Backteria and Other Improbable Tales

by Richard Matheson

  He didn’t finish. Millman shuddered. Every word? he thought in dismay. Every single word I say?

  He struggled to resist. “You know what he told me then,” he said. “You know what he thinks you are.”

  “Sure,” the man’s voice answered scornfully. “I’m not Agent 25409-J. I’m not William J. Lonsdale. I’m not married with three children. I don’t work for the C.I.A. I’m your goddamn subconscious mind. Jesus, Millman. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  Millman had no answer. He lay immobile, staring up into the darkness. He thought he heard the breathing of the man on the other end of the line.

  “All right, listen to me,” the man’s voice said then. “We’re going to try to cut you off the circuit. We have been trying for a week now; that’s why we haven’t spoken to you. I’ll put it on priority now that you’ve blabbed to your therapist about us. Jesus, Millman!”

  Millman heard the sound of a handset being set down.

  Hard.

  “But don’t you see?” Palmer said with a smile. “Your subconscious mind was reacting angrily to having its ruse exposed. A step forward, David.”

  “He said he was going to cut me off the circuit.”

  Dr. Palmer shook his head, still smiling. “He won’t cut you off,” he said. “He has things to say.”

  “What if I don’t want to listen to him anymore?” Millman said.

  “David” Dr. Palmer said. “David. Consider. You’re being given an invaluable opportunity: to engage in dialogue with your own subconscious mind.”

  “What if the voice keeps picking on me? Millman asked.

  The therapist’s gesture was casual.

  “Hang up on him,” he said.

  When the telephone began to ring in his head, Millman was loathe to answer it. The resonating jangle of the bell set his teeth on edge. Even so, it was preferable to the man’s potentially abusive voice.

  He remained immobile on the bed, a flinching expression on his face.

  Could he hang up on the man?

  Further, could he snatch up the invisible handset after the connection had been broken, making it impossible for the man to call him anymore? He imagined hearing a dial tone in his head, then an operator’s voice, breaking in to tell him he should hang up if he wanted to make a call.

  Millman scowled. Now he really was beginning to think like a man who was losing his mind.

  Abruptly, he picked up the imaginary handset and said, “Hello.”

  “Thank you for answering,” the man’s voice said.

  Millman tightened. Now what? he thought.

  “I apologize for speaking out of turn during our last conversation,” the man’s voice said. “It was uncalled for.”

  “Yes, it was,” Millman said impulsively.

  “I’m sorry,” the man replied. Before Millman could respond, he continued. “Listen,” he said, “I’m going to level with you.”

  Millman’s eyes narrowed. Now what? he wondered.

  “This government project thing,” the voice went on. “It’s all a lie.”

  Without thinking, Millman drew his left hand near his face to stare at it as though he actually held a handset in his grip.

  “There’s no such thing,” the man confessed. “Your Dr. Palmer was correct. It doesn’t make sense. Microscopic telephones implanted secretly in people’s brains? I can’t believe you bought it.”

  Millman made a sound of spluttering exasperation.

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” the man’s voice said. “I won’t give you my name because I’m afraid you might report me to the police. They’d lock me up and throw the key away if they found out what I’m doing.”

  “What are you talking about now?” Millman demanded furiously.

  “I’m an inventor,” the man’s voice said. “I’ve developed an apparatus which radiates short-wave energy that penetrates the mind of anyone the beamer is directed at, enabling two-way conversation with them. You’re the first.”

  Millman couldn’t tell if he felt horrified or enraged. The clashing emotions kept him speechless.

  “I know this is as hard to believe as the government project idea,” the man’s voice continued. “The government would love to get their hands on this, I guarantee you. I’d destroy it first though. It gives me the creeps thinking what our government would do with this device. I’d never—”

  Millman broke in fiercely. “Why are you doing this to me?” he demanded.

  “As I said,” the man’s voice answered patiently, “I chose you as my first subject. I didn’t have the nerve to tell you what was really going on so I made up the story about a government project when all the time—”

  It all burst out explosively from Millman. “Bullshit!” he snarled. “I don’t believe this story any more than I believe the other! You’re no inventor” My therapist’s been right all the time! You’re my own—”

  “You fool!” the man’s voice cut him off. “You goddamned fool!”

  Millman tried to answer but the words choked in his throat.

  “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?” the man’s voice criticized him. “Just can’t let me do this my own way. No! Not you! You’re too goddamned smart for that!”

  The animal-like sound the man made drowned out Millman’s faint reply. “Well, you’re not smart! Not at all!” the man’s voice cried. “You’re dumb! You always have been dumb! A dumb boy and a stupid man! Davie, you’re an idiot!”

  Millman lurched in shock as the handset crashed down in his head.

  He lay in silence, struggling for breath.

  He knew the voice.

  Dr. Palmer gazed at him without a word.

  Millman drew in a laboring breath. “I have to tell you something about my family,” he said. “Something I never told you before.”

  “Yes?” asked Dr. Palmer.

  “My mother suffered from dissociated consciousness,” Millman said. “I mean, she was psychic. I won’t go into details but she proved it many times.”

  “Yes?” Dr. Palmer’s tone was still noncommittal.

  “I think I inherited her ability,” Millman told him.

  The therapist had difficulty repressing a look of aggravation. “You’re suggesting—” he began.

  “I’m telling,” Millman broke in irritably. “You were right. It’s not a secret government project and it’s certainly not what the man’s voice told me last night.”

  “Instead—” Dr. Palmer prodded.

  “It’s my father,” Millman answered.

  The therapist didn’t reply. He rubbed his lowered eyelids with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Millman felt a tightening of resentment in his body.

  Dr. Palmer opened his eyes. “You believe that he’s communicating with you from ‘the other side’ as it were?” he asked.

  Millman nodded, features hardening. “I do.”

  The therapist sighed.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let’s talk about it.”

  The instant the telephone rang in his head, Millman snatched up the imagined handset. “I’m here,” he said.

  “That was prompt,” the man’s voice replied.

  “I know who you are,” Millman told him.

  “You do.” Millman had a fleeting impression of his father’s face, a smile of faint amusement on it.

  “Yes, I do,” Millman answered. “Father.”

  The man chuckled. “So you’ve caught me,” he said.

  Millman was unable to control a throat-catching sob. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “Why?” the voice responded incredulously. “Why do I want to speak to my only begotten son? You ask such a question, Davie? Is it so difficult to comprehend?”

  Millman was crying now. Tears ran off the sides of his face, soaking into the pillow case. “Pop,” he murmured.

  “I want you to listen to me now,” his father’s voice continued.

  Millman’s chest hitched as he sobbed.

&nbs
p; “Are you listening?” his father’s voice inquired.

  “Yes.” Millman rubbed the trembling fingertips of his right hand over his eyes.

  “The reason I’m calling you,” his father’s voice went on, “is that I feel you should be cognizant of certain things.”

  “What things?” Millman asked.

  “You don’t know?” his father’s voice responded.

  “No,” Millman sniffled, rubbing a finger underneath his dripping nostrils.

  His father’s sigh was deep. “I’ll have to tell you then,” he said.

  Millman waited.

  “You’re a loser,” his father’s voice told him.

  “What?” asked Millman.

  “I have to explain?” said his father’s voice. “You leave me nothing? All right; I’ll lay it on the line then. You married a bitch. You let her bleed you dry in every way. You let her poison the minds of your two sons against you. You let her divorce proceeding take you to the cleaners. You let her rip away your manhood.

  “On top of that, you’re a loser at your job. You let that moron boss of yours kick you around like a ball. You scrape to him and let him treat you like a piece of dog shit. Dog shit, Davie! Don’t bother to deny! You know it’s true! You’re a loser in every department of life and you know it!”

  Millman felt as though paralysis had gripped him, body and mind.

  “Can you deny a single word I’ve spoken?” his father’s voice challenged.

  Millman sobbed. “Pop,” he murmured pleadingly.

  “Don’t Pop me, you goddamn loser!” his father’s voice lashed back. “I’m ashamed to call you my son! Thank God I’m dead and don’t have to see you getting kicked around day after day!”

  Millman cried out, agonized. “Pop, don’t!”

  Dr. Palmer rose from his chair and walked to the window. He had never done that before and Millman watched him uneasily, dabbing at his reddened eyes with a tear-clotted handkerchief. The therapist stood with his back to Millman, looking out at the street.

  After a while, he returned to his chair and sat down with a tired grunt. He gazed at Millman silently. What kind of gaze was it? Millman wondered. Compassionate?

  Or fed up?

  “I don’t do this ordinarily,” Dr. Palmer began. “You know my method: to let you find the answers yourself. However—”

  He exhaled heavily and clasped his hands beneath his chin. “I feel as though I simply can’t allow this to proceed the way it’s going,” he continued. “I have to say something to you. I have to say—” he winced “—enough, David.”

  Millman stared at the therapist.

  “I do not believe—any more than I believe it was a secret government project or an isolated inventor—that your father is communicating with you from beyond the grave. I believe, as I have from the start, that your subconscious mind has, somehow, found a way to speak to you audibly. Trying to establish some kind of resolution to your mental problems.”

  “But it’s his voice,” Millman insisted.

  “David,” Dr. Palmer’s voice was firm now. “You believed it was the voice of Secret Agent 25409-J. You then believed, albeit briefly, that it was the voice of some inventor. Can’t you see that this subconscious voice of yours can make itself sound like anyone it chooses?”

  David felt helpless. He knew he couldn’t bear any more of the abuse his father’s voice had heaped on him. At the same time, he felt sick about the possibility of losing touch with his father.

  “What should I do?” he asked in a feeble voice.

  “Confront it,” Dr. Palmer urged. “Stop just listening and suffering and talk back. Start retaliating. Demand answers; explanations. Speak up for yourself. It’s your subconscious, David. Hear it out but don’t permit it to harass you mercilessly. Take control.”

  Millman felt exhausted. “If only I could sleep,” he murmured.

  “That I can give you something for,” the therapist said.

  He couldn’t confront the voice that night. He did as Dr. Palmer prescribed and took two capsules, sleeping deeply and without remembrance. If the telephone rang in his head, he didn’t hear it.

  It relaxed him enough to enjoy a good night’s rest. At work the following day, he even found Mr. Fitch endurable. Once, he almost spoke back to him but managed to repress the impulse. There was no point in losing his job on top of everything else.

  During the evening, Millman thought about Elaine and the boys.

  Had the voice—whoever it belonged to—spoken the truth? Was Elaine a bitch who’d poisoned the minds of his sons against him? Was that why their behavior, when they saw him, was so remote? He’d told himself it was because they got together so infrequently; that he was virtually a stranger to them.

  What if it was more than that?

  It was true that the divorce settlement had left him very little. Still, it had been his choice. He didn’t have to give her so much.

  Thinking of it all made Millman tense and edgy, ready to confront the voice.

  At three a.m., when the ringing in his head began, he grabbed the unseen handset and yanked it to his head. “I’m here,” he said.

  “Are you, Davie?” his father’s voice responded scornfully.

  “You can cut it out now,” Millman answered.

  “Cut what out, little boy?” his father’s voice inquired mockingly.

  Millman braced himself. It took all the will he had to resist that voice which had intimidated him throughout his childhood and adolescence.

  “You’re not my father,” he said.

  Silence.

  Then his father’s voice said, “I’m not?”

  “No, you’re not,” Millman said, trying to keep his voice strong.

  “Who am I then?” his father’s voice asked. “The King of Siam?”

  Millman shuddered with uncertain anger. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I only know you’re not my father.”

  “You’re a stupid boy,” his father’s voice responded. “You’ve always been a stupid boy.”

  “I defy you!” Millman cut him off. “You’re not my father!”

  “Who am I then?” the voice demanded.

  “Me!” cried Millman. “My subconscious mind!”

  “Your subconscious mind?” The voice broke into sudden laughter; totally insane, the laughter of a maniac.

  “Stop it,” Millman said.

  The laughing continued, uncontrolled, deranged. Millman visualized a face behind it—white and twisted, staring, wild-eyed.

  “Stop it,” he ordered.

  The laughter rose in pitch and volume. It began to echo in his head.

  He had to mentally slam down the handset three times before the laughter cut off.

  His hands almost vibrating they shook so badly, he washed down a pair of capsules.

  When the telephone began to ring inside his head again, he tried to ignore it, waiting tensely for the drug to lower him into a heavy, deafened sleep.

  The tiny, black-haired woman opened the door to her apartment and looked at Millman questioningly. She didn’t look as old as he knew her to be.

  “I spoke to you on the telephone this afternoon,” he said. “I’m Myra Millman’s son.”

  “Ah, yes.” Mrs. Danning’s false teeth showed in a smile as she stepped back to admit him.

  There was a smell of burning incense in the dimly lit living room. Millman noticed crosses and religious paintings on the walls while he moved to the chair the tiny woman pointed at. He sat down, hoping that he wasn’t making a mistake. Momentarily, he imagined Dr. Palmer’s reaction to this. The idea made his throat feel dry.

  Mrs. Danning perched on a chair across from him and asked him to repeat his story.

  Millman told her everything from its beginning to the manic laughter. Mrs. Danning nodded when he spoke about the laughter. “That may well provide the clue,” she declared. He wondered what she meant by that.

  He watched in anxious silence as she closed her eyes and began to dr
aw in deep, laboring breaths, both hands on her lap, palms facing upward.

  Several minutes later, her features hardened with a look of disdain. “So,” she said. “Now you see a psychic.” Mrs. Danning bared her teeth so much that Millman saw her pale gums. “You just won’t listen, will you?” she said. “You have to keep investigating. Asshole!”

  Millman twitched on his chair, eyes fixed on the psychic. She had begun to rock back and forth, a humming in her throat. “Oh, yes,” she said after a while. “Oh, yes.” She repeated the words so many times that Millman lost count of them.

  After ten minutes, she opened her eyes and looked at Millman. He began to speak but she raised her right hand to prevent it. He waited as she picked up a glass of water from the table beside her chair and gulped down every drop of it. She sighed.

  “I think we have it now,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, David!” Dr. Palmer cried. Millman had never heard such disapproval in the therapist’s voice.

  “I wasn’t going to come back,” he said defensively. “Wasn’t going to tell you. But I thought you might be sympathetic.”

  “To what this woman told you?” Dr. Palmer asked, appalled. “That you’re being possessed by some—some—?” He gestured angrily.

  “Earthbound spirit,” Millman said, willfully. “A disincarnate soul held prisoner by the magnetism of the living, doing everything he can to—”

  “David, David.” Dr. Palmer looked exasperated and despairing at the same time. “We’re losing ground. Every time we get together, we seem to fall back a little more.”

  “The spirit is not at peace.” Millman’s voice was stubbornly insistent. “It wants to experience life again. So it invades my mind—”

  “David —!” the therapist cut him off. “Please!”

  Millman pushed up from his chair. “Oh, what’s the use?” he muttered.

  “Sit down,” Dr. Palmer told him. Millman stood before the chair, unable to decide.

  “Please sit down,” the therapist requested quietly.

  Millman didn’t move at first. Then he sat back down, a look of sullen accusation on his face. “I don’t think you appreciate—” he began.

  “I appreciate that you are going through one hell of an ordeal,” Dr. Palmer broke in.