Читать книгу Fragments of Me - Eric G. Swedin - Страница 10

CHAPTER SIX

I am now fully integrated, with no fragmentals. Greg and Willard lie sleeping in the cab of the truck, empty beer cans piled at their feet. My body trudges away from the road, the darkness of unconsciousness gnawing at the edges of my vision. My head feels like the anvil of a blacksmith and he is busy at work. The pain throbs so intensely that I find my gait is in sync with its cresting and ebbing. The cabin is only a quarter of a mile away through the woods.

Dawn is three hours away. When the two men awake from their drunken stupor I expect a blackout to obscure the past several hours. They might remember a blonde woman, but hopefully confusion and embarrassment will stifle their questions.

A dog starts to bark nearby and I freeze. There are other cabins up here, weekend getaways for the more exclusive sort. I last visited two years ago. Sinking to my knees and pressing my fingers against my temples, I will my tired brain to function and draw out the memories of that visit.

It was spring then. Green leaves everywhere. Bright flowers among the underbrush. The gravel road twists and turns, going from cabin to cabin. Each owner has five acres. There was a pond, three or so acres. A houseboat on it. That should be off to my right. The gravel road to my left.

Another dog joins the first in frenzied barking. Are they agitated over me? Sometimes dogs just like to bark. Standing, I move to the left. One hundred yards. Two hundred. The crunch of gravel under my feet.

I am so tempted to stay on the road and just follow it to my cabin. But the chances of being seen are too great. Across and into the trees on the far side, up a slight rise and then the glow of a lamp through the trees. The Saunders lived there. They keep that lamp on year-round, even when not here, a habit born of suburbia. My cabin is the next one.

A whiff of skunk jerks my head up. Faint, yet pungent. So that is what the dogs are complaining about. I turn about a bit, sniffing. Running into that frightened critter would be a complete disaster. I do not have any way of cleaning myself if it marks me. It is to the left, deeper in the woods, where I had wanted to go.

I move back to the road and travel on its edge, pushing branches aside. Past the Saunders’. There is the cabin. A key is hidden in the bole of a tree around back.

Once inside, I pull out a sleeping bag and unroll it. The dust from the wood floor causes me to sneeze. The night is too warm to get inside, so I rummage around in a closet for a blanket. Lying on the sleeping bag, I pull the blanket over me and immediately fall into a deep sleep.

It is past noon when I wake. I would have slept longer, but my muscles and shins are aching too much. Besides, my bladder demands attention.

The toilet in the bathroom has antifreeze in it. Of course the water is turned off. Awkwardly, I squat and pee into a bucket. This is the first time in years that this body has voided under its own control and not into a diaper. Heavy ammonia proclaims my dehydrated state. The cupboards in the kitchen contain a lot of canned goods. This cabin is insurance against the unforeseen, owned under a different name, with money hidden in three different places. There is some fruit juice, which I open and drink straight from the can.

Pulling a cover from the couch, I sit down to eat a meal of canned ravioli. The last food that Joanna had eaten was dinner from the hospital cafeteria. The motions are deliberate: spoon in can, up to mouth, back to can. Depression is a strange and bitter quandary.

The stress of running and of having my life torn apart, the fear of death, tends to weigh down the self. Brain chemistry diverts my thoughts down forlorn paths where hope is a dim light and self-recrimination waiting for an opportunity to pounce. My fear rules me and that is humiliating. I abandoned a boy in need, deceived a young orderly, and left two young men drunk. Will that boy cower in fear for the rest of life? Will Pete be fired for letting Barash take Joanna? Medical schools hated any indication of scandal, making him a pre-med that will never become a doctor. Would Greg and Willard be fired for being late to work today? Blackouts can be so terrifying, such a loss of self-control that self-confidence suffers a fatal blow.

The can of ravioli is empty. Lurching into motion, I walk to the kitchen table. My muscles moan with every move. Setting down the can, I pull up my shirt. In the truck toolbox I had lain on my right side. Now my ribs and hip are black with bruises. What I really need is a hot bath, lasting at least a couple of hours. There is a bathtub, but do I dare turn on the water?

What is the risk? The valve to turn on the water is inside to protect it from the winter cold. If a meter reader comes by, he would see that the house was occupied. I do not want anybody to know that. But how often does a meter reader come? Every couple of months? Twice a year?

My imagination readily supplies the sense of heat and wet enclosure and the decision is made. The water valve is under the kitchen sink and twists easily. Then the tub. It spits air for a few moments, then brown water, then pure water. I wash the dust from the tub and turn on the hot water. Water comes, but not hot water. Of course, the water heater. That requires natural gas. To turn that on requires going outside to the meter.

“Damn it all to hell,” I say through clenched teeth.

Returning to the living room, I pick up the blanket and lie down on the couch. I lie on my left side, my body aching so badly that tears trickle across my nose and off the side of my cheek. Fortunately the oblivion of deep sleep comes quickly.

There are deeper shadows when I awake. The sun is going down. This time I flush away the antifreeze and use the toilet. I hope that it’s not too loud. A can of beef stroganoff and another can of juice serve as dinner.

On the shelf is a radio covered with dust. A quick search of the refrigerator locates enough batteries to get the radio going. No power to keep them cool, but they work anyway. I find WNES, put an earphone in my left ear, and patiently wait for news.

“The FBI alleged at a press conference this evening that Dr. James Barash apparently has committed even more murders. Dr. Barash worked at Jenkins State Hospital and today the bodies of a nurse, an orderly, and three patients were found. According to the FBI, each had been beaten to death.

“The nurse, Rita Foster of Cleveland, had earlier been in contact with the police about Dr. Barash. When she failed to report for work today, police were sent to her home and found her dead—”

Sick with sadness and guilt, I turn off the radio. I don’t even want to know which three patients are dead. The orderly is most certainly Pete. I had only met him once before last night and now he is now dead. Beaten. They had seen their attacker, felt his rage, felt their own terror. Obviously the enemy has a scorched earth policy, killing everyone I leave behind. Would he find the boy, Tim Horgan? The possibility leaves me terrified.

It is dark now. To even think about the enemy brings ever increasing surges of despondency and grief. Briefly I rally, self-righteous indignation rising: I did not kill them! It did! But they are dead because of their contact with me, even if my hands are not bloody; to rationalize otherwise is too humiliating. I refuse to be morally handicapped by denying the situation.

While acknowledging my responsibility, I take care to not let my guilt overwhelm me. There is serious thinking to be done. Why is the enemy killing everyone? That makes no sense, regardless of how I look at it. Another thought strikes. Wait, why were they still searching for James Barash? Surely they had found his body where I left it in the car. Most curious, and most ominous. How was the enemy manipulating the authorities to continue the chase for me? What purpose did it serve to look for James Barash when that body is so easy to find? Are they searching for Joanna, a missing patient? This will take some time to mull over.

Sneaking out the cabin door, I carefully scan the surrounding woods. It is clear. A quick twist turns the gas on.

An hour later I lie in the tub, drawing comfort from the water. All night, I doze fitfully, waking only when the water loses its warmth and I have to replenish the supply.

My brain chemistry summons dreams to rationalize my neurons into harmony. Nightmarish images flash back and forth, finding some material in Joanna’s memories. A new baby brother whom everyone fawns over. A well-loved doll lost. Her father in uncontrollable fury. Sniffing an industrial inhalant that her friend brought over.

New material is found in my own memories, images of time past and places distant. A young boy breaks through the ice. His sobbing cry for help is lost as the air rushes from his shocked lungs. As he flounders, the chill leaks through his thick coat.

I gasp awake, tears running down my face. The water is too cold for a summer morning just before dawn. Crawling from the tub, I pull a towel from a musty drawer. After drying myself, still shivering, I ransack the bedroom for some clothes that might fit me. A pair of sweat pants and an oversized tee shirt. Two layers of socks and a pullover sweater complete my attire.

Enough light is coming in the windows now so that I can move about the kitchen. I quickly boil some water to make tea and oatmeal. My eating is not so awkward as yesterday, though my right side is very stiff.

After rinsing the dishes, I return to the living room. A skylight casts a yellow square on the floor. Pulling over a rocking chair, I settle down and lean back. The sun is refreshing, cleansing, as if I am absorbing vitamins by osmosis. I rock back and forth ever so slightly. No thoughts interrupt my worship.

Finally the warmth becomes too uncomfortable and I shrug out of the sweater. Ah, much nicer. Calm thoughts come.

Introspection is not a skill that a person easily acquires. It requires a degree of unflinching moral courage that so many lack. Looking into the self and acknowledging the cruel impulses, the selfish motivations, or something even worse, is incredibly difficult. Even I struggle with this skill.

Now is the time to assert my rationality and regain dominance over chemistry. I am more than chemicals. While I think with Joanna’s brain, my core self is beyond her. My thoughts are expressed through her neurons, but do not originate there. What to do about my situation? I am safe for the moment but the enemy will surely track me with every effort for as long as it takes to kill me. Why? Does it hate me because I am like it? Two of a kind with no other peers.

Does it think that I am a threat to it? An intriguing possibility. Certainly, in the past, I have come across evil people and judged them and slain them. My nature makes such a moral choice easy to implement. This is a new situation. Can I even kill the enemy? Possibly. Knowing its dark nature, my immediate inclination is to destroy it. But what if it kills me instead? It has been centuries since I have almost died, and then it was due to my own lack of caution more than anything else. Unlike true humans, I have rarely been forced to confront my mortal nature.

How evil is this creature? In our one touch I found such spite and hatred. And fear. Was its reaction merely fueled by fear? Maybe it might behave better if that emotion was not dominant. Certainly my own fear has sometimes made me act without forethought, like taking Joanna. I should have retrieved her in a way that disguised my involvement. The enemy is slaying everyone in its path, not a simple kill like I might do, but savage. Does it enjoy the terror of its victims? I think it does. How repellent.

While I was not in contact with it long enough to be sure, perhaps a diagnosis of fear is not quite accurate. Perhaps the dominant emotion was hate. Yes, hate. An all-consuming hatred. Why?

I excel at analyzing people, from afar and from within, but thinking about the enemy’s dark nature is so uncomfortable. Wiping my brow with my sleeve, I find that I am soaked in sweat. It is not hot under the sun, just the reaction of my new body to stress. Perhaps there is a better approach. The enemy is like me. I thought I was alone, but I am not. Reason suggests that our origins may be similar. Is there an answer in my own past?

My true memories are encoded in a way that I do not understand. It certainly is not physical. The memories are so complete in every detail that no brain could actually hold them all. They contain much joy and much misery. I have always avoided remembering too much—the details overwhelm me and I cannot see the shape of the beach because the grains of sand are too overwhelming. But I cannot continue to avoid my memories. I must regress backwards as far as I can go.

Closing my eyes, I begin to dredge up the specters of the past. My life and my memories are as fragmented as my nature. Lengthy journeys, short episodes, long relationships, and quick encounters, all come together in a narrative that reflects what I am.