Psycho Therapy (30 page)

He had pictured the scissors, and they arrived. He imagined them down to the detail, and it worked.
I will make it out of here alive. My ability to conjure objects is growing keener. Maybe it’s because the machine’s been on for so long.

“I’m fighting back, you sons of bitches!”

He waded in the blood. It grew thicker by the second into a gel-consistency. He couldn’t leave through the doors or windows, so he paddled toward the stairs. That’s where Katie’s body waited. She was motionless.

Dr. Krone arranged it so she’d explode blood. He can orchestrate anything. Dr. Krone, Sr. said the machine has a radius. All you have to do is locate a way out.

“You owe her an apology!”

The words were choked by blood and phlegm. Katie’s neck cracked to peek at him. She didn’t move except to point at him and blather, “She’s coming for you. I can’t force you to be sorry. A woman’s pain is her own. But not this time. Alice wants to introduce you to her sorrow.”

When she smiled, her face broke into five pieces.

Horrified, he asked, “What has Dr. Krone done to you?”

Craig was pleading his case to the wrong jury. She wasn’t Katie. Hillary and Dr. Krone, Sr. were souls brought back to life, and Katie was merely a replication of a memory. She was Dr. Krone’s manipulation made flesh.

The surface of the red water was disturbed. Pockets of air burst. The top of a head. The beginning of ears. The slits for eyes opened. Lips issued a hiss upon the sight of him. The black hair was twisted over her face in a wicked veil. Alice raged, batting the surface to reach him. And she was quick. Craig couldn’t react because it was already too late. Hands seized his neck. Then Alice’s cold, raspy warning, “You can’t run. Not this time. Not ever again!”

He was forced down into the blood, throttled by the neck. The smack against the surface was so intense he nearly lost consciousness. Alice’s fingers dug into his flesh so deeply it paralyzed him, drew blood, and threatened to break bone. He was underneath the surface, gasping for air, kicking, scratching at the stairs, battering for breath. He couldn’t focus on a single thought.

He was dragged up one stair at a time, closer to reaching the surface and air. Alice’s bare feet stomping the stairs was gong loud. She was carrying him up the steps, he realized, not drowning him.

One more step, and he coughed, “
Blaargh!
” He spat out blood, vomited it up, and cleared it from his eyes.

“Almost there.” She lifted him up another step. “And you will see it this time.”

He caught a door opening down the upstairs hall.

Three bodies leaned out to watch.

The Krones.

Alice lifted him up from the floor by underneath the arms. The hallway tilted, and he was suddenly inside Alice’s bathroom in her apartment. Random flecks of blood glowed from the white tiles and beige bath rug. The toilet was closed, he noticed, as his face was leveled onto the floor beside the toilet seat. He looked up at Alice, and she was ghostly pale. Blue around the eyes and lips. She wore the face of a long-disturbed individual. Alice grimaced at the sight of him. “It’s you who left me to cope with this monstrosity.”

“Monstrosity?”

Alice cupped his mouth, enraged that he’d talk to her. “You haven’t seen my child. Dr. Krone tried to help me. He said it was too late. If I would’ve gone to the hospital sooner, my child wouldn’t be a monster. You could’ve helped me make a better decision and snuff this baby when I had the chance.” She shook her head, her mouth twitching. “It’s much too late now.”

Craig resisted the tears, but he couldn’t fight them. Dr. Krone was playing on his innermost pain, the kind of pain you forget for the necessity of moving on, but this time, he couldn’t avoid it.

He pleaded, “You shouldn’t listen to Dr. Krone.”

“I shouldn’t listen to you!”

She pried open the toilet lid, lifting him up by the neck with her free hand. Craig slammed it shut, throwing his arm up and dodging the sight. “No—you can’t!”

Static electricity shocked his flesh.
Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt!
The jolts dug into the bone. His marrow tightened, his flesh kicking up smoke. Alice pried his hands from the lid, digging her nails into his back and pounding him in the face with her fists. She bloodied his nose, split his lip, and scratched his right eyelid.

“You—will—see—my—unborn—child!”

Craig reached up with one hand and seized her face by the jaw and nostrils. He shoved her backwards. Alice rolled away, slamming into the floor. Then the door opened. Katie crawled over Alice’s fallen body. Her words were blood and slush. “You will see her child!”

Katie’s legs were dragging behind her, useless and broken. Bloated and saturated organs were trailing out her torso. Closing in, he was pinned by his arms and back. Alice closed in on him, and she pried open the toilet lid. Alice and Katie’s hands gripped his head together.

“Look!”

“Open those eyes.”

Bone fingers wrenched back his eyelids.

“No, I’m begging you. Stop this!
Stop!
”

It was too late for words. He witnessed what he battled to avoid. The sight was taken in right before it transformed. The wad of flesh was caked in blood. It had no special features, too ill-formed and underdeveloped to look human.

“I’m so sorry,” he wept. “So sorry…”

“Yes,” Alice said, not in anger but awe. “It’s happening just as Dr. Krone promised.”

The toilet shattered. Toilet water spilled onto the tiles, gushing in a torrent. The fetus was growing at alarming rates. The wall was covered in tendrils of flesh, and bone, and cartilage. Eyes, mouths, jaws, snapping teeth, arms, legs, breasts, male and female genitals, hearts, lungs, intestines, digestive cavities, and bones were splayed on the living quilt of flesh. Cries of agony and a baby wailing for its mother resounded to eardrum-shattering levels. Every appendage and organ throbbed with life. Veins audibly circulated blood, the flesh squeezing the arteries to spread the life-giving juices. Fingers extended to grab hold of Craig. Fists threatened to beat him to a pulp. The tiles from the wall were plucked free with accompanying crashes. Plaster crumbled and rained overhead. The floorboards were split by the weight of the monster. The living sheet of flesh and warring limbs lurched toward Craig.

The door opposite the room was ajar. The Krones surrounded one of the machines inside, watching the show. Dr. Krone, Sr. and his son took turns typing on the keyboard. They showed no fear of the incoming abnormality. Hillary stepped from the room and dared to confront the creature. She shook hands with one of the arms jutting from the wall. Other fingers stroked Hillary’s hair and caressed her chin. Dr. Krone joined his mother. He touched lungs that throbbed. “Simply amazing,” he whispered. “Astounding.”

Dr. Krone, Sr. stood beside his son now. “There’s so much more we could do with this machine outside this mansion.”

“It’s a question of souls,” Dr. Krone concurred. “The more we receive, the more we can create. It’s a matter of extending the electrical current beyond these premises. You’re right, we need more souls.
A lot more souls.
”

They were obsessed with their creation. And it continued to grow. The wall of flesh covered the entire wall of the hallway and was still expanding. They would continue to harvest souls and create horrors like this, and they would never be satisfied. What if the machine carried on outside the mansion? Everybody’s nightmares would come true. And what else could they drum up besides living flesh walls?

He eyed the room and the machine. It would be so easy to leap inside and shut it down. But there were two other machines on the premises, maybe more. He was outnumbered and outsmarted. Craig followed his first instinct to attack the three and charged the room. Five hands seized him by the arms and hair before he traveled more than three steps.

Jaws bit into his flesh. Fists battered him. The flesh dripped over his face and smothered his airway, the liquid spreading like a mask. The Krones were delighted at the turn of events. “He can’t do anything.” “Watch his pants. I bet he pisses himself.” “No, he’ll shit.” “Not yet.” “Give him five minutes.” “He’ll be dead in five minutes.” “I betcha he’ll die sooner than that.”

Alice and Katie joined the group, Alice speaking dreamily, “My child is so beautiful.”

Katie wept, “I wish I got to be a mother.”

“You can,” Dr. Krone offered to Katie. “We can make children as we wish.”

“Like Alice’s?”

Dr. Krone stepped toward Katie, Craig catching the outlines of the two through the thin veil of flesh, and the doctor was hugging his wife. “Anything you want.”

Hillary joined in. “I want children too. This is so extraordinary. The mind is fun to play in, but this, this is so much better. We have to continue with this progress.”

“We will,” Dr. Krone, Sr. encouraged her. “I promise.”

Craig was desperate for air, the flesh mask constricting both mouth and nose passages. How much longer could his body take the strangulation? He fought the arms and flesh, but they were stronger. The mask of flesh was unyielding.

You have to think. Imagine a happier place.

He couldn’t imagine much with so much pressure placed on his lungs. His body grew cold against the warm, breathing, wall of living parts. No air to breathe, white dots burned his vision. Circulation was cut, the blood pooling in his veins and arteries razor sharp. The blocked flow would be the end of him, and now, all he could focus on was the coldness of his body.

Lake Jacomo

Winter’s chill bore deep into him. Craig was lying against the ice. He still couldn’t breathe with the flesh over his mouth and nose. His face was impeded by the flesh creation, but it was frozen solid. He cracked and pounded his face against the pond until the skin shattered and cracked. Ice pieces crumbled loose, and finally, he could breathe again. He used his hands and feet to slide on the ice, creating more distance between himself and the monster. The flesh covered half the pond, the monster hidden beneath the snow. Hands and faces could be made out beneath the wintry veil, each smiling, twisted, raging, convulsing, and ultimately, glued motionless.

He breathed in and out, slowly standing up. Frigid air was better than no air, he reasoned. He stood in place, anticipating the next attack. The next living memory.

Ahead of him, the dreaded sight presented itself—all three of them. Dr. Krone was the closest, his parents in the background, checking out the scenery. They were researchers and sightseers as well as killers.

“You can’t escape us,” Dr. Krone threatened him. He was angry.
Good
, Craig thought.
They know they’re not in total control anymore.
“But this resistance has been a wild ride. I’m sure it will continue to be until you make a mistake, and you’re dead. And I assure you, you will die before that machine rests again.”

The Krones grouped together and closed their eyes. Lake Jacomo, the slowly falling snow, the frozen-over flesh monster, the slate-gray skies, they collectively vanished. The walls turned into broken plaster and see-through boards. The space was blank of enemies. Craig stood in the first-floor hallway beside the opened door leading to one of the machines. Dr. Krone typed on the keyboard. Static crackled across Craig’s flesh, burning him in bright blue zigzag branches.

Craig shouted, “Will you fucking stop that?”

The Krones ignored his statement. Craig caught their eyes light up electric blue for a split second. The static current played over their arms, and legs, and bodies. The voltage was sucked into the skin, parts of the flesh puckering open and feeding on the electricity.

They typed in a new memory.

And it would arrive at any moment.

Flesh and Blood

The blink.

Darkness.

It wasn’t real darkness, but instead, the light was blocked by sweaty palms in front of his eyes. The hands and bodies stank of bread and perspiration. The crowd was hushed. He sensed many, perhaps fifty or more, in the room with him, watching him. He was sitting on a chair, his hands tied behind his back and his legs bound by the ankles with rope.

“Come willingly to God,” the throng of people sang. “Come willingly to Him.”

He believed Parker Stevens was the one touching Craig’s forehead. He escaped them on the street, but here, tied up, he didn’t stand a chance. Attempting a strategy of escape, sharp currents of static electricity zapped him, the wounds puckering and sizzling at each connection. “Shit!”

“You cursed in the Lord’s temple,” Parker bellowed, removing his hands from Craig’s eyes as if horrified at the outburst. “You must be cleansed in this church. We all must be cleansed. Craig Horsy’s sins reflect our own. This is our baptism as much as it is Mr. Horsy’s.”

“
Mr. Horsy’s”? He’s talking like Dr. Krone.

He is Dr. Krone.

The congregation stood among rows of pews. This wasn’t a small church. Rows expanded in both directions, occupying hundreds of people. Torches lit the service hall and shed amber-orange firelight, fueled by gasoline and kerosene, judging by the smells. The room had the feel of a ramshackle church, the wooden beams unpainted and without windows. The roof’s overhead rafters were exposed. Craig was atop a raised floor, three feet above those in the pews. The congregation’s faces disturbed him the most. They were looking for an answer, begging, crying, and ogling over Craig like a messiah or a martyr. Well-clad business types stood amid the poor in rags or wrapped in stained blankets. Grit-smeared faces and the clean shaven were equally matched in the arena. The ravenous and hungry looks about each of them promised bloodshed.