by Bryan Hall
The anticipation burned just under the surface of his skin and he started to sweat, his body reacting to what it would feel when the circuit was closed.
If only this was an exact science.
He swirled his finger around in a circular pattern, feeling the flesh and other matter part for him, warm to the touch and inducing both a squeamish and an almost erotic response from him, as if he were manipulating genitalia. He shivered with expectant ecstasy held at bay, waiting, waiting, for his skin to make the desired connection. Below the pad of his finger he felt the top surface of the metal plate that kept Rick Dempsey’s brain from bubbling up through the crack and cavity in his war-ravaged skull.
The metal plate was heating, sending its signal up through his index finger. Cedric Lindstrom trembled. He felt an erection beginning. He felt sweat trickle down his back and pool under his armpits.
His finger spread some wet, fleshy substance aside and penetrated further into the cavity.
Dempsey’s eyes sprang open, but he could not move.
Lindstrom knew he was almost there. He swirled sideways, and suddenly the circuit was closed and his expectation was exceeded once again.
The sensation grew, and suddenly it was as if a bolt of electrical current had leaped from the metal plate (and whatever was just underneath it—presumably the clump of shrapnel they had been forced to leave inside) and discharged through the skin of his fingertip and into his phalange and on to the metacarpal, and from there into his arm like lightning.
His body jumped with the energy that coursed through his veins, tendons, and bones, and his eyes rolled up into his head.
It was the greatest, best high he had ever experienced, even after decades of experimenting with both street and the most advanced designer drugs available to him, given his medical practice.
It was the greatest, best high ... and it seemed to encompass every cell, every sinew of his being. It was sensual and erotic and led to an immediate orgasm, which would have been a bummer ... except that as long as the current flowed, there would be another orgasm right behind the first. And then again.
As long as his finger remained in that position, closing the circuit between the brain, the skull, the plate, and most likely the shrapnel itself, Lindstrom rode the sexual roller coaster that was Private Dempsey’s ruined brain.
As he jiggled and shivered through a series of orgasmic episodes, Lindstrom’s eyes refused to acknowledge that below his hand—buried in the soldier’s head almost to the palm now—the young man’s head was shaking rapidly from side to side and his eyes were nearly bursting from their sockets, open and staring with stark horror that would have been reflected in the endless scream from his gaping mouth ... except that his vocal cords had been severed by other shrapnel, and the scream would forever remain silent.
Dr. Cedric Lindstrom rode the high of the brain-crack now jolting through his system, oblivious to the horrific visions that his incursion was causing his young patient.
The circuit stayed open for nearly an hour.
Byron Stevens strode across the parking lot to the towering office building. He double-checked the address, comparing it with the one on the pamphlet he gripped in his sweaty hand. Though it was warm in the late-afternoon sunshine, he felt a chill that cut bone-deep.
A shadow passed over him, but when he glanced up to see what had cast it, he found nothing but an endless expanse of pale blue sky. He hastened his pace.
At the corners of his vision dark shapes moved, tailing him and then vanishing when he turned to look their way.
He jogged now, closing the remaining distance between himself and the building quickly. The doctor ducked in through the glass double doors, staring behind him as the entrance slowly hissed closed.
Wondering whether he was out of its grasp.
Not wanting to be.
The therapist’s office wasn’t exactly what Dr. Byron Stevens had expected. He’d imagined himself reclining on the proverbial couch, the shrink seated next to him in a plush high–backed chair, taking notes on a legal pad. Instead, Julia Chambers sat facing him across a cluttered desk—a computer monitor and a paper-stuffed inbox won the top-of-the-heap contest. Overworked, maybe? Framed degrees shared wall space with an oil painting of a sailing ship teetering on a roiling sea. A bookcase sagged with a hodgepodge of psychology textbooks entombing framed photographs of what Byron assumed were her now grown children.
“So, Dr. Stevens,” Chambers said. “What did you want to talk about today?”
“Umm ...” Byron hesitated. He’d never seen a shrink before and honestly he didn’t want to talk to her about anything. His appointment was mandated as part of his rehab and probation. Really, he was damn lucky he hadn’t lost his medical license yet, though a review board could still pull the trigger. He should have known better than to write himself all those scrips in a vain effort to recapture the ...
The high. Call it what it is.
Problem was, there was only one way to relive the high.
Lord, his hands and feet itched at the thought of what he was missing.
Sure, the VA had cut him some slack. He was under a lot of stress after the deaths and the trial. He’d been acquitted of the worst of it, but still lived under a cloud of suspicion. His career hung by a thread.
“Why don’t you just start at the beginning?” Chambers prompted.
He was distracted by her tan pantsuit and gaudy low–hanging silver pendant that resembled a primitive bird, some kind of stones forming its eyes. Her hair was obviously dyed, reddish-brown with a little gray sneaking in near her temples, thick makeup attempting to cover her age lines. When Byron realized that she was watching his hands, he stopped wringing them, which was what he did in lieu of scratching them bloody.
“Don’t think too hard, Dr. Stevens. Just start talking. You’ve been through a lot and it’s completely normal––all things considered––that you should feel emotions that are hard to deal with on your own. Opening up and talking about it will help you face your inner turmoil. So, where do you think this all started?”
Byron sighed. “It started when I first met Private Rick Dempsey. Hell, he’d already endured a dozen surgeries and a year and a half of physical therapy when I first saw him at the VA hospital. That kid had been through a lot. I already knew that from his file, but actually seeing him drove it home.” He licked his lips, suddenly dry, and Chambers handed him a bottle of water. After pausing to drink, Byron continued.
“The explosion had almost killed him outright. It was a worst-case scenario: Now he was a quadruple amputee with extensive damage to his chest, abdomen, and face. He’d lost his ability to speak due to damage to his throat, had lost his left eye, and he still carried a fragment of shrapnel in his frontal lobe—removal of the shrapnel would kill him, they decided. A metal plate was what kept his brain from being exposed. His previous doctor had just retired due to illness and I had taken over the young man’s case.”
Private Dempsey had come in for his regularly scheduled visit. Seeing his war-torn body—scar upon scar upon scar—jarred Byron. Trying to be kind, he had told the soldier that he was lucky to be alive. “His single remaining eye damned me for my poor choice of words,” added Byron.
He continued. “It wasn’t a long visit. A quick blood pressure test, pulmonary, respiratory. Though he’d come in with a powered wheelchair, I had him ambulate a short distance on his prosthetic legs. Rick’s lack of vocal cords required that he wrote down answers to any questions that I had. He was on a waiting list for a speaking valve, you know, God bless the USA, but he was reasonably skilled—considering the circumstances—with a pen in the stainless steel hook that had replaced his right hand. In this way he complained to me about headaches, which I’d seen in his charts. And he brought up a newer problem that he assumed had been caused by his head injuries: hallucinations.”
“What kind of hallucinations?”
“Well, that’s a large question, isn’t it?”
; Chambers tilted her head at Byron’s defensiveness. She waved for further details.
“Okay, so, I had him scheduled for an immediate set of new X–rays and other imaging to make sure the shrapnel in his head hadn’t moved or caused hemorrhaging in the brain.”
Byron felt a sudden presence behind him, looming over him in the chair. He snapped his head around and quickly scanned the room. A cold, clammy sweat squeezed from the pores on the back of his neck. His breath hitched and then sped up.
“Dr. Stevens. Are you all right?” the therapist asked.
Byron swung his head slowly back around. Disoriented, it took him a moment to remember where he was and why.
Byron shook off the question, and the fleeting paranoia. “Yes, of course!” He glanced at his watch. “Where was I? Umm ... oh, yes, the results of Dempsey’s imaging panels were inconclusive. But I was concerned, so I sent him to see a longtime acquaintance of mine, a specialist in brain trauma. Dr. Cedric Lindstrom, head of the trauma unit at University Hospital. Shortly afterward, Dr. Lindstrom and I met privately to discuss the case.”
“Cedric, it’s great to see you.” Byron extended his hand across the table. Cedric had surgeon’s hands, soft yet strong and undeniably skilled. Though it was two o’clock in the afternoon, only the faintest trace of sunlight reached their table in the back corner of the restaurant, rendering the air around them hazy.
“It’s been a while,” Cedric said.
“Too long.”
Byron pulled out a chair and sat.
“I hope you don’t mind, I ordered a starter for you,” Cedric said. “Glenfiddich—neat, wasn’t it?”
“Perfect,” said Byron, lifting the glass to his lips. Then: “So how have you been? How are things with Marcy, and the dogs?”
“Well, the divorce was finalized six months ago. And she got the dogs.”
“Oh, shit, Cedric. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, it’s for the best. Things were getting rough, near the end. You know, we all work too much. It’s hard to maintain a strong relationship and a big career. The career always wins. Besides, now I can trade up for a younger model!”
“That’s the right attitude. Cheers to that!” Byron raised his glass and Cedric followed suit, a strangely blank expression on his face.
“And you?” Cedric asked after drinking.
“Same story, I guess,” Byron answered with a shrug. “Busy all the time. Cell phone in one hand and pager in the other. Hell, I’m on call right now.” He swirled his Scotch. “But don’t tell.” He winked.
“My lips are sealed!”
The waiter came and they ordered, and after a few squalls of chat about sports and the weather, they ate their steaks in relative silence. After indulging in the finest New York strip their money could buy, and another round of single malt, Byron turned the conversation to the topic that had been weighing on his mind for several weeks. “So, that boy Dempsey that I sent to you. What ever became of him?”
Cedric coughed once, then coughed at length. He seemed to have been taken by surprise. “Oh, the war hero,” he said, wiping a golden drop from his lower lip. “Well, that’s a very interesting case.”
“A tragic case,” Byron amended.
“Yes, that kid’s been through some hard circumstances, and he’s facing more, no doubt of that.”
“Did you come to a determination of whether his hallucinations have a real physical basis, or are they mostly PTSD-related?”
“As I said, a very intriguing case. Are you at all familiar with the work of a Dr. Elias Raymond?”
Byron shook his head.
“Of course not, why would you be? Raymond had some unusual theories. He was something of a pioneer in brain science, conducting some strange experiments in Costa Rica way back in the late 1800s. His theories—at least those in his later years—hinged on the idea that with a small modification to the frontal lobe one could glimpse ... well, as he termed it ‘beyond the veil’ or ‘seeing the Great God Pan.’”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“Yes, what is the veil? Raymond theorized that we—people—only perceive a small portion of the universe and that with a small alteration to the brain a person would be able to ... possibly peek into other dimensions.”
This time Byron almost choked. “Wait a minute! What you’re saying is that Dempsey is seeing into another dimension?”
Cedric chuckled. Nervously. “No! Not at all. That’s ... ridiculous. What I’m saying is that the incision made by the shrapnel may be causing his hallucinations. And that Dr. Raymond’s experiments—though, er, misguided—may have carried a small grain of truth. Most of our higher brain functions—like sight—take place in the frontal lobe. I think the damage done to our young hero’s brain is giving him what seem to be very real visions. When I say very real, I mean that often he can’t differentiate his hallucinations from reality. He is seeing the Great God Pan.”
Byron drained his Scotch, shaken. “Have you considered removing the shrapnel?”
“No. Much too dangerous. It would be almost impossible to remove it without giving him a stroke, and probably even killing him.”
“Can medications help?”
“Nothing that I know of. I’m working with him closely. As I said, a very interesting case. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe something like this.”
“Hell, Cedric, he’s not an experiment!” Byron objected, raising his voice. “He’s been through enough, hasn’t he?”
“Relax, Byron, I’m not saying he’s an experiment.” Cedric looked around the quiet restaurant. “But at this time there’s nothing we can do but observe. Observe and experience.”
Chambers said, “So do you think you did the right thing by referring Private Dempsey to Dr. Lindstrom?”
Byron squirmed in the chair while he reflected on the therapist’s question. He was on the verge of an answer that seemed just out of reach. He sighed, then shook his head.
Chambers waited patiently, her expression hard to read.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “It seemed the right choice at the time. At least, it seemed logical. It wasn’t until later that I realized that, although Cedric Lindstrom had been a friend, he wasn’t quite a trusted friend. He was was fine to have a few drinks with, while discussing sports and politics. But I realized he wasn’t the kind of friend you shared secrets with.”
“So was Dempsey’s condition a secret?” Chambers tilted her head as if one earring had suddenly gained in weight.
“No. I’m just saying that Cedric Lindstrom was the kind of physician, person, who always looks out for his own interests, first and foremost. You know, the kind of person who will hold you over a barrel if it’ll give him an advantage.”
“And did Dr. Lindstrom have you over a barrel?”
“In a matter of speaking. I had referred Dempsey to him. If he wasn’t one hundred percent trustworthy, then what was I?”
“So did you feel guilty about the referral?”
“I guess so. After I spoke to him, yes, I felt I’d made a mistake.”
“And it was sometime after this meeting with Cedric Lindstrom that you ...” she checked her notes ... “heard from Private Dempsey’s mother?”
“Yeah, a couple of weeks later.”
“And did you immediately connect Lindstrom with Dempsey’s ... disappearance?”
“No! Yes ... maybe. I was simply trying to contact Cedric to see if he’d seen or heard from Dempsey. I thought—”
“When you couldn’t get a hold of Lindstrom, did you suspect a connection?”
“I didn’t suspect anything.” Byron wiped sweat from his brow. “Maybe I did. Maybe I should have ...”
“That was when you went to the Lindstrom’s house?”
“Yes,” Byron whispered, squirming.
The late-morning sun was blinding today. Byron shielded his eyes from its glare as he wound his way to Dr. Cedric Lindstrom’s front door, along the paving stone path that meandered t
hrough a carefully manicured lawn dotted with well-designed flower beds. When he reached the carved oak portal, Byron pressed the doorbell. The chime sounded inside, beyond the tiny, polished-wood-surrounded, leaded-glass window. He waited.
He rang the bell again.
Byron had just about given up and was turning to leave, when the door opened a crack.
“Hello?” a hoarse voice came from inside.
“Hello, Cedric? It’s Byron. I didn’t know ... I wasn’t sure. Are you free to talk?”
Cedric Lindstrom stared out at Byron through the security chain as if he were trying to decipher a coded message. His eyes were bloodshot. Byron thought Cedric hadn’t shaved—or slept, or even bathed—for days. There was a rank odor wafting from the open door.
“Byron?” Cedric asked, strange confusion in his tone, as if he’d run his finger down a list until Byron’s name had rung a bell.
“Yes, it’s me, Cedric. Can I come in? Can we talk?” Byron stepped closer and looked his old friend in the eye.
Recognition seemed to wash over Cedric’s features. He attempted a smile, but it turned to grimace. His eyes twitched and squinted in the blinding sunlight. “Of course, Byron. Please, come in,” he said. He closed the door and Byron thought he was being rejected, but after disengaging the lock, Lindstrom stepped aside and opened his home to Byron.
“My God, Cedric, you look like complete shit,” Byron said bluntly as he sidled inside past the physician, whose body did carry the smell of sweat and unwashed clothing.
Lindstrom quickly fumbled the chain back into place, slid closed the deadbolt, and turned the lock button on the doorknob. “Can’t be too careful,” he said with a tremor in his voice.
“No, I guess you can’t,” Byron said. He felt a growing discomfort that was part fear for his own safety and part sadness for his friend’s condition. Maybe losing Marcy had been harder on Cedric than he’d let on.