What Hides Within (11 page)

As the two stared at the screen, Timothy tugged on Reilly's hand. She took the gesture as a signal for her to lower herself to his height. When she complied, he cupped his hand around Reilly's ear and leaned in close.

"I'm ready to tell you now," Timothy whispered.

"Tell me what?"

"I saw him."

Reilly stepped back, surprised by the revelation. Realizing the need for delicacy, she tempered her voice. "Who did you see, Timothy?"

"A man."

Timothy walked up to the television screen. He touched his finger to the pointed tip of Link's blade. "He stole one of these from her."

"You saw a man take one of those from the bod . . . from the little girl?"

Timothy nodded and hung his head. "Only his was smaller than Link's," he said softly. Then he began to weep. His voice grew louder with his sobbing.

"He was crying, too. He said he didn't mean for it to happen and that the girl was in Heaven now. Then, he stole her knife and made me promise not to tell. You won't tell him I told you, will you?"

"Who are you talking about, Timothy?" Anthony asked, his face riddled with confusion and worry. "Did this man touch you?"

Reilly smiled her most sincere, ignoring Anthony's outburst. "No, Timothy, I won't tell him. I promise. Neither will your daddy. You did a good thing telling me like you did. The man you saw needs help, and you and I can help him."

"Really? I was so scared. He was so sad, and I didn't want to tell on him for stealing. I thought he would get in trouble if I told anyone."

"That's okay, Timothy. He won't get in trouble for stealing."
But he sure as hell should get the death penalty for what he did to Valerie Page. Fucking liberal Massachusetts ought to reinstate capital punishment just for him.

Reilly glanced over at Anthony and gave him a wink. Anthony's nerves seemed to settle. She could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes. A murderer had come too close to his family. Reilly knew she had earned herself an ally.

She crouched beside Timothy. He had confided in her and was ready to talk.

"Now, Timothy. What exactly did this man look like?"

Clive's Tuesday morning began with a sense of
dejà vu
. The only abnormality was a displeasing shower, where dark, putrid water percolated off his head and body, leaving a ring of black dirt circling the tub. Although the water appeared clear coming out of the shower head, contaminants collected around his feet, flowing in a y-shaped pattern toward the drain. He assumed a pipe had burst, a monthly occurrence, and thought nothing more of it.

Otherwise, he awoke at the same time to follow his usual morning routine, only to drive the same route to the same hospital where Dr. Allen had examined his ears four days prior. He then took the same elevator to the same floor and trotted down the same off-white painted, Lysol-doused corridor to a nearly identical, albeit differently numbered, waiting room.

"May I help you?" a crusty old wench called from behind a glass shield. Her ancient head was barely visible over the high counter. What Clive could make out resembled withered leather topped with pillow stuffing.

"I have an appointment with Dr. Severn. I'm Clive Menard."

"Have a seat," the receptionist said, Clive's mere presence apparently an annoyance. She slid the window shut, sealing herself off from all intolerable patients. Clive couldn't help feeling slighted.

That's alright
, he thought.
She's got to be pushing ninety. She'll be dead soon.

"I guess customer service isn't exactly a job requirement in the medical field," Clive said aloud, not caring who heard him. Nonetheless, he was relatively unfazed by the cold reception he had now twice received. After all, it was the least of his problems. That unnerving, eerie voice owned a priority spot among his thoughts. The fact that his right ear had somehow unclogged itself did little to alleviate his concerns.

Clive stared at the clock on the wall, the same model of creepy cat clock perched in Dr. Allen's waiting area that always seemed to be glaring demonically back at him. It read 9:30 a.m.

Right on time. No one else here. What does that mean? A fifty-minute wait in this room and a three-hour wait in the next? If I'm lucky, I may get out of here before work tomorrow.

Missing work one more day wasn't such a bad thing. It would probably take him a half-hour to get caught up. Certainly, though, he had more enjoyable, albeit less important, things he'd rather have been doing. He leaned back into a hard plastic chair and let his mind wander wherever it chose.

Thirty-seven minutes later, a nurse came in to escort Clive to an examination room.
Alright! Ahead of projection
. Clive snickered. He fixated on the nurse's plus-sized ass as he followed her to the last room down a short hallway.
She's a nurse, for God's sake. Shouldn't she be healthy?

Clive examined his surroundings. To his delight, another hard plastic chair like the one that had just numbed his buttocks sat against the wall of the room.
Jackpot!
he thought, taking a seat. Forty-two seconds later, he was already bored.
I have to start bringing a PSP or something to these things.

As the seconds combined into minutes, Clive's mind went vacant. The cooling, peaceful pastel-colored walls began to tremor before him, his eyes tiring from staring off into space. Like a Dali painting, the world began to melt around him.

What do you hope to accomplish with this?

Clive snapped back to the here and now. He anxiously glanced around the room. He hoped to see someone, anyone, standing beside him, a real, living person. The voice brought about a sickness within him, the same feeling one gets when he looks into his rearview mirror and sees flashing red-and-blue lights. He tired of his solo conversations, feeling far too old for an imaginary friend.

Seeing no one, Clive clammed up. He found it hard to swallow. Everything froze around him. Even the wagging tail of the hideous cat clock seemed to stop its cursed swing for half a second. Clive's world was suddenly as still as the dead.

A bead of sweat plopped off his temple, landing in a small splatter on his thigh. As it plopped down, the world resumed its bustling tempo.

"Is someone there?"

Stop being an idiot. You know where I am. I'm just reminding you that you're wasting your time with this stupidity. You're going to end up with a lot of unnecessary heartache and expense. You'll see. Maybe then you'll start paying more attention to me.

"I don't know who or what you are, but this ends today."

Ha! That's what you think. You amuse me, Clive. I think I'll stick around, see how this plays out. I'm here to stay, my friend. The sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be. In the immortal words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

Clive leaped from his chair like a man gone berserk. He swung his fists wildly at the air around him, flailing like an alpha-male gorilla whose leadership had been challenged. He wouldn't let his grasp on reality slip away without protest. Ironically, it was his manner of protest that made him appear insane.

"Fuck you!" Clive bellowed. "You're dead. You're so fucking dead! I'm going to tear you from my head, stomp the shit out of you and skull fuck your momma."

The air around him seemed to thicken. Disorder smothered him like a coarse blanket. The voice, the room, everything went silent. Almost immediately, Clive was aware of another's presence hovering behind him.

"That would not be a nice thing to do to my mother. She's eighty-three years old and confined to a wheelchair."

Clive slowly turned to face his addressor. He laughed awkwardly. How much of Clive's unique behavior had the man witnessed? His face turned redder than a ginger kid's after falling asleep under the hot, summer sun.

A tall, shrewd-looking man with a deathly serious expression stood silently with arms crossed. Black, narrow-rimmed glasses hung at the edge of his nose, threatening to teeter off. His hair appeared to have been doused in grease, a style straight from the 1950s. It was dark, thinning and slicked into a parted comb-over from left to right. Clive was sure he knew the man, right down to his air of superiority.

"Dr. Allen! I didn't see you there. You're . . ." Clive started, glancing at his watch.
Early
, was how he intended to finish his statement until he realized more than two hours had passed in what for him seemed like only two minutes.

Shit! How long did I space out for? Was that a blackout? I don't remember passing that much time in here. Crap! Don't tell me I'm having those now, too.

"It's Dr. Severn," the doctor said, hinting at impatience.

"Always the kidder, huh Dr. Allen? I'm not falling for another one of your jokes. I know it's you."

The doctor wore a look of disdain. "I'm Dr. Severn. I have no idea why people are always confusing the two of us. I don't think I look anything like him." Dr. Severn seemed genuinely angry, so much so that Clive felt the need to step back.

"I'm sorry." Clive was hesitant to apologize, not entirely convinced this wasn't another of Dr. Allen's misplaced gags.

"We're not related. We don't even style our hair the same way. And he wears glasses made by some cheap imitation company."

"Okay, I got it. I'm sorry. Can we just move on, now?"

Dr. Severn let out a sigh. "In any event, let's see what we can do about those voices you've been hearing."

"I'm here about my ear," Clive said.

"But I see you've got time to rhyme," Dr. Severn replied. "It's no trouble. I'll get to your ear on the double. Just let me grab my stuff. It'll be over soon enough."

Great. Another joker. Who knew doctors found themselves so gosh darn funny? Seuss was a doctor, too, I suppose.
Clive was clearly unimpressed. Dr. Severn seemed to pick up on it.

"Ahem. You didn't tell me . . . Excuse me, you didn't tell Dr. Allen that you were hearing voices?"

Strange mix-up. I swear to God, if this guy tells me he's really Dr. Allen, I'm going to knock his ass out.
"Well, it's just the one voice," Clive said.

"Um-hmm."

Um-hmm? What's that supposed to mean?
"It's gone now."

"Okay. Let's get started then, before it comes back. First, I'm going to conduct a simple neurological exam. Basically, this involves routine procedures that test your reflexes, coordination, muscle strength, eye movement and responsiveness to pain, my favorite part." He chuckled. "Just kidding."

"Your sense of humor resembles Dr. Allen's," Clive said smugly.

Dr. Severn apparently took note of his audience's distaste toward his comedic styling. "A failing in any of those categories could but may not be a sign of a lesion, tumor or other abnormality. Regardless of the results, we'll then perform either a CAT scan or a PET scan. So, if you don't like cats, you can always get a different pet. That's a little medical humor for you."

Clive faked a smile.
Yeah, it was fucking brilliant.
It did, however, briefly distract him from the doctor's main point. Briefly.

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that I might have brain damage?"

"Possibly. Or, it could be a tumor. Or, it could be nothing. We won't know until we have some images taken. You shouldn't stress it until at least that has been done."

"Easy for you to say," Clive muttered, barely audible.

"We could also do an MRI, a magnetic resonance imaging scan. I haven't been able to work that into the whole 'animal' thing yet, so we probably won't go with that one."

"Monkeys, rabbits and iguanas. MRI."

"What?"

Clive focused on the idiotic mnemonic device. He wasn't ready to discuss the possibility of cancer. "You became broader in your animal categories going from cat to pet. Why not make MRI stand for three alternative pet types?"

"You sure you're not a doctor? You're starting to think like one."

Dr. Severn gave Clive a firm, congratulatory pat on the shoulder. "Monkeys? No, that won't work. No one actually owns a monkey except Michael Jackson, or his estate anyway, but I think you're on to something."

Is that all it takes to be a doctor? I just have to be a complete jackass?

"Either way, the result is the same. All three are designed to give us a depiction of whatever might be going on beneath that skull of yours. If there is something in there, we'll find it, even if it's just your brain."

"That's reassuring. So, when do we begin?"

A million thoughts raced through Clive's mind. His knuckles strained, turning bone white from his vigorous grip on the steering wheel. He bit down hard into his lower lip, drawing blood. His heart galloped along. His body trembled. The voice was back, and it wasn't helping matters any.

Don't go through with it. Not only will you be wasting your time, but you'll end up scarred, unhappy and a little poorer.

"But at least I'll be rid of you."

You see? That's where you're wrong. Why won't you believe what I keep telling you? You'll come out of the operation with your head all bandaged up, and here I'll still be, ready to greet you with a smile. I'm not going anywhere.

"Oh yes you are! You're a cancer, and I need to cut you from me."

Are you always so dramatic? Why did I have to end up with such a bitch?

"Who's being dramatic?" The pitch of Clive's voice elevated in his excitement.

"You are a cancer," he said matter-of-factly. "Nothing more. All I have to do is remove you, and everything will go back to normal."

I'm not what you think I am. I'm so much more than a bundle of cancer cells, and I'm not so easily removed. And anyway, what's so good about normal? Your life has been pretty damn pathetic up to this point, totally ordinary and uneventful. I can change all that for you, if you'd only stop being a little girl and start paying more attention to me. For now, though, you should probably pay more attention to the road.

The uncovered Dunkin Donuts coffee cup poured its contents all over Clive's dashboard as he swerved his vehicle back into the right lane. He narrowly avoided oncoming traffic in the form of a Dodge Ram piloted by a now highly agitated and unpleasant individual.