I sat down on the floor across from them and laid the pretend pound bag on the table.
Beth scooped it up and opened it. She smelled inside the bag and smiled. She handed it to her companion, who also took a whiff and gave me an approving nod. What they didn’t know was that it wasn’t real and didn’t smell like anything at all. Placebos can be a powerful tool, even in the recesses of someone’s mind.
Beth’s companion proceeded to roll an imaginary joint. “What’s your name, man?” he asked.
“I’m Max,” I said. “What’s yours?”
“Charlie,” he said.
“Charlie’s in a band,” said Beth.
“I play guitar,” said Charlie. “You ever heard of ‘Bunny Shot Jesus Dream’?”
“I can’t say I have,” I said.
“Well, we ain’t big yet but we will be one day,” he said.
I would later discover that Charlie had been Beth’s high school boyfriend. According to her mother, she went through quite the rebellious phase before becoming a responsible adult. Charlie, on the other hand, didn’t turn out so well. A few years after high school, he was on his way to play in a “Battle of the Bands” festival when his inebriated driver/bass player friend ran into a semi head-on and killed everyone except the drummer.
Charlie finished rolling the joint and lit it. He took a hit. “Not bad,” he said, holding in the smoke. “Where’d you get this stuff?”
“To be honest with you, it just materialized in my hands,” I explained.
He laughed and coughed up the smoke. “You’re crazy, man.”
“Give it here,” Beth said, grabbing the joint from him. She motioned to me. “I wanna get as high as he is.” She pressed it to her lips and inhaled. She then held it out for me to take.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“What do you mean ‘no thanks’?” asked Charlie. “I thought you said you weren’t a cop.”
Beth exhaled. “Take it or get the hell out of here,” she said. “Charlie’s already been to juvie twice. I’m not gonna let it happen again.”
Not wanting to forfeit an opportunity to connect with another side of Beth, I accepted the dream joint from her. I had only tried marijuana once. An ex-girlfriend in college used it regularly and decided to initiate me at a 20,000-capacity outdoor music festival. Once it kicked in, the sounds, people, and overall environment seemed to engulf me. Feelings of paranoia and claustrophobia set in, causing a panic that forced me to leave. My ex-girlfriend later found me in the parking lot rambling to an attendant about the benefits of transcendental meditation.
I took a puff and then handed it to Charlie. After a few seconds, something strange happened. I don’t know if it was Beth’s unconscious mind altering my perception or my own experience influencing the situation, but I started to feel high. Charlie inhaled, exhaled, and then lay back on the floor and shut his eyes. Beth took the joint out of his hand and helped herself to more. She looked at me closely.
“I know what you are,” she said.
“What?” I asked, trying to conceal the fact the room was spinning a bit.
“You’re a demon,” she said. “I knew it the moment you walked in here.” She handed me the joint. “It’s okay. You can’t help what you are.”
“I’m not a demon,” I said, giggling involuntarily. “I’m a friend.”
“All demons say that,” she said. She pointed to the joint. “Puff and pass, man.”
“Sorry,” I said, taking another imaginary hit. I handed it back to her. “What makes you think I’m a demon?”
She laughed. “Your horns,” she said, motioning to my forehead.
I felt around on top of my head and discovered that I did, in fact, have horns protruding out of it. “What the hell?” I said.
“Told you so,” she said in a childish voice then partook some more. “You got a tail too.”
I looked behind me and saw a red and scaly, devil-like tail sticking out of my backside.
Realizing Beth was projecting characteristics on to me, I didn’t panic. I stayed calm, hoping to present myself as normal despite the fact I was transforming into a half-Satan, half-human hybrid. Beth seemed to be enjoying it. She moved closer to me, reached out, and laid her hand on the appendage. To my surprise, the tail recoiled from her and formed a resting spiral behind me.
“Don’t be so touchy,” she said. “I only wanted to feel it.”
“Evidently it has a mind of its own,” I said. “So, what makes me a demon exactly? Do you think I’m evil?”
“You’re neither good nor evil,” she explained. “You are what you are. People might make you out to be evil, but that’s just their conditioning. You know, years of being told you’re bad and should be avoided at all costs. The truth is you’re no better or worse than the rest of us. Just different.”
“I see. So, are there other demons in your life?”
“That’s kind of a personal question, Max,” she replied. “Seeing as we only met a little while ago, I’m not sure I’m comfortable answering it.”
“I understand,” I said, intending to probe cautiously. “Do you mind if I ask you another question then?”
“Go right ahead,” she answered.
“If I’m a demon, what are you?”
She looked at me seriously for a second and then smiled. Big, fluffy white wings sprouted from her shoulder blades, flapped momentarily, and then became still. “You tell me,” she said grinning.
“Nice wings,” I said. “Did you earn those?”
“Very funny,” she said. “Who are you really? You seem familiar to me. Were you my ninth-grade algebra teacher?”
“No.”
“Then where do I know you from?”
“Maybe another time in your life? Perhaps when you were younger…or older?”
“Older?” she laughed. “How would that be possible?”
“You’d be surprised. By the way, how do your parents feel about you and Charlie hanging out?”
“Oh, Jesus. You were my school counselor.”
“No. Just curious.”
“My dad’s oblivious and my mom thinks I’m hanging out with a girlfriend. Charlie doesn’t fit in with their boring farming-life mentality, so they’d probably freak out.”
“So, they’d worry about you?”
“Definitely. They’re always overreacting.”
“Or they want you to be safe. It’s a crazy world out there. Just the other day, a woman was nearly beaten to death on her way home from her parents’ house. Now she’s in a coma.”
Her wings began to shrink. “That’s awful,” she said.
“Yeah. I want to help her, but I don’t know how. I have very few clues and, to be honest, feel like I’m chasing my tail. What do you think I should do, Beth?”
Her wings disappeared into her shoulder blades and she rubbed her forehead. “I think that stuff’s getting to my head,” she said. “I don’t feel so good.”
I noticed that my horns and tail had vanished as well. “Maybe you should lie down so we can talk some more,” I suggested, hoping I was reaching a possible breakthrough.
She suddenly stood up and started hyperventilating. “I don’t want to talk anymore!” she screamed, breathing heavily.
Once again, before my eyes, Beth transformed into the crimson creature with the pitch-black eyes and sharp, pointy teeth. After shedding her teenage body, it let out a shriek that startled Charlie out of his pot-induced snooze. Charlie jumped up and looked at the beast in shock. He quickly grabbed the hookah off the table. He swung it at the creature, but it swiped it out of his hand and, with one speedy lunge, bit off his head. Blood spewed from Charlie’s neck, but it wasn’t just red. It was all the colors of the rainbow, shooting out of his headless body like some freaky children’s playground fountain. He fell to the floor and didn’t move.
Before I could beat myself up for pushing Teenage Beth too hard and too soon, the creature barreled toward me. I jumped out of the way and it ran int
o a dresser, knocking off a lamp that came crashing to the floor. I ran for the door, but it was right behind me. It grabbed me and sunk its teeth into my shoulder. I let out a yelp, mainly out of surprise since I didn’t actually feel anything. I kicked the creature in the stomach, sending it flying backward and causing it to topple over onto its backside.
While it was on the ground, I hurriedly opened the door. Right as I was about to step outside, it got up and ran straight at me, squealing at the top of its lungs. I shut the door right before it pounced on me. I heard it banging madly on the walls and shrieking loudly inside the room. The other nearby rooms, however, were completely quiet, seemingly undisturbed by the madness.
Chapter Eleven
I was moving toward “Room 7” to see if Little Beth was there when the hallway started to vibrate. I braced myself against the wall, wondering if Beth was having some sort of disturbance in her brain. The vibrating stopped only to begin again seconds later. Pieces of the ceiling broke off and fell to the floor. I decided that, if something was happening, it was best for me to exit and let a nurse know. I withdrew from her mind and back into the hospital room. As it turned out, it was my cell phone buzzing in my pants pocket. I took it out and saw Katie’s picture on the screen.
“Katie?” I answered.
“Dad,” she said through the line, her voice shaking. “I’m not doing so good.”
“What is it, peanut?” I asked.
“The voices,” she answered. “I can’t make them stop.”
I got up from my chair and walked over to the window. “Yes, you can, sweetheart,” I told her. “And they’re not voices, remember? They’re other people’s thoughts and you can shut them out. Where are you right now?”
“I’m in my room. I told the school nurse I was having my period and she let me come home.”
“That’s more information than I needed but okay,” I said, trying to lighten the situation.
“You’re not helping!” She giggled nervously. “What do I do?”
“First of all, only look directly at someone if necessary and, when you do, make sure it’s only for as long as he or she is speaking. Once they stop, look away.”
“For how long?”
“Until either you or they start speaking again.”
“I’m so screwed.”
Linden entered the room and I held my finger up to signal “just a minute.” “Look,” I said to Katie. “I know it’s overwhelming right now, but it’ll get better, I promise. Just practice what I told you. I gotta go but I’ll call you later. I love you, peanut.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “Call me back as soon as you can.”
“I will,” I said. “Bye, sweetheart.”
I ended the call and turned to face Linden. “My daughter,” I told him. “She plays volleyball at her school and needed a pep talk.”
Linden was the last person I would tell about Katie’s developing psychic abilities. First of all, it’s up to Katie who she shares it with and, secondly, there was no way I’d let her get put on a government list of potential specialists so they could recruit her for some future assignment. I didn’t want her to have to experience the horrors I had and, frankly, hoped to protect her from them as long as I could.
“Must be tough being a dad,” he said.
“It can be,” I said. “You ever thought about having kids, Agent Linden?”
“Hell, no,” he replied. “After the shit I’ve seen, not a chance. Speaking of which, Margaret Stevens was found dead in her apartment an hour ago.”
“Damn. Suicide?”
“It appears that way, but we won’t know for certain until forensics gets done with the scene. Maintenance discovered her in the bathtub with her wrists slit. I thought it might be good for us to go and look. Maybe something in her apartment could give us a clue as to why she did it or what it has to do with Beth.”
On the way to Margaret Stevens’ apartment, I perused a file on her that Linden had brought along. She had a long history of depression, beginning in high school when she spent a week in a treatment facility after trying to overdose on pain pills. She later regularly saw a psychiatrist who prescribed various medications until one finally did the trick. She went without incident for several years but then, shortly after Beth was attacked, returned to see the psychiatrist. Evidently, this time it didn’t go as well.
In addition to depression, Margaret had also been treated for drug and alcohol abuse.
She had been arrested on one occasion for a DWI, received counseling, and, following a probationary period had no subsequent run-ins with the law. According to her employers, she was a model employee during her short time working at the Law Offices of Baxter, Freeman, and Lester. So much so that it came as a complete shock to them when she quit abruptly and without explanation.
“You don’t think it was our visit that finally pushed her over the edge, do you?” I asked
Linden as we approached her apartment building.
He shrugged. “Maybe,” he answered nonchalantly. “But then it’s possible she’d been planning it all along and was going to do it either way. When I first started out with the bureau, we investigated a man accused of embezzling money from a very high-profile corporation. He swore up and down that he didn’t do it. Right as we were getting close to the truth, he jumped off a thirty-story building. A few days later, we discovered that it was his secretary that had stolen the money. He was completely innocent.”
“Then why did he kill himself?” I asked.
“Who the hell knows?” he replied. “Did he think he was going to be found guilty? Was he hiding something even worse? Or was he just a nut job that slipped through the cracks when the school counselor passed out pamphlets about the importance of expressing your feelings? My point is you can drive yourself crazy wondering why but, ultimately, it doesn’t make any difference. A person ended his life and there’s nothing you can do to bring him back.”
“I never realized there were so many layers to you, Linden,” I jested. “I always figured you for a two-dimensional type.”
“I’m practical,” he said as he parked in the same spot in front of the leasing office he did the last time. “Now let’s go see the dead girl’s apartment.”
A small crowd gathered near the stairwell leading to Margaret’s residence. We got out of the car and moved toward them. Among the spectators were the apartment manager and a tanned maintenance man with three-day stubble and a shell-shocked look on his face. We made our way to the front of the mob and the apartment manager. She was just as excited to see us as she was on our first visit.
“Oh, it’s you two,” she said. “I hope you’re not back for more questions. Maggie’s—”
“We know,” Linden interrupted her. “Are you the one that found her?” he addressed the maintenance man.
“Yeah,” he said with a distance gaze in his eyes. “I was just going to check the stove. Ms. Stevens had called about it goin’ out yesterday, but I couldn’t get to it till today. I can’t help but think this wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone when she first reached out to me.”
“Oh, Glen,” the apartment manager said with a deadpan tone. “You’re not Jesus. How could you have known she was going to kill herself?”
As tempted as I was to inquire about the apartment manager’s apparent belief that Christ had psychic powers, I stayed focused on the matter at hand. “What happened right before you found her?” I asked Glen.
“Well,” he continued. “I let myself in with the master key. I called out to Ms. Stevens, but she didn’t answer. I was in the hallway when I noticed blood coming out from under the bathroom door. I went in to see if everything was alright and there she was, all bled out. Was she sufferin’ from depression? ’Cause I got this cousin that—”
“Thank you for your time,” Linden cut him off. “I imagine this experience has been very traumatic for you. We have counselors available if you need to speak to someone.” He turned to me. “Come on, Crawford.�
��
I followed Linden through the front of the crowd and up the stairs. One man peeked his head out of his door but quickly shut it when he saw us. When we reached Margaret’s apartment, there was a police officer standing in the entryway. Linden flashed his FBI badge and the officer nodded and stepped aside. Upon entering, I noticed the kitchen had been unattended to for quite some time. A pile of dirty dishes in the sink had attracted flies and a nearby trashcan overflowed onto the floor.
We moved past the living room area, which was equally unkept, and made our way into the hallway by the bathroom. There was a forensic specialist inside taking pictures. Through the open doorway, I saw Margaret’s arm draped over the side of the bathtub. Linden pushed the door open and there she was, naked and still in the water. I felt like she was being intruded upon the way the burly man with the camera was snapping pictures of her exposed like that. Then I reminded myself that it didn’t bother her. In fact, nothing would ever bother her again.
“Any chance you can get some kind of reading?” Linden asked.
“Seriously?” I replied. “What do you think I am? Some kind of medium?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought maybe there was something still lingering.”
“Nope,” I said. “When she goes, it goes.”
Linden frowned and then turned to the specialist. “Anything out of the ordinary?” he asked him.
“Not really,” the man replied as he took another picture. “I’m almost done here. Once you guys are through poking around, I’ll give the all clear for the coroner to wheel her out.”
Linden nodded and walked past me to the bedroom. The door was wide open. He stepped inside and started looking around. I cautiously entered and stood near the unmade bed. Linden opened the closet door and riffled through some of her clothes, yet another act that irrationally seemed like an invasion of privacy. Her wardrobe consisted of a few nice dresses, probably used for work, and some more casual wear. There was one t-shirt with an image of the Arc de Triomphe at the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
I suddenly got a chill as I imagined Jessica digging through her closet at home for a kid-friendly outfit to wear. As a kindergarten teacher, she had to keep it simple and avoid clothes that couldn’t withstand the occasional splash of paint or student that had a passion for taking a pair of scissors to anything that stood in his way. Linden closed the closet and the vision of Jessica vanished, snapping me back to reality.
When Beth Wakes Up Page 7