by Dr Harper
I tossed his essay in the trash, along with the rest of the documents. As tempting as it was to hang onto his identity, I knew it was time to recalibrate.
Recalibration is my least favorite part of this process.
When I take on someone else’s identity, my mind is filled with their hopes, dreams, hobbies, and insecurities. I think like them. I talk like them. I become them.
But when I shed it all away, I am left only with a crippling sensation of emptiness.
Maybe that’s the type of wound Dr. Harper was referring to in his essay.
Maybe he could help me.
But Dr. Zhang helps me in a different way. She teaches me how to fill the emptiness by taking on identities and personas from other people. She gives me materials so that I can study everything about them.
The problem is, the relief doesn’t last long.
A single identity is never enough to fill the void. It’s like an addiction that gets duller with continued tolerance. Eventually the emptiness comes creeping back. So I have to recalibrate, to prepare for a new identity.
I stripped off all of my clothes, and I began saying goodbye to Dr. Harper’s personality — irritable, judgmental, and a bit paranoid. He was an unpleasant man, but for some reason, I very much enjoyed being him.
I reached over to the desk and pumped eight squirts of BioFreeze onto my palms.
BioFreeze is a menthol-based gel that creates an intense cold-burning sensation on the skin. It is meant for spot treatment on a sore back or shoulder, but I rub it all over my entire body.
It’s very important to cover every inch of the body — including eyelids, scalp, lips, anus, and genitals. This completes the seal.
Within minutes, the freezing heat kicks in.
My body is on fire. And yet, I am rolling in a fresh coat of snow on Christmas morning.
I lay on the floor and I make snow angels as I feel Dr. Harper exiting my body.
Tears stream down my face. The loss is painful, and it leaves me with a profound sense of loneliness.
The snow is grey. The sky is grey. Everything is grey.
Everything is empty.
Dr. Harper tries to come back in, but he cannot. The burning ice shield protects me.
The shield protects my body from all of the previous visitors.
Nobody can come back inside.
Especially not the screaming children.
End of Patient File: The Copy Cat
Company Retreat: The Copy Cat
“What’s taking the police so long to get here?”
I paced around anxiously as James rested.
“I don’t know,” said Noah. “Should I call again?”
I sighed and shook my head. “No. It’s just — something is really wrong here.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I lowered my voice. “His stories… It’s like he’s been — I don’t know — kidnapped or something.”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “You really think it’s that serious?”
“Think about what he’s told us!” I whispered. “Someone recruiting little kids. Another person drugging them…”
“Could he just have an active imagination?” suggested Noah.
“He’s too young to be talking about things like that,” I said. “And what if the police don’t understand or believe his story?”
“Well, maybe you can keep seeing him as a patient,” he said. “You’re so good at figuring people out.”
“At this point, you’re doing a better job of therapist than me.”
“Then we could help him together,” said Noah. “I’ve always wanted to try that!”
He looked into my eyes, like he wanted to say something more. But before we could continue, James began shouting.
“SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT UP.”
We both hurried over to him.
“What’s wrong?” asked Noah.
“I hate him!” said James. “He pretends to be me, but he’s not!”
“Who?” I pressed.
“The copy cat.”
“Another animal?” said Noah. “Don’t worry, we can make him go away.”
“You can’t,” said James. “Even when he’s gone, his whispers stay in my head.”
Noah looked at me, unsure of what to say next.
“What does he whisper to you?” I asked.
“He says that he is me — he is James. He says that I like the bad thing. He says that I ask for it.”
“What is the bad thing?”
James gave me a miserable look, so I did not push the subject.
“I’m sorry,” I said, changing the topic. “Can you tell me more about how he copies you?”
James sniffled. “He knows everything about me. He knows my favorite color. He knows the names of my stuffed animals. He knows about the time my sister fell off the swings — and he knows how it made me feel scared.”
Noah and I glanced at each other, at a loss for words.
“He copies my voice too,” said James. “He laughs like me. And when I cry, he cries too.”
“Well, he’s not you,” I said firmly. “You’re the only you, okay? In fact, he’s your opposite!”
James looked at me. “My opposite?”
“Yes,” I said. “I bet he didn’t look like you, did he?”
James shook his head. “No. He was tall and minty.”
I frowned. “Minty?”
“Yes,” said James. “He always smelled minty. Like a cough drop.”
Cannibal Conscience
PART ONE
Though psychopaths make up roughly 1% of the general male adult population, they make up between 15% and 25% of the males incarcerated in North American prison systems. There is no other variable that is more highly correlated to being in prison than psychopathy.
- Kent A. Kiehl, Ph.D. ; Jurimetrics: The Journal of Law, Science, and Technology
“Yo, are psychopaths born or made?”
The infamous cannibal known as ‘The Zombie’ sat across from me at my usual lunch spot.
But he didn’t look like a serial killer at all. He looked like a college jock — like one of those guys at the gym who constantly lifts up their shirt to look at their own abs in the mirror.
“It really depends, Chase,” I said. “For a lot of people, it can be combination of both.”
“Nah, not for me, Doctor H.”
He sounded like a college jock too.
“Which do you align with?”
“Gotta be nature,” he said. “I know you’re a therapist and all, so gotta ask about my childhood, but my childhood was freakin’ awesome.”
“Well—”
“And I know you’re gonna talk about repressed memories and shit, but that’s not what happened either.”
“It could have happened long before you were even aware,” I said. “People think infants are blobs of flesh with no emotional memory, but the body can hold onto wounding — like the sensation of being unwanted by a parent.”
He stared at me blankly for several seconds, clearly bored, and then changed the subject. “Yo, Doctor H, should I tell you how I killed people? Will that help you fix me?”
I swallowed, but tried to appear calm. “Okay.”
“I hung out on the streets, dressed as a homeless dude,” he said. “I sat in a wheelchair, and I added wrinkles and dirt with makeup — so I looked like a grandpa.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “People who give money to bums are more trusting… caring… gullible.”
“So you preyed on the kindness of others. Got it.”
“Yo, don’t get judgy with me!” said Chase defensively. “I wasn’t the one picking them.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He leaned across the table and began flexing his left bicep for no reason.
“I’m not guilty,” he whispered seriously, like it was some huge revelation. “I forget the word for it… What’s it called when one of those huge-ass trucks lo
ses control and accidentally rams another car, killing the driver?”
“In most cases, that would be considered manslaughter.”
“Yeah, that’s it!” he exclaimed, continuing to admire his bicep. “At worst, I’m a manslaughter — er.”
“This wasn’t accidental!” I said incredulously. “You murdered and ate people.”
“Yo, I didn’t have any control!” He slammed his fists on the table. “Didn’t you see the videos, Doctor H? I always punched myself after. But when I’m told to kill in the moment, I have to kill.”
“How can you have to do anything?” I said. “Especially kill?”
“Alright…” He sighed, as if it should have been obvious. “Lemme explain it for you. Think about something you feel like you gotta do — you a smoker?”
“No.”
“Booze, then.”
“I don’t drink.”
He glared at me in annoyance. “Jerking off.”
I felt my cheeks go red.
“Finally,” he muttered. “So think about how it feels when you’ve gone a week without… that.”
“That’s completely different—”
“Then multiply that feeling by a thousand,” he said. “That’s what I feel in the moment when I’m told to eat.”
“Who the hell is telling you to eat someone?” I snapped.
He started making a duck face, like he was posing for a photo, even though no one was taking a picture.
“Coach Adam.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Coach?”
“Yeah, I was on the football team,” he said. “Quarterback.”
“And your coach was telling you to eat people?”
“Yeah,” he said. “During bulking season — for the protein.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“So your coach… Was telling you to consume other humans… For protein.”
“Exactly!” He let out a sigh of relief and sprawled back in his chair. “I knew you’d believe me, Doctor H.”
“What?” I sputtered. “I don’t believe you!”
But he wasn’t listening to me anymore. Instead, he was leaning back in his chair and throwing an imaginary football through the air.
Chase had to be the most vain, self-absorbed patient I’d ever met — admiring his muscles while casually talking about murdering people. I definitely agreed with whichever court-ordered psychiatrist diagnosed him as a narcissistic sociopath, but I still wanted to learn why he came to talk with me today.
So I decided to play along.
“Chase, does Coach Adam still tell you to hurt people in prison?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “Haven’t seen him since I got here.”
“So… Without him around, do you still feel compelled to kill?”
“Nope,” he said, sitting back up in his chair. “Well, not until last week. That’s why I need your help.”
“What happened last week?”
Chase made another duck face and began stroking his bicep affectionately.
“Got a new coach.”
I leaned forward. “Someone else is telling you to kill?”
I was 99% sure that he was projecting his own murderous urges onto these imaginary “coaches” to deflect the blame from himself, but I still wanted to hear his entire story before I jumped to any conclusions.
“That’s why I came to you, Doctor H,” he said. “I need you to build me a conscience — otherwise I think I’m gonna do something really bad.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Worse than killing and eating people…?”
For the first time in our conversation, he actually looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he mumbled, toying with his food.
“Wait a minute…” I said. “Chase, what exactly does this new coach want you to do?”
He lifted a chicken wing from his lunch tray and tossed the entire thing into his mouth — bones and all.
“Just build me a conscience, okay?”
As he chewed, I couldn’t help but notice the horrible crunching sound.
PART TWO
I spent my rec hour scanning through newspapers in the library, looking for headlines about Chase.
We’re not allowed to use Google in prison, but fortunately stories about The Zombie have dominated most major papers for the past year.
Flipping through months of records, I also came across several articles about my own trial:
Doctor of Horror: The Psychiatrist Who Stalked and Tortured his Patients
Elliot Harper Receives Life Sentence for Kidnapping Cop Family
Is Therapy Safe? 10 Simple Tips to Avoid ‘Professionals’ like Dr. Harper
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. A familiar sensation of embarrassment was stirring somewhere deep within my stomach.
I turned back to the papers and continued going back in time, until I finally started seeing stories about The Zombie.
Zombie Killer on Trial for Cannibalizing Seven Victims
College Student Slammed with Eight Life Sentences for ‘Zombie’ Murders
Chase Collins: Did Hazing Rituals Cause Star Quarterback to Snap?
The last one caught my eye, so I pulled out the newspaper and began reading the article:
Throughout the highly publicized trial, dozens of witnesses took the stand to testify against Chase Collins.
But one person came forward to defend him.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a classmate described a series of hazing rituals in the months leading up to Collins’ murder spree.
However, Collins himself denied these rumors and shouted at the witness: “Shut up, f*ggot!”
The football team’s coach, Adam Driscoll, also denied any wrongdoing. “The university has a strict policy against hazing and initiation rituals. Chase was a promising young quarterback, and he was welcomed onto the team with open arms.” (Continued on Page 3B).
I flipped to 3B, curious to learn more about Driscoll — or “Coach Adam”, as Chase called him. But the rest of the article was just filled with speculation and professional opinions about the psychological impact of hazing.
I turned back to the front page to check for the article’s author — perhaps they had written more on the topic. But when I saw the name, I raised my eyebrows.
“No way…”
◆◆◆
“Elliot!”
My heart lurched with the same anxiety I felt every time I saw Zach.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly as he pulled me into a close hug.
Our friendship was a simple one: I had a childhood crush on him, he informed me that he was straight, so we decided to become friends who had tea together every month.
Except now — instead of tea — we met in the prison’s visitor center.
“Alright, break it off.” The guard pushed us apart, and then chuckled to himself. “Heh. Strange seeing a black man visit a white man in prison, right?”
I screwed up my face and opened my mouth to tell him off, but Zach touched my shoulder and motioned for me to sit down.
I sighed and sank into the chair. Zach sat across from me and gave me an encouraging smile, which only made me feel more self-conscious about the fact that I was a prisoner, and he was not.
“Listen, I need you to look something up for me.”
Zach laughed. “It’s nice to see you too, Elliot.”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s just, this is important. It’s for a patient.”
He gave me an odd look. “You’re seeing patients in here?”
“Well — sort of,” I said. “It’s complicated.”
“Okay…” he said hesitantly. “What do you need?”
“Adam Driscoll,” I said. “The Zombie’s football coach. You mentioned him in an article. I need to know everything about him. Anything you can find.”
Zach’s eyes went wide. “Elliot, please tell me you’re not trying to treat a serial killer…”
“Will you
just trust me?” I said. “You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”
He gave me a forced smile and nodded. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Zach was an investigative journalist with a major newspaper, so he had access and police contacts that could hopefully help him figure this out. Which reminded me—
“Hey,” I lowered my voice. “Any news on Noah?”
Zach’s face flooded with guilt, which meant I already had my answer.
“Elliot, I’ve been looking, I promise,” he said. “I still haven’t found anything.”
It was the same answer he’d given me since the day I got here. No updates, no leads, nothing about my missing assistant. If it was anyone but Zach, I might have guessed that he wasn’t even looking at all.
But this was Zach, and I knew I could trust him with my life.
“Alright,” I said. “Well, just check out this Driscoll guy, okay? I really think it could help with this patient.”
Zach nodded reluctantly and then let out a sigh.
“Elliot…” he began. “I just have to ask, are you being safe in here?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There are rumors…” he said nervously. “I have connections in the prison… And I heard that you…”
“What have you heard?” I demanded.
He looked down and fidgeted with his fingers.
“Zach, tell me.”
He cleared his throat. “I heard — I heard you may have… gotten HIV.”
“Jesus,” I muttered as my anxiety worsened.
“Is it true?” he asked.
“Yes, probably,” I said. “But it’s a long story—”
“They also said you were caught with a young inmate. Is that — is that how it happened?”
“For fuck’s sake, Zach!” I stood up. “Are you going to believe everything you hear from your connections? We’ve been friends for two decades.”
His eyes shifted to the left and he lowered his voice. “I’m just saying, I worried about you.”
I shook my head and brushed past him.
“I expect this bullshit from everyone else, but not from you.”
“Elliot—”
