When Beth Wakes Up

by Matthew Franks

  WHEN BETH WAKES UP

  By Matthew Franks

  A Macabre Ink Production

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2019 Matthew Franks

  LICENSE NOTES

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  Meet the Author

  Matthew Franks lives in Arlington, Texas, with his beautiful wife and children. He studied psychology and creative writing at Louisiana State University then obtained a Master’s Degree in counseling from Texas State University. When he’s not working on his next story, he’s counseling adolescents or trying to keep up with his three highly energetic daughters.

  Bibliography

  The Monster Underneath

  The Orion Medallion

  When Beth Wakes Up

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter One

  Someone tried to murder Beth Martin. Seeing her lie peacefully on her hospital bed, attached to a breathing machine and an IV providing vital fluids, one might think she was just sleeping. But, unfortunately, she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon. As a result, getting information about who tried to kill her proved to be a bit of a challenge. But then, if it had been easy, they wouldn’t have called me.

  I sat beside her in a plastic chair, contemplating my next move. I had never entered the mind of someone in a coma before, so I really didn’t know what to expect. There was a good chance I would go in only to bounce right back out, sort of like the way the tide pushes you back to shore when it gets too high. Or I could go in and find nothing, a blank slate that offered no answers. Whatever the case, I wasn’t going to do her any good sitting there and staring at her.

  I took a deep breath and focused on her face. Her light brown hair was pulled back out of the way so I could project without hindrance. A long, cylindrical spiral of light emitted from my forehead and attached to hers. I felt all my psychic energy flow toward her and, within seconds, was inside her mind.

  It was cloudy at first. It was as if I were walking through a fog only to see it lift and disappear completely. After the haze cleared, I found myself in the center of a golf course.

  Beautiful, rolling hills spread out in all directions. I could see a building in the distance. People were sitting at elegantly clothed tables on a veranda having lunch. I started walking toward the building when a golf cart zoomed past, nearly knocking me down.

  “Hey!” the driver called to me as he barreled along. “Get off the green, buddy!”

  I heeded his words and moved more quickly in the direction of the building. When I reached the veranda, I saw her. Sitting at a table by herself and sipping a cocktail was Beth Martin. Only she wasn’t in a hospital gown hanging on for her life. She was dressed in a long, flowing white dress. Her hair fell past her shoulders, cascading down her arms. I started toward her when a waiter blocked my path.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said. He was an older man in his early sixties. “Do you have a reservation?”

  I hesitated. “Yes,” I finally answered. “As a matter of fact, I do. The name’s Max Crawford. I made the reservation last Friday.”

  He held up a small pad and looked through a list of names. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “But you’re not on the list.”

  “Could you maybe check with your manager?” I said, wishing he would just go away. “I’m sure it’s just an oversight.”

  “Fine,” he scoffed. “But if you don’t have a reservation, you’ll have to leave immediately.”

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  He wandered off toward the building. I waited until he was out of sight and walked among the tables to get to Beth. I noticed the people sitting at the tables were all very different from each other. At one table, a teenage girl was cuddled up with a boy wearing a Ramones t-shirt and sporting a faux hawk. At another table, three high-society women were in a circle scarfing down their lunches as if their lives depended on it. At another table, a middle-aged man in a postman’s uniform was showing his five-year-old daughter a magic trick.

  When I made it to Beth’s table, she looked up at me curiously. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Actually, I was hoping I could help you,” I said. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  “Not at all,” she said, motioning to the empty chair across from her.

  “Thank you,” I said and sat down. “So…have you been a member of this country club very long?” I asked.

  “It isn’t a country club,” she said. “Who did you say you were again?”

  “I didn’t actually,” I said. “My name’s Max.” I extended my hand. “Max Crawford.”

  She hesitantly took my hand and shook it. “Margaret,” she said. “Margaret Stevens.”

  “Margaret Stevens?” I said, a little taken aback. “Do you go by any other name?”

  “That’s the one I was given,” she said, letting go of my hand. “Listen, Mr. Crawford, I’m not sure what this is about but—”

  “Sorry. I’ll get right to the point.” I leaned in toward her. “I was sent here by the FBI. You were…a woman named Beth Martin was hurt by someone very badly. They want me to find out who did it.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know anyone named Beth Martin. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  The waiter from
earlier returned. “Sir,” he said to me. “It appears that you do not have a reservation and, as such, will be required to leave immediately.”

  I looked at Beth, who looked back at me with an almost vacant stare, and then at the waiter. It was obviously going to be a lot harder than I hoped. Realizing I was going to need to be very careful how I approached Beth, or whatever she called herself, I stood up and pushed my chair in under the table.

  “Sorry to bother you,” I told her. “Enjoy your lunch.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “This woman you told me about. Is she going to die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’ll hope for the best.”

  “I’m sure she’d appreciate that.” I paused for a moment to gauge her reaction. When she didn’t bat an eye, I knew I had my work cut out for me. “Good day, Ms. Stevens.”

  “Good day, Mr. Crawford.”

  I left her and walked past the waiter toward the back entrance of the restaurant. I opened the door as if to leave through the front only to unexpectedly enter a high school classroom. A teacher stood before a full class of students and pointed to some numbers written on a chalkboard. They were random. “2-6-7-21-31.” She was standing quietly as if anticipating one of them to speak.

  “No one wants to try to solve the problem?” she said, looking around the room. She noticed me standing in the back of the room. “I’m sorry. Can I help you?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I’m just observing.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m a…district representative.”

  “Very well,” she said then turned back to the class. “Okay. If no one wants to volunteer, I’ll just pick someone.” She looked toward the front of the class and her eyes stopped on the same teenage girl that was cuddled up to the young man in the Ramones t-shirt at the restaurant. “Miss Martin, why don’t you come up and try to solve the problem?” she said to her.

  The young woman stood up and looked around at her peers. They all stared at her blank faced. Even her boyfriend had a vacant look. She moved to the front of the room and scanned the numbers on the board. The teacher held out a piece of chalk and the young woman took it hesitantly. She pressed the chalk to the board and started writing a number, but her hand began to shake. Pretty soon her whole body was trembling, and she dropped the chalk to the floor.

  She turned to the class and opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. She grunted a few times like she was in pain and then held her hands to her face. She dug her fingernails into the skin on either side of her nose and started pulling it off, exposing slimy, red flesh underneath.

  Some of the class screamed as they watched in horror. Others ran to the door to escape but the door was locked. She continued to pull her face off, revealing a crimson creature with huge, black eyes and a salivating, sharp-toothed mouth.

  “Now you listen here, Miss Martin,” the teacher said to her as if she had merely stolen cookies from the jar. “Enough of this nonsense or I will call your parents immediately!”

  The creature let out a piercing yelp and ripped off the rest of the human body as if it were shedding clothes. The teacher pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed the creature with it. The creature fell to the ground and squealed like a wounded animal and then disappeared completely. And then the class and the teacher were gone too. All that remained were the numbers on the chalkboard.

  I walked over to the board and memorized the numbers. They might’ve meant nothing, but I was desperate for clues. I turned to leave and noticed a charcoal-colored outline of where the creature had fallen on the floor. I leaned down and ran my finger over the substance. It felt warm and smelled like tar. Deciding it was time to move on, I walked to the door and discovered that it was conveniently unlocked.

  I stepped out of the classroom and into a lobby area that had several plush chairs and expensive couches arranged around a man playing soft classical music on a piano. There was a fountain nearby and a row of men and women wearing tan pants and white shirts behind a counter at the forefront of the room. I casually strolled over to the counter and stopped at the first one. She was a red-headed, freckled young woman who couldn’t have been a day over twenty-one.

  “May I help you, sir?” she asked with a smile that revealed braces on her teeth.

  “I hope so,” I answered. “What is this place?”

  She giggled. “What do you mean?”

  “Is it a country club? A high school? A five-star hotel? Or all of the above?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know what it is,” she said, abruptly turning pale as if she’d just seen a ghost. “I just work here.”

  Before I could ask another question, the waiter from outside came over from nowhere and cleared his throat. I didn’t look at him, hoping he would go away. He cleared it again, only louder this time. The red-headed girl began to hyperventilate. The waiter stepped between us and scowled at me.

  “I asked you nicely to leave, sir,” he said. “And now you’re upsetting a member of our staff. Do I need to call security to escort you out?”

  “I don’t know. Would they have any answers?”

  The waiter leaned over the counter and pressed a red button. A loud siren went off above our heads. The girl and all the other people behind the counter suddenly ducked down out of sight. I turned to see two strange beings coming toward me. Wearing the same tan pants as the counter staff, their bottom half appeared human. Their top half, on the other hand, was much more alien. Dozens of glowing, yellow tentacles stemmed from torsos—the same charcoal color that was on the floor of the high school classroom. Their green, oval-shaped heads were too big for their bodies, making their dark, beady eyes and tiny mouths grossly disproportionate to their faces. They stopped at the counter and gave me a once-over.

  “Is this man causing trouble?” one of them lisped through thin, avocado lips.

  “As a matter of fact, he is,” the waiter answered the creature. “He needs to be removed.”

  The two “security guards” reached out their tentacles and wrapped them around me. They felt like wet noodles tying my arms to my sides. I could’ve easily broken free, but I didn’t want to be a threat to Beth’s psyche. Instead I stood still and let the creatures lead me away from the counter and to the front entrance. They escorted me outside into the open air and released their flimsy grip on me.

  “Don’t come here again!” one of them hissed.

  They went inside and slammed the door in my face. I took several steps back to get a better perspective and noticed that the front of the building looked more like a nursing home than a hotel. There were half a dozen empty rocking chairs in a row under an awning and neatly trimmed shrubs lined uniformly along a sidewalk leading to the porch. It was a definite contrast to the rest of my disjointed experience.

  Still scratching my head as to how everything connected, I decided I would have to come up with a better strategy for when I returned. Right as I was about to withdraw from Beth’s mind, I saw a waist high marquee sign on the ground to my left. It said, “Saint Stephen’s Home For The Recently Emancipated.” Underneath was a second line in a smaller font that read “Where Fancy Doth Not Make Clean.”

  Chapter Two

  The day before, I was sitting in Warden Pinkerton’s office at the State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. Every quarter, I would meet with him to discuss the rehabilitation work I did with inmates. For fourteen years, I entered prisoners’ dreams to try to help them see the error of their ways and, for fourteen years, the warden would sign off for me to continue. But that was all coming to an end.

  “They’re shutting down the program, Max,” he said behind his oversized mahogany desk.

  He was a short, robust bald man who was always sweating even when it was freezing.

  Sometimes, during our meetings, I would watch beads race down his forehead and wonder which one would reach his ch
eeks first. Even more of a distraction, when he leaned back in his chair, the huge bear head mounted on the wall behind him looked like it was perched on top of his perspiring scalp.

  “They can’t do that!” I protested. “Don’t they realize how much has been accomplished?”

  “Yes, but it’s not enough,” he said. “You’ve helped a lot but what about the ones that leave here and commit another crime? I hardly call that rehabilitated.”

  “Whose side are you on, Jim?”

  “I’m on your side, Max. You know I’ve supported you from the very beginning. The feds had to make lots of cuts. You just happened to be one of them. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand,” I said and stood.

  He got up from behind his desk and extended his hand. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  I looked at him for a second to read his thoughts. The truth was he couldn’t have cared less about me or the program. He was a puppet of the system and did what he was told. I accepted his handshake despite his sweaty palm squishing up against mine. That was one thing I wouldn’t miss.

  “Listen,” he continued, letting go of my hand. “If you need a reference or anything, let me know.”

  “Thanks, Jim. How long do I have?”

  “A week,” he answered. “Feel free to take that time to get everything squared away.”

  Intensive dream therapy with dangerous, convicted criminals isn’t something you simply “square away” but there was no use telling him that. Still, a week was better than nothing. With the time I had left, I would increase sessions with the ones more susceptible to change and hope for the best. I wanted to be angrier about the whole thing but couldn’t. Fourteen years was a good run for something so unconventional.

  I went back to my office on the other side of the prison and sat down at my desk. I picked up a picture of my wife, Jessica, and my daughter, Katie. Jessica had been a kindergarten teacher for six years and Katie was in the eighth grade. I couldn’t believe how quickly time had gone. I set the picture down and grabbed my cell phone off the desk. I was about to call Jessica when the phone buzzed in my hand and her picture popped up on the screen.