The Lost and the Damned

by Dennis Liggio

  Eleven

  TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW ROOM 2. PATIENT 457. ATTENDING PHYSICIAN: DR. ASHBORN

  DOCTOR: You’ve talked a great deal about space in our chats together, but never at length on time itself. What do you think of time?

  PATIENT: Time is the one great illusion that keeps things sane. It’s the guide that keeps the common man from insanity.

  DOCTOR: So time doesn’t exist?

  PATIENT: Not truly. When time stops being real, all men will go insane.

  DOCTOR: And you think that will happen? Time becoming unreal, I mean.

  PATIENT: It’s happened once, just nobody has noticed. But it will happen again. Eventually everything will be bared, naked, fragile and able to be manipulated. Those that know can use this moment to become gods. Those that don’t will become just another of the throng of insane onlookers. It will happen again, I tell you, mark my words it will happen again.

  DOCTOR: I see.

  Once again I fell.

  I recognized I was falling through blackness again, but such recognition was reactive. I could not muster a thought. I knew it was familiar. Beyond that my mind was blank.

  I fell into the dining room again. The young boy again. The little girl again. He walks into the living room again. It’s all familiar, played for me once again. I don’t want to follow him. I know what’s going to happen. I know what awaits the boy in that room. I know that I have to follow him and experience everything he went to. I try to hold myself back. I fix myself on the dining room, trying to hold myself there. My mind has barely any will to it, but I fix what I have on this room.

  The little girl turns to me. She already spoke her usual lines to the boy, but now she turns to me. I had been ignored previously, but this time she looks at me. Strange eyes for a little girl, she stares at me. She speaks in her little girl voice, “Mankind is an essentially flawed race. Their humanity turns the possible into the impossible. Only when you forget that you are human will you remember that you are a god.”

  For a moment, I remain there, her words sinking in. Then my concentration fails me and I sucked into the living room and everything that is there. The angry man, his rage and his violence. I experience it again. He mercilessly beats that poor boy and I feel that boy’s pain, his embarrassment, his feeling of betrayal. And rage. I feel such a powerful rage. That is, until the pain overwhelms me.

  Then it’s black.

  I woke up with my head down in a book. For a moment I thought I was back in college, having fallen asleep while cramming for a final. Only when I lifted my head and looked around did my memory came back to me. With annoyance, I realized I was spending a lot of time unconscious. Moreover, nearly every time I went unconscious they changed things on me. Either something very supernatural was going on or they had a dedicated crew to cart me around every time I passed out. At this point I was leaning toward the supernatural.

  If I was wrong? Well, then I hope those guys have a good union.

  This time I was in a library. Bookshelves lined the walls and I saw aisles of bookshelves after bookshelves. I sat at a brown wooden desk next to a wooden railing. Below was an even bigger library, complete with computer terminals and a circulation desk. A library of this size made me think of a university, particularly with tables just made for students to spread out on. A private library wouldn’t have so many tables, a public library wouldn’t be so big.

  I looked across the table and saw Katie with her face down in a magazine. I smiled when I saw a small amount of sleep-drool dripping down. I looked around again and confirmed that there were people in the library, but they all seemed to be going about their business, studying or wandering through the stacks. Compared to everywhere we had gone, this place seemed… safe. I swung my head around quickly, just to make sure I wasn’t wrong. No, still safe.

  “Hey Katie, wake up,” I said.

  She didn’t stir at all.

  “Katie, wake up!”

  Nothing.

  “Katie?”

  I tapped on her head, trying to be gentle and not invasive.

  She still didn’t stir.

  Finally I hit her roughly on the back of the head, “Katie!”

  Her head shot up, her hair messy, her eyes sleepy. She looked left and right. “What? Huh? What?”

  “Katie!” I said insistently. Her eyes locked on me, and it was a moment before there was a flicker of recognition.

  “John?”

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” I said.

  “I was sleeping?” she said, still disoriented.

  “Something like that. We passed out.”

  “Why the hell did we do that?”

  I remembered that the last time we went through the blackness and woke up elsewhere she was still catatonic, so this was new to her. “That’s just how it works. How it has worked, at least. We find ourselves falling in black space and then we wake up. Isn’t that what you experienced?”

  “Eh?” she said, looking incredulous.

  I sighed. “What do you last remember?”

  “I remember… I remember being on that godforsaken bridge, with, with those… things!”

  “And after that?”

  “I remember you shooting and running through that door.”

  “And after that?”

  She took some time responding. “After that, I just remember black.”

  “Falling?” I prompted.

  “Maybe,” she said noncommittally.

  “A dining room?”

  “A what?” she asked.

  Okay, I guess that repeating nightmare might be specific to me. “Never mind. I also experienced everything going black and woke up here. I just woke up a few minutes ago. It looks like a library.”

  “A library, eh?” she said. “I never liked libraries.”

  “And this isn’t the first time this happened – the whole waking up somewhere completely different. It happened twice before. That’s how we got to that place with the pyramid.” I felt I had to insist on what I knew was true, even in the face of sheer implausibility.

  “The Well?” she said. “So you didn’t bring me there? Y’know, kidnapped me and dragged me up there?”

  “No! I thought we went through this?” I was getting pissed.

  She smiled. “We did, I’m just fucking with you. You’re cute when you’re angry.”

  I narrowed my eyes and snorted before looking away.

  “At this point, I’m willing to believe anything,” she said, leaning back, her hands folded behind her head. “I don’t even know if this is happening. Is this a drug flashback? Hallucinations in my room at the hospital? Am I Alice in her own Wonderland? All I know is that whether fact or fantasy, something is going on. And even if it’s fantasy, I need to figure out how this fantasy works.”

  “That’s a… surprisingly sane thing to say, in a sort of not-sane way.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said, yawning, “After seeing those amputee monsters, I don’t want anymore bad trips. If I have any control over this, I’m going to take it. I haven’t had control for so long. I need to have it now. I hate being helpless. I hate being weak.” She leaned forward to me. “You seem like a nice guy, and I like you, John. I know that I need you to get me out of here. But honestly, I hate fucking needing you.” She leaned back in her chair.

  “I don’t know how to respond to that,” I said.

  “There’s no real response to that. Really. I know it sounds completely bizarre, even weirder when you hear it in conversation. But I’m not like other people, so people are going to hear what I feel, whether they like it or not. It sounds like I hate you but I don’t. I really do like you. I think you’re a good guy. I just don’t like needing you. I can’t be weak, not anymore. Not ever. I’ve been burned on that so many times before. I need to be strong, I need to do it myself. Every time I need somebody, I’m weak. I want to need people, I want people to help, I want to be loved. But I can’t. I need to be strong. At least… at least until I find myself.”r />
  “Is that really the best way? It just seems… I don’t know. Counterproductive?”

  She leaned forward and touched my arm, but her mouth was tight lipped. “John, I like you and I know you mean well, so don’t take this the wrong way. Normally I’d bitch someone out for saying that, so understand I’m trying to be as nice as possible. But no. I’m tired of people telling me what to do, claiming that they know better. Everyone wants to judge me, everyone wants to say what’s best for me. Everyone wants to get in my business when I just want to live my life. And I have to do it my way. Even if it’s wrong, I have to do it my way.”

  “But –“

  “No, John, seriously, it has to be this way. Even if it’s wrong, even if what they’re telling me is what’s right, I have to live my life. Only by living my life my way and seeing what works am I going to figure it out. And right now, it’s to not be helpless. So I know I need you, I’m not stupid. But… I hate that I need you. I don’t want to need you, I wish I didn’t need your help. That’s why this is so hard for me.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but then closed it, not knowing what to say. Her eyes glimmered with tears and she turned her head, looking around the room. I followed her lead and began looking around the room. There was a railing right next to us. Over it we had a clear view of the main circulation desk where a pretty young librarian with glasses was working. The circulation desk was pretty slow for the size of the library. Nobody was trying to check anything out. I wondered if it was day or night. There were no visible windows, just tall ceilings with hanging lamps.

  I sat back in my chair. I decided to see what book I was sleeping in. I laughed. Katie looked at me strangely and I held up the book cover for her. “The Great Escape. What have you got?”

  She flipped her magazine to the front page. “Yuck!” She lifted up the magazine from its corner with her fingertips, holding it as if it were toxic. “Better Homes and Gardens! I mean, eww! That’s just insulting!”

  I smiled, but that smile quickly disappeared from my face. “What is it?” asked Katie.

  “I recognize that voice!” I said, quickly turning to the railing and looking down. At the circulation desk was a familiar figure. The hair was different and he looked a number of years younger, but the features were the same. It was definitely him.

  “Who is it?” asked Katie, craning her neck to try to see.

  “Max,” I whispered, my eyes focused on him. It was definitely Max. A younger Max. Twenties, maybe? Definitely younger than the Max I met. At first I thought it could be a relative, but that thought disappeared. Once I heard him speak all doubt disappeared.

  “Th-thanks, Helen. How are y-you today?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m fine, Max,” she said, stamping the book that Max had given her. “Just hanging in there really. It’s been a slow day, so I’ve been catching up on some reading while Richard does some stacking. Someone’s got to be at this desk,” she said with a smile.

  “Th-that’s good. Sounds like a nuh-nuh-nice day.”

  “Yeah, it’s not bad,” she said, sliding his book back to him. “So this is due back in twenty days, on the nineteenth.”

  “Th-thanks,” he said, half turning as if to leave, then pausing in his spot. Then he seemed to decide. “L-listen, Helen. W-w-would you l-like to g-g-o to dinner t-tonight?”

  I saw Helen pause for a minute before replying, trying to wash her face of any inappropriate emotion. “Oh, that’s sweet, Max. But I’m sorry, I already have plans. I have a date with Brad tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Max. Even at this distance, he looked crestfallen. Poor guy probably got his heart broken. Helen saw it too.

  “It’s okay, Max,” she said, trying to catch his eye as he stared at the floor. “I’m sure there’s some girl out there that would love to go out with you!”

  “Y-yeah,” he said, not convinced. “I have to g-go.”

  “Oh, alright, Max,” Helen said, realizing she hadn’t gotten through to him. “Well, take care of yourself, Max. Things will get better.”

  “Y-yeah,” he said before turning and moping away. He kept that mope up the entire course of the library. He had some skills at being depressed. Eeyore had nothing on this guy.

  “That’s too bad,” I said.

  “No, it’s not. Good for her,” said Katie.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A guy like that, you need to cut them off immediately,” she said. “If she gave in to his puppy dog eyes and said, ‘well, maybe,’ she’d never be rid of him. She’d either be suckered into spending an agonizing date with him and then going through this exact same situation to cut him off or he’d end up stalking her for years. Maybe he’d try being her ‘good friend’ and confidante, but all the time he’d be in love with her, wanting to get into her pants, and giving her bad advice whenever any guy not like him wanted to date her. Then if she got into a relationship, he’d pick out every fault with the guy, press on her the first sign things went wrong, just to have a chance to put himself forward as an alternative.”

  “That’s a somewhat cynical view of things,” I said.

  “Yeah, but it’s true. I’ve been there. I don’t trust a guy who gets refused by a girl and then hangs around, trying to be her good friend.”

  “What if they just work well together as friends?”

  “I don’t buy it,” she said. “The attraction has been established by him making a play for her. It’s the elephant in the room and it won’t go away. If he still wants to be friends, he’s waiting in the wings for his chance. If she still wants to hangout, she wants to use his attraction for her to have a friendship where she wields more power.”

  “I change my mind, that’s an extremely cynical view of things.”

  “I just call them how I see them,” she said, matter of factly.

  “But what if their interaction was based on something other than ulterior motives? What if they don’t have agendas?”

  “They may not consciously, but they’re there.”

  “How can you make so broad a generalization?” I said. “I think we’ve all known friends who once dated but are great friends years late.”

  “Ah, but that’s the mystery ingredient. Years later. If they take a break and meet again or start again, they can be friends. But not directly after one says they want the other and are refused.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “You seem to have a lot of rules for things.”

  “It’s necessity,” she said. “Dating is dangerous. Everyone thinks it’s all simple, people coming together when they like each other and everything naturally goes well. That’s wrong. There are some fucked up people out there, and they’re just waiting to fuck over people. And then those people who got fucked over are now all wrong, so they unknowingly fuck over other people. It’s the great wheel of fuckover.”

  “I can’t say that I’ve been really successful with relationships, but I just feel that’s wrong,” I said.

  “See, you’ve been fucked over and don’t even know it. It’s that ignorance of your condition which will make you fuck over someone else without ever knowing it. You’re damaged goods. That sucks, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, so you say,” I said, growing annoyed. “Let’s get back to talking about Max instead.”

  “He’s damaged goods too.”

  “I’m not talking about his love life!” I said, immediately shocked at myself for raising my voice. I lowered it immediately. “I think all this weirdness we’re going through involves Max.”

  “Yeah? Explain.”

  “Think about it, we keep seeing Max everywhere we go.”

  “I know we saw him at the Well and now," she said. "I didn’t see him in those tunnels, the ones with the monsters. Unless he was one of the monsters. Does he seem the monster type? He looks like he has all his limbs.”

  Even though she was joking, I had an involuntary shiver thinking of those things. “No, we didn’t see him there, but that was the only place. We saw him here, a
t the Well, and the hospital before I found you. There was a kid in the hospital in 1985 and I think it was Max.”

  “Are you still going with that claim that we were in 1985?”

  “Yes! I don’t know how it happened, but it happened.”

  “But 1985? I could think of much cooler years if you were going to make shit up.”

  “I didn’t make it up!” I said. “You may not believe me, but it happened. I don’t know how we got there, but we did. I don’t know why you have such a hard time even just entertaining the idea! We traveled through whiteness, found a door which led us to a monster feeding pit. Does that make any more sense than time travel?”

  “Whoa, calm down there!” she said, putting her hands in the air in front of her. “Alright, alright. Let’s entertain this idea. So we were in an old version of the hospital, sometime in the past.”

  “1985,” I interjected.

  “Right, the hospital in 1985. And you think you saw Max?”

  “They called him Schraeder, and I’m almost positive they called him Max at some point. He was like thirteen or something.”

  “Tell me more,” she said. “I wasn’t awake for all this. Mighta looked like me, but it was all autopilot.”

  So I told her. I included every detail, from the diabolical nurses to the shock treatment, from the mutilation to the monster. I watched her face. It ranged from the incredulous to the fearful, from impassive to shocks of recognition when things became all too familiar. When that was all over, I decided to go for an encore, telling her everything had happened from when I met Max the first time, through meeting her, and ending at waking up in the old hospital. It was backwards, but things made a strange sort of sense knowing where we ended up.

  “Wow,” she said, sitting back. “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty unhappy about it.”

  “So you had seen that huge monster before. That’s why you ran.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” I said. “It just seemed to have ‘trouble’ written all over it.”