The Rasner Effect (2 page)

“You should remain still.” He leaned forward in the chair and came into better light. He looked to be middle-aged. Long silver hair was streaked with black, and so was the well-trimmed goatee. He probably weighed about 180, with the paunch and skin tone of a man who spent most of his time indoors.

“Where am I?” Rick asked, his voice raspy, unused. How the hell long had he been here? He caught a glimpse of himself in the sheen of one of the big pieces of equipment. What had happened to his hair? He was supposed to have some, but for the life of him couldn’t recall what color it was.

“What’s wrong?” the visitor asked in a tone that suggested it wasn’t the first time.

“I don’t know.” Rick eased back on the pillow and pulled the sheet up over his bare knees. God, he hated these stupid hospital shirts.

“To answer your question, you’re in a military facility. My name is Doctor Obenchain. Do you know who you are?” He shifted something in his lap, a clipboard with a notepad stuck on by the big metal clip. The doctor held up his hand and let a pencil dance across the backs of his knuckles.

“Of course I know who I am. My name is…” Though he’d sounded certain, even to his own ears, suddenly Rick wasn’t a hundred percent sure. “Rick. Rick Rasner. At least, I think that’s my name.” He gripped his head between his hands. The whole right side bore stubble—several days’ worth. The shaved patch was about the size of his palm. The left side seemed to wear its normal hairstyle, though try as he might, Rick still couldn’t remember what color it was.

The doctor bent his head and scribbled some notes on the pad. Rick watched, as if maybe from the bed six feet away, he might read what Obenchain wrote. The doctor stopped writing and laid the pencil across the pad. He shot Rick a curious look. “How old are you?”

“I-I’m not sure.” He gave the question serious thought, but still couldn’t come up with the answer.

“Where are you from?”

Less thought was given this time. With each question, dread grew as he realized he didn’t know who he was. Well, he did, to a point. His name was Rick Rasner. But that was all he knew. He didn’t know his age, where he lived, or with whom he lived, if anyone.

Rick swung his left arm and slammed his fist into the mattress. Pain rocketed through his head, pulsing from one temple to the other. Then it stopped to be replaced with one pain. One grinding razor-sharp pain. It felt like someone was tightening a vice above his ears. He dropped his head onto the pillow and cupped his hands over his face. What was happening?

Rick pressed his index fingers into his temples. That seemed to ease the pressure a bit. His right index finger encountered a bump on his forehead. It wasn’t a normal bump, like he got the day he fell down the cellar steps. He refocused, trying to get an image of the steps, the house, the cellar, anything. Nothing.

He went back to examining the bump. It was more of a protuberance. Hard, like bone. About the size of a half-dollar.

“You need to remain calm. It’s best if you lie back and relax.” Rick tried to remember if he’d ever heard the man’s voice before, but that memory too, was gone. “You’ve suffered severe frontal cranium damage. The bleeding could not be stopped and we had to operate in order to prevent permanent damage…or death.”

Rick uncapped his hands and looked at the doctor. “B-but, why can’t I…” He cleared his throat. “I can’t remember anything.” The words came out shaky and hoarse.

“As we expected, your injuries have affected some cognitive long-term memory as well. I’m sorry.”

“H-how the hell did this happen? Is it permanent?” Suddenly, the second question took on more importance than the first. What if he never remembered who he was? What if he had a wife and family—kids?

Obenchain wrestled himself from the too-small wooden chair and crossed to the nearest computer. “Let me show you.” He didn’t turn on the machine, as Rick expected; he reached for a folded newspaper lying beside the monitor. With each step, Obenchain’s soles tapped on the metal floor. Metal? What hospital had metal floors? This thought became eclipsed by the newspaper shoved in his face. He snatched it from the man’s pudgy fingers. Rick hoped he hadn’t been the one to perform the surgery as he had serious doubts those fingers bore the dexterity to hold a scalpel.

Rick unfolded the paper. All at once, his arms grew too tired to hold up the paper. He laid it in his lap and leaned forward to read the headline. At the top was a black and white photo of a bridge. It looked like it had been blown up. In large letters the headline read,
Devastation in New York
.

“You were in an automobile on the bridge when the explosion occurred. Your car was completely crushed. We pulled you out just in time. EMTs performed CPR on you all the way to the hospital. We lost your heartbeat more than once. You are a fortunate man. Believe me when I tell you, not many were so fortunate.”

Rick’s stomach knotted at the sight of the picture. Even so, he continued staring at the headline and bridge, wishing, praying for some inkling, just a fragment of memory for the incident. He let go of his head and thumped a knuckle on the page. “Who did this?”

“That information, as of now, must remain confidential. But rest assured, our people are doing all they can to capture the perpetrators.”

Rick thrust the paper to the floor and watched the pages flutter apart. The throbbing had begun again. This time it was accompanied by severe lightheadedness. He pressed the heels of both hands to his temples.

“Is it very bad?” The doctor’s voice distorted as though spoken in a tunnel. The last word echoed—ba-a-a-a-ad.

“Yes, very.” He sucked in a breath. “Why me?”

“Wrong place, wrong time. A minute before or after and it would’ve been someone else.”

“Family. Do I have a family?” He tipped his head to peer at the doctor who’d returned to his chair. He wasn’t making eye contact. This didn’t bode well. “I must have family, right?”

Dr. Obenchain leaned ahead, placing his heavy elbows on thick thighs. “You were carrying limited ID, Mister Rasner. You are twenty-six years old. Your only known relatives are a mother, a father and a brother, who was three years younger.”

He didn’t miss the verb tense. “Was?” When no reply came, Rick said it louder, “
Was
?”

“They were in the vehicle with you. I’m afraid your family did not survive.”

Rick tried to picture his family, but their images wouldn’t come. He had nothing to base their possible looks on because the only thing he knew about his own appearance was one side of his head was bald. Suddenly, the notion made him chuckle. Four people in a car, cruising along the bridge—all four with shaved spots on one side.

“What’s funny?”

Rick started to shake his head, and stopped. The sound echoed between his ears like a can with marbles inside. “Nothing is funny. Not a single goddamned thing.”

“Were you recalling something?”

“No,” he said in lieu of shaking his head. “I can’t recall anything.”

“There’s always a chance your memories could return over time.” Obenchain tried to reassure him, but his words lacked conviction. “Perhaps I could help you with that process.”

“Yes. I would really…appreciate that.” What would it involve? Shock therapy? Endless photographs of his dead relatives? He unclenched his hands and dried the wet palms on his sheet. “I need all the help I can get.”

Chapter One

Seven Years Later

It was the first time he had been in the state of Pennsylvania—at least as far as he knew. From the outside, the Brookhill Children’s Psychiatric Residence looked mean and intimidating. Three stories of brick and narrow-barred windows shaped this image in Rick Rasner’s brain. Standing alone on a large Brookhill City acreage, the place looked isolated and unfriendly.

The guard just inside the front door said the psychiatric office was on the second floor and pointed to a thick metal panel at the end of a short hallway. It clanged shut behind him in such an airtight fashion he immediately found it hard to breathe. The stairwell was narrow, barely wide enough for two to pass without brushing shoulders. The stairs were old and deformed, made of clay warped from many years of use and neglect. The place smelled like damp papers and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Rick rounded the first turn, claustrophobia clutching at his lungs. He broke into a jog.

He could only imagine how children brought to the facility must feel laying eyes on their new home. Of course, the children housed in the Brookhill Children’s Psychiatric Residence had very frightening reputations as well. Rick had very little experience, but he hoped it would be enough to handle his new job responsibilities. The one piece of advice his mentor gave was to think of the children sent here as dogs, and “don’t show them fear.” Rick wasn’t sure he liked the tone of that advice. Maybe he could temper it with his own personality.

The large cardboard box in his arms made it difficult for Rick to keep his balance and still maneuver up the stairs. He sighed in relief seeing the second ominous metal portal. It seemed fairly new in comparison to the surrounding walls.

He reached around the box, twisted the knob, then pushed with his shoulder, but it was locked from the opposite side. Rick rapped knuckles on it. Several seconds passed before he heard the rasp of a lock and the door swung open to reveal a tall man built like a football tackle. His stomach underneath the white button-down shirt protruded over the waist of his dark dress pants. He wore an old walkie-talkie attached to the belt.

His skin was extremely dark and the whites of his eyes had a reddish tint to them. Long black dreadlocks poked from under his cap and dangled across wide shoulders. He eyed Rick with suspicion.

Rick peered around the carton. “Hi, I’m Rick Rasner. I’m starting work today.”

The guard didn’t speak. He stood on tiptoe to examine the contents of Rick’s box.

“Is there someplace I can put this down?” Rick asked.

The officer shut and locked the door using an unusually large key at the end of a chain hanging around his neck. He gestured for Rick to follow down the long and narrow hallway, much like the stairwell. Many doors lined the hall, all only a few feet from each other. Did that mean the rooms were small, too? All the doors remained closed, except for one that opened as they passed. A rotund African-American woman emerged. She wore a similar uniform with handcuffs and a walkie-talkie attached to her black leather belt. She offered Rick a handshake, showing off unusually long fake fingernails.

“Mr. Rasner?” Did he detect a slight Jamaican accent?

“Yes, that’s me.” Rick offered a smile. He glanced around for a place to put down the box so he could shake her hand. He couldn’t find one so, he just stood there and nodded.

“I’m Sharon Hefner, the head of security and discipline on this turf. Welcome aboard.” She waved her hand, signaling Rick to follow her. “Let me show you around, though there’s not much to see.”

As they walked down the hallway, Rick glanced at the thick, clear plastic windows on the doors. Each had a lock under the knob that appeared to match the key the safety officer wore hanging around his neck. The doorknobs were abnormally large, like Rick expected they looked a century ago.

They stopped at the door Hefner had come through. She’d left it open. Inside, Rick saw what he presumed to be the facility’s office. The room had three desks, all adjacent to one another. Two were unoccupied; at the third, an older gray-haired woman typed away on a computer keyboard.

Rick peered through the window of the neighboring door. He saw what appeared to be a padded room and stopped in his tracks to get a good look, realizing that it, indeed, had floor-to-ceiling padding all the way around the room.

Hefner stopped walking too. “This is one of our seclusion rooms. We have one on each side of this hallway. We use these rooms when the kids
wild out
and refuse to get with the program.” She tugged Rick’s sleeve.

He started walking again, but remained on-topic. “Wild out?”

“Excuse me. Act up. Sometimes these kids go nuts. They practically bounce off the walls. You feel me now?”

Rick nodded and followed her down the hallway. “Exactly what issues do these children have?”

“If they end up here with us, they have plenty. These are kids with histories of violence and/or emotional impairment. And some are just plagues on society. You get what I’m saying?”

Rick nodded. He had very little idea of what children could do to be considered “plagues on society.”

“Are the patients all from Pennsylvania?”

“Some are, mainly they’re from Philly. We tend to get a lot from New York and a few from Jersey. It’s a deal worked out between the states. I’m not sure of the details, but I’m sure it has something to do with money. Don’t it always?”

Hefner gave him a knowing smile. He faked a laugh in return. “Who places the kids here?”

“The courts mandate some, while others are sent here by their own families because they just can’t deal with them anymore. It’s our job to rehabilitate whomever we can, or, if we can’t, at least we keep them off the streets.”

“How much of a success rate do you have?” Rick questioned.

“It happens once in a while, but considering their backgrounds and the environments they come from,” Hefner’s head drooped slightly, “you can’t expect too many happy endings.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Rick liked being successful at things he did. He liked seeing results from his hard work.

“I’m even sorrier for their parents and guardians. But when you raise a bad kid, that’s how things roll, right?”

“I’m sure it’s difficult for them as well.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is nowadays. It’s just not like it was when we were kids, am I right or what, Mister Rasner?”

Rick didn’t respond. Instead, he stared down at the large box. He couldn’t hold it much longer. As it was, he had to keep poking the thing up with his knee. The officer who’d admitted Rick onto the floor sauntered over. He exchanged a hug with Hefner and the two whispered together for a moment. Rick waited, his arms protesting the prolonged strain.