The Home Page 27

  "No," Bondurant thought, staring at the floor. He couldn't endure the black nothingness of the old man's eyes anymore.

  "I'd ask him, 'Why do bad tilings happen to innocent people?'"

  Bondurant thought of the children who'd been entrusted to his care, the abused, the orphaned, the lame, the unrepentant. He'd allowed the children to talk about then-problems, submitted them to group therapy and individual counseling, let them speak their worries in confidential rooms. The sorry little sinners should have spilled their guts on their knees in Wendover's chapel instead. Just them and the Lord, heart to heart. The wicked would burn and those who saw the light would be saved. That was the way of God's Earth, and all else was smoke.

  The old man's image shimmered again, drifted from the surface of the mirror and became whole. He stood in his dirty gown and bare feet like a wandering monk. A beggar. Or was this man sent by God Himself to deliver a message to Bondurant?

  The room was quiet except for the faint hum of the machinery beneath the floor. Kracowski was playing games in the basement, him and McDonald and that new one, Dr. Mills. Wendover had been given over to dark forces. Bondurant's only hope now was for personal salvation. All the rest was lost.

  The old man shuffled over to Bondurant, his feet making no sound. With each step he became more solid, until Bondurant could smell the soiled gown and the toothless breath. He put an icy hand on Bondurant's chest and gently pushed him back onto the cot.

  "Rest, Mr. Bondurant."

  Bondurant wanted to struggle, to jump up and run screaming from the room, but the hand was insistent. Was this the hand of God? Bondurant grew dizzy and weak, confused. If only he had a bottle.

  "I want to help you," the man said, raising one of the restraint straps. "With this problem of yours."

  Bondurant lay helpless as the old man folded the straps over Bondurant's legs and chest. His wrists and ankles were then locked in padded cuffs. The old man applied the blue gel to the electrodes and attached them to Bondurant's head.

  "Will it hurt?" Bondurant asked.

  "Suffering is the way to healing," the old man said his eyes like dark seeds under the thick eyebrows.

  "Who are you?" Bondurant wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. But he was on the edge of something important, some connection between himself and Wendover's past. Or maybe he was sobering up. An uneasiness rippled through him, the gel tickling his skin.

  The old man knelt so close to Bondurant's face that his words made a breeze on his cheeks. "I'm the doctor. I make people better."

  He gave a grin that looked far too much like a tray of scalpels. Then he turned and shuffled toward the mirror. He met the surface, shimmered then melded into the glass and disappeared. The ceiling microphone came on with a hiss. "I prefer the old-fashioned techniques," the old man said "but I suppose one must change with the times."

  A thread of juice stitched across Bondurant's skin. A hum arose in the walls, soft and sinister, as if a nest of winged things had been disturbed. The cot vibrated slightly, and Bondurant clenched his fists. The first shock pierced his skull and he bit his tongue, tasting blood.

  Riding that jolt of electricity were scattered thoughts, nightmare glimpses, visions that Bondurant immediately knew had been witnessed by the old man's living eyes:

  A needle, pushed into a woman's frail arm, dosing her with enough insulin to knock her into a coma.

  More electroshock, an assembly line of frightened patients in white, all led from the treatment room like drooling sheep.

  A scene from the basement, the inside of a cell, orderlies carrying the corpse of a woman with bloody sockets where her eyes had been.

  An ice pick, slid up a nostril and turned inside the upper curve of skull, severing the frontal lobe.

  Another operation, this time a saw rasping through the skull to take the lobe via the forehead.

  Bondurant screamed for mercy, but the dead doctor only turned up the juice. Then the force field radiated from the walls and slapped him into darkness.

  The old man's voice followed him. "See? A doctor's work is never done. Even death can't ease their troubled minds."

  Bondurant wasn't listening, even though the words reverberated inside his head. Amid the black, suffocating stillness that surrounded him, pale shapes slithered through the cracks of nothingness. He closed his eyes and wept like a baby until the doctor came to comfort him and remove the straps.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The Miracle Woman called to Freeman, drifted past the other spirits toward where he crouched at the mouth of the hallway. The glow from the machinery swirled around her and through her, as if her impossible flesh were lit by a cold fire.

  "Do you see her?" Freeman asked the others.

  "Who?" Starlene asked.

  "Her." He pointed at the naked woman, whose long, dark hair flowed over her shoulders. She looked like one of those Venus on the Half-shell drawings done by some acid burnout from the Sixties. Except for the part about the bloody eye sockets. Not even a drug overdose victim could have imagined those.

  "I don't see nothing," Dipes said.

  "Not even the future?" Isaac asked. "Well, I see Kracowski and that new guy, the crazy one. And the weird guy flopping around on his stomach like a beached fish."

  "You don't see the ghosts?" Freeman asked. The Miracle Woman floated closer, her hands closed. Freeman hoped she wouldn't open her palms and look at him. He couldn't handle that right now. All he wanted was to reach Vicky.

  "We can save her," the Miracle Woman said. "Follow me."

  Freeman froze. She drifted closer, skin fluttering like psychedelic rags, her torn face wearing a faint smile. "Trust me," she said.

  Freeman clamped his hands over his ears. "No. Get out. You're not here. You're not real."

  "Trust me, Freeman."

  "No. You can't triptrap a dead person. That wasn't part of the experiment. That wasn't what he turned me into."

  "Your father hurt you. But he also made you. See, he gave you a gift. It doesn't matter what his intentions were. Now it's yours, and you're the one who has to use it."

  "I don't want it."

  "Do you want to save Vicky?"

  Damn her. Why couldn't she just stay dead? Why couldn't she leave him alone? She was just like all the others.

  'Trust me," she said, and a soft tickle caressed his cheek. He thought it was her finger, and he opened his eyes.

  It wasn't her finger, it was his tears.

  "Trust me," she repeated. "Starlene said God doesn't send you anything you can't handle."

  "Why do you want to help?" he said, this time aloud instead of through his thoughts.

  She flashed a triptrap of her own, and he saw the past through her eyes, the old man from the lake standing over her, she was strapped in Thirteen, helpless, and the old man applied the electrodes and Freeman twisted in agony as the electricity sliced through their mutual nerve endings, the old man wearing a lab coat now, a tie, taking notes, serious, concerned injecting her with something that made Freeman's brain cloud, the old man and an orderly leading her into the basement, only it was cleaner back then, though still dark. She was put in a cell, the same one in which Vicky was now trapped, and at last Freeman knew.

  The Miracle Woman had died in the cell. She had torn her own eyes out, not wanting to witness any more of the doctor's treatments. She bled to death in silence, able to weep only blood. As Freeman felt her blood pour down his own face, as the hot pain smothered like a molten mask, as she bit her tongue to keep from crying out and drawing the attention of the orderlies, who might save her for yet more misery, Freeman understood that he didn't have an exclusive hold on suffering.

  She freed him from her memories and Freeman clutched his head dazed.

  "Are you okay?" Starlene asked.

  "Yeah." He wiped his cheek before the others noticed. "But I've got to do this alone. She told me so."

  "He's right," Dipes said. "That's the way I saw it happen. We're supposed to go over the
re, into that room. Freeman goes on alone."

  Starlene paused a moment, squeezed Freeman's shoulder, then said, "Okay. But we won't be far away."

  Freeman waited while the three hid in the nearby cell. The triptrap with the Miracle Woman seemed to have taken hours, but the milieu before him in the basement had not changed. Dad stood by the open door to Vicky's cell, mumbling in his crazed voice about validity and breakthroughs and control. Kracowski hung back near the large holding tanks as if wanting to hide in their shadows.

  The Miracle Woman had disappeared, and Freeman knew she was in Vicky's cell, keeping her company, or driving her insane. Because, when you triptrapped a crazy person, then you got crazy, too. Freeman couldn't reach Vicky, at least with his mind. So he would have to reach her the normal, old-fashioned way.

  He swallowed hard and stepped out into the open area of the basement. "Hey, Dad!" he shouted.

  Dad turned, his eyes growing even wider, the grin changing into something sharp and sinister. "Well, this is just perfect. A family reunion, right when I'm about to become the most brilliant person in the universe."

  "What do you want a stupid girl for? She doesn't know anything about the power of the brain."

  "She was available," Dad said. "Didn't I teach you about test runs?"

  "You taught me plenty, Dad. No pain, no gain, right?" He pointed toward Kracowski. "He had the crazy idea that you need to control things, put limits on it. But we know better, don't we, Dad?"

  "That's the old Trooper. Pedal to the metal, wide open, full speed ahead. What do you think of this one?" Dad passed his hand through the soft skull of one of the ghosts. "Can you see his thoughts? He put tin foil in his ears to block out the radio signals being broadcast by secret government agencies. Seems like that's the kind of message you'd want to receive, isn't that right, McDonald?"

  McDonald groaned from the floor, then tried unsuccessfully to rise.

  Kracowski emerged from the shadows, bolted to the computer, and tapped some keys. Dad screamed at him. "Leave it alone, you idiot. Don't you want to be part of the breakthrough?"

  "Not your breakthrough," Kracowski said. "This isn't the experiment."

  Dad jumped at Kracowski, shoving him away from the computer. Kracowski threw a weak punch and missed. Dad knocked Kracowski down and checked the readings, then began frantically working the keyboard.

  "You screwed up my ratios, damn you," he said.

  Kracowski, wiping blood from his mouth, said, "I had to have an override. Once the Trust got too far involved, I figured things might go bad."

  Dad's twisted face was green in the glow of the screen's phosphor. "Bad? Bad? I'll show you goddamned BAD"

  The whine of the machinery intensified, and Freeman knew it was time to make a move, while Dad was distracted. He raced toward Vicky's cell, wading through the ghosts whose cold flesh had grown more solid. The field throbbed as it gained in strength, the walls vibrated the cell doors clanged against stone, the ghosts' thoughts slipped across Freeman's mind. He wondered if this was what it was like to hear voices, to be a full-blown schizophrenic.

  Maybe schizophrenia was more than a condition of the mind, an imbalance in brain chemistry. Maybe it was a reality for some people. Maybe the voices weren't imaginary.

  "Where are you going, you little shit?" Dad yelled at Freeman.

  But Freeman was past him, running through the door into Vicky's cell, diving into the dark, endless void, screaming as he fell upward and downward and sideways all at the same time. The door slammed closed beyond him with a metallic finality.

  FORTY-SIX

  "Vicky?"

  Freeman reached out for her, both with his hands and his mind. The darkness crawled down his throat, solid as a snake. It blinded him and clogged his ears, surrounded him like a second skin.

  The fields shifted again, and from the way the world beyond the darkness shook and trembled, his outside reality was going to break into fragments any second now. If that happened, if everything he'd known and hated and feared and tasted was going to disappear forever, he wanted to be with Vicky when it happened. Inside her.

  Her words came from the bleak black beyond: "Because you don't want to be alone."

  "No, it's more than that." The triptrap worked, and the bridge between them threw off a faint light. She stood at the far end, glowing and pale, scared, ten million miles away.

  "They're breaking it down."

  "I know. Once Dad got involved, it was bound to get screwed up."

  "Come to me. I'm losing you."

  Freeman's heart pounded like a funeral drum near the end of a dirge. If there was a reason for this gift, if it was ever going to do anything for him besides cause him trouble, this was the time. He needed it, whether he was manic or depressed or insane or just a scared little boy. He wanted to touch and know one person before his whole universe blew apart. Who cared what Clint would do? Clint Eastwood had his own life, and no matter what happened to the character in the fantasy world of film, the actor Clint moved on after the final credits.

  Freeman didn't think he'd be so lucky.

  Desperation drove him, excited him, juiced his brain more than any machine ever had. He was on an up like nobody's business.

  The bridge got a little bit brighter, and Vicky was now only a million miles away. He could see her clearly in his mind: blond and pale with fervid eyes, more beautiful than ever because she was reaching back to him, and this time he didn't have to build the bridge alone.

  The light from the bridge pushed back the darkness, and they moved closer together.

  "Come to me, Freeman," she triptrapped.

  Freeman focused on the image of her face, and that brought her more fully into him; he tasted her past, and walked through her pain, and knelt with her as she forced herself to vomit. He absorbed the simultaneous emotions of love and hatred of her father, the man she wanted so desperately to please that she was willing to make herself disappear.

  As he felt that soul-deep sorrow, the bridge dimmed, and she faded back into the darkness at the far end. He was losing her. She'd wanted to disappear, and this was her chance.

  "No, that's wrong," he said.

  "Don't tell me what to feel."

  "You don't have to go away. It's not your fault. And you're not fat."

  "Freeman Mills, you're starting to sound like a shrink again."

  "It's in the genes. I know what I'm talking about. Hold on."

  "But it would be so easy. Nothing but nice, safe dark. Just slip under like a stupid old whale and let all the problems be gone. Instant weight loss."

  "Remember when you gave me hell about feeling sorry for myself? Well, that's what you're doing now. You're being selfish. Believe me. I've been there."

  He triptrapped a memory toward her, the one where he found the razor in the bathroom at Durham Academy, left there by a careless counselor, and he twisted the blade free and put it to his wrist without a single thought except escape.

  He felt her shudder as the metal sliced and the blood spurted as Freeman looked down at the wound and realized this wasn't the way he wanted to go, not as the edges of the world went gray and his thoughts slipped to the floor, not this way, not like Mom He froze, his thoughts hanging like icicles. He'd opened that dark space under the bridge, the place where he'd hidden the bad things.

  But Vicky had seen a glimpse through that brief crack, and now she probed her curiosity making the connection stronger.

  " 'Not like Mom' what?" she asked.

  "Don't even think about it," he said. "Don't even try."

  "Look, a second ago, or whatever passes for time in here, you were wanting me to share everything, get inside, do the one-mind thing. You get my blubber and I get your scars. And now, when things get a little too personal, you back off. What's it going to be, boy?"

  The bridge grew dimmer. He was losing her, shutting her off, crawling back inside himself. Where he would be alone. With the memories.

  Then he knew what hell was like
. It wasn't a hot place where a pointy-tailed beast poked you with a pitchfork. Hell was inside your own head, where the doors were closed, where hope never knocked, where darkness and pain and self-pity were the only companions. Forever. And, as the crazy dead folks could tell him, forever lasted a long time.

  He reached for her again, triptrapped until his brain burned, rode the up, and this time the glow radiated from his head and through his nervous system, warming him, bringing him more fully alive than he'd ever been.

  He wanted this. More than he'd ever wanted anything.

  "This must be faith," he said. "Believing in something. No wonder Starlene gets so high off this stuff."

  "Believe in me, Freeman. Believe in us"

  The bridge flickered to life, grew strong, cut a long golden ribbon through the black deadscape. Vicky was closer now, so near Freeman could reach out and touch, even though his flesh was lost and left behind. This was a touching of the soul.

  Her thoughts flooded him, her love seeping into him like a warm and gentle electricity, a power of life and yearning. They probed each other's dark spaces, threw out their fears and regrets as if they were old clothes in an attic trunk, opened the doors inside and walked together into strange rooms.

  The bridge was heaven-white now, shining, the gap closing, the triptrap taking on something beyond mere mystery.

  He let some of that light into the dark place under the bridge, the place that no one was allowed to see, a memory from the day that Dad took over his head and made him kill Mom. Six years fell away like nothing in the land where time had no meaning.

  Vicky was with him as Dad juiced him and triptrapped him, filled his brain with thoughts, an experiment of Dad's mind control theory, just another day at the office for the world's most daring pioneer, and Freeman had no choice but to leave the closet in Dad's lab and walk through the kitchen and take the knife from the drawer and go down the hall, Dad working his legs, commanding his muscles, making Freeman want to do this, reminding him that Mom demanded perfection even more than Dad did, with her "no second chances" philosophy, convincing him that Mom was the enemy, she was the one who deserved to be punished for bringing Freeman into this sorry world and for letting Dad inflict all those cruel tortures on him.