The Dead Girl in 2A

by Carter Wilson

  Though these thoughts might be considered an adverse reaction, I didn’t call Landis, and he didn’t call me. I’m not ashamed to say I was addicted to the program. Very soon, nothing else mattered.

  Two months after my last visit with Landis, I took to my life of seclusion. It all felt so right, so wonderfully predetermined. I don’t expect you to understand. How could you? This doctor comes into my life, promises me a purpose, and I just do what he says.

  I suppose it was a leap of faith.

  Still, I leapt.

  And have been falling ever since.

  Fifteen

  Jake

  The bar at the Four Seasons has a steady stream of business. I’m sitting in a soft, oversize lounge chair, Dewar’s on the rocks in a tumbler near my hand. I take a sip and let the alcohol slide over my tongue. It doesn’t relax me, doesn’t take off the anxious edge that I’ve been experiencing since the flight. I have this need to propel myself forward but don’t know which direction to go. I keep telling myself to take control, but what does that even mean? Control of what, exactly?

  Calm down, Jake, I tell myself. Remind yourself of the why. Why you’re doing what you’re doing.

  To take care of Em, I answer. To pay the bills. To repair my marriage.

  Aren’t you doing that? Isn’t the Eaton gig paying the most you’ve ever earned for ghostwriting?

  Yes.

  And, memory issues aside, haven’t you been feeling good lately? More self-aware? More…actualized?

  Yes. But my marriage is going to shit.

  It’s probably temporary. You’re changing. That scares Abby.

  What scares her—and me—is I’m forgetting things. I’m acting strange.

  She’s not scared of your memory loss; she’s concerned. There’s a difference. She wants to help you, but you won’t let her in. The problem is, you haven’t told her everything. She’s smart. She senses it.

  I know.

  And you can’t stop thinking about the woman from the plane. You might even be thinking about trying to find her, aren’t you? Is she more important than your wife?

  Clara is important. I know it. Our connection is important.

  Okay, then let’s cut to the chase with one last question. Do you like who you are as a person more than you did a year ago, or less?

  I…I don’t know.

  Don’t think about the events in your life. Don’t think about the accident, or about your marriage. I’m asking about you. Who you are. What you feel. Are you happier with you now than before?

  Yes.

  There’s your answer. Let that dictate what you do.

  The last year.

  I remove my laptop from my messenger bag, power it on. My fingers hover over the keyboard as I decide where to go first. I pause, take another sip of my drink, hoping for either inspiration or a completely numbed mind. The whiskey convinces me to do a Google search.

  First, I try Clara Stowe. When the page loads, I click on image results.

  Nothing immediately registers, and unsurprisingly, Google asks me if I meant Clara Bow, the silent-movie actress from the 1920s. I ignore Google and press on with my original search, loading pages of images. Scores of pictures resulting from the search Clara Stowe, some of people, others of documents and tombstones. A few nineteenth-century photos, and I half expect one to be of her. Maybe Clara is a ghost after all.

  Back to the web-search results. I scan through the first three pages but find nothing remarkable. There’s quite a bit about Clara Barton and Harriet Beecher Stowe. I think about that a bit, but struggle to find a connection. I dive into a few WikiTree results for Clara Stowes, but these are for other women. I hardly look at Facebook or Twitter profiles. If she’s as truly disconnected from the world as she said, I won’t find her on social media.

  I need something, anything.

  I search again, but this time not for Clara.

  This time I search for a name known only to me.

  Landis.

  I wanted to tell Clara about Landis, but held back. I wanted to tell her he’s the reason I started losing my recent memories, and that he’s also the reason I like who I am now more than ever, despite all the shit going on. Hell, maybe Clara even knows Landis. But I said nothing about him.

  He’s been my secret for nearly a year.

  He introduced himself as Dr. Landis Miller, but implored me just to call him Landis. In fact, I know almost nothing about him. When I Googled him after my first visit with him, I found nothing. But now, out of a hunch more than anything else, I try a new search.

  Dr. Landis Miller “clara stowe”

  The results are predictably unhelpful.

  Then I try something new. The direct approach.

  “jacob buchannan” “clara stowe”

  As I press Enter, a bolt of nervous electricity shoots through my chest, as if I’m going to discover something insidious in the search result. That the internet somehow knows how Clara and I are connected, and the truth is something I don’t want to know.

  I’m both relieved and disappointed when Google yields nothing.

  My mind wanders back to Landis. To the first time I met him, one memory still solidly lodged in my brain, fully intact.

  Eleven months ago, I went to Landis’s office in Boston, and that’s when my world began to change.

  Sixteen

  Eleven months ago

  The flyer arrived at Jake Buchannan’s single-person office, which was housed in an aging four-story brick building in downtown Boston. Though Jake also worked from home, having an office was important to him. It gave him an identity, a place to meet clients, and five hundred square feet of total focus.

  Mail was rare, usually consisting of take-out menus or trade magazines to former tenants. But the glossy-white flyer caught his eye, and it was specifically addressed to him.

  MEMORY ISSUES?

  Revolutionary Medical Breakthrough:

  Volunteers Needed for Clinical Trial

  The bold-font copy was enough to keep his attention—yes, in fact, he did have memory issues. But if those two words were enough to grab him, it was the image on the flyer that entranced him.

  The hand-drawn image was of a king sitting on a throne. The picture was impossibly detailed, especially since it was a composite of seemingly thousands of tiny ink hashes, each little more than a millimeter in size. But the crown sitting atop the king’s head was what made Jake stop, stare, and lose time altogether. The points on the crown were the heads of snakes, so realistic Jake could almost see them wriggling their way upward, like Medusa’s hair.

  Aside from the sheer oddness of it all, there was something about the image Jake couldn’t quite shake. Though he threw the flyer away, that picture stayed with him, coming back in flashes throughout the day and evening. He might have even dreamed about it, but he wasn’t exactly sure.

  The next day, another identical flyer arrived with his office mail. That, too, he discarded, but not before staring a bit longer this time.

  Jake worked from home the next two days. By Friday, when he returned to his office, the mail had brought with it three more flyers, each the same as the previous two.

  A feeling gnawed at Jake. It wasn’t so much that the image of the king had nothing to do with the text. Nor was it exclusively the stated purpose of the flyer, though the memory-issue subject did strike a nerve.

  Rather, it was more that he couldn’t stop thinking about the flyers as a collective message in a bottle. Something that required action and was not to be casually discarded.

  A sign, Jake thought. Some kind of sign.

  He had the growing sense that if he threw away these flyers, more would come. One a day, every day, until Jake did something about them.

  He took the mail into his office, took a seat in his well-worn faded leather office chair,
and dialed the number on the flyer from his landline.

  The man’s voice on the other end was soft, congenial.

  “Arete Memory Research, may I help you?”

  “Hi,” Jake said. “I’m calling about the memory trial. I keep getting these—”

  “Yes, of course. I’m so pleased you called. May I get your name, please?”

  “It’s Jake.”

  “And your last name?”

  Jake paused. “Is that important right now?”

  “No, it isn’t, Jake. I want you to be comfortable with your experience with us. We can get that information later. My name is Dr. Miller, but you can just call me Landis.”

  “Okay,” Jake said. “As I was saying, I keep getting these flyers. And I don’t know what it is about them. I mean, this is going to sound crazy, but…”

  “The picture triggered something in you, didn’t it, Jake?”

  Jake had a sensation of all his skin tightening at once. “How did you know that?”

  “Because the flyer itself is designed in a very specific way,” Landis said. “The image has seemingly nothing to with the clinical trial, and we don’t state we’re offering to compensate volunteers, so most people wouldn’t bother calling us. But you aren’t most people, are you, Jake?”

  What the fuck? Jake thought.

  “Is the picture some kind of…illusion?”

  “Not at all. You see the same picture everyone else does. But your brain causes you to have an unusual reaction to the image, so you felt compelled to call this number. Exactly as we designed it. We’re looking for people like you, Jake. There aren’t too many of you out there.”

  Jake leaned forward in his chair. “What is going on here?”

  He heard a soft chuckle on the other end. “A bit unsettling, yes?” Landis said. “Apologies. I’m so entrenched in the research, I sometime forget how this all appears to someone newly exposed to our work. Let me just ask you this, Jake: Do you have memory issues, either long- or short-term? It doesn’t have to have been formally diagnosed, but it’s more than just the occasional forgetfulness.”

  Jake took a breath, feeling more than ever as if he were at some kind of crossroads. “Yes,” he said. “Long-term memory issues. My childhood.”

  “Excellent,” Landis said, and Jake could hear a buzz of excitement in his voice. “Well, I don’t mean excellent that you have these issues. But I think we can help you, Jake. Really help you.”

  “How…how exactly does it all work?”

  “You come in and see us,” Landis said. “You’re located in downtown Boston, correct?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “That’s currently where our flyers are targeted.”

  “Yes, I’m downtown.”

  “Good. So are we. Can you come over right now?”

  “Now? You mean right now? I have work I need to—”

  “It won’t take long,” Landis said. “And our trial is almost full of volunteers. I’d hate for you to miss out on something that could truly change your life.”

  Jake thought about it and realized he’d changed in the last week. A week ago, he would’ve been hesitant to engage in conversation with a stranger at Starbucks, let alone just leave his office to volunteer for some shady-sounding clinical trial. But the message-in-a-bottle metaphor wouldn’t leave his mind, the feeling that maybe all this was happening for a reason. The universe slapping him in the face and telling him to pay attention. Even just seeing those flyers had…shifted something inside him.

  “How long?” Jake asked.

  “Thirty minutes, tops.”

  Jake shook his head and nearly smiled at doing something so uncharacteristic.

  “What’s your address?” he asked.

  * * *

  Seven blocks later, Jake walked into a nondescript office near the Public Garden. There was no sign on the door, but the logo on the interior wall read Arete Memory Research, the name Landis had used when answering the phone.

  The reception area was clean, a tad dark, and empty. Seconds later, a man emerged from a back office, his gray suit and wool fedora packaging him neatly, vintage and clean, like a ’57 Chevy rolling off the assembly line. Jake guessed him to be no older than himself, making the man’s old-school styling all the more peculiar. And, anyway, who wore a fedora, especially while inside at work?

  “Jake.” The man beamed, extending his hand.

  “You must be Landis.”

  “I am.”

  Landis’s grip was strong. Borderline fierce.

  In that moment, those few seconds of skin on skin, Jake had the same rush of emotion that he’d felt when he first looked at the picture on the flyer. A catch in his throat, a feeling of sudden vulnerability, a wave of undefined meaningfulness.

  Landis didn’t remove his hat. He wore it as he ushered Jake into a small office that contained little more than a desk and a diploma. He wore it as he explained to Jake about the clinical trial—the program, he called it—and how it was to help not only Jake’s long-term memory issues, but in doing so, actually assist in creating a better future for him. Landis even kept wearing that hat when he opened his desk drawer and took out a book, which he slid across the top of the desk.

  Jake studied the book. A slim but tall volume, hardcover, laminate finish. It had the shape of a children’s book but the title—swoopy black font against a white canvas—suggested anything but. Jake read the title aloud.

  “The Responsibility of Death.”

  “Yes,” Landis said.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s part of the program. An integral part.”

  There was no image on the cover. Aside from the curious title, Jake couldn’t imagine why anyone would bother to pick up the book.

  “How…how does it work?”

  “Open it,” Landis said.

  Jake did. Inside was a series of black-and-white drawings and almost no discernible story. But he realized immediately the style of the drawings was the same as the image from the flyer. Then, as Jake thumbed through the pages, he finally came upon the image of the king with his crown of snakes.

  “Our flyer convinced you to contact us. Tell me, now that you have this book in your hands, does it seem familiar to you?”

  Jake looked up. “Familiar how?”

  “As if maybe it was something you once owned, a long time ago.”

  Jake shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Why would I own this book?”

  Landis leaned forward over his desk, and as he did, he finally removed his fedora and placed it top down on the desk surface.

  “Do I seem familiar, Jake?”

  “What?”

  “Even a little. Maybe you don’t recognize me, but maybe you have a sense about me. A sense of the past.”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Jake asked.

  Landis didn’t answer, but he kept searching Jake’s eyes. Finally, Landis leaned back and waved a dismissive hand.

  “These are questions we ask any potential participant. I know they seem strange. Don’t worry. You’re doing just fine, Jake.”

  Jake closed the book and pushed it back toward the man on the other side of the desk.

  “I’m not sure I want to be a part of this,” he said. “I can’t say I wasn’t intrigued enough to get me this far, but you’re kind of creeping me out now.”

  Landis gave Jake a full smile. Teeth perfectly straight with just a hint of yellow. His hand returned to the top desk drawer, and this time, Jake imagined him retrieving a gun. Or a long knife, serrated blade.

  But what he pulled from the desk was a small, orange plastic vial with a white cap. The object was immediately recognizable to Jake; every pill prescription he’d ever had filled came in one of these vials. But how different the ubiquitous container looked without a labe
l.

  Landis set the vial on Jake’s desk.

  “These go with the book.”

  “What are they?”

  Landis kept his hands folded patiently in front of him as he looked at Jake. “The pills inside that container are part of the program, and the program is a means for you to become what you were always meant to be. A man of exceptional talent. And a man with memories. I’m sorry if I’m giving you any feelings of unease; that is certainly not my intention. But however you perceive me, Jake, I promise you that, if you follow the program in its prescribed regimen, you will transform in amazing ways. We’ve seen it happen.”

  Jake studied the vial but didn’t pick it up.

  Landis filled the silence. “You’ve already felt it with the image on the flyer, haven’t you?” He opened the book and turned the first few pages. “I look at these images, and they do nothing for me. But you…you feel them. I know you do.”

  “Maybe I should just leave,” Jake said.

  Landis’s smile disappeared, a cloud passing in front of the sun. “Of course, you can leave at any time. As I mentioned to you on the phone, our trial is quite nearly full. We don’t need your participation, Jake. But I’ve been the project lead for some time now, and I know what it can do. If you’ve felt a reaction to these images, you are most likely a good candidate for the trial. If you want to stay a little while longer, I can vet you further and verify you’re a good fit. Or you can leave.” Landis leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Life is nothing if not decisions. It’s up to you to determine when you’re at a crossroads. I can’t do that for you.”

  The word crossroads swirled around in Jake’s head. He looked at the book, then shifted his gaze to the orange vial.

  Maybe I’ll stay a little longer, Jake thought. Hear what he has to say. Maybe I’ll even take the book home.

  He kept looking at the little plastic bottle.

  But there’s no fucking way I’m taking those pills.

  Seventeen

  Jake

  I remained at Landis’s office for another hour that day, and by the end of my visit, I’d been declared officially qualified for the trial, though I still wasn’t sure I was actually going to participate. Landis had spoken in vague, sweeping terms, telling me that were the program successful, it would not only restore my forgotten past but embolden my future. Unlock talent I had never fully realized.