Psycho Therapy (25 page)

“I’m changing a few things when I escape this place,” he said, pouring his heart out to her. “I seriously have to have a chat with my mom. I have to know if she cheated on Dad—and if so, good for her. She deserves happiness. And Alice…”

“Who’s Alice?”

“She’s an old friend. The machine put her in the mix. I’ll put it this way, I left her at a time when she needed me the most. There are so many things I wanted to say to her, but it’s been years. I didn’t have the guts to apologize to her, but now…”

“You don’t have to tell me. We’ve both experienced enough heartache.” She stepped forward, continuing to search the mansion for an escape. “Let’s go upstairs, like you said. We’ll find something, and if not, we’ll watch our asses and figure out a better plan.”

He led the two-person expedition. The trek was easier now that the corridor was lit. Craig peered behind them again into the basement, checking for anything that could come out at them. The double doors were still shut. The barriers contained secrets, but for now, it was best to move on. The authorities could dismantle the property and the machine. He wanted nothing to do with it now that he was free of the damned machine.

Edith extended the knife, ready to plunge into a throat. He clutched the rolling pin. His stance was absent of the promise of violence. A blunt object had little sway over the unknown, especially in Dr. Krone’s mansion.

They walked up the stairs, the rubber mat absorbing the impact of their steps. Upstairs, the kitchen and the living area was still unoccupied. He kept his eyes on the upstairs staircase. Each stair was draped in darkness. The lights were off upstairs. He sighed, frustrated he would be walking down a blind alley.

“This is it,” he said. “Are you okay with this?”

“We have to do it, but I don’t have to like it.”

“That’s the spirit.”

She was eager to complete the staircase, and he lagged behind, having to double his strides to keep up. He didn’t want to be alone in this place. The darkness hid Edith, but her general outline was visible.

The upstairs area was set up as a large square. The window on the end of the hall revealed it was nighttime. He also noticed the steel bars over the window.

“Fucked again,” Edith spat. “We can’t catch a break.”

That left them one choice. “We have to hunt the two of them down before they find us.”

“Are we the only two victims in this mansion? Maybe there are more of us here. Why would there only be two of us here?”

He reached for the nearest door, curious by what she said. “Then let’s open these doors and find out.”

The nearest door was unlocked. Opening it, he stared into a black box. He traced the wall with his hand for the switch. Once it flickered on, he recognized the room.

The Waiting Room

He was across from the door painted into the wall. The fake door in the waiting room.
Dr. Krone’s study was wide open, but it was missing the man himself. The fish tank’s aeration device hummed, the cichlids oblivious to the things happening around them. He kicked open the receptionist’s door. Inside, there was simply a chair, a small refrigerator, and a pile of
Cosmopolitan
,
Elle
, and
People
magazines. The room stated the obvious—this wasn’t a psychiatrist’s office. How many people had slept on that plastic-covered couch unknowing of what demise was in store for them?

Craig kicked the coffee table over. “How long has this been going on? I know Dr. Krone and his dad kidnapped victims from the asylum, but what about random people on the streets? I relived it on the machine. He kidnapped me from my apartment. I was so confused, I played into his scenario.”

“It’s not your fault. We’re victims, and they’re the criminals. Anybody could wind up here. This was definitely well planned.”

“That it was!”

Gun smoke clouded the room. The pound of the bullet was deafening, and Craig swore he thought his heart stopped a full three seconds before ticking again. Edith was shot in the chest. She landed on the floor, losing her stance, and she cupped the blood that spilled from her chest wound. It glowed a violent neon, the bleeding red hole a bubbling geyser.

Rachael clutched on to a smoking Desert Eagle pistol. She wielded it like a practiced gunner. “Stay where you are, Mr. Horsy.”

He kneeled down to Edith and cradled her in his arms. She gurgled on blood. Her lungs were filling up. Draining whiter and whiter, the life in her flesh was seeping out the bullet hole. Desperate eyes froze on him. Fix it, they begged, make the bleeding stop.

She edged him close to her lips, holding him by the collar. The whisper was barely audible, like a tickle to the skin. “
Find Alice and make it up to her…whatever it is you did wrong…make it up to her
.”

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. One final breath expelled, her body sagged into itself, and she was dead. Dead for real. Dead for good.

Rachael took over the situation, motioning with the pistol. “Stand up and step away from the body. The bitch doesn’t matter now.” Her eyes narrowed on the corpse. “We can still use her brain.”

He stiffened at the image of Edith’s head being opened and her brain removed by Dr. Krone. “Why do you need her brain?”

She raised the gun to the level of his head. “You have no use for that information.” A crooked smile wormed across her lips. Whatever she was thinking, it involved him. “It won’t be long before this place is bustling with activity. You’re a danger to us, Craig, and I’m glad I caught you in time. Our imaginations run wild, and yours will too. The doctor will be pleased I caught you in time. He wanted you alive.”

“And why not Edith?—she’s a good person, and you fucking shot her.”

“She’s pitiful,” Rachael said with disappointment drawn across her face. “Edith’s another sob story. Too many children, not enough money, too much drugs and alcohol, who gives a shit? Her memories aren’t entertaining, but Dr. Krone did appreciate the time in her life where she gave blowjobs for twenty bucks. She was nineteen at the time. He saved that memory.” She shook her head, though she enjoyed the thought. “Pervert.”

“Saved that memory, what do you mean?”

“You don’t know shit, and it’ll stay that way.” She was irritated. He’d disturbed their plans for tonight—whatever their “imaginations running wild meant”. “I’m hooking you back up to the machine.”

“Where’s Dr. Krone?”

“He’s resting.” She muttered it an annoyance. “Fat ass wears out after so many hours on the machine. He’s asleep. He can’t wake up, he’s that zonked out. The machine overheats. That’s why the power shorted. Now, the device is recharging, and once it’s recharged, the party begins.” Her eyes were wide. “All the work pays off. It only happens once a week. We’ve collected so many memories. Only the best ones we keep.”

Craig’s skull ached. He was exhausted. The machine tasked the body and the mind and left both depleted. But he didn’t have the luxury of sleep or relief. Blood stained his hands, and Edith was a corpse at his feet. That’d be three children without a mother.

“Now come with me,” she instructed, keeping one hand extended with the gun. Rachael fished out a filled syringe from her white smock with her free hand. “It’s easy. I poke you with this, and that’s all you have to do.”

“You’re not a real nurse, you bitch.” His blood pressure boiled. His skin flushed red. Rachael was startled by the looks he cast her. “You want to steal my memories, huh? It’s great Dr. Krone finds my mind worthwhile to excavate. Then what?—he’ll steal my brain and leave me for dead? Why do you want our brains? Are you afraid to tell me?”

“It’s dangerous for you to know too much.” Fear weighed her words. “You have no idea what risks we’re taking with you up and walking around. Stop asking questions. You can’t possibly comprehend our work, so stop trying.”

“You won’t shoot me.” It burst out of him an explosion of words. “I have something to live for and you won’t take that away from me!”

She was shaken by the outburst and backed up three steps, her confidence vanishing. She dropped the gun and waved her hands in defeat, begging him, “No—don’t, Craig. I’m sorry. Put it down, okay? I’ll let you go—listen to me!”

He was confused until his anger subsided enough to notice that he was clutching his father’s Browning shotgun.

There was no decision-making process.

He pulled the trigger.

Rachael’s feet lifted from the floor, thrown like a weightless doll into the wall behind her. Her torso was rendered into upturned clothing and flesh. Through the lifting haze of smoke, she coughed and belched.

She peered up at him, her eyes half slits. Blood streamed down both sides of her lips. “You’ll never escape. You’re a fool.” She sneered hard. “
Soon you’ll be dead…but it’ll be much worse than death…
”

He was frightened at the amount of blood that spilled from her torso. She lived only ten more seconds, then she was dead, as limp as Edith’s corpse. He stood in a room with two dead corpses. And before he realized it, the Browning had vanished.

The Room

He refused to hold up in the waiting room a moment longer. He couldn’t stand so much death. Real death. He murdered somebody, and though it was in self-defense, he’d still ended a life.

You had to
, he reasoned to himself, hurrying through doorway that led back into the darkened hallway.
Edith’s dead and that could’ve been you. This is beyond a compromising situation. You’ve got memories coming to life, your wife coming back from the dead, and you’ve escaped certain death by a thread. Consider yourself lucky to be alive at all.

Rachael’s guarded explanation disturbed him, mentioning the machine overheating and how it was recharging. Once it was charged, she said a party would begin, and he couldn’t help but think aloud, “‘Only the best memories’…what the hell is she talking about?”

He finally stepped into the hallway, getting nowhere with ruminations about a machine he knew so little about. Entering the narrow hall, he checked every shadow for a looming person or persons. Surely Dr. Krone had heard the shotgun blast.

“All the work pays off. It only happens once a week. We’ve collected so many memories…only the best ones…”

He rushed the nearest window and yanked back on the steel bars, attacked by a surge of panic. They wouldn’t budge. Shaking in fear, pondering what the real Dr. Krone would do to him—and in all probability, the doctor would strap him back onto the machine and further raid his mind—he slid down the wall onto his butt, losing all sensation in his body, overwhelmed by the fact he had no idea where to turn next.

Moments dragged on, and he stared down the darkened hallway. The eventless minutes served to ease his nerves, and he recollected himself. Getting up off the ground, forcing himself to walk in a silent skulking mode, he became proactive. Perhaps one of the doors was a way out, he thought, and began checking. After two, each of them being locked, he arrived at the final door on this side of the house. He kept listening for movement, failing to drop his guard. Dr. Krone was hidden in the mansion somewhere, he kept repeating to himself.

“The door,” he whispered, focusing on the barrier again. “Just check it.”

He turned the cold brass knob, and opening it inch by inch, darkness greeted him on the other side. He listened. Craig searched for a light switch, and after two seconds of laborious ticking, the overhead fluorescent bulbs blinked on. He closed and locked the door behind him, happy to create another barrier between him and the doctor.

The room itself was a conference room. His eyes roamed the room and found a long pine table and five leather rolling chairs on each side. A screen was pulled down at the opposite wall and a video projector on a cart stood right next to him. Five file cabinets were lined at the wall to the left of him. The object that caught his eye the most and reeled him in was the shelf of VHS tapes.

“This man can’t keep up with the times. Hasn’t this guy heard of DVD?”

Labels were slapped on the sides with people’s names, hundreds of names. They were victims of the machine, his educated guess. The scope of Dr. Krone’s work was staggering. He checked the shelf for his name, but thinking clearly, it was too soon for him to be catalogued. Rachael said they weren’t finished with him yet. In five days, she’d said, and the machine recorded the best memories. Edith’s name wasn’t on the shelf either. Their escape put them behind schedule, he supposed.

The bottom of the shelf, that row of tapes weren’t labeled. He picked one up, sizing it up for content. Would he be watching the equivalent of a snuff film or somebody’s innermost thoughts?

“You have to know,” he muttered, blowing out a breath of pensive air. “How else can I understand? You didn’t perform these sick procedures. You don’t get off on this shit.”

He slid the VHS from its sleeve, making his decision. The inside was also absent of a label except for the number 3/10/81 scrawled in magic marker.

“1981,” he whispered. “The Krones have been at this for decades.”

He guided the tape into the player, hitting play, and then turning on the projector device, he backed up a number of steps. A blue box formed on the screen, and then the image played out. It was Dr. Krone’s father. He was half the weight of his son, and he wore a more determined face.

“Somehow, the machine can deliver light through the retinas,” he explained, sitting on a stool in front of the camera. “The needles through the skull stimulate nerve pulses called ‘action potentials’. These action potentials stimulate ion channels and transporters. These carry an electric charge to command the brain. I’ve manipulated these channels to tap into the mind, memories, and thought processes. Once I deliver light through the eyes, we should see an image. I can use the computer to command the brain to play a specific memory. The brain has databanks of information, and I shall reference them like a library catalogue.”