by Billy Wells
Doctor Welby introduced himself and took the chair next to Rupert's bed. After scanning the evidence in the envelope, he saw his patient in a completely new light. Instead of a sick man in a hospital gown in the bed before him, he saw an amoral fiend who would cut his heart out, if the mood struck him. Welby’s sacred pledge to treat his patient’s illness to the best of his ability, as set out in the Hippocratic Oath, wavered from the weight of this man’s evil as he spoke, “Mr. Savage, I'm sorry to be the bearer of extremely bad news. Whoever attacked you surgically removed your male organs.”
The doctor waited for Savage to let out a bloodcurdling scream of horror at his findings, but Rupert said nothing. He just sat with his mouth agape and looked ten years older than he had when the doctor first entered the room.
Welby continued, “Of course, you can seek reconstructive surgery, but, in my opinion, based on the severity and completeness of the act, it is unlikely you will be able to function as a man.”
It suddenly occurred to Rupert this was old news that simply hadn’t registered completely in his brain. Just before he’d passed out, he discovered someone had removed his penis. Oh, the injustice of it all, he thought, trying to come to grips with never having sex with Candice, or for that matter, any other beautiful woman again. A tear rolled down his cheek.
The doctor watched the expression on the psychopath’s face crumble into self-pity. Welby waited patiently for his embittered response, all the while, applauding the outstanding work of the accomplished surgeon who operated on Savage and his wife. Whoever did these delicate operations exhibited exceptional expertise in sexual organ augmentation. Welby could not imagine even the Marquis de Sade in his prime could have conceived of such diabolical atrocities to a human body.
Who could have done this to me? Rupert pondered, feeling completely and wrongly violated. Then, he thought of the families of the women he’d killed and knew it could have been any one of them. Then, as if a small ray of sunshine had peeked through a sky of black clouds, he turned to Welby and asked, “When you said I wouldn’t be able to function as a man anymore, were you implying that my functioning as a woman might be an alternative?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Mr. Savage. I'm not sure that’s possible, but it would be your only chance to resume any type of sexual activity. I'm sorry my prognosis is so grim,” he lied, “but the damage to your sexual organs is catastrophic. Whoever did this to you purposely altered several of your internal organs to the point; our specialists are still assessing the damage. and what kind of life you will have going forward.”
Rupert started to sob and struggled to compose himself enough to finally ask, “What about my wife, Candice? Is she all right?”
The doctor sighed nervously. Never in his career had he struggled so hard to maintain a straight face. He pinched himself so hard in the thigh, he drew blood and said, “I'm sorry to say, Mr. Savage, Candice has your penis and no breasts.”
“What?” Rupert shrieked in horror. “God, no!”
Two police officers appeared in the doorway.
“There's more,” the doctor replied grimly, straining not to laugh in the psycho’s face, “She‘s also blind and deaf….
“No. God. No.” Rupert cried pitifully.
“And” Welby choked back a fit of uproarious laughter, “Candice is a quadriplegic.”
SOMETHING IN THE DARK
Ivy ran headlong into the undergrowth, clawing through the branches to escape the clutches of the gigantic beast only a stride behind her. It was so close she could almost feel its hot breath on her neck. The briars had cut her arms, and blood streaked her face. It seemed like she'd been running forever as she ran like a wild woman into the stifling blackness.
If only there were a house nearby. If only she could find a place to hide… someone to rescue her from unspeakable, certain death. Her foot tangled on a root on the path as it always did. She teetered, fighting for balance, but didn’t fall. Yet, it was over; she had lost a stride. Now, she would be the monster’s next meal.
But just like thousands of times before, when she turned to see the face of the thing in the dark that was about to tear her head off, she woke up with a bloodcurdling scream. The monster had disappeared as if he’d never been there at all. It was just another terrible nightmare.
Each time it happened, the dream felt as vivid as anything she had done in real life. The trauma was beyond imagination. She’d sit up in bed until the adrenalin pumping through her body subsided, and she could catch her breath again. Then, as always, she went into the living room and tried to calm herself by watching some mindless TV show until it was time to get ready for work. There was no way to sleep after a near death experience like the one she’d had in the dream.
Now she was in the waiting room of Dr. Wolf Franklin, one of the most respected and sought after shrinks in Manhattan. In addition to being wealthy and smart, he had the reputation as a real lady-killer.
As Ivy sat down across from the tall attractive man, she realized immediately he was not anything like she expected from the pictures she’d seen in the newspapers. He didn't look at all like the type of man who would be a psychiatrist. He reminded her of virile Harrison Ford, shaven and without the scar, in his role as Indiana Jones. Nonetheless, the doctor came highly recommended by her boss.
"Well, Ivy," Franklin said cordially. “Tell me about your nightmares.”
The moment she dreaded had finally come. She couldn’t imagine telling a total stranger how, on most nights, she transformed from a respected, logical, sometimes even eloquent project manager into a blithering, sweat ball of a ditsy female, driven to the edge of insanity by an imaginary beast she had never seen. She hadn’t even told her closest friends many of the deepest, darkest secrets of the hell she had endured for most of her life, let alone this gorgeous hunk of manhood. What could he possibly tell her that would make a difference?
He waited patiently for a reply and sat back a little in his chair. “Would you like a cup of coffee or a glass of water?” he asked, pouring himself a cup from a carafe on the desk.
“No thanks,” she said nervously. “I’ve been practicing what I would say when I got here, but now, I don't know where to begin.”
Franklin leaned forward and smiled warmly. A whiff of his cologne tickled her senses. “I’ve found it's usually best to start at the beginning.”
After a long pause, Ivy began, "I've had terrible nightmares all my life. When I was a little girl, they were about falling in the attic. I have no idea what caused them, but every few days, I would dream I was in the attic in the house where I grew up. I remember bloated boxes piled randomly about the space with pieces of puzzles, photographs, trading cards, and such spilling from them and cluttering the floor.”
“How big was this attic?”
“I can’t even hazard a guess at the measurements. In retrospect, our house at the time was only a small bungalow, but, through the eyes of a little girl, it seemed enormous. There were two large rectangle sections separated by a steep stairway.”
“Was this space a product of your imagination, or was it really like the space in the attic of your actual childhood home?”
“It was pretty much like the attic in our home, but the floor in the real space was not cluttered with boxes and debris. There were boxes stacked under the rafters on both sides of the stairway, but there was nothing spilling from them.”
“Did you go into the attic often as a child?”
“Not really. In the summer, it was too hot to stay up there more than a few minutes without getting drenched with sweat. In the winter, it seemed colder than being outside. I could feel the chill right through my bones when I went there.”
“So even though you rarely went into the attic, you dreamed about it often.”
Franklin paused to make a note on a pad of paper. “Did you ever believe there was a boogeyman in your closet or a monster under your bed?”
“I actually did for a while when I was about eigh
t years old. I made my parents leave my door open and keep the light on in the hall when I went to bed.”
“What about the attic? Did you ever think there might be a monster there?”
“It was pretty scary sometimes. I remember most of all, the time I went there to look for my Whatzit game. While I searched box after box, my mom noticed the light was on. She said she called out for me, but it was raining so hard, I didn’t hear her. After getting no response, she turned off the light. I was particularly frightened that time because it was a scary day with thunder and lightning. With the lights out, the wind blowing hard outside made the branches on the trees cast weird shadows that look like long, gnarled witch fingers coming at me from one of the attic windows. It scared the shit out of me…and I screamed.”
“But you didn't run, and you didn't fall like you did in your dream?”
“No. Once mom turned on the light, I was fine.”
“Sometimes in an attic, people step on the wrong place and fall through the ceiling. Did that ever happen to you?”
“No. It never did.”
“So tell me about the specifics of your nightmare.”
Ivy felt more comfortable with Dr. Franklin than she thought she would. He seemed believably sincere…like he really cared about her problem. Ivy wondered how well he knew her boss.
“Whenever I went to the attic in the summer, I always saw wasp nests made out of mud between the rafters. Sometimes I would even see wasps fly into their nests. My mom warned me to stay away from them because, if I were allergic to their stings, it could be life threatening. I don't know why, but the wasps were always in my dream. I would be playing in the attic, and then I would hear a buzzing. Their sound made my skin crawl. I could almost feel them burrowing into my skin. It was awful. When I looked up, I'd see the wasps flying around my head, getting ready to sting me all over my body. Then, I’d jump up and run, but I always forgot the steep stairway was behind me and ran right off the edge of it every time.”
“The stairway was normal, about thirteen steps?”
“Yes. That was exactly the way it was, but in my dream, I didn't fall down the stairs. I fell through billowy clouds for what seemed like miles and miles of sky, and I kept falling and falling until I woke up screaming.”
“But you never hit bottom, did you?” Franklin smiled, knowing no one ever does.
“No. I never did. I had this same dream often while we lived in that house. After we moved, I never had it again.”
“Your nightmare about falling is much like what many children have while growing up. They usually end during the teen years.”
Ivy’s expression changed. Her gaze fixed on a spot on the wall over Franklin’s head, and her hands began to shake. “About six months after moving to our new house, I started having a different nightmare. This one was much more realistic and disturbing than my falling dream, and I still have it today.”
“Are you sure you wouldn't like something to drink? You seem a little more agitated now,” Franklin asked with a measure of concern.
“All right. My mouth is a little dry after all this talking. Coffee would be fine.”
Franklin lifted the carafe from a tray, poured her a cup, and handed it across the table to her. Ivy took a sip, and, after a deep breath, she began, “It always starts with me running through the woods. The branches are tearing at my face and my arms. I always see a lot of blood on my blouse. It's dark, and I can hear something big thrashing close behind me through the underbrush.”
“Did you ever see what is chasing you?”
“Never. I can smell the animal stench of it. Like a mixture of rotten fish and spoiled meat. I can feel the heat of its fetid breath, almost like a blow dryer on the back of my neck. I hear its thundering roar blotting out everything around me. It's like all the animals in the woods stop breathing for fear this thing would hear them, and then, come and rip their hearts out. It feels like at any second it will sink its claws into me and gobble me up.”
The expression on Franklin’s face darkened as he saw the terror in Ivy’s eyes. Her upper lip started to quiver.
“Each time I have this nightmare, the enormity of its evil consumes me and everything around me. I stumble, I flail relentlessly, teetering on the brink of disaster, but I never fall.”
“Have you ever seen a piece of the monster? A furry coat? A claw? A foot or an arm? Any part of its body?”
“Never. While it’s chasing me, I can't bear to look back at it for fear I will die of fright. It’s when I almost fall…and it’s upon me…just before it’s about to sink its fangs into me, I turn to look at its hideous face. That’s when I wake up screaming.”
‘How long did you say you’ve been obsessing with this nightmare?”
“Since I was twelve. It’s going on twenty years, and I've finally reached the point that unless you cure me, I consider myself a prime candidate for suicide or the funny farm. I can't take anymore.”
Ignoring her shocking comment, he continued, “Before we schedule your next session, I need to know if you’ve ever been confronted by something other than a make-believe monster? I know it’s quite personal, but, more specifically, I must know if you have you ever been raped, abused, or molested by another person before I proceed with your treatment.”
“No, I have never been confronted by a human monster, except for one brief, but very scary, encounter during the time of my first nightmares. When I was a little girl, my father left me in the car while he went into the drugstore for a prescription. As I recall, it was late, and our car was the only one on the street. My dad was only gone a minute or two, and he locked the car securely when he left.”
Franklin’s brow creased as this part of her story seemed to interest him more than the rest.
“I will never forget the bedraggled, elderly man who appeared from nowhere. He tapped on the window and offered me a dime to unlock the door.”
“Really,” Franklin replied.
“I can only thank God my parents had money, and a dime was not that important to me. When my dad returned, the man had disappeared into the night. I told him about it, and I could tell from his expression it disturbed him greatly.” Ivy raised her cup to her lips and took a sip of coffee. “I don't know if he reported it to the police, but I assume he did. Other than that one incident, I've never been threatened or mistreated by anyone.”
Franklin put down his pen and settled farther back in his chair like they had reached a stopping point.
Ivy paused, satisfied that what felt like a confession was over. “Well, Dr. Franklin, you know what I know. Other than what I’ve told you, I can’t think of anything that could have caused the recurring nightmares that have...ruined my life.”
“Can you elaborate on that ‘ruined your life’ part?”
“What I mean is in order to avoid the trauma of my nightmares, I get very little sleep. Consequently, I walk around like a zombie. My coworkers wake me at my desk frequently. I doze off in project manager meetings and embarrass myself often. My mind wanders when I am conversing with clients. In short, my work, and, consequently, my career have suffered.”
“And despite these continued episodes of angst and anxiety, you have not sought help until now. Why did you wait?”
“Frankly, if you must know the truth, I have never believed a shrink could tell me anything about my past… you know, like because my mother slapped me around as a child, I have bad dreams. I'm just not made that way.”
“So why did you come now, if you don't believe I can help you?”
“My boss called me in last week and gave me an ultimatum. Both clients and colleagues have complained about my inability to concentrate on my work. Earlier in my career, in spite of my problem, I made a mark in my field and racked up quite a lot of noteworthy accomplishments. In recent years, my boss says I've been coasting on my past glories. He knows I can do the work but not with this monkey, or should I say monster, sitting on my back. He suggested I come to you.”
Ivy eyed him with a devilish grin. “He says you can slay dragons.”
Franklin’s face reddened ever so slightly. He reclined a little farther in his chair and considered what Ivy had just said without speaking.
Ivy leaned forward and looking squarely into his eyes asked, “Well, Sir Galahad. Are you up to the challenge?”
Franklin’s face suddenly brightened with what Ivy took as a sign of optimism. “I must say I've never encountered anything quite like your case. Many doctors would prescribe drugs to calm your nerves and make you sleep, but your case is so severe, I believe it would eventually lead to a life of addiction. Based on your chart, and after hearing your description of the malady, I believe you are a prime candidate for hypnotism. I assure you, not everyone is. “Consequently…” Franklin’s smile broadened. “I’m confident I can cure you completely, and after your session, two at the most if you are a hard case, your nightmares will cease, and you can live a normal life.”
Ivy looked at him like he had just told her she could knock out the heavyweight champion of the world with one hand tied behind her in the first round.
“Pardon me, but I’m flabbergasted you would make such a statement with such conviction. Why would you tell me this even before the treatment begins? It seems foolhardy. I would think this kind of blatant prediction of success might lead to a law suit with the right patient.”