Absence of Faith (12 page)

"How do you explain three people
having the same nightmare?" Julie asked.

"I don't know. Whatever caused it
might have affected the same area in the brain producing the same
experience," Carson said.

"Wouldn't you all have different
nightmares? I don't know any two people who have had the same
dreams. Maybe, you really died and went to hell and back," Julie
argued.

"Anything is possible. But, I'd put
my money on a medical explanation," Carson said.

"So you can't prove what happened
one way or another?" Julie asked.

"Right now we can't, but I believe
we will eventually," Carson said.

"The same nightmare is possible,
Julie," Stephen explained. "Especially since our patient was from
Ocean Village. Ocean Village is a highly religious community, and
one of the greatest fears would be to go to hell. It's probably
discussed every week in church, and stays on people's minds quite
of bit, don't you think? That would explain the three people having
the same nightmare. Perhaps, they feel guilty about something and
HFS just brought it out. You know, people interpret things the same
way by association. Since each patient was burned, saw something
they thought was fire, and experienced falling down, they logically
associated it with hell. For example, if I said murdered wife,
jealous husband, missing lover what conclusion do you
draw?"

"The husband killed her and the
lover when he caught them in bed, and got rid of the lover's body,"
Julie answered.

"Is that what everyone else
thought?" Stephen asked.

Everyone looked at each other and
shook their heads.

"Well, it's the same with the
Hellfire Syndrome. Whatever is causing these similar reactions is
causing the patients to draw the same conclusions about their
experience," Stephen explained.

Carson moved closer to the
group.

"I'm not highly religious and I
don't think about going to hell all the time," Carson said. "I had
the same experience as the others including the burned skin. How do
you explain that?"

Linda perked up.

"You can explain it anyway you
like, but I think it's all true. I think Carson and the others
really went to hell," Linda added. "I've read about near death
experiences and everyone says the same thing - about going up into
a great and peaceful light to heaven. Carson and the others said
they went down through a dark tunnel. They had negative near death
experiences and went to hell."

"Now you're going beyond my field.
Can I get anyone a drink?" Gary asked and stood up.

He took several orders and vanished
into the white food tent nearby.

Linda's face turned into a scowl
and Carson looked searchingly at his wife.

"But, you're saying if!" Stephen
said. "If there's a heaven, there's also a hell. We don't know if
either exists. I can document my theory with proven cases in
psychology. I proved it to all of you tonight with a few words and
everyone drew the same conclusion!"

"I just believe there is a
spiritual realm, a life after death, and some things cannot be
explained away by medical research or scientific facts," Linda said
moving to the edge of her chair.

Suddenly her eyes rolled and her
limp body rolled off the wicker chair, her face was buried in the
thick, grassy blades of the lawn. Carson rushed to her as did the
other doctors and checked her breathing and pulse. It was as if
they were all in the emergency room again. Linda awoke a few
seconds later groggy as if she were in a deep sleep.

"What happened? Why am I on the
ground? I'm sorry," she said.

"There's no need to be sorry,"
Carson said. "I'll call an ambulance."

"Oh, no, I'm all right. It must be
the wine. I'm just tired. Let's go home. I don't want to go to the
hospital. I'll be all right," she protested.

"I don't know," Carson said. "But
we're going to take some tests in the morning."

"Oh, stop. I'll be ok," she said,
standing up with the help of the three men.

She sat back on the wicker chair,
and put her head back. A tiny, elderly woman ploughed her way
through the crowd carrying a cold, wet towel and a glass of ice
water.

"Here, drink this and put this
towel on your forehead," the older woman said. "I saw you fall off
your chair. Scared the heck out of me."

"Thank you. I'll be fine, Mrs.
Hansen," Linda said taking the glass and towel.

Linda and Carson left a few minutes
later. The late summer sun dipped down behind the house, and the
comfortable breeze turned into a chilly wind that swept off the
ocean. The pleasant evening turned gray, then blackened into a cool
summer night - a sign that the summer was giving way to
fall.

Gary and Julie left when the chill
arrived in the air.

"You look relieved to leave," Gary
said as he fired up the engine in his two-seat Honda.

"Yes and no. I don't feel very
well, and I caught a chill there," Julie said.

"You, too? Well, the doctor is in
and I have the perfect remedy for you," Gary said.

"Not tonight, Gary. I'm sorry, but
I just don't feel right. I have my period and I just want to go
home."

"Oh."

"Poor Linda. How embarrassing to
black out like that," Julie said.

"I don't think it was embarrassing.
It just happened. What can you do," Gary said.

They drove the rest of the way in
silence, and when they arrived at her house, he walked Julie to her
apartment door.

"I'm sorry, Gary. I just don't feel
up to it."

"It's okay. I'll call you tomorrow.
We can go to the beach," Gary said.

"That would be nice," she said.
"Good night."

"Good night. I love you," he
said.

"I love you, too," she replied and
disappeared into her apartment.

Gary got into his car and drove to
a dark section of the beach. The darkness suited his mood. He got
out, and stared at the breakers - only their white foam was visible
in the dim moonlight. He wondered if he had made a mistake with
Julie. There was something about her that gnawed at him. It came
and went like a mood, a bad mood. He couldn't quite pinpoint it in
his mind, but he was troubled just the same. It wasn't because she
had refused him - he had grown accustomed to her rejections. He had
even done it himself after working a 16-hour shift in the OR and
the only thing that he wanted was to sleep. Maybe, what bothered
him was her attitude, but he liked her cockiness - it reminded him
of how he would like to be. It was her aggressiveness that
convinced him to apply to Riverdale, and he has been indebted to
her ever since. She made his life better, he thought, because
without her, he would still be at Ocean Village Hospital making
almost half as much as he earned now.

Most times during their goodbyes,
he would advance and kiss her, and it was as if she wasn't there.
Tonight, he wanted to see if she would approach him and she didn't.
It bothered him not because she didn't kiss him, but because her
actions were telling him something he didn't want to hear,
something he feared most - that he loved her, but she didn't love
him. He looked up at the crescent moon with its companion, Venus,
and thought he could be wrong. Venus was the Roman goddess of love
and beauty. It was a sign that maybe he was wrong. But if his inner
voices were right, he knew he was trapped - addicted to her like a
drug addict. He walked back to his car and drove home.

* * *

Julie went into her small kitchen
and made herself a cup of green tea. She sat down at the round
table in the corner and drank it down quickly. Then she changed
into jeans and a sweatshirt and drove to the Ocean Village
Sentinel. The building was dark except for several brightly lit
"EXIT" signs near the doorways. The light guided her down a short
hallway, which led to a large room filled with cubicles, computers
and the stale smell of Friday's micro waved lunches. She walked
over to her desk by the window and turned on her desk lamp. She
pulled the shade down, and moved the mouse to disable the screen
saver and then put in her password. She should have pulled the
shade down first, and then turned on the light, she thought, but no
one would notice anyway. The computer hummed softly and the monitor
came to life, illuminating her face in an eerie light that made her
appear spectral. She began typing - her eyes were on
fire.

C
arson
couldn’t dial the phone fast enough, his emotions spewing out like
hot lava. "That was pretty low of your girlfriend to print that
story without asking. If I had known that everything I said could
end up in print, I wouldn't have said a thing!" Carson
shouted.

"What are you talking
about?"

"The article! Haven't you seen the
article! It was on the front page!"

"No, I haven't seen it! What does
it say?"

"The Hellfire Syndrome!" Carson
shouted. "It just makes us all look like a bunch of
quacks!"

"I'll talk to you later about
this," Gary said and hung up. His stomach twisted and turned as he
took an elevator to the first floor and headed towards the lobby
gift shop. He found the stack of the Ocean Village Sentinels and
picked one up. The front-page headline read:

By Julie Watson
Special Investigative Reporter for the Sentinel

OCEAN VILLAGE - Several specialists
from local hospitals reported that area patients have had
unexplainable near death experiences and seemingly entered
hell.

The mysterious symptoms have been
labeled, the Hellfire Syndrome, and include being pronounced
clinically dead, coming back to life with burnt skin, and having
memories of entering a dark tunnel and falling downward, according
to the specialists.

The doctors have no clue to the
origin of the symptoms.

Many patients have awoken
hysterical, claiming that they went to hell. All develop burnt
skin, similar to severe sunburn shortly after they awaken, the
specialists explained. The doctors declined to give their
names.

Although many of the physicians
interviewed said there was a medical explanation for HFS, they
could not produce any evidence of a disease and only produced
unproven theories for the cause of the symptoms.

A psychiatrist explained that for
several people to have the same experience, they would have to have
the same fears. However, he added that it was only a
theory.

One church official, however,
disputed the doctors and said that it is very possible that these
patients actually entered hell because the devil has been gaining
strength in this century as evidenced by the rise of
Satanism.

"That bitch! How could she! How
could she do this?" Gary yelled.

A white-haired woman behind the
small counter looked up with wide eyes. Gary glared back and
started toward the doorway.

"Hey, aren't you going to pay for
that newspaper!"

He threw the newspaper at the old
woman, its pages coming apart like a fallen bird.

"I'm going to report you to your
supervisor!" she screamed running from behind the counter to pick
up the pages.

Gary took out his cell phone and
called the Ocean Village Sentinel. Julie wasn't there. He dialed
her cell phone and got her voicemail.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?
Where do you come off printing that story without permission! You
really screwed things up!"

Gary hung up and dialed Ocean
Village Hospital. He got a busy signal. After several attempts, he
got through.

"Doctor Carson Hyll, please," he
said.

"Hello, Carson. I had no idea she’d
write that story. I can't even find her - she's out on assignment.
I'm really sorry. It makes us look like a bunch of witch doctors. I
would never let her write it if I knew - I would have insisted that
she interview everyone directly and ask permission. I hope this
doesn't cause any trouble," Gary said.

"Well, it has!" Carson said. "The
hospital's phones are ringing off the hook - everyone in town is
scared to death and calling to find out if it's true. There's a
general panic!"

"I'm sorry. I had no
idea."

"I have to go. I'm being paged,"
Carson said.

"I'll call you when I get more
information," Gary said.

Carson reported to a nearby nursing
station, where a sleepy-eyed nurse stared into a computer
display.

"Doctor Hyll, Doctor Stokes wants
to see you in his office," she said.

"Ah, shit!"

The sleepy nurse looked up at him.
He turned and rushed off to see Stokes. When he entered, Stokes
looked up - his face wrinkled by a large frown, and his face was
drawn and tired.

"Do you know what’s going on? Did
you leak the story to the press? We have riots in the lobby, and
the phones are jammed. You've turned this hospital into a zoo! The
whole town is in an uproar over the story! Did you see
it?"