Hybrid (8 page)

“Father, are you okay?” Greg was standing over him, his hands on Oliver’s shoulders, steadying the teetering priest.

“I don’t know what happened. Just a sudden sharp headache, but it’s better now.” Oliver reached for Greg’s hand, and the pain struck again, only this time he saw himself grimacing in pain through Greg’s eyes. However, the pain and the disorientation were not as intense as with the first attack, and they seemed to pass almost immediately. In their wake, Oliver was left with an almost euphoric feeling. Energy surged through his mind and body. He suddenly felt like he was eighteen again. His heartbeat became strong and regular, his breathing deep and unlabored, his limbs light and powerful. A door opened in his mind, and a fresh breeze blew away all his stale thoughts and self-doubts. Something had freed him, and unencumbered, he could for the first time in his life see the world as it really was. He took Greg’s hand and squeezed it; he felt his own hand as well as Greg’s, and the strange duality made him laugh.

“I know about Amanda, my friend,” Oliver said. “She’s driving down from Boulder to see if your suspicions are correct, and you’re worried that the FBI will try to take her.” The words exploded out of Oliver’s mouth. “And if they do, you’re worried that she will hurt, maybe even kill some of them. She’s been changed; she has grown into something different. I can see it all in your mind.”

Greg pulled his hand away from the priest and stared at him, dumbfounded. “How?” was all he managed to say.

Oliver sagged as the connection was broken. He was sixty-two again. His heart returned to its old familiar, irregular rhythm, and the heaviness found its way back into his limbs, but his mind remained invigorated. It raced with excitement and wonder, the disillusionment and depression that had troubled him for weeks suddenly locked away in the basement of his mind. It was inexplicable and amazing, like suddenly discovering that he had wings, and could fly.

“I don’t know, Greg, nothing like this has ever happened before,” Oliver said, amazement filling his voice. “You touched me, and suddenly I could see myself through your eyes, but it went beyond just sensation. Somehow, I knew what you were going to say. I saw your thoughts. I felt them in my mind in my chest, everywhere.”

“Can you feel them now?” Greg sat back down, eyeing the priest with suspicion.

“No, I guess I’m back to normal,” Oliver said.

Greg stared at him—fear and caution written across his face.

Oliver was coming down from his high, and as the exhilaration began to fade, reality crept back into his mind. “Just before you touched me, I was somewhere else. I mean . . . I saw . . . except I more than just saw . . .” Oliver struggled to put the experience into words. “I was in a car driving down a road. It was only for a moment, but I got the distinct impression that it was near here. I wonder if it was Amanda. We were talking about her just before it happened.”

Oliver watched as Greg’s entire appearance changed with the mention of Amanda. He suddenly became aware of just how physically threatening the police detective was and a hint of fear crept into Oliver’s mind.

“It wasn’t Amanda,” Greg said, barely contained anger coloring his terse words. He quickly got to his feet, and his chair skidded to the wall. “I have to go.” He began to edge his way around the priest.

“Greg, I didn’t mean to . . .” Oliver stood and reached for the retired detective.

“Don’t touch me!” he screamed, recoiling from the small man. Greg was red-faced. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you stay away from Amanda.”

Oliver stepped aside and gave Greg a clear path to the door.

“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, Greg. I had no control over it. Please don’t leave like this,” Oliver pleaded.

As Greg opened the door, the sounds of the awakening church invaded the sanctuary. He hesitated and turned back to face the priest. His emotional energy now spent, Greg seemed to sag back to his usual size. “I need time to work this out, Father. It was bad enough with Amanda.”

“I understand, but there’s something you need to know. If it was Amanda driving down that street, she urgently needs help. I can’t be completely certain, but I think she’s come here with the intention of killing someone. She’s sick. I felt the illness inside her.”

“Amanda would never intentionally hurt anyone,” Greg declared defiantly.Greg was a bad liar, and the flash of concern that crossed his face was plain to see. “I’d like to help,” Oliver said simply.

Greg stared back at the priest, and Oliver could tell that Greg was appraising him from a new perspective. “I’ll talk with Amanda,” he said and then left quickly.

Phil awoke with a start; certain someone was in his room. He clicked on the light but found no tall, dark, deformed man looming over him. His heart was thundering in his chest; it had been a rough night after a rough day. The waitress had caught him staring down her blouse; he had hallucinated a fairy-tale monster brazenly knocking down a woman and then disappearing; and finally, he had alienated the entire office by demanding that he be left alone. Now, after a night filled with tormenting voices and dreams about invisible phantoms, he faced a day filled with menial tasks and a sullen staff. Phil couldn’t relate to his staff any better than to the rest of the world, but their emotional states mattered to him, if only at a professional level. He needed order and consistency in the office, and it was his secretary and the rest of the staff who created it. He would have to make amends today. He would apologize to a few, and to others he would find an excuse to praise some trivial accomplishment, all for the sake of his own inner peace.

He rolled over and found that he still had eight minutes before his alarm would go off and officially start his day. Eight minutes of solitude. He breathed deeply and tried to let his mind float free. It was an ability he was trying to develop, but with little success. It should have been simple, a natural thing; but to him, it was anything but simple or natural, and it never had been. Even as a child, perhaps especially when he was a child, he had never been able to simply sit and daydream. There were the rare occasions in which he could shut down his mind and simply exist outside of thought, but he had never been able to just let go and let his thoughts wander without direction. He had been conditioned to always be focused, always be on guard, lest the unstable, dangerous portions of his fragmented mind seize control. For nearly forty years his mind had been racing, trying to stay ahead of the insanity that matched his every step.

Seven minutes left
, he thought. He stared at the dark ceiling, willing his mind to relax. He tried closing his eyes, but all he saw was the dark man kicking a woman’s shoe. He changed his mind’s channel and watched a bead of sweat slowly meander down Dana’s cleavage. He watched for a moment and began to feel an unfamiliar stirring. She stood before him, only now she was naked and beckoning to him; the café had dissolved into a sleazy hotel room.
I’m dreaming
, he thought, and Dana immediately disappeared. Now all he saw were the blood vessels in his eyelids.
I’m awake
, he thought, and opened his eyes. He tried relaxing all his muscles, but he still felt the passage of every second.

You’re going to be late
, one of his old voices said.

Phil could ignore this one; it dated back to his childhood and instead of growing stronger with time, this one had weakened, making room for the new and more dangerous small voice, the one with the power to destroy his carefully created and insulated world.

As a child Phil and his parents were forced to accept the fact that he would always be different. When he was two his mother noticed that he never cried, and in fact, rarely verbalized at all; when she fed or bathed him he almost never made eye-contact, preferring to stare over her shoulder and track unseen objects. On occasion, however, he would stare at her intensely, following her with his eyes, even crawling and latter walking after her if she left the room, and after finding her he would simply sit down and resume his quiet staring. At first she found it adorable; latter she found it disturbing. When he started stacking his unused toys and the cans in the pantry, his parents sought help. The diagnosis of autism wasn’t much of a surprise, but it was still devastating. Aside from institutional placement, no treatment options were offered. He was still young and required no more care than the average three year old, so the Ruckers made a promise to themselves and to Phil to keep him home for as long as they could safely manage him. Molly Rucker became a full-time stay-at-home mom and slowly coaxed Phil out of his mental prison. Within a year, he had begun to use words, quietly voicing his needs. By age five, his occasional speech was punctuated by verbal outbursts of astonishing clarity and detail. It was clear to the Ruckers and to the pediatricians who examined Phil that while he was emotionally stunted and socially retarded, he was not in the classic sense autistic; whatever was going on was much more complex. By age seven, Phil could pass for a normal child, a strange, intense, and reserved child, but functionally independent. His intellectual development was extraordinary, which only intensified his emotional isolation, both of which intensified the fragmenting of his mind. He explained it to himself in Freudian terms as a lack of self: superego versus id, a constant battle for control. He tried to explain it to his father in terms he would understand; they were at a local swimming pool and the two watched as several boys wrestled over a beach ball in the deep end of the pool. The smallest of the group managed to grab the ball and swim away, but a moment later his bigger and stronger playmates overwhelmed him. They took turns dunking him over and over again; finally, the lifeguard was forced to intervene. Phil took his Father’s hand and pointed at the near-drowned boy, and said simply: “that’s me.”

It doesn’t have to be
, the small voice said.

Phil refused to take the bait. This voice was no different from any other; they were all parasites, and if given a chance, they would destroy their host. For thirty years, a pedantic life of discipline and routine had allowed him to live an independent life. He forced himself to remember some of the faces locked behind tall, steel doors. Their screams still echoed in his ears. “That is what happens when control is lost,” Phil said to all of the voices in his head.

The start of a motor made Phil jump, and a moment later his alarm went off. It took him a moment to realize that his neighbor had just started a snowblower. Phil climbed out of bed with unusual agility. His back didn’t seem to bother him. He stood to his full height and waited for the deep, boring pain to settle into its usual place. It had been with him for eighteen years, ever since the car accident that had taken the lives of both his parents and crushed two of his lumbar vertebrae. Except, this morning, it was little more than a muted ache. He slowly arched his back until he felt and heard an audible pop. One of the large bolts that had put his bones back together had broken ten years ago, and his back had popped ever since. It needed to be replaced, but he couldn’t face that ordeal a second time.

He made up his bed exactly as he had for the last thirty years. He didn’t have to be at work for three hours, but two of those would be spent on a treadmill, pushing his body to the limit. Exercise was a constant in his life, serving the dual purpose of minimizing his lower back pain and anesthetizing his Monsters, who had recently developed an unnerving capacity to adapt.

An hour into his run, Phil heard his neighbor’s snowblower abruptly shut down. George and Patsy Van Der had been Phil’s neighbors all his life. He was as fond of them as he was able. George was a retired lawyer, and despite being in his late eighties, was as sharp as he had been half a lifetime ago, and could easily have passed for a man in his early sixties. Patsy, on the other hand, had gone around the bend, as George had said on many occasions. She was moderately senile, but not so far gone that George couldn’t care for her on his own.

Phil listened for George to restart the blower, but it remained quiet. There was no way George could be finished, and no way he would stop before he was finished. Phil ran for another five minutes, and still there was no sound from George. Concern started to grow in Phil’s mind. If George needed help, no one but Phil could deliver it. He still had fifty minutes to run, but it was becoming obvious that it would have to wait. Phil’s mind may have been ruled by The Routine, but his life was ruled by Moral Responsibility.

He climbed off the treadmill and pulled the curtains back. It had snowed more than anyone had expected. George’s driveway was cleared almost all the way to the street, but his snowblower sat idle in the middle of a drift, and George was nowhere to be seen. Phil couldn’t see all the way up the driveway from his windows, so he quickly toweled off, put on warm clothes, boots, and a jacket, and opened his front door. The snow had drifted several inches in front of his door. It always did that when the wind blew in from the west, and some of it spilled into his entranceway. He poked his head out the door and saw George sprawled spread-eagled across his cleared driveway. A tall, dark figure stood over him.