The Reality Conspiracy (17 page)

She pushed her mouth tightly against the sandpaper stubble on his face. Her lips worked like copulating worms, inching along his cheek until they found the cavity of his mouth. For a moment their tongues batted heads like warring serpents.

Lucy's mouth opened wider. Now her lips completely surrounded his. They continued to stretch, continued to widen. Her upper up touched the bottom of his nose. Impossibly, her mouth opened more. Pain jabbed at her as her braces strained, snapped like cables against the soft flesh of her palate.

She felt the delicate connecting tissue that joined her upper lip to her gum line begin to stretch. Opening wider, that tissue began to tear as her upper lip slithered over his nose. Her mouth was open so wide it engulfed his nose and mouth. Her lower lip elongated, vacuum-sealing itself to his chin.

Then she began to suck.

His low passionate moaning turned into panicky gasps. "Ummp," he grunted. "Uuummmph! Ummp." The sounds vibrated inside her mouth, tickling her tongue.

He fought to push her head away, but she clung to him like a parasite. And still she sucked, increasing the vacuum that locked their heads together.

He thrashed under her. Slammed his fists against the arch of her spine. He bucked, kicked, jammed his hands against her forehead in an effort to push her away.

She inhaled again. Surely he was suffocating; surely she could feel his strength fading just a bit.

Intensifying the suction, she recognized the wet, rude pressure of colliding flesh as his lungs collapsed. Finally, in that joyous moment of victory, his strength vanished with his life.

The tremendous suction relaxed. Lucy realized that her lips had stretched so much that they had covered not only his nose and mouth, but most of his face.

When her lips released their iron grip, she spat his one remaining eyeball from her mouth. It struck his livid hickey-red face, then rolled out of sight. Slippery reddish-gray matter plugged both eye sockets and nostrils.

"Thank you," the voice in her mind whispered. "We grow stronger now."

Lucy took a deep invigorating breath. Before she could rest, another, stronger compulsion seized her.

Pushed her.

Prodded her northward, as if she were the needle of a compass. She knew she had to finish the journey she had begun.

She had no right to rest; there was something more important—vastly more important—she had to do.

Now everything would be okay. Lucy could permit herself to sleep, while her body continued northward on its own.

Burlington, Vermont

Monday, June 20

I
t was an omen: if Monday got off to a bad start, the whole week was likely to be terrible. For Karen Bradley, "Blue Mondays" very much deserved their reputation.

The Monday following her trip to Boston, she arrived at the Lakeview Health Center at ten to nine. Two messages were waiting for her. The first was from Gloria Cook, informing Karen of Dr. Gudhausen's fatal heart attack. The news hit her like a blow to the stomach. Holding the two pink "While You Were Out . . ." slips in her hand, she sat down before reading the second message.

Number two was from the St. Albans Police Department, asking her to call Officer Chaput regarding the Washburn family.

The Washburn family?

Karen stood up again and walked out of her office. "What's this all about?" she asked her receptionist. "What do the police want?"

"Oh dear God, you haven't heard." Laura Welsh's right hand rose to her lips; her eyes widened. "It was in Saturday's paper." She took a breath before going on. "Karen, Lucy's father flipped out. He . . . he shot his wife and the boy—"

"Little Randy? Oh my gosh! And Lucy? What about Lucy?"

"They didn't find her. The police think she ran away. They're afraid she's in hiding or something. Officer what's-his-name thought maybe you'd have some insight that would help them locate her."

"Me?" Karen didn't know what to say. All her energy had drained away. She felt as if she'd been blasted with some metaphysical double-barrel shotgun: the man who was going to help treat Lucy was dead, and now the poor kid's world had just jumped out of orbit.

Odd that both messages should arrive on the same day. Overkill, even for a Blue Monday.

Standing as if frozen, hand on her throat, Karen felt light-headed, oddly defeated. She had no idea what action to take. Finally, "Both of them? Ed Washburn killed both of them? Winnie and Randy?"

Laura closed her eyes and nodded.

"I can't . . . I just can't believe it. Ed Washburn? No, no way. There was nothing wrong with Ed Washburn, I'd stake my reputation on it. Did . . . did they arrest him?"

Laura shook her head. "Karen, he turned the gun on himself."

"Dead?"

Laura answered with a single nod. Karen dropped heavily into the chair beside Laura's desk. "Oh dear God, that poor little girl."

"I know. I'm so sorry, Karen. Can I get you something? Coffee? A glass of water?"

Karen touched Laura's hand. "No, but thanks. You're sweet." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'd better get myself together and call that policeman." She stood up, absently straightening the front of her skirt. Then, "She was doing so well in so many ways. She was trying so hard. My God, I hate to think about the defenses she'll have to create to deal with this one. Wow."

"I left Lucy's file on your desk, Karen."

"Yes. Okay. Thanks, Laura."

Walking into her office was like walking in her sleep. She drifted around her desk and sat down, totally unaware of what she was doing. This one had really trashed her; she knew she'd be useless the rest of the day.

God
, she thought,
does it ever get any easier? Were more experienced therapists like Dr. Gudhausen able to deal any better with this kind of thing?

She remembered her first suicide. It had happened over two years ago, when she was just beginning her internship. Mike Tucker was the young man's name. His face remained clear in Karen's memory; she'd never be able to forget him. Mike's wife had left him in the fall of that year, right after they had spent the entire summer building a home in the country.

The first room they'd completed was to have been the baby's room. Belinda Tucker was nearly two months pregnant. One day—God, that had been a Monday, too—Mike had come home early from his job on the Lake Champlain Ferry. He found Belinda packing her car. Quite matter-of-factly she told him that she'd had an abortion and that she was leaving. Period. No questions. No explanations. End of discussion.

There had been no scene, no histrionics. Belinda just drove away. leaving Mike with an empty house and a shattered expression on his face. That expression had become a permanent part of his appearance. It rarely changed during each of his three sessions with Karen.

Sure, he had tried to project a positive attitude. He even forced a smile at appropriate times, but his eyes never lost their haunted, hollow look.

In less than a minute, Mike Tucker's world had changed forever.

The day Karen and Mike were to have met for the fourth time. Mike's father called to say Mike wouldn't be coming; he had hanged himself.

For Karen the poignant part of the story was Mr. Tucker's stalwart Yankee sense of responsibility: he had thought to phone to cancel his son's appointment on what must have been the most difficult day of his life.

The thing that drove this episode permanently into Karen's memory was the realization that she hadn't seen it coming. Not a hint, not a clue. She'd been sure Mike's superego was stronger than it was. But she was supposed to be an expert in human behavior; she was licensed by the state as a psychotherapist, and yet she hadn't spotted a thing. She had failed. Permanently, irreparably.

Even today, every time the incident came to mind she felt ashamed. It was still humiliating to recall that her case notes, prepared after their final session, had said it was little more than an adjustment reaction and that Mike was doing fine; the prognosis was excellent. God, she had even been proud of the work she was doing with him.

After lunch, Karen tried the St. Albans number again. As before, the phone seemed to spit its busy signal into her ear. That's just great, she thought, the line's still busy at the police station. What are we supposed to do if we need a cop? Mail an appointment card? Send a smoke signal?

Laura tapped lightly at the door and walked in. "Are you okay, Karen? Your one-thirty appointment's here."

"Yes, sure. I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine. You want me to cancel? Take the afternoon off? I can come up with something to tell him."

"No. That's nice of you, but no thanks. Who is it anyway? Do we have a file on him?"

"It's an initial. Dr. Sparker at the clinic in Hobston called it in this morning."

"Sparker? Really? That's a surprise. Did he give you any background?"

"Apparent sleep disorder. Symptoms of depression. Some paranoid ideation. You know how Sparker is; he's still not too sure about all this new-fangled 'psychology business.'"

"Well, at least he made the referral."

Karen saw the look of concern on the receptionist's face. "I'm okay, Laura. Honest. You can send him in now. Oh! Wait! What's his name, anyway?"

"The patient is a Mr. Barnes, Mr. Alton Barnes, from Hobston."

Highgate, Vermont

L
ucy crawled out the back door of the van. She'd been hiding inside, waiting for the sun to come up. Her stay had not been pleasant; it was too hot inside. Her nesting area reeked of wet dog and the sharp smell of her own pee. She threw aside the mildew-rotten sleeping bag that had belonged to the dead guy, and stood up straight, facing north.

As long as she faced north, everything was okay, there was no pain grinding and splintering inside her head.

Somehow, with much stalling, bucking, and racing the engine, Lucy had been able to drive the van to this little turnoff beside the northbound lane of Route 7. Here she had released the emergency brake and let the van tumble down a twelve-foot incline and into the juniper bushes and scrub pine where it couldn't be seen from the road.

That remote part of her mind—the diminishing part she still identified as Lucy—felt disgust at the way she must look in the morning light. Blood caked the area around her mouth; she could flake it off with a fingernail. Her lips hung limply; they felt slack and fleshy like the puckered mouth of a sucker. They hurt wicked where they'd stretched and torn away from the gum line. And the roof of her mouth was sore, probably cut to ribbons when her braces snapped. Her hands were bloody, too, but that blood was hidden beneath layers of other dirt: grease from the van, dust from the road, and rich black loam from the earth. Most of her fingernails were torn away and her hands were ripped and raw from hand-digging the guy's grave. Her hair was a tangled foul-smelling bird's nest; her skin, except for blood and filth, was colorless.

A northbound car passed the turnoff. Lucy watched it from her hiding place behind an ancient oak. She shook her head: no.

A big truck roared by, leaving behind a swirling ghost of road dust and exhaust. That wasn't the right one either.

It was nearly impossible for her to resist the urge—no, the need—to begin walking north. Could she make it all the way on foot? She didn't know. She didn't even know if she was tired because she no longer had a sense of her own body. Hunger meant nothing to her. Thirst and fatigue were somehow alien. Strangely, she was still able to feel hot and cold, she could sense pain and certain physical discomforts, but she had no idea if she was dead-tired or newly energized. She just felt as if she were being . . . pulled.

Also, she felt as if certain specialized parts of her brain weren't working right. Those, she reasoned, must be under the control of one of her internal travelers. One such function had recently announced itself: her bladder had let go and she didn't know it, not until she felt warm liquid running down her left leg. The Lucy-part of her was ashamed, now. Embarrassed.

Then a strong unnamed sensation excited her. She felt herself breathing in hard excited gasps. She looked south and the twin glowing headlights were like the eyes of a close friend. She stepped into the road, willing the car to stop.