Cindi was still talking.
“Have you been sleeping at all, because your eyes are really dark and I hope that Dr. Bowes hasn’t been working you ragged just because you’re new here. Done it before to a new guy a few years ago. Had to go on disability and he never came back. Rumor going around said he got mono and Bowes had his disability wages withheld.”
She barely gave herself time to breath.
Hunter shook his head. He wasn’t getting much sleep that was true, but mostly because he had been burning the midnight oil in Bowes’ office searching for everything he could find on Brenda.
“I know a great place over on Hinley Street,” Cindi said. Hunter found himself counting her chins. She had three and a half. “I thought maybe you and I could grab a drink after you’re done today since I live around the corner from there and I don’t work early tomorrow, so if you wanted to stay—”
That great place she was talking about on Hinley was a TGIF and the very thought of it suddenly made him want to barf all over her.
“I’m gonna be stuck here late again, Cindi,” he said apologetically. “But maybe some other time. I hear their Strawberry Daiquiris are to die for.”
Suddenly the glum expression on Cindi’s face evaporated. “Oh yeah! They are great, aren’t they?” She was smiling now. A real beamer if ever Hunter had seen one. “Oklie-doklie, I’m gonna hold you to that promise, mister.”
Hunter summoned a smile that almost looked genuine. “I hope you do.”
Chapter 14
“GET THE FUCK OUT!”
Tyson sprang out of bed, slamming the small of his back against the wall behind him. The sound of cracking wood followed a microsecond later by a hollow thud rang through the cottage. For a moment, the whole place seemed to rock back and forth. His eyes sprang open and suddenly he became aware that he had been dreaming. He shook his head, trying to clear away the fog. He was still groggy when he clawed his way back into bed, his chest heaving violently. His sheets and the boxer briefs he was wearing were soaked with perspiration. The face from his dream was still so fresh in his mind he didn’t dare close his eyes.
In his dream he was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Outside it was dark and windy. He remembered the wind. The way it shook the pine trees outside. The needles scrapping against the windows like long fingernails. He remembered being afraid. Afraid of the trees. Growing more and more certain they were trying to get inside the room. He was watching the branches sway back and forth when he saw the old woman staring back at him from outside. His mother. He wasn’t sure how he knew. Didn’t have the foggiest notion how she looked. He was five years old, after all, but somehow, in a dream-logic sort of way, it all made perfect sense.
She was outside, and she had to be standing up to her ankles in mud and pine needles because it had rained earlier and when it rained here the ground turned to mush. She was wearing a blood soaked Johnny gown and he could see the heavy wet fabric rippling slowly as she stood glaring in at him. She was saying something, her lips, cracked and bleeding, mouthing the words, but he couldn’t quite make them out.
He blinked and she was gone.
That’s when his dream got really weird, because that’s when the front door started sliding open and he jumped because he knew she was inside the cottage. Somewhere in the dark. Coming for him. He could hear her wet, soggy feet as she drew nearer. Could hear her breathing from the other room. Heavy and labored as though she had tubes stuck down her throat. Tyson’s eyes had darted around the room. There was nowhere to run and he felt the cold hand of panic begin to seize him. Heart hammering, Tyson’s hands gripped the covers and pulled them up under his chin like a child trying to shield himself from a bogeyman that was at this very moment, shambling through the living room.
Slowly through the dim light he watched as she ambled into the room, her movements strange and unnatural as she stopped at his bedside. Her bare feet were still wet and he could hear them sticking to the hardwood floor.
“You were a naughty boy to leave Mommy like that,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow and distorted as though she was speaking through the business end of a vacuum cleaner. “Mommy loves you so much, Tyson. I want you to know that Mommy loved you most of all. Come home with me. Come home and I’ll see that you never leave again. Come home to Mommy.”
She had reached out a scaly hand to touch him and he had started to scream.
GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! GET THE FUCK OUT! GET THE…
Tyson lay in his damp bed still reeling from the dream. His heartbeat drumming wildly in his neck.
Oh my God, how real it felt. That was what struck him more than anything else. The level of recall was also unusual. It wasn’t often that he remembered all that much of his dreams. Perhaps because this one had been different. He couldn’t think of the last time he had dreamt of his mother, at least not in this much detail.
He closed his eyes. He was thinking about the Noxil again. Thinking about how desperate he was to get his hands on them. How he would even crunch the used vials between his teeth if he thought it would do any good.
A fly landed on his ear in the darkness and Tyson whacked the side of his head.
Damnit!
That was stupid and right away he could feel his ear beginning to throb. He was on edge. His body was craving sleep, while his mind begged him to stay awake.
You know what will happen if you sleep. What might come through.
Something else touched his forehead and that’s when he heard it. A low hum. The same noise he’d heard as a child in the room with the toys and what else he dared not say.
Every second it was growing louder. A fly brushed against his hand. Another tried crawling into his nostril. He could hear them bouncing off the screen. Up against the window, their wings vibrating together, making a horrible sound.
Tyson switched on the light and gasped.
The ceiling was a single black undulating mass. He had never seen so many flies in his whole life. Some of them started to descend and Tyson yanked off the pillowcase and wrapped it around his head. They were everywhere now. He could barely keep his eyes open. He waded through the mass, gasping for air. Jabbing his hand out in front of him, he found the screen and yanked it open. A second later he was in the living room. The door to the master bedroom slammed tight. Behind him, the low drone of thousands of flies swirling in a black mass. Tyson looked around the living room in disbelief. There wasn’t a single fly in here.
Inside the master bedroom he could hear thousands of tiny insect wings scraping against the door.
He would sleep in the car, he decided and he was halfway to the kitchen when he stopped. But the problem wasn’t finding a safer place to sleep, was it? His mind was still a foggy mess, but things were still clear enough for him to recognize it didn’t matter where he went. Cottage, car, or even Skip’s goddamned boathouse. The problem wasn’t where to sleep, it was how to stay awake.
Already the noise of flies buzzing around his bedroom wasn’t nearly as loud as it was a moment ago. He would let them stay in there until they all died. In the morning he’d look to see if Skip had one of those Shop Vacs to scoop them up with.
In the meantime, thankfully, Skip’s cottage had more than one bedroom, and Tyson headed to one of the remaining two that were right off the living room.
This room smelled musty, the walls covered with cheap wood paneling and the sheets damp, but it was a bed and it was a hell of a lot better than being propped up in a chair all night long. He wondered for a moment if his trip to the clinical trial hadn’t really been a trip into hell. The more his mind worked, the tighter the knot in his belly grew. Not because he feared the unknown. No, it was the opposite that terrified him. At some level, perhaps one he wasn’t ready to admit to himself just yet, he knew exactly what was coming. The only unknown was what it would do once it found him. Tyson spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in his damp bed, listening for flies.
• • •
Th
e knocking the next morning startled him.
“Hello? Anyone home? Hello?”
Sounded like they were already in the kitchen. Tyson scrambled out of bed and shrugged on a pair of jeans.
Memories from last night were trickling back. He went to the master bedroom and cautiously peeled the door open.
Hello?
That voice again.
He drew in a sharp breath. The room was mostly empty, apart from something behind the bed. It looked like snake skin, but it was too thick to be snake skin.
Anyone home?
Tyson looked up and saw a stunning woman standing in the kitchen. Her eyes immediately darted away with embarrassment. “Oh forgive me.”
Then he saw the reason for her discomfort. He wasn’t wearing any shirt and his pants were unbuttoned.
“I just saw Skip’s door open and wasn’t sure. I mean, it’s not like Skip to leave the door wide open.” She stepped forward. “I’m Judy, I have a cottage down the road.”
Judy looked down and both of them seemed to notice the muddy footprints at the same time. Footprints that led from the door, right through to the bedroom.
Tyson’s jaw fell open.
You’ve got to be shitting me.
“Do you have a name?” the woman asked.
He was still thinking about the footprints. “Tyson.”
“Oh yes,” she said and smiled, revealing perhaps the most perfect set of teeth Tyson had ever seen. “He mentioned you.”
Tyson was rubbing his eyes. “Did he?”
“Skip said he was sending a friend up to prep the place for summer.”
Then it hit him like a sharp left hook. Yes, of course. Judy Stahl from Skip’s letter. The one he had jokingly suggested Tyson make a pass at.
Skip, you dog you, she’s hot as hell.
For a moment, all thought of footprints receded to the back of his mind. He had pictured an older woman in her mid to late fifties, not a twenty-something model from Maxim magazine. Not that he was complaining. No, not at all. Dark wavy hair, soft olive skin. He could see a pair of deceivingly large breasts moving freely under the loose shirt she was wearing and was suddenly overcome by a powerful desire to see what that body of hers looked like unhampered by all those clothes.
Judy’s eyes dropped again to the trail of mud on the floor and Tyson was suddenly yanked from a rather savage bout of lust.
He dropped down and scooped up a piece of the hardened dirt and crushed it between his fingers.
“Got a broom?” Judy offered. “I can help you take care of this.”
“Oh no, no,” Tyson stammered. “A branch kept smacking the bedroom window last night and I cut it down.”
“In your bare feet?”
Tyson paused. He could feel a layer of perspiration building on his forehead and he was certain she could see it too. “Yeah, couldn’t find my shoes,” he said without much conviction.
“Well, if you need anything I’m two houses down.”
“Roger that,” Tyson said smiling and holding onto the door. He watched her walk away, trying not to stare at the tight, athletic curve of her bottom.
He was still holding the door when he noticed that the muddy trail led outside and around the side of the house. He followed it. The shallow indentations in the mud ended at an open window and when he looked through it he saw his bed and the wall next to it, damaged from where he had jumped with fright. Tyson crouched and studied the muddy tracks.
This isn’t happening. I’m imagining all of this. I’m in my apartment back in New York City and my alarm’s going off, but I just can’t hear it.
In the last forty-eight hours he had seen toys appearing out of nowhere, trunks filled with money popping out of thin air and part of him knew that what made those footprints was the same thing that had come into his room last night. But that was just downright crazy.
Crazy like a trunk filled with a million dollars?
Tyson went back to the kitchen, picked up his cell phone and dialed Dr. Stevens.
“Come on, you son of a bitch, pick up!”
Tyson was about to hang the phone up by hurling it across the room, when he heard a voice on the other end.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Stevens.”
“Who is this?”
“Tyson. Tyson Barrett.”
“Tyson Barrett?” Stevens seemed to be drawing a blank.
“From the Noxil drug trial.” Tyson wanted to reach through the phone and throttle him.
“I’m sorry, but that study’s been shut down. There’s nothing more I can do for you.”
“Hold on a second, don’t hang up. Why was the study shut down? You said final acceptance from the FDA was just a formality.”
“I know what I said.”
“So what happened?”
“I’m not permitted to discuss it over the phone.”
“Please, you can’t possibly imagine how desperate I am right now.”
The pause on the other end of the line was excruciating. “There’s been a fatality.”
“A fatality? One of the patients? Please, Dr. Stevens.”
“Vance Fowler.”
Tyson felt his throat constrict and for a second it was hard to breath. The cowboy? “Was it from the Noxil?”
“There may have been complications, but I can’t say anymore. The FDA and the IRB aren’t taking any chances.”
“Listen, I need to meet with you.”
“Mr. Barrett, I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”
“You have to. It’s a matter of life or death.”
Silence.
“I joined your study under good faith and now I’m in trouble and I need your help.”
“If you’re suffering any adverse reactions, you need an emergency room doctor, not a researcher. What help can I possibly give you?”
“I need more Noxil.”
Stevens let out what almost sounded like a cackle. “Oh, Mr. Barrett.”
“I have money, I can pay you.”
“You realize I could lose my license.”
“A thousand dollars.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Bring me as many as of those vials as you can lay your hands on and I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”
This time the silence was so long Tyson was sure Dr. Stevens had hung up. “I’ll do it for a thousand…per vial.”
Tyson grit his teeth. His eye caught the mud trail running through the length of the cottage. “Fine.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Stevens said. “Stay by your phone. I’ll call you in about an hour.” And this time Stevens did hang up.
Tyson grabbed his things and raced for the car. Barreling out of the driveway, a ghostly vision of his mother’s face rose up before his mind’s eye. Old and decrepit, she was reaching out to grab him and he pressed down on the gas, hoping to outrun the ghastly image.
Chapter 15
Hunter tapped the arm, found what looked like a vein and buried the needle in as far as it would go. The shaft was long. The longest he could find. The arm however, wasn’t his own. He was on seven, in a room that belonged to a former drug addict named Dan Sikes. Sikes had apparently wanted to see God so badly he’d mixed copious amounts of Methamphetamines with a similar amount of LSD. Whether Sikes saw God or not, Hunter didn’t know. What he did know was that Sikes’ brain now looked like a tuna casserole.
According to Sikes’ file, six months after he had tried to play Icarus something curious had happened. Although his brain’s ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy had been destroyed, somehow his tolerance for pain had fallen to near zero. Another way to put it was that a tap on the shoulder felt to Dan Sikes like a hammer blow and a hammer blow like a cannon ball had torn a searing hole through his body.
Sikes’ arms and legs were restrained—a standard precaution whenever a doctor needed to enter any patient’s room with a sharp object. The solution in the needle was straight up IV fluid. But it was the needle itself that wa
s the star of the show, not the liquid inside it.
Hunter’s world suddenly seemed to take on a slow detached sort of quality. As though he were viewing all of this from the comfort of his couch back home.
He watched his own hand jiggle the needle and stared in amazement as Sikes’ eyes began to tear. Hunter’s body tensed.
Sikes should have screamed from the pain. He probably would have the minute he felt the bevel pierce his skin, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t because Hunter had his other hand clamped over the patient’s mouth.
He had been reading one of Brenda’s journals again this morning. One where she had written that pain and pleasure shared a unique symbiotic relationship. One unlike any of the other dualities most of us encountered on a daily basis. High and low. Big and small. Those were observational qualities. But pain on the other hand. Personal pain was experience and the clearest form of it. Almost all other stimuli paled in comparison. Except for one, she had written. And that was inflicting pain on another. There was an almost mystical quality to the sexual high you got from breaking someone’s arm or holding their hand in a boiling pot of water. Somewhere deep inside that pain. Down at its glowing hot center was where God lived. The Medieval Inquisitors knew this. So did serial killers. Like it or not, when you stripped away all the window dressing, wasn’t that what serial killers were really after? Communion with God.
Hunter watched the man writhing beneath him, his face the color of squashed tomatoes. If only Sikes could grasp the concept. He might have turned away from abusing himself and refocused that energy onto someone else. Of course, Brenda’s way of explaining it had been rather crass, but the gist of it was there.
He had read the passage half a dozen times, intrigued that something so deranged could make so much sense. Were these simply the mad ramblings of a psychotic woman? Or was there more?
He also knew that the research paper he would write on Brenda couldn’t be anything more than a cursory investigation into child abuse and psychosis unless he opened his mind and explored all the possibilities.
Dark Passage Page 8