The Sleep Experiment
Page 24
Pandemonium resulted. The spectators in the gallery shot to their feet, with everyone talking at once, many applauding and cheering, others shouting profanities.
◆◆◆
Outside the Hall of Justice, Dr. Wallis stopped before a phalanx of television cameras for an impromptu and celebratory press conference. When the throng of journalists and reporters quieted down, he said into the two-dozen or so microphones thrust at him, “Walt Whitman once wrote that ‘the fear of hell is little or nothing to me.’ But he was Walt Whitman, so he can write whatever he damn well pleased.” Wallis stroked his beard, reveling in the knowledge the world would be hanging onto his each and every word. “I’m guessing,” he continued, “Walt most likely never believed that hell existed in the first place, hence his cavalier attitude.” He shook a finger, as if to scorn the father of free verse. “But I, my lovely friends, I now know hell exists, and let me tell you—it scares the utter shit out of me.”
Resounding silence except for the cluck-cluck-cluck of photographs being snapped.
Then everyone began shouting questions at once.
“Will you perform another sleep experiment in the future, professor?”
“Do you plan to make your complete research available to the public?”
“What would you like to say to your doubters?”
“Are you going to apologize to the families of the deceased?”
“Do you know where Penny Park is?”
“Do you have plans to sell the stimulant gas to pharmaceutical companies?”
Ignoring the bedlam, Dr. Wallis followed the path his defense team cleaved through the crowd to a waiting black SUV. He climbed into the backseat, closed the door, and frowned at the driver in the front seat.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I’m your driver today, sir,” the gray-haired man replied.
“Where’s Raoul?”
“Sick.”
“Sick?”
“He called in sick today, and I was given the gig.”
“Do you know where my apartment building is?”
“The Clock Tower Building, sir. I live only a few blocks away from it.”
Demonstrators were slapping the windows and roof of the SUV, so Dr. Wallis said, “Get a move on then.”
The driver rolled away from the curb. Once the vehicle cleared the crowd, Wallis noticed a palpable quiet to the streets, and it wasn’t until they passed a busy bar—at 11:45 in the morning—that he realized the quiet was because of him. The city—hell, the country, more like it—had ground to a halt as people in their living rooms and offices, at work and at play, had gathered to watch on their televisions and their phones as his verdict was read.
Dr. Wallis googled himself on his phone and read the headlines from a half dozen leading newspapers:
Jury Clears Dr. Roy Wallis of Involuntary Manslaughter
Spellbound Nation Divided on Sleep Doctor Verdict
No Justice!
Not Guilty!
Jury Stunner: Wallis Walks
Demon Soul Doctor Free!
As Dr. Wallis skimmed the lead story in The New York Times, however, his smile became a frown. The journalist was clearly a biased hack, as the piece was a hit job on Wallis. It labeled him a murderer who escaped justice, while lambasting his Demon Soul theory as the “fantasy role-play of a delusional megalomaniac.”
Scowling, Dr. Wallis shoved his phone back into his pocket. He shouldn’t be surprised by the coverage. The press had been largely critical of him the entire trial, too close-minded—and frightened—to believe the evidence he’d put before them.
We’ll see who has the last laugh, assholes, he thought, already anticipating his second sleep experiment, which he’d livestream to the masses. Let them see with their own eyes what we are and what we become when sleep is banished and the gates of hell are thrown wide open.
Wallis was so engrossed in his thoughts he didn’t realize they’d arrived at the Clock Tower Building until a mob of reporters and journalists surrounded the SUV, cameras and microphones at the ready.
“Get me as close to the front door as possible,” he grunted.
“Yes, sir,” the driver said.
Inching through the excited crowd, the SUV eventually stopped directly before the building’s front entrance. As soon as Dr. Wallis stepped out of the vehicle, microphones were shoved in his face, everyone shouting questions over everyone else.
Ignoring the bedlam, he quickly entered the building, closing the glass door securely behind him so none of the jackasses could follow him inside.
Straightening his blazer and smoothing his tie, he studied himself in the annualized steel elevator doors, deciding he looked damned good.
When the doors opened, he took the cab to the top floor and let himself into his penthouse apartment. The first thing he did was put CNN on the large TV in the living room. With the news anchor talking about Wallis and the Sleep Experiment in the background, he went to the bar and made a Dark ‘n’ Stormy. He watched a bit of the coverage, but when the white-haired nerd continued to belittle his life’s work, he decided to go to the wraparound deck for a cigarette.
He froze when he noticed the glass in the door to the deck had been broken.
“That was me,” a male voice said from behind him.
Dr. Wallis spun around as a man emerged from the clock tower room. With slicked-back black hair and a haggard face, he looked like someone who had spent more than his fair share of time in smoky bars. He wore blue jeans and a black leather jacket over a denim shirt a slightly lighter shade than his pants. He was thin yet clearly no lightweight as cords of muscle stood out like knotted ropes in his neck.
“Who the fuck are you?” Wallis demanded, his voice brash and unafraid even as his pulse spiked and his insides hollowed. Nobody was okay with finding a stranger in their home—let alone an armed stranger, as the man gripped a baseball bat in his right hand.
“Bill,” the man said. “I’m Bill.”
“What are you doing in my house, Bill?”
“I’m here to kill you, Roy.”
Wallis’ throat tightened to the size of a straw. He swallowed hard. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Let me introduce myself properly, Roy. I’m Bill Foxley.”
Dr. Wallis’ eyes widened, and that hollow feeling inside him intensified tenfold.
“Hey look,” he said, holding up his hands, “I didn’t kill Brook. That was Chad Carter—”
“I don’t care if it was you who broke my sister’s neck, or that psycho patient of yours. The fact is she’s dead, and she wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for you and your fucked-up experiment—”
Wallis threw his Dark ‘n’ Stormy at Bill and bolted toward the front door. He heard the man coming after him, knew he wouldn’t get the door open before the baseball bat hit a homerun with the back of his head, so he whirled about midstride.
Deflecting a blow from the bat with his forearms, Wallis threw a punch, striking Bill in the jaw, staggering him. Even so, he knew he was outmatched unless he found a weapon. He turned, intending to make a break for the first level of the clock tower, where he could grab a pool cue—but came face to face with a second assailant.
He immediately knew the person was Bill Foxley’s brother—the resemblance was reflected in their smarmy faces and their wiry physiologies—but even as he processed this, the man was swinging a bat.
The polished wood cracked Dr. Wallis squarely on the forehead. Pain exploded behind his eyes in a fireworks of chaotic light. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
◆◆◆
Dr. Wallis came around to trumpets of pain blasting from ear to ear. Despite the white haze that engulfed his thoughts and vision, he realized he was seated in a chair, his hands secured with rope behind his back.
Blinking salty tears from his eyes, he saw Bill pacing before him in the kitchen, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
Bill noticed him rousing and said, “About fu
cking time.”
“I have money,” Dr. Wallis mumbled, his thoughts still muddled but quickened with fear. “Look around. I have a lot of money. How much do you want?”
“Money?” Bill laughed mirthlessly. “I don’t want your money, hotshot. I want my sister back. But since I can’t have that, I want revenge.”
And Wallis knew Bill could not be bought; the man was going to murder him.
“Please!” he said, straining violently at his restraints. “Brook’s death wasn’t my fault. I was just acquitted of—”
Arms slipped around his head from behind.
The second brother.
Bill nodded slowly, and before Dr. Wallis could protest, his head snapped violently to the left. He slumped forward in the chair, the rope around his wrists preventing him falling forward onto his face. His breathing came in sharp, ragged gasps. He knew his upper cervical spine had been fractured, and he would die shortly from asphyxiation, just as Brook had died on the asphalt of the breezeway. Even as this morbid irony registered, he thought with indignant fury, YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! I’M DOCTOR ROY WALLIS! I’M FAMOUS NOW!
The last thing the famous Dr. Roy Wallis heard in his life was Brook’s brother telling him in a sanctimonious voice, “Good night, doctor. Sleep tight.”
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for taking the time to read The Sleep Experiment. If you enjoyed the story, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review on the Amazon product page.
Also, please check out the books in the award-winning World’s Scariest Places series below:
SUICIDE FOREST
Just outside of Tokyo lies Aokigahara, a vast forest and one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in Japan...and also the most infamous spot to commit suicide in the world. Legend has it that the spirits of those many suicides are still roaming, haunting deep in the ancient woods.
When bad weather prevents a group of friends from climbing neighboring Mt. Fuji, they decide to spend the night camping in Aokigahara. But they get more than they bargained for when one of them is found hanged in the morning—and they realize there might be some truth to the legends after all.
THE CATACOMBS
Paris, France, is known as the City of Lights, a metropolis renowned for romance and beauty. Beneath the bustling streets and cafés, however, exists The Catacombs, a labyrinth of crumbling tunnels filled with six million dead.
When a video camera containing mysterious footage is discovered deep within their depths, a group of friends venture into the tunnels to investigate. But what starts out as a lighthearted adventure takes a turn for the worse when they reach their destination--and stumble upon the evil lurking there.
HELLTOWN
Since the 1980s there have been numerous reports of occult activity and other possibly supernatural phenomenon within certain villages and townships of Summit County, Ohio—an area collectively known as Helltown.
When a group of out-out-town friends investigating the legends are driven off the road by a mysterious hearse, their night of cheap thrills turns to chills as they begin to die one by one.
ISLAND OF THE DOLLS
Deep within an ancient Aztec canal system on the outskirts of Mexico City lies Isla de las Munecas...a reportedly haunted island infested with thousands of decrepit dolls.
While there to film a television documentary, several friends discover a brutal murder. Soon fear and paranoia turn them against one another—even as the unknown killer stalks them throughout the longest night of their lives.
MOUNTAIN OF THE DEAD
Fact: During the night of February 1, 1959, in the remote reaches of Siberia, nine Russian hikers slash open their tent from the inside and flee into a blizzard in subpolar temperatures.
Fact: By morning all are dead, several having suffered gruesome, violent deaths. What happened to them has baffled investigators and researchers to this day.
It has become known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident.
Now, an American true-crime writer seeking answers to the enduring mystery sets out to retrace the hikers' steps on their fateful expedition—though nothing can prepare him for what he is about to discover...