The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange

by Anna Ferrara

  His briefcase opened itself, as if the apartment was haunted, and a gun—a real, solid, metallic black handgun—flew out of it. The gun floated up towards the ceiling as a hotel’s keycard had once done and ended up right in the middle of Paul’s open palm.

  A gun? I began to feel afraid again. For us or for him, I wasn’t sure. From experience, the wrath of Dr Clark’s gun-toting men in suits was worse than the wrath of Paul indeed, but the idea of a gun in her hands—the hands of a woman who had spent many years in a mental institution—didn’t sit all that well with me either.

  More so after she lifted it and aimed its barrel right at Dr Clark’s tired head.

  “Hello, Mr Anderson,” she said with an unexpected calmness that sent shivers down my spine. Mr what?

  Dr Clark shoved his glasses over his nose and opened his eyes immediately. Shock was on his face as he took in the sight of us. He blinked hard a good number of times. “Paula! And... Blaine?”

  Blaine, he said. Not Lane. Blaine with both the upper and lower lips sucked in. And... Paula?

  “How did you get in?” he asked. He had that look of genuine concern, the same kind of look he often gave me in therapy, but his hand was in an unusual position this time. It was sneaking into the pocket of his pants.

  “Paul,” I whispered but didn’t actually have to. Her eyes were already on his hand and her mouth was starting to curl upwards as if there was something hilarious about his hand being where it was.

  Dr Clark screamed in pain. His hand, which had a phone in it, emerged from his pocket contorted in the most unnatural position, as if controlled by some supernatural force he could not overcome. The phone yanked itself out of his grasp, levitated towards the goldfish bowl on the console below a big ass wide-screen TV, and plopped into the water with a giant splash.

  Both the goldfish in the bowl and I jumped in shock.

  “No calling the Office, Christopher,” Paul said with smiling eyes. “I want it to be just you and us tonight.”

  “Paula, no,” he said and sounded as if he were trying to discipline a child or a pet. “Be a good girl. You were always a good girl, weren’t you? Why are you behaving like this today?”

  He glanced at me and frowned more. “Did... Blaine put you up to this? Why are you calling me Christopher?”

  What? Who? Me? No! And why was Paul Paula now?

  Paul’s eyes hardened in a way I had never seen them do before. She began to look almost pathologically cold, the way school shooters usually did right before they carried out their deadly deeds. “No, she did not. But I have to say, I did learn a thing or two from her.”

  What??? When? How? What did you learn?

  Paul didn’t explain further but Dr Clark’s face and body—stripped of colour and shaking uncontrollably—did. Whatever Paul had learned from me was terrifying. That much was clear.

  Paul requested I tie his hands and legs up with the nylon rope and duct tape she had in her backpack so I did, even though it felt incredibly weird doing so.

  I did ask her—in my head, so Dr Clark wouldn’t hear—what exactly it was we were trying to do, but she never heard me. She was too busy, at that point, checking out the selection of paperbacks on his bookshelf while keeping the gun pointed towards his head.

  “How did you get my address?” he asked me with a frown when I rolled the fourth and final round of duct tape over his wrists. He was on the carpet next to the stone coffee table—a white and fluffy carpet that looked very expensive—with eyes larger than ever and limbs fully tied up, thanks to me. He eyed me cautiously, like I wasn’t someone he could fully trust, and I wasn’t in the least surprised.

  “It was me. I read your mind,” Paul said before I could reply. She sat herself down on the stool—a solid white plastic box—right next to him and grinned as she admired my handiwork. “Then I used telekinesis to open your door. Piece of cake.”

  Dr Clark stared at her for a good few seconds then chuckled, albeit nervously. “Teleki—? There’s no such thing, Paula,” he said and sounded like he meant it.

  Paul grinned more, not in the least fazed. “Nice try, Mr Anderson, but I already know all about CRO. All about us. And, all your dirty little secrets and habits. Hashtag asphyxiation, granny, three way... MILF.”

  He frowned again, this time with concern all over his face. “All I ever tried to do was help you get better, Paula. You’re very sick and you need medication right now. You too, Blaine.”

  Blaine? Was I really—

  “Let’s just speak truthfully, for once, shall we?” Paul scooted closer to Dr Clark and rammed the gun right into the middle of his chest. “We’re not sick. You know we’re not. In fact, I would even say that you and the whole damn organisation you work for are the sick ones. What you guys do is sick.”

  “That’s just your delusion talking, Paula! You’ve been off meds for way too long. You have schizophrenia and you need help. I can help you!”

  “Oh, please, you’re not even a real doctor! All you have is an irrelevant degree in statistics, am I right, Mr Anderson?”

  Dr Clark was rendered speechless but I thought he made a good point. Paul dumb and harmless one day then smart and ruthless the next? It did sound like a personality disorder of sorts to me.

  “Blaine,” he suddenly said. “Stop this!”

  I turned to him, met his eyes and saw, for the first time ever, something I never thought I’d ever see in them.

  Fear. “I don’t deserve this,” he said in a voice that quivered. “All I ever did was try to help.”

  I froze. Another good point. Dr Clark hadn’t actually done anything awful to me, had he? Not in Wonderdrug nor out in the world. I was only afraid of him because... Paul said I should be.

  “Lane, don’t listen to him,” Paul said. “He lies.”

  “She’s not Lane, Paula. And I’m not lying. She’s Blaine! Lane Thompson is already dead!”

  “Oh, just shut up!”

  I looked from one to the other and couldn’t decide which one of them to believe. What had Dr Clark called me when I lived at Wonderdrug? Lane? Or Blaine? Lane, I think. But I couldn’t say for sure.

  “I have medicine right here,” he said with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “I could give you both some now. It will calm you down a great deal and help you see things as they really are. Why don’t we try that, huh?”

  Paul rammed the gun hard against his head. “Stop the doctor act now!”

  “Okay! Okay! Okay... What is it you want then? Huh?” Dr Clark swallowed hard and suddenly looked like he was on the verge of crying. “Just tell me. I’ll give it to you. You don’t have to shoot me.”

  A big grin appeared on Paul’s face and her eyes sparkled in amusement. “Unfortunately, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to save people. From you. I just wanted to see what you’d say once I told you that.”

  I gaped at him, then at her, and felt my heart sink to the carpet when I remembered why Paul—or Paula—was so bent on saving people.

  Chapter 22

  Date Unknown

  “Paul, let’s talk about this first,” I decided to say. I didn’t want Dr Clark to die or become disabled for life because of me!

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “You can’t just shoot him for no reason!”

  “Oh, I have many reasons. One: He killed my mom. Two: We need his—”

  “Your mom’s not even dead, Paula!” Dr Clark shouted. His face turned from white to cherry red and the whites of his eyes did likewise. His lips began trembling. “She’s been discharged, that’s all! You’re not understanding things right!”

  What? Not dead? My mouth fell open and I turned to him in surprise but Paul simply scoffed.

  “How many alternative truths do you guys have up your sleeves, Mr Anderson?”

  “I know you’re upset because she hasn’t visited in a while but that’s no reason to—”
/>   “Christ! Shut up! Enough with the stories!”

  “They’re not stories, Paula, I’m telling the truth! You have schizophrenia. You’re not seeing things right!”

  “Stop!”

  “Blaine!” He turned to me so suddenly, I backed away a little in shock. “Help me stop her! She needs medication. Take the gun from her, please!”

  “He’s lying to you, Lane,” Paul said. “There is no Blaine!”

  “Yes there is! Blaine, you’re Lane’s twin! You read her diary when she died and got confused. You were ill to begin with, that’s why you were living at the Wonderdrug Psychiatric Centre! You have an identity disorder and schizophrenia, just like Paula! That’s why you were on the same floor!”

  What?! Wait, wasn’t that what Arden Villeneuve said too?

  “Jesus! Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea letting you talk, huh?” Paul turned the gun towards his mouth and searched the room for the roll of duct tape I held behind my back.

  “Paula’s denying you treatment, Blaine!” Tears fell out of Dr Clark’s eyes at last and he began to weep like a little boy tormented by bullies. “You did something terrible to Arden Villeneuve. You need help! You need to take the gun and fight for your right to be treated! Please!”

  “You don’t need treatment because you’re not sick and he’s not a doctor! He’s lying about Arden Villeneuve! She’s fine! She’s not dead! It’s a trap!”

  “Paula’s dangerous! She’ll hurt you if you don’t take the gun from her!”

  “Says the man who ripped flesh out of your thigh!”

  “We didn’t do that! You ripped flesh out of your own thigh, Blaine! That’s why you need our help!”

  “God, will you just stop with the stories!”

  I struggled to catch my breath as my mind spun. They both seemed to be telling the truth, which meant either of them could be wrong or lying. How was I to tell?

  “Paul, let’s pause a moment and discuss this,” I decided to say. Her reckless swinging of the gun made my stomach queasy, as did the genuine fear in Dr Clark’s drenched eyes.

  Paul stared at me in exasperation and tightened her grip of the gun. “There’s nothing to discuss, Lane. He’s trying to make you think you’re crazy so you’ll willingly let him lock you up and do all sorts of tests on your body. And mine too!”

  “Paul, don’t. Please,” I whispered. I set aside the roll of duct tape in my hands, walked towards her, slowly, and reached for the gun.

  Three shots rang out like deafening claps before I even got to touch it.

  When I turned back to Dr Clark, there were two deep red circles in the middle of his forehead. Two holes—a little like the two that had only recently been in my arm—from which thick dark red liquids flowed. There was shock in his blue eyes as they stopped blinking. He tipped sideways and fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  No more words came out of his mouth after that. His eyes never got the chance to close.

  “You killed him,” I said as red liquid spread across the fluffy white carpet and made its way towards my sneakers. Or had I killed him? Brought on his death by planting thoughts into Paul’s head? I edged away from the red on the carpet and her. “Why?”

  Paul stood, heaved a sigh and stretched her neck. The look on her face wasn’t one of guilt or even horror—it was relief. “We need his eyeball, Lane. And stop acting like this is such a big deal. You’ve killed more people than I have so you don’t get to judge.”

  I became stiff at once. “I... never... Why do you say that?”

  “Read it in your file.” She stuffed the gun into the back of her pants and began rummaging through Dr Clark’s briefcase as if it were the perfect time to multi-task. “You’re ‘a genius who’s gotten away with murder three times’, according to CRO. Three people dead with you in the vicinity? That doesn’t happen to other people. Frankly, they’re quite afraid of you. And... I like that about you.”

  I did not like that about me one bit. My skin tingled and began feeling as if something was heating it up from the inside. “I don’t even... I don’t remember killing anybody.”

  Paul fished out Dr Clark’s employee pass from the briefcase and shrugged. “Maybe that’s just the way you get things done? Maybe you won’t remember all this either.”

  How was that even humanly possible?

  I could see Dr Clark’s death everywhere. His corpse, the room full of blood, they were now perpetually at the periphery of my visual field, no matter where else I tried to look. I couldn’t stop seeing the shock on his face in my mind. I couldn’t stop remembering the silence that came upon the living room the moment all life left him. Through the holes in his skull, I could see collapsed flesh, bone and brain! And his eyes! They wouldn’t stop staring at me! They were full of horror. He had been so afraid before he died. He hadn’t even had the chance to calm down before he died!

  “Can you get us a knife?” Paul said with a frown. She stuffed Dr Clark’s employee pass into her backpack as she watched me with a twinge of concern.

  A shot of fear ran down my spine. “Why?”

  “We need to get his eye out, remember? That’s what we killed him for.”

  My knees buckled when I heard those words and I found myself in a squat, holding onto the floor for support, shaking from head to toe.

  As if killing the man and digging his eyeball out wasn’t bad enough, Paul insisted we spend the next twenty-four hours resting at his apartment. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t make myself go anywhere else because I was a total wreck by that time, curled up with my chin on my knees in the corner of the living room, with a face drenched by hot, incessant tears.

  I wanted very much to ask where we would be going next, if Paul had more death planned in the future, but I simply... couldn’t. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t... anything. Not with the dead body—now turning purplish—staring at me.

  “You must try his shower,” Paul said at some point. She peeled off all of her clothes and became completely naked while standing right in front of me. “It has a ten-minute water jet massage function that’s really just about the most relaxing experience ever invented. I think it’ll make you feel a lot better.”

  I moved my eyes away from her naked body and kept them away. There was nothing sexy about a murderer, I realised. Nothing sexy at all. I didn’t look up when she set her clothes to wash in Dr Clark’s washing machine, nor when she invited me to take a shower with her. I looked up only when she moved away from me and I heard the shower in Dr Clark’s ensuite bathroom run.

  Ten minutes. That was how long I had alone with my thoughts, I knew. I had to get my thinking done before Paul came out of the shower. I tossed my head back, closed my eyes and thought as quickly as I could.

  I was in an apartment with a dead body. The gun that made the dead body was still in the possession of the woman who pressed its trigger. The dead body thought I needed meds. The woman who killed the body thought I didn’t, but then, she was also perfectly fine with me being a serial killer which meant her opinion wasn’t something I really should be taking into consideration. Dead body said woman was really a mentally ill patient. Woman said dead body was not even a real doctor. Doctor or mentally ill patient? Which one of them to believe?

  Doctor, I decided. After all, he was the one who hadn’t killed anyone yet. He was the safer bet. He said I needed meds so I would have to go find some and eat some. Fast. Before the mentally ill patient got out of the shower. And I had to stop thinking at once because I had been thinking for way too long already. The mentally ill patient would be done with her jet water massage any minute now and I didn’t want to be caught looking for meds.

  I jumped up, opened my eyes and found myself face to face with Paul. Her hair was dripping wet and her face was damp like a ghost’s would be if it had only just crawled out of a well. All she had on was a towel wrapped around her body. I gasped and jumped back before I could stop myself but qui
ckly regained my composure.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Of course not. We just killed a man, his dead body was still on the floor and I might just get shot anytime. By you. I nodded and said I was.

  Paul reached for my arm and looked right into my eyes, as if reading me. Her touch was unnervingly gentle. Her eyes were solemn and full of concern. “You don’t need to lie. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I couldn’t hold my gaze in hers. I found her eyes no longer beautiful. In fact, the sight of her now made my skin crawl. I nodded, with my eyes back down on the carpet, and tried to pull my arm away from her grasp while keeping my face as blank as was possible.

  “Lane…” She grabbed me by the wrist before I could pull away completely.

  I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t bear the sight of her face a minute longer and the weight of her gaze on me made my knees wobble all over again.

  “Lane! I wouldn’t ever hurt you!”

  I forced myself to look up, lest my life depended on it, and was horrified to find her face right in front of mine, her lips close enough to touch. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they were also getting closer.

  I took three steps back and yanked my arm out of her grasp because I never wanted to have to touch those lips again. Not ever. But instinct made me smile and say, “I know.”

  A new expression flickered in her eyes but she blinked it away before I could read what it meant. Her hand curled into mine and she said, “Come.” She pulled me along with her.

  Not again, I thought.

  Paul stopped so abruptly, I nearly crashed into her. She turned and stared at me with a face of worry so I put on that instinctive smile again. Think nothing, I told myself quickly, lest my thoughts made my face reveal secrets without my knowledge. Maybe that was how Paul had been reading my mind all this time? She had been reading my face? But think nothing, show nothing and I should be fine, right? Blank brain, blank brain, blank brain... Keeping my brain blank took a whole lot more effort than I anticipated—it required constant effort—but I think it worked.