John Saul - Black Lightning

“I could have thrown them away anywhere,” Glen said, his voice obstinate. “I didn’t even look for them.”

“But you did look for a body, and didn’t find one. Nor did you find any blood, or any sign of a struggle, or anything else that might rationally lead you to believe you’d actually killed someone. It was all a dream, Glen. As for the motor home, obviously you saw it at some point this morning. You probably even looked in the windows earlier, so when you had the dream, the images were already in your mind.” He began ticking points off on his fingers. “Your next-door neighbor was murdered in a manner not unlike what you dreamed. There is a motor home like the one you dreamed of, sitting almost in front of your house. Your wife has been writing about Richard Kraven for years, and one of the things I remember about him is that he liked to go on fishing trips in a motor home. I can’t believe that little fact isn’t buried somewhere in your subconscious, too. What you’ve done is put all that material together into a single vivid, pseudomemory of an event for which you admit you could find no physical evidence whatsoever.”

“What about the blackouts?” Glen pressed.

Jacobson spread his hands in a dismissive gesture. “I can think of at least one possibility right off the top of my head: you may have suffered a minor stroke.”

“A stroke?” Glen echoed hollowly. “But if I’d had a stroke—”

“People have strokes every day,” the psychiatrist cut in. “Most of them go unnoticed. A stroke doesn’t have to be a huge event, you know. Even the tiniest, most insignificant hemorrhage in the brain falls into the category. And it’s quite possible you’ve had one.” He picked up the phone and spoke into it. “Ellie, could you set up for an EEG, please. We’ll be in in a couple of minutes.” Hanging up the phone, he turned his attention back to Glen. “An electroencephalogram will tell us if you have any major problems, and we’ll schedule an MRI, just to be sure.” He tapped at the keyboard of his computer, pulling up his scheduling program. “Is Monday all right?”

Glen nodded, feeling the terror begin to retreat. Maybe, after all, there was a rational explanation for his bizarre and frustrating experiences. The psychiatrist led him through a door into an examining room, explaining the procedure while Glen rolled up his sleeve so the nurse could take his blood pressure and pulse.

“It’s pretty simple, really,” Jacobson told him. “I’m going to attach some electrodes to your head, and then we’ll measure the electrical activity in your brain.” He smiled reassuringly as he saw an expression of panic cross Glen’s face. “Believe me, you won’t feel a thing.”

The nurse unwrapped the cuff of the sphygmomanometer from Glen’s left arm, then began attaching the electrodes to his scalp. Glen could feel the contacts being attached to his skin.

“All set?” the psychiatrist asked a few moments later.

“Ready,” the nurse replied.

The doctor turned a switch on the console of the EEG, and though Glen felt no physical pain whatsoever, a wave of panic swept over him.

And then a howl filled his head. A howl of both terror and agony, it was a sound of such unutterable horror that for a moment Glen was afraid his mind would shatter.

But where was it coming from? His eyes darted from the doctor to the nurse, then back again. Obviously neither of them was hearing the mind-rending scream, so it had to be coming from inside his own brain.

As the doctor adjusted the dials, the tenor of the shriek changed, and when Jacobson finally turned the machine off, it abruptly died away — and left no memory of having happened at all.

“That’s it,” the psychiatrist said. “And you didn’t feel a thing, did you?”

Glen shook his head, his eyes fixed on the sheet of paper that had fed out of the machine. “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Jacobson replied, tearing off the sheet. “Let’s have a look.” He studied the paper for a moment, then showed it to Glen.

All Glen could see were three lines, rising and falling in three distinct, different patterns. “Well?” he asked. “What does it mean?”

Jake Jacobson smiled at him reassuringly. “It means that so far your brain looks very normal. You’re not showing any major abnormalities, and unless the MRI turns up something different, I suspect you’re mostly simply suffering from stress. Which shouldn’t come as a shock, given the severity of your heart attack. Your whole life’s changed, and that is traumatic. But it’s not fatal.” He scribbled on a prescription form, tore the sheet off the pad, and handed it to Glen. “You can get this on your way home. It’s a tranquilizer you can use if you need it.” He led Glen back into his office. “The main thing is to just try to take it easy,” he said. “Tell you what — you dreamed about fishing, so go fishing! Then on Monday, we’ll take a look at the MRI, and I suspect we’ll have all the answers. All right?”

A sense of relief flooded over Glen. “Great.” He grinned weakly. “I was afraid you were going to want to put me back in the hospital.”

“Not likely,” Jacobson replied. “Whatever you may think, I don’t see you as a danger to yourself or anyone else. Just go home, relax, and have a good weekend. See you on Monday.”

Glen Jeffers left Jake Jacobson’s office intending to go directly to the pharmacy to fill the prescription.

Instead he started homeward, the very existence of the prescription obliterated from his memory.

Obliterated as completely as the memory of that terrible scream of agony he’d heard inside his skull when the electrodes attached to his scalp had been activated.…

Anne came home to an empty house, and searched in vain for a note telling her where Glen might have gone. There was nothing: no Post-it on the refrigerator, no message on the answering machine. So she was pretty sure he hadn’t gone too far, especially since his Saab was parked in its usual spot. At least the damn motor home hadn’t been able to displace both their cars! Then the front door slammed, and a moment later Kevin came through the dining room into the kitchen. Alone.

“Isn’t Heather with you?” Anne asked.

Kevin shook his head. “She’s over on Broadway, hangin’ with Rayette.”

Anne felt a stab of the same fear that had made her call the school that afternoon. She’d distinctly told Heather not to let Kevin walk home alone. Had Heather assumed she’d only meant yesterday? “Why didn’t you go with her?” she asked, trying not to let Kevin see how upset she was.

Her son, who was now poking around in the refrigerator, shrugged. “I did, but they weren’t doing anything, so I came home.” Then, with far more aplomb than Anne would have expected, he added, “That guy that killed Mrs. Cottrell is dead, isn’t he? So what’s the big deal if I was walking by myself?”

For a moment Anne wasn’t sure what to say. But then she wondered why she was surprised at Kevin’s composure — after all, for years her children had been dealing with kids who brought knives and guns to school, and she probably knew even better than most parents just how much violence and crime city kids were exposed to every day of their lives. “I think you and I better have a little talk,” she said.

Kevin rolled his eyes, but gave up his search for something to eat, and perched on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs.

“Just because the man who killed Mrs. Cottrell is dead doesn’t mean it’s safe for you to be wandering around by yourself. Until they find out who killed him—”

“Aw, Mom, come on,” Kevin groaned. “What are you gonna do, lock me up? What about that kid that got shot down by Garfield? You didn’t make me start hangin’ with Heather all the time then!”