“I listened to you last night, talking to Dawson,” Lester went on. “You were asking him about the chess set.”
Ted had been getting up. He sat back down and nodded.
“I could hear you from my room,” the little man went on. “You were asking him when they’d brought us the chess set. And he told you six months ago.”
That was in fact what Mike had said. Could he have been lying?
“Is it true?”
Lester rubbed his chin. He made some mental calculations.
“Yes, it’s true. But I know who brought it.”
“Who?”
“Well, actually…”
“Who?!”
Ted grabbed Lester by his shirt collar and pulled him close. Some of the patients turned to watch. Robert Scott, the head nurse, looked up from one of the other tables and kept his eyes on them until Ted gestured to let him know they were just having a friendly conversation.
“Who was it, Lester?” Ted asked again.
The little man must have seen something in Ted’s eyes, because there was nothing left of the effusive behavior he had flaunted the day before.
“It was Dr. Hill. She and the black male nurse came in one day and gave it to Scott. I saw them.”
Ted studied his face for a long time.
“I don’t believe you. Where were you when this happened?”
“In the hallway. They gave it to him right there, where everybody could see. Well, not everybody, because it was just me there, but they didn’t even pay attention. Dr. Hill doesn’t come around here often, and when she does she’s always with that nurse—Roger, I think his name is. She gave Scott the chess set, except at first I didn’t know it was a chess set. I followed him to the commons and saw him put it on the shelf with the other games.”
“And that was six months ago.”
Lester nodded vigorously and added, “I suspected, too.”
“What did you suspect?”
“I heard the other thing you asked Dawson yesterday. Asking him how they could have known they were going to bring you here six months in advance.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Of course it is. They know lots of things. They have tiny cameras and microphones.”
Ted shook his head. It made no sense to continue talking to this lunatic. He made his second attempt to get up, but this time Lester clasped his arm. He could have easily pulled away, but when he saw Lester’s woebegone expression, he let the man unburden himself.
“Do you think they’ve got the chessmen bugged?”
“No, Lester, there aren’t any microphones in those chess pieces.”
Lester’s face twisted into a grimace of baffled horror.
“And how can you be so sure?”
There was no sense in continuing the conversation.
34
Mike was waiting for him on the bench under the pine tree. This time he wasn’t smoking or reading; he followed Ted with his gaze until he’d sat down next to him.
“Problems with Lester, huh? If he bothers you again—”
“I can take care of myself,” Ted broke it. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve, too.”
“Yeah, so I hear.”
The basketball court sat empty. Under the afternoon sun, the patches of peeling blue paint that remained on the court looked like puddles of water. Mike pointed at one of the hoops. An overweight inmate was holding the pole and spinning around it.
“That’s Espósito. He’s seen them, too.”
For a second, Ted had no idea what his roommate was talking about. He looked around, thinking he meant that the man had seen some particular people.
“Seen who?”
“The animals,” Mike said solemnly, looking at Espósito, still spinning around the basketball pole, at top speed now. His expression was almost identical to the one Timothy Robichaud had worn when he was spinning his supersonic merry-go-round.
“What animal did you see?” Mike asked.
“I told you: a possum. But I’m sure it was a dream. I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes for a second, and…”
“You and I both know that was no dream, Ted. Are you sure it was a possum?”
“Or something just like it. Have you seen it?”
“Not the possum. I’ve seen a rat, and a locust. Our buddy Espósito, spinning like a top over there, has seen two of the big ones: a hyena and a lynx. A couple of the guys who were here before had seen a few more, but nobody else has seen the possum.”
Mike kept looking toward the basketball court, as if he were mulling over an unsolvable problem.
“Mike, you realize these animals don’t exist, right?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I know the animals are in here.” He rapped on his head. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
Ted clicked his tongue. He was about to get up and leave when Mike lightly touched him on the knee.
“Wait.”
“I want to forget the fucking possum, Mike—seriously. I have to get my thoughts in order. I talked with Dr. Hill yesterday and everything is getting more and more mixed up. The last thing I need now is to add more confusion.”
“I understand. Let me tell you something. Dr. McMills is the general director of the hospital, and she’s been in charge of my case from the beginning. A few years after I was committed, I told her about the animals. She laughed, and we talk about them from time to time, though she never asks many questions. She’s a brilliant woman, and she treated lots of patients before she became the director, and there’s one thing I’m sure of: she knows the animals are real. I haven’t seen them for two or three years now.”
“When did you start seeing them…exactly? Was it when…”
“When I killed them? Yes.”
So who did you kill, Ted? Wendell? Blaine? Both?
“I started seeing the locust almost all the time,” Mike said. “It was a lot bigger than a normal locust, and bolder, because it would walk right up to me with this attitude. I had the weird sensation that it might suddenly jump straight into my mouth. Just thinking about it made me want to puke. At first I tried to pay no attention to it, but much later I realized that the locust appeared whenever I was about to go off my path. It was like a sort of…guardian. The rat, too, but it was more frightening.”
Ted felt a shiver. He was also afraid of the possum.
“Look at the basketball court,” Mike went on. “There’s two sides to it, well-defined, separated by the line across the center. Same with the real world and the world of insanity, Ted. You’re either sane or you’re not; there’s no middle ground. You play on one team or on the other, and if you’re locked up in here and you’re lucky, if the medicine works and the doctors get your diagnosis and your treatment right, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get traded from one team to the other, at least for a while. What you can’t do is play on both teams. Understand?”
“I don’t think this is insanity.”
“Well, you should, because it is. It’s like another dimension, if it helps to look at it that way. A world with its own rules. Like dreams. Don’t you ever have dreams?”
“You think the animals belong to that other world.”
“Not exactly. You see that circle in the middle of the court? That’s the intermediate zone. That’s why I like the analogy; it didn’t just occur to me right now. I often sit here and think about these things. That circle is the door that joins the two worlds, where you’re not supposed to be, because, like I said, you can’t play on both teams at once. But there are some people, like you, like me, like Espósito, who stay there longer than they should, in the doorway, and of course that can’t be good.” Mike paused before adding, in an ominous tone, “The circle is dangerous, because both worlds coexist there.”
Espósito had stopped spinning around the pole and was now pacing back and forth, enjoying the effects of dizziness. With his arms spread wide and his face turned to the sky, he was gliding like a chubby air
plane.
“The animals are there to scare us out of the circle, Ted,” Mike said, and again he sounded like the sanest man on earth.
“Why just some of us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mike, I don’t want you to take this badly, but you’re telling me that circle is bad. Let’s say that’s true. But what could be worse than being completely insane?”
“Let me ask you something, Ted. When have you seen the possum?”
“A few times.”
“Tell me one.”
“It was in a dream. I was in my living room at home and something attracted my attention in the backyard. I looked out the patio door and my wife was there in her swimming suit, standing still in an impossible position. She was also missing a leg. The possum was on the table we keep on the back porch, gnawing on my wife’s amputated leg.”
Ted shivered when he recalled it.
“That’s a pretty fucked-up dream,” Mike admitted. “Have you seen your wife since then?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe it’s not the best example.”
Ted lost patience and grabbed Mike by the arm.
“Why are you asking me if I’ve seen my wife since then? Is there something you know?”
Mike didn’t lose his cool. He waited until Ted let go of his arm and then spoke in measured tones.
“Look, it’s not like I’m an expert on the subject or anything. All I know is my own experience and what I’ve found out from being here. Before Espósito there was another guy. Ricci was his name. He got out five years ago.” Mike gestured with his head up at the sky. “He was the first guy who talked to me about the animals and the circle, only he didn’t talk about them like that. I didn’t believe a word he said, like you now with me, but then I thought about the locust, which for some reason my mind had forgotten, and lots of things started to make sense. You know? When all that stuff happened with my friend…” Mike’s face darkened for a moment. “When I did…what I did, everything was all jumbled in my mind. Even months later, it was hard for me to distinguish between what had been real and what hadn’t. The evidence was right in front of me, but I refused to see it. One piece of evidence indicated that I had killed my friend’s housekeeper, a lovely woman named Rosalía who I had known for quite a while and who had a little boy. It breaks my heart whenever I think of her. The police found the body in her room and they knew it had been from my killing spree. I convinced myself that it was true. It made sense. But I suddenly remembered something from that time, a memory that had been buried and cropped up from nowhere. I was on the porch of my house, drinking a beer by myself, when the fucking locust showed up from out of nowhere and landed on my knee. I almost died of fright. I swept it off with my hand and it landed by the door. Then it went inside the house, moving calmly, and I knew I was supposed to follow it. Can you believe that shit? There I was, following a locust into my own house because I was sure the little fucker wanted to show me something.” Mike laughed and shook his head. “So we reached an empty bedroom, and there it stopped. When I remembered all this, I thought it was from a dream, just like with you. The door to the room didn’t look like it normally did: it had a peephole, so of course I looked in. And there I saw something that made my hair stand on end: it was a little boy I knew, stabbing Rosalía savagely with a knife. I couldn’t stop watching, just like in a dream, where time stretches and stretches.”
Mike stopped talking. This couldn’t have been an act.
Ted finished the story. “The woman had been stabbed.”
Mike nodded.
“My memories from that time have never been clear, and I can’t deny there’s a chance I might have killed her…But something tells me it wasn’t me. Not her.”
“So you mean that what happened with the locust, there at your house…”
Ted left the sentence unfinished. His thoughts went back to Holly, rapturous in their backyard, with her leg cut off.
“A moment ago you were asking me what could be worse than losing your mind,” Mike said, “and there’s your answer. When you go crazy, everything is up here, in your head. But when you’re in the circle, where both worlds coexist…”
Ted quickly thought it over.
“You mean when I dream that my wife is missing a leg, then she magically…”
“When you put it that way, it sounds stupid. What I recommend is, if you see the possum again, get away from it. As I told you, the animals prowl around the circle, the border between both worlds.”
They sat in silence for a while. At some point Espósito had left, and Lester, Lolo, Sketch, and a few others had taken his place.
“Ever since I first saw you, I knew you could see them, too,” said Mike, more to himself than to Ted. “It was weird.”
35
Laura was waiting for him in the assessment room. She had a notebook and a laptop.
“Are these necessary?” Ted asked, displaying his restraints. He had just walked in.
“I’m afraid so.”
Ted plopped heavily into his chair. McManus, who had escorted him from his room, quietly left.
“Have you thought about what we said, Ted? Are you convinced now that the tumor doesn’t exist? Tell me the truth.”
“I haven’t thought much about the tumor.”
Laura took off her glasses and scratched the tip of her nose as if to rid herself of an irritating itch.
“McManus told me that you’ve done a good job of fitting in with some of the other patients.”
Ted remained silent.
“Is there anything you want to tell me, Ted?”
“Actually, there is. There’s a chess set in the common room. Did you bring it here?”
Laura’s smile quivered. For a moment the truth could be seen in her eyes.
“I thought it would help you feel at home,” she admitted. “You could play with some of your boys.”
Ted shook his head. He looked up at the ceiling for a minute.
“You brought it here six months ago,” he said calmly.
Laura opened her mouth.
“Don’t deny it. I know the truth. What I want to know now is how you knew six months ago that I’d end up here.”
“Calm down, Ted.”
“I am calm. Perfectly calm. Just tell me why you brought that chess set before you’d even met me. Was it Carmichael? Did he tell you? Is this all part of his plan? Tell me the fucking truth, just this once.”
Laura leaned over the table to get as close to him as the situation allowed. The look in her eyes said everything. He was horror-struck.
“You and I met seven months ago,” Laura said softly. “You’ve been in the hospital all this time.”
Ted studied her in turn, searching in vain for the gesture that would give her away. He couldn’t detect it. He stood up and strode away as well as he could with his fettered legs.
“I know this is a lot to process, but I was going to let you know today.”
“I came here three days ago,” Ted insisted.
“Come back. Sit down. Let me show you something. This is why I brought my laptop.” Laura opened it and waited for it to power up. She put her glasses back on and found a folder on the desktop. In the meantime, Ted sat back down and waited. The only way to allay his anxiety was to take the horseshoe from his pocket and hold it tightly in his lap.
“Today is Thursday, April eighteenth, two thousand and thirteen,” Laura said without looking away from the screen and while remaining out of Ted’s reach. “You were admitted here on September twentieth of last year. Well, not here but to B wing, where I serve as director. I took on your case personally.”
She angled the screen so they could both see it. It showed a video taken by a security camera in the corner of a room very similar to the one Ted had occupied in the isolation ward, except that this one didn’t have a glass wall. Sitting on the bunk was Ted, shackled hand and foot, rocking rhythmically back and forth, gesticulating in the a
ir and nodding now and then. He was wearing a blue shirt and blue pants. The date was displayed in a box at a corner of the screen. It could have been faked, of course, but why couldn’t Ted remember anything about this?
“This is the state you were in when you arrived, Ted, and I’m afraid your condition didn’t improve much at first.”
Ted couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“Who am I talking to?” he muttered, referring to his alter ego on the screen.
“Who knows? Lynch, perhaps?”
Ted looked away, and then imploringly at Dr. Hill.
“I don’t remember this at all.”
“I know. Let me show you one more thing. Soon you’ll understand.”
Laura closed the video. A window displayed a long list of files. She selected one and a new video occupied the screen. This time Ted recognized the place: it was Laura’s private office. There was the desk, her bookshelf, the coffee table with the glass of water he never touched. Ted was wearing the blue uniform and was shackled. Suddenly he heard his voice and was startled. This video had sound.
“Thanks for finding the time to see me, Laura,” said Ted in the video. “The fishing trip with my business partner was canceled.”
“Sorry about the trip,” she replied. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Last night I had a nightmare.”
After a brief conversation, Laura asked him to tell her about the dream.
“I was in the living room, looking at the porch through the patio window. There was a possum perched on the table, eating one of Holly’s legs. Holly wasn’t there, just her leg, but I knew it was hers…”
The date in the corner indicated that it was filmed in September 2012. Laura pressed the space bar and the video stopped. She closed it and selected another file from the same folder. All that had changed was Laura’s clothing: now she was wearing a red sweater that Ted vaguely recalled.
“Thanks for finding the time to see me, Laura,” said Ted in the video. “The fishing trip with my business partner was canceled.”
The Ted who was watching the video opened his eyes as wide as they could go. He looked desperately at the corner of the screen and confirmed what he had feared: the video was taken in January 2013. Four months after the previous video.
Kill the Next One Page 15