Authors: Enrique Laso
Carlos awoke, sweaty, and screamed with all his might; screamed like his wife had done in his dream. And he continued screaming for almost an hour, until he fell exhausted upon the bed.
XVII
The building was in the city centre, very well situated, in the most accessible spot. They had met at noon, and at that time of day the bustle was constant and overwhelming. In spite of everything, Carlos liked to feel surrounded by people, as if all of that human warmth would serve in some sense to alleviate his situation. It was as if all of those people, in a silent and mute way, were in solidarity with him. He had to address the person in the foyer:
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Marta Sanchís?”
“Erm... Yes, the psychologist: fourth floor, letter C.”
“Thank you.”
Carlos took the lift and could see that, although the building was well cared for, it must be more than sixty years old, and the lift was no less than 30, which did nothing in the way of reassuring him. When he knocked on the door to 4C, he was nervous, like a small child going to see the doctor for the first time.
“Hello, Carlos. Thank you so much for coming.”
“No, no, Marta; thank you so much for seeing me.”
It was obvious that the apartment was her normal residence, in addition to being the place where she carried out her consultations. It was too well tidied, and there were too many closed doors along the passageway leading into the lounge, within which were two comfortable armchairs to one side, and an office desk with another armchair to the other.
“It’s very nice.”
“Thank you. Would you like anything to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“In that case then, let’s sit down.”
They each took a seat in the armchairs facing each other, close to a large window showing the balcony, which was full of plants and flowerpots. It was surely a simple technique to relax patients and give them confidence.
“So... how is everything?”
Carlos looked at the psychologist, and decided right from the outset to get straight to the point, believing that the best thing to do was just be honest.
“I remember you warned me. My father also made some comment about it... I think I’m going mad.”
Marta smiled, trying to ease the tension she could sense in the man, who was clearly in a state of desperation. She really did feel a terrible need to dispel his doubts and give him his confidence back. This was something that she felt frequently.
“Come on now, it won’t be that bad. Tell me, what makes you think that?”
“I don’t know... That is to say, many things.”
“What shall we focus on...”
“There’s this idea that’s starting to go round and round in my mind. It’s a stupid, hare-brained idea, I know... But... In all honesty, I’m finding it more and more logical every day.”
Marta was beginning to understand that she was facing a man who didn’t know whether or not to throw in the towel and give in to his own powerlessness over reality.
“And what idea is that?”
“I think that Laura really was being pursued... All of those drawings, her fears, her behaviour...”
“But you can’t seriously believe that... from Hell...”
“No, no, please. I need you to understand me; something real was trying to do something bad, and affected her mind.”
Carlos averted the psychologist’s gaze. He wasn’t really being completely honest, because he knew that it would be crazy if he were.
“That isn’t hare-brained. Have you thought about anything in particular?”
“Look, Marta... I haven’t really come to talk about my daughter.”
“I know.”
“The fact is, I need help. I can’t face this alone. Every day, I discover something new about Laura; it’s like a nightmare. A few days ago, I spoke to one of her school friends...”
Marta came over to Carlos and let her hand rest gently on his shoulder, in an effort to calm him.
“Don’t worry, you’ll see that together, we can overcome this. Don’t be afraid to talk to me.”
He felt defeated, like somebody desperately clinging to a tree and trying not to be carried off by a flood, but who, in the end, decides to let go, exhausted. And he burst into tears.
“The night before last, I had this terrible nightmare. That’s why I called you yesterday, because I just knew I wouldn’t be capable of facing what’s happening to me alone.”
“You’re not alone. Take support in the people who love you, and you can come and talk with me whenever you like.”
“The only person I have left is my dad. I’ve practically lived for my work, hardly contacting anybody, not even my own family.”
“Tell me about that nightmare. You should let it out into the open; you need to share your suffering.”
Carlos liked to look out of the window every now and then, towards the plants on the balcony, and up at the sky. In some way, it was like recovering his strength, like filling himself with a vague sense hope. Besides, Marta put him at ease.
“I dreamt that on the day of the accident my daughter was taken to Hell. I dreamt that she transformed into this terrifying creature, and that that was why my wife had the accident. My daughter was screaming for help, but with each scream, her voice was becoming stranger, different from her own, like that of some abhorrent being...”
Marta could not avoid noticing an expression of astonishment, almost fear, on his face. It was a fear of ensnaring her also in an all too sticky, all too dangerous web. It was the fear of his mind being unable to control everything that was happening, because of things that were starting to fit together, or at least beginning to fit together
in his mind
.
“I know, it’s just a bad dream,” he added, before she could say anything.
“No. Now it’s possible that what I’m about to show you won’t be of any help to you; perhaps I myself am beginning to play an active role in exacerbating the problem, but I think there’s something you should see. I hid it from you because the idea terrified even me... and I put it down to mere coincidence... But, with everything that you’ve told me...”
“Please, tell me what it is...”
She stood up, leaving him alone for a few seconds. She returned from one of the rooms off the lounge holding a red file.
“When your daughter died, I took her file. I thought that one day, you would ask me for it, or want to go through it with me.”
Marta opened the file, and searched amongst drawings and sheets of paper that were annotated in her own writing. When she finally found what she was looking for, she held it out to Carlos, saying:
“I know it’s not possible, but it seems as if there was more of a link between yourself and your daughter than would have previously been thought.”
With trembling hands, Carlos took the piece of paper the woman was holding out to him. It was a drawing of Laura, he recognised it instantly. And immediately, he froze, petrified. In a simplified drawing, in wax crayon, his daughter had depicted a horrific scene: a vehicle falling from a mountain, and into the abyss. In the front, the woman driving seemed to be screaming; in the back, a misshapen girl with red eyes was jolted from the car by what appeared to be black spectres.
XVIII
He decided to take a little trip. He went up to the North, to a little town by the sea. There he could walk; there he could clear his mind. Over the course of three days, he seemed to recover his reason.
‘It’s all a bad dream: I’ll be waking up at any moment.’
He had not said anything about the most recent developments to his father. He didn’t want to worry him. In any case, this was not the time to be causing him any kind of upset. Although he was a strong man, he had still lost his wife... And now...
During the morning, he would go out for a walk on the beach and, although the days were grey, the northern sea represented a beautiful and relaxing expanse. In a way, it reminded him of his childhood; it reminded him of mercury as it spilled out of a broken thermometer.
XIX
Bzzzzz... Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... Bzzzz...
––––––––
H
e was awoken once more by that inconvenient sound from the radio. But on this occasion, he was willing to put up with it for a bit, not turn on the light, not check whether it was switched on or not. He simply wanted to reassure himself that it wasn’t just his anguished mind playing a dirty trick.
Bzzzzz... Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... Bzzzz...
––––––––
S
uddenly, the sound became more intense, and also more variable. It was like the sound made by someone turning the dial, trying to find the signal, but to no avail. And then there came a voice; a voice he knew all too well:
“Daddy, Daddy... Help me... I’M IN HELL!”
XX
Marta began to feel uncomfortable in the house. It was like any other, but what Carlos had just told her was beginning to take its effect.
“I think I have contributed to the worsening of your state. It’s possible that I’m not being the least bit of help to you. Quite the opposite, even.”
“No, please. I really do need you. I want to know if I’m crazy, or at least going crazy.”
“Look... Carlos, I don’t believe in any of this. But, at the same time, you have always seemed to me to be an upright and honest man. One thing I’m sure of is that you are not inventing anything, and that you really do mean what you say.”
Carlos hugged himself, like someone who is cold, and has nothing to cover themselves with apart from their own body.
“What you’re trying to put delicately is that, under your criteria, I’m losing my mind.”
“No... and yes.”
“Explain,” he said, almost imploringly.
“It’s possible that, you are actually losing your hold on the notion of reality; that your mind is overloaded with traumatic shock caused by such a painful loss, and as such it is subjecting you to a complex psychological game that has nothing to do with what’s really going on. This can either be a transitory situation... or permanent,” she declared, in almost a whisper.
Carlos noticed how his muscles relaxed, how the loss of control was not just limited to what his brain controlled, but instead progressed throughout his entire being.
“To you, there’s not the slightest possibility that anything I’m saying can be true...”
“Honestly, no. There are some very strange things; connections between what you say and facts about which you were completely unaware. But for me, they are merely the product of coincidence; a curious and treacherous coincidence, which can result in confusion.”
“Coincidence! So it’s pure coincidence to hear your terrified daughter asking for your help through a radio? Do you have children? Do you know what that means?”
She looked at him, disconcerted, and remained silent.
“Marta, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m losing control. I’ll never shout at you again. Forgive me.”
“Don’t worry about it, I don’t know how I would react in your situation. What’s happening is terrible,” she said, in a calm and conciliatory tone.
He gathered himself together once more, like a little boy, waiting for a word of encouragement, for a sign of rescue. Marta picked up on the message immediately.
“Carlos, although I don’t believe in these things, I do have a friend who’s a parapsychologist. We studied psychology together, but she decided to go for other alternatives that were less... scientific... I’m sorry... empirical.”
“And will she believe what I’m saying?”
Marta felt slightly hurt by that comment, although she understood that, right now, he was hardly in a normal state of mind.
“She will listen to you in a different way from me.”
XXI
He made the effort to go up to the mountains at every possible opportunity. He went to a different one, which was far away from the one his wife and daughter used to frequent. The fresh mountain air, the brownish-grey colour of the ground, the humidity in the atmosphere, the sound of twigs crunching beneath his feet... it all contributed to the pacifying of his altered spirit. He had to muster up his strength again to speak with his father, to keep him up to date on this anguishing situation he was going through. On the one hand, he didn’t want to worry him excessively, but on the other, Carlos needed him, and his father didn’t deserve to not know the whole truth.
‘How great it would have been to have gone with them that day; to have died with them that day.”
He instantly pushed those thoughts out of his mind, and concentrated once more on how he was going to face his father, and how he was going to fight his way out of this situation in which he found himself.
XXII
Esteban looked at his son for a long time. He was trying to contain his own emotion; his own feeling of panic; his own sense of disconcertion. He did not know whether to tell him what he knew, after having just listened to him, or say nothing, keep the truth to himself, and not contribute anything that would generate fresh confusion. Then again, what he knew might serve to shed some light on reality, albeit incredible and insane.
“I know, Dad. It’s terrible to have a son telling you this. But I need you now more than ever. I wish I could do this alone...”
“Carlos, please, you know you’ll always have me by your side. And I believe your version, I know you’re not lying to me, and I know you’re not crazy. Since Alicia and Laura died, things are happening that are too strange to be coincidence. You know that I’m a man of faith, and nothing of what you tell me breaks that faith. There is Heaven, and there is Hell. For some reason, Laura was fighting Hell, and we were unable to see it.”
Carlos looked at his father, incredulous. It could not be. He spoke with a clarity that left no room for doubt. He was glad to have told him everything, without leaving out a single detail. And even then, he had not been expecting such a positive reaction to what was happening: to what was happening
to him
.
“Dad...”
Esteban hushed him with a gesture.
“Listen to me. There’s something that I hadn’t told you, something that I played down the importance of at the time. As you see, things change their meaning according to the context, and right now we’re continuously tying up loose ends.”