Authors: Alan Spencer
Then the keys materialized. He shoved the key into the ignition. Stomping on the gas, screeching and spinning his tires, a cloud of smoke surrounded them, burying his adversaries in a palpable fog. The Corolla gained sped, and those on the outside began faltering, the car racing from thirty to sixty miles an hour.
The hand in his mouth and the hands around his throat had somehow stayed in place. Not much longer, he’d be dead. Would he become a vegetable in the real world? Was he already one in his physical body?
“
Come willingly to God…come to Him
.”
His eyelids were stuck together with drying blood.
He stomped on the gas pedal. He sharply turned right, the wheel wobbling from the force, the shocks grinding, the brakes failing, and the car turned over when it hit the curb. The vehicle flipped and kept spinning across the street in wild circles. The car absorbed each crash and jolt as steel crunched. The car had stopped and the hands over his throat were absent.
Final Haven
Craig crawled through the broken driver’s side window, cutting his palms of the glittering fragments of glass. Getting up to his feet and forcing himself onwards, he completed three blocks in a desperate sprint. He soon spotted the congregation of naked bodies with Parker in the lead three yards behind him and fast approaching.
He shouted, “Can’t you people leave me be?”
He knew the answer to that. They would stalk him to the very end of his sanity. Dr. Krone was here somewhere, orchestrating this masquerade. He looked in every direction for the man and came up empty.
How much farther could he run to avoid them? He wasn’t up for the task. He’d slammed his head against the steering wheel earlier. He suffered a wicked migraine from the near strangulation. His wounds bogging him down, knowing he had little endurance left, he stumbled onto the lawn of a nearby house to seek refuge.
Craig thought about the car keys he produced with his mind. He’d pictured them and screamed for his life. Extreme emotion. The only times he’d conjured things up was when he was on the brink of death.
“End this treatment, Dr. Krone,” he whimpered, feeling the extent of his injuries creep up on him again. “I can’t take any more. This isn’t a cure. This is murder.”
The house loomed before him, an easy beacon. He had no choice but to enter the unknown haven, an unassuming two-story colonial house. He closed the door behind him. He dead bolted it. Craig prayed what he thought would happen did. He parted the curtain. Outside, the street was empty. But he wasn’t in a house anymore. He overlooked a parking lot. It was dark enough to be late evening. The room was familiar, but vaguely. A black leather couch and cherry oak table took up most of the living room. A pale face hovered in the shadows of the unlit hallway to his left. The face looked at him. Studied him. The person couldn’t decide how to approach him.
“No more,” he begged, recognizing her. “I can’t take any more punishment. You stay where you are. Please, leave me alone.”
She seethed, “I’m not the one you need to apologize to this time.”
Katie stepped out of the darkness. She was corpse blue. Her body suffered further deterioration. The skeleton was visible underneath the thin, translucent skin. The bones could tear free of their flesh packaging any moment, he thought. Black and green patches of fungus played at the sides of her neck and her clavicle. She stank of putrefying organs. The eyes were saturated in fluids. They weren’t round anymore, but instead sagged in the center and lent the orbs a wrinkled look. Her belly was round, but it too had caved in. Blood had caked the insides of her thighs in so many layers.
She spoke with a delay, the deep lull of collapsed vocal cords. “There’s somebody else you should say sorry to, and she’s here.”
“Oh God,” he wept, feeling a part of him collapse. “I-I was scared. Alice, I’m so sorry. You have to understand I didn’t know what to do. It’s not an excuse or a validation for my actions. I got scared, and I acted like a coward.”
Katie shook her head, ligaments and bones popping. She opened her mouth and revealed her purple-white tongue. “
Ah-ah-ah.
I’m not Alice. She’s waiting for you down the hallway, Craig. Don’t talk to me. Talk to her.”
“What if I refuse?” Not waiting for a reply, he rushed for the front door. It wouldn’t open, the door not having real function. It was only an image. He tried the windows, and they were painted shut. Katie sauntered over to him, confident he couldn’t evade her. “You can’t leave. He won’t let you.”
He whispered the name as a curse. “
Dr. Krone
.” He surveyed the kitchen and the hallway, searching for him. “Is he here?”
The dead earthworm lips created a hideous smile. “He’s always been here.”
Craig wedged himself into the farthest corner away from the hallway. “I can’t do this. Terminate the session. The treatment is over, Dr. Krone. You’ve made your fucking point. Yes, I get it. My mother cheated on my father with Parker. She was the one abused, not me. My dad fucked around behind her back, and she knew about it and she didn’t quit the marriage for me. But she cheated too. She empowered herself, didn’t she? I should’ve done something to help her. I could’ve talked her up. And I screwed up royally with Katie. I should’ve ordered a cab or called the ambulance to our house. I’m responsible for her death. I can deny it and attempt to live it down, but it’s true. It’s my mistake. It’s my biggest regret.
“What else do you want me to say? Okay, I shouldn’t have bashed a barstool over Willis. I was drunk and pissed off. Hey, it’s no excuse. I’ll do the time. I’ll perform community service. I’ll give blood to those people when they call every time. I’ll donate to charity. Take your pick, The Salvation Army, Goodwill, whatever, I can change my life. The treatment has scared the shit out of me.” He pointed at the shadowy corner. “You don’t have to send me down that hallway.
I—am—begging—you
.”
Katie’s purple and dehydrated face attempted an amused expression, but it was mostly wet shifting without anything taking shape. “You still owe her an apology. You didn’t stay. She needed you. You abandoned her.”
“Alice,” he pleaded to her, though she wasn’t in the room. “Forgive me. I can’t handle my emotions. I’m a scared wreck. We’ve established that, Dr. Krone. Is this what you wanted to see? I’m falling apart, you happy? You want me dead. I know because I’ve been in your head too, Dr. Krone. I’ve watched your father remove the brains of those infirm victims you nabbed from the sanitarium. You’re not so innocent. The blood is on your hands, and you don’t even bother to wash it away. This is your sick show. What’s the point in treating somebody if you can’t accept it when the patient’s cured?”
“You’re not better,” Katie advised. “And the treatment is far from over.”
Katie throttled him by the throat with both hands, closing in with ghostly speed, the putrescence causing him to stagger in shock. She shoved him into the hallway, utilizing surprising strength. She stomped on his back and pinned him down outside the bathroom door. “Squirm all you want, Craig. Alice’s ready for your apology. And I’m taking you right to her.”
He couldn’t apologize to her in words. Dr. Krone wouldn’t allow that. That would be too easy. And Craig already anticipated where Katie would deliver him. The crack of light under the door, it was just like the door at Alice’s apartment. And tonight was that horrible night he fled from years ago.
Katie’s breath reeked of expired internal organs, and with every word, her tongue flicked cold turpentine fluid onto him. “You can’t avoid this. Submit to his treatment.”
Rage overwhelmed him, and he channeled fear, desperation, and regret into sweeping her under her legs. Katie’s leg unhinged from the knee socket joint with a jarring pop. She tumbled to the floor, losing balance.
Craig spoke desperately, “I’m trapped in my mind without a way out. Dr. Krone, you’re in control—okay? I absolutely have no choice to do what you want me to do.”
He prayed he could bargain with Alice. Craig was genuinely sorry for what he did to her. He left her alone at the apartment in her moment of crisis. He was terrified, and he could only guess to understand how she felt then.
Craig challenged the dark, walking to the door with his head up. This was his moment to receive forgiveness. He sucked in a final breath before entering. He didn’t knock. Alice knew he was coming.
He closed the door behind him, locking it. Katie could enter, and he couldn’t handle the two at once. He stopped shortly after entering. Alice was bathing. She was naked, and the bath water was pink. He wasn’t embarrassed at her nakedness. He was too busy reading her glazed eyes. The stare was affixed on the wall ahead of her. She was in a trance. Alice had confined herself to her own mind.
Alice noticed him moments later. Her lips were stuck together, and the adhesive skin broke when she spoke. “Katie didn’t have to drag you in here.”
He was stumped for a response, so he kept it simple. “No, she didn’t.”
Bloody footprints stained the beige shag rug. The sink was also colored red. The white porcelain was stained in handprints, the floor stained in spatters and footprints.
He broke the silence. “How do I apologize to you?”
Alice scoffed. Her eyes were now locked on the toilet bowl. The lid was closed. “How do you apologize? You can’t truly apologize. But I can forgive you.”
“Really?” His hopes were raised. He didn’t forget Dr. Krone was somewhere close by, and this wouldn’t pan out so easily. “Please tell me how.”
After pausing for ten seconds, Alice said, “I want you to see it.”
His stomach sank. “Excuse me?”
He understood what she had requested, but refused to accept it. Alice made eye contact. She was ghostly white. Deadly serious. “I want you to look at my baby. See what you left me alone with. You were supposed to be my friend and be there for me through anything. So be there for me now.
Look at my baby
.”
Craig eyed the toilet bowl. Blood trailed down two sides of the lid. He couldn’t decide what to do. “That’s the apology you want?”
He was startled when Alice stood up. Water spilled from the sides in generous waves. He couldn’t trust his eyes. Was this Alice naked? How did Dr. Krone know how she looked naked? Craig had no memory of it. And how would Dr. Krone know Alice wanted to be his blood brother on Halloween night? It was impossible, yet there was a part of him that couldn’t deny it. Somehow, Dr. Krone discovered the truth, and the machine had everything to do with it.
She touched his chin, caressing him. She barely spoke, Craig having to read her lips. “
Look at my baby
.”
He shook his head, a surge of fear working up his spine and bursting into his brain. “What will that prove? You know I’m sorry. I am sorry.”
Her words came off as a pouting child’s. “You won’t look at my baby?”
Crash.
The bathroom door exploded into four pieces, the unreal strength followed by an unreal attack. Katie seized hold of him, the rotten stink of dried-up meat swarmed him, crippling him. He was driven onto his knees, her form performing actions he couldn’t take in, she was so fast.
On the ground, Alice clutched his hair and reared his head back. Spittle foamed at her lips and sprayed him with each syllable, “
You will look at my
baby
!
”
She reached for the toilet lid, trying to lift it up. He broke one hand free and forced it back down. “No—you’re not yourselves! This is Dr. Krone. Don’t listen to him. Shut him out. You have your own personalities, even if you’re just in my head, I should be able to control you, not him!”
Alice reared back his hair again. “This is what I want, Craig, nothing else.”
Katie smothered his mouth with her hand to prevent him from speaking. “I won’t let go until you do. If you’re sorry, you know what I want you to do…”
Alice wedged his hand from the toilet. She clutched the rim and raised it. He closed his eyes. Alice’s fingers poked at his eyelids, and she dug her fingernails to pry them back open. “Look inside, Craig. Say you’re sorry. Open those eyes.
Open them!
”
The nails worked against his soft orbs. Craig shouted his horror. The toilet was open. He didn’t want to see what was inside. He couldn’t take it. He lost his own child. He refused to have the impression of Alice’s lost baby ingrained in his mind as well. This wasn’t the real Alice. This wasn’t the real Katie. And it wouldn’t be Alice’s real baby. What it would turn out to be was the scariest thing, and he collected every ounce of strength in his failing body to fight them.
He needed air, but Katie’s hand blocked his nostrils and mouth. Alice wedged open one eye, but the toilet seat clapped shut, falling due to gravity.
“Open your eyes!”
Katie removed her hands and dug into the razor-blade slash Tina had delivered in his neck. “
Aaaaaaaah!
”
Alice opened the toilet seat. He turned his head again to the side and avoided the sight. That’s when the blink happened. An electric flash. Static electricity played on his skin and raised his hairs. He smelled burnt skin. It was ten degrees hotter, his flesh stinging and burning.
He was sitting upright now.
The metallic
ticking
was a loud, piercing rhythm.
Then as quickly as it began, there was silence.