I nodded. “I’m sorry I bothered you,” I said and then got up from the table.
I walked away and sat down at an unoccupied table on the far side of the veranda.
I made sure I was well out of sight when I quickly and quietly transformed into Edward Martin.
I stood and moved back toward Beth, going much slower this time to replicate her father’s deliberate and controlled gait. When I reached her table, she looked up and smiled warmly at me.
“You’re a little early. Aren’t you?” she said.
“Am I?” I asked in his deep voice, feeling optimistic. “I thought I was on time.”
“I’m afraid not. Bingo doesn’t start until six.”
“Bingo?”
“That is what you’re here for. Isn’t it?”
“Of course,” I said, my hopes dashed. “Bingo. I’ll come back later.”
“Good idea,” she said, grinning. “You take care of yourself now.”
“You too,” I said and then stepped away from her table once again.
I wandered off to another part of the veranda and sat down. So far, I was oh for two with only one shot left. She didn’t recognize her parents, or at least acted like she didn’t, so when I changed into her fiancé, I was expecting a similar response. I got up, walked over to her table and sat down across from her. To my surprise, she grabbed my hands and pulled me toward her.
“Where have you been?” she said and then kissed me on the lips. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
I froze. Not only was I not anticipating a reaction, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for such a strong one. A million thoughts went through my head at that moment, but, first and foremost, I pictured Jessica sitting at the table next to us. She wasn’t speaking, just giving me a look as if to say “Really? Kissing coma patients in their dreams? Are you kidding me right now?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away from Beth but trying not to be too obvious. “I didn’t know you were waiting for me.”
“Well, who else would I be waiting for, silly?” she said, leaning in for another kiss.
This time, I turned my face away and her lips landed on my cheek. I had two options at that point. Either get the hell out of there or try to understand why she recognized her fiancé but not her parents. Opting to stay, I reminded myself that I had to be very careful how I acted with Beth. One false move and I could blow the whole operation. She let go of my hands and gave me a bewildered look.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m just…not feeling well. I think I may be coming down with the flu.”
“Oh, you poor baby,” she said, reaching across the table and touching my cheek. “You do feel a little cold. What do you say we go back to our room and take a nice, warm bath? I bet that’ll make you feel better.”
“Room?” I looked toward the entrance into the inside of the “resort.” “You have a room here?”
She giggled. “Of course,” she said. “You’re the one that booked it, you goofball. You must not be feeling well if you can’t even remember that!” She stood and gently pulled me to my feet. “Tell you what,” she said. “Why don’t we go to the room and lie down for a while? Maybe a little rest will do you some good.”
“Okay,” I said, only agreeing to it because she was potentially leading me to a part of her mind where there were more clues.
“Come on then,” she said, taking my hand.
She led me through the restaurant area and to the door leading inside. When she opened it, I assumed we’d enter the high school classroom from my first visit, but we walked straight into the lobby instead. Why the classroom was there before and gone now I had no idea, but more importantly, did my presence masquerading as Beth’s fiancé Bobby have anything to do with its disappearance? The sounds of ballroom music played in the lobby at a low volume.
“Ah, yes,” a voice came from behind us. I turned to see that it was the waiter that had previously facilitated my removal. “The lovebirds,” he continued. “Will you be dining in your room this evening?”
“I’m afraid not, Sammy,” Beth said, patting me on the stomach. “It seems the little baby has a tummy ache.”
“Ewww,” said Sammy, holding his nose in the air aristocratically. Then he addressed me. “Do mind the carpet, will you? It takes weeks to get human vomit stains out of it.”
Sammy walked off in another direction. I was watching to see where he was going when something far more interesting caught my eye. The half-human, half-alien “security guards” were back. Only this time they were dancing in the middle of the lobby. Their tentacles intertwined, the two strange, inexplicable creatures waltzed up and down the floor to the ballroom music.
Beth linked her arm with mine. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.
“What are they exactly?” I inquired.
“You must be sick!” she said and then cuddled up to me. “We made them together. Don’t you remember?”
“Of course,” I said, playing along. “Remind me of their names again.”
“That one is Grilax,” she said, pointing to one of them. “And that one is Grulax,” she added, pointing to the other one. “Now come on.” She nudged me toward a hallway off the lobby. “Let’s get you feeling better.”
We walked down what seemed like a normal hotel hallway except for one key difference.
The room numbers were out of order. As we made our way to the end of the corridor, I noticed a familiar pattern of numbers on the doors. 2-6-7-21-31. It was the same sequence of numbers on the chalkboard in the high school classroom I’d seen before. The series repeated until we reached the last room on the left. It said “31” at the top of the door. Directly under the number was a piece of expensive-looking stationery stuck to the door. On the stationery, written in elegant calligraphy, were the words “Mr. and Mrs. Stevens.”
“Here we are,” Beth said and then opened the door. A blinding bright light emanated from the room. She motioned for me to go in first. “After you, Mr. Sick Pants.”
I shielded my eyes from the light and cautiously stepped inside.
Chapter Six
The inside of the room looked like a standard double bed hotel suite, but, bathed in the extremely bright light, seemed ethereal. Still halfway covering my eyes, I saw a sleepaway couch across from a flat screen television perched on a small table. Beth walked past them and into the part of the suite with the beds. She turned to me and smiled. The overwhelming luminescence enveloped her, making her appear angelic.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” she said. “Take off your clothes and get in bed.”
“Do you think we could turn the lights down a little?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, moving to a knob on the wall. She turned it to the left and the lighting became normal and much more bearable. “Is that better?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Thank you.”
She sat on one of the beds and patted the bedspread next to her. “Come on,” she said. “Do you want me to help you get undressed?” she added with a sly smile.
“That’s okay.”
She frowned. “You’re no fun,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said, noticing the door to the bathroom was closed. “I need to use the restroom.”
“Okay, but, when you come back, you’d better be naked. I know I’ll be.”
She winked at me. I nodded and forced a grin. I opened the door to the bathroom to find that it was pitch-black inside. I couldn’t see a toilet or bathtub or anything. I felt along the wall for a light switch but there wasn’t one. I stepped in and closed the door. Suddenly, an older, shabbily dressed man holding a lit torch was standing in front of me. I quickly realized we were inside a cave.
“Do you know the password?” he asked impatiently.
“Password?”
He sighed. “I can’t take you any farther without the password.” He motioned to the door behind me
. “Off you go,” he said and then disappeared into thin air.
Trying to process everything, I opened the door and stepped back into the hotel suite. I didn’t hear anything in the bedroom area but anticipated the need to cover my eyes if Beth was in a state of undress. I cautiously moved forward, only to find that she was gone. I looked around the room, under the bed, and in the closet, but there was no sign of her. Just as I was about to leave, some reddish goo plopped down on my forehead. I tilted my head back to see a crimson-colored creature sticking to the ceiling with webbed feet and hands.
The creature pounced on me and threw me to the ground. It leapt on top of me and started choking me. I got a good look at its face. It had the same huge, black eyes and sharp-toothed mouth as the creature back in the high school classroom during my first visit to Beth’s unconscious mind. I also noticed that it had breasts, but they were covered in hair. Not wanting to harm the creature, I carefully pulled its hands away from my throat and got to my feet. I pushed the creature against the wall. It wasn’t difficult to subdue but it let out a high-pitched yelp that seemed to last for an eternity. I just stood there, restraining it, until it finally stopped.
Defeated, the creature fell forward into my arms. I laid it down gently onto one of the beds and it curled into a fetal position. It then transformed into Beth. I pulled the blanket down to cover her naked body.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Just go,” she whispered, not looking at me.
“Are you sure?”
“Go!” she shouted. “Leave me alone!”
I backed away from the bed and moved to the door. I opened the door and stepped outside, wanting to give her the impression I was merely leaving the room instead of abruptly disappearing when I withdrew from her mind. I shut the door and checked both ways down the hallway to make sure the coast was clear before exiting. Once I was certain no one was around, I transformed back into myself. Right as I was about to pull out of Beth’s unconsciousness, a nine- or ten-year-old girl appeared out of nowhere and startled me.
“Jesus!” I said, taken aback. “Where did you come from?”
She pointed to a nearby room with the number “7” on the door. Wearing a simple, light blue dress with a white bow tied in the front and a barrette in her hair, she reminded me of one of the twins from The Shining. The fact we were standing in what seemed like an eternally long hotel hallway wasn’t helping matters. In spite of the eeriness, I crouched down to her height level and forced a smile.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Elizabeth,” she answered. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Max,” I said, extending my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She reluctantly shook my hand. “Are you a stranger?” she asked, letting go. “My mommy and daddy told me to never talk to strangers.”
“And right they were to tell you that. No, I’m not a stranger. I know your mom and dad.” I motioned to the room with the “7” on it. “Are they in the room?”
“No,” she said. “They went to town.”
“Oh? Are you by yourself?”
“Yes. Can I show you something?”
“Of course.”
She took me by the hand and led me to the room. She opened the door and coaxed me inside. The second we crossed the threshold, we were transported to the house where Beth’s parents lived. We were standing on the same front porch I had stood on during my actual visit.
Curious as to how the inside of the house looked in her psyche, I moved toward the door. She pulled me away from it.
“It’s not in there,” she said. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
She led me down the steps and around the back of the house. The property seemed to stretch for miles even though it was only twenty acres in reality. A cornfield took up quite a bit of space, but there were also gardens growing tomatoes, peas, and peppers. A few lazy cows grazed on grass nearby, and a chicken coop occupied a small piece of land perpendicular to the house. However, this wasn’t the view Little Beth wanted me to see. She coaxed me to the back porch and motioned to the three-foot-tall crawlspace underneath the wood floor.
“It’s under there,” she said.
I slowly moved forward, halfway expecting her alternate demon-self to come leaping out from under the porch. Bracing myself, I crouched down to see what she down there. In the alternating pattern of light and dark caused by the sun creeping in through the spaces between the wooden boards of the porch floor, I saw the decomposing body of a dog, wasting away and being eaten by a swarm of maggots.
I instinctively covered my mouth and nose to avoid the smell. Remembering it wasn’t real, I lowered my hand and turned to Little Beth. She was holding a bloody knife in one hand and a rusted shovel in the other. Whereas the sky above us had been a beautiful clear blue seconds before, it had shifted to an ominous black. She inched toward me with the knife and shovel with a grave look on her face.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said. “It was an accident, I swear. Will you help me bury him before Mommy and Daddy get home? They’ll be mad at me if they find out.”
“What happened?” I asked, keeping my distance.
“I was just playing with the knife. I didn’t mean for it to go in. I put him under there to hide him but he’s starting to stink. Will you please help me?”
Not knowing if intervening would help or hinder the investigative process, I had to make a quick decision. My goal was to get Beth to trust me so that I could learn as many details about the case as possible. Nevertheless, I needed to be cautious or else I could potentially alter actual memories that could be useful in piecing the puzzle together. Realizing there was no way to determine the best solution, I opted to assist Little Beth in burying the rotting carcass of the unfortunate canine.
“Okay,” I said, reaching out to take the shovel. “Where should we bury him?”
She pointed to a specific area about thirty yards from the back porch. “There,” she said.
“Will you carry him?” she asked. “I don’t want to get my dress dirty.”
“Sure,” I agreed hesitantly. “What was the dog’s name?”
“Petey,” she answered with a sad look on her face.
I peeked under the porch floor at the poor creature. It reminded me of a Cocker Spaniel named “Corky” I had when I was a kid. I loved that dog. He would meet me at the front door every day after school and put his paw out to shake hands. And then one day my parents told me Corky “ran away.” Even though I didn’t believe them, I didn’t dare ask what really happened. I figured if they had to lie, it must’ve been pretty bad.
I laid the shovel by the side of the house and crouched low to avoid bumping my head on the wood floor. I tried swatting away the maggots but could only rid myself of half of the mob. I reached under the belly of the dead animal and hoisted it up into my arms. One of its legs fell off onto the ground. I leaned down, careful not to drop any other parts, picked up the leg, and then carried the remains out into the dark light of day.
I followed Little Beth to the piece of land she had indicated and carefully set Petey down beside her. I went back and grabbed the shovel, all the while wondering if my parents had secretly buried Corky in our backyard while I was ignorantly playing over at a friend’s house.
I carried the shovel over to where Beth was standing, and she pointed to an exact spot a few feet away from Petey.
“Right there,” she said.
I pushed the shovel into the soft earth with my foot and threw the dirt to the side. I uncovered the soil a few more times, making a small pile to cover Petey once I lowered him into the hole. Only the next time I went to dig, I noticed there was nothing left to displace. Instead, there was a portal into outer space. Whereas above us the sky was dark and threatening, below us everything was calm and peaceful. The moon and stars were in plain view through the opening, closer than I had ever seen them before.
“Put him in, please,” Little Beth said, sniffling.
I carefully picked up Petey and moved him into the bottomless hole. I let go of him and watched as his decaying, lifeless body floated away. The maggots separated from him and slowly spiraled off into different directions like some demented ballet. Petey drifted further, eventually receding into the distance and disappearing into the cosmos. I turned to Little Beth and saw that she was crying. I gently placed my hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to console her. I reached my free hand out toward the bloody knife. “May I have that?” I asked.
She nodded and gave it to me. “I really didn’t mean to do it,” she said sobbing. “He was such a good dog. He always wanted to play. Am I a bad person?”
“No,” I told her. “Bad people don’t have remorse for their actions. You obviously cared about him.” I thought of Corky again. “Just try to remember all the fun times you had together.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” I said, tears welling up in mine.
Chapter Seven
Agent Linden didn’t have an office to use temporarily at the hospital, so we sat in his car in the parking lot as he smoked a cigarette out the partially cracked driver-side window. True to form, he listened to everything I’d experienced in Beth’s mind with a look of smug skepticism on his face. He was like that one guy at the magic show that wanted to be sure everyone around him knew he wasn’t going to have the wool pulled over his eyes.
“So, let me get this straight,” he said, blowing smoke in more ways than one. “Her older self thinks she’s someone else, but her younger self said her name was Elizabeth?”
“Yes.”
“How the hell does that happen?”
“It could be that the trauma of the attack somehow set her back emotionally. Maybe she feels more comfortable being her younger self because she isn’t ready to deal with it. There was a teenage version of her too, but I haven’t talked to that one yet.”
“Jesus, Crawford. Can’t you just get her to be one version of herself? The one that can tell us who tried to murder her?”
When Beth Wakes Up Page 4