by Ed Gorman
"Give it a good try, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
"We built a lot of today;s drill around that machine, Corporal."
"Yes, sir. I'll do my best, sir."
He saluted and was gone.
When Dr. Wylie looked back at me, I was smiling. I felt great relief.
No aliens in the well.
No voices in my head.
A deeply disturbed young woman named Cindy Brasher had simply imagined the alien properties of the well.
As had Myles and Garrett, when they went into their seizures, the idea for which Cindy had probably planted in their minds in advance.
Just as I'd imagined the voices and the icy blue glow I'd glimpsed the other night.
"God, I'm glad I talked to you." Then, "Does it sound like I'm nuts?"
He laughed. "Not at all. Sounds like you got caught up in what I call the 'campfire syndrome.'"
"What's that?"
"Well, you take a group of perfectly sane adults of average or above intelligence, and you put them out in the woods around a campfire late at night. And then somebody starts telling monster stories, the way kids always did at summer camp. And if you tell the stories long enough and well enough, these perfectly sane and intelligent adults begin to wonder if there isn't something in the woods, after all. So for the rest of the night they're very jittery. Probably can't sleep. And they begin to hear things and see things. That's the 'campfire syndrome.' It's kind of a lower order of the Shared Psychotic Disorder."
"Man, I feel better."
He smiled. "I wish I had this effect on everybody I saw."
"I really appreciate it."
"My pleasure."
I stood up and put my hand out to shake.
He had a quick, hard grip like a snakebite.
"Everything else going all right?"
I felt exultant. No aliens.
"Everything else," I reported gleefully, "is going just fine."
Now I really could help Cindy, and win her back in the process.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Is that my brother whistling?" Josh said, coming into my room as I splashed on some English Leather.
"It certainly is."
"You must've had one hell of a good time last night."
"This morning."
"You already had a good time this morning?"
I smiled at him in the mirror. "Yeah."
"And you're not going to tell me about it?"
"Huh-uh."
He came up and patted me on the back.
"I'm just happy to see you happy again."
"Everything's going to work out."
"With Cindy?"
"Everything's going to work out with everything."
"Wow," he said. "The power of positive thinking."
I left earlier than I needed to for my lunch date with Cindy. Drove around. Rock and roll up real loud. My junker felt like a brand-new Corvette.
Shared Psychotic Disorder.
I'd explain it to Cindy. She probably wouldn't agree with it. Not at first.
But eventually I'd be able to convince her. And win her back. I was sure of it.
I was three blocks from her house when I heard the siren.
I looked in the rearview and saw the police car, red roof lights flashing, signaling for me to pull over.
I pulled over.
No surprise that Garrett was the cop.
No surprise that he swaggered up to my car.
No surprise that he rested his hand, gunfighter style, on the handle of his Magnum.
He walked in a slightly pinched way and when I looked down I saw he wore a brand-new pair of cowhide Western boots.
"You were speeding," he said.
And the truth was, I probably had been speeding.
"I thought you worked nights," I said.
"Got an officer out sick."
"You giving me a ticket?"
"Not if you give me the tapes."
He peered into the car, saw the two cassettes on the seat next to me.
"Cindy called me," he said.
"I see."
"Your date's canceled."
"You speak for her now, do you?"
"Yeah, I do." He nodded to the tapes. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd hand those over."
"Not a chance."
"I'm trying to be nice about this, Spence."
"Nice. Right."
"I'd just like to hear them. Then I'll bring them back."
I smiled at him. "You ever hear of Shared Psychotic Disorder?"
"Not lately."
"The well and the alien down there—it's all imaginary. You believed her and I believed her and Myles believed her—Myles believed her so much that he went crazy and went out and killed somebody."
"If that's the case, then why should you mind lending me the tapes?"
"The principle of the thing. They don't belong to you."
"You were going to loan them to Cindy."
"No, I wasn't. I was going to play them for Cindy."
He was smooth and he was fast, and the way he leaned in to my car, probably no passing motorist could see what he was doing here on this busy street.
The barrel of his Magnum pressed against the side of my head.
"Maybe I'm crazy, too, Spence, just like you say Myles was. Maybe I'll blow your fucking head off right here."
"No, you won't."
"You sure of that?"
But when I glanced up at his eyes, I really wasn't sure. He looked sort of the way Myles had that Saturday night. A little insane but in a hard, cold, controlled way.
"The tapes," he said.
I gave him the tapes.
I was also going to give him a speech and then give him some threats but suddenly I was too weary of it all.
When he'd stuffed the tapes in his trouser pocket, he took the gun from my head, slammed it back in his holster.
"One thing," he said.
I just watched him.
"No more contact with Cindy."
"It's a free country."
"Not where Cindy's concerned." He was so angry, he was trembling now. "Not where Cindy's concerned."
And then he stalked back to his car.
At least he hadn't given me a speeding ticket.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I got sick.
For three days I stayed in bed, my mom calling work and telling them that I couldn't come in, the way she used to call school for me.
She'd take my temperature in the morning and afternoon but couldn't find a fever, even though I felt hot and sweaty.
She'd give me cough syrup because I said my chest felt so tight. But I never coughed, and I didn't have any sinus drainage in the back of my throat.
Mostly, I slept.
I didn't eat much, didn't watch TV, didn't even read.
The third day, she came in and opened my curtains and said, "I thought you might want to look at the snow."
It was beautiful, that snow, the kind that you always see on Christmas cards mantling snug rooftops and providing traction for sleighs and snowballs for snowball fights. Sometimes when I saw Christmas card paintings of the turn of the century, I wanted to climb into the picture, and go back there. Life seemed so much easier, then.
"Honey," she said, turning from the window, "I wonder if I could talk to you."
"Sure."
"I mean, without you getting mad or hurting your feelings."
I guess I pretty much expected what she was going to say.
She sat herself on the edge of my bed and said, "It's Cindy, isn't it?"
"What's Cindy got to do with it?"
"Why you're in bed."
"I'm sick, Mom."
"I know you're sick, honey. But it's not the flu or a cough or a cold. It's Cindy."
I dropped my head and started staring at my hands folded on my lap.
"Right before I met your father, I broke up with this young man because I found out he'd been unfaithful. And I got sick, too. I stayed
in bed for almost two weeks."
It's always a strange feeling when your parents force you to confront the fact that they were your age once, and went through all the same things you're going through.
The thing is, you secretly suspect that it was easier for them to survive all the perils of youth. Your parents always strike you as a little naive, and you think that naive people can't get hurt as much as hip, sophisticated people like yourself.
"Two weeks?" I said.
"Two weeks. My mother had the doctor come over—they still made house calls in those days—and he examined me and then he asked my mother if she'd step out of the room and then he said, 'I heard about you and Ted Malley.' And all I could say was, 'Oh,' and he said, 'That's why you're sick in bed.' I didn't believe him at first but he explained to me that any time you have a big shock in your life, you can get sick. You don't run a fever or have a scratchy throat or have a headache, but you're still sick. And you really are sick. The doctor asked me if I'd ever heard the expression 'heartsick,' and I said, 'Sure,' and he said, 'Well, that's what this is.
You're heartsick. And it's just as real as having the flu or the measles or anything else. But the trouble is, there isn't any medication I can give you. You have to provide your own cure.' I didn't know what he meant. 'You have to get up out of that bed,' he said, 'and force yourself to go on with your life. At first, it'll be very, very difficult, and you'll want to go back to bed and start sleeping all the time again. But if you go on with your life, a little bit at a time it'll get easier for you. And then one day, maybe six months, maybe a year from now, you'll look back and wonder why you ever let yourself get so wrought up about it. And I asked him how he knew all this and he laughed and said, 'Because I went through it myself. I fell in love with the prettiest girl in the Valley right after I got out of med school, and after we were engaged for about a year, she told me that she still loved the boy she'd been seeing before me. She went back to him then. I had to have another doctor substitute for me for about a week and a half. I took to bed and couldn't get out. All I wanted to do was escape everything by sleeping as long as I could.' So, see, it even happens to doctors."
I think I loved my mom more than I ever have right at that moment, loved her for her kindness and optimism and concern for me.
I threw one leg out of bed and said, "You call work for me this morning?"
"Not yet."
"Good."
"You getting up?"
"Uh-huh."
I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I'm going to take a shower and I'll be down in a few minutes."
"I'll have waffles and bacon waiting for you."
"Thanks, Mom. I really liked that story you told me." I grinned. "By the way, was it actually true?"
She grinned back. "Most of it."
Then she went downstairs, and I went to the bathroom. I hadn't shaved in the three days I'd been in bed, and I had only showered once.
Two nights later, at the dinner table, just as we were finishing our spaghetti complete with the I'M ITALIANO bibs Dad made us wear whenever we ate Italian, Josh said, "We're leaving right at 7:30."
At first, I thought he was talking to Mom and Dad, some event I didn't know about.
"You hear me?"
I looked up from my spaghetti. "Me?"
"You."
"What's 7:30?"
"When we leave."
"Leave for where?"
"For our dates."
"I don't have a date."
Josh winked at Mom. "You do now."
"What're you talking about?"
Dad said, "One of Josh's lady friends has an older sister."
"You should see her," Josh said.
"Wasn't that nice of him?" Mom said.
"So wear your white button-down shirt," Josh said, "and your gray winter jacket and your gray slacks and your cordovan loafers. And go easy on the English Leather. You overdo it sometimes."
"I don't even know this girl."
"It's called a blind date," Josh said.
"But I'm not blind."
This time, he winked at Dad. "For your sake, I hope she is."
She wasn't blind.
She was, in fact, beautifully endowed with all her senses.
Josh went up to the door and got them and when he brought them back and the headliner light went on and she got her first look at me, I could see her disappointment.
She didn't go "ish" or "ick" or run screaming from the beast, but her eyes definitely said that I was not in her league, and she was going to have a not-good time tonight.
Right after the movie, and just about the time Josh was suggesting that we all go out for something to eat, my date said, "I really have a terrible headache. I'm sorry. Gosh, I was having so much fun. I really hate to go home so early but this headache—"
And then she made all the faces one makes when one doesn't actually have a headache but wishes to make others believe that one does have a headache.
She was so dramatic about it all that I almost said why didn't we take her to the hospital instead of her house but, I figured why make her think even less of me than she already did?
After Josh dropped her off, he dropped me off at home. His girlfriend kept making apologies for her sister—the headache routine had embarrassed her, I think—and I kept saying it was all right. If only her sister had been half as sweet as she was.
Since it was barely ten o'clock, Mom and Dad were still up watching TV.
I could tell by the look they exchanged that they knew my evening hadn't gone so well.
"Was she a nice girl?" Mom said.
"Pretty much."
"You're home pretty early," Dad said.
"Headache."
"You want some aspirin, dear?" Mom said.
"No. She had a headache."
Mom recognized the implication immediately.
Headache is a code word worldwide for women. Not only does it mean an easy means of escape from having sex, it also provides a way out of myriad other chores.
Such as enduring a night with a dork who is far beneath your station.
"There's some chocolate pie left in the refrigerator," Mom said.
"I guess I'll just go upstairs and listen to some music or something."
Another look between them.
Was I going to take to bed again, go back to my mourning?
"Sure you don't want some pie?" Mom said.
"Letterman's on in another twenty minutes."
"Nah. I think I'll go upstairs."
I must have been feeling at least a little better that night because I slipped my hand beneath my mattress and extracted the skin magazine and then I made sure that my door was firmly closed and then I pleasured myself.
And then an odd thing happened.
Instead of calming me down, and helping me get ready for bed the way it usually did, pleasuring myself made me restless.
I wanted to get up and do something.
I had no idea what that might be.
When I went back down, I wore a blue crew neck sweater, jeans, my imitation leather bombardier jacket, and running shoes.
Mom and Dad looked surprised to see me.
"I'm going out," I said.
"Out?" Mom said.
"Out where?" Dad said.
"Riding around, I guess."
"At this hour?" Dad said.
"You said yourself it was early."
Another parental glance was exchanged.
"Are you feeling all right, dear?"
"Fine, Mom."
"You know, if you want to drink a few beers, you're welcome to do it right here. You were in the Army and everything, son."
"Thanks, Dad. I'm just restless is all. I thought maybe riding around would help me." I smiled. "At least I don't want to stay in bed anymore."
Mom nodded, seeing my logic. "That's true, Robert. It is nice to see him up and around."
"You just be careful."
"I will, Dad."
; "Very careful," Mom said.
"Very, very careful," I said, and left.
After about twenty minutes, you sort of exhaust all the riding-around possibilities of our little town.
I drove past Pizza Hut, Arby's, Motel 6, Holiday Inn, Ramada Inn, McDonald's, Burger King, Long John Silver's.
I drove past the old school, the new school, city hall, the library, I went out by the old skating rink, the new skating rink, the football field and the city park.
It was a cold but lovely winter night, everything a crisp pure white, a full proud moon riding the sky.
I kept driving, punching station to station to find some really heavy duty rock songs. I wanted heavy metal tonight. I needed to feel invigorated.
And then I saw them.
Cindy and Garrett.
In his car.
Her sitting close-as-she-could-get as he drove.
And it happened again.
I wasn't even aware of doing it at first.
I just started following them.
CHAPTER NINE
The country road was a roller coaster of steep upslopes and equally steep downslopes. There was just enough snow and ice on them to make them dangerous.
I followed Garrett's Firebird deep into the country, the farmhouses getting fewer and fewer the longer we drove, timber becoming more and more dominant.
The moon was behind clouds and the snowy land had a dirty, gritty feeling.
I had no idea where he was going and I wondered if Garrett did. Maybe they were just driving around. Maybe they were having an argument and needed to talk it out and weren't paying any attention to where they were at all.
Then Garrett did a peculiar thing.
About half a mile from the Swenson farm, he cut his lights. He didn't pull over to the side of the road. He didn't even slow down.
He just cut his lights and headed straight for the Swenson place, turning into the gravel drive as soon as he reached it.
He stopped right at the head of the drive.
And sat there.
A quarter mile behind them, I pulled off to the side of the road.
I grabbed my binoculars and got out.
Icy snow crunched beneath my feet. The below-zero temperature bit at my nose and cheeks. The night seemed vast and somehow alien, as if I'd been set down on a world that was not quite earth. Only the lonely bay of a timber wolf reassured me that I was still earthbound.