False Memory

In the gloaming, Martie was uneasily aware of the fertile life to which the sun was forbidding but to which the night offered hospitality. She was aware, too, that an awful centipedal part of herself shared an enthusiasm for the night with all the wriggling creeping-crawling-slithering life that came out of hiding between dusk and dawn. The squirming she felt within herself was not just fear; it was a dreadful hunger, a need, an urge that she dared not contemplate.

Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, and make a safe house, make a refuge in which nothing remains that might be dangerous in violent hands.

New Life was staffed primarily by nurses and therapists, but a medical doctor was on site from six o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night. The current shift was covered by Dr. Henry Donklin, whom Dusty had first met during Skeet’s previous course of treatment at the clinic.

With curly white hair, with baby-pink skin remarkably smooth and supple for his age, Dr. Donidin had the cherubic good looks of a successful televangelist, although he was without the concomitant oiliness that suggested an easy slide into damnation for many of those electronic preachers.

After closing his private practice, Dr. Donidin had discovered that retirement was hardly more appealing than death. He had taken this position at New Life because the work was worthwhile even if not challenging and, in his words, “saves me from the stifling purgatory of endless golf and the living hell of shuffleboard.”

Donklin gripped Skeet’s left hand, and even in his sleep, the kid weakly returned the squeeze. The physician successfully repeated the test with Skeet’s right hand.

“No obvious signs of paralysis, no stertorous breathing,” Donklin said, “no puffing of the cheeks on expiration.”

“Pupils are equally dilated,” Tom Wong noted.

After checking the eyes himself, Donklin continued his brisk examination. “Skin isn’t clammy, normal surface temperature. I’d be surprised if this is apoplectic coma. Not hemorrhage, embolism, or thrombosis. But we’ll revisit that possibility and transfer him to a hospital if we can’t identify the problem quickly.”

Dusty allowed himself a measure of optimism.

Valet stood in a corner, head raised, intently watching the proceedings — perhaps alert for a return or reoccurrence of whatever had raised his hackles and had driven him from the room a short while ago.

At the doctor’s direction, Tom prepared to catheterize Skeet and obtain a urine sample.

After leaning close to his unconscious patient, Donklin said, “He doesn’t have sweet breath, but we’ll want to check the urine for albumin and sugar.”

“He’s not diabetic,” Dusty said.

“Doesn’t look like uremic coma, either,” the physician observed. “He’d have a hard, fast pulse. Elevated blood pressure. None of the symptoms here.”

“Could he be just sleeping?” Dusty asked.

“Sleep this deep,” Henry Donklin said, “you need a wicked witch casting a spell or maybe a bite from Snow White’s apple.”

“The thing is — I got a little frustrated with him, the way he was behaving, and I told him to just go to sleep, said it sort of sharply, and the moment I said it, he zonked out.”

Donklin’s expression was so dry that his face looked as if it needed to be dusted. “Are you telling me you’re a witch?”

“Still a housepainter.”

Because he didn’t believe that apoplexy was involved, Donklin risked the application of a restorative; however, a whiff of ammonium carbonate — smelling salts — failed to revive Skeet.

“If he’s just sleeping,” the physician said, “then he must be a descendant of Rip van Winkle.”

Because the trash container held only the box of cutlery and because its wheels were large, Martie was able to drag it up the short flight of stairs onto the back porch with little difficulty. From inside the well-taped box, through the walls of the can, came the angry music of knives ringing against one another.

She had intended to roll the container inside. Now she realized that she would be bringing the knives into the house again.

Hands locked on the handle of the trash can, she was frozen by indecision.

Ridding her home of all potential weapons must be priority one. Before full darkness descended. Before she surrendered more control of herself to the primitive within.

Into her stillness came a greater storm of fear, rattling all the doors and windows of her soul.

Move, move, move.

She left the back door standing open and parked the wheeled trash can on the porch, at the threshold, where it was near enough to be convenient. She removed the lid and put it aside on the porch floor.

In the kitchen once more, she pulled open a cabinet drawer and scanned the gleaming contents: flatware. Salad forks. Dinner forks. Dinner knives. Butter knives. Also ten steak knives with wooden handles.