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

Chapter 27

The mid-morning sun shone splendid rays through the dirty panes of Ryan's bedroom window. Everything ached, and as his mind departed from its nocturnal dormancy, he slowly raised his body as though rising from the dead. The more he moved, the more it hurt.

"Holy fuck," he said through clenched teeth. He was just discovering that it was possible for every muscle to hurt at the same time. Getting to his feet, Ryan became painfully aware that they hurt far more than the rest of his body. Twisting his back in both directions, Ryan heard and felt the bones in his spine realign themselves. It didn't take away all the aches, but at least he found it easier to move.

The days were slowly warming, and the one item of importance that had slipped Ryan's mind was an air conditioner. Waking in sweat-soaked sheets solidified the need to purchase an air conditioning unit, and he planned on doing so within the week. But for the time being, a long, hot shower would wash away the sweat and bring needed warmth to his aching body. Leaning against the shower wall, he let the hot water run down his skin and over his muscles, and after twenty minutes, Ryan stepped out onto the bathroom rug. His mind and body retuned. Ryan had made up his mind that he would be in better shape before again straying so far afield.

Upon dressing, Ryan retreated to the kitchen for a modest breakfast -- eggs, toast, sausage, and orange juice. He logged onto his laptop and navigated to the Portland Press Herald. He skimmed through the national section, then clicked on the link for the local news. The first article to appear was about a missing young woman matching Theresa's description. Ryan felt little, if any, concern. After all, missing persons reports are filed all the time. The internet is full of pictures, descriptions, and locations, and he considered the increasing number of missing people to be an indicator of the direction the world was headed. Nothing more.

After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, Ryan thought it a good idea to get out for a morning walk, if for no other reason than to work the kinks and stiffness out of his tired muscles. Yesterday's lengthy hike had taken more out of him than he first thought. Stepping outside, he took a deep breath of morning air as he stretched his limbs and turned his shoulders from side to side. Ryan bent down to stretch out his back and legs when he was taken by surprise by something near his feet -- footprints. They lay in the muddy earth, their existence a waking nightmare, as Ryan's mind returned to the strange dream he had experienced only two or three days ago. Without thinking, he slipped off one of his shoes for comparison. Lacking a shoe made it easier to see that the footprints were not his. Struck by the fear of being discovered, Ryan fell into a spiral of panic. "Fuck!" he yelled. "I don't fucking need this!" He paced back and forth for a short time, His hands on his forehead, his fingers tightly woven into his hair. "Shit!"

Someone had made a visit, and Ryan quickly found himself in a state of panic. He looked in the direction the tracks pointed in and followed them. They circled the cabin and disappeared into the woods. Ryan traced them back around the cabin with the same results. He couldn't find where they came from and didn't know where they went, and standing at the edge of the woods, the prints vanished. His anger quickly evolved from the fear associated with this unknown visitor.

"Stay the fuck away from me!" he yelled. "I fucking mean it!"

Maybe someone had gotten lost. Maybe, like himself, whoever it was had simply been out for a hike. Either way, Ryan knew that a high degree of vigilance would be needed. However, he was struck by the fact that they didn't approach the door or any of the windows. They simply wandered around the cabin and vanished into the woods.

Eventually, Ryan calmed down enough to see that there had been no attempt to break in. Perhaps they decided to turn back, using the cabin as the end of their wandering. But the ground was wet, and the news reported a heavy storm had passed through the night before. So why would anyone be out walking around in the woods at night in a thunderstorm? None of it made sense. This especially bothered him, and all things taken together, Ryan was unable to resolve it. For now, he would consider it to be a fluke but one that deserved cautionary measures.

Putting his morning walk aside, Ryan decided that the idea of establishing a few simple security measures would be worth the effort, and after retrieving a hammer and some nails, he secured all the windows from the inside. As the front door was the only entrance into the cabin, Ryan decided to install two or three more locks. He couldn't explain what was going on but made every effort to keep whoever was out there from getting in. Now, he would be on his guard. There was, however, the almost completely repressed voice of reason whispering that this could be nothing more than an odd, singular event. But Ryan's mind had become clouded by the heightened anxiety that comes with paranoia. For Ryan, he was already at war, and he was expecting the worst -- whatever that might be.

After installing two locks and nailing the windows shut, Ryan thought that a search of the surrounding woods might turn up the source of the footprints that encircled his cabin. If nothing else, he might be able to ascertain a general direction, then consult a map for a possible source -- a house, a campsite, anything. He wanted to believe that this was a one-time event, but he had to be sure. So during the mid-afternoon, he began combing the woods within two square miles of the cabin. He found nothing. Ryan emerged from the woods an hour and a half after beginning his search. He was frustrated, angry and a bit scared. Not by the possibility of being caught, but by the unknown. He was unable to find the beginning or end of the tracks. They simply started and stopped at the tree line.

Then, he was struck with an idea. Ryan would conduct an experiment of sorts. He retrieved a pine bough from the woods and brushed out the footprints. When this had been accomplished, he spread a thin scattering of flour across the ground. He hoped tonight would be free of rain so as not to wash it away. But one thing was certain: until this was resolved, sleep would be a rare commodity, and he saw himself being kept awake by the smallest sounds. Or worse, the cessation of the things that ordinarily echoed through the woods -- frogs, crickets, the yipping bay of coyotes. Even the wind.

Ryan was far too tense to eat that night and was constantly looking out through the kitchen window. He didn't quite know what he expected to see, perhaps a haunting form limping across the ground in front of the cabin -- a hideous face pressed up against the window, eyes glaring, mouth drooling down the glass. His mind was flooded with images of the most horrific creatures his imagination could conjure. What would be more terrifying was if nothing happened, to be left in a night of screaming silence, with time suspended and existence contracted down to the eternal flickering of fear and aloneness. Perhaps being forced to listen to just one sound from the living nocturnal wilderness was better than the curse of silence.

Before turning in for the night, Ryan walked the stairs leading to the basement. Having missed a day of postmortem upkeep, the smell of decomposition exploded from the basement as a noxious cloud of vomit-inducing gas. Ryan was forced to remove his shirt and place it over his mouth and nose. Normally, he was able to tolerate the odor of liquefying flesh, as he had practically been living in it. Now, with only one day missed from his otherwise daily routine, Ryan was learning what the consequences of forgetfulness could be, and in spite of using his shirt as a primitive filter, the smell still managed to find its way through. The only thing that kept him from his task of spraying down the dangling bodies was more than the occasional bout of gagging. This was a new experience for Ryan. For as long as he had been, essentially, butchering the dead, the smell had not affected him. But having taken some time away from what he thought of as work, Ryan guessed that he had likely developed a sensitivity to it, and with recent developments, his priorities had shifted to resolving the issue of his mysterious guest. But what would he do if he encountered this visitor? So far, he hadn't even considered it, much less formed a plan.

As expected, sleep proved elusive. Ryan tossed and turned, his mind unable to find a quiet place within itself to drift. He rose a few times during the night to pace, his fearful anticipation leading him through the cabin, searching for any signs of intrusion. One might think that finding nothing would be a relief. But this only contributed to Ryan's paranoid anticipation as he checked and double-checked the door locks. The only thing that seemed out of sorts was his state of mind. He had been so caught up in life after school that he was entirely unaware of his mental decline and came to see the world through the eyes of a fractured mind. And had been for quite some time. But now, the chasm was growing wider, and Ryan was fast losing his grip. Soon, he would no longer be able to maintain his already tenuous handhold on reality and would plummet into the unrecoverable depths of madness. His unraveling psyche would be his undoing.

Returning to his bedroom, Ryan noticed how much warmer it was. Being on the second floor, heat tends to rise to the upstairs while cooler air settled to the first floor. The air was stifling, like walking through warm spit. Unless he established some flow of air, he would only be torturing himself. So before he went back to bed, Ryan opened the window and stood in front of it as a mild wind pushed air into the bedroom, bringing with it the relaxing smell of the woods. He found the smell of the nighttime woods almost intoxicating and breathed it in deeply. Certainly, there couldn't be anything creeping around in the dark that would interfere with the bond between man and nature. But like all indescribable moments, this one was just as fleeting, and in that short span of time, Ryan felt its tranquilizing effects as his eyelids grew heavy and the tension that filled his mind drained away. Ryan had begun to fall asleep while standing in front of the open window, and it was only when his head dropped forward that he thought it would be best to return to bed. With the door triple-locked and the first-floor windows nailed shut, Ryan left the bedroom window open. There wasn't anything that Lake Sebago could produce that was capable of ascending a vertical wall. Anything that got in would have to have wings, and anything that left human footprints would likely be wingless.