Dark Passage Page 2

  Tyson’s face registered confusion.

  “Serial drug testers. Drug Cowboys. They join as many studies as they can, falsifying and tailoring their medical histories to fit whatever they feel the researcher is looking for. There’s a lot of money to be made.”

  “I can see how that’s a problem.”

  “An enormous problem, but enough about that. I need to understand a little more about your nightmares before we proceed.”

  Tyson swallowed and his throat made an audible clicking noise.

  “Kinda hard to say. I mean, I don’t remember all that much. It’s more sensations really.”

  “Oh, and how would you describe these sensations?”

  Tyson looked at Stevens and that hazy sleepy feeling he’d carried around with him every day for the past six months was suddenly gone.

  “Terror. I mean, whenever I let myself fall asleep, I wake up screaming. I’m not kidding. So loud my voice gets hoarse and I can’t speak for days. Something’s inside the room with me, that’s all I really know for sure. I can smell it and hear it, shambling along the floor. I’ve never seen it, but every other sense tells me its there.” Tyson took a deep breath and looked away.

  “Is that all?”

  Tyson’s hands were in his lap, clasped together so hard his fingers had gone bone white. “No, there is something else.” Tyson shifted in the tiny plastic chair and it creaked loudly. “Flies. My dreams are filled with them. Thousands, maybe millions and they’re buzzing around me, trying to get into my mouth, crawling into my ears and up my nostrils. And then the flies are gone and there’s something…someone in the room with me. They look fuzzy, like when the projector guy at the movies falls asleep and everything goes out of whack. Somehow I know I shouldn’t move. It’s the movement he senses. Air displacement, thermal variations. CSI stuff. I’m not sure, but he can feel you. Even when every ounce of light’s been sucked clean out of a room he knows where you are.” Tyson’s heart was hammering and he unsnapped the top button of his shirt. He wasn’t getting enough air. He could feel his lungs contracting violently, trying to pull in precious oxygen. His hand started for the inhaler and he stopped himself. Physically stopped his hand. Thick threads of sweat were running down his face.

  “Mr. Barrett? Are you all right?” Stevens’ voice was barren. Stephen Hawking and his robotic voice box might have sounded more compassionate.

  Tyson’s breathing slowed. He could feel his control inching back. A hint of color was returning to his otherwise opaque and tired complexion.

  Stevens was looking at him intently now. “A mythological dream, interesting.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What you’re describing sounds like Ahriman.”

  Still reeling, Tyson didn’t have the faintest idea what Stevens was going on about.

  “A myth, sometimes used in psychological profiling. Ahriman was a demon the ancient Persians believed entered our world in the form of a fly.”

  “Oh great.”

  “Have you ever considered any of the several therapeutic avenues other than medication?”

  “You name it, I’ve tried it: talk therapy, group therapy, meditation, biofeedback, hypnosis, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy.”

  If Stevens could sense the lie he didn’t show it. He stood up, straightened his white lab coat and thrust out that wet limp biscuit he called a hand. “I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Barrett. For now we’ll overlook that little issue with your age. You’ve passed the screening. Welcome aboard.”

  Tyson stood and took Stevens’ hand, a beaming smile on his face and he couldn’t help feeling like a man in a long dark tunnel who finally spotted a faint glimmer of light up ahead.

  • • •

  Tyson found the cot that would be his for the next hour. He was to take his introductory sample of Noxil and then record his initial reaction. Tyson had no sooner sat down when he spotted the man in the bunk next to him. The man had his back propped against the wall and a weathered cowboy hat slung over his face. One of the nurses was hunched over him, attempting to take a sample of blood from his arm. She didn’t appear to be having much luck.

  “Watch my veins, honey,” he mumbled. “They tend to roll.” He raised his hat with his free hand just in time to see the look of annoyance flash across her face. That was when he noticed Tyson next to him.

  “Looks like they found another guinea pig,” he said and burst into phlegmy laughter. His body gyrated wildly as though this were the funniest joke he’d ever heard and the nurse, now red faced and looking like she’d just about had enough, threw her hands into the air and stormed off.

  His eyes followed the curve of her buttocks as she left. “Hell, we don’t need her. The way she was poking and prodding you’d think she was takin’ me to the prom.”

  The hand he held out was stubby and well manicured. The man hadn’t worked a day in his life. “Vance Fowler. Call me Vance.”

  Tyson reciprocated. “Tyson.”

  “I feel like I’ve seen you before. Out on the circuit maybe? Were you at Flopoxia in Houston last month?”

  “Flopox—”

  “Hmm, or was it Xanadin back in January?” He seemed to be talking to himself now.

  Tyson straightened. “This is my first clinical trial, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Hell, this is my…” he was counting his fingers now, “thirty-fifth. No, thirty-sixth. So hard to keep track. I’m telling you, after the first dozen it’s all a blur.”

  “So you’re not here for nightmares?”

  “Nightmares?” Vance let out a spastic burst of laughter. “Only nightmare I have is about the check bouncing before I can cash it. Apparently they’re paying 2k for this beaut. Most I’ve ever made on any clini is 10k, but that was a real whore down in Colorado. Had a tube stuck up my ass the size of a vacuum hose for nearly a week. Hose up the ass ain’t pretty, but I’m sure ol’ Dr. Stevens would disagree.” Vance was winking wildly.

  “He mentioned guys like you,” Tyson said. “Called you serial testers.”

  “Yeah, well, Dr. Knowitall Stevens can hardly tell his arse from his elbow.”

  Vance glanced around and when he settled back on Tyson the expression on his face was dire. “I’m gonna tell you something. If you’re thinking of making a go, this ain’t no business for pussies. Two good buddies of mine got caught in that TGN1412 mess over in England. They’d done too much mixing, just gotten off more than a dozen studies between the two of them. Topped over fifty grand. Except one of them ended up a veggie burger and the other had his insides turned to mush.” Vance paused, his eyes scrutinizing Tyson. “I gotta say, call me crazy, but with the way your eyes are all puffed out and that pale complexion of yours, I’d swear you were a pro.”

  Tyson felt the heat rise up his neck and into his face. Although he had to admit there was something he found downright fascinating about a guy who made his living whoring his body out to pharmaceutical companies. As far as looking like a bag of shit went, that was something he couldn’t deny. The heavy sunken eyes, the pale, translucent skin. Running these last six months on a total of twelve hours of restless sleep would make anyone look like a Courtney Love stunt double. Tyson was midway through convincing himself that Vance had dropped one too many Noxil when he saw an image of himself at home in his bathroom, wrapped in a dirty housecoat, peeling open the medicine cabinet. Saw his hand, lined with thick bulbous veins, searching frantically through a veritable cityscape of pill bottles. One of them careened off the thin glass ledge and tumbled end over end until it connected with the bathroom sink and exploded, spraying tiny yellow capsules in all directions. He had been looking for a remedy for whatever disease or obscure sickness had been ailing him at the time. The memory couldn’t have been much more than a day old.

  “Mr. Barrett?”

  The voice was delicate and young and Tyson looked up, wondering for a moment if he was dreaming. The nurse was beautiful and she filled her uniform in all the right
places. The hazy smile on Tyson’s face probably made him look medicated.

  The nurse placed a small plastic container on the table next to him, undid the two latches and lifted the lid. Inside was something that looked like a stun gun.

  “What’s that for?” he asked. Her eyes were like two swimming pools filled with sapphires and he was having a hard time looking away.

  “This is your auto injector. It’s a spring powered jet gun.” The nurse removed a tiny vile of blue liquid from the pocket of her uniform and slid it into the back of the injector. “Sit back and relax, this won’t hurt a bit.”

  Tyson did as he was told. The nurse placed the rounded tip against the flesh of his arm and pressed a button with her thumb. It made a whooshing that sounded a lot like his asthma pump. Something about that noise set him at ease.

  His eyes focused on the shape next to him and found Vance looking on with an amused expression. Tyson thought of what Vance had just said about too much mixing and what it had done to those friends of his in England. The muscles in Tyson’s gut started to slowly curl into a tight fist.

  Maybe there was a bit of pro in him after all.

  Chapter 3

  Sunnybrook Asylum, Upstate NY

  “The facility houses over five hundred patients,” Dr. Kenneth Bowes was saying as the elevator doors slid open onto the eighth floor. He stepped out, followed closely by Dr. Elias Hunter. Peering down at the top of Dr. Bowes’ balding head, Hunter was struck for the first time by how truly short the man was.

  And tanned.

  He’d heard about doctors like Bowes in med school. The kind who left every lunch hour for a quick round of golf. He was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t made a mistake accepting the job at Sunnybrook.

  “The eighth floor is where we keep patients who’ve been convicted of violent crimes.”

  “You mean the ones who copped an insanity plea,” Hunter added.

  Dr. Bowes glanced back and his eyes were hard and gray. “I mean the ones with great lawyers.”

  Hunter laughed even though he suspected Bowes hadn’t been joking.

  “I’d say only somewhere around half of the patients on this floor truly deserve to be here.”

  They turned a corner and headed down a dimly lit hallway. On either side, thick metal doors with tiny port glass windows stretched on for as far as the eye could see.

  A woman shrieked from a room somewhere behind them and Hunter nearly jumped. But he didn’t. And that was the point. He caught himself because he knew very well that Dr. Bowes had his radar switched on, searching for just such a reaction. It was what this entire tour was really all about.

  The goal wasn’t to show Hunter around the shadowy maze that was Sunnybrook Asylum. It was about checking him at the door for any signs of fear. Hunter knew from experience that if any of the doctors or even a staffer could see it, you could bet the nuts—patients, he corrected himself, patients—could smell it coming a mile away just as they could probably smell Dr. Bowes’ cheap cologne the minute he pulled into the staff parking lot.

  “In addition to taking care of Sunnybrook’s daily operations, I’m also the resident MD,” Bowes was saying. “So you can imagine how much I have on my plate. That was why we even gave your application a second look. We didn’t even care that you graduated from Albany Medical College. Hey, not everyone can afford John Hopkins.” Bowes paused and Hunter wondered if the old man was taking a second to let the burn sink in. “All that aside, it’ll be nice to have another physician on staff.”

  The two men were padding down the hallway at a descent clip when something in room H-16 caught Hunter’s attention. It looked like a woman surrounded by a battery of medical equipment. Perhaps that sort of thing might not look out of place in an ER, but here?

  “Who’s this?” Hunter asked, reaching for the door handle. That was when Dr. Bowes rushed forward to stop him. Hunter could see the white lines on Bowes’ face where the golf course sun hadn’t quite been able to breach his wrinkled skin.

  “We never just enter a patient’s room without following the proper protocol, Dr. Hunter.”

  Bowes stepped up to the thick metal door and peered through the concave glass.

  “Room H-16 belongs to Brenda Barrett,” he said with a hint of derision.

  “She’s not doing very well, is she?”

  “Brenda’s been under constant medical supervision since she slipped into a coma last fall. No room in any of the proper big city facilities, so we’ve had to hang onto her.”

  “How bad is she?”

  “Her coma’s about as deep as they come. Level three on the Glasgow scale, which I’m sure you learned at Albany means she doesn’t do much more than just lie there. She wouldn’t even be breathing if it weren’t for all the hardware we have her hooked up to.”

  Hunter ignored the dig. “Any idea what caused it?”

  “At the moment we have no idea. We suspect she may have been given the wrong medication. There is a woman at the end of the hall named Beverly Barretti, getting Paxilin, so it’s not implausible that a mix-up might have happened.”

  “All that time and she’s not brain-dead?” Even Hunter wasn’t quite sure if he was asking a question or making a statement.

  “Brain-dead? Far from it. Brenda’s CT scans show that her brain activity is abnormally high.”

  “When you say abnormally high…”

  “Off the charts.”

  “I’m not sure I follow. She’s in a coma, but her brain is—”

  “As active as someone playing Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony.”

  Hunter’s eyes widened. “Impressive, the Third Symphony’s a complicated piece. Which instrument are you referring to?”

  Bowes looked up at him. “All of them.”

  Hunter couldn’t hide his astonishment. “Any idea what’s causing it?”

  A strange mix of concern and fear washed over Dr. Bowes’ face.

  “We think she’s dreaming.”

  Chapter 4

  Tyson could see the cottage in the distance now, through a clearing of dense foliage; a brown, bungalow style with a single stone chimney, nestled along the edge of Lake Harmony. Although it couldn’t have been much more than an hour west of New York City, the ride had been a near disaster.

  His eyes had kept trying to close on him.

  That sluggish feeling had started no more than thirty minutes after he had hit the 17 North and an hour after that sexy nurse have given him his first shot of Noxil.

  Twice he had stopped to splash water on this face and check his messages. There were two. Both from his long time friend and business partner Skip Williams. Skip was wondering if he had managed to find the cottage all right. This whole getaway had been Skip’s brainchild and it had come wrapped in the form of a stinging ultimatum.

  Deep down Tyson couldn’t really blame him. Even now, he was still lucid enough to recognize that trying to run your life, let alone your business, off of zero sleep was next to impossible. When Ruma had packed up their five-year-old son Kavi and told him she was moving into an apartment, well, the shit had really hit the fan. Add to that the brilliant news that she was doing her gynecologist.

  Tyson’s life had been in the process of slowly circling the toilet bowel when Skip had first suggested he join the clinical trial. Yes, it was still somewhat of an underground study, Skip had told him, but what have you got to lose?

  It was then that his friend and business partner of over a decade had offered this little gem as an incentive: “Tyson, I love you, buddy, and that’s why I’m giving you two choices. A: Take some time off and come back when you’ve got this thing under control, or B: Sign our company and all of its assets over to me right now.” He had even brought the bloody documents and a pen—the same Mont Blanc fountain pen Tyson had given him last year for his birthday.

  As much as Tyson didn’t like to admit it, there had been something self-destructively appealing about option b. The prospect of watching your life go so effortl
essly down in flames had become an almost daily fantasy. And the truth was that for a time, he hadn’t been sure which one he would choose. In the end, Skip had made that decision for him in a way that only Skip could do.

  “Wondering if you could do me a big favor during that hiatus of yours,” Skip had asked sheepishly, as though the ‘hiatus’ was already a done deal. “Spring’s in full swing and the local crank who normally opens my summer home, airs everything out and dusts away the cobwebs, had a stroke. I know I’m asking a lot, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to take those few days to help an old friend out.”

  Old friend! You sly son of a bitch, you!

  Tyson knew what his friend was up to and he certainly appreciated it but…

  “Shouldn’t really take you more than a day or two to get her in order. Turn the water back on, check the oil in the furnace—should still be full if it hasn’t leaked all over the goddamn place—and remove the dust covers from the furniture. You run into any trouble you can always give Judy Stahl a call. She’s just down the lake and would be happy to give you a hand—hell, Ty, you might even get lucky.”

  They laughed, each for different reasons. Tyson, because he couldn’t imagine any woman wanting him right now in the state he was in. Even with all this time between him and the separation, Ruma’s little indiscretion and subsequent disappearing act had left him wary of females. No, he wouldn’t call Judy Stahl, he decided, even if the bloody place looked like it might go sliding into the lake. What he needed was a little solo time, in a place where things moved at a pace where he could get a firm handle on where he was and where he wanted to go.

  Skip had seen the tide turning in the internal debate ragging in Tyson’s head and a gap-toothed grin began to appear.

  “When you get back we’ll be poised to get this dot.com of ours off the ground. The venture capitalists are circling, Tyson. Good things are in store. I can feel it!”