by H. P. Bayne
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand?”
“You were here less than three months. I spent years in this place. I couldn’t bear it another day. I would have done anything to be free of it, but even when I was out, it was still there, inside me. It hangs over me everywhere I go, the idea I might one day walk into someone I knew from Lockwood, that they might drag me back. I thought if I gave them what they wanted—”
“And now? You’re fine living with yourself? What about Terrence? What would he think?”
“He won’t know.” She took a breath, let it out before shaking her head slowly. “I told you to stay away from this place, didn’t I? I warned you. You didn’t listen.”
Sully understood she was trying to lessen the blame, to alleviate her guilt. Sure, she’d said that. But all it would have meant, had he obeyed, was that Sully would have been fighting even harder to conceal himself. It would have meant Dez, Mara and Eva being questioned and threatened in an attempt to pull from them the truth. The fact Sully was here, that he could face this without dragging his loved ones into it, was actually preferable to the reality Snowy would otherwise have left him with.
He had a second thought, about Terrence. If Snowy had come here in an attempt to settle accounts with Gerhardt so she could come out of hiding, what might it mean about Terrence and his problem with Lowell? Terrence and Snowy needed to stay concealed until Lowell was out of the picture. Maybe Terrence was working on a plan even now to deal with his biggest problem.
Now, though, wasn’t the time to ask. He’d probably already revealed too much to Gerhardt about the Lowell situation. The psychiatrist no doubt had some knowledge about his business partner’s dirty deeds—he obviously was front and centre regarding what was being done at Lockwood with LOBRA drugs—but Sully wanted to hold onto as much as he could for now.
He shook his head. His thoughts were likely as loud to Snowy as if he’d spoken them, and he sought to pull back, to draw the blinds between his conscious mind and the outside world.
“I know it doesn’t mean much to you, and I do understand why you must hate me,” she said. “But I truly am very, very sorry.”
She turned to Gerhardt. “May I leave?”
His answer was a slow nod, and Snowy beetled from the room as if expecting the psychiatrist might yet withdraw his consent and have her dragged back.
Sully fixed his eyes on Gerhardt as the sound of Snowy’s footsteps on the stairs drifted away.
Then he and Gerhardt were alone.
“I thought you were dead,” the psychiatrist said. “Where have you been all this time?”
“I didn’t come here to answer questions. I’m here to ask them. Are you still experimenting on patients?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t,” Sully said. “I’m not stupid, and I was never insane. I have an ability you and Lowell exploited for your own ends. The experiments you’ve been conducting on psychic patients, are you still doing them?”
Gerhardt sat forward at the desk, fixing Sully with a paternal smile so patronizing it was all Sully could do to resist smacking it off. “Sullivan, I know your time here was difficult. But the drugs you were on were very heavy. They had to be. It’s likely they made you believe things that—”
“Stop,” Sully growled. “You waited until the drugs had worn off before you injected me with the stuff from LOBRA. I was aware. Fully aware. I know what happened. I only want to know why. Was it all for Lowell, to help him, or was it for yourself?”
“Now Sullivan—”
“You always wanted to find your son. You never did. The experiments won’t end until you do, will they?”
“I don’t know what you—”
Sully took a step forward, cutting off yet another denial through movement alone. By now, he knew he’d been naive to hope he might draw a confession from Gerhardt this easily. The man had spent years concealing all manner of sins. No doubt he’d planned, again and again, what he’d do if confronted. There were ways to break him, just like he’d broken Sully two years ago. Talking wasn’t it.
Sully felt a tug inside him, a nudge from a part of him. A dark part. If he could feed the hangman by drawing in the disturbed spirits haunting the corridor outside, he could harness the kind of power needed to force Gerhardt’s confession. His gaze flicked to the doorway. She was there, the ghost who’d all but stuck to him since he’d come in here. It would be so easy….
Sully shook the thought away. The last time he’d done it, he’d lost himself. He’d nearly killed a man. While he could live with beating Gerhardt senseless, he didn’t want a death on his hands. And there was the chance he wouldn’t stop there. Emily was just down the hall. If he turned on her, he’d never be able to forgive himself.
Instead, he turned to something else he imagined might significantly weaken the psychiatrist. “Do you still want to find your son?”
“As I understand it, your brother is already working on it. Does he know about you?”
Sully opted not to answer. “I can help you find him.”
The smile was back. Sully balled his fists at his sides and held them there. “Why would you help me, after everything you believe I’ve done?”
“Because there’s something you can do for me in return. I can give you your son if you give me Lowell.”
“Your uncle? Why?”
“Don’t bullshit me. You know exactly why.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to do. Of course I want to find my son. But how on earth do you think I can help you settle your problems with your uncle?”
“You can provide me with information that will take him down. If the authorities and the public are made aware of the drug experiments, of the fact patients are being used as guinea pigs, he’d be finished.”
“If all of that truly happened, I’d be finished too,” Gerhardt said. “And it didn’t happen, Sullivan, whatever you think you remember.”
“It happened. I know it happened. You have files in here to prove it. I’ve seen them.”
Shock flitted across Gerhardt’s face, but he quickly hid it behind narrowed eyes and tight lips. “You had no right to go through private patient files.”
“But I had a right to look at mine. You documented the patients you experimented on. Why leave a paper trail?”
“Any procedure we do here is documented.” Gerhardt paused, took a breath he ejected in a sigh before turning tired eyes on Sully. “Look, I know what you think, but anything I’ve done has been in the best interests of my patients. LOBRA developed a drug that was believed to open up parts of the brain that ordinarily can’t easily be accessed. I’m no chemist, so I can’t explain how it works, but my hope was that it would allow patients with so-called psychic abilities to not only access their gifts at will, but to control them. I used to believe those with such abilities wanted only to be rid of them; I’ve since realized differently, that some only want a way to better control the things they can see and do. You’re one of them. You don’t enjoy seeing spirits, but you embrace it as a part of who you are. Ridding you of the ability, or suppressing it, took from you the essence of your being. Don’t you want a way to control it?”
“I have a way to control it,” Sully said. “My abilities aren’t my problem and neither are the ghosts. It’s people like you and Lowell who are the problem.” He took another step, leaning on the desktop to put his face closer to Gerhardt’s. He was pleased to see the older man flinch. “You haven’t done a single thing in the name of helping patients. You’ve taken advantage of them. You’ve used them. It ends now, Gerhardt. I’m ending it. You can mitigate the damage to yourself by giving me Lowell. In return, I’ll give you the one thing that’s more important to you than this job or your own life. If you want to find your son, you’ll do what I tell you.”
Gerhardt’s right hand came up from beneath the desk, more quickly than Sully would have thought possible for the man. In it was a handgun.
“Or maybe,” Gerhardt said. “You’ll do what I tell you.”
Sully stared at the gun, a revolver similar to the one Emily owned. He was no expert on guns, but he knew it would be fully loaded. What was more, Gerhart would be prepared to use it.
Sully debated making a comment to alert Emily to the presence of the weapon. It might bring her here, which Sully didn’t want, but it would also serve as a needed warning to her. It didn’t take him long to decide it was better she knew, for her own safety.
“You going to shoot me?” he asked.
“I don’t want to,” Gerhardt said. “But you seem to be leaning toward giving me little choice. And consider: The world already believes you’re dead. No one knows you’re down here. The place is very well soundproofed. And you’re an escaped patient who’s just broken in and confronted me. It might be I can conceal the whole thing easily enough, but if I’m found out, I have a fairly solid defence.”
A sound in the hall drew Gerhardt’s attention, and he shifted his aim. Sully wheeled to see Emily standing there, gun in hand and fire in her glare like an elderly, female Dirty Harry.
She opened her mouth, as if to issue an order to Gerhardt, but she didn’t get the chance. A shot sounded, a deafening pop that muffled all subsequent sound.
Emily’s little body flew back under an impact to her midsection. Sully could do nothing but watch, horrified, as she struck the opposite wall in the hall. There, she slid down until she lay, slumped, on the floor.
Shock gave way to panic.
“No!” Sully cried as he rushed for the hall.
She wasn’t moving, yet he didn’t see her ghost. With Betty Schuster, he’d noticed her moments after. The fact he couldn’t see Emily gave him hope. And yet….
For a moment, Emily was all he knew. He knelt at her side, intending to check on her, but spun at the sound of movement behind him. Gerhardt stood at the door to the office, gun still in hand.
Sully spotted Emily’s gun within easy reach. He’d only managed to stretch out a hand for it when another shot sounded. Pain streaked across Sully’s middle, the force of the blast flipping him onto his back on the floor next to the fallen Emily.
Gerhardt stood over him as he trained Sully in his sights.
Sully poured every ounce of hate he had for this man into his words. “You son of a bitch. You killed her.”
“That’s right,” Gerhardt said. “And I’m going to kill you too.”
24
The wound in his side was like a fire burning, and it would have been enough to buckle him were he anywhere else, in any other situation.
But here and now, his survival depended on seeing past the pain. Seeing past it and ensuring he didn’t suffer any further.
The ghosts were here, all three of them, gathered around as observers at a sideshow.
Emily was dead. She had to be. No way she’d taken that slug in the chest and survived.
He’d reached the point of grasping reality, that he might have to kill Gerhardt if he was to get out of here alive and take Emily with him. No way he was leaving her here, in a place and situation that would see her painted as anything less than honourable.
His heart broke for her, and he knew he’d feel even worse later. She’d come here, after all, for him. Gerhardt had pulled the trigger, but her death was on Sully’s hands nonetheless.
But the guilt and grief would have to come later. Right now, there was only him, Gerhardt and a gun.
And only one way he could think of to win this battle.
He focused on the ghosts, beginning the process of drawing them in. Unfortunately the pain and the distraction left him unprepared for the unexpected.
Gerhardt jabbed a syringe into his leg.
Sully gave up on the ghosts, his attention snapping to the sensation of a liquid drug flowing into his vein. He kicked Gerhardt away before he could administer the full dose, then yanked the needle from his leg, tossing the half-full syringe away. He didn’t see where it clattered off to, but it was enough that he’d put himself between Gerhardt and the remaining drug.
The doctor backed away a couple of steps, gun still out and fixed on Sully. Sully did his best to keep the weapon in his sights as he struggled to sitting, gritting his teeth as his side pulled painfully.
“Stay down,” Gerhardt ordered. “Don’t move.”
The tone contained no trace of panic; rather, it was that of a man in complete control. Sully tried to refocus on the ghosts, but found he couldn’t get there. Dread had set in, the feel of the LOBRA drug winding its way up into his brain, poking into his consciousness, taking him over.
He’d learned over time how to separate spirit emotions from his own, and so more or less block them. But the drug changed that, lowered those defences. As if it were his own, he felt their fear now, these three trapped Lockwood spirits. They circled him, watching pitilessly as he fell before the power of Lowell’s drug and their torment. Like many who’d endured the sort of trauma they had, it had become impossible for them to see beyond their own suffering, to sympathize with that of another.
He was on his own.
Sully backed away from Gerhardt, pulling himself along on his backside while scanning the ground for Emily’s gun. He couldn’t control the spirits in his current condition, but surely he could still fire a gun.
As if sensing the turn of his thoughts, Gerhardt stepped forward, kicking at something on the ground. Emily’s revolver slid away, disappearing into the shadows of the hall.
Sully turned back to his enemy. Gerhardt was watching him thoughtfully.
“Mara and Desmond were here at Lockwood just a short time ago,” Gerhardt said. “Desmond told me something, that a psychic had seen Eloise’s spirit at our old home. I don’t think I’d be far off the mark to assume you are that psychic. What did you see? What did she tell you?”
“She didn’t tell me anything. Even if she did, I wouldn’t share it with you.”
“Wouldn’t you? You know, it’s just occurred to me I’ve been going about this all wrong. All these years, I’ve been trying to communicate with my son. Maybe what I’ve needed all along is to communicate with my wife.”
Sully’s vision swam, but he was certain he saw Gerhardt tuck his gun under one arm to allow him to remove his wedding band. “Eloise picked this out for our wedding. She was always much better at those sorts of things than I was. It’s mine, but in a way, it’s really hers.”
Perception had changed with the drug. The hallway spun, lights dancing around Sully as his world shifted. Smells were sharper, dust, decay and Gerhardt’s aftershave combining pungently enough to make him want to vomit. Sounds were louder; each statement from Gerhardt seemed shouted. The image of the psychiatrist grew larger, and Sully didn’t know whether it was real or simply a trick of his eyes until he felt an object—the ring, no doubt—being pressed into his hand.
He’d intended to throw it, as far as he was able. The drug didn’t give him the chance.
The vision came instantly. He was back inside the house in The Forks, only it looked different. And he felt different, not like himself. He’d connected to Eloise’s ghost, had entered her consciousness, her memory. He was Eloise, and now there was nothing to do but be dragged along for the ride.
She was in the sunlit kitchen, bagging up a sandwich and placing it, along with a yogurt cup, carrot sticks and an apple juice, inside a Charlie Brown lunch kit.
As usual, Sully’s limitation meant the vision was restricted to sights, smell and touch. She was calling out to David; he could sense it based on the turn of her thoughts. And he was aware as she was of David’s too-rapid approach from the stairs.
She scolded over her shoulder as she sealed the lunch box. David continued to run anyway, didn’t stop until he’d encased his mother’s waist in a tight hug.
Bright blue eyes peered up into hers as she turned into his embrace. He was thanking her once again for the train she’d bought him, one she’d seen in a shop window. She’d
intended it for his birthday, but Roman had been so harsh with the little boy yesterday evening she’d decided to give David the gift early.
She hugged him back, then laughed inside—only inside—as he begged her to be allowed to stay home from school to play with his new toy.
Her firm “no” led to a pout, but one that turned quickly to a smile. He was a good-natured kid that way, thankfully far more like his mother than his father in personality. And her love for him was boundless.
The memory changed. This time, David was nowhere to be seen, just Eloise and a young woman Sully recognized from photos as Marc’s wife, Mariel. She was still very young, likely only eighteen or nineteen. Her face was plaintive and desperate as she revealed a secret to her older sister. Sully couldn’t hear the words, but he felt the creeping dread moving through Eloise as she listened. He didn’t need to hear to know Mariel was telling her sister of the second son prophesy, the one she’d heard from her friend, Harry.
The two women argued, Eloise locked in disbelief. Roman had proven himself a hard man, but he’d never harm their son. Mariel’s friend was obviously out of his mind.
Another memory. David hadn’t spoken to Eloise all that weekend morning, had withdrawn to his room with his trains and books and politely refused to come out. When he turned down lunch, Eloise knew something was very wrong.
She sat down on the bedroom floor with him, drew from him at long last an admission. The words went unheard by Sully, but he could see the thoughts as they formed in Eloise’s mind, as she pictured what the child described. His father had come into his room last night, saying he wanted to play a game. They took turns holding their breath behind the boy’s pillow.
Then the game changed. They’d hold the pillow over each other’s faces.
David went first, giggling as he pressed the pillow down. He didn’t know why his father looked so serious as he took the pillow for his turn. His dad had told him to lie down. Then he’d held the pillow over David’s face, pressing down hard. It hurt. The little boy couldn’t breathe at all, even though he tried, and he couldn’t tell his father to stop. And he hadn’t stopped. Not until they heard Eloise calling.