Tales of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy

by David Gatewood (ed)

  I pack a couple of bags for the kids, making sure they’ve got plenty of clean clothing and some munchies to take with them, and then I walk them over to the Burgess home.

  June Burgess is kind. She must have heard the yelling and screaming. I’m sure she saw the cop car. Neither of us mention Viv, but his old Harley-Davidson sounds like a diesel truck, so she would have heard him leave. She’s not dumb. She knows. I thank her profusely for looking after the kids and then jump in my car and drive into town.

  Chapter 04: Lightning

  Although it’s Sunday, I have a bad feeling Dr. Zizzane will be in his office. I park out of sight behind a restaurant in the next block, noting that Viv’s motorcycle is parked in front of Dr. Zizzane’s practice. I feel like I’m spying on my husband, like I’m the one doing something wrong, but I need answers. I need to understand why my husband greeted me with Heil Hitler. I need to understand what happened to me. I need the real Viv back. I appreciate that schizophrenia is a very real mental disease, but this is different. Something else is at work here. Someone else is playing the role of my husband, and I want to know who and why and how.

  Storm clouds brew overhead.

  Rain falls lightly.

  Flashes of lightning ripple through the dark cloud banks, but the crash of thunder is delayed. The heart of the storm is still several miles away.

  Rather than walking up to the front door, I sneak around the side of the building into a narrow alleyway. There’s an old factory at the rear. Smashed glass windows speak of decades of neglect.

  The side door to the office is locked, but the door hasn’t been pushed shut properly. A light touch, and the door swings open. I creep into a lunchroom kitchenette. The linoleum on the floor is worn. The table and chairs look circa 1950.

  Loud, angry voices drift from the hallway. I peer around the corner. The door to Dr. Zizzane’s office is ajar.

  “I’m telling you she knows.”

  “She doesn’t know. She can’t. She has no idea.”

  “Well, whatever you did to her, it didn’t work.”

  Dr. Zizzane says, “She was so drugged up, she shouldn’t have been able to remember her own name, let alone anything you said.”

  “She remembers,” Viv says. “I’m sure she remembers the whole Hitler thing. She might not understand, but she totally freaked out on me back there. She pulled a goddamn knife on me and called the cops!”

  “We’re close,” Dr. Zizzane says. “We’re so very close. One more treatment and I’m sure I can reverse the drift.”

  Viv says, “Even if you can get one of them back. Who would you choose? Who would she accept?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I’m confused. I’m on the verge of busting in on them when I pause to consider what could happen. Whatever’s going on, Viv is in too deep. If I back him into a corner, he may come out fighting. I should have brought a gun. We have a Glock in the nightstand, but in my haste I forgot it. No one knows I’m here. If they catch me, they might kill me.

  I hear Dr. Zizzane’s voice. “The storm is growing. We need to get to the laboratory.” And I dart back into the kitchenette in a panic, looking for somewhere to hide. There’s a broom closet. I open it and climb inside, trying to step over a mop and bucket. I’m clumsy. I knock the mop and it slips from my grasp, crashing into the table before falling to the floor.

  I’m not thinking straight. Somehow, I still think I can hide if I can just pull the mop back into the closet. I keep my feet anchored in the closet and reach out, fumbling for the mop, but in my haste I knock over one of the chairs.

  I grab the closet door and pull it shut, but there’s no handle on the inside. I can’t close the door properly. My fingers protrude from the thin crack between the door and the doorframe. My heart is pounding in my chest. I peer out at the hallway, expecting Viv and Dr. Zizzane to come running for me at any moment, but there’s no one there.

  I’m confused.

  I made enough noise to wake the dead.

  I wait for a few minutes before carefully climbing out of the cramped closet, trying not to knock anything else over. Slowly, I walk back into the hallway and creep up to the office door. There’s no sound from inside. With my heart thumping in my throat, I push gently on the door, wanting to peer into the office.

  The office is empty.

  I’m confused. There’s only one way in and out of the office. They can’t have walked past me. Either I would have seen them or they would have seen me. They should have heard me knocking around like an elephant in that closet, but they didn’t. Viv’s motorcycle helmet sits on one of the leather chairs.

  The dark, highly polished desktop is flawless. Even up close, there’s no sign of any scratches. Could it be brand new? If anything, the desk looks like something from a movie set. Nothing is out of place. A fountain pen sits parallel to a pad of untouched paper. Folders sit neatly in filing trays. There’s a photo of Dr. Zizzane with his family, but it looks too perfect. It could be a stock photo with the good doctor photoshopped in for all I know. It takes me a moment to realize what’s missing. There’s no computer. I saw Dr. Zizzane with a tablet, and I guess he could have a laptop, but it seems strange to see such a large desk with no computer monitor or keyboard.

  I run my finger along the bookcase. There’s no dust, which seems impossible, until I notice a slight draft coming from behind the books. I pull at a couple of the heavy reference works on the shelf. They’ve been stuck in place, set there for show. That one colorful book catches my eye again. I reach up and pull on it, only to see the bookcase part in the middle and open to reveal a dark passageway leading into the abandoned warehouse behind the office.

  I stand there dumbfounded. I feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Where will this lead? Do I really want to know? Perhaps I should simply go home and wait for Viv to reach out to me. I hesitate, but curiosity drives me on. I love Viv. We’ve been through so much together, but I can’t understand him. Perhaps this is what I need. Perhaps this will bring closure to my troubled soul.

  Lightning flickers through the skylights within the warehouse. Thunder breaks overhead, rattling my bones. The bookcase closes behind me, sealing me in the darkness.

  Rain drips through holes in the roof. Puddles splash softly beneath my shoes. The air feels electric. My fingers tingle.

  Gears grind somewhere at the back at the warehouse. A winch starts. Chains rattle. I creep forward, moving between steel supports. A blue light flickers and glows from somewhere up high ahead of me. Water runs in the cracks on the ground, but it shines like mercury, reflecting the flashes of light from above.

  Steel stairs climb through the rear of the building. My hand rests on the railing. A tremor runs through the metal, shaking the steel frame. I step slowly, listening as the stairs creak beneath my weight.

  Dr. Zizzane yells from somewhere on the roof, “Higher! We need more power!”

  Lightning breaks and thunder crashes overhead. The stairs glow. Sparks of electricity arc through the air, jumping between the steel girders lining the roof.

  “Mooooore! Ha ha! Can you feel the power? I must have more power!”

  I charge up the stairs.

  Fear drives me on.

  I can see the doctor. He’s standing on a raised glass platform that extends from the roof. Flashes of lightning throw his body into silhouette. He has his hands raised to the heavens. He’s a madman laughing at the dark sky, crying for more power. The rain is torrential, stinging my face as I climb the open stairwell. It must be ten or eleven in the morning, but outside it is as dark as midnight.

  Lightning strikes a steel rod reaching up from the platform, then arcs between a series of plates arranged in a circle like the paddle of a steamboat.

  “It’s too wet,” Viv yells above the storm. “It won’t work. We have to abort.”

  “It will work!” Dr. Zizzane cries. His white lab coat is soaked with rain, but it whips behind him as the wind swirls around him. “We must do thi
s now. Each strike unleashes a trillion watts of raw electrical power. I’m detecting gamma ray bursts exceeding those unleashed in a nuclear explosion!”

  I fight against the rain and the wind, climbing higher. I lose sight of Viv for a moment as I round a corner in the stairs.

  Dr. Zizzane pulls a lever, and five massive fans start blowing across the raised platform. I can see glowing orange heat coils inside them.

  I creep closer, trying to understand what’s happening.

  Viv stands on a large glass stage in the center of the platform. His hands and legs are pulled apart by steel shackles, stretching him between giant copper coils.

  Electricity dances around a steel crown directly above his head. Balls of lightning flicker between various probes and poles laid out symmetrically around him. The fans blow the fine raindrops away, pushing back the storm and drying the platform.

  “No!” I yell, running forward, but I slip on the wet stairs. I feel as though I’m wading through molasses as I struggle to pull myself along the wet railing. “Let him go!”

  Dr. Zizzane turns, sees me there dripping wet.

  “Ah, my dear, sweet Suzanne. You have joined us for our moment of triumph—the deconstruction of an inter-dimensional rift, vindicating my theories. No longer will they call me crazy!”

  Viv is wearing some kind of fire-retardant clothing, similar to what I’ve seen race car drivers or firefighters wearing. The heavy cloth fabric has a silver sheen, almost like chain mail. The mad doctor pulls a silver balaclava over Viv’s face, leaving only his eyes and mouth exposed. Then he wraps tinfoil around and around Viv’s head, mashing the foil against the balaclava.

  “Don’t do this!” I yell. “Viv. There’s got to be another way.”

  If Viv hears me, he doesn’t respond. Dr. Zizzane grabs a heavy metal chain, working a pulley that raises Viv some ten feet above the ground, pulling him into a spread-eagle position with a variety of heavy steel chains holding him in place.

  “You’re mad!” I yell, running up to the mad doctor.

  “Yes. Yes,” Zizzane cries, grabbing me and pulling me away from the glass platform. “We are all mad. We are multidimensional beings spanning infinite worlds, trying to make sense of the madness in the multiverse. You have felt it too? No? The déjà—the sense of not belonging—the dreams that you remember, only deep down you know these memories aren’t dreams—some days you feel as though you are an impostor. These are relics of other worlds!”

  “You’re crazy. I won’t let you do this.”

  Zizzane grabs me, throws me to the ground.

  Lightning strikes the main body of the roof. Fire breaks out in the wooden rafters. Sections of the roof collapse as steel girders buckle under repeated lightning strikes.

  “You cannot stop me. Not now. Not when we are so close.”

  “Close to what?” I cry, watching as electric blue arcs flicker around Viv. His body convulses. His arm shake and spasm.

  “You’re killing him!” I yell.

  Dr. Zizzane has an iron grip on my wrist.

  “I’m saving him. I’m setting him free.”

  “You’re a madman,” I shout against the wind howling around us.

  “Mad? Yes! All genius is madness.”

  Lightning strikes the coils, and there’s an explosion of blinding light. Streaks of ball lightning erupt from the steel cables holding Viv aloft, shooting out into the darkness.

  “MORE!” the doctor yells, looking at an industrial gauge. “I must have more power!”

  “Please,” I cry, pleading for mercy. “Let him go.”

  “You don’t understand,” Zizzane cries, yelling over the thunder crashing around us. “Your husband drifts between worlds. He’s seen things you cannot imagine. Dinosaurs roaming through Florida. Nazis conquering California. Martians invading the swamps of Alabama. And all while you worry about what to wear to your sister’s wedding.”

  He laughs at the power he wields, yelling, “If I am mad then you are blind!”

  He twists my wrist and pushes me into the corner of the platform. I slump against a control panel as he pulls levers, pushes large mechanical switches, and twists vast dials.

  Thunder explodes around us.

  Rain lashes my face.

  Zizzane is insane. He laughs at the electricity crackling around us.

  “Viv is remarkable. Astonishing,” he shouts. “Viv has lived through what others can only dream about. All your conspiracy theories. They’re all true. But not here. Not now. They’re real in a billion parallel worlds.”

  I yell, “You’re insane!”

  “Am I?” Zizzane’s hair waves wildly in the wind. “Yes, I am. Ha ha. One man thinks Castro killed Kennedy, another remembers something about the CIA, yet another is certain it was the Russians. Or was it Lee Harvey Oswald?

  “Is it so crazy to consider they’re all true but in different worlds? And yet we remember these conspiracy theories in ours. Our subconscious clings to these distant imprints from parallel worlds, blurring the lines of reality.

  “Am I crazy? Yes. I’m crazy. We’re all crazy—everyone is, except Viv. He’s the only one that knows. He’s the only sane man in a world full of madmen.”

  Another lightning bolt strikes at one of the steel cables wrapped around Viv’s arms. Viv screams. Bits of burning tinfoil blow on the breeze.

  Zizzane laughs, yelling at the dark clouds, “More! More!! MORE!!!”

  Electricity arcs around Viv, dancing over the massive electrodes protruding from the glass platform. Zizzane is crazy. I have to stop him. He’s going to kill Viv.

  I jump to my feet and rush Dr. Zizzane, grabbing him and pulling him away from the control panel.

  “No!” he screams. “You cannot stop me! I won’t let you!”

  “You’ve got to let him go!” I shout.

  “You don’t understand,” Zizzane yells, picking up a large plumber’s wrench. “Gamma radiation is all that can traverse these worlds. I can cure him. I can bring him back. He must be irradiated. But he needs more or the isotopes injected into his brain will never harmonize with this reality.”

  “You need to stop,” I say as rain runs down my face, sticking my hair to my neck.

  Zizzane swings the wrench at me as though it’s a baseball bat.

  “Don’t make me hurt you,” he yells as I back away from him, stumbling into the blast furnace coming from the heat fans. A searing wind scorches at my face, but I’m determined to free Viv.

  Lightning flashes around us.

  “I’m coming, Viv!” I yell above the breaking thunder.

  Zizzane advances on me, swinging his wrench again. The wrench is heavy and cumbersome for him, making it easy to dodge. I pick up a chair, using the chair legs to keep him at bay, but he swats it to one side, knocking the chair from my hands with a single blow.

  “They called me insane,” he yells. “They said my research was criminal. But Viv is the proof I need.”

  “Put down the wrench,” I plead, backing up the steel stairs leading to the glass platform. The greenish glass must be six feet thick. Viv hangs there above the glass, screaming in agony.

  Thunder explodes overhead. The tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.

  “Just let him go,” I cry, feeling the slick glass beneath my feet.

  Viv begs, “Please, make him stop.”

  “Listen to him!” I scream, trying to get Zizzane to see reason.

  I slip and fall on the glass. Zizzane towers over me, standing on the top step of the stairs. He raises the wrench high above his head like an axe, but before he can bring it down, lightning strikes. The flash is blinding. The smell of burnt flesh explodes into the air. I blink and see Zizzane’s lifeless body lying almost twenty feet away over by the control panel. Smoke drifts from his crazy, frazzled hair.

  “Viv!” I yell, racing to the pulley. I yank at the chain, lowering him to the glass platform. Electricity crackles around me. Blue balls of electricity race up the pylons surrounding the platfor
m.

  Viv’s feet touch the glass, but he makes no effort to stand. The chain rolls beneath my fingers as I work furiously with the pulley until Viv is lying on the thick glass slab.

  “Oh, Viv,” I sob, rushing to free him from the chains. I tear at the strands of tinfoil, ripping them away from his face. Thunder bursts overhead—an angry god raging at the loss of a sacrifice.

  I struggle with the straps wrapped around his wrists and his ankles. I pull the fireproof gloves from his hands and the boots from his feet. “Viv. Viv. Viv. I am so sorry. What has this madman done to you?”

  Sirens sound in the distance, growing louder as emergency vehicles rush toward the old warehouse. Someone must have seen the burning roof.

  Gently, I peel back the smoldering silver balaclava covering his face. Viv is badly injured. His eyebrows are singed. The hair on his head is burnt and his skin is charred.

  “Suzie.”

  And I freeze—looking deep into his eyes.

  “Is it? Is it really you?”

  He doesn’t need to answer. I can tell from the touch of his fingers, the soft gravel in his voice, the light in his eyes.

  “Oh, Viv. You’re back. It’s really you.”

  Viv sits up, moving slowly. His muscles are stiff. Each movement seems to require a herculean effort.

  He squeezes my hand and says, “Seven years, four months, eighteen days, and two hundred and thirty-one different worlds, but I’m home, babe. I’m home.”

  I drop his hand.

  “No,” slips from my lips.

  “It’s me, baby.”

  Babe, baby—not honey.

  I’m not sure what I should think. I don’t know quite what I feel.

  “Seven years,” I say. This is the man I married, but this is not the man I’ve lived with for the last seven years.

  Seven years have been stolen from us. We’re strangers. We’ve both lived seven years with someone else. Was Zizzane right? What horrors has Viv lived through these past seven years? I want to say that this is the man I love, but I don’t know anymore. We lost each other. There is so much we need to regain. It hurts to think Zizzane was right, that reality isn’t fixed. Somewhere out there, Nazi Germany won the war. In some other world, Viv walked with dinosaurs. My mind cannot begin to comprehend the chaos that must exist in a billion parallel universes.