by John Tigges
Gorkland shrugged. “Continue.”
Myles outlined the out-of-the-ordinary things that had happened since Nicole had performed the rite. Pondering for a long minute as to whether he should tell the priest about Nicole having performed the paganistic ritual, he hesitated.
“Are the two of you living together?” Gorkland asked.
Myles blinked at the suddenness and directness of the question. “As a matter of fact, we are.”
“It never ceases to amaze me,” the priest snapped. “People think they can go around sinning and doing whatever they want and then when they think they have a problem, they come running to the Church—to a priest. Well, let me tell you one thing, young man,” Gorkland said, standing, to pull himself to his full height, “it won’t work here. Go to confession. Clean up your act. Get right with God before you come around here trying to waste my time. I have more than enough to keep me busy with those good, God-fearing people who belong to my parish. You don’t belong to it, do you? I thought not.” He smiled grimly, smugly.
“I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I might not be a Catholic,” Myles said, cursing his luck for having had the bad fortune of calling on a hard-nosed throwback. Why did the priest worry about his God-fearing parishioners if they weren’t in trouble? Or did he merely want the time to himself and not have to worry about making waves where others were concerned? Why worry about the ones he felt he had apparently saved already?
Gorkland finally looked up at Myles, his face pale. “I … I apologize, Mr. Lawrence,” he offered lamely. “You have no idea the amount of stress that I’ve been under lately. This so-called ‘new morality’ is a tough pill for anyone in my position to swallow. From what you’ve told me, I don’t see how I could do any good for your friend. Perhaps a competent psychiatrist or psychologist might be better.”
“Well, thank you for your time, Father,” Myles said coldly. Standing, he moved out of the office. Would he meet with this type of lethargy wherever he went if he and Nicole thought that a clergyman was their only answer? At least Gorkland had apologized, which at the moment seemed like a lot more than Myles had expected.
Gorkland continued sitting at his desk, watching the newsman leave his office, an air of indifference hanging on his face.
Wednesday, November 19, 1986 12:22 A.M.
“Good night, darling,” Myles said, leaning over to kiss Nicole on the lips. During the day she had fared better than either had expected. Except for her story about Stacey and the coffee break and the unpleasant moment with Rose Tunic when she returned fifteen minutes late, the day had gone quite smoothly for Nicole.
He had refrained from telling her of his encounter with Gorkland, other than to tell her that he had called on a priest and that the clergyman had suggested the science of psychiatry as a possible way out.
“Nice,” had been her reply, and they had not talked of her dream or the disturbances of the last few weeks. Instead, they had opted to go to bed at once, hoping to collect some overdue sleep.
In minutes after kissing, Nicole lay on her back, her breasts rising and falling steadily in an evenly orchestrated sleep. Myles turned on one side and in seconds had drifted off.
He awoke immediately when he heard the ripping sound. He sat up in the dark, unable to see the blanket that had covered them sailing to the ceiling. The sheet beneath it was being torn full length from bottom to top, as if someone invisible grasped it at the foot of the bed and tore it in two.
“What the … ?” he mumbled sleepily, struggling to understand what was happening.
Before he could utter a sound or reach out to touch Nicole to awaken her, he felt her move next to him. Then, in the darkness, he could no longer feel her weight. He reached out, fumbling for the lamp switch on his side of the bed.
The only sound escaping his lips was a short, hoarse scream when he saw Nicole floating in midair, four feet above the bed.
11
Wednesday, November 19, 1986 1:45 A.M.
Myles leaped to his feet. What he saw had to be a dream. Nicole could not be floating above the bed. That was simply impossible. He hurried around to her side of the bed, gingerly reaching out to touch her. Would her skin feel any different? Was this all an hallucination? Why did he feel as if he didn’t want to touch her?
Forcing himself, he stretched out his hand farther until he brushed the flesh of her left arm. She felt absolutely normal. Warm. Had he anticipated a cold sensation?
The door to the hallway slammed behind him. He jumped, turning in midair himself. Landing on both feet, he clenched his fists, not knowing what he expected to find facing him. Nothing. There was nothing. No one. Who had slammed the door? He tiptoed toward it. Just as he was about to turn the knob, the bathroom door opened and closed with a bang, only to open again. Then the hall door did the same, and the two began opening and closing alternately, banging shut only to slam against the wall the next instant. The medicine cabinet joined in the commotion as did the drawers of the bureaus. As the sliding doors of the closet began opening and closing, Myles turned his attention back to Nicole who still hovered over the bed.
When he stood next to her, she gently moved back and forth in line with his face. Grabbing her, he tried to force her back to the bed and was met with a hoarse chuckle that seemed to fill the room and his head.
Throwing his hands over his ears, he searched the room with widening eyes. Who was laughing? Who was making the ruckus with the doors? How and why and who was making Nicole hang in midair?
“Jesus Christ!” he mumbled under his breath, unable to comprehend.
Nicole immediately dropped to the bed and awakened. Sitting up, she looked at Myles, standing next to her, his hands over his ears, his eyes bulging out. The doors closed quietly and the drawers of the bureau remained shut the next time they were in that position.
When he realized that she was back on the bed and awake, he glanced at the doors and found them closed. Slowly removing his hands from his ears, he forced a smile and said, “Are you all right?”
Nicole shook her head. “Are you all right, Myles? Do you realize what you were doing?”
He thought for a moment and shook his own head.
She cupped her hands over her ears and bulged her eyes out. “If you had puffed up your cheeks and stuck your tongue out, I would have thought you were doing a Harpo Marx impression. What was going on that made you do that?”
“Why do you ask what was going on?”
She peered at him, not sure of what he meant by repeating her question. “I … I don’t understand.”
“You have to believe what I’m going to tell you.” He sat down on the bed next to her, grasping one of her hands in his. “You were floating over the bed.”
She felt her skin go clammy. “Floating?” she managed after a short pause.
Nodding, he said, “I guess I believed some of the different things that you said happened. But I didn’t buy everything. At least now I’ve seen some of the weird things myself.”
“Weird things? What do you mean?”
He described the doors opening and closing, making all kinds of racket when they slammed shut or against the walls. “Even the medicine cabinet door was swinging back and forth,” he finished.
Reaching out, she hugged him tight around the neck. “I’m scared, Myles. What are we going to do? Was the priest serious when he said we should consult a psychiatrist?”
Myles thought of Gorkland. No wonder the priest had been reluctant to offer any help. He had not expressed the case with any degree of conviction. All Myles had done was tell him, quite second-handedly, about Nicole’s experiences. He had not been able to communicate the horror of an unseen presence in the apartment. And Nicole had had to face it alone before his return. When he felt Nicole tightening her hold around his neck and heard the gentle sobs coming from her, he knew he had to do something and do something soon.
“He said we should consult a doctor but I think I probably goofed when I tol
d him about everything.”
“Goofed?” she said, drawing back to look at him. “I … I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t present everything as strongly as I should have. I had no idea that these things were so … so …”
“Real?” she finished for him.
He nodded. “And frightening.”
“Your ruined clothing was real, wasn’t it? Didn’t you explain to him that that happened while we were in bed, asleep, not over four feet away from the closet?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t do it in a convincing way. I’ll go back to him tomorrow. I have to. My God, Nicole, we can’t go on like this. We both need our sleep and look at us. Wide awake and going on …” he turned to look at the digital alarm clock, “… three in the morning.”
“Let’s get up and make some coffee,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.
“Look at this,” he said, holding up the torn sheet. “That’s what woke me up. The sound of it ripping—or being ripped. It must have been torn from the bottom since it’s still joined at the top by a few threads.” He pointed to the end of the sheet that had been closest to their faces.
After looking at the cover, Nicole slipped into her dressing gown and went to the kitchen. Myles followed, tying the sash of his robe.
While she made coffee, he wondered about the priest, Father Gorkland. Why had he been so indifferent? Was it before he had told him that he might not even be a Catholic? Or that the man had berated him for living with Nicole without the benefit of marriage? What difference? Gorkland had apologized and Myles felt that it would be within the realms of propriety if he returned and restructured his way of telling of the events. When he thought of Nicole hovering in midair, he shuddered, forcing a smile when she sat down opposite him. For the rest of the night, they talked of their predicament and what the final outcome might be.
1:30 P.M.
Nicole’s head jerked as she caught herself sleeping at her desk. That was pretty bad. It wasn’t like her to do something like that—not even if she were exhausted to the point of collapsing. But her body had just tried to force her into a sleep. Wasn’t that the point of collapse? Sitting up most of the night with Myles had not helped her tired state previously instigated by the dream of the night before. Although she had been asleep during it, the aftereffects had been draining. She had barely managed to get through the day after meeting with Stacey and her little run-in with Rose Tunic. But at least she had made it. The sleep and rest she was supposed to have gotten last night had been her incentive to get through that day. And it had been denied her. How would she survive today?
“Very nice.”
The words, icy cold, rankled Nicole. Rose Tunic. Looking up, Nicole saw the overweight woman filling her doorway. Why Doctor Clay-pool and the others kept Rose around escaped her. She seemed to be more of a troublemaking, incompetent and unattractive liability as opposed to the general, stereotyped business asset that Claypool had spoken of when he had interviewed Nicole. She made a mental note to ask Rob Lanstrom about her.
“Yes, Miss Tunic?” she asked, demanding from her tired facial muscle a smile of some sort.
“I’ve been watching you.”
“Really.”
“Yes, and I must say you really aren’t interested too much in your welfare or your job security here, are you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Fifteen minutes late from your coffee break yesterday and today … well, let me say that sleeping at one’s desk is highly improper at any place of business. But most especially here at the clinic.”
Nicole waited. What was this overdressed walrus going to do? Blackmail her? Expose her to Doctor Claypool? In a way, Nicole almost wished that she would tell the doctor. If that happened, she could explain to him what had been going on in her apartment over the last weeks.
“If I see one more infraction of proper etiquette or business decorum on your part around this office—or any place else for that matter—I’ll report you at once with a recommendation of instant dismissal. Do I make myself clear?” She peered over the teardrop-shaped horn-rimmed glasses, hanging precariously on the tip of her nose.
“Certainly. Now get out of my office so I can do some work … Miss Tunic!”
Without a word, the woman turned, waddling from the small room. Nicole picked up the phone and dialed Rob’s number after looking it up. “Rob? Nicole. Have you got a minute? I want to ask you something.”
2:00 P.M.
Rob lighted a cigarette after Nicole had settled opposite him. “What’s up?” he asked, smiling.
“Rose Tunic.”
“Oh-oh. Has the baby blimp been up to her old tricks again?”
“Old tricks?”
He adjusted the oversized glasses and drew on his cigarette. “Throwing her weight around. And I mean that figuratively not literally because if she ever did that, the seismographs would go crazy all over the country.”
Nicole snickered.
“Did I say that?” Rob asked, feigning shock. “She likes to make her job of office manager much more important than it really is. Ignore her. You answer to Doctor Claypool and no one else. He passes on your ideas and work suggestions. No one else.”
“Why is she like that?”
“Put yourself in her shoes for a second. You might have a tough time imagining this, but if you were about one hundred forty pounds overweight and tried to wear dresses that were five sizes too small for you and looked like Rose Tunic, you wouldn’t be much of a fun person either, would you?”
Nicole smiled wanly. “I guess not. Why doesn’t she clean her act up, then?”
“I don’t think she knows how. Either that or she’s not aware what she actually looks like. I sure don’t want to be the one to tell her. Do you?”
“I guess not,” Nicole said, reluctantly agreeing. She had enough of her own problems. The last thing she needed was a person like Rose hanging onto her like a pet dog because she paid a bit of kind attention to her. Maybe down the road, once she and Myles solved the dilemma facing them at home, she might make an overture to Rose—but it would be a brief encounter at most.
Standing to leave, she stopped at the door. “Is Doctor Claypool ever negative on hearing about one of his employee’s problems?”
Rob stood in a form of goodbye to his friend. “Rose? I don’t know. I suppose he might. I guess it would come under the heading of a job benefit if that ever happened.”
“Thanks, Rob,” she said, swinging out the door. She felt better now that she had talked with him. Rose would no longer be a threat to her. And it certainly worked out well when he thought she was referring to Rose when she asked about Doctor Claypool being consulted by one of the clinic employees. She’d file that away for future use and talk it over with Myles if they decided they should consult with the doctor.
Walking back to her office, the slogan she had created for part of the publicity campaign for the clinic suddenly sprang into her mind.
“No matter what the problem is—we can help!” But would her problem qualify within the framework of that statement? What would Doctor Claypool say if she approached him and said something like: “Say, Doctor, I’ve got this strange thing hanging around my apartment and I don’t mean Myles. This peculiar son-of-a-gun just about drives the two of us nuts. It does all these weird things, like stinking up the place and flooding the bedroom and bathroom. He even made me float in midair once. What do you say about something like that, Doc?”
She had studied enough about psychology to know that at best it was an empirical science, and items and instances for which there might be no definite proof could never be confronted as being real. Doctor Claypool would simply explain each one as best he could and not face the possibility that Nicole Kilton and her lover, Myles Lawrence, were being affected by a series of strange and unexplainable happenings—happenings caused by some unseen party.
3:37 P.M.
“I’m surprised to see you back here so s
oon, Mr. Lawrence,” Father Gorkland said evenly.
“I’m happy that you consented to see me, Father. I think I might have done both of us a disservice yesterday.”
“A disservice? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t tell you in a convincingly enough way about the things that have been going on. I merely related to you what Nicole had told me.”
“Sort of like hearsay testimony at a trial, eh?” the priest asked, without changing his facial expression.
Myles wondered where he had come up with that particular expression. Recalling how the priest had said he thought of television programing as being boring, he wondered what Gorkland did for relaxation. “I guess you might say that, Father.”
“So what do you have to tell me? My time is just as tight today as it was yesterday, you know.”
“Last night … no, make that this morning … I awoke to find Nicole hovering in midair. She …”
“Levitating?” he asked, his interest piqued ever so slightly.
“Yes … levitating. The sheets had been ripped in two and the doors in the apartment began opening and slamming shut by themselves. The …”
“By themselves, Mr. Lawrence?” he asked, failing to conceal his own particular brand of skepticism. “Really!”
Myles stared at him for a moment. The man seemed hopeless. “Yes. By themselves.”
“You expect me to believe this, of course?”
“Look, Father Gorkland, I know it sounds unbelievable but it did happen. I saw it.”
“Have you ever thought that it might be God trying to tell you that you and this Nicole person are living in sin? That he wants you to quit? The devil isn’t running around opening and closing doors and making naked women float in the air. You do think it’s caused by the devil, don’t you?”
Myles stared at him, ignoring the priest’s questions. “What makes you think Nicole wasn’t clothed?”
Gorkland stopped short, looking up at him. “I naturally assumed that since the two of you were living in sin that …”