I woke up covered in blood. Although, at first, I
had no idea it was blood. It was dark and I was confused. My head was
completely foggy, as if I were still half-asleep. My first thought was, “How
much did I drink last night?”
My brain tried to make sense of what my body felt.
I was wet, but I wasn’t cold. There was a smell that I couldn’t place at first.
I couldn’t reconcile it with any of the typical smells that might result from a
night of heavy drinking. But before logic could kick in and inspire me to turn
on the light, I realized what it was.
Blood. Definitely blood.
And then, I didn’t want to turn the light on.
I hadn’t consumed an entire pound of chocolate
last week, so it wasn’t that time of the month. Nothing on me was hurting. As
far as I knew, none of the kids from high school had a ten-year-old, Carrie
White-style grudge. There was definitely not a horse head in bed next to me.
What the fuck was going on?
Here is where I’m ashamed to admit what I did.
Because what I did was nothing. In my defense, my brain was groggy, like I was
still drunk. I was barely registering my situation, let alone capable of
thinking up a rational response to it. Instead, I got up. I stripped the bed. I
changed. I threw the sheets and pajamas into the incinerator chute down the
hall. Blood never comes out, right? So, why bother. I showered until the whole
incident was scrubbed from my body and my mind, and until my brain felt like it
could comprehend coherent thoughts again. To be fair, I was well into
cold-water world before I achieved that. Then, I went to work.
Full disclosure? This, sadly, is my MO when faced
with a situation I can’t deal with or is overwhelming. If I don’t have a plan
or a well-thought out response, I don’t just shut down, I shut off. It’s not healthy
by any stretch of the imagination, but I am well-practiced in the whole “head
in the sand” reaction and it’s second nature to me by now.
I was in a zombie-like state all morning. That’s
the price I pay for being able to bury my feelings about things I can’t deal
with. I end up burying everything.
It seemed to take forever for lunchtime to arrive,
but when it did, I was anything but hungry. I immediately called my
oldest-bestest-slash-currentest-roommate as my only concession to acknowledging
any part of the previous night’s activities. We were not supposed to use our
sales phones for personal calls, but I didn’t have any change and until they
figured out a way for us to carry our home phones in our purses, I had no other
way to find out what happened.
Paul answered the house phone immediately, which
caught me off-guard. I had figured I’d have ten minutes of the phone ringing in
my ear, as Paul is never awake at this hour.
“Hey, it’s me. What the fuck did I do last night?
I don’t remember anything after meeting you for drinks.”
“Oh, it’s you. Jules, I can’t talk. I just got the
most devastating news.”
“Devastating news” for Paul could mean George
Michael got married, so I was surprised when he continued with “Remember
Mitchell Adams? He’s dead.”
I was a bit taken aback, but more in regards to
the idea that Paul found this news to be devastating. In middle school,
Mitchell Adams provided no end of torment to Paul and his twin brother Mark. I
never actually knew Mitchell, other than by reputation - which wasn’t good - so
I felt no remorse. In fact, I was so fully on autopilot at this point, I barely
registered any emotion at all at the fact that this was news.
“Wait. He’s not dead already? I assumed someone like
Mitchell would have been stabbed in jail while serving time for aggravated
assault against a senior citizen years ago.”
“That isn’t funny!” he replied, and for a second I
felt bad, until he continued, “But,
that kinda was.” He switched to an accent of an old Jewish woman. “Oye vey,
Mitchell, not in my gefilte fish!” And I lost it. Paul’s really good with
accents.
We sat in silence for a second getting our
giggling under control. Sometimes Paul and I are so inappropriate when we’re
together that I feel like meeting each other in 7th grade stunted our emotional
growth from that point forward. But then he turned somber.
“He was no angel, but he was BRUTALLY murdered. In
his bed. While he was sleeping! The person covered him in these tiny stabs. Cut
off pieces of his body and flung them all around. Apparently his bedroom looked
like the set from a horror film and that wasn’t even all the blood!”
I remembered my sheets and pajamas, and how I’d
felt like I, too, was in the middle of a horror film. I was about to bring it
up to Paul, when he continued.
“And even if he was a dick in the worst sense of
the word - and you know me, it takes a lot to make a dick bad - he didn’t
deserve something like that. No one does.”
“Wow. That IS kind of intense. Is there a funeral?
Will you go? I never knew the guy, but if you want to go, and want someone to
go with, I can be there.”
“There won’t be a funeral for a while. I heard
from Ray who heard from Steve who heard from Bruce that due to the nature of
the crime, the police are doing a full investigation and autopsy. And, no, I
probably won’t go to the funeral whenever it is. I hated that asshole when he
was alive. It’d be wrong to go pay respects just cause he’s dead. See you
tonight.” He disconnected, probably to keep the line free since we can’t afford
call waiting in case any more news came in. Or to make more calls. Paul loved
nothing more than adding a few links to a chain of gossip.
I finished the day just barely managing to not get
fired. Paul and I worked different schedules and our paths only crossed for
about an hour each day - my night is his morning. And, given our
paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, Paul danced at the club almost every night to
rack up tips, only taking Mondays off and going in “late” on Tuesdays since
those evenings tend to be slower. We typically tried to meet at the Pub on
Tuesdays and kick off his work week with a vodka martini, the happy hour drink
of choice - or in his case, the breakfast of champions.
We sat down and I considered telling him about my
weird night, but the place was too loud. The tradeoff for two-dollar happy hour
drinks was really shitty live bands. I didn’t want to shout out my experience,
especially since he’d probably chalk it up to something rational and mortifying
like perimenopause or an unknown miscarriage. And while both those ideas seemed
unrealistic, they had more merit than anything I’d come up with. Besides, I
really liked the sand my head was buried in. It was warm and quiet down there.
Instead, we drank to Mitchell, assuming that,
despite the violent nature of the crime, he likely got what he deserved.
Comeuppance for six years of tormenting underclassmen. We toasted Mark, too, as
we always did every week. Three years ago, Mark took his own life for unknown
reasons, and we both still felt the loss profoundly.
A few nights passed and I essentially convinced
myself that everything that had happened had been a figment of my imagination,
despite the missing pajamas and sheets.
Until. Until it happened again.
Full disclosure? It actually happened more than
once. Three more times to be exact. I started sleeping with my Santoku under my
mattress to feel a little safer. It’s the biggest knife from my Wusthof
collection. My chef knives, and one semester at the Culinary Institute of
America, were all the inheritance from my dad got me. Dying was still the
nicest thing he ever did for me.
I finally sat down and confessed everything to
Paul, asking him if he’d heard anything or seen anything on the nights it had
happened. He had not. In fact, he seemed to think I was losing my mind. The
pathetic thing was that I was grateful to hear that. I found it oddly
reassuring. But there was no sign of blood after any of the three experiences -
nothing in my room, no stains on the mattress. The only clues were the missing
sheets and pajamas, which, on my budget, was getting worrisome.
Paul convinced me to talk to a therapist. He was a
guy Paul knew… well, let’s say intimately. The way Paul put it was that they
had an on-again, off-again relationship. “When our clothes are off, we’re on.
The clothes go back on, and we’re off.” Apparently, Todd had been in our house
many days when I was at work, and a few nights when I was home, but I’d never
seen him. Paul said he started as Todd’s patient and swore he was good.
And Todd was good. He met with me for three
consecutive sessions and concluded I was suffering from stress-induced night
terrors that resulted in hallucinations and sleepwalking. I was probably still
asleep when I thought I was awake and covered in blood - that would account for
how groggy I felt, and why I could barely put together coherent thoughts when
it was happening. This is not uncommon. Nor is stripping the bed and walking to
the incinerator, thinking you’re awake. Night terrors are so realistic that you
often can’t wake someone up from them because they truly have no concept of
what’s real versus what’s a terrible dream when they are in the middle of one.
The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary to him about my descriptions was
that I didn’t lock myself out of the apartment when I was putting the “bloody”
items down the incinerator chute. He thought it was either very lucky or very
sensible of me to sleepwalk with my key. Most people are not that cognizant
while still asleep.
Other than the wasted money on throwing away what
were probably perfectly good sheets and pajamas, Todd seemed to think there was
no harm being done. He suggested I set up some sort of door alarm that might
help me wake up if I try to open it while asleep, prescribed me some Valium,
sleeping pills, and anti-hallucinogens, gave me a few free samples of each, and
sent me on my way.
The door alarm was well out of my budget, but I
really did mean to get the drugs. But with an unreasonable co-pay and a
significant lack of up-sell bonuses at work lately due to my constant
zombie-like state, the reality of the situation was that getting the
prescriptions filled would not be feasible for a little while. Especially since
Todd didn’t extend any kind of “I-sleep-with-your-roommate-occasionally”
discount, he wasn’t covered by insurance, and cost me $100 out of pocket each
visit, thus maxing out my only remaining credit card.
After my third visit, Paul and I met for dinner
for our Tuesday night Happy Hour.
“Could I get a Diet Coke?” I ordered.
“With Vodka,” he amended.
“No, I can’t.” I replied. The waitress, who knew
us from more than a year of Happy Hour specials, looked at me quizzically.
“What the fuck, Julia?” Paul asked me,
mock-outraged. “I can’t drink alone. That’s just rude!”
“Worried about the serial killer?” The waitress
turned our previously lighthearted conversation over like a pancake. “I would
be too. Lots of folks avoiding drinking lately.”
“The what?”
“You don’t read the papers?” she commented,
dropping judgement like a hot rock with every word.
“Uhhh, no, I don’t do news. Too depressing.” I had
shot back, unreasonably irritated at her implication.
“What she meant was,” Paul interjected, before the
waitress could retort, “I get a paper and she reads the horoscopes. What is
this thing you’re referring to and what does drinking have to do with it?”
This is why I take Paul out with me. He keeps my
food relatively free of spit.
The waitress wore a suspicious expression, knowing
she had been insulted, but not wanting to confront me over it. She looked at
Paul and answered him directly, as if I weren’t even there.
“It’s been all over the tristate area! There were
a series of brutal murders over the last two weeks - all people in their homes
in the middle of the night. The only thing that links them is that all the
victims were out drinking the night it happened and each victim was cut up
with, like, a scalpel or something. Lots of deep stab wounds, body parts cut
off; it’s super gory. Other than the drinking and the brutal style of the
killings, there’s no connection - men, women, different ages, different
locations. So people have been avoiding going out drinking like it is the
plague, thinking this guy must pick random victims from bars.”
I gaped at Paul. “Like Mitchell!”
She nodded at us. “So, be careful, stick together,
and don’t talk to strangers!” Then she retreated to the kitchen.
“Thanks MOM!” I called after her, and Paul kicked
me under the table.
“What the hell is wrong with you,” he asked.
“Denise has never been anything but accommodating to us. And we don’t tip her
shit.”
“I’m sorry. You have NO idea how sorry I am. It’s
been a week.” I pulled the sample cards of drugs out of my bag. “But, I really
need to try these. See if they make any difference in how I sleep, and more
importantly, what I dream. It says right here, clear as day, ‘DO NOT MIX THIS
MEDICATION WITH ALCOHOL.’ Which, as you know, I would normally ignore. But
these dreams are so real and so fucked up. And I have like one pair of pajamas
left and only my shitty old flannel sheets with the cowgirls on them from when
I was 12 and wanted to be a rodeo star. And I don’t want to fuck up any chances
that these magic pills will help me by drinking.”
He grabbed the packages out of my hand. “Ohhhh,
sleeping pills. AND! Ohhh, I think I heard of these. If you’re not psycho,
nutso, or fucked up in the head like you are, these apparently can have the
opposite effect and make people trippy. Can I have some? I can get serious
money for these.”
“Hell no! I have five precious anti-hallucinogens
and seven precious sleeping pills.” I shook the cards at him. “And that’s it,
until you find us a sugar daddy.”
“Awww, please? Can I have one? For my own recreational
purposes? There’s a rave next Thursday I was going to hit after work. I’ll buy
your dinner if you give me some.”
“Oh bitch, please. Your damn boytoy charged me a
freakin’ arm and a leg. You’re buying my dinner anyway.”
We had a fun, albeit sober, evening, and I went to
bed relatively early after taking both pills per the instructions. Nothing
happened the entire week that I was on the pills and I felt both relieved that
it was just realistic and terrible dreams, and sad that I couldn’t keep the
meds going for the rest of the month to ward them off for good.
I scoured the papers that Paul always left around
the apartment that week for news about the supposed serial killer but I didn’t
find anything and decided Denise was just fucking with me.
Life went on as usual while I saved up for the
meds. After my samples ran out, I had more night terrors, but since they hadn’t
happened the week I was on the pills, I decided Todd was onto something. While
I waited for a few credit card payments to clear, I tried to play around with
more cost-effective ways of self-medicating. I drank a lot. I drank nothing. I
found a yoga book in the thrift store and started trying to meditate.
Self-taught mindfulness is not the best way to learn to meditate. I cut out
white flour, meat, sugar… none of the efforts last very long, but none of them
had any sort of effect on the night terrors either. It did help me save a
little more and I finally had enough room on my Mastercard that I could get my
prescriptions filled.
The next time Paul and I met, I told him I’d buy for
once, because I had finally managed to afford the meds and was going to get
them the next day. We toasted to my future sanity, and indulged in real food
for once, not just shitty Happy Hour appetizers.
And that night, I woke up covered in blood.
But this was different. When I woke up, I was much
more aware of my circumstances. No more groggy head. No more feeling like I was
still half-asleep. I felt awake. I felt conscious. I felt the blood, cooling on my skin, smelling like old pennies,
causing my last pair of pajamas to stick to my skin, matting down my hair.
I felt the
person in the room with me.
It was still dark, but this time I was too
paralyzed with fear to even consider turning the light on. The presence of this
other person was solid. Heavy. The person was close to me.
“Ju Ju,” he whispered.
My heart stopped. Ju Ju was Mark’s special
nickname for me. It was sacred. Not even Paul ever called me Ju Ju, and he
swore he would never use the term after Mark committed suicide.
“Ju Ju,” he said louder.
It even SOUNDED like Mark. But that wasn’t
possible. I took a deep, shaky breath and sat up. As I shifted my position, my
mind shifted, too. This was flat out impossible. Paul can do great impressions.
In a flash, I went from scared to mad.
“Paul? Paul, are you fucking with me? This is
really not funny.” I reached over and turned on the lamp.
He was standing there. It was Paul … but it also
kind of wasn’t. He and Mark had been identical twins, but as they grew older,
they became easier to tell apart. The person I was looking at more closely
resembled Mark than Paul.
He was also drenched in blood. The same blood, I
presume, that once again I was covered in. His hair was sticky and his hands
were stained with it. There was an empty bucket at his feet, leading me to
believe he’d just doused me with the blood that had previously been inside of
it.
There was something about his eyes that was off.
They looked… like he couldn’t actually see out of them. My anger hit the
emergency brakes and reversed back to scared, adrenaline in overdrive. I
thought about the knife under my mattress. But could I use it on Paul?
“Ju Ju,” he said, almost purring. “Why don’t you
look happier to see me?”
“Paul.” I whispered. “What are you doing, Paul?
Why are you covered in blood, Paul?” I felt compelled to say his name over and
over, as if it would remind him who he was.
“Oh, this?” He gestured to himself with a
flamboyant wave. “I got a little messy.”
“With who, Paul.”
“Mr. Hicks.”
“Who? Wait, what? Our old guidance counselor? Why?
Paul? What did you do to him? Why? You liked him, Paul! He was the one who
helped you come out, Paul!”
“He couldn’t save me, Ju Ju. He listened to my
brother and helped him. My brother was so happy after he talked to Mr. Hicks.
But I told him all my problems and he told me I was just overreacting - that I
should be grateful for what I had. Two parents who loved me. A twin who would
do anything for me. FRIENDS, like you.”
He narrowed his gaze at me in what would be a
glare if his eyes had not been completely dead of any emotion. Then, he
continued.
“I told Mr. Hicks everything. About what the boys
did to me and my brother. The torment. The teasing. The rejections.” He glared
at me again. “And he told me I should ‘get over it.’ I’d ‘grow up and find
someone who would make me happy.’ I would ‘forget everything.’ And guess what
Ju Ju? I never did.”
“Paul? What are you talking about? You have lots
of people who make you happy!”
“Stop calling me Paul, Ju Ju. You know us better
than that.”
“Okay, whatever you want.” I was quickly upgrading
- from scared to terrified. Based on what he was saying, I felt like I really
wasn’t talking to Paul anymore. But if I could keep him talking, maybe I could
get to my knife. I slowly shifted towards the edge of the bed. “So, uh, Mark?
What is it you’ve been doing, exactly?”
“Well, I started with Mitch. Mitch the bitch.
Mitch who pinned me down behind the stinky old equipment shed and made me suck
his dick because he thought *I* was the faggot. Couldn't tell me apart from
Paul. Dislocated my arm forcing me to go down on him anyway when he realized I
wasn’t Paul.”
“What? Mitch did that to you? Why didn’t you tell
someone?”
“I JUST FUCKING TOLD YOU JU JU!” Mark roared. He
stepped forward. I reactively curled into a protective ball, moving closer to
the edge of the mattress. “I did tell someone. He said I should just forget it
happened. Move on.”
“Okay, so Mr. Hicks wasn’t the best guidance
counselor. Did it help to kill him? Did it help to kill Mitchell?”
“Oh yes. Ohhhh, yes. It’s helped a lot Ju Ju. Each
time, I feel so much better. Soooo much better. I rest better. Paul rests
better. We are all happier.”
“Each time? What do you mean each time?”
“Oh, you think those two were the only ones who
deserved it? You are so wrong Ju Ju.”
“Who else, Pau- Uh, Mark? Who else did you kill?”
“They haven’t found my mom and dad yet. They’re
too far out. And some are people you won’t know. But some you will, once you
read the names.”
“Why haven’t I seen the names? Why isn’t this in
the papers?”
“Oh honey, it’s ALL over the papers. You’ve just
been reading the wrong ones.”
“How is that possible? I read all the papers Paul
gets. He leaves them all over.”
“He also never throws them away. So with his help,
you’ve been reading last month’s news. Didn’t those horoscopes look familiar?”
“Goddammit, they’re always so vague. I wouldn’t
have even known.”
“And I trusted your love of your own ignorance
when it comes to bad news that the most effort you’d put into trying to find
out any information would be minimal. I was right, I see.”
Despite the circumstances, I reddened at this.
Mark always gave me shit about not being more involved with the world around
me. Throughout our childhood, I refused to pay attention to current events,
literally covering my ears and singing when Mark would talk about Nicaragua or
yuppies or Gorbachev. He was always
trying to give money to the homeless druggies and pick up people’s trash. I
wondered for a while if that was why he killed himself. Always surrounded by so
much hopelessness, piling up, with no chance for a solution.
I had to keep him talking. Wishing I hadn’t turned
the light so he could see me so well, I pushed my legs over the side of the
mattress, so I was sitting on the edge, as if riveted by his words.
“So, tell me Mark? What’s with covering me with
blood each time?”
He laughed. “Oh, of course you don’t see it. Head
buried in the sand again.”
He stepped closer to me. I froze the slow
movements I’d been making to reach the knife under the mattress. “Tell me how
you did it. You at least owe me that.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Of all the people
who contributed to my eventual and inevitable demise, you were the number one
culprit. Thanks to Paul’s doctor boyfriend, I was able to get my hands on a
prescription pad and wrote myself a nice little order for Rohypnol, which went
well with your vodka martinis. Once you passed out early, I’d reconnect with
some asshole from my past. We’d go for a drink. Whatever they were drinking? It
was a little special, much like yours. Killing them was easy when they were
unconscious. And, when you kill them the way I was killing them, a little
missing blood in a bucket was never noticed by anyone but you. I know you’re
wondering why you feel different tonight. It’s because I didn’t slip you a
pill. I wanted you here and present, so we could talk. And lest you feel left
out, yes, I will likely kill you, the same way I killed the rest of them. But I
needed to drive you a little mad first. The same way you drove me mad.”
Despite my fear, my heart dropped at that. “Wha-
Wait, what? How can you say that? Mark, I was never anything but your friend.”
He laughed again, this time, cruelly. “Exactly!
Exactly, you ignorant bitch. Ju Ju, do you know I spent more than ten years
pining over you? I made moves - subtle,
blatant, and everything in between, over and over. Every time you had some
excuse, some reason, some… thing to push me away. I waited through the awkward
years of puberty, when we were too young to do anything more than giggle at
spin-the-bottle. I waited through your various boyfriends and first ‘loves,’
and your transitions and your college and everything. And in college, when I
finally told you how I felt, HOW I REALLY FUCKING FELT, you basically blew it
off like it was just a passing crush of mine. You told me that it’d be great to
go out with me, but you were hoping to find someone better while you were at
school, and if that didn’t happen, you’d come back and see how things worked
with us. How the fuck do you think that made me feel? Did you care? Did you
even notice? Jesus, it’s no wonder I killed myself!”
I gasped. “Mark! Mark, that’s not true at all. I
mean… yes, I was going to school and I didn’t want to get tied down in a long-distance
relationship. I wanted to enjoy the college experience, explore. And honestly,
I was a stupid, dumb kid. I never believed you cared about me in any sort of
legitimate way. I was used to boys just wanting to get into my pants. I assumed
that was the case with you. Maybe I was ignorant. Or naive. Mostly, I was selfish
and young and stupid. I’m sorry, Mark. I’m so, so sorry!”
“Me too, Ju Ju.” He said. “Me too.”
He stepped closer to me. “But it is too late for
sorry.”
I realized I had no time left. I dove for the
knife, plunging my hand under the mattress and digging frantically.
“Looking for this?” he asked, holding up my
Santoku. “I’ve had this since the night after you hid it here. It’s been a very
helpful accomplice in many of my activities.”
I cringed, partially due to the knife he was
wielding in my face, and partially due to the idea that my favorite knife would
be ruined because he used it to hack away at bones. As previously established,
when I’m desperate, I don’t tend to think rationally. At this point, I had
nothing left. “Please. Please Paul. Don’t hurt me,” I begged.
“Don’t hurt you? Why not? That’s all you did to me.
AND I’M NOT FUCKING PAUL!” he yelled into my face, slashing me with the knife.
I gasped as the blood started flowing freely from my left arm, re-coating the
already stained pajamas, and seeping onto my mattress.
He held the knife up and licked it. “You taste
good,” he said, his dead eyes focusing on the wound he just made. “I always
knew you’d taste good. Certainly better than the rest of them.”
He struck me again, digging the blade into my
right thigh. I barely registered the pain, but seeing the blood gushing out, I
started to feel woozy. I began to hyperventilate and fell back on the pillow.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Mark. “You don’t get to
avoid this. You don’t get to tune this out. You need to be here for every last
second.” He jabbed the knife into my
right arm and pulled it back out quickly. I screamed. “That’s better,” he said.
He grabbed my hand and raised the knife above his
head. I shut my eyes, knowing his plan was to remove some part of my body.
“Ju Ju, you know I lo-” and he cut off midway
through his sentence. My eyes were still closed. I assumed I was dead, until I
felt his weight on me. I opened my eyes to see him sprawled across my legs, my
Santoku knife dropped onto the floor, but another knife handle sticking out of
his neck. I screamed again, pushed his heavy body off of me, and scrambled to
the furthest part of the bed, still bleeding freely - but my blood now mixed
with the huge pool coming from him.
I looked up and it took me a few seconds to
understand who I was seeing. Todd was standing there, in the door, wearing a
pair of Paul’s boxer shorts and nothing else. He was white as a sheet and
trembling.
“Wha- what did you do?” I stammered between tears.
“How did you even get here? I don’t… I don’t understand.”
He took a deep breath. “May I sit?” he asked,
gesturing to the bed. I nodded. He shifted Paul/Mark’s body and sat on the edge
of the bed.
“I’ve spent quite a few nights here, unbeknown to
you. Some on a romantic level, but also some that were to keep an eye on Paul.
When he first came to me, I suspected he was suffering from a pretty severe
personality disorder. He knew he was suffering from blackouts. During that
time, he believed his dead twin possessed him and would force him to do things.
He originally asked me to sleep over to keep an eye on him.”
I sat back up, the shock of this revelation
temporarily numbing my pain. “Why didn’t he tell me any of that?”
“He knew how crazy it would sound. And part of him
didn’t want to believe it himself. He also knew how Mark had felt about you,
and had secretly wondered for the last three years if those feelings played a
part in Mark’s death. He worried for your safety, especially if you knew about
what he thought he suspected.”
I nodded. He continued.
“Of course, with Paul’s schedule, nights didn’t
always work out. And when the murders first started, I didn’t think anything of
it because I knew he worked at night. But one night, the night of the murder of
a Ms. Kimberly Mathis –“
I gasped. She had been Mark’s girlfriend for two
years. She dumped him for reasons we never knew.
“I had gone to surprise him at the club, and found
out he wasn’t there - and, in fact, had been missing a lot of work in the last
month. And then I got suspicious.”
He sighed. “I wish I had acted sooner. When you
came to me, I pretty much knew what had happened, but I didn’t know what to do.
I kept seeing Paul but was using it as an excuse to keep tabs on the situation.
Client confidentiality meant I couldn’t tell you, and I couldn’t even tell the
police my suspicions unless he’d confessed to actually killing these people.
But I truly believe Paul had no idea what he was doing during these periods.
Multiple personality disorder often does that.”
“No,” I said, starting to panic. “No, Todd. I
don’t think it was some sort of disorder. Paul wasn’t Paul tonight! He didn’t
sound like him. He didn’t look like him. And his eyes. His eyes were…they were
so dead, Todd! I don’t know. I think
maybe he WAS possessed! I think that WAS Mark. He was living through Paul. He
was making him do that! Those things. Those were Mark things!” The pain, the
fear, the plunge of adrenaline - it had all caught up to me. I was sobbing, and
not speaking the thoughts in my mind coherently. I knew Todd didn’t believe me
when I said I thought Paul was possessed, but I couldn’t stop babbling about
how it was really Mark I had been talking to. How he knew things Paul never
knew. Or that I assumed Paul never knew.
Todd shook his head at me. “You’ve had an insanely
traumatic experience. Here,” he held up his left hand where he has a syringe.
“I had this in case I could get away with just knocking him out. I didn’t need
to…I didn’t want to resort to…” he nodded at Paul’s body, “…well, the other
thing. But I think you might need this now, just to get yourself under
control.” Before I could react, he grabbed my arm and stuck it in. My whole
body was in such a state that I didn’t feel anything. And then? I felt nothing.
Epilogue
I wake up covered in sweat. Wet. Sticky. It
smells. I’m strapped to the bed. Again. And I can’t kick the covers off. It’s
hot. It’s so fucking hot.
There’s a rapping on the door, a key in a lock,
and then the door swings open.
I can’t sit up, I can’t see him, but I can feel
his presence. He walks over to me.
“How are you doing this morning, Julia? Any bad
dreams?”
“Todd?”
“Dr. Todd,” he corrects me. “We’ve talked about
this. You need to call me by my formal title. I’m Doctor Eugene Todd.”
“Oh. Right.” This all feels vaguely familiar, like
deja vu. “Okay. Dr. Todd. I dreamed about you. You saved me from Paul. Paul was
trying to kill me.”
“Julia, this is the same dream you have every
night. The one about ‘Paul.’” He puts air quotes around the name. “There was no
Paul, Julie, just Mark. Mark Paul Conner, who committed suicide three years
ago, who was a repressed homosexual and couldn’t deal with it, who you seem to
have been desperately in love with. And this, which caused your recent
breakdown and brought you here, was not a dream. Julia, I’m sure I don’t need
to remind you that people are dead, and the sooner you take responsibility for
this, the better. Let me get a nurse to release you from your room, and after
breakfast, we’ll meet for a session.”
He turns and walks out the door, locking it behind
him.
I start to cry.
