Digger - The Doctor Will See You Now by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 26

He turned in early that night with plans of doing some hiking the next morning. His dreams always seemed to take on a life of their own. Dreams are, after all, a means of both reflection and a necessary process of healing both mind and body. But Ryan's dreams took a more confusing turn, and as he drifted off into a deep sleep, he found himself walking a sandy beach. The shoreline went on forever, fading off into the horizon. In the wet sand was a path of footprints. The saturated sand had not yet swallowed them up, so they appeared to be fresh. But as Ryan looked ahead, he saw no one. The tracks seemed to go on for miles, with no one there to create them. Becoming highly curious, Ryan began a slow, steady jog, hoping to find their creator. Still, with no one in sight, Ryan became determined to find the source of footprints that seemed to refuse to fade away. He continued his pursuit to the point of becoming breathless with exhaustion and, standing on the beach, bent down and grasped his knees. With closed eyes, Ryan let his body recover and was soon able to breathe comfortably. Looking down the beach, the trail of footprints was still present and unchanged. But something was different. It wasn't something he could see, but something he felt. His eyes drifted back from the distance until they met his feet, and looking down, Ryan was startled to what he saw. His own feet now appeared to be the source of the footprints. He spun around, looking back to find that any tracks –- his or otherwise –- had disappeared completely. Comparing the bottom of his shoe to the tracks in front of him, he found them to be identical. His head began swirling with confusion. If he wasn't at the beginning of the trail, where was he? And what was at the end? Perhaps he was always at the beginning, never moving forward, but at the beginning. His mind became foggy as it sought a rational explanation. But something this irrational leads to only one thing. Fear.

Ryan was startled awake by something that his mind could not comprehend, and sitting up on the side of the bed, he tried to shake off the confusion that now plagued his drowsy mind. Clearing his faculties, he noticed the foggy beams of dawn streaming through the window. "Fuck," he said quietly. "Might as well get up." Rising to his feet, he immediately began to feel the effect of a late-night out. But there was only one thing that would remedy that degree of exhaustion. Coffee. It could well be the one thing gifted by the gods to all humanity, and after a modest breakfast, Ryan walked down the basement stairs to spray down the remaining bodies. The odor was noticeably less severe in the absence of the most degraded body. The second might soon be disposed of as well.

Emptying his day pack of the books and notes from what seemed like ages ago, during his time at UNE, he filled it with such items as bottled water, a light lunch and a trail book of the area. In spite of the disturbing dream that invaded his sleep, he thought it fortunate that he was up so early. This would provide him more time to hike the area. Perhaps even hike a bit of the lakeshore. His only goal was to forget, even for a day, to put behind him the smell of rotting flesh and liquefying organs. And although Ryan remembered their faces, whoever they were in life didn't seem to matter to him. It wasn't that he felt the need for emotional detachment. He simply didn't care, they were just objects, things to bury his curiosity in. He had long since lost sight of his desire to return to UNE as his curiosity had consumed him, his mind having drifted into obsession. Death had become a way of life, and the only ghosts that haunted him were the ones that forced their way into his sleep.

Ryan spent a good part of the day exploring the woods, following a trail that led to the lake. Approaching the tree line, he stood back to take in the view as he watched children playing in the sand and women sunning their golden bodies on the beach. Ryan stayed long enough that one bikini-clad woman began to feel his gaze and, sitting up, searched the woods behind her. Ryan was gone before their eyes could meet. Moving back into the woods, he continued watching her from a slightly greater distance. She was magnificent and had a shape that would make an hourglass jealous. When most women lay on their backs, their breasts usually followed. This woman, however, lay on a large beach towel, her breasts set themselves up as though defying gravity. And even though he spied her from a distance, he would swear that the woman's cleavage reached up almost to the bottom of her neck. Perhaps next time, he would return with a pair of binoculars.

Ryan continued on the trail that encircled the smaller part of the lake, where other women basked themselves in the warm sun. But none held a candle to the well-endowed, scantily clad goddess he'd first seen. Not that he was making comparisons. It was just something any man would notice. He thought that perhaps he would approach her another time. But walking out to the woods toward her might not be the best way to meet.

He hiked the lakeshore until around 3 o'clock. Keeping himself well hydrated didn't completely help to avoid the effects of the sun, and shortly before three-thirty, Ryan decided it was time to turn back. At some point, the trail intersected with the main road, leaving Ryan with the opportunity to take a shortcut. Walking only three to four miles, he easily recognized the dirt road leading to the cabin. Finally arriving, Ryan stumbled into the cabin and collapsed on the couch. It occurred to him that he may have overestimated his level of endurance. After all, he wasn't much of an outdoorsman.

His exhaustion led him to turn in early, having become as mentally drained as he was physically. His daily ritual of spraying down the bodies that hung like so much meat in a slaughterhouse had slipped his tired mind. But after a long day in the sun, a good sleep would be healing, and his worn-out mind and body left him drifting into a deep sleep, undisturbed by the ethereal rantings normally produced in his increasingly troubled psyche. On this night, Ryan would tumble off the edge of the mundane. He would lose touch with his existence, if only for a night. Even the thunderstorm that rolled through the area would not wake him. In spite of its howling winds, torrential rain and the chaos of light and sound birthed from the roiling heavens, his body lay unmoved for the duration of the night.