David Wong - This Book is Full of Spiders

The lady in the waiting room didn’t even turn to me when I came in, she was transfixed by a television in the corner tuned to Fox News, covering the shooting. Jesus, slow news day. People get shot all the time, right? I found a chair as far away from her as possible. I grabbed a magazine and held it in front of my face. Seemed to be a lot of articles about wedding dresses.

“It’s happening all over, you know,” said the woman from the other side of the room. She was probably forty-five or so, hair a desperate shade of blonde.

I said, “What’s that?”

“Demon possession. All over the world. You see news from the Middle East and such and you can see it spreading like wildfire.”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s easier now, now that all the souls are gone.”

“Hmm.” I flipped the page in my bridal magazine, acting engrossed in the ads. The only thing worse than always being the craziest person in the room is when suddenly you’re alone with someone crazier. She was still talking.

“Did you know the Rapture happened already? In 1961. The Lord called all the souls up to Heaven. But the bodies were left behind. That’s why the people walking around today don’t seem to have souls. It’s because they don’t. You see that story last week, the man who was being chased by the police in a stolen car? There was a newborn baby in the backseat? He just threw it out the window. A baby! People these days are just common animals. Because their human souls are gone, see.”

I lowered the magazine and said, “That’s… not a bad theory actually.”

“They called it the mark of the beast. But they don’t need a mark. They reveal themselves as beasts, with time.”

The door to the office creaked open and out walked a gorgeous teenage girl. For a baffled second I thought this was somehow my therapist, like maybe she was filling in today. But of course she was just a patient and Dr. Tennet was behind her. The crazy woman in the waiting room stood and thanked the doctor and walked out with the girl. The lady hadn’t been there for treatment. She was just giving her daughter a ride.

Right off, Dr. Tennet asked, “What happened to your eye?”

“Got in a fight with John. He said counseling was a waste of time and I told him I’d be damned if I’d hear him insult you and your profession.”

“You look like you haven’t slept.”

“How can I, with what’s going on? Have you been watching the news today? Do you know if they found Franky?”

“He wasn’t expected to live, was he? Did you know him?”

“What? No. Why would I have known him?”

“You called him Franky.”

“Well I went to high school with him. But that was years ago. I didn’t have anything to do with what happened if that’s what you mean.”

“Not at all.”

“Because I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry if I made you feel accused.”

I glanced out the window at the exact moment a green truck rumbled by on the street outside.

“Why are there so many army trucks? This all seems like an overreaction, don’t you think?”

Not letting me change the subject, Tennet said, “I would like to come back to what you talked about last time, about having to hide your true self from the world, and feeling like you are powerless to become the type of person who would not have to hide. Just now, you seemed to feel I was accusing you. I’d like to talk about that if we can.”

I stared out the window and chewed a fingernail. Man, I did not want to be here. In this office, in this town, in this life. I wanted to just walk out. I knew at some point the cops were going to scoop up John—he’d appeared on goddamned television right in the area they were trying to quarantine—and that meant eventually they’d come get me, too. What the hell was I doing here?

Because you have nowhere else to go.

I said, “I don’t know. Twenty-four hours ago I’m sitting here trying to justify believing crazy things, and one day later the whole town has gone crazy. So, in my mind the rest of the world has now caught up to my craziness which means I should be set free.” I rubbed my itchy eyes and said, “There are real monsters, doc. I’m too tired today to say anything else.”

He said, “I read some of the things you and your friend posted on the Internet. Sometimes you speak of yourself as if you are a freak, or a monster.”

“Well, metaphorically. I mean, aren’t we all? The woman in the waiting room just now basically told me the same thing.”

“An incident like last night always brings out those kind of feelings, I suppose.”

I considered for a moment, then said, “Can I ask you a question, doc?”

“Of course.”

“What would you say if I asked to use your computer there, on your desk? Right now, without you having a chance to delete anything.”

“Of course, there is confidential patient information that I couldn’t—”

“Let’s say I could promise I wouldn’t look at any of that. In fact, let’s say I just want to look at your Internet browser history. How would you feel about that?”

“It would be an invasion of privacy, of course. And I have credit cards and logins—”

“I’m talking about the porn, doc. Would I find nasty schoolgirl porn on there? Maybe interracial stuff? Incest fantasies?”

“I feel like you’re trying to get a reaction from me. If you’re not feeling like going through with the session we can continue on Monday—”

“No, listen. When I’m with Amy and I ask to borrow her computer, she passes it right over. No questions asked, no hesitation. She could sit there and look over my shoulder and watch me sift through every single file, and she wouldn’t flinch. She has nothing to hide. It’d be the same if I had a machine that could peer into her mind—she’d be fine with it. She’s comfortable with what she is. But, on the other hand, if she’s visiting and she asks to use my laptop? Man, there is so much depraved shit on there that if she saw it all, she’d call the cops. If she could see what goes through my mind when I see another girl walk by, she’d burst into tears.”

He nodded. “So you feel like you have to hide a part of yourself, and she doesn’t.”

“I’m saying it’s like that with everybody. There are two kinds of people on planet Earth, Batman and Iron Man. Batman has a secret identity, right? So Bruce Wayne has to walk around every second of every day knowing that if somebody finds out his secret, his family is dead, his friends are dead, everyone he loves gets tortured to death by costumed supervillains. And he has to live with the weight of that secret every day, that tension gnawing in his guts. But not Tony Stark, he’s open about who he is. He tells the world he’s Iron Man, he doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t have that shadow hanging over him, he doesn’t have to spend energy building up those walls of lies around himself. You’re one or the other—either you’re one of those people who has to hide your real self because it would ruin you if it came out, because of your secret fetishes or addictions or crimes, or you’re not one of those people. And the two groups aren’t even living in the same universe.”

“You believe you’re Batman.”

I closed my eyes. “What did you say the hourly rate for these sessions was again?”

“I mean you’re in that category, you feel like the people around you would react badly if they knew what you really thought and believed.”

“Not because they’ll think I’m crazy. They already think that. But because of how they would react once they knew the truth. You know how people are. That’s what you write books about, right? Group panics and all that?”