Twisted

by Andrew E. Kaufman

  “No.”

  He clicks off the light and steps back. “Did you suffer any loss of consciousness after the accident?”

  “Very briefly.”

  “How briefly?”

  “Seconds. No more than a minute.”

  That seems to give him visible concern. He runs a few tests to check my balance, coordination, and reflexes.

  He’s not going to green-light the MRI.

  “Well, I don’t see anything that might indicate neurological dama—”

  “I’d still like to have the imaging test done.”

  “—However,” he continues with a patient smile, “since you’re still having symptoms, it’s not a bad idea to go ahead and get the MRI done. I’ll send the order to your insurance company for approv—”

  “I’d like to have it today. I’ll pay out-of-pocket.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “I’d like to do it now, please.”

  Rob pauses, his expression wandering into doubtfulness.

  “It’s just that I have a lot going on at work in the next few days,” I say, trying to appease him with a smile. “My wife is very worried about this, so the sooner, the better. It would really help me out.”

  Rob blinks a few times, nods, but doesn’t speak.

  He’s going to report you.

  He’s going to tell them you’re stark raving mad.

  44

  I lie flat on my back under the MRI’s main coil, surrounded by a plastic tube, the molded ceiling just inches from my face. My head rests on something masquerading as a pillow, wafer-thin, the size, shape, and feel of a baking pan. Beneath me is a cold slab—the only thing separating me from it is a sliver of a sheet that makes my skin itch. In this confined space, with arms pinned so close to my sides, I couldn’t scratch even if I wanted to. I hold in my hand a rubber ball. The technician told me to squeeze it if I feel frightened or need help, and that will signal her. Clamped to my head is a pair of headphones with music intended to make me relax.

  It’s not working.

  I’ve never had an MRI. I didn’t realize how unnerving the experience is. I don’t like it here, want out, but this is very important. So I remain imprisoned within this plastic cave.

  The violins swell through my headphones.

  “Helloooo . . . ,” I say to no one, hearing my voice fall flat.

  “Yes? Is something wrong?” The technician’s voice booms through my headphones.

  I clear my throat. “Just checking to see if we’re ready to get this started.”

  “A few more minutes,” Speaker Voice grants with a mix of assurance and diplomatic irritation.

  I keep waiting.

  I’ve got no idea what Rob told them in order to get me in so quickly, but my sense is that he conveyed there was some sort of emergency because, while strapping me in, the tech kept assuring, “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I’m not so sure about that.

  The machine lets out a series of resounding, mechanized clicks, rattling me from my thoughts.

  Speaker Voice says, “We’re ready to start now. Still doing all right in there?”

  I don’t recall ever stating that I was, but I tell her yes.

  “Great. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

  I wish she’d stop saying that.

  “Just remember, you have the rubber ball if you need anything.”

  “Fuck the rubber ball!”

  It’s that voice again, the one that won’t leave my head and keeps wandering out through my mouth.

  “Excuse me?” she says.

  “I said, I’ve got the rubber ball.”

  “Okay.” She sounds reluctant, doubtful. She pauses for a few murderous seconds. “We’re going to start now. You’ll hear a little noise and feel a few vibrations for this next part. I’ll need you to keep still.”

  I’m strapped down like a captured beast. Jumping jacks are hardly an option.

  As it turns out, “little” and “few” are drastic understatements. This spaceship is rocking like it’s on a mission to Mars, banging, clacking, and rattling, the violin music rendered inaudible by the clamor. I grit my teeth, close my eyes, and try to endure.

  Whoa. What the hell was that?

  Did this thing just . . . ? No, it can’t be. But I felt it, as if . . .

  Holy shit!

  This entire machine just skipped off the floor.

  Oh my God.

  Now it’s not just skipping—it’s tilting upward.

  Oh no . . . oh no . . . OH NO!

  My chest turns heavy and thick. Blood drains into my face, as the machine inclines sharply, feet rising, head dropping. My reflexes kick into action, and I feel my hand rapidly and repeatedly squeeze the rubber ball.

  “Wrong ball,” Donny Ray says through the headphones, in a mocking singsong tone.

  I jerk at the sound of his voice. The machine continues to lift. Sweat rolls from chest to face to scalp, as gravity pulls it downward.

  “SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!” I say through a panicked scream. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

  The MRI comes to a jarring stop, now pointing straight at the ceiling. The noise and vibrations cut out, and I’m immersed in stillness. My body is completely upside down. My pulse is hammering out of control.

  “Christopher,” a new voice says.

  Wait, I know that voice. It sounds like—

  I catch movement from above. With chin lowered to chest, I strain to see up through the end of the tube; then my heart erupts into a fast-footed beat, as black dots dance before my eyes.

  “Dad?”

  My father peers down at me.

  “Dad, what are you . . . ? Where did . . . ?”

  “You’ve been looking at things from the wrong side,” he tells me through the headphones.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will, soon.”

  “Be careful on that road,” Donny Ray chimes in. “It’s a killer.”

  Then I hear laughter. It’s my father. The horrifying laugh I remember so well. The sniggering and cackling one that always climbed into maniacal shrieking, echoing through the house late at night, twirling through my ears like jagged corkscrews.

  I close my eyes and scream.

  Through the headphones, I hear glass shatter. The white light explodes.

  And then in a heartbeat, the MRI is back on the floor, and I’m outside the coil, looking up at . . .

  “Jenna?” I say, clenching at the sheet. “What are you doing here?”

  She answers with an expression devoid of emotion, or . . . No, that’s not right. Something is there, something I think is . . .

  “I have to go now,” she says.

  “Go where?”

  “I can’t stay here with you.”

  “Stay where? What do you mean?”

  Jenna doesn’t answer—and now she can’t even look at me. She turns away. She walks. And as the distance between us widens, Devon materializes at her side, then hand in hand, they drift toward the exit doors and disappear.

  “Devon! Jenna!” I shout, tears filling my eyes. “Wait! Don’t go! Please! Don’t leave me!”

  And they are gone.

  I hear glass shatter again. The white light explodes.

  And then, in an astoundingly quick beat, I’m looking up at the tech.

  “Are you okay?” Her expression is tempered with professional concern.

  “I just saw—” My voice is thick, mind spinning out. I struggle for composure. “Yes. I’m okay. I just got a little panicked. Please . . . let’s just get this over with.”

  But I know it will never be over. The terrifying confusion, the madness. Not now. Not ever.

  This is just the start.

  45
/>
  Everything around me is moving in wavy circles. A few moments later, my vision starts to settle, and I see I’m . . .

  In the Loveland parking lot.

  The last thing I remember is the MRI tech looking down on me. I check the dashboard clock.

  That was nearly forty minutes ago.

  More weirdness, more seeing and hearing things I shouldn’t. More worry. Time keeps bending, my perceptions doing the same, and I’m no longer sure whether to trust either.

  It’s like a part of me is dying.

  Or maybe I’m already dead.

  I shouldn’t be working in this condition. As my mind loses its contours, that only seems clearer. But I can’t stop right now. Not when I’m on the verge of a breakthrough with Donny Ray. Equally pressing, I need to figure out what’s happened to Nicholas and Stanley. I just have to hang on a little bit longer, wait for the test results, then once I know what’s wrong, figure out some kind of strategy.

  The MRI.

  All at once I’m back there again, reliving the nightmare. My stomach hitches, my skin turns cold. My body is shaking.

  The phone rings. I fumble to find it.

  Jenna says, “I’m just checking in to see how things went.”

  “You’re still here.” My words fire out. “You didn’t . . .” I stop myself, and for about five seconds, there is dead silence.

  “Of course I’m here,” she says through a laugh of reasonability. “Where would I go?”

  “Nowhere. I just . . . I thought the call dropped.”

  “Oh . . . so how did the MRI go?”

  “It was nerve-wracking,” I say, trying to control the quake in my voice, fully aware the attempt is less than adequate. “Like being stuffed into a clothes dryer.”

  “Sounds not so fun.”

  “You have no idea.” And really, she doesn’t.

  “Did they say when you’ll hear back with the results?”

  “Two days, hopefully.”

  “We’ll just wait, then.”

  “Yeah . . . we’ll wait.”

  “Chris.”

  “Huh.”

  “There’s something else. Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Sweetie, I know you better.”

  I don’t say anything more. There’s no use in trying.

  “And I love you way too much to let you suffer in silence, so please, talk to me.”

  I’ve reached my tipping point. The ground beneath me is sinking. I’m drowning. I gasp for a mouthful of oxygen, struggle to find more, but it’s like there’s none left for me. Like the atmosphere is a thick, scalding soup, and the more I try, the more my throat closes up.

  “Chris,” I hear my wife very gently say.

  “What?”

  “Listen to me carefully.” Her voice turns firm with just the right measure of tender guidance. “I want you to lean on me.”

  “I can’t.” My speech is slurred, and it sounds more like a cry for help.

  “You can. Lean on me, baby. That’s what we do—it’s what we’ve always done.”

  “I don’t know how to anymore.”

  “You do—you’ve just forgotten. I’ll help. Can you remember what we used to do when things made us scared?”

  And all at once, I do remember. The time in college when we got the news her father had died after a massive stroke. The temporary scare when doctors found a suspicious shadow on my liver. Those long nights we spent so vigilantly in the hospital at Devon’s bedside after he contracted pneumonia, unsure whether he’d live to see the next day. Jenna would lay her head on my chest, listen to my breaths, and synch hers to mine. Together we would breathe, and together everything would feel better. All the fear, all the worries in our lives melting away, the two of us becoming one.

  “Chris,” she says, “go ahead. Do it right now. Breathe with me.”

  I try to draw air.

  “That’s it,” she says, inhaling deeply with me, then letting it out. “You can do this.”

  My respirations are loud and frantic, hers soft and calm, but we are doing it. We are breathing together, and little by little, she is bringing me down.

  “Keep going,” Jenna says, inhaling deeper. “You’re doing fine.”

  I feel my throat start to open up, the oxygen slowly finding its way back and replenishing my lungs. Soon, my rhythm finds hers and we dovetail together.

  We are one.

  In that exact moment, something within me breaks wide open, something more powerful than myself, and there is no longer fear, there is no longer doubt, there is only truth.

  “I’m so scared,” I say, voice fracturing.

  “I know, sweetheart. I know . . .”

  “It’s the same thing. It’s the same goddamned thing as my father.”

  “It is not,” she says, her tone falling weaker as if hearing this is more than she can bear.

  “It already is. I’m losing my son, and the worst part—the most agonizing—is that I know he’ll never forgive me for this, that he’ll end up hating me the same way . . .” I stop, not wanting to drive the knife in deeper.

  “That isn’t going to happen. It’s just not.”

  “How can you possibly know?”

  “Because,” she says, “it’s not Devon you need to ask for forgiveness.”

  “Who then?”

  “It’s yourself.”

  I don’t answer—not because I don’t have one but because I know she’s just spoken the truth. Truth I’ve been trying to avoid for most of my life.

  “Come home, Chris,” my wife tells me. “Come back to your safe place.”

  46

  The night was brutal.

  I spent a good part of it staring at the ceiling, but all I could see was a life coming undone. A mind slipping away. A family falling apart.

  While I’m grateful to Jenna for talking me off the ledge yesterday after my living nightmare inside the MRI tube, I also realize that even she can’t erase the images and sounds that traveled through my crumbling mind. Something else I know: if those were more than products of a head injury, Jenna will be just as powerless as my mother and I were during my childhood.

  I drive toward work with the fear that this new day may only throw more conflict my way.

  When I arrive at Loveland, my concerns prove well founded: the parking lot is now less than two-thirds full. With the vacancies now so much more obvious, my thoughts skyrocket on the rewind.

  Stanley and Nicholas.

  The cafeteria.

  This parking lot.

  My suspicions were no overreaction, and with that comes a new reality, the size and scope of which are much bigger than I’d first wanted to realize.

  Loveland Hospital is vanishing before my eyes.

  I have to talk to someone.

  Don’t do it. Do NOT.

  But something horrible is happening.

  As horrible as your ass getting wiped out next?

  Heat flushes my face.

  Mind your own business. Keep your mouth shut.

  My feet stumble over themselves. After finding my stride, I pick up the pace and rush toward the building.

  Down the hall toward my office, worries trail me and refuse to let go. I need to see whether Melinda has e-mailed the information I’d requested, so I can get to the bottom of all these strange happenings. But halfway there, Jeremy materializes from a bathroom door. He takes one look at me, then strolls my way. I’ve got no time for him right now, but his demanding expression says I don’t have much of a choice.

  “Christopher,” he says. “Something very strange is happening.”

  “I’m sorry?” I try to avoid choking on my words.

  “I keep checking my e-mails for updates on your progress with Donny Ray’s evaluation,
but for some reason, I’m not finding them.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I coerce a laugh. “That.”

  “Yeah, that. Any idea at all why that might be?”

  “It’s with good reason,” I say. “I guess I’ve been a little involved and forgot. I’m actually making great progress with him.”

  “I don’t need to remind you how important this case is, do I?”

  “No, sir. You most certainly do not.”

  “And that tomorrow is our deadline.”

  “No need to remind me about that, either. I’ll meet it.”

  “Excellent. So, keep me updated, all right?”

  “Absolutely, and again, my apologies.”

  Jeremy smiles, but I can’t find a shred of satisfaction in it. He walks away, and I rush into my office.

  I know how he feels in one respect. Anxious for an e-mail from Melinda on her progress, I check my screen.

  Nothing.

  Now I’m downright irritated.

  The instant I step onto Alpha Twelve, disorientation greets me. From one end to the next, patients enter and exit rooms. Others wander the hallways. Several more stand around and chat with one another.

  What in God’s name is happening here?

  This floor maintains the highest level of protection Loveland can offer, and patients are never allowed outside their rooms unless accompanied by a staff member. This isn’t just a concern—this is a safety hazard, a security breach gone haywire.

  A clammy and firm hand cups my right elbow. I jerk around. Mere inches separate Gerald Markman and me.

  “We are all sculptors and painters,” he says wearing a ravenous, craving expression, “and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.”

  He licks his lips. I pull my arm away and take off running toward the nurses’ station, outrage, nausea, and utter fright sparking through me like loose live wires.

  And there I run head-on into yet another peculiarity because the nurse on duty is someone I’ve never before seen: twentysomething, with pink cheeks and an eager expression.

  “Can I help you?” she asks.

  “Is Melinda around?”

  Mystery Nurse tucks a thatch of hair behind one ear and tilts her head.