When Beth Wakes Up

by Matthew Franks

  “What is wrong with me?” she said. “I could’ve sworn I already filled this.” She started for the kitchen. “I’ll be right back with some fresh lemonade.”

  “That’s not necessary, Mrs. Martin,” I told her. “Don’t feel like you have to cater to us. We just want to help you find your husband.”

  She nodded and sat down on the couch by the coffee table. “Thank you.” She placed the empty pitcher back on the tray. “I appreciate you both coming so quickly.”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Martin?” asked Linden.

  “Well, he said he was going to drive to town to get some supplies. There’s only one place he ever goes. He’s normally only gone an hour or so. After a few hours, I started to worry, so I called the store. They hadn’t seen him.” She began to sob. “I shouldn’t have let him drive on his own. He’s getting too…absent minded.”

  I sat by her on the couch. “We’ll find him,” I told her. “Do you know the way he usually goes to the get to the store?”

  “Yes. It’s just along the highway.”

  “Okay. Agent Linden and I will go and retrace his path.”

  “Can I come with you, please? I can’t bear staying here and waiting.”

  “Of course, you can. As soon as you’re ready, we’ll all go together.”

  Shortly thereafter, the three of us climbed into Linden’s car and followed Edward’s trail. Along the way, Allie explained how things had gotten worse. Evidently, Edward had even gone so far as to stand in the middle of a room, hold an item, and completely forgot how it ended up in his hand or where he was going with it. I asked if he’d been diagnosed with anything specific and, irritated, she said he refused to see a doctor.

  After driving along the highway toward Louisville for about thirty minutes, Allie spotted Edward’s truck parked on the rocky shoulder near an open grass field. Linden pulled up behind the truck, and we all got out of the car. We peeked in through the windows of the truck, but he was nowhere to be found. My first thought was that he’d run out of gas and started walking toward the nearest station. However, that was quickly disproven.

  “I see him!” exclaimed Allie as she looked out across the grass field and saw him wondering aimlessly in the distance. She hurried toward him, leaving Linden and me by the truck. “Edward!”

  “What a shame,” I said to Linden.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “This is where they found Beth.”

  We walked through the field and caught up with them. Allie looked at us pleadingly. Edward, on the other hand, didn’t seem to even notice any of us. He was walking around in a circle and pulling up weeds along the way. Once he had a handful, he’d toss them to the side. He continued to do so and didn’t stop until he’d completed a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation. He finally seemed to realize we were there.

  “We can’t plant anything here,” he said to no one in particular. “This land is too coarse for crops.”

  Allie moved closer to him. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “This land isn’t even yours.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her. “A little tilling ought to loosen it up.” He went toward his truck. “I just need my plow.”

  Linden blocked his way. “Maybe you should come with us, Mr. Martin,” he said.

  Edward backed away from Linden. “I know who you are. You’ve come to take my farm. Well, I ain’t gonna let you.”

  Allie wept. “They’re here to help, Edward,” she said. “Don’t you even recognize me?”

  He finally looked directly at her. “Of course, I do. You’re the lady from the post office.”

  Allie put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now.” She walked over to the car and stood beside it, still crying.

  “Guess I’m not gettin’ my mail today,” said Edward obliviously.

  “Mr. Martin…” I began, choosing my words carefully. “I think it’d be best if you came with us.”

  “You boys gonna help me get my plow?”

  “Sure,” I replied. I felt Linden’s puzzled gaze upon me but ignored it. Obviously, I didn’t like deceiving Edward but didn’t think he’d agree to go if I flat out told him were taking him to the hospital. “We can help you.”

  “Good,” he said and made another attempt for his truck. “I’ll drive.”

  I stood in his path that time since there was no way we could let him drive and risk harming himself or someone else. “How about you let me drive?” I suggested. “I know a short cut.”

  Edward shrugged. “Fine. As long as we get back before dark. Ain’t no use workin’ without daylight.”

  The three of us joined Allie on the side of the road by the vehicles. At that point, she was inconsolable. Unable to bear having her husband not know who she was, she elected to ride with Linden in his car while Edward and I followed in the truck. As strange as it felt driving an old pickup in rural Kentucky, it didn’t compare to what came out of Edward’s mouth on the way to the hospital.

  “There’s a bad storm comin’,” he said, pointing to the clear blue sky as we rode along the highway. “Look a yonder.”

  “It looks okay to me, Mr. Martin,” I said.

  “It’s not what you can see. It’s what you can’t see. It’s like Lucifer gatherin’ eggs for the harvest.”

  “I don’t think I follow you.”

  He stopped talking and resigned himself to stare vacantly out the passenger’s window.

  I felt bad for him and his wife. First, their only daughter is attacked and put into a coma. Next, one of them loses his mind leaving the other one by herself to deal with all of it. When we arrived at the hospital, we were directed to a ward not far from Beth’s. Edward went through several evaluations and, despite his protests, was admitted within an hour. After a nurse took him to his room, Allie seemed more lost than ever.

  “Can we drive you home, Mrs. Martin?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I’d like to go sit with my daughter for a while,” she said.

  “Unless you’re going to—”

  “It can wait. You go ahead.”

  “So, what happened the last time you were in Beth’s head?” Linden asked after Allie left.

  “It’s complicated. Just know that I now believe there’s some connection to the Highway Killer. I’m just not sure what it is yet.”

  He nodded. “Well, it’s all up to you now, Max. We don’t have any suspects or clues in the real world, so the answer must be in her mind. It’s time to excavate it.”

  Even though he used an unsettling mining metaphor in reference to Beth’s brain, Linden had a point. I either had to push Beth a little more or risk the memory of the attack getting shoved further back into her unconscious. That was if she would even talk to me after I foolishly mentioned my teenage daughter when she was trying to seduce me in her birthday suit. I planned to apologize for my poor timing.

  When I got to her room, I waited outside to give Allie some time alone with her. I peeked through the window to see that she was reading to her again. I hoped that, whatever the story, it was somehow giving them both some escape from their realities. After she read for a while, she placed the book down on the bedside table and got up from the chair. She stepped outside into the hallway and forced a smile when she saw me.

  “Thank you,” she said meekly.

  “You don’t need to thank me for anything, Mrs. Martin,” I told her. “I saw you reading to her through the window. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. It’s nice to know that you’re watching over her. Can you do one more thing for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “When you see her, tell her it’s time to wake up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When I entered Beth’s mind, I found myself standing on the same beach as before, only this time in the middle of the day. The sun hung overhead and bore down on the sand beside my feet. I felt its warmth even though I knew it wasn’t real. It’s funny how the bra
in plays tricks on a person. It can make you feel like you’re experiencing the inauthentic as easily as it can make an actual event routine and emotionless.

  I saw Beth sitting near the shoreline. Luckily, she was at least wearing her one-piece swimsuit. I walked over to her, and she looked up at me. Her hair and suit were completely dry, but tiny drops of water covered her arms and legs. Yet again, the mind had its own agenda. In this case, it chose what part of reality it wanted to carry over into the unconscious and which part it wanted to discard.

  “I come in peace,” I told her.

  She motioned to the ground beside her. “Sit down,” she said. “I want to tell you something.”

  I did as she requested. “What is it?”

  She sighed. “I want to apologize to you.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Yes, there is. I acted way out of line. You were just trying to help me, and I made a complete fool of myself.”

  “Well, I could’ve definitely handled it better.”

  “You handled it fine. I shouldn’t have called you an ‘asshole’ either. You’ve been nothing but kind to me. I think I’m just scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “The truth.”

  “About the attack?”

  She nodded. “But not just that. The truth about my engagement. The truth about my condition. The universe has a way of changing everything at once and we don’t get a say in the matter.”

  “Well, unfortunately, a lot of things are out of our control. I find that it makes the most sense to focus on the things we can. I spoke to your mom before I came back.” I decided, under the circumstances, to not mention the fact her dad had been admitted to the same hospital. “She’s been reading to you every time she visits.”

  She smiled. “She used to read to me when I was kid. She said it was to help calm me down. Honestly, I think it was as much for her as it was for me. Did she say anything about me?”

  “She wants you to wake up.”

  “If only it were that easy.” She stood up and brushed the imaginary sand off her backside. “Where do we need to go now? Back to the elementary school or the house with the light in the upstairs room?”

  I stood up beside her. “I think that, when you’re ready, we need to revisit the night you were attacked.”

  “I told you. I can’t remember that night.”

  “Maybe there’s something that could help trigger your memory.”

  “Like what?”

  “The days leading up to it. How far back can you remember?”

  She thought for a moment. “I remember going to work. I’m not sure what day, but I know we had a meeting.”

  “Take us there.”

  She concentrated, and our surroundings quickly transformed into the inside of an art gallery. We were standing among several paintings and a few sculptures, one of which depicted a monkey flying an airplane with the phrase “The Future Is Yours” carved across one of the wings. Beth moved toward one of the paintings. It was of a young woman standing near the ocean and looking out at the water.

  “I don’t remember that one,” she said.

  “Your unconscious may have created it,” I said. “Let’s try to keep it as close to reality as we can.”

  Just then a man with six arms and a third eye in his forehead walked into the room. He danced around the room, occasionally belching and emitting a green dust from his mouth. A gorilla stormed in and tackled the man to the ground. The animal ripped a hole in the man’s chest and confetti shot out of his insides and into the air. The gorilla laughed and clapped its hands.

  Then they both disappeared.

  I looked at Beth. “Or not?” I said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s a lot of pressure.”

  “Well, now that you got that out of your system, where was the meeting you mentioned?”

  “In our conference room. Follow me.”

  She led me through the gallery to a set of offices in a separate hallway. Along the way, I noticed a security guard standing near an unusual and particularly ornate work of art. It looked like life-sized origami but with crystals set into various points of its structure. In its center, there was a glowing blue orb. The security guard nodded to me as we passed him and entered the office suite.

  “That’s one of our most expensive pieces,” Beth explained. “It’s by an artist from Paraguay. It’s worth seventy thousand dollars.”

  Before I could comment, a woman wearing a gaudy, yellow blouse accosted us. “Oh my God, Beth!” she said. “Where have you been?!” She grabbed Beth by the arm and took her away from me. “They’ve been waiting for you!”

  Beth turned to me and shrugged as she was dragged toward a conference room in the middle of two individual offices. I stayed close behind. The woman in the awful blouse opened the door to reveal a group of half a dozen formally dressed people sitting at a long table. They turned to face Beth as she was practically shoved into the room. I slipped in after her and the woman in the shameless attire shut the door behind her. Another woman in a slightly more tasteful, brown pantsuit at the end of the table frowned at Beth.

  “We thought you’d never show up,” she said. “Do you have the proposal ready?”

  Beth fidgeted. “Almost,” she said. “I mean, I’ve got a couple of tweaks to make, but it should be done by Friday at the latest.”

  The woman sighed. “I’m afraid that won’t do, Elizabeth. I called this meeting today solely for this purpose. Now present your proposal or face the consequences.”

  Beth twirled her hair. “I guess I’ll just have to face the consequences then. What are they exactly?”

  The woman laughed. “It’s quite simple. We’re going to suck every last drop of blood from your nubile, young body.”

  As it turned out, the six-armed freak and the confetti hungry primate wouldn’t be Beth’s only diversion from reality. The woman opened her mouth and fangs shot out from her top teeth.

  The others also sprouted fangs. An older gentleman in a suit grabbed hold of Beth and threw her on top of the table. They started ripping at her clothes, one of them trying to tear off her shirt while another tugged at her pants.

  She looked at me and forced a smile. “A little help?”

  I sighed and willed a wooden stake to appear in my hand. I stabbed one of the vampire-art aficionados through his heart. He exploded into a patch of red pixie dust that rained down onto the floor. The rest turned their attention away from Beth and toward me. Two came at me furiously. I stabbed one of them, but the other sank his teeth into my arm. I didn’t even react. I just impaled him too. They both turned into magic sprinkles like the first one.

  Beth freed herself from the others and willed a stake of her own. Together, we fought off two of the remaining three and skewered them both. The woman who initially chastised Beth was the last one. She leapt on Beth’s back and screeched like a wild banshee. I hurriedly speared her from behind, and she exploded all over Beth. The ground was now covered with the enigmatic, mystical powder.

  “Nubile, young body?” I teased her.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, brushing off pixie dust. “I read a lot of vampire books as a teenager.”

  “Evidently fairy tales as well. So, what actually happened at the meeting?”

  “They gave me an extension, but they were really snarky about it.”

  “I see. So, what’d you do afterwards?”

  “I went home to my apartment.”

  “Take us there.”

  She nodded and, seconds later, we were standing in the living room of her apartment.

  A few classic paintings decorated the walls. “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh and “Persistence of Time” by Salvador Dali occupied spots perpendicular to a Monet and a framed piece I hadn’t encountered before. I moved closer to it to see that it was a painting of a young woman sitting on a city bus while other shadowy, faceless figures filled seats around her. She seemed sad as she stared out of the window.


  “I like this one,” I told Beth. “Is it real?”

  “Of course, it’s real,” she said, plopping down on the couch. “I painted it.”

  “Really? How long ago did you do this?”

  “About six years ago.”

  “Any others?”

  She shook her head. “Not since that one. I guess I just gave it up.”

  “That’s a shame. You’re very talented.” I noticed a tan leather suitcase by the door and motioned to it. “Were you going somewhere?”

  She stared at the luggage curiously. “I don’t think so.”

  Even though I knew she went to her parents’ house that weekend, I needed her to make her own connections. “So, what did you do when you got home?”

  She sighed. “Well, I was pretty frustrated about the meeting, so I…” She saw her cell phone lying on the coffee table. “Called Bobby to vent.”

  “Go ahead and call him.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Maybe something in your conversation sparked what happened next.”

  She laughed. “Alright.” She picked up the phone and dialed a number. She waited.

  “He’s not answering.”

  “Did he answer that day?”

  “I don’t know. Wait. It’s his voicemail. Jesus, I hate that voicemail.” She ended the call and threw the phone onto the coffee table. “Now I remember. I left a message, but he didn’t call me back.”

  “So, what’d you do next?”

  “Let me think.” She ruminated. “I wanted to get out of the city…so I decided to visit my parents.”

  “Thus, the suitcase.”

  “That’s strange. Why was it already by the door when I hadn’t remembered going yet?”

  “Sometimes the mind leaves clues without us realizing it. We need to be on the lookout for others. They could be helpful.”

  Beth’s baggage wasn’t my first encounter with an object popping up inexplicably. An inmate I worked with by the name of Stuart Lansinger provided that experience for me.