Enter the Uncreated Night

by Christopher Rankin

  “Well God damn it,” Arnie stood up. “That’s proof of something supernatural right there. What the hell else do we need? Two separate people having the same dream.”

  His brother Dale, who had been just quietly listening to the exchange finally chimed in. “That isn’t proof of shit. You both saw the same little girl. You somehow just got the same crazy idea in your heads.”

  “I agree,” Oscar said. The therapy session had gone way off the tracks and he realized it was his fault. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The discussion of any of my other patients has to stop and I shouldn’t have derailed the conversation.”

  Arnie and Dale seemed delighted that the conversation had turned personal for Oscar. They were both sitting forward in their chairs and listening carefully. It was clear that they wanted to keep the discussion of the nightmares going.

  ...

  Chapter 8

  Secrets

  The Bardo home was bustling with activity when Oscar arrived a few evenings later. A parade of women in evening gowns, pearls and gems walked alongside their men in tuxedos. A valet serve unloaded them from their stately luxury cars. Servants held out hors de overs and Champaign to the extremely elegant and mostly grey-haired crowd. It looked as though the home was winding down from a quite elaborate and fancy party.

  Oscar found Eva Bardo waiting for him at the door. She had just seen the last of the guests off. “Pretty fancy party. What’s the occasion?” Oscar asked her when he got inside.

  “Oh, no occasion,” said Eva. “A meeting, really.” She started to walk Oscar up to Beth’s room.

  “What sort of meeting if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Mrs. Bardo stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked at Oscar. “The family business,” she said. “We’ve just had a very good quarter. That was the group of our top investors.”

  “Happy to hear business is going well,” said Oscar as they reached the door to Beth’s room. “If you don’t mind my asking,” Oscar went on, “do any of your investors have contact with Beth?”

  “Only in passing,” said Eva. “We’re very careful who we let around Beth.”

  When Oscar went inside, Beth was staring out the window. She seemed so tiny in her massive bedroom with its thousand square feet and shelves of stuffed animals larger than her.

  It was warm in the house but she was wearing a thick purple turtleneck.

  “You aren’t too hot, are you?” Oscar asked her. “I notice you really like turtlenecks.”

  “Mister Smiler says you hate the people downstairs.”

  “That wouldn’t be very fair. Now, would it? I don’t even know them. Why would Mister Smiler say that?”

  “I dunno,” she said with some frustration. “He just told me to tell you. I don’t know why.”

  “Beth, did you meet the people downstairs?”

  “Um hmm. Daddy brought everyone up here. They wanted to meet me.”

  “Were they nice?”

  Beth thought about it before answering. “I guess,” she said after a while. “They were afraid of me.”

  “I don’t think they were afraid of you, Beth. You’re a good person and there is nothing to be afraid of. Why would you say that?”

  “They just kept staring at me.”

  “I hate it when people do that too,” Oscar told her. “But sometimes it doesn’t mean anything bad.”

  “Mister Smiler told me that you were special.”

  “Oh. Considering his other comments, I should probably assume he doesn’t mean it in a complimentary way.”

  Beth looked at him as though he had just spoken in Cantonese. She told him, “I don’t know what you’re talking about right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Oscar. “Did he say how I was special?”

  “He told me you’re part of my soul-line, just like the little boy in the desert. He said we travelled together before, even though we don’t remember.”

  “Why don’t we remember?”

  “That’s just what happens,” she said, throwing up her palms. Then she told him, “He says that we both got trapped here and we’re gonna get each other out.”

  …

  On Oscar’s way out, he found Eva Bardo waiting for him at the front entrance.

  “I’m happy I caught you, Oscar,” she said. “I have something important to discuss with you.”

  “Of course.”

  “Beth has seemed to take to you. Not to impugn your skills as a therapist, but it’s quite surprising, given the patient. What I needed to bring up is actually our concern for well, you, Doctor Loste.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We love our daughter, Beth,” Eva went on. “But we’ve known for a long time, well before the accident, that we needed to be careful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s manipulative.”

  “She’s six years old,” said Oscar. “How could she be manipulating people?”

  “Beth may only be six years old,” said Eva, “but she has a twisted, old soul. Her horrible birth parents left a scar so deep that it made her into…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “I hate to say that about my own daughter, but it’s true.”

  ...

  Arnold McSorley proved to be a permanent addition to Dale’s therapy sessions. They walked into the room together and sat down across from Oscar. Arnie’s eyes were wild and bloodshot, while Dale just looked run down and tired.

  The McSorleys seemed to be waiting for Oscar to start talking but the therapist looked like he had something on his mind, something he was still figuring out how to discuss.

  “What’s wrong with you today, Doc?” Asked Arnie after a while. “You look like you got something on your mind. Something got you upset?”

  “I’m fine,” Oscar told them. “Thank you for asking.”

  “C’mon, Doc,” said Arnie, “you know I hate it when we have to do all the talking. It makes me feel like a selfish asshole. Why don’t you share with us a little?” He asked, acting as though he had just become the therapist.

  “It’s nice of you to want to unburden me,” Oscar said. “But everything really is normal and fine.”

  Arnie and Dale looked to one another. They shared a smirk and Arnie started shaking his head.

  “What?” Oscar asked. “What’s that look supposed to mean?”

  “We’ve got a sixth sense when it comes to people bullshitting us, Doc,” said Arnie. He asked Dale, “Bro, you’re the cop, do you think he has something on his mind?”

  “Sorry, Doctor Loste,” said Dale, “but it’s written all over your face. It’s the weight of the world. Didn’t you tell me that secrets are corrosive?”

  “Dale,” Oscar said, relenting, “in your job, do you have contact with a lot of highly manipulative criminals?”

  “Some,” said Dale, who seemed quite curious where the conversation was headed. “Those people are rare, though. Most people are pretty simple, I think.”

  “Have you dealt with child offenders? Child sociopaths?”

  “Why do you ask, Doctor Loste?”

  “Yeah, Doc,” added Arnie, “I wonder why you ask?”

  They both leaned a few inches forward in their chairs to wait for Oscar’s answer.

  “As a policeman,” Oscar went on, “have you met any kid like that? I’m just asking out of curiosity.”

  “I suppose I’ve met a few,” said Dale. “But to be honest, every single one of them had been through pure hell, the kind of hell where you wonder why they aren’t worse. Can they be smart as hell and manipulate you? Sure,” he said. “It happens. When I worked in juvenile hall at the start of my career, I made friends with a little boy that I thought didn’t belong there. He had been involved in multiple robberies, but I would never let myself remember that. The last time I saw him, he was shooting a fire extinguisher in my face in an escape attempt.”

  “He had you fooled completely?” Oscar asked.

  “Completely,” said Dale. “I wish I could te
ll you I learned something that I could use so it wouldn’t happen again. To tell you the truth, the kid could probably get me to trust him again. I couldn’t help it. I just liked the kid.”

  ...

  Chapter 9

  The Concrete Forest

  After the McSorleys left, Oscar spent several hours driving around the city, stopping at every open drug store, in what was starting to seem like a vain search for gorgonorphan syrup. All the chain stores were out of the stuff. They couldn’t seem to stock the meager shelf space quickly enough to keep up with the underground syrup club. The bodegas that normally carried it were either closed or out of inventory.

  The search took him to a dark section of city in the North. The blown out streetlights made it impossible to spot any of the signs marking the roads. He began to realize that many of the signs were missing. The stoplights had all burned out. The GPS in his car was the only thing keeping the streets from turning into a dark, inescapable labyrinth.

  Even though the neighborhood seemed desolate, he soon found the glow of an all-night drug store. He was quite relieved that his GPS hadn’t been leading him into the heart of that jungle for no reason. The sign for the place was written in Korean but Oscar could tell from the items in the window that he had indeed found a drug store.

  The middle-aged Korean man that worked behind the counter seemed relieved when he saw Oscar walk through the door. He appeared to be primed for a robbery at that hour and Oscar seemed nonthreatening. He nodded as Oscar began to search up and down the aisles for cough syrup. The fluorescent lights in the store were so bright that they were beginning to give him a headache. The way the inventory was organized made no sense to him and he didn’t recognize most of the products in the store.

  By the time he had searched most of the aisles, he recognized the strange and familiar color combination on the syrup label. The stack of cough syrup bottles was right behind the counter with the clerk. Oscar was going to have to ask the man.

  “Let me get one of those, please,” he said, pointing at the row of around a half-dozen bottles behind the counter. He had intentionally made his voice sound scratchy.

  The clerk gave him a searching look before half his mouth settled into a smirk. He looked at Oscar like he was in on the joke. “You’re sure you want only one?” the man asked him.

  “Actually,” Oscar started to reconsider, “maybe I will get two bottles. This flu is a killer, man.” The clerk turned and leaned down to get Oscar his two bottles of syrup. While he was on his way back with them, Oscar interrupted, saying, “You know what. With the way this cold season is going, I think I may just take all the bottles you have left. What do you got there? About eight? I’ll take all eight.”

  The clerk laughed, saying, “Usually it’s teenage boys and weirdos. You’re not the usual.”

  “I have the flu, man.”

  “Oh sure, sure you do,” said the clerk as Oscar handed him some cash. “Very bad flu. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Through the store window behind the clerk, Oscar could see something moving in the parking lot outside. It was a group of four men and they were starting to climb on Oscar’s car.

  The clerk noticed the commotion outside. “This neighborhood going straight to hell,” he said. “Thugs. I will call police. Stay inside until they come.”

  Oscar already paid for the eight bottles of syrup but he decided to purchase one more item. “Let me get one of those cigarette lighters,” he told the clerk, who grabbed one from behind the register. The man seemed confused by Oscar’s request but slid the lighter across the counter.

  When Oscar started for the door, the clerk stopped him, saying, “What are you doing? Bad men outside. I already hit button for police. They are on their way.”

  He told the clerk, “In this neighborhood, it’ll take them a month to get here. I need to take care of my flu.”

  Two of the men had their beers resting on the hood of his car. The other two were sitting on the roof, smoking cigarettes. All four seemed drunk but the their mood was far from festive.

  The lanky man sitting on the roof of the car seemed most threatening. His head was shaved and covered with red and black tattoos. Stainless steel horns were drilled into his forehead. His cheeks were pierced with holes as big as drink coasters, revealing most of his teeth and naked jaw. When the man saw Oscar, he covered the holes with his palms and sucked away three quarters of a cigarette. Then he slid his hands away, letting the smoke vent from his cheek holes.

  “Let me get twenty dollarsss,” he said when Oscar got closer. His voice was distorted from the holes in his cheeks and he sounded like he was missing part of his tongue. “Me and my boysss need sssome gasss money.”

  “And a car too!” another one of the men threatened.

  “We like thisss peeesss of ssshit right here,” the man with the cheek holes said as he slapped the paint on the quarter panel.

  Inside the drugstore, the clerk began to pull down the steel security gates.

  “How much gas you got in this thing?” One of the men asked.

  “Probably not enough to get you very far,” Oscar told them all plainly.

  “Well shit,” one of them said, “sounds like you need to fill her up.”

  Oscar looked at the men not with fear but with total exasperation. All he could think about was the bitter cherry taste of the syrup and how much he wanted that to fill his senses. Pulling one of the cough syrup bottles out of the bag, he unscrewed the cap and took a long swig.

  The four thugs seemed very confused by his behavior. “Hey, we’re talking to you,” one of them shouted. “We want our gas money now.”

  Oscar smiled at them. “Sure,” he said as though happy to help the men, “but I don’t mind pumping it for you.” Oscar tilted his head back and took a long swig of bitter cherry liquid. Then, as though not threatened in the least, he walked over to the pump near the men.

  While they stared at him, he slid his credit card into the slot and the pump clicked on. “Just give me a second,” Oscar told them all in a friendly tone before taking one last swig of syrup. He tucked the bottle into his jacket pocket. “I’ll get you gassed up and on your way in no time. I don’t want any trouble.”

  He lifted the handle to the pump while the thugs stared at him with their eight drunken eyes. One of the men had a thick red beard and resembled a more juvenile and muscular version of Santa Claus. He slid a hunting knife out of his motorcycle boot and pointed the tip at Oscar.

  “Why don’t you change the oil and clean the windows for us like a good little monkey?” He asked sounding very drunk.

  Oscar looked back quietly at all four men. Still holding the gas nozzle in his hand, he examined the men’s faces the way he did with his patients. It was the cold, discerning look of a doctor.

  “I gave you an order, monkey,” the bearded man growled at him.

  “And I heard you,” Oscar said softly with his eyes locked on the man. “Let me get you gassed up first.”

  Before the bearded thug could threaten another syllable, Oscar had the foul-smelling stream from the gas nozzle hurtling into the man’s open mouth. The man started coughing and fell off the car onto the ground.

  Oscar hosed the other men down while they guarded their faces from the stream and fell all over themselves to gain some distance. All four coughed and screamed while the gasoline burned their eyes and mouths.

  “You crazy fucking bastard!” the bearded man shouted while he tried to dry his eyes and spit out the gasoline. “We didn’t do shit to you! We were just fucking around!”

  All four men heard the grinding of the cigarette lighter flint at the same time. Oscar had put the nozzle back in the pump and he was holding the lighter up in the air.

  “What the fuck!” The red-bearded man shouted. “This motherfucker is trying to burn us. This motherfucker is crazy!”

  “This motherfucker is actually a shrink if you can believe it,” Oscar giggled. He realized that the sips of syrup had inde
ed reached his brain. “Now get the fuck out of here before I burn you all alive,” he said with a trace of a laugh.

  The four of them fell over each other in a fury to get away. One had gotten so much gas in his mouth that he was still in a coughing fit. Even though the men were all considerably drunk, the threat of getting burned made them move like champion sprinters. Before Oscar knew it, all four were down the street and shouting that he was crazy.

  As he stared down the street at the escaping men, his eyes were taken over by a strange effect. The streets and alleys at the edge of his vision seemed to be getting swallowed up in a dense blackness, like black mercury. The city was disappearing. He looked down at the bottle of syrup in his hand like he had identified the source of his hallucination.

  “I think I have you to thank for that,” he whispered to the bottle. He added, “At least I hope I have you to thank.”

  Behind him, he heard shouting in broken English. The clerk from the drugstore was shouting in the direction of a police car that had just arrived. “He is crazy!” the clerk shouted. “He crazier than goons trying to rob him!”

  Oscar felt the red and blue glow from the police lights. Then he heard them through the loudspeaker. “Get down on the ground! Get the fuck down!”

  “Well, as long as you’re asking nicely,” Oscar smiled to himself as he relaxed onto his knees. One of the cops came up and handcuffed him behind his back.

  “What the hell are you doing out here tonight?” said a rough baritone.

  “My cough is killing me,” Oscar told the officers. “I just needed my medicine.”

  The clerk was out of the store by now and was jabbing his finger in Oscar’s direction. “He was going to light whole place on fire!”

  The two officers pulled Oscar to his feet and shoved him into the back of the police car like they were handling luggage. They took his bag from the drugstore with the eight bottles of syrup and tossed it into the trunk. While they went through his wallet, one of the officers found a business card for Dale McSorley, Sergeant. They left his car at the pump soaked in gasoline and drove away.