Stacia Kane - Personal Demons

"How long did you attend—" she checked the file and forced herself not to roll her eyes—"Fearbusters?"

"Six months," Kevin said. "And it's a good program and everything, but lately ... I'd rather see how I do on my own, you know?"

"Of course." She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes left in this session. "Is there something in particular you'd like to focus on today in the time we have left?"

"I had a nightmare last night," he said. "A bad one." For the first time she noticed something other than sadness and loneliness in his eyes. Fear lurked in the depths like a wasp in a flower bouquet.

"Tell me about it."

Kevin lay back on the soft leather couch, resting his head on the armrest, and closed his eyes. He smiled faintly, clearly enjoying this part of the session. It was a relief to talk to someone who listened.

Megan tensed. At this point in a session she started tuning in, seeing what the patient saw, noticing what they mentioned or omitted and asking careful questions to find out why.

She had to steel her nerves to do it for Kevin.

She saw the room he walked across as he described it to her, and sighed with relief. No nausea, no fear.

The cavernous room seemed to stretch into nothingness, with a ceiling so high only the fuzzy variations of color let her know something decorated it. The walls weren't walls at all, but cupboards, with hundreds of doors in them, each two or three feet tall. It was like being in an enormous library card catalog, but lights came from under the small closed doors.

"Was it an empty room, Kevin? Or was there furniture? Doors to other rooms?"

"There were doors. A lot of doors."

"What's behind them?"

In the dream memory Kevin paused and looked at the thin line of light on the floor. "I don't know. Weapons?"

Megan noted that answer on her pad. "Did you think you needed a weapon, Kevin?"

"I didn't think," he said. "I just tried to get to the end of the room. There was something waiting for me there, something that wanted me to see it."

"What was it?"

"I didn't know. I just knew I needed to get there."

Another note. "What happened when you did?"

At the end of the room another door loomed, larger than the others, with ornate carvings in the dark wood. She felt sweat rolling down her face—Kevin's face. Was there a fire behind the door? Fire was a pretty common fear.

Kevin's voice changed now, growing higher and faint. Whatever hid beyond that door must not be pleasant. She braced herself as he reached for it. His hand closed over the ornate brass knob. Flesh sizzled.

Kevin screamed. Something slammed into Megan with enough force to knock her out of her chair. She cried out, her head hitting the floor with a painful thud. The door still loomed in front of her, even as she saw Kevin jerking and convulsing on the couch, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Desperately Megan tried to put her shields back up, to break her connection with Kevin's dream, but she could not. Something had grabbed hold of her mind and refused to let go.

She tried to cry out for Lucy the receptionist, for anyone, but no sound escaped her constricted throat. She reached up, her fingers scrabbling for what felt like a cord squeezing her neck, but she scratched at empty air.

Kevin fell off the couch, smashing into the glass-top table in the middle of the floor. His body still twisted and writhed, horrible gagging noises coming from his open mouth.

Megan's vision started going black around the edges, black as the dream door that screeched on huge brass hinges...

Just before she saw what lurked behind it, the door to her office burst open. Lucy's terrified face was the last thing Megan saw before darkness overtook her.

"I'm fine." Megan sat up on the bed and swung her legs over the side. "I just want to go home."

"The doctor hasn't released you," the nurse replied, in the weary tones of a woman used to being ignored and treated badly by the people she tried to help.

"Can you call her for me, please? I'm fine." It was a lie. She was not fine, but the hospital couldn't do anything for her.

Twice in two days now she'd had an unusual reaction when tuning in to someone. Three times, if you included her inability to read anything from the lawyer on her doorstep. Was it possible for psychic abilities to suddenly become uncontrollable? Or was it a coincidence, some odd alignment of the planets? Maybe Kevin was epileptic or had an organic brain dysfunction?

She had no way to find out, no one she could ask. In her youth Megan had looked for a mentor, someone else who could do what she did. Once she'd realized her parents couldn't help, she'd tried making appointments with Tarot readers and psychics. None of them were able to do anything for her, with the exception of the Tarot reader who'd advised her to let go of her anger. Megan liked her anger and ignored the advice.

Through trial and error, not to mention desperation, she'd found a way to shield herself, but she'd never advanced beyond that.

The nurse looked her up and down. "Are you the kind of person who ignores doctor's orders?"

Megan smiled. "No. I'm not an idiot."

"You don't look like an idiot," the nurse said, returning the smile. "I'll get her." She turned and headed for the busy nurse's station in the middle of the Emergency Care area, her jogging shoes making little squeaks on the polished tile floor. Megan bit her fingernails and waited.

"You know, we have a snack machine," the doctor said, entering Megan's little curtained cubicle. "In case those nails don't fill you up."

Megan blushed. "Nervous habit. Oral fixation."

"Mmm-hmm. You're a counselor, right? PhD?" The doctor—Janet Hunter, according to her ID badge—cocked an eyebrow and grinned.

"Physician, heal thyself?"

"Something like that. I suppose it could be worse. You could smoke."

"No smoking. Just clean, non-lethal nasty habits."

"Great. Lisa tells me you're feeling fine, and I don't see any reason to keep you here, but try to take it easy for the next few days, okay? And call your regular doctor if you have any dizziness or pain that can't be treated with a couple of Tylenol."

Megan nodded.

"Dr. Chase?"

A man in a plaid shirt and a pair of brown corduroy jeans that had seen better days stood in the entryway to Megan's room. Large glasses dominated his smiling face. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said. "I wanted to catch you before they discharge you."

"I'm done with her, Art. Signing her discharge now, you're just in time."

"Excellent." The man stepped further into the room while Megan thanked Dr. Hunter. "I'm Arthur Bellingham." He held out his hand. Megan shook it. It was warm and limp. "I'm head of the Fearbusters program here at the hospital."

"Right," Megan looked at him with new interest. "Kevin's therapist."

"Yes, Kevin's therapist." Something about the way he said it made Megan itch to tune into him, but she refrained. She wasn't about to take a chance of something else going wrong when she was so close to freedom from the hospital. "That's why I wanted to talk to you. What happened to Kevin?"

"It looked like a seizure, but you'd have to ask Dr. Hunter if it was."

"I will," Bellingham replied. "I'm glad neither of you were seriously injured."

"Me too." What did he want? He was clearly building up to something, and Megan wished he would just come out with it so she could leave.

"I suppose things could have gone very badly if your receptionist hadn't come and found you."

How did he know that? Had he been peeking at her triage forms? Not worth arguing about. It wasn't like there was any information there he couldn't get elsewhere anyway. "I suppose," she said. "I'd rather not think about it."

"Oh, come now, Dr. Chase. We're psychologists. It's our job to face fear."