Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller (9 page)

Joe cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“Digging around in caves? Eff
that
.”

“You’re afraid of caves?” Joe asked.

“
Hell
yeah, man. Imagine if one of those things came crumbling down on you? Buried you alive?” He performed an exaggerated shudder. “
Brrrr!
”

Joe Pierce looked suddenly repulsed. “You’re a grown man,” he said. “How can you be afraid of something? Something a
girl
would be afraid of?”

The young man took a step back from the counter. “I was just saying, man.”

“So, you’re afraid of being buried alive, is that it?” Joe said.

The young man had no more room to back up. He started sliding to the left of the glass counter. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he said.

Joe started laughing.

Nervous reflex soon had the young man laughing too. “What is it?” he asked.

“Just an amazing coincidence is all,” Joe said. “Can you show me what you have now?”

I looked through the peephole and there he was, receding hairline as prominent as ever through the funhouse lens. I decided to skip the Rogaine joke this time and just open the door and give him crap for waking me.

“You know, a phone call works just as well,” I said as I opened the door.

Morris wasn’t there.

I poked my head outside, looked left and right down the line of motel doors. “Tim?”

He wasn’t there.

I looked farther out, towards the rows of cars in the motel’s lot. Was he hiding among them, playing a stupid game?

“Tim?”

My peripheral vision caught something in the distance. A man, walking away from the lot, heading east towards the strip of road that separated the motel from the field beyond. He was mostly silhouetted by streetlamps and the motel sign, but it looked like Morris.

“
Tim?
” I called.

The man didn’t turn around, just kept on going, looking as if he meant to cross the street and venture into the field.

“Is he sleepwalking?” I said to myself. Then, to the man in the distance again: “
Tim Morris!
”

Still he didn’t turn around.

Maybe it’s not Morris
, I thought.

Well, it was definitely Morris looking into your peephole just now.

True. So then where the hell did he go?

Out by the road. The man in the distance is Morris.

How could he have gotten from my peephole to the road so fast?

Logic was buying into time. If that was indeed Morris in the distance, sleepwalking and about to cross the street, he could be in danger.

I went back into the room, grabbed my hotel key, my jacket and a pair of shoes, and started after him—

STOP.

What?

Check his room first. If he’s there, you know the guy by the road isn’t Morris.

It looks like Morris.

Just check his room first.

I knocked on Morris’ door. “Tim? Open up, it’s me.”

I waited, periodically glancing over my shoulder at the man in the distance. He was stopped by the edge of the road now, looking as if he was uncertain whether or not he wanted to cross.

Would a sleepwalker do that? Look both ways?

I knocked again, harder now. “
Tim
? Tim, open up, it’s me.”

“
Mags?
”

“Yeah—open up.”

The motel door opened. Morris stood there in boxer shorts and a tee, disheveled, sleep in his eyes. “What is it?”

I opened my mouth, only to close it again without a word. I didn’t even know where to begin.

“You all right?” Morris asked. “What’s wrong?”

I looked over my shoulder towards the street again.

The man was gone.

I spun back to Morris. “You were just at my door,” I said. “I saw you. You were
just
at my door.”

Morris rubbed at one of his eyes with a palm. “You were dreaming, Mags. I promise you, I’ve been asleep ever since we parted ways earlier.”

“I
saw
you.” I looked over my shoulder once again. The man was still gone. “And then out there…” I pointed east towards the street and the field beyond. “I mean, I think it was you. It
was
you…I think.”

Morris leaned his torso out the door and looked east. He then pulled it back inside, his tired face now growing concerned. “Mags, listen to yourself—what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. You were dreaming, that’s all.”

“No, I was—”

“You had three glasses of wine tonight,” he said. “Two’s your limit when taking a full dose of the drug; anymore gives you bad dreams. Do the math.”

I did the math.

Morris’ result was sound; mine was not.

I
did
have three glasses of wine tonight instead of my usual two. The gravity of my life had unexpectedly emerged from its pit of suppression and I’d foolishly felt that a third glass was the weight needed to push it back down.

One last glance over my shoulder. No man by the road. I turned back to Morris and found it tough to look him in the eye.

“Okay, fine,” I said, “I was dreaming. Sorry I woke you.” I turned and started back to my room.

“You gonna be okay?” he called after me.

I reached my door and gave a half-hearted nod in his direction. I went inside and leaned my back against the door, letting out a long, frustrated sigh.

“
You had three glasses of wine tonight,” Morris had said. “Two’s your limit when taking a full dose of the drug; anymore gives you bad dreams. Do the math, Maggie.”

I did the math again. This time it didn’t add up.

I’d never told Morris about the interaction between alcohol and the drug; my two-drink limit; the bad dreams.

I’d never told him because he was my friend and partner, not Dr. Cole; Morris’ plate was plenty full as it was without heaping my issues on top of it all.

I’d never told him because I thought it would be irrelevant; I never figured I’d be stupid enough to drink too much on the drug again.

I’d never told him. Period.

I spun and opened the door, hurried back towards Morris’ room, keen on getting an explanation. I hoped for his sake (and mine,
especially
mine) that explanation was damn good.

“Tim! Tim, open up!”

Nothing.

“
Tim!
”

Whump! Whump! Whump!

I pressed my ear to the door, hoping to hear him grumbling some kind of reply as he fumbled for the light.

I heard nothing.

“
TIM!
”

Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump!

“Can I help you?”

I spun and found an annoyed-looking man staring back at me. I recognized him almost immediately as the motel manager that had checked us in.

“I’m a federal agent,” I said. “You checked us in, remember? My partner isn’t answering the door; I’m worried something might be wrong. Would you open it for me, please?”

The motel manager sighed. “Ma’am, please just go back to your room and sleep it off—I don’t want any trouble.”

I nearly stuttered. “
What?
Did you hear me? I am no longer asking but
ordering
you to open this door for me—
Now.
”

The manager gave another sigh and started towards Morris’ door.

“
Thank you
,” I said condescendingly. It was all I could do to keep from punching him in the throat.

The manager slid his master key into the lock and opened Morris’ door. I stepped inside the dark room and immediately patted the wall for the lights. The room lit up and my mouth fell open.

The bed was made, the room was tidy.
Maid
-tidy. As if no one had ever been there.

“Happy?” the motel manager said behind me.

My head was spinning.

Dreaming…I’m dreaming again.

“No,” I whispered to myself. “No, I’m not.”

Wrong room? Yes—had to be.

I spun and checked the open door. Its digits read room 316.

“What?” I said, tapping a finger against the number. “This is wrong.”

“Ma’am, there’s no one currently occupying this room.”

I shook my head. “No, no this room number it—Morris is in 12, I’m in 11…”

The manager looked on the verge of raising his voice. “Ma’am, please just go and—”

“
316?
” I blurted. “How many rooms do you have here?” I shoved the manager aside and all but ran back to my room. The room number on my door was 914. “What the
hell
?”

I turned back to the manager. He was gone.

“
Hello!?
”

I went back to Morris’ room. The door was closed. The room number was 12 again.

I went back to my room. The room number was 11 again.

“I’m dreaming,” I whispered to myself again. “I
have
to be.”

Why were the room numbers 316 and 914? Why so random?

And then like a cold

(
dead
)

finger tracing the length of my spine:

Christopher died March 16th.

Mike died September 14th.

“I want to wake up, I want to wake up, I want to wake up—”

Something in my peripheral vision again. East again. By the road again.

I don’t want to look.

You have to.

I turned and looked. The silhouette of a man again. Next to him was the silhouette of a boy. They were holding hands, looking to cross the road and journey into the field beyond together.

I know who they are.

So follow them.

I’m scared.

You? Scared?

Yes.

The man and boy both glanced back towards me, their faces still shrouded in shadows. But I knew who they were.

I know who they are.

The man and boy crossed the road and started into the field.

Go after them. Maybe they have something to show you.

They’re not real. I know I’m dreaming.

Go after them, they want to show you something.

I just want to wake up.

I started after them, stunned but not stunned by my actions. Fever dreams are like being a part of a puppet where only the head is yours. And this is all the more cruel. The head is yours to bear witness and absorb and digest and relive fear and anguish without the hazy, surreal quality of a typical dream. A nightmare in the waking world. You are helpless to some unseen force that takes you places you would never dare go, makes you see things you never want to see, and for the one sinister exception to the puppet rule, feel
things you don’t want to feel.

And so I went after them. What choice did I have? I ran to keep up. They were already halfway through the field when I called to them. I did not use their names. I was too afraid to use their names. What if it
was
Mike and Christopher? I didn’t want to see them. Not like this. I was afraid to see them like this.

How else would you see them, Maggie?

No…this will be bad. This will be bad…

Still I followed without giving my legs permission. I was in the field now, maybe fifteen yards behind them. I called to them again, still refusing to use their names. My shouts were monosyllabic commands and pleas. “
Stop! Wait! Please!
”

The field dropped suddenly downward, almost as if crumbling away. And maybe it had; only the prison of my mind obeyed the rules of the waking world, the illogical and the bizarre and the fantastically cruel were as uninhibited as they wanted to be.

This time was no different.

The field
had
crumbled away. I now stood at its edge. Below was a graveyard. The man and the boy were there. Though it defined futility, I called to them a final time.

“
I know who you are! I know what you’re doing!”

Do you?

I dropped my head into my chest and closed my eyes. “I just want to wake up…”

I opened my eyes and found myself standing in the graveyard. I was alone. Somehow I knew it without having to look around.

I began to wander. All of the tombstones were blank. Even in the teasing light of the moon I could see they were all blank.

Except for one.

I was maybe ten feet away; close enough to see that the stone had been engraved, yet too far to make it out.

But you know whose grave it is, don’t you?

Yes.

Again my legs betrayed my will and made me approach. The grave was freshly dug, the rectangular hole six feet down into the earth. The tombstone…was not Christopher’s?

I AM NUMBER SIX.

That’s what the tombstone read.

“I am number six,” I said aloud. What did that mean? An Ebenezer Scrooge kind of thing maybe? Seeing my own tombstone? I’m killing myself with the drug, and Mike and Christopher are like Ghosts of Christmas Future trying to warn me, was that it?

Then wouldn’t that make you number
three
?

I looked around the graveyard. Now I
wanted
to find Mike and Christopher. To have them appear and explain it all.

“
Hello!?
” I called in all directions.

Say their names.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My tone was soft and hesitant; I couldn’t manage anything else.

“Mike…? Christopher…?”

“Mom?”

My eyes popped open. I whirled on the spot. “
Christopher?
”

“Mom?”

It was coming from below. From the grave.

I approached the grave’s edge. Christopher was there, looking up at me. He did not look as he had when he died. He was youthful and vibrant looking. He could have been a healthy boy fooling about in a cemetery who happened to tumble into an open grave, now hoping his mother would fish him out of such a scary spot.