Method of Madness

by Brad Kelln

  "An at­tack? No."

  "Is the­re a his­tory of epi­lepsy in yo­ur fa­mily?"

  "No, why?"

  "You re­al­ly spa­ced out for a se­cond the­re. It to­ok a lit­tle whi­le for me to get thro­ugh to you."

  "I'm sorry. I sho­uld go." Wa sto­od.

  "You're not go­ing anyw­he­re," the pas­tor sa­id firmly. "Sit."

  "No, I ne­ed to get back…" Wa pa­used. He was go­ing to say to work, but he re­mem­be­red he was on sus­pen­si­on. He sat.

  "Go­od. Now what we­re you sa­ying abo­ut the vic­tims?"

  "Lis­ten, this isn't a go­od idea. I don't know what I was thin­king. I don't know what I ex­pect you to say. It's stu­pid."

  "So­met­hing in­si­de you po­in­ted you in this di­rec­ti­on. So­met­hing in­si­de you told you to se­ek ans­wers he­re, in the ho­use of God. The­re's not­hing 'stu­pid' abo­ut that."

  Wa nod­ded.

  "So tell me what you we­re go­ing to tell me abo­ut the girl. It ob­vi­o­usly af­fec­ted you de­eply."

  "The girl," Wa sa­id in re­sig­na­ti­on. "The girl was Tammy Far­rell. A per- fectly in­no­cent six­te­en-ye­ar-old girl who­se gre­atest sin was li­ving in a new de­ve­lop­ment ne­ar the men­tal hos­pi­tal."

  Gary frow­ned. "Men­tal hos­pi­tal?"

  "The Ma­xi­mum Se­cu­rity Psychi­at­ric Cent­re. That's whe­re Ed­ward Car­ter en­ded up af­ter we ca­ught him. The co­urts sent him the­re for a psychi­at­ric eva­lu­ati­on. I gu­ess the guy was so­me kind of pa­ra­no­id schi­zoph­re­nic."

  "And at the ti­me Ed­ward was the sus­pect in tho­se ra­pes?" Gary tri­ed to cla­rify.

  "Oh, right, sorry. Yes we we­re pretty su­re Ed­ward Car­ter was the guy. But af­ter he got re­man­ded to the MSPC, staff the­re star­ted to go nuts. Then, to ma­ke mat­ters wor­se, all hell bro­ke lo­ose at the hos­pi­tal and Ed­ward es­ca­ped."

  "So­unds li­ke sci­en­ce fic­ti­on."

  "It se­emed li­ke sci­en­ce fic­ti­on at the ti­me. I didn't be­li­eve the sto­ri­es myself but the MSPC bro­ught in the fa­mo­us Dr. Mic­ha­el Wen­ton. He's a cri­mi­nal psycho­lo­gist. Ha­ve you he­ard of him?"

  "I think so."

  "Do­esn't mat­ter. Wen­ton ca­me on the sce­ne and star­ted tal­king all this crap abo­ut how Ed­ward has the abi­lity to draw evil out of pe­op­le, that he had the po­wer to ma­ke them go in­sa­ne. When the press got wind of that, they went nuts, and pretty so­on it was dif­fi­cult to get pe­op­le to help with the man­hunt.",

  "Be­ca­use no one wan­ted to go in­sa­ne," Gary fi­nis­hed.

  "Exactly. You must ha­ve re­ad so­me of this in the news­pa­per."

  "Yes, it so­unds fa­mi­li­ar."

  "So to ma­ke a long story short, I got aut­ho­ri­za­ti­on to bring back my old part­ner, Tim Dal­lons, to help with the ca­se. Wen­ton sa­id the­re was so­me- thing abo­ut a guy li­ke Dal­lons that might ma­ke him im­mu­ne to Ed­ward.

  "All the whi­le this is go­ing on, my wi­fe was ur­ging me to ta­ke it easy, stay away from Ed­ward, blah, blah. And I kept tel­ling her 'it's my job' but she was wor­ri­ed any­way. I gu­ess I was ta­king the ca­se pretty se­ri­o­usly, but then it was se­ri­o­us.

  "So it all en­ded up go­ing to hell. Ed­ward kid­nap­ped this kid, Tammy, and held her in a ho­use un­der const­ruc­ti­on. We co­uldn't es­tab­lish con­tact with her and even­tu­al­ly en­ded up sen­ding Dal­lons and Wen­ton in­to the ho­use. I'd ne­ver do that aga­in."

  Wa pa­used. He was ob­vi­o­usly run­ning thro­ugh the events of that eve­ning. Gary ga­ve him ti­me.

  He even­tu­al­ly con­ti­nu­ed. "So when Wen­ton and Dal­lons ca­me out of the ho­use the girl was de­ad, Ed­ward was de­ad."

  "They shot him?"

  "No­pe, they cla­im he was de­ad when they fo­und him. Su­ici­de."

  "Cla­im? You don't be­li­eve them?"

  "Well, ye­ah. The­re was-" Wa stop­ped. A dif­fe­rent exp­res­si­on mo­ved over him: he was sud­denly mo­re se­ri­o­us, pro­fes­si­onal. "Lis­ten, so­me of this is con­fi­den­ti­al po­li­ce in­fo. This isn't go­ing anyw­he­re out­si­de this ro­om, is it?"

  "It's just you and me," Gary as­su­red him. "I ha­ve so­me pretty strict ru­les aro­und con­fi­den­ti­ality with the pa­ris­hi­oners."

  Wa con­si­de­red the pas­tor's words for a mo­ment. "Okay. So, the­re was qu­ite a bit of mystery over exactly what hap­pe­ned when Dal­lons and Wen­ton went in the ho­use. The ti­me of de­ath of the vic­tim and su­bj­ect don't match up very well. And Wen­ton wo­uldn't talk. Dal­lons wo­uldn't talk. They each ga­ve so­me bul­lshit, su­per­fi­ci­al story. No one knows what exactly hap- pe­ned."

  "So you think so­met­hing hap­pe­ned? So­met­hing bad?"

  "Well let me put it this way. Dal­lons wo­uldn't tell us exactly what hap­pe­ned-that was pretty ob­vi­o­us from my me­etings with him im­me­di­ately af­ter. The­re's a chan­ce he didn't know him­self. But less than a we­ek af­ter the in­ci­dent, Dal­lons kil­led him­self."

  "Oh, I'm so sorry,"

  Wa shrug­ged aga­in. "I am too. It was a re­al was­te, but he ne­ver re­al­ly re­co­ve­red from his wi­fe com­mit­ting su­ici­de ye­ars be­fo­re."

  "Oh no," Gary sa­id in sympathy.

  "So, the­re was all this go­ing on, and I went to Dr. Wen­ton's apart­ment to get so­me ans­wers. The who­le ca­se was mes­sed up from the start, and I co­uldn't let it go with all the­se unans­we­red qu­es­ti­ons.

  "Wen­ton pla­yed with me. He didn't ans­wer any qu­es­ti­ons. He tal­ked in rid­dles. He told me that Ed­ward's po­wer was in for­cing pe­op­le to conf­ront evil." Wa no­ti­ced Gary sit up. "Ye­ah, he sa­id that Ed­ward Gar­ter so­me­how for­ced pe­op­le to see in­si­de them­sel­ves, see the­ir dar­kest mo­ment or the­ir worst si­de or so­met­hing. If the per­son co­uld ac­cept what they fo­und, it wo­uld ta­int them but they wo­uldn't go in­sa­ne. If the per­son tri­ed to fight it, tri­ed to deny the evil, then they'd be dri­ven to in­sa­nity."

  "That's qu­ite the the­ory."

  "Isn't it?"

  "How did Ed­ward for­ce pe­op­le to conf­ront the­ir own evil?"

  "I don't know. I don't know anyt­hing mo­re abo­ut it ex­cept that Wen­ton told me I was in too de­ep. He sa­id Ed­ward was in­si­de me too. He sa­id I didn't ke­ep eno­ugh se­pa­ra­ti­on bet­we­en myself and the ca­se, and that it in­fec­ted me or so­met­hing."

  "Rind of an evil by as­so­ci­ati­on?" Gary as­ked wit­ho­ut any tra­ce of sar- casm.

  Wa nod­ded. "I gu­ess."

  "Did you be­li­eve him?"

  "No. Not right away."

  Gary wa­ited for Wa to con­ti­nue. He ga­ve him the lu­xury of si­len­ce to com­po­se his tho­ughts.

  "But I did chan­ge. I was so angry abo­ut the ca­se and that star­ted to spill in­to everyt­hing I did. It ca­me out in my re­la­ti­ons­hip with Glo­ria and the kids. It: ca­me out at work. Just abo­ut everyt­hing star­ted to go to hell for me."

  "It got to be pretty hard, eh?"

  "I co­uldn't even think stra­ight. I star­ted ha­ving stran­ge tho­ughts. We­ird, aw­ful stuff that I ne­ver tho­ught abo­ut be­fo­re. Stuff I don't even want to say to you." He lo­oked at the pas­tor for as­su­ran­ce.

  "That's okay. Tell me what you can."

  "The­re we­re sud­denly we­ird things in my he­ad. Se­xu­al things. Vi­olent stuff. I didn't fe­el li­ke my own thin­king. I felt, I don't know, I gu­ess, in­fec­ted. I felt li­ke Wen­ton was right, that the evil had got­ten in­si­de me."

  Ga­iy ra­ised an eyeb­row. "The evil had got­ten 'insi­de you'? Do you still fe­el it the­re?"

  "Ye­ah."

  "Has an­yo­ne aro­und you be­en af­fec­ted by the evil you fe­el in­si­de you?"
Gary as­ked.

  "I think so. I think it was re­al­ly hard on my wi­fe. Glo­ria and I are se­pa­ra­ted now."

  "I'm very sorry to he­ar that," the pas­tor sa­id, al­most ab­sent-min­dedly.

  "That's why I'm he­re. I gu­ess I was won­de­ring abo­ut evil 'infec­ting' pe­op­le. I know that so­unds la­me, but I don't know what el­se to call it."

  Wa wa­ited for the pas­tor to res­pond. He se­emed dist­rac­ted.

  "I sup­po­se I so­und a lit­tle crazy, eh?" Wa of­fe­red. "Pe­op­le can't ha­ve the­ir minds In­fec­ted'by so­met­hing li­ke this."

  Gary sig­hed as tho­ugh he we­re de­ba­ting what to say next. "Well that all de­pends on what you me­an by in­fec­ted."

  "What's that me­an? Are you sa­ying that evil can in­fect pe­op­le?"

  "I'm. not su­re but it isn't im­pos­sib­le. The­re's a sci­en­ti­fic ba­sis."

  "What?"

  Gary shrug­ged and sto­od. He pa­ced be­hind his cha­ir and then tur­ned back. "I'm go­ing to tell you a story and you ma­ke up yo­ur own mind."

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ma­ri­on Clo­uti­er ab­so­lu­tely ha­ted conf­ron­ta­ti­on. So­me of the ot­her sec­re­ta­ri­es te­ased her abo­ut this dis­li­ke of hers and of­ten used it aga­inst her, li­ke now.

  She was wal­king thro­ugh the hal­lway of the psycho­logy de­part­ment to­wards Wen­ton's of­fi­ce. She was trying to ke­ep her bre­at­hing slow and easy, but every on­ce in a whi­le she ca­ught her­self suc­king in a bre­ath and hol­ding it. She wasn't go­od with ten­si­on.

  The po­li­ce de­part­ment had be­en trying, un­suc­ces­sful­ly, to get in to­uch with Wen­ton for the bet­ter part of the mor­ning. They told Ma­ri­on the­re was no ans­wer at his re­si­den­ce and that re­pe­ated calls to his of­fi­ce went unans­we­red, a fact she'd ve­ri­fi­ed her­self ear­li­er that mor­ning. To ma­ke mat­ters wor­se, she knew Wen­ton re­fu­sed to ha­ve ans­we­ring mac­hi­nes on eit­her li­ne, which an­no­yed Ma­ri­on a lit­tle. She tho­ught it was so­me­how unp­ro­fes­si­onal.

  The po­li­ce had an ur­gent mes­sa­ge to get to Dr. Wen­ton and fi­nal­ly as­ked so­me­one to go to his of­fi­ce in per­son to con­firm whet­her he was in or not. Ma­ri­on held the mas­ter key in her left hand. Her swe­aty grip wo­uld le­ave a per­fect in­dent of the key on her fin­gers.

  It wasn't unu­su­al for Wen­ton to ke­ep an unu­su­al sche­du­le and ma­ke him­self una­va­ilab­le. Stu­dents we­re cons­tantly frust­ra­ted in the­ir at­tempts to ar­ran­ge me­etings with him. Be­si­des, gi­ven the ru­mo­urs of the cur­rent in­qu­iry in­to his mis­con­duct with a gra­du­ate stu­dent, Ma­ri­on wasn't at all surp­ri­sed that Dr. Wen­ton had all but di­sap­pe­ared. If the ru­mo­urs abo­ut that po­or gra­du­ate stu­dent we­re true, she'd be happy if Wen­ton ne­ver sho­wed his fa­ce in the de­part­ment aga­in.

  But even with all the ru­mo­urs she was surp­ri­sed by one thing. Ac­cor­ding to the po­li­ce, Wen­ton wasn't ans­we­ring his emer­gency pa­ger. His nor­mal prompt to his pa­ger res­pon­se was one of the few things that pe­op­le co­uld rely on him for. Li­ke him or not, he se­emed to do what ne­eded to be do­ne.

  Ma­ri­on fi­nal­ly ar­ri­ved at Wen­ton's of­fi­ce do­or. She to­ok anot­her long, slow bre­ath and knoc­ked on the do­or. As she knoc­ked she cal­led out in a shaky vo­ice, "Dr. Wen­ton? This is Ma­ri­on. I ha­ve an ur­gent mes­sa­ge from the po­li­ce."

  She was su­re he wasn't the­re but knoc­ked aga­in, a lit­tle har­der. "Dr. Wen­ton?"

  She ope­ned her left hand and pe­eled the mas­ter key out of her mo­ist palm, re­ady to check his of­fi­ce. She knew the ot­her girls we­re pro­bably in the ma­in of­fi­ce la­ug­hing the­ir he­ads off abo­ut sen­ding her out to do this. Tho­se bitc­hes!

  She li­ned the key up with the knob and was abo­ut to in­sert it when the do­or was ro­ughly pul­led open.

  Ma­ri­on let lo­ose a lit­tle yelp and step­ped back. Wen­ton's lar­ge fi­gu­re sto­od, fra­med in the do­or­way.

  "What?" Wen­ton bar­ked.

  It to­ok her a se­cond to ga­in her com­po­su­re but she fi­nal­ly spo­ke. "The po­li­ce are lo­oking for you. They ne­ed to get a mes­sa­ge to you."

  "I'm busy," he sa­id flatly and star­ted to clo­se the do­or.

  She mo­ved for­ward and put a hand on the do­or, a mo­ve that surp­ri­sed even her. "No, wa­it. I just ne­ed to pass the mes­sa­ge on."

  Wen­ton step­ped out of the of­fi­ce pul­ling the do­or par­ti­al­ly clo­sed be­hind. "So tell me."

  Ma­ri­on no­ti­ced that he was cons­ci­o­usly not let­ting her see in­to the of­fi­ce. She wan­ted to le­an over, see what was go­ing on, but it wo­uld be too ob­vi­o­us. "Um, the po­li­ce sa­id that they ha­ve so­me­one in cus­tody and ne­ed to talk to you."

  "What? You in­ter­rup­ted me for that?" Wen­ton sa­id in ob­vi­o­us dis­gust. He tur­ned to go back in­to his of­fi­ce just as his of­fi­ce pho­ne be­gan to ring.

  "No!" she sho­uted. "They wan­ted me; to tell you that they ha­ve Dr. Bri­an

  Cla­ric in cus­tody. He's the one who was ar­res­ted last night."

  Wen­ton stop­ped wit­ho­ut tur­ning aro­und. "Cla­ric?"

  "Yes, they sa­id that he was ar­res­ted at so­me drug com­pany of­fi­ce down- town and they-"

  "He can rot." Wen­ton sho­ok his he­ad.

  "He's be­en char­ged with mur­der."

  Wen­ton tur­ned back to Ma­ri­on let­ting the do­or swing open a lit­tle mo­re.

  This ti­me Ma­ri­on co­uld see in­to the of­fi­ce and saw Nor­ma Mac­Do­nald stan­ding at Wen­ton's desk, tal­king on the pho­ne. What's she do­ing he­re?

  She tri­ed not to lo­ok shoc­ked as she stra­igh­te­ned to fa­ce Wen­ton aga­in.

  "Mur­der?" he as­ked.

  "Ye­ah, they sa­id he went yel­ling and scre­aming in­to the bu­il­ding and as­sa­ul­ted one of the staff the­re. Stab­bed a gu­ard with a kitc­hen kni­fe. The per­son di­ed in hos­pi­tal this mor­ning. It was ac­tu­al­ly on the news be­ca­use- "

  "Thank you," he sa­id flatly and ret­re­ated in­to the of­fi­ce, shut­ting his do­or in Ma­ri­on's fa­ce.

  For a mo­ment, Ma­ri­on sto­od mo­ti­on­less lo­oking at the clo­sed do­or. She was sud­denly flo­oded with all kinds of emo­ti­ons. She was glad her exc­han­ge with Wen­ton was over and she'd pas­sed the mes­sa­ge on. She was angry that he was so ru­de to her. She was shoc­ked that Nor­ma Mac­Do­nald was sit­ting in his of­fi­ce. She fi­nal­ly de­ci­ded what she ne­eded to do. She lif­ted her hand and slowly ra­ised her mid­dle fin­ger at the clo­sed do­or.

  THIRTY

  The pas­tor le­aned on the back of his cha­ir and watc­hed Wa as he spo­ke. "I went to se­mi­nary with a re­al in­te­res­ting cha­rac­ter, a guy na­med Nic­ho­las Stan­gos. We we­re ba­si­cal­ly best fri­ends for the first three ye­ars. Yes sir, Nick was qu­ite the cha­rac­ter.

  "Anyway, Nick did an un­derg­rad deg­ree in physics be­fo­re he en­te­red se­mi­nary and he of­ten tal­ked abo­ut a bi­olo­gi­cal ba­sis to re­li­gi­on. He was qu­ite ta­ken with the idea."

  "A bi­olo­gi­cal ba­sis?"

  "Right. He be­li­eved that re­li­gi­on ori­gi­na­tes from a spe­ci­fic spot in the bra­in. Nick tho­ught pe­op­le might be hard-wi­red to be­li­eve in God."

  "Okay," Wa sa­id slowly, unab­le to hi­de his skep­ti­cism.

  "So Nick shows me this re­se­arch pa­per one day. I don't re­mem­ber who wro­te it but the ar­tic­le was fas­ci­na­ting. It desc­ri­bed stran­ge re­li­gi­o­us ex­pe- ri­en­ces that epi­lep­tics of­ten had du­ring se­izu­res. Es­sen­ti­al­ly, the ar­tic­le ma­de an ar­gu­ment for a spe­ci­fic ne­uro­lo­gi­cal ba­sis for re­li­gi­on." He nod­ded as
tho­ugh this fin­ding sho­uld imp­ress Wa. It didn't.

  "Anyway," Gary con­ti­nu­ed. "Nick al­so sho­wed me a few ar­tic­les abo­ut MRI stu­di­es of re­li­gi­o­us fa­na­tics. Ap­pa­rently, highly re­li­gi­o­us pe­op­le show inc­re­ased ac­ti­vity in the tem­po­ral lo­bes-a fin­ding that sup­ports the pa­per on epi­lep­tics.

  "So he was comp­le­tely ob­ses­sed with this stuff. I ad­mit that I fo­und it in­te­res­ting too, but Nick was po­si­ti­ve that he co­uld so­me­how use this re­se­arch to find a way to sti­mu­la­te the tem­po­ral lo­bes in exactly the right way to ma­ke a per­son mo­re open to God, to con­vert them to Chris­ti­anity. In the­ory, it ma­de sen­se."

  "And how do­es so­me­body 'sti­mu­la­te the tem­po­ral lo­bes'?" Wa as­ked

  "That's the thing," Gary snap­ped back ex­ci­tedly. "When Nick did his un­derg­rad he bri­efly wor­ked in a lab whe­re they we­re ex­pe­ri­men­ting with ext­re­mely low fre­qu­ency be­ams. The­se be­ams vib­ra­ted at such low fre­qu­en- ci­es that they co­uld ef­fec­ti­vely cross cel­lu­lar bar­ri­ers and ca­use ex­ci­ta­ti­on, you know, ma­ke the cells be­co­me ac­ti­ve."

  "So this Nick guy tho­ught he co­uld bu­ild a ray gun and zap pe­op­le to ma­ke them con­vert?"

  Gary smi­led. "That's right. Mo­re or less."

  "What's that got to do with what I told you?"

  "May­be qu­ite a bit." He ra­ised an eyeb­row. "Don't you see? Nick tho­ught he co­uld use a mac­hi­ne to ex­ci­te the very ne­uro­lo­gi­cal struc­tu­re that ma­kes a per­son be­li­eve in God. He tho­ught he co­uld ar­ti­fi­ci­al­ly inc­re­ase a per­son's fa­ith."

  "Ye­ah."

  "So may­be the op­po­si­te is true too."

  "What? That you co­uld ma­ke a per­son open to evil, to the de­vil."

  Gary shrug­ged. "It's a simp­le co­rol­lary. On­ce a do­or is open-it's open."

  "So so­me­one zap­ped me with so­met­hing."

  "I don't know if 'zap­ped' is the right word. I'm not even su­re this has anyt­hing to do with yo­ur prob­lems, but I'm just sa­ying that be­ing in­fec­ted with evil might ha­ve a ba­sis in re­ality."