Psycho Therapy

by Alan Spencer

  Craig scoffed. “No thanks.”

  “Tina followed her dreams in your mind and killed your dad. Do you want to know how she did that?—and why? It’s not as simple as typing in a command. The words have to be special. Specific. You can only learn from experience. My experience. I can teach you. I will, Mr. Horsy. I swear it. Release me. I’ll let you be my assistant. The more souls we collect, the realer they become, and we’ll experience every soul out there, and they’ll be unique and new and extraordinary in their own special way. The possibilities are endless. We’ll have millions of souls, Craig. Why stop? Why ever stop?”

  Dr. Krone’s skin glistened with panic. He was terrified, and the doctor couldn’t mask it. And then his fear changed into scorn. Accusations. The words throbbed so deep and vicious Craig stopped thinking about what commands he’d enter into the computer. “You’re naïve beyond comprehension. The machine can drum up a command, but it reads what’s in your mind. It creates what you’ve thought in your subconscious and the subconscious of others. Deep down, your best buddy Willis wanted to harm you for what you inflicted upon him. The souls can tweak that reaction and exaggerate the impulse, but there’s a seed of truth in the people of your past. The machine knows what they were thinking and what they thought. Are you willing to destroy this marvel for the sake of revenge? So you were scared, it’s over now. You’re not hooked up to the machine. You’ll be on the side that has control. Anything you pleasure, it’s yours.”

  He watched him with unblinking eyes. His registry of sanity and insanity and murder and life was obscured. The man didn’t flinch at suffering. The machine had warped those natural emotions, and Craig wouldn’t have anything to do with promoting his cause. Craig stared out at the bodies strewn against the wall in clear body bags. This wasn’t science. It wouldn’t better society. Some things in the mind weren’t meant to be understood, and people’s innermost thoughts weren’t designed to be spelled out to an audience.

  “You haven’t saved any lives with this device. You tell Edith and the others like her what they died for? You believe in your machine, so then relax. Enjoy your family’s work.”

  Dr. Krone sputtered and begged to be released, but Craig ignored him. He was exhausted, craving a cigarette, hungry, and most of all, he felt the urge to shower and rid himself of this place.

  He poised his hands on the console. Craig couldn’t figure out what to type. It would be too easy to type in Die Dr. Krone. He wanted more than his heart to stop. Dr. Krone hadn’t been on the receiving end of terror. He enjoyed the fruits of his memories and others’ suffering. Now it was his turn.

  Craig typed in the command.

  Die, Dr. Krone

  The reaction was instant. Blink-instant like everything else had been. He typed in the command: Dr. Krone will suffer the nightmares of everybody who’s ever been hooked up to the machine. Craig felt the heat emanate from the device. The crown of needle prongs was inserted into the doctor’s head with a teeth-grinding thack. The circle of low-gauge needles was rammed into his eyes. The thrust shook the doctor in place. He was stunned. The man drooled and moaned, “Uhhhhhhhnnnnnn…”

  Craig attempted to look away, but it was too mesmerizing.

  Milky foam spittle launched from the man’s lips. His face scrunched with each seizure-spasmodic twitch. “Whuuck—whuuck—whuuck!”

  Dr. Krone went stiff, his mouth quivering. His skin changed from white to raw-meat red to cut-circulation purple. His eyes gushed blood and so did the needles that penetrated his brain. The stink of singed hair and burning plastic followed.

  WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!

  The machine smoked and static electricity branched out from all directions and cracked in lightning-sharp crackles. Craig fled from the scene, but not before catching Dr. Krone’s final moment. The machine was clearly overloaded by Craig’s command. The needles in the doctor’s brain were wrenched out so quickly, his skull cap was removed and the boiling soup-mush-for-brains billowed down his face in steaming clotted lines. Dr. Krone’s mouth was locked in agony, his tongue rigid and extended.

  Craig couldn’t dote on the man’s death when blue-white branches and webs of high voltage electricity—unnaturally bright and near-blinding with each crackle and surge—randomly spat out across the room. He dodged the machines and anything metal. He was near the double-door exit. The walls were blanketed by flames. The electric jolts ended once he crossed the door and threshold. He pounded down the rubber-matted floors and doubled up the stairs. He stopped and looked about the living room with relief. The bars over the windows and doors were missing.

  It was the machine the whole time. Dr. Krone wanted to protect his investment. The machine was his security system.

  He lunged out the door in case the electricity decided to shoot out at him without warning. Escaping through the front door, the night was thick and starless. He viewed the treetops of woods. The mansion was unassuming, he thought. The air was still. Absolutely calm. The din of fire eating the walls, the foundation expressing its distaste of its slow disintegration, Craig looked on down the long gravel driveway and snow-covered lawn. He shivered in the freezing cold. There were lights on in the far distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile from his standing point. He could knock on a door for help.

  He watched the smoke pour from each window and the fire climb to the upstairs quarters. The electricity branches were gone. The machines had been damaged enough by the fires to be rendered useless, he believed. Craig prayed the secrets Dr. Krone uncovered about the human mind and their connections to the machine remained un-recovered.

  Take your time getting help.

  Let the house burn some more.

  Q&A

  Craig changed out of his hospital gown into the clothing his mother brought him yesterday—a pair of blue jeans, a button-up orange-and-white-checkered shirt, and new Sketchers shoes. Three days, he stayed at St. Luke’s Mercy Hospital. He wasn’t critically injured, he learned, after the doctor ran his tests. The CAT scans proved he had no brain damage. Dr. Robyn Chambers, a physical therapist, tested his joints and their reaction to stimulus, and garnered positive results. His main doctor, Dr. Hank Herman, was adamantly concerned about the wounds to the eyes and skull he received. Dr. Herman claimed he’d never come across such strange and accurate insertions. They didn’t harm any critical junctures in the brain.

  “It’s amazing how precise these insertions were made,” Dr. Herman repeated during the checkup. “Most people with this deep of brain trauma would suffer memory loss, nerve damage, or lose basic motor function—or brain function would terminate altogether. Whoever created these knew what they were doing.”

  He kept his comments to a minimum. The long walk to reach the house of Dr. Krone’s neighbor allowed him time to think. Nobody would believe his amazing story. How would he explain the events? “Dr. Krone stuck me in the head and eyes with needles and my memories projected onto a screen. Oh, and then I was hooked up to this machine, and I got to travel back in time and replay my memories. And if that’s not interesting enough, Dr. Krone typed in commands on this machine, and my memories became flesh and blood too. They were monsters, some of them. My wife was a rotting corpse. My best friend, Alice, her miscarried baby was a…well, never mind. Can you imagine it, though?”

  He also feared who could learn the truth. He wasn’t sure how much of the mansion burned down. He’d drive down to the property today and check it over. He prayed the VHS tapes and the machines were destroyed. What if he did tell the truth? Somebody would be interested. There were enough psychiatrists and doctors who’d love to enter people’s brains and tinker with their processes and live their patients’ memories as their own. The souls of the insane had ruined what could’ve been an honest scientific breakthrough. It could’ve cured a lot of unsound minds.

  Some things are too crazy to be true.

  He walked past the emergency waiting room and out of the rotating doors when he was blindsided by a detective. He wasn’t dressed as the atypi
cal detective. The wardrobe was simple—brown leather coat, Chicago Bulls ball cap, and black khakis pants. The man was in his early thirties, clean shaven, and his face beaded with a healthy zeal. He smiled at Craig. The detective flashed his identification.

  “My name’s Robert Williams. I’m investigating what happened to you, Mr. Horsy.” He motioned for Craig to come into the parking lot. “Let me buy you lunch.”

  Craig was starving. The hospital food left something to be desired, and three-quarters of his stay, he couldn’t eat due to the testing. Tina tried to sneak him a Snickers bar, but he had to turn it down. When it came to his health—and near death days ago—he couldn’t leave anything to error.

  “Sure, lunch sounds good. I’m guessing you want to know everything about Dr. Krone.”

  Robert offered a wry smile. “That’d be a start.”

  He was driven to a restaurant called Arthur Bauman’s Stack. On the way to the entrance, the detective asked, “I hope you like ribs and meat sandwiches. The doctor said you could use some good food. You’ve been on IV fluids all week.”

  “That’s what Dr. Herman told me.” Craig’s stomach rumbled. Despite the temptation, he couldn’t forget what he vowed. He couldn’t disclose the complete truth. It was simply too dangerous. “You picked a good place to eat. I’m already salivating like a dog.”

  Inside, they were guided to a table under a giant bison head. The table was rough-cut wood as if right out of the tree, it seemed. Robert ordered a stack of ribs, coleslaw, and fries, and Craig decided on a braised pork sandwich with pork and beans. Now that they’d ordered, Robert’s professionalism arrived. His eyes zoomed in on him. “I waited for you to receive your treatment, Mr. Horsy. You’ve been through a lot of trauma. Dr. Hill said you had needles jammed through your eyes and skull that were over three inches long. Any normal insertion would leave you a drooling vegetable. That’s what makes your case, your survival, so interesting. Plus, our investigative crew has sifted through the remains of the mansion. It’s all burned up. Nothing really left except for more questions. I hope you can help. We need your account of things, so how about it?”

  He wet his lips and cleared his throat. It bought him time to plan his words carefully. “I can put it in a nutshell, though my memory isn’t one hundred percent, I’m sorry. I was kidnapped from my apartment, and I woke in a room with a couch. It appeared to be a psychiatrist’s office. A nurse said I’d slipped outside on ice and hit my head. I believed her, for whatever reason. I waited for my appointment, and a man named Dr. Daniel Krone talked to me. He mentioned the fights I’d gotten into at school as a kid and my court appearance.

  “So after the questioning, I was somehow sedated—that’s what I’m guessing. I woke strapped to a chair.” This was where Craig started to lie. “Dr. Krone asked me personal questions about my family and my childhood, and then I wake up, and I don’t know how long I was out, and the place is burning. I was able to escape. I don’t know what happened to Dr. Krone or that nurse. All I know is that he wanted in my brain—my memories, you know?”

  He’d said too much, but it was too late.

  Robert arched his brow. “So nobody’s told you anything else about the crime scene?”

  “No.” He was genuinely confused. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Dr. Krone owned ten asylums,” he then paused, bracing himself for the telling, “and he co-operated twenty others. What that means is he had access to thirty asylums. We’ve found approximately twelve hundred dead bodies in his mansion. They were sealed up to reduce the smell. Each of the bodies had received their fair share of poking and prodding. The range of decay also indicates these bodies are centuries old. Someone remarked that one of the bodies was wearing a confederate uniform, and another from the American Revolution.” He paused, allowing the statement to sink in for Craig. “Their damage was similar to yours, Mr. Horsy. Their eyes were ragged with needle marks. Their brains were either diced up or removed completely. Dr. Krone owned enough surgical devices for ten medical teams. Some are even of medieval origin.”

  He opened up a little to come off convincing. “Dr. Krone mentioned dissecting the brain for its potential. He really wanted to somehow capture a person’s memories. He believed it would solve mental illness. The details of that work, though, I have no idea about. It all sounds morbid. And how many bodies?—twelve hundred? Jesus Christ.”

  “You’re a very lucky man to survive. Our investigation is still in the running. We’re tracing the bodies and trying to identify every last one. So far, they’ve each been traced back to Dr. Krone’s asylums. The man sold the establishments about ten years ago. Dr. Krone’s father, David Krone, has been missing for years. He up and disappeared for no real reason. There’s so much going on in the investigation, we ask you stay quiet about this. That means not talking to the news or friends or relatives about this.”

  The food arrived, and Robert thanked the waitress. The woman heard tidbits of their conversation and was expedient to leave them to their meal. Robert didn’t touch his food, and Craig hesitated. “What else should I know, Detective?”

  “What do you know about the machines?”

  He placed a confused expression on his features. “Machines?—what kind of machines?”

  “Do you have any clue?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure. I was sitting in a chair when Dr. Krone was interrogating me. Whatever my back was against, it was hot. It sounded like a motor too. But I couldn’t turn around.”

  Robert was excited. He was making a mental note.

  Shit.

  He tried to relax. What could they do with the information he was giving them. Craig had to learn what Robert understood about the machine, so he asked, “Did you find machines? What did they look like?”

  “They were burned up pretty good. There were twenty-five machines counted on the premises. They were simple. I’m not sure it means anything, but they were located in the basement level of the mansion, the same level as all those bodies. I’m not sure what the hell was going on. We did find a room of melted VHS tapes, but they’re useless. The fire got to them. It’s a shame a trusted doctor stole patients from his asylums to do private research. The state’s going to take some hits for this. Those asylums will be turned inside out. The news will have a parade with this shit. I suggest you lay low, Mr. Horsy. We’ll do our best to protect your anonymity. That’s why you shouldn’t talk about it to anyone.”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  Robert began to eat his food. “This is only the beginning of the investigation. I assume you’ll be available to answer questions again anytime?”

  “Of course. I’ll tell you anything I know.”

  Tina Horsy

  The wounds over his eyelids and scalp had healed to light pink scars in two month’s time. Tina said he looked like he was wearing purple eye shadow. She was concerned about the damage as any mother would be, but he kept the explanation of his injuries to a minimum. He served up the condensed version that he’d given Detective Williams, keeping everything damning a secret. He visited Tina every Thursday after he recouped. They frequented Half-Time now that Craig and Willis had made up, and that was where they were now sitting during happy hour. Fifty cent beer draws. Tina was on her sixth. Craig had just downed his eighth. Willis was busy with the happy hour crowd. Joey, his brother, was pouring three shots across the bar for a pair of men in business suits.

  Craig watched Willis and Joey. Their faces would randomly smolder and blacken to the skeleton beneath. Sometimes in his everyday life, he couldn’t shrug Dr. Krone’s drummed-up scenarios. Nobody can forget something like this, so try and deal with it the best you can.

  Trying to distract himself from the horrible visions, he talked to his mom again. “You look a lot younger than you used to. You dyed the gray out of your hair. You got a facial. One of those mud treatments at Club La Feminist too.”

  “Club La Femme, you idiot.” She rolled her eyes
, speaking to him as much a friend as a mother. “I don’t want men checking out my ass when I’m working out. You’re asking for unwanted attention.”

  Willis stepped up to them. “You two want another draw?”

  Tina clapped her hands. “Yeah, yeah. Two more, barkeep.”

  Craig studied the man’s scar above his temple. It was shaped like a sideways “U”. Willis sensed an apology coming. “And I forgive you. Again. You’re receiving help. Let’s move on and drink and be jolly, okay? Forget about the past.”

  Willis delivered the draws moments later and toured the rest of the bar and its patrons. Alone with their drinks, this was Craig’s chance to bring up Brandon. He wanted to talk about his dad for a time, among other things Dr. Krone had opened up. He had to know what was true and what was a manipulation.

  He blurted out, “Dad was an asshole.”

  “Craig Ryan Horsy, you watch your mouth.”

  She was stern. The fun expression on her face had been erased.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

  She hiccupped. “I know!” Tina busted out laughing. “He really was, and it took forever to realize it.”

  “He was an abusive creep. He cheated on you so many times. What a bastard. He couldn’t be happy with a wonderful woman such as yourself.”

  “He had a little man complex. A lot changed between now and say thirty years ago. Women were subpar to men in every category, and now we make more money than them and we don’t really need them. We’re independent, and some men couldn’t handle that change, such as your father. It’s old-fashioned bullshit. He kept me down by cheating on me, and other things.”

  “And that stupid basement and his nudie posters. That was his room, don’t interfere with the business he’s conducting, and dear God, don’t interrupt his special time in his special room.”

  “Macho machismo asshole.” She sipped on her draw. “A part of me misses him, you know, the part of him that loved me without his complexes and hang-ups. Deep down, he wanted to be a good man.”