"You feel them too, don't you?" He's looking my way, not into my eyes, of course, but at my feet.
"No, I...thought I heard something. Please, continue." I didn't hear anything, but I'm not exactly going to relay what I felt to a patient, especially when I can't even understand it enough to describe it myself.
"I, uh...I went out for bread yesterday."
"Really? That's wonderful!" He never leaves the house. There must have been an extenuating circumstance.
"No, not wonderful, nope. The delivery place I always order from online just forgot it. I told them, I said, how can I eat my bologna sandwich without any bread? They said it was in there, and I said, well it's clearly not in there, or I wouldn't be calling you. They said it was on their list, but they could send someone out in a few hours. I said huh! I can't wait hours to eat lunch, I need my bologna sandwich...so I ran to the corner store and got some." He starts chewing his nails, one of his many nervous habits.
"It's interesting that you didn't simply choose to eat something else for lunch. Was there something else you could’ve eaten instead?"
His eyes dart around the room, clearly conveying his confusion. "Maybe, but…I really wanted my bologna sandwich."
"So you were willing to do something out of your comfort zone, going outside, to get what you wanted. That’s wonderful."
He puts his head down, almost in shame. "I dunno. That was risky. They probably saw me. Coulda picked me up whenever they wanted. I got lucky, like when I come here. I shoulda just had the bologna without the bread. Stupid!" He hits his head again, harder this time.
"Mr. Santos, please, don't. I don't want you to hurt yourself. I enjoy talking with you, but if you hurt yourself, we may not be able to have these conversations anymore. Don't you like our talks?"
This gets him to stop for the moment. I've always felt helpless with patients who harm themselves in some way, either hitting, cutting, or the worst, burning. I feel their desperation, and even when they seem to accept my suggested therapies, I wonder if they follow through, if I'm being of any help at all.
We settle back into a conversation about his family, and whether he'd seen them recently. It's slow going, with his many tangents, but every few minutes, I get this feeling again. My heart quickens a bit, and it's usually accompanied by a ringing in my ears. I try not to react to it any further, and for the remainder of our session I'm able to hide my discomfort from Mr. Santos quite well. It helps that he rarely looks my way.
I make a mental note to make an appointment with my physician, and after I say goodbye to Mr. Santos, I take some ibuprofen to calm my pounding head and stiff neck. As I massage my temples, I think of the few times I've gotten this feeling before. Always when I'm with a patient, if I recall correctly, and never as bad as today. As before, the feeling fades soon after he leaves.
I wrap up with my last patient for the day, and leave for home. My headache's gone, thankfully, but I skip the trip to Whole Foods. I'm just not up for it today. As I'm driving, my ears start to ring again. I swallow a few times, but it doesn't help. It's disconcerting, but not painful. I look around, but don't see the source of any sirens or other loud noises. It doesn't seem to be coming from an external source anyway, but rather from inside my head. I'll have to call Doctor Biles' office again when I get home and see if I can get anything sooner than next Tuesday.
The ringing subsides for the moment, but before it does, I get another strange feeling... like I'm being followed. I've had this happen before as well, but it's occurring more frequently. It’s similar to the feeling of being watched that I felt in my office earlier. I check my rear view and side mirrors and take note of the vehicles around me.
This is absurd, Maddy. No one's following you. Who would want to, and why? I think back through my list of patients, past and present. Most of them wouldn't hurt a fly, many aren't even stable enough to drive, and none that I can recall ever showed me any undue attention. Some of my colleagues have warned of patients becoming obsessed and stalking their therapists, out of either aggression or infatuation. But this is rare, and there are always clear warning signs. I've looked for these, and have never encountered them with my own patients. I dread the day when I do.
Logic aside, I'm unable to shake this feeling of being pursued. Out of an overabundance of caution, I don't go directly home. Instead, I grab a coffee from Philz and sit on a park bench. If anyone wants to find me, they'll do so in public. Goodness, what am I saying? No one is following me!
As I sit here sipping my coffee, I keep looking around, as though searching for a blind date that never shows up. Some park goers pass me by, a mother with her two toddlers, a couple holding hands, a couple of female friends chatting and laughing about a party they went to the night before. None of them pay me any mind, and the peculiar feeling I'm becoming more familiar with slowly fades.
Once I'm certain it's gone, I toss my coffee cup into the trash bin nearby, and hustle back to my car. I speed home -- well, I stay under ten miles above the limit, but to me, this is speeding. I rush into my house, grab an Ambien, and call it a night.
Thankfully, the next day during lunchtime, I'm able to squeeze in an appointment with Dr. Biles, who had a late cancellation. I relay some of my recent experiences to her while she's examining me. "You seem perfectly healthy to me, Maddy. Is it possible you're letting some of the phobias from your patients get to you?" Well, I hadn't thought of that. Some of the things I'm feeling are similar to what Mr. Santos has described, I suppose. "Maybe you're an empath."
I look up at her, uncertain if she's serious. "You know that's not a real thing, Abby."
She giggles, unable to maintain the joke. "I think you're likely just under more stress than usual. Have you talked with Dr. Pearsall lately?"
"No, I missed our last appointment when I was ill. You're probably right. I'm seeing her next week." She offers to take some blood and run some tests, which makes me feel a little better. It's possible this is all in my head, and Dr. Pearsall has helped me better understand my patients and how to deal with them. But it's been awhile since I've had blood work done, so it can't hurt.
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"I don't mean to be rude, but any idea when you'll be getting to the point?"
Well, then. I suppose Lt. Foley isn't interested in the finer details of how I came to be. His girlfriend Dr. Miyata elbows him in the side.
"Frank, don't be so mean. This is fascinating." He rolls his eyes, but Maiko turns to me eagerly. "Please, Dr. Gibson, don't mind him. Continue."
I manage a weak smile. Mr. North nods and motions his hand for me to proceed as well. At least some of my audience is captive. Lt. Foley suggests that we move to a quieter area of the hospital, to allow Ms. Watson some quiet rest. He flashes his badge to an attending nurse, who directs us to an empty room so I can continue my story.
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Over the next few days, the feelings of being watched and followed increased in frequency and intensity. They came at all times and places: in my office with a patient, in the car traveling to and from work, in stores, even fleetingly while at home. I began to panic a bit, and kept calling Dr. Biles' office to find out the results of my tests. Finally, she called back and broke the terrible news: I was perfectly healthy. I would've preferred a physiological explanation to my growing suspicion that I was becoming delusional.
What I would later call Phase One was Confusion, and it was a rough time in my life. Before I wrapped my brain around what was happening, I couldn't make any sense of it at all. Grasping at straws, I initially wondered if Dr. Biles was correct, that it might have something to do with my patients. Perhaps their disorders and psychoses were starting to get to me. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this line of work. I even told Dr. Pearsall about the notion of some strange connection I was feeling with my patients, but she took it completely out of context.
"Dr. Gibson, are you saying that you wish to...fraternize with some of your patients?"
"No, of course not! It
's just...I feel like they can see right through me sometimes. I know it sounds odd, but it's like they're peering into my soul. And Beth, please, call me Maddy." I still recall how uncomfortable she seemed, as though even using first names was too intimate, that it crossed some line. I wonder if my shrink had her own shrink, too, and if hers finds her as strange as I do. She came highly recommended, her papers are amazing, and her insights were almost always helpful, until Confusion set in. I just wish she was a little more personable. Robots are hard to read.
Confusion did eventually give way to Phase Two: Paranoia. With the near constant feeling of eyes on me, not only in my office during sessions, but almost anywhere I went, I started to unravel. The more populated the area, the more I felt I was being watched, followed, stalked. I didn't bother to tell Beth about any of this. Her reactions to Confusion were bad enough.
Thankfully, this phase was brief, a mere three months. If it had lasted much longer, I might have had to suspend my practice, send my patients elsewhere, shut myself into a lonely room where no one could watch me. But before I reached the end of my rope, it hit me. Phase Three: Epiphany.
I can still see it vividly. Walking from the parking garage to my office, dreading another day of appointments, I felt the prickliness along my skin, the buzz in my mind like alarms going off. I looked around, convinced I was being followed. Instead, I pinpointed the source of my anxiety, and he was as aware of me as a bird is of a microbe. It was then that I had my epiphany: he wasn't watching me. I was picking up something from him. His body was calling out to me somehow. Not in some animalistic hormonal kind of way, but I was somehow aware that he was like me.
When I tried to approach him, he got spooked. He was looking away, in the distance, muttering to himself, and must not have been aware of me. I heard him mumble something before he noticed me: "Feel the burn. Join Global Gym today." It was as though he was reading something, but there was nothing in front of him. Once he saw me, he fled immediately. I lost track of him pretty quickly, after a few turns down some connecting alleys. Once I gave up the search, I was several blocks down from where I’d first seen him. As I looked around, I noticed a Global Gym flyer, taped to a telephone pole. The slogan the mystery man mumbled was right there, in normal sized print.
"Feel the burn. Join Global Gym today." I said it aloud, in disbelief. I backtracked, but saw no other Global Gym ads. I walked up and down those blocks three times to be certain this is what he was reading from so far away. Epiphany: there are some with heightened senses among us, and somehow I can detect them. At least I finally knew I wasn't going insane. It was an important step, to say the least.
From that moment, I began to come to terms with my new feelings, and even began to seek them out. The easiest means was through some of my patients. It didn't take long for me to realize that what I was picking up from them was what led them to seek help in the first place. They were different, and they knew it, but some didn't know why, and others just couldn't process or accept it. I began to wonder how many mental health disorders were simply caused by differences in perception.
I was careful in my approach with them. It would've been a mistake to press them too much. Rather, I simply started to listen for clues that I might have otherwise dismissed in the past. Now, instead of letting these comments slide, I would probe them gently with follow up questions. Mr. Santos certainly required special care. I even wondered early on if he had the same talent that I possessed, the way he described the feelings he'd get, and their rate of occurrence.
Before I could find out for sure, however, he simply stopped showing up to our sessions. Thinking he'd simply regressed, I asked for a case worker to make a house call. That's when he was discovered, hanging from the second-floor railing near the stairs. The investigation concluded that he'd simply given up, unable to deal with his paranoia. There was no note, and no one to inform. He lived alone, and died the same way. Though I barely knew him, it broke my heart.
I began to second-guess my line of questioning, even my line of work, but Dr. Pearsall assured me that it was normal to lose a few patients in this manner over the course of a career. This was my first, and I'd hoped it would be my last.
It was about two years later when I met Isabel Gutierrez. By then, I hadn't yet reached Phase Four: Usefulness, but I had learned quite a lot since my original epiphany. I'd identified eight patients that had some sort of extrasensory perception. Though none possessed the debunked powers of mind-reading or clairvoyance, they were quite the eclectic bunch just the same.
One, I discovered, was able to hear sounds outside the range of human hearing. It took some trial and error to discover this, as it had happened to him gradually over time. The breakthrough came when we associated a loss of hearing in the lower frequencies with a shift in his hearing range that allows him to pick up ultrasonic vibrations in the higher frequencies. One of our sessions was particularly enlightening. When describing what he was hearing, I had a hunch, and turned off all of the electronics in and outside my office, including the lights. He said it was like I'd turned off a waterfall in his head.
Another patient took a few sessions longer to figure out. She had complained to her doctors of chronic headaches, discomfort and anxiety, but various tests were unable to find a physiological cause. One of her doctors referred her to me, believing her ailments to be psychosomatic. Owing to my open mind and sincere attempts to help her, she eventually opened up. We walked through a battery of questions about her history, and tests to isolate different types of stimuli. It wasn't exactly a relief to her that she had an over-responsive olfactory system, that it was certain powerful smells and odors causing her pain.
"What am I supposed to do? Ask the old lady on the bus to stop wearing so much perfume?"
We tried various therapies, from nose plugs to desensitizing exercises to applying more pleasant odors above her upper lip. Between these and some meditation techniques that would help if she still picked up on something overpowering, she's started to resume a somewhat normal life, though she has... other issues.
I hadn't made contact with any non-patients, though. I wasn't ready to confront anyone with what little I knew of them, simply out of the blue, since most of them weren't running around flaunting their abilities. Many, it seemed, weren't even aware of their unique relationship with the physical world. Instead, I chose to follow them discreetly, which served two purposes. One, I longed to understand the variety and abundance of Sensitives.
Secondly, I wanted to test my range and ability to isolate specific individuals. It intrigued and worried me that there could be hundreds or even thousands of people who, whether they were aware of it or not, were struggling to live normal lives, having been told there was nothing physically wrong with them.
Granted, it was anecdotal, but all eight of the Sensitives that were, and still are, my patients have been unable to interact with society in any meaningful way. They're unable to hold down jobs, or even get them in the first place. They're treated with suspicion by their neighbors and strangers, or simply ignored completely.
After countless months of late nights and weekends roaming around the city, I finally learned to recognize and track individuals solely based on my talent, and remember whether I'd seen them before, similar to how most people remember a face they've encountered only once or twice before.
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"Hold on, Doc. Are you tellin' me you've been following people like us around for years, and now you can pick each one out in a crowd, like radar?"
Lt. Foley seems on edge all of a sudden. Tread carefully, Maddy. "That's somewhat accurate, though I don't know what any of us physically look like unless I'm in visual range. Please understand that it's all with the goal of helping my current and future patients cope with their reality."
"Yeah, you're here to help. I've heard that before."
"Frank..." Maiko gives him a look that seems to calm him momentarily.
Now is the time to cut to the chase, as they say
. "Not only can I help these people lead normal lives, but I can help you prevent the most dangerous Sensitives from turning into serial killers, as in your current case."
"Stop calling us that!"
"Lieutenant, others will call us much worse if we ever become widely known, as I suspect you're aware."
I see a light go off in Maiko's head. "Wait...are you saying that the serial killer is a Sensitive?"
Lt. Foley was so consumed by my ability that he overlooked this point. "Sonuvabitch. Is she right?"
"I'm afraid so. I sensed immense strength and power from him, so I followed him, directly to the house of your fifth victim, Judy Stanton."
Foley's eyes grow wide. "You were there. Did you see him?"
I hang my head, embarrassed. "No. I was alone, frightened. I stayed outside and tried to get pictures, but the room was too dark. When I saw her arms fly across the room, I vomited and fled, then called 911 from a pay phone."
Maiko looks horrified. Bob just looks sad. Foley runs through a range of emotions on his face. "Shit, that puke was yours? Damn. But what you said before, about being able to recognize and remember...have you seen him again?"
"In fact I have, twice more. The first time, I lost him as he sped off on his motorcycle, but seeing him earlier is what brought me here to you tonight--"
"Motorcycle, huh? That's helpful to know. What kind?"
"Uh...I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't know. It was black."
He looks exasperated. "Ya know, for someone who's so observant, you should really pay more attention."
Maiko elbows him. "Pay him no mind, he's grumpy when he can't solve a case in like two minutes. What happened today?"
"I stumbled upon him by chance again and saw him get into a parked car. Before I could even process what I was seeing, he left on his motorcycle again. My car wasn't close, so I couldn't follow. I approached the vehicle and saw the results of his work: an elderly man, hunched over his steering wheel, his head twisted in an unnatural way."
The Ripper of Blossom Valley Page 23