by Rick Hautala
You press your head down hard against the cushion, ignoring the creaking sounds the couch makes and the buzzing in your head as you stare up at the ceiling. A cloudy, red haze swirls across your vision. You wonder—like you have so many times before—if this means you’ve busted a blood vessel in your head, but you guess that would have dropped you dead in your tracks before now if that’s what had happened.
You take a deep, steadying breath before you start to tell Bob again, and this is what you say:
“It always begins with me walking down a street in the city, okay? It’s usually cold out, but even when it’s a warm summer night or something, I’m wearing a long, heavy coat. A dark coat. Maybe even wool. The only thing I feel in the nightmare is...really nervous.“
“Nervous?“ Bob echoes.
“Yeah, nervous,“ you snap, unable to keep the sarcasm out of your voice. “Mostly because there are always lots of people crowding the street. Most of them seem to be looking at me kind of funny, you know? And they avoid me like they know something about me I don’t. But I don’t want them to see me. I just want to fade away...disappear.“
“Is it always the same street?“ Bob asks.
You feel suddenly angry at him for interrupting you now that you’re on a roll. Once the memory of the nightmare starts coming back to you, you don’t want to lose it. You can practically feel the adrenalin squirting into your bloodstream, making your body hum like a vibrating tuning fork. Maybe that’s what makes the buzzing sound in your head, a tuning fork.
“No...no,“ you say, still struggling not to scream at him. “It’s not always the exact same street, but I...I can tell, in the nightmares, you know, that it’s usually in the same part of town, usually over by the high school.“
“So what happens next?“ Bob asks, still sounding as patient as all hell.
You’re not so sure you like him prodding you like this. The last therapist you worked with never did that to you. Of course, she was as much a dipshit as Bob, but in a different way.
Damn. You wish you could remember her name, but as bad as she was, she was purty damned good compared to ole’ Bob here. You liked the way she always just listened to you and let you talk as much as you liked without ever interrupting you. She spoke so seldom there were quite a few times when you actually wondered if she was even awake. But you’d glance over at her, and she be watching you carefully, her eyes looking like big bug eyes behind those stupid glasses she wore.
Yeah, you think, that was one thing wrong with her.
She had those great big bug eyes!
You had to stop going to her because it got to the point where you couldn’t stand the thought that she was always looking at you with those great big bug eyes. Even when you weren’t looking at her, she was looking at you.
So you stopped going to her, and here you were with good ole’ Bob.
“Well, then,“ you finally say after clearing your throat. “What happens next is, I just sort of stand there in the dark, you know? Usually I’m in an alley or a dark doorway or something so no one can see me, and I just wait.“
“You wait...for what?“
“For someone to come along, of course,“ you say. You’re trying your best to control yourself, but Bob is making is goddamned hard.
“And what do you think about while you’re waiting?“ Bob asks.
“Think about?“
Your voice sounds like an echo of his, and you sigh and shake your head in frustration.
“Jesus Christ! These are nightmares we’re talking about. I don’t think about anything. Not in a nightmare. Not the way you do in real life, anyway.“
“Of course not,“ Bob says agreeably. He sounds a little too agreeable for your taste, and you realize that you’re going to have to stop coming to visit him, too.
“So then...tell me,“ Bob says. “What do you do? What happens next?“
And this is what you say:
“I told you during the last visit that I wait for someone to come along. Usually it’s a girl who’s by herself. She doesn’t have to be pretty or anything, but she usually is young and pretty. And alone.
“When I start to move toward her, it’s like my feet aren’t even touching the ground. It’s like they’re greased of something, and I just sort of glide down the steps or whatever, and then before I know it I’m sliding along beside her.“
You take a breath that almost hurts and say, “Do your feet touch the ground in your dreams?“
Bob doesn’t reply to that, and you get a little more upset with him. Your voice seems stuffed inside your chest, and the memories of the nightmares are now as clear and sharp as broken glass in your mind. You can see it—and hear it—hell you can taste and feel the whole scene as it unfolds.
The girl.
Her hair glistens in the flickering city lights.
Her eyes go wide and moist with apprehension when she realizes you’re moving along beside her.
Her throat—the pale, wide stretch of her throat is exposed.
And so is her fear. Her fear is as bright as sunlight on chrome.
Oh, she’s afraid of you all right, as well she should be.
Once again your hands begin to shake, and you clench you right hand into a fist as if you are actually holding a knife.
“And then I...then I...“
Your throat closes off, and you can no longer speak. You have to squeeze your eyes tightly shut because the pulsating red haze in front of them is getting brighter and deeper. It blocks out what little you can see of Bob’s office wall—the framed diplomas and family pictures, put there, you now think, just to make you feel bad because your family is so fucked up. You look toward the window but can hardly see the trees against the sky. When you shut your eyes, all you can see is a shifting red veil that fills your field of vision.
“Well now,“ Bob says in a low, almost suggestive tone of voice. “Over the last few months, you must have heard on the news or read in the newspaper about those high school girls who have been killed downtown.“
You grunt but say nothing.
“Did you know any of them?“ Bob asks. “You attended the same school for a while.“
You try to answer him, but your throat feels swollen and tight, like it’s blocked. You try to clear it, but the burning feeling won’t go away. When you swallow, it leaves a terrible aftertaste.
At last, you say this:
“Yeah, I heard about it on the news the other night, but—“ You shake your head, and the couch creaks, and your neck aches. “No. I didn’t know any of them.“
You can say no more, and you pause, waiting for Bob to say something semi-intelligent.
Finally he does.
“Well, it could be that all these incidents and the fact that they’re all students from your high school are affecting you,“ Bob suggests. “Maybe they’re contributing to your nightmares.“
Is that the best you can do? You wonder.
You try to answer him, but the only sound that comes out of you now is a low, strangled gasp.
You can feel your face flush, and you almost laugh out loud, remembering how your mother used to tease you about the way you blush. She’d say your face looked so hot she could have lit a match on it.
“Would you like a glass of water?“ Bob asks you after an uncomfortably long stretch of silence.
It’s like he’s reading your mind, peeking into your skull, but you are still unable to speak, so you simply nod and then you close your eyes and listen to the sounds he makes as he gets up from his chair and walks over to the water cooler in the corner beside his office door. As he fills the paper cup, the big bottle of Poland Spring water gurgles, sounding like your stomach when you’re upset or hungry.
With your eyes still tightly shut, you listen, cringing a little as he walks over to the couch. You reach out blindly with your right hand and take the paper cup from him. You try to stop your hand from shaking as you raise the cup to your mouth and take a sip. Without looking, you can’t
help but spill a little on your shirt front, but the water feels really good, sliding down your throat.
“Thanks,“ you say after emptying the small cup, and for once, you really mean it.
You keep your eyes closed, taking a long time to compose yourself.
You really need to.
You don’t like Bob. You’ve decided that, but you suddenly want to tell him the truth. You want to admit to him that it’s not remembering the details of the nightmares that you find so unsettling.
Far from it, in fact.
Although you would never dare to tell Bob or anyone else this, you actually find remembering the details of the nightmares rather exciting.
Stimulating, in fact.
You realize that you have an erection, so you shift around on the couch and adjust your pants, hoping it doesn’t show.
You think to yourself: What kind of therapist would notice when his patient gets an erection?
And you answer yourself: Not one I’d want to work with, that’s for goddamned sure!
“Please understand,“ Bob says softly. “You don’t have to continue with this right now if you don’t want to, if it’s too disturbing.“
His voice is so low you can barely hear it above the tuning fork that’s ringing inside your head. But you consider what he said, and you know that—amazingly—he’s right.
You don’t have to tell him anything, and right now you’re not so sure you even want to.
What if, you think, by telling him about your nightmares, by talking about them, it decreases their power and the charge you get from them?
With your eyes still tightly closed, you sigh and shake your head in resigned agreement.
“Yeah,“ you say, almost breathlessly. “Well, the thing of it is, for the last few nights, the nightmares haven’t been nearly as strong as before. I guess I’m on a down-cycle now with how intense they are, you know?“
“And that’s a good thing?“ Bob says, half-statement, half-suggestion.
No, it isn’t good!
You think this and are not even sure if you say it out loud or not.
It’s not good at all, you stupid asshole!
You finally see that the problem is, you can’t tell Bob or anyone else—not even the lady with the big bug eyes—that it’s only once the dreams—once the nightmares start to fade that you start getting more and more agitated...more and more worried.
You wish you could tell Bob or someone...anyone...that the adrenalin rush you get from the nightmares is practically the only thing that makes you feel alive...really, truly alive.
And once you start losing that edge, once the feelings start fading away, you start feeling like you have to...
Well, you’re not exactly sure what.
It’s like you feel empty...hollow, and you have to do something to bring those feelings back.
You finally realize that you’ve been lost in your own thoughts for too long, and you know Bob’s waiting for you to say something, so you say this:
“Well...I do tend to sleep better then.“
You hear your own voice. It sounds distant, like you’re far away from yourself. Maybe in the next room. After you say thins, all you can think about is how much you wish you trusted Bob—trusted him enough to tell him what you really feel and what you have to do afterwards to bring those feelings back...to bring the nightmares back.
That’s probably why you’re in therapy has never worked for you, you decide, and probably why it never will because when you come right down to it, you don’t like to talk.
You’re the kind of person who likes to do things.
You have to act!
You suppose you can handle it for another couple of nights—maybe a week, tops. But after that once the feelings from the nightmares are all gone, you know—you just know that you’re going to have to go out again and do something to bring them back.
Non-returnable
1
Manda knew it meant trouble as soon as Jason, the manager of the Borders where she worked, asked to see her right after the Monday morning staff meeting before the bookstore opened for the day.
No way it could be good news.
It never was.
After finishing her coffee and the donut she had left over from yesterday, she walked into the back room, thinking this might be it.
This time she might actually get fired.
Jason was standing by the returns station, leaning with clenched fists against the desk as he stared at something on the computer screen. A faint, bluish glow underlit his features, making his skin look ghastly pale.
Manda walked around the full pallet of boxes that no one had bothered to open on last night’s late shift, and stopped a few feet from him.
How bad can it be?
She didn’t have long to wait. She saw the book—the special order—on the desk in front of him and instantly stiffened.
“If you’re not going to buy this,“ Jason said without looking away from the computer screen, “then you should return it. Today.“
He seemed to be trying to maintain an “all-business“ tone, but she caught the glint in his averted eyes. It might just be the reflection of the computer screen in his glasses, but it sure seemed like he was enjoying the hell out of this.
He always did.
Holding the book out at arm’s length, he carefully studied the front and back covers. There was no dust jacket. Just a faux black leather binding with the title and author stamped in cheap gold foil. The left corner of Jason’s mouth kept twitching. Finally, unable to hold back a sniff of laughter, he opened to the first page and read the title out loud.
“Psychic Black Holes.“
His voice dripped with derision, and he cleared his throat before continuing to read the subtitle.
“An exploration of the ’event horizon’ and mental abilities.“
Glancing at Manda, he repeated the words, “Event horizon,“ before dropping the book onto the workbench. “I don’t blame you for not buying it—especially for eighty dollars.“
“There’d be the employee discount,“ Manda said meekly, not quite daring to look her boss in the eyes.
“Not on special orders, there isn’t,“ Jason snapped automatically. Straightening up, he turned and glared at her, the overhead fluorescent lights glinting in distorted white bars on the lenses of his glasses. “You don’t really believe this crap, do you, Manda?“
Manda tried not to wither under his steady glare, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like her boss, and she knew he didn’t like her. Especially since she turned him down when he had asked her out last winter.
Still, there was no reason to be so mean to her. She tried to look past the glare off his glasses and into his eyes instead of staring at the floor and feeling like she had done something wrong.
“Not really,“ she said, her voice hushed. “It’s just...kind of interesting.“ She shrugged. “I like to keep an open mind about things.“
“I’d rather see an open wallet. So if you don’t have the eighty bucks, get this book out of the inventory. ’Kay?“
Manda thought—not for the first time—that what she should do is pop the book into her backpack and walk on out of the store with it, but she would never do something like that. She couldn’t. It was bad karma to steal from work, even though she knew several employees who had plenty of books and CDs on “permanent loan.“ Besides, now that Jason had made such an issue of it, she knew he’d be watching her.
Without another word, Jason dropped the book onto the returns table and strode past her. Seething with resentment, Manda watched as he walked out onto the sales floor.
He wasn’t such a bad guy, she thought. Underneath it all, there might even be a human heart, but he acted like such a hardcore, corporate dickhead. As if eighty dollars was going to make or break the inventory.
Music suddenly blared from the overhead speakers. The Beatles’ White Album.
Good choice, Manda thought as she bopped along
with “Back in the U.S.S.R.“ and started straightening up her work area. Someone on the late night crew had left a teetering stack of books on her chair. Glancing at the computer screen, she saw that Jason had been looking at the returns information for Swann Press, the publishing house that had sent her the copy of Psychic Black Holes.
“Thanks for the help...dickweed,“ she muttered.
The back room door slammed open as Chris and Billy came out to get a load of books for their sections. On most days, Manda would have taken a few minutes to talk with them, but she was still fuming about Jason as she turned to the shelf beside her desk where she kept an assortment of padded book bags for returns.
“Goddamned cock swallower,“ she whispered as she grabbed a bag that would fit her book. When she pulled the envelope down, her hand scraped against the rough edge of the wooden shelving. She cried out in pain as a splinter of wood sliced her wrist open as cleanly as a razor blade.
Billy looked over and asked if she was all right.
Holding her wrist tightly with her other hand, Manda nodded as she stared at the wound. It wasn’t as bad as it had felt, but tiny drops of blood were beading up along the thin, two-inch gash. It had a little sting to it.
“Yeah. Just caught a splinter,“ she said, shaking her hand.
“Whoa! Workman’s comp time!“ Chris called over his shoulder. “You’ll be sitting in the sun, sucking down brews, and watching HBO.“
Manda sniffed as she held her hand up and carefully inspected the wound, making sure there weren’t any splinters in it. It looked all right, and she decided not to bother cleaning it or bandaging it. After wiping the blood on her jeans leg, she turned back to the worktable.
“Damn it,“ she muttered when she noticed the tiny drop of blood on the cover of her special order. She reached out to wipe it away, but before she could, the tiny red dot disappeared, absorbed into the slick, pseudo-leather cover, gone without a trace.