Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre by the World's Greatest Horror Writers

by Del Howison

  Daniel’s wife was suspicious, but she said nothing. He could tell by the way she stared at him, as if she was seeing someone else and wondering how he got there—where had Daniel gone? Even if she’d voiced her concern, it wouldn’t have moved him to take action. He was his own man. A man who needed help and found it almost impossible to allow himself weakness.

  Francine De Santos was the best psychoanalyst in California. Yet she struggled with his sudden changes, suggesting the unthinkable; that Daniel had developed a latent form of schizophrenia, which happened. Or worse, sudden-onset MPD, multiple-personality disorder, which was not only unusual, but unprecedented. Medications did nothing to affect the fluctuations in personae, nor relieve his anxiety over the changes. Talk therapy wasn’t helping, either. It just reminded him he was not all right.

  He opened the door to his office. The waiting room was big enough for a love seat and two chairs, a table on which he kept magazines on travel, wine, and food. Sitting in one of the chairs was Jeanette, a pale blanket over her chest and her suckling child.

  “Jeanette, come on in.” Daniel grinned, focusing on her face.

  Jeanette was dark-haired, with a round face gone sunken from worry. Her large eyes seemed forever near tears. “I hope you don’t mind, Dr. Fredericks, but they wouldn’t take Kevin in day care. He’s got a cold.” The baby’s breathing was mucusy and labored as he breast-fed.

  “Not at all.” He waited for her to gather her baby bag and child up and scurry into the office. She sat on the couch and settled into her motherly service.

  “Let’s start where we left off last week. You were saying that Ted felt threatened by all the time you were giving the children. What did he say or do to make you think that?”

  As Jeanette spoke, the blanket edged off the baby, exposing her round breast with dark brown areola and nipple tucked firmly in the baby’s mouth. Daniel’s eyes flicked from Jeanette’s face to her breast. He could feel the spark of sexual excitement and crossed his legs. He put his clipboard on his lap and hoped he wasn’t blushing. The whoosh of blood in his face and ears made her voice seem far away. One hand slid beneath the clipboard to caress the head of his prick.

  The next moment he was aware, he was on Jeanette Samuelson, shoving her child aside and suckling madly at her breast, one hand down inside her panties massaging her clit, while rubbing his groin against her leg and coming. The baby wailed, half in surprise at the sudden change of feeding schedule, half in terror at being discarded so roughly. Jeanette was not screaming. She was lying there, eyes nearly rolled back in her head, moaning softly with pleasure.

  It was as if he had just been thrust physically, really, into a fantasy he’d entertained a couple of times as he treated Jeanette. The shock of it felt worse than falling into ice water. He scrabbled off of his client and onto the floor, up-righting himself to a standing position as gracefully as he could. He straightened his gabardines, now stained with cum, his hand smelling of her discharge. Pulling a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, he wiped furiously.

  With his change of behavior, Jeanette curled up in shame. She reached over to her child and tugged at his foot, a kind of sadness in her. Then she rearranged her top and bra. She wouldn’t look at Daniel, which was fine with him. He couldn’t imagine that even though he was losing time and splitting in his mind, he could abuse a client.

  Finally, Jeanette took her wailing baby into her arms. Daniel went to the refuge of his Donghia chair behind his desk and took his clipboard in hand. He began writing down meaningless blather about her, just to appear busy at his job. The wailing stopped. Daniel glanced furtively at Jeanette. She had little Kevin on her breast again; this time, it was her hand working inside her pants, her eyes shut. Daniel knew he shouldn’t watch, but he did. Spent, he barely registered arousal, but he silently urged her orgasm. It arrived quietly and without Kevin’s notice.

  Daniel checked the clock. Time was up.

  “Will I see you again next week, same time?” He kept his eyes on his clipboard.

  She gathered up her bag, her child, and went to the door. Her voice was soft, almost sultry. “That would be nice.”

  “I’ll mark my calendar.” He waited for her to leave, for the door to click back into the jamb. Seconds went by and he was forced to glance up, fiddle with his hair over his ear. She was looking at him, imploring him to say something about what had just happened. He knew her well.

  “Good-bye, Jeanette. See you next week.” The dismissal worked. She left.

  Daniel closed his eyes. When he sighed, a moan and tears came with it. What the hell was happening to him?

  * * *

  Daniel began to log the lost time, the episodes of bizarre behavior, at least the ones he was aware of—when he snapped back into himself while it was going on. He photocopied his notes where the handwriting shifted along with his language and attitude. The file, which grew rapidly, he called The Sanity File. He’d keep it to make sure he was sane. After all, he figured, an insane person wouldn’t keep records or know that he was nuts. Francine De Santos agreed with him.

  “Even if only for legal reasons, it makes sense. You are aware that these behavioral aberrations occur as ‘lost time,’ that you have no deliberate intention to do harm or act in an illegal manner.”

  “Cover my ass? I don’t think so, Francine. If someone broke into my office and found that file, I’d be brought up before the State Medical Quality Assurance Board and lose my license to practice in the least, and maybe my freedom. What’s happening with my clients … that’s the worst. On my own, on the street, at my club, at home … I can make excuses. Not at work. I—”

  “You and I will work at this and figure it out. You’ve had every neurological workup I can think of, endocrine and otherwise. This is mental. It may simply be stress. You have a huge client load, Daniel. You could cut back.”

  Daniel stared out the window through the miniblinds to the trees in the yards of the Beverly Hills homes beyond. Everything was just as he’d planned it all along. He was capable, ready to handle his life. What was missing?

  “I could … but not yet. Not now. I’ve lost a client, oddly enough not because of my behavior. She moved out of state. I won’t fill her spot. I have a waiting list….”

  “Your ego is tied into this success of yours.”

  “Yes, understandably. I get a tremendous amount of gratification and sense of worth from what I do.”

  “Let’s play ‘what if?’ You wake up tomorrow and you can’t work as a psychologist. What are you doing for work, for pleasure?”

  Daniel’s skin went cold, his heart began racing. His vision tunneled. He was gone. When he returned, he was in his Mercedes going up the hill to his home, his shirt drenched with sweat. He smelled like sex. He grabbed his cell phone and called Francine. Her service answered and he asked, a little too frantically, for her to return his call, as quickly as possible. When he arrived at his home, he pulled into the garage and sat in the car, waiting for her call.

  His wife, Rayla, rapped hard on the window, waking him. He panicked, began hunting for his cell phone, babbling. She opened the car door.

  “Danny, it’s 11:30! I was getting ready to call the police!”

  The police. No, no police. “I fell asleep. I was waiting for a call and …” He shivered. His shirt had dried, wrinkled, with the smell of fear on it. Flop sweat.

  “Come inside. Take a shower. Go to bed. But quietly, baby. Don’t wake Rory. It was hard to get him to sleep.”

  Daniel peeled himself from the car. Thinking of Rory, of his beautiful, loving wife, he knew he couldn’t keep this just between himself and Francine. Rayla embraced him, her much shorter, thin body meshing with his. He put his hands in her hair, bent and inhaled the warm, flowery scent of her conditioner. Then his cell phone bripped in his jacket pocket.

  Rayla went inside. “Dr. Fredericks.”

  “Your service calling, Doctor. We have one of your patients, a Mrs. Samuelson on the line. She wishes
to speak with you.” Daniel marveled at how all the women at his answering service sounded the same.

  “I am in the middle of handling another emergency. Send her message to my voice mail and tell her I will call her back as soon as I am out of this one.”

  “And if she … insists?”

  “They all insist. They suck you dry then rip you to shreds and shit on the pieces. Tell her to go fuck herself. I’m busy.” He snapped the phone shut. “It’s time for my life.” He growled as he slammed the Mercedes door shut.

  * * *

  Daniel woke up at four in the morning. Rayla was tangled in his long legs. He unwound himself from her and went to pee. The dream he’d just had was strange, eerie. He hadn’t thought of Justin Cook in ten years. Justin was one of his first few clients, a nineteen-year-old sociopath who had fooled Daniel for a year before he caught on. Justin told tales of ferocious parental abuse. It made his demonic behavior seem the likely outlet for all his rage. But when Daniel investigated, he learned Justin Cook came from an extraordinarily supportive home with a younger brother and sister who were terrified of him.

  In the dream, Justin was in Daniel’s old office; the room above an auto mechanic’s garage that was quiet only at night. He was the shrink while Daniel lay on the grubby tweed couch. Justin was very bright, and had often attempted to play the psychologist in their real-life sessions. In the murky light, Justin asked Daniel if he liked having crazy sex.

  “Crazy sex?”

  “You’re one of those guys who likes hopping on, getting your nut, then rolling off. It’s different now. Maybe you’re liking this crazy stuff. Fucking your wife up the ass. Fingering your breast-feeder while you dry-hump her. Making that whore real-estate lady take your ten inches until she choked on it. Letting that weird kid Leon lick your asshole while he beats off. You know what I mean.”

  Dream Daniel felt himself getting excited. He remembered some of the lust-driven stuff, and yes, he was liking it. He nodded at Justin.

  “So you’re loosening up, dude.”

  “Loosening up. Yes.” Daniel began stroking himself, to Justin’s delight.

  “Go for it, Dan. Hey, you liking my take on your crazy patients? How about what I wrote about that dude who has a little too much of a fixation on his sister? Am I right, he’s sexualizing her sweet understanding treatment of him? Oh, wait, I am the doctor. I am always right!”

  Daniel was suddenly standing before his old desk, Justin grinning too wide for a human being, his teeth ten inches wide. Justin’s head was open at the crown, blown open. Gore and bone straggled down his forehead and cheeks. His face was ashen.

  “Are you dead, Justin?” He got no response. “Did you kill yourself?”

  Justin nodded his head and brains fell out onto his lap.

  Daniel felt his stomach lurch. “Why? Did I do something wrong?”

  They were now standing in the park, or was it a graveyard? Lots of green, trees, benches. Justin knelt at a headstone. The inscription was a blur, yet he was tracing it with his fingers.

  “They really loved me. Look at the nice things they said about me.” Justin looked over his shoulder at Daniel. He seemed so young, not nineteen. Not after years of killing animals, assaulting older people, stealing money, and maiming kids in his neighborhood. Innocent, maybe eight or nine, though he looked as he had the last time Daniel had seen him.

  “They did. They tried to love you so that you would heal, but they weren’t able.”

  “That was your job, Daniel.”

  “You’re the doctor. Not me.”

  “You were supposed to heal me. You really fucked that up.”

  “No. You’re the doctor.”

  Justin opened the top drawer of Daniel’s old faux oak desk. Dream Daniel felt nostalgic for his first few years of practice. Two or three patients a day. Time to peruse their files, do research, take their calls if need be. He was single then, dating two women, one in L.A., one in Dallas where his parents lived. He took classes in cooking and interior decorating, joined a health club to stay fit after college. Life was good then. Justin took his file from the desk and waved it in front of Daniel as if he was a magician and he had cards fanned out.

  “Pick a page, any page.” Justin threw the file up and papers flew like baby birds, swaying in the air and dropping to the floor and desk. “Your lies.”

  “What lies?” Daniel felt afraid. He remembered how dangerous Justin could be—not with him, but with everyone in his life outside the office. He had written the clinical truth. Always had.

  “Where does it say here that you loved me?” He waited for a response from Daniel. “You did love me. You showed me how you loved me.”

  Daniel’s dream stomach fell. Had he interfered with Justin in an inappropriate manner? He wasn’t gay; why would the thought have even entered his mind?

  “I never touched you.”

  Justin was beside him now. In the dream, Daniel could smell the young man. It was feral and clean, sweet and cloying, then rotting and putrid. He backed away.

  “I wanted you to. That was all I wanted was for you to love me.”

  “You liked girls. I remember you telling me—”

  “Lies! All of it. I expected you to be good enough to see through what I did. What I said. See my pain, my need.”

  Daniel was stunned. “I didn’t know! I would never take advantage of you. I took an oath. I’m so sorry.” And he was. Then Justin began to smother him with kisses, holding him, pressing against him. He didn’t want it, yet it was arousing, and he had to urinate. Justin took his penis from inside his pants and the urge grew.

  That’s when he woke up. He found himself standing in front of the toilet, empty bladder, holding his flaccid penis, and wondering why he had such a vivid dream. Why he would dream of a client who stopped therapy and disappeared from his life so long ago?

  * * *

  Rayla refused to speak to him when he came into his sleek brushed-aluminum and teak dining room for breakfast.

  “What? Did I say something in my sleep? Are you angry because I came home so late last night?”

  She shook her head. Rory was in the high chair, resisting strained peaches.

  The phone rang. Daniel picked it up. It was his service. Four calls. One, Francine. Her message was curt: “Do not call; do not come back to my office; do not contact me again.” Why was everyone around him bailing? What had he done? Was he splitting off so often he was no longer aware it had happened?

  He grasped the cup of coffee in his cold hands. It felt real; he was real. So was this hell. He had to share it with Rayla, even if it meant she felt betrayed. He knew she would.

  “Ray, I’ve got to tell you something. I hope you will stick by me through this. I’m terrified.”

  This stopped her. She turned to him. “Okay.” She was tentative. “Talk.”

  He did. He told her as much as he could without his sanity file to remind him of all the various indiscretions, splits, each of the rabid acts of lovemaking she’d enjoyed that occurred without his knowledge. He inferred he’d acted inappropriately with clients, but said nothing about the sexual aspects. And he told her the dream.

  “Do you think there is a connection between this dream and what’s happening to you?” She was frowning, trying with difficulty to be supportive in the face of Daniel’s massive mental lapses and illness.

  “I don’t know.” He began to cry. Softly, like he had when he was a boy and no one was around to see. “I just know I’m afraid. And I am hurting people. People I am sworn to protect and help.”

  Rayla continued to feed Rory. “I think you should find someone else to help you if Francine is out of the picture.”

  “Good advice. I’ll do that. I … We can’t live like this.”

  Rayla looked at him the same way a parent does a stupid child. Daniel finished his coffee, forced the rye toast down, and kissed his wife and child good-bye.

  His first client on Fridays was Simon Harcourt, an actor in a drama on
television. Daniel took out his file and flipped to the last entry.

  Visit 28—6/10/04—Simon spoke today about his sorrow over the loss of his sheltie dog Wayne. Wayne was 17 years old. Long attachment. Grief is appropriate. Mentioned his twin brother for only second time. Issues with his twin (fraternal) are behind much of his sense of impotence in the face of abusive behavior. Brother often impersonates Simon with women and behaves badly, humiliating Simon.

  Problems continue with Simon’s roommates. They are messy and inconsiderate. Simon hates that he portrays a tough cop on TV and is a wimp with his personal relationships.

  I don’t feel sorry for him. He wallows in his misery and deserves every bit of shit he gets. What the hell is wrong with this guy? He has everything, but he’s obsessed with what he can’t have. What he isn’t. Pathetic loser.

  Daniel shook his head. The voice of the “other” Daniel seemed familiar today. Who spoke like that? Who could be so without compassion?

  The light went on signaling Daniel that Simon had arrived. He closed the file and stood. Justin. That’s what the dream was all about. The ‘other’ Daniel was just like Justin!

  Just knowing felt like power. Daniel stretched, exhaled. Whispered, “Justin, get the hell out of my head.” Then he went to let Simon in.

  The rest of the day, Daniel was himself. His notes were consistent. He was quick and concise with his patients. He called Rayla to tell her that their talk had helped. She didn’t sound mollified. Between his 5:00 and 7:45 P.M. clients, he went through his old files to find Justin’s. He got caught up reading some of the old files, enjoying his early earnest innocence, his drive. Justin’s file was in the last box from his first year.

  Visit 1—Justin Cook; age 18. Sent by California Youth Authority. In custody for numerous assaults. Parents chose me by referral (Mark Moore).