by Joe Stanley

IV

I heard nothing until our next session drew near, when a cold phone call from Mark informed me they wouldn’t be bringing Bobby back. There was no emotion in his voice and no mention of the last session.

I asked him to reconsider, but he simply stated, “I have to go now.” Then he hung up.

I tried over the next several days to make contact again, but the phone went unanswered. I gathered my materials, convinced all I could do was offer it to the police.

I tried to tell myself that I was wrong, but I just couldn’t.

I wanted to help Bobby anyway. I wanted to get him into a psychiatric hospital. My goal was to deliver a copy of my report to the Holgers and insist that it was better than turning my report to the police.

It was laughable. I had no real evidence, no matter how suggestive our session had been. But for Bobby’s sake, for the great potential he had, I had to try.

One evening, after work, I drove by their house.

I went past the charred remains of the Wells’ house. Anger rose in me, and a sicken fear of what Bobby might do when he got older if this was what he thought was ‘right.’

The neighborhood was nice, but Bobby’s house, like his neighbor, was overgrown and dark. I walked up to the porch, seeing notices taped to the door. The County had warned them about the grass, it seemed.

I knocked, but the door wasn’t locked. It swung open at my touch. A rank smell of mold and filth poured out.

What was going on here? “Mark? Greta? Bobby?” I called into the darkened house. There was no reply. I stepped in and called again and caught a silvery flash out of the corner of my eye. The attack happened so fast that it was all I could do to throw up my arms.

The knife bit my face and arms, stabbing and slashing as I stumbled away. I thought calmly to myself, “I’m going to die.” My hands were swatted down and the blade slashed in an arc meant to take my head off.

It was only that I fell backward over a footstool that saved me. I scrambled up and my hands closed on a heavy, elaborate wrought-iron lamp. As the silhouetted assailant came again I swung it with everything I had left. It connected with a sickening crunch. He fell away into the light spilling in from the door. Something else fell and rattled on the floor.

For a moment, I thought it was a bowl, landing upright on the floor. It was the top of a skull, cleanly cut away. I could see the steel clamps that had held it in place.

The body of my friend, Mark, lay outstretched beside it, still twitching and clasping the bloody knife. His face was contorting in countless bizarre expressions. His brain had been partly removed, the frontal lobes replaced by what appeared to be a microprocessor. countless tiny wires stabbed into what grey matter remained.

I stepped away and vomited, bleeding heavily. I made my way to the bathroom and tried to bandage the wounds. Then I thought of Bobby and Greta and made my way down the hall looking for them.

The master bedroom was closest and I looked in there first. What I saw was something I will never remove from my memory. On the bed, the headless body of Greta rotted away. The blood stained pillow beside her suggested that here was where Mark had undergone “surgery.”

Beside the bed, some homemade machine breathed and pumped the oxygenated blood through the severed head of Greta. The color made me think she was dead but as I sighed her eyes lifted themselves up toward me, pleading. I saw the switch on the machine and I turned it off so that she could rest in peace. Within moments, she was gone.

Then I turned back into the hall and made my way to Bobby’s room.

It was neatly kept and lined with books. Several small tables held the tools and materials he had used in his wicked projects. But there was no sign of him.

Bobby was gone.

I stepped back outside and called the police. I was arrested, and when asked to explain all I could say is “When you can explain it, please, explain it to me.”

next part

back to previous episode

back to list of stories