The Sleep Police

by Jay Bonansinga

  “It was easy, Frank,” Pope was saying, strolling slowly toward the gun, whose barrel was still aimed right at the doctor. Pope paused, peered down the muzzle, then shook his head in a “tsk-tsk-tsk” manner. “And you were right about the hypnosis. But it was much more than mere post-hypnotic suggestion. I got inside your head, Frank, and I rearranged the furniture.”

  Frank focused his concentration on pulling the trigger, but his hand just hung in midair like a brick. A cold sweat had popped on his forehead, and his whole body was trembling with furious effort. Frank heard his teeth cracking in his skull as he squeezed.

  Dr. Pope was circling him like a man visiting a museum, looking at an exhibit. “Remember the medication for the insomnia? Did you ever wonder why your HMO always refused to cover it? Didn’t that seem strange?”

  Tears oozed from Frank’s eyes as he stood there in the darkness with the gun hanging before his face, his arm starting to bend under the weight of it. Somewhere, outside, far in the distance, thunder rumbled.

  “It’s called Lixotheopental,” the doctor announced almost gleefully, circling, circling. “It’s a new psychotropic drug that puts you in a hypnotic state every time you go to sleep. It’s like having a remote control to a person’s behavior, Frank. It’s incredible.”

  Frank was having trouble standing up. The gun felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds in his hand. His arm was drooping. He cringed and said, “You better kill me now, Doc.”

  “I would never do that, Frank. Good Lord.” The doctor continued nonchalantly circling him. “It was so easy, though. Such a wonderful subject. It was so easy. All that baggage, all those fears to work with. At first I tried to simply drive you away from the investigation, planting little suggestions. Like training a dog to stay off the couch.”

  Frank collapsed, fell to his knees, his hand still clutching the Colt.

  He was silently sobbing now. The gun was so heavy in his hand it tipped him forward, then lay on the floor in his grip like a dead weight.

  “You’re too professional—too good of a cop, I suppose—to walk away,” the doctor went on. “That was when I realized you were the perfect candidate to crack into separate personalities. All that latent anger, separation anxiety. Such a polite young man. All those demons.”

  Frank was on his hands and knees now, weeping, gaping down at the gun frozen in his grasp, weighing him down. The gun weighed a million pounds now.

  “We did a lot of therapeutic hypnosis the first time,” Pope was saying. “It was so easy, Frank. Planting all those post-hypnotic suggestions. Creating an entirely separate personality to take the fall. It was so systematic. Getting you to make the videos.”

  Frank tried to speak, tried to answer the doctor, but the emotions were choking him, crushing him. To lose the battle like this—like a sick animal—was almost beyond comprehension for Frank.

  “You know the irony of all this?” the doctor asked, somewhat rhetorically. “It turns out you were the perfect profile for the murderer. All those buttons. I just had to press them.” He paused then, his monstrous, elongated shadow falling across the aisle. He took off his bifocals and rubbed his eyes and said, “Like the number eleven for instance.”

  The gun shivered suddenly in Frank’s hand, like a small animal convulsing. Frank stopped crying and looked down at the revolver.

  “I respect you, Frank,” the doctor said, standing over him, putting his glasses back on. “As a detective. As a man. I really do. That’s why I built some safety features into the programming. Key words. Behavioral cues drawing on childhood terrors. Hypnotic triggers. Like the number eleven.”

  Frank stared at the gun. It was vibrating softly, pulsing in his hand as though it were alive.

  “You were so forthcoming in our sessions, Frank.” The doctor looked at him almost sadly. “Always willing to share your fears, your deepest emotional scars. Very useful. Which brings me to the number eleven.”

  Terror trumpeted in Frank’s brain as the vague connection was made between the number eleven and a foggy, partially formed memory from his childhood—

  —sitting alone in a strange room at his Aunt Nikki’s, a week after his mother was sent away, the notion first strikes little Frankie: a way out of this mess, an answer, a solution to all his problems, and he realizes it comes to him at eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month—

  Heat was flowing through Frank’s arm now, his tendons spasming. The gun was twitching. Frank stared at it. Something terrible was happening.

  “I hate to see it end like this, Frank,” Pope said, his voice heavy with regret. “You were an incredible subject. But you can imagine the kind of toll all these killings must take on a person after a while. The guilt must be tremendous. Which again brings us to the number eleven.”

  The Colt was rising off the floor on its own power.

  Frank fought it. He rose to his knees, and squeezed and grunted, sweating profusely, teeth clenching, but he was powerless to stop his rebellious arm from lifting the gun. And he knew what was happening, as surely as he knew the significance of the number eleven—

  —for an eleven-year-old boy contemplating suicide for the first time in his life, as the clock strikes eleven on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

  “Please,” Frank mewled breathlessly, watching his arm raise the gun.

  “I’m sorry, Frank,” the doctor said, watching the process unfold. “There’s nothing I can do. The work is too important. It’s a modern holocaust.”

  Frank watched in horror as his puppet arm slowly turned the gun toward his face.

  “All those innocent souls,” Pope was saying. “Dying hideous deaths because of a few selfish, soulless whores. Something has to be done.”

  Frank tried desperately to grab the Diamondback with his free hand, shove it away, avert it. It was as though an enormous magnet were pulling it toward his chin.

  Pope turned away, not caring to watch the gruesome outcome. “Goodbye, Frank.”

  “Nuh—n-n-n—no,” Frank uttered through gnashing, clenched teeth. He was soaked in perspiration. He didn’t want to kill himself.

  Almost tenderly the barrel touched the sensitive skin under his jaw.

  “P-please,” Frank pleaded, frantically digging down into the pit of his psyche for a way out.

  Behind him, a pigeon rustled furiously against the torn fabric of a movie screen.

  Frank’s trigger finger tingled, a pearl of sweat tracking into his eye.

  Outside, in the far distance: the low growl of thunder.

  Frank’s eyes slammed shut.

  He pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  He’s outdoors. He’s moving. The thick, green landscape is a blur on either side of him. He’s fourteen years old, stewing in hormones and adolescent angst, and he’s foot-racing his brother down a remote, rutted dirt road in the deep woods north of Uncle Andreas’s farm.

  There’s a huge, hollowed-out tree at the end of the road, sheltered by a thick screen of foliage. This is their sanctuary, their respite from the trials and tribulations of puberty. They come here to chill out, to commiserate, to smoke cigarettes and vent their frustrations and philosophize. There’s a stash of skunk weed that Frankie got from a senior at Funks Grove High School hidden inside the tree under a dead root. It’s in a little lacquer box that Aunt Nikki brought back from Greece. The pot is harsh and makes Frankie dizzy, but it’s the best way to escape reality.

  They reach the tree, each boy panting like crazy, giggling. They lean against the tree for a moment trying to catch their breaths. Kyle jokes that he’s going to puke. Frankie playfully kicks him in the ass.

  After a moment, they go inside.

  They settle down on the moldy rug that they brought out from the landfill near McLean, and they dig out their stash box. There are a couple of packs of Camels, a single baggie of stale marijuana, a book of Zig-zags, a rusty Swiss army knife, some naked lady playing cards and a plastic-wrapped condo
m. Frankie proceeds to roll a joint, while Kyle comments on the new math teacher at Wilburn Middle School.

  After a few minutes, Kyle is first to hear the noise: an intermittent hissing sound, like an aerosol spray, coming from somewhere behind Frankie. Kyle comments on it, and Frankie glances over his shoulder.

  A pair of beady black eyes are glaring back at him, a pointed snout flashing pearl-white fangs, hissing fiercely.

  Both boys reflexively jerk away. Kyle tumbles on a root and falls outside the tree. But Frankie cannot move. He is paralyzed with terror, crouched in the dank shadows, staring nose-to-nose with a large, mangy, irritable raccoon.

  Maybe it’s the shock of being so close to the thing—not to mention seeing its impressive incisors—that has something to do with the fact that Frankie cannot move. Maybe it’s just instinct, maybe some kind of primal muscle-memory that’s keeping Frankie glued to that ground.

  It’s more likely, however, that it’s the memory of a cold winter night, and a wild dog hunched in the shadows of a bloody barn, it’s feral eyes shimmering in the firelight, that has Frankie all jacked up.

  “Frankie!” Kyle whispers frantically from outside the tree. “Don’t show fear.”

  “What?!—what?!” Frankie says, keeping his gaze fixed on the animal. The raccoon is arching its back, hissing, clenching its claws.

  “They’re mean, Frankie, they can take a full-grown dog.”

  “Kyle, please shut up!”

  “You can’t show it you’re afraid!”

  “What are you talking about?!”

  “Do the opposite!” Kyle whispered.

  “What?”

  “Do the opposite of what it expects—do the opposite—it expects you to run—do the opposite—show it you’re meaner that it is!”

  “What the—?” Frankie starts to say, then stops. All at once he gets it. In a single millisecond of clarity, he gets it. He gets what his brother is trying to tell him. In his adolescent way of understanding things, Frankie realizes that you’ve got to absorb the danger. You’ve got to turn the danger back on itself. You’ve got to turn the tables, and become the attacker yourself.

  You’ve got to find the feral side of yourself and become more dangerous than the danger.

  “Fine!” Frankie barks all of sudden, lurching toward the raccoon.

  The raccoon hisses, rearing back.

  “Let’s do it!” Frankie growls at it, showing his teeth, and for one insane instant, Frankie becomes a rabid raccoon himself. And for one terrible moment, all the rage comes boiling out of him.

  “Motherfucker!” he thunders at the animal, striking out at it. His hand catches a corner of the raccoon’s snout, ripping a gouge of flesh. Blood spatters, and the animal yelps, then jerks away, cowering.

  “Go ahead!—go ahead!!” Frankie shrieks at it. “Attack me!!—attack me!!—you motherfucker!!”

  Frankie lunges at the raccoon, grabbing it by the throat. The animal howls, twisting in Frankie’s arms. It’s a horrifying sound. Primordial. Like a cat being skinned. Frankie slams the raccoon against the wall of the massive trunk, again, and again, and again.

  The sound of delicate little bones snapping is unlike any other sound.

  Outside the tree, Kyle is watching in wide-eyed horror, mouth gaping, mortified, as the raccoon finally manages to wriggle out of Frankie’s grasp—its bloody limbs flailing—fleeing out a hole in the opposite side of the trunk.

  Frankie cannot shut off the motor inside him. He slams a fist into the tree, again and again and again, until his hand is throbbing. The raccoon is long gone, but Frankie’s rage is still flaring into the air like static electricity.

  A pause, as Frankie stands there, breathing hard, holding his hand.

  Kyle is standing in the opening, staring.

  A long pause as the two brothers gaze at each other, each learning something about the other.

  Something very unexpected and disturbing, something beyond words....

  ...and now, in the great dream factory, the place where the two brothers had once come to see evil personified, to see the shifting, flickering shadows moving across the screen, to see the monsters rule in garish, Day-Glo, celluloid colors, all that muscle memory was returning to Frank.

  Lying in the forgotten darkness, the sound of a single gun blast ringing in his ears, Frank was waiting for death to come and absorb him into the screen forever. He waited, and he waited, and he wasn’t afraid. He wanted death to come take him away. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He was fighting that rabid raccoon again, and he was ready to die...

  ...and that’s when he realized the extraordinary thing that was happening.

  He was not dying.

  He was still alive, and he was still breathing, and his brain was still working.

  Lying on his back in the darkness, completely deafened by the blast of the .38, Frank was blinded by a pinpoint of dirty daylight shining down through the cordite smoke swirling above him from the gunfire. He blinked, and he squinted against the corona of light flaring in his eyes, and he could barely see a pigeon up there in the cobwebs, flapping and convulsing against the time-worn patina of the theater’s ceiling. What happened? Where was the gun?

  A new voice spoke aloud in his mind: Time to get moving, Frank, time to take care of business!

  Frank sat up with a start, a ripple of dizziness moving through him. His scalp was stinging, and something wet oozed behind his right ear. He felt his head, and looked down at his bloody fingers. It was a contact wound, a minor one at that, the side of his face prickling from the powder burn, his ears still ringing fiercely. How was that possible? He had the barrel of the Colt pressed under his chin as he pulled the trigger. Was it the raccoon syndrome? Was it something that he had done at the last minute to throw the programming off?

  He frantically scanned the shadows around him and saw that he was still on the sticky floor of the Bijou Theater, the Diamondback lying next to him, gleaming in the low light. And all at once a whirlwind of information swirled through his brain, making him realize what had happened.

  The voice. The angry voice in his head. Somehow it must have possessed him at the very last minute, filling him with enough inertia to break the hypnotic bond. It must have nudged the barrel of the gun a few centimeters to the right, just enough to save his life, sending the wadcutter off into the wall of the theater.

  The voice in his mind, clamoring through a loudspeaker in his head: The son of a bitch is still in the theater, Frank—he’s right there, across the aisle! He doesn’t believe his eyes, he’s stunned, he can’t move—take advantage of it!—nail the bastard, Frank!—nail him!!

  Frank scooped up the gun, then spun toward the shadows near the broken EXIT sign.

  A tall, stooped figure stood near the curtained doorway, his hands at his side, his fists clenching and unclenching rhythmically. He was coiled and tense like a wild animal that had been surprised very suddenly.

  “You’re not leaving yet, are you?!” Frank called out at the figure, rising up on two feet, aiming the Diamondback. “Just when the feature presentation’s about to begin?!”

  The doctor took a step forward, his withered face illuminated by a shaft of daylight. “Very impressive, Frank,” he said.

  “Wrong,” Frank said, the sound of his own voice a little odd in his blast-deafened ears. He aimed the gun at the doctor. Eight, maybe ten feet away. At this range, the bullet would remove Henry Pope’s face.

  “Excuse me?” the doctor said.

  “I’m not Frank anymore,” Frank heard himself tell the psychiatrist, for lack of a better explanation. It wasn’t precisely true, but at this point it was the simplest way to describe what had happened.

  “Is that right?”

  Frank yanked the hammer back, the metallic snapping noise echoing in the dark theater. “That’s right, Doc. I’m the new kid on the block.”

  “That’s very interesting,” the older man said, glancing around the theater, stalling, looking for something. “
What shall we call you? Video-Frank?”

  “Wrong again.”

  The psychiatrist frowned. “You’re not Frank’s alter?”

  “Let’s put it this way, Doc: I’m the new Frank. New and improved.”

  “You’re not the Sleep Police?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then who are you? What should I call you?”

  Frank squeezed off a shot.

  The gun roared, a silver flame leaping out of the muzzle, the blast gobbling a plaster divot six inches above the psychiatrist’s shoulder, sending a puff of dust down on him. Pope ducked instinctively, covering his head with his hands, shuddering at the shock.

  “How about Mister Janus?” Frank heard himself say, his adrenaline spiking, his skin tingling.

  “Easy, Frank,” Pope said, raising his hands. His eyes were glittering, his wheels turning now. The doctor was a tough old buzzard.

  “I’m very easy, Doc, I’m extremely easy.”

  “That’s two shots you’ve fired now,” Pope said.

  “And I’ve got four left.”

  “They’ll be sending a car out here, maybe several cars, any minute now.”

  “We’ll be done by then,” Frank said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Frank smiled mirthlessly. “Our business will be concluded.”

  “What business is that, Frank?”

  “Call it justice.”

  Pope showed his yellow teeth. “The only one who deals in that business is God, Frank.”

  Frank took a step closer—maybe six feet away now—and aimed the gun at the bridge of the doctor’s nose. Frank was like a substance that had been denatured. He was anger on two legs. And for the first time in his life, he was free of doubt, of self-loathing, of regret. He was a machine, and he was calibrated for a single purpose: destroying Pope. “Let there be light,” Frank said very softly.

  “Frank—”

  “On your knees, Doc.”

  “Frank, I’m not—”

  “ON YOUR KNEES!”

  “I will not!” the old man said, shaking his head like a petulant child.