
I need to consult my notes here.
[Pause]
All right, I have them. Here I want to quote Carl Morton as exactly as I can, because it’s the other reason he hesitated to call me.
He said, “It wasn’t just ethical concerns that held me back, Holly. There is great danger in putting people with similar delusional ideations together. They have a tendency to reinforce each other, which can deepen neuroses into full-blown psychoses. This is well documented.”
“Then why did you?” I asked.
“Because so much of your story was based on known facts,” he said. “Because to some degree it challenged my established belief system. And because Lieberman’s patient already knew about you, not from his therapist but from an article I wrote about your case in Psychiatric Quarterly. He said Carolyn H. would understand.”
Do you see what I mean about a possible force for good, Ralph? Dan Bell was reaching out for me, just as I was reaching out for him, and before I could be sure that he even existed.
“I’ll give you Dr. Lieberman’s numbers, office and cell,” Dr. Morton said. “He’ll decide whether or not to put you in touch with his patient.” Then he asked if I might also have concerns about the middle school explosion in Pennsylvania, concerns relating to our discussions in therapy. He was flattering himself on that, there were no discussions—I just talked and Morton listened. I thanked him for getting in touch with me, but I didn’t answer his question. I suppose I was still mad that he waited so long to call.
[Here there is an audible sigh.]
Actually, there’s no suppose about it. I still need to work on my anger issues.
I’ll have to stop soon, but it shouldn’t take long to finish bringing you up to date. I called Lieberman on his cell, because it was evening. I introduced myself as Carolyn H. and asked for his patient’s name and contact number. He gave me both, but reluctantly.
He said, “Mr. Bell is anxious to talk to you, and after careful thought, I’ve decided to agree. He’s very elderly now, and this is in the nature of a last wish. Although I should add that other than his fixation on this so-called psychic vampire, he’s not suffering any of the cognitive decline we often see in the elderly.”
That made me think of my Uncle Henry, Ralph, who has Alzheimer’s. We had to put him in care last weekend. Thinking about that makes me very sad.
Lieberman said that Mr. Bell is ninety-one, and coming to his most recent appointment must have been very difficult for him, even though he had his grandson to assist him. He said that Mr. Bell is suffering from a number of physical ailments, the worst being congestive heart failure. He said that under other circumstances, he might worry that talking to me would reinforce his neurotic fixation and mar the rest of what might otherwise be a fruitful and productive life, but given Mr. Bell’s current age and condition, he didn’t feel that was much of an issue.
Ralph, it may be projection on my part, but I found Dr. Lieberman rather pompous. Still, he said one thing at the end of our conversation that moved me, and has stayed with me. He said, “This is an old man who is very frightened. Try not to frighten him more than he already is.”
I don’t know if I can do that, Ralph. I’m frightened myself.
[Pause]
This place is filling up, and I should go to my gate, so I’ll make this quick. I called Mr. Bell, introducing myself as Carolyn H. He asked for my real name. That was my Rubicon, Ralph, and I crossed it. I said I was Holly Gibney and asked if I might come and see him. He said, “If it’s about the school explosion, and the thing calling itself Ondowsky, as soon as possible.”
7
With a change of planes in Boston, Holly arrives at the Portland Jetport just before noon. She checks into Embassy Suites and calls Dan Bell’s number. The phone rings half a dozen times, long enough for Holly to wonder if the old man has died in the night, leaving her questions about Charles “Chet” Ondowsky unanswered. Assuming the old fellow actually has some answers.
As she’s about to end the call, a man picks up. Not Dan Bell, a younger man. “Hello?”
“This is Holly,” she says. “Holly Gibney. I was wondering when—”
; “Oh, Ms. Gibney. Now would be fine. Grampa’s having a good day. Actually slept through the night after talking to you, and I can’t remember the last time he did that. Do you have the address?”
“19 Lafayette Street.”
“That’s right. I’m Brad Bell. How soon can you come?”
“As soon as I can get an Uber.” And a sandwich, she thinks. A sandwich would also be good.
8
As she slips into the back seat of the Uber, her phone rings. It’s Jerome, wanting to know where she is and what she’s doing and if he can help. Holly says she’s sorry, but it really is personal. She says she’ll tell him later, if she can.
“Is it about Uncle Henry?” he asks. “Are you chasing down some kind of treatment option? That’s what Pete thinks.”
“No, not Uncle Henry.” Another old man, she thinks. One who might or might not turn out to be compos mentis. “Jerome, I really can’t talk about this.”
“Okay. As long as you’re all right.”
It’s really a question, and she supposes he’s got a right to ask it, because he remembers when she wasn’t.
“I’m fine.” And, just to prove she hasn’t lost the plot: “Don’t forget to tell Barbara about those private detective movies.”
“Already taken care of,” he says.
“Tell her she may not be able to use them in her paper, but they will provide valuable background.” Holly pauses and smiles. “Also, they’re extremely entertaining.”
“I’ll tell her. And you’re sure you’re—”
“Fine,” she says, but as she ends the call, she thinks about the man—the thing—she and Ralph confronted in the cave, and she shivers. She can barely stand to think of that creature, and if there’s another, how can she possibly face it alone?
