The Reality Conspiracy (14 page)

"No one has ever seen me, For I'm always what I'm not. And no one's ever heard me, For a mouth I haven't got. My home has been forever, And forever I'm at home. And you can never know me, For forever I'm alone."

Herb's head rolled forward until his chin touched his chest. He was asleep.

"Herb," Dr. Gudhausen said gently. "Herb, wake up."

Herbert Gold's head jerked up. His eyes were clear now, the smile gone from his mouth.

"Are you all right, Herb?"

"Oh yeah, I mean, no. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm awful sorry."

"Sorry? For what?"

"For comin' here. For what I have to do."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you know what kind of man I am. I'm not a bad man. You know that, don't you, Doctor?"

"I know that, Herb." Gudhausen could see the agony in the man's face. Gold was wrestling with some powerful compulsion. Perhaps he should suggest hypnosis, try to get the patient to relax. If Herb could relax, then maybe he could articulate exactly what was troubling him.

"No!" Herb snapped. "No trances, no hypnotics."

Gudhausen hadn't spoken, yet Gold knew—

"Can you tell what I'm thinking, Herb?"

"Yes. And what you're not thinking." Gold's tone was rapid-fire, staccato. Gudhausen had never met this alter before.

"Who are you?"

"Someone else."

"Let me talk to Herbert."

"Herbert can't talk."

"Herb, I want to talk to you. Come out."

"He can't talk. Nobody can talk. Not even you."

Gudhausen attempted a response, but it didn't work. He could not—
Good God, what's happening to me?
He couldn't speak. He couldn't move. His body's only reaction was to squeeze perspiration from every pore.
Oh my God!
His eyes filled with tears but he could not blink them away.

"I have come here to tell you something," the changing Herb-thing said in its clipped, militarylike diction.

Gudhausen thought of Dr. Bradley. Where was she? Would she be here soon?

"You are not paying attention, Doctor."

Gudhausen felt a bolt of electrical energy arc between his temples. And he couldn't see.

"You must learn to concentrate, Doctor. Ignore distractions. Here, let me help you."

Gudhausen tried to control his racing thoughts. There must be something he could do. There must—

He heard Gold's finger tapping the desktop—"Now pay attention, Doctor"—somehow he knew it was Gold's index finger. Very slowly: tap . . . tap . . . tap . . .

"Concentrate on that sound, Doctor. Hear it. It sounds very like a metronome, does it not?"

Yes, the slow rhythmic beats were exactly like a metronome.

"And if
 
speed it up a bit, it sounds very like a heartbeat. (Tap-tap; tap-tap; tap-tap. . .) Is that not so, Doctor?"

Yes
, Gudhausen thought,
a heartbeat
.

"In fact, it sounds very much like your heartbeat. Don't you think so, Doctor?"

Gudhausen fought it. He didn't want to listen. All his nerves shot panic messages to his motionless limbs. Pressure built. He was a boiler without a valve. His nervous system was about to explode. He was shorting out. He was frying. He could almost smell himself burning. He needed to imagine . . . something. Anything. He imagined he could not hear the persistent tap of Gold's finger, now perfectly synchronized with his own pounding heart.

(tap-tap; tap-tap)

"And if I should tap a little faster, Doctor, do you think you can keep up?"

(taptap-taptap-taptap)

Gudhausen felt his heart rhythm accelerate, keeping time to that horrible finger.

"It's like taking a brisk walk; don't you agree, Doctor? Invigorating. Give the old ticker a workout . . . ."

Gudhausen could feel hot blood speeding through him. His heart kept pounding out that maniac rhythm. Why couldn't he move? Where was Karen Bradley? Could she help him?

"Suppose we step up the beat just a little. What do you think? Does this sound like a rainstorm to you, Dr. Gudhausen?"

(taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap)

His heart sped. It bashed maniacally against his chest. Pumping blood. Pumping sweat. Pounding, pounding.

(TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP)

Sweat in his eyes. Stinging.

Muscles cramping, contracting. Pulling his useless arms to his chest.

TAP

Pain burning. Pain smashing. Muscles tearing.

TAPTAPTAP

Heart erupting.

He screamed. Falling. Convulsing on the floor.

Before the world fell away, he heard Herbert Gold whisper, "Dr. Gudhausen, I came here to tell you that you shouldn't have messed with it. I came here to tell you you're a dead man."

The telephone rang.

"You have reached the offices of Stanley Gudhausen, M.D. There is no one in the office who can help you just now . . . ."

"O
h my God!" said Karen Bradley, standing up suddenly and bumping the table hard enough to shake both cups of coffee.

Jeff Chandler looked up at her. "What's this? Your imitation of an earthquake?"

"No. I mean it's after one o'clock! I'm supposed to pick up Dr. Gudhausen!"

"Hey, slow down, Karen." Jeff smiled at her. "He's not going to leave without you."

"I know, I know, but I'd better call him. I mean . . ." She left the sentence hanging as she fished around in her purse, looking for change.

Jeff said, "Here you go." He displayed an empty hand, then closed it into a fist. When he opened his fingers, Karen saw that a shiny quarter had appeared in the middle of his palm.

She did an exaggerated double take. "Physicist, UFO debunker, and now I discover you're a magician, too!"

"Ah yes, I'm known for my multiple yet uniformly unappealing personalities."

"That's your diagnosis, eh? Let me worry about the treatment later, when you come up to Burlington." She smiled and winked at him, feeling delightfully brazen.

"It's a date. But don't run off without your consulting fee." He held out the quarter, then dropped it into her outstretched hand.

"Thanks, Houdini. I apologize for the vanishing act I'm about to do."

Jeff looked humorously crestfallen as she left the table and walked toward the pay phone near the entrance of the coffee shop.

He is cute
, she thought, and his surprise appearance at the hotel had gone a long way toward convincing Karen that he truly liked her. But, darn it, he'd made her completely forget about Dr. Gudhausen!

Again rummaging in her purse, she pulled out her Day-Timer in which she had carefully entered Gudhausen's phone number. Her fingers shook just slightly as she punched in the seven numbers.

T
he thing that was Herbert Gold closed its eyes for a moment, then stepped over the body of Stanley Gudhausen to pick up the telephone. The answering machine cut off. In a neutral, nondescript tone the thing said, "Yes?"

"Hi, Dr. Gudhausen? It's Karen Bradley."

Gold looked down at the fallen psychiatrist. He knew the man's voice very well—he'd heard it often enough—but the face? Well, that might take some practice. He studied the doctor's features, distorted now in death. The skin resembled blue ice. Blood caked the lower lip, dribbled from the ears. The cheeks, just moments ago round and florid, were sunken, waxy-looking. Gold twisted his face, trying to imitate that of the corpse.

"Yes, Karen, what is it?"

"Well, I know I'm supposed to be there now, but I'm running a little late and I'm sorry. I just have to say good-bye to a friend and I'll be on my way. I hope you don't mind waiting."

"A friend you say?"

"Why, uh . . . yes . . ."

Shit! He'd said the wrong thing, made her suspicious. "Well," he thought fast, "normally I'd suggest that you bring him along. But, Karen, I'm afraid it is I who must apologize. Something . . . ah . . . something unexpected has happened, and I have no choice but to . . . ah . . . stay here."

She paused briefly. "You mean you won't be coming to Vermont with me?"

"I'm afraid not, my dear. I simply can't do it now. It's impossible. I wanted to call you, but—"

"I know, I'd already checked out."

"Yes. Right. You'd already checked out. But don't worry, Karen. You'll be seeing me again soon. Yes, I'll be corning to Vermont very, very soon."

Before she could speak again, the grinning thing that was neither Herbert Gold nor Stanley Gudhausen had hung up the telephone, breaking the connection.

Montreal, Quebec

F
ather Sullivan hurried to keep pace with Father LeClair as they raced across the courtyard toward the front steps of the seventeenth-century mansion that was Hospital Pardieu. Sullivan's heart pounded, not from exertion but from the other priest's contagious air of alarm.

The bright afternoon sun had disappeared behind a swelling bank of gray clouds. A drizzle of rain had begun. It collected on Sullivan's eyeglasses, making it difficult to see. His light jacket was useless against the blast of arctic air that met them as they dashed up the hospital's stone steps.

LeClair pushed open the heavy door and entered.

The moment Sullivan stepped across the threshold, he felt an undeniable change in the atmosphere. Even in the vast marble-floored entryway, the air seemed close, stuffy, somehow brooding and tangibly alien. Sullivan controlled an irrational impulse to turn around and leave.

A pervasive odor of urine and excrement mingled in his nostrils, offending him, making it difficult to identify the true source of his unease. A frail old man dressed in a soiled white hospital gown, and clutching a wooden crucifix, stumbled along amid the shadows of the far wall. When he saw the two priests he gave a short shrill cry and sank to the floor, his johnny billowing around him like a parachute.

Sister Elise, the little French-speaking nun Sullivan had met when he arrived, scurried from an activities room to meet them. "Oh, Fathers, I am so thankful you have returned. They are upset, all of them are upset. I do not know why; I do not know what is wrong."

"Show me," LeClair said.

"See there." She waved her arm toward the back wall and led them across the room to the crouching figure.

By now the elderly priest with the crucifix had pressed his right side against the dark wainscoting. He'd pulled his knees up nearly to his chin as he cowered there, hands on his forehead, face buried in his arms.

They slowed down, approached him cautiously. The slight man turned his face to the wall. His breath came in rapid wheezing pants.

"Father Hubert," LeClair whispered in French, "what is the matter? Tell me why you are so frightened?"

The old man screeched like a terrified squirrel and closed his eyes tightly. A horrible stench rose around him.

"They will not go into the bathrooms, Father. They say they are too dark. But look!" She pointed. "They are messing in the halls, in their rooms." Sister Elise spoke frantically. "And upstairs, Father Lemire will not come out of his room. The pass key will not work; somehow he has broken the lock. Oh, Father, there are only the four of us here. We do not know what is wrong. We do not know what to do. We cannot help them."

The little nun, her face a confusion of empathy and terror, began to cry quietly. Father LeClair put his arms around her. "There, there, my sister. You have done what you can. But please, just now I need your help."

"Yes, of course, Father. Forgive me." She sniffed and braced her shoulders. "Come, let me show you upstairs. Sister Agnes is up there; she is alone with Father Rabidoux."

The two priests had to race to keep up with the little nun. At the top of the stairs Sullivan heard sobbing coming from the room behind a partially opened door.

"Father Rabidoux is an Alzheimer's patient," LeClair whispered as he led Sullivan into the room. The interior reeked of urine. A yellow puddle spread from beneath the old priest who sat on the floor below the window. His small brown eyes glittered senselessly with tears. One hand clutched a Bible to his chest.

Sister Agnes knelt beside him, holding his hand. Lines suggesting deep sorrow dignified the sister's face. Her eyes, never leaving the old man's, were warm and compassionate. She spoke to him gently, as if to a child. "Here is Father LeClair"—she nodded to the two priests, smiling thankfully—"can you tell him what is wrong, Father Rabidoux?"

The old man spoke rapidly, almost too rapidly to understand. He piled words upon words as his apparent terror heightened. "Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, exalt me. WaterfromthesideofChrist, wash me . . . washmewashme . . ."

When his aged, tear-glazed eyes met those of Father LeClair, the old man somehow managed to push himself to a standing position. Legs unsteady, he lost his balance, lurched backward against the window. Glass shattered. The old priest tottered, ready to fall.