Coils

Chapter 5

I returned to the condo to change my clothes and toss the shaving kit and a few other things into a flight bag. I saw that there were no new messages in my unit when I approached it to broach the matter of a shuttle flight and a Miami to Philadelphia connection. There were no hitches, and the shuttle was due to depart in forty-five minutes. I locked the place up, got back in my car and headed for the airport. Ann’s ghostly voice did not haunt me again, though I kept expecting to see her every time I turned a corner.

The long flight, I decided, would be just what I needed for sorting out a lot of new thoughts.

I parked, went in and verified my arrival at the desk. I was given a boarding pass, and since I had a little time I bought myself a cup of coffee and took it with me to the waiting area. For the first time since I had awakened, nothing was pressing upon me. I had a few minutes before boarding in which to relax. I settled back into a chair and took a hot gulp.

Ticketderick…?

Relaxing…

Ticketderick.

I closed my eyes and I could feel the pulsing network of electronic activity around me. I guess it is almost omnipresent these days, bat especially concentrated in certain places, airports among them, with data-processing gear all over the place.

“Hello,” I said. “You are soothing” and my mind was massaged by the passing pulses. I thought of nothing. I coiled not, nor did I read…

After several minutes, I withdrew from the flow. I drank more coffee, and I stared out the windows at a taxiing plane upon the runway. I felt better. Between Jack’s medicine chest and a good lunch, all traces of the hangover had fled. My mind was beginning to work as it had not worked in ages. Despite Ann’s warning, I began feeling a small confidence in the success of my mission.

I did not want anything that they had, save for Cora. The only reason that I could see for their having taken her was that they were somehow irritated at my getting my memory back. They wanted some hold over me in case I remembered something damaging to them. I would be glad to promise to keep my mouth shut about anything I remembered, if they would just let her go.

How did they know that I had remembered anything I shouldn’t have?

Baghdad was the first thing to come to mind. Perhaps I had been under surveillance. Or perhaps a big red light went on on a board somewhere if I bought a ticket for Michigan. Or if a psychiatrist ever ran a profile on me through a major medical bank. Or perhaps the Hash Clash and my condo were bugged. Or—Any number of possibilities came to mind. It did not really matter which had served to send the alarm. The fact was that they had suspected I recalled something they’d rather have forgotten.

What?

I strained. There were all sorts of images of me doing things with computers, but they were still too vague. They had wanted Cora for leverage, and now I wanted that memory for counterpressure—just in case my word wasn’t good enough. I hoped the memory would return to me on the way up. If it did not, I would just have to try to bluff it. They were frightened or they would not have acted. That might be in my favor.

Even then, I was not overly concerned for my physical safety. After all, they could have killed me a long time ago had they so desired. Yet they had gone to extreme lengths to provide an alternative, damaging only my ability to recall some things.

The plane came to a stop outside and the passengers disembarked. A few minutes more passed, during which some luggage and freight was unloaded. Then the plane’s interior was being cleaned and the tanks filled.

Shortly thereafter, an attendant entered the area and announced that passengers could begin boarding.

I rubbed my eyes. There was something wrong about the attendant.

I looked again. The man had visible, protruding fangs, and there was a greenish cast to his complexion. Was it some sort of gag? The other passengers took no heed of it and were beginning to move in that direction. I raised my bag and did the same. If it didn’t bother them—

I must have been staring, though, as I passed, for he grinned at me as he inspected my boarding pass—a truly ghastly sight. I went on past, shaking my head. My times were definitely out of joint.

I froze as soon as I stepped out of the building. The plane had vanished. In its place stood a giant, old-fashioned hearse, with dark wooden coachwork and black curtains. It was hitched to a team of huge black horses adorned with sable plumes. I uttered some incoherent noise.

People elbowed past me and proceeded on to board. The horses snorted and tapped at the runway with their hoofs. I turned away. I couldn’t board that thing. I knew that I would die—

Ticketderick?

I closed my eyes, blocking out the sight. I opened my mind. Sanity and consistency prevailed within the electric city of lights which surrounded me. These were defenses against evil visions.

A moment, another pulsebeat or two for it to restore me…

I lowered my head and opened my eyes again. Good, solid concrete, yellow lines painted upon it…

Follow the yellow concrete path…

I began walking.

I bumped into a lady and apologized. I had to look up as I did it.

We were at the foot of the ramp, but the vision had remained constant.

The vehicle was unchanged. I was about to board a glossy death-wagon. I had begun to discover the truth about myself, and now I was being warned against continuing.

I think that I turned away again, ready to examine alternatives to this trip. But then I thought of Cora, the reason I had to make it, the reason I had to board here, no matter what the thing looked like.

I reached out and put my hand on the rail, my eyes clenched shut. One step at a time, I mounted.

When I reached the top, I heard a surprised female voice say, “Is something the matter?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I have a terrible fear of flying. Would you please help me to a seat?”

“Sure. Here.”

I felt my arm taken. She guided me. I blinked my eyes open twice, for quick orientation.

The interior was filled with leering ghouls and monsters; it was illuminated by a flickering and baleful candlelight. I dared not look at the woman who guided me for fear of seeing the triple goddess and knowing I was gone, passed over, taken.

I found a place for my bag beneath the seat before me. Everything felt normal. Whatever the situation, it did not seem to apply to tactile sensations. I located the ends of my seat belt and clasped it about my middle without looking. I knew what I would see if I were to look—namely, that it had become a serpent. Knowing this and seeing it were two different things, however. I had known what the interior here would look like before I’d blinked myself a pair of glimpses moments ago. But the knowledge in itself was several degrees less gut-wrenching than the primary experience. I realized that I was far from rational at the moment, and this knowledge in itself was somehow comforting. After all, I had undergone a psychiatric treatment which had stirred the depths of my being. It had produced results on a rational, practical level. What I was undergoing now, I told myself, was doubtless some sort of reaction by all the forces of unreason in my subconscious. Yes, cling to that, I decided; it puts it all onto the plane of mental health as a kind of balancing of the books. When it’s all over—Plane? Plane. We were moving. On one level, I knew that we were turning, taxiing. On another, I heard a mighty neighing sound and a clatter of hoofs. The wagon jolted from side to side, the coach wheels creaked and clattered.

Ticketderick.

Yes, again. Dive into the smooth flowing operations of the systems all about. Here they were simpler than in the terminal, but a few tiny lights of rational structuring. Yet I held them and flowed with them, entering a kind of trance-like state, circuiting through each functioning level over and over and over again.

I held with it, moving in my own small world of light through a sea of darkness. I was able completely to ignore everything about me for a timeless span until the address system came on and the captain announced that we were about to land at Miami. I knew that that was what he said, but on that other level I heard the chimes as a brazen gong, followed by the voice of Orson Welles, announcing that Donald BelPatri was about to be dropped into a boiling pit where he would remain until the flesh was flensed from his bones. I almost screamed then, but I bit my lip and clenched my hands till the knuckles cracked.

We landed and finally came to a stop. The pressure suddenly vanished. Had my id taken a coffee break, given up now that I was safely arrived? I opened my eyes and saw normal people unfastening belts and picking up bags. I did the same quickly. Everyone near me made a point of avoiding my gaze. I thanked the stewardess again on the way out and made my way into the terminal, unflensed.

Inside, I located my gate, got another boarding pass, visited the Men’s Room, found a drink machine and gulped two icy Cokes in rapid succession. I returned to the boarding area then and took the seat nearest to the entrance tunnel. I wanted to have everything possible in my favor in case of a recurrence of my hallucinations. I performed all of these acts on as basic a motor level as possible, keeping my mind from everything but what my body was doing. But once I sat down the thoughts began to ooze again, at a higher level.

Had what might have been a mere anxiety reaction to my mental readjustments and Cora’s disappearance been forced to such graphic, paranoid levels by virtue of the fact that an actual menace had been made apparent? I had not studied that much psychology in college, but it seemed possible, given the extreme stresses to which I had been subjected.

College? I suddenly realized that I had attended a university. Where? Denver…? That seemed right. I hadn’t finished, though, hadn’t taken my degree… Why not?

Blocked again, but left with a feeling that Ann had had something to do with it, with my leaving school. I had known her that long ago.

Ann… What was her weakness? What was her strength? She had both, in unusual proportions. It seemed important that I should recall what they were, but I was blocked here, also.

I pushed hard. Harder. If my memories of Ann were closed to me, what about Angra? Angra Energy, my erstwhile employer… Computers. Me and computers. I wasn’t an ordinary programmer or systems analyst or anything like that, though. I worked with them in a special capacity—very special, very valuable to Angra—using, yes, my unique sensitivity to the machinery itself, to the machinery and its functioning. I was too valuable for them to waste, even when I was no longer of immediate use. There was always the possibility that they might need me again one day. And so—

The announcement that we would be boarding in five minutes broke through my thoughts, scattered them. I had gained a little more, however. If I could just remember some of the details and some of the people involved…

Had the announcement served as a cue for the neurosis brigade to make its entrance, stage-left? Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. The pressure was back. A before-the-storm feeling, a feeling of imminent doom, was crowding in around me again. I could feel my grip on rational thought-processes loosening…

But I’d been through it once and had survived. And this would be the last time. I swore that I would board no matter what. I rehearsed all of my defenses. I coiled into the fluctuating systems which surrounded me, into the flight display unit, working my way to the control tower, passing through its ever-changing batteries of data, weaving flight and weather information as on a great bright loom…

The boarding announcement came. When I rose and faced the tunnel, displaying my boarding pass to the attendant, there was a wavering, a darkening. I stared into a dank and shadowy cave, serpentine forms writhing upon its walls.

With my remaining objectivity, I estimated fifty paces to its turning, saw that there was no one before me, closed my eyes, extended my left hand to the side and counted them off, concentrating the while on the counting, the walking…

Fifty!

I opened my eyes then, saw that I was almost there and ran. I took the turn, passed into a larger, longer version of the death-wagon, and begged a steward to show me to my seat.

“Forgot my glasses,” I whined. “Can’t read the numbers…”

He was sympathetic, even if he did develop a third eye, orange skin and green hair on the way back to 10A, a window seat

I strapped in, kicked my bag under the seat before me and huddled, trembling. The murmuring voices all about me seemed part of a sinister conspiracy, directed toward myself. I cursed, I prayed, and finally I coiled again, remaining a part of the plane’s systems until we were airborne.

But distractions would come. It was a long flight.

I heard the steward ask me whether I wanted a drink. I told him to bring me a double Scotch and passed him the money, intentionally not looking at him. In doing so, however, I glanced toward the window.

There was no window. It was all open air, as I had somehow known it would be. Stormclouds boiled beneath us. We were riding in a long, wide, open cart, and before us, tossing their curled horns and blowing fire, a thunder-black team of demonic horses dragged us toward a distant mountainpeak—Brocken, I knew—where fires flashed and a giant shadow swayed in the sky, tiny figures dancing below it…

And my fellow passengers—ugly, malevolent, bats darting about them, black cats in their laps, a prevalence of handmade brooms. We were headed for a witches’ sabbath, and of course I knew who was to be the sacrifice…

My drink arrived—a sickly yellow-green in color, with drops of an oily substance floating on its surface.

I took it and closed my eyes. I sniffed it. It was Scotch. I took a large swallow and coughed. It was Scotch.

It warmed my belly like an explosion. I kept my eyes closed. I told myself that I was aboard an airplane headed for Philadelphia. I reached out and touched the cold glass of the window. I felt the back of the seat before me. Silently, I recited what I could remember of the Gettysburg Address. I listened to the flight computer for a time. I thought of Cora…

Yes, Cora. I’m coming. They’re not going to stop me that easily—just a few demons, ghouls, assorted monsters. I know I’m making them up just to keep the trip interesting, to square my mental and emotional accounts. I’m not going crazy. The next time you see me, I’ll be eminently rational as a result. I look upon all of this as cathartic, a beneficial working-out of everything that’s been bothering me at the most basic levels. I’m not going crazy. Honestly, Cora, I can’t be going crazy at this point, can I? It would be the ultimate in irony to gain so much—you, my own identity—and then to blow it all by going off the deep end. No, I have to believe that all of this is serving a higher end—rationality. It must, it must…

I took another drink. Better. A little bit better now. Whatever was there hadn’t hurt me so far. And wasn’t the coven relaxing with drinks of its own now, anyway? Sigh, BelPatri. When did you give up smoking? It seems that you used to…

And then the hand was tipped, and I knew that I had been had.

“Would you care for a snack, sir?”

Automatically, I opened my eyes as I replied in the negative. The steward was still monstrous, but my gaze went past him, out, down, into the open temple of columns, blocks, statuary above which we were passing, where youths played flutes and maidens danced. And there, in its midst, upon a kind of altar between flaming braziers, two gray old women were dismembering a child with their bare hands, tearing at it, crushing the bones in their jaws, blood streaming from their mouths. They became aware of my gaze. They turned and shook their fists. It was horrible, yet it was also familiar. It was—“ ‘Snow’,” I said aloud. “ ‘Snow’! God damn you! I remember!” It was Hans Castorp’s dream in the chapter titled “Snow” in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain—which I had read in a Lit. course back in college, which I had mentioned to Ann, discovering that she, too, had read the book. We had spent an entire evening discussing the significance of that scene, of the merging of the Apollonian and Dionysiac, the Classical and the formless, intellect and emotion-She knew what an impression it had made upon me once. I took a deep breath. I smelled lilies of the valley. The aroma had been with me all along, subliminal, overwhelmed by the sensory assaults.

My dear Ann, I said silently, if you are capable of hearing what I am thinking right now—screw you! You slipped up on that one. I know what you’re doing. I know where you’re coming from. It’s not good enough.

The view below me wavered, grew insubstantial. I was sitting in an airplane, with normal people. I was not going crazy, my psyche was not turning itself inside-out. She was somehow projecting hallucinations at me. But that was all that they were—all shadow and no substance.

Minutes later, they returned. We were being attacked by super-fast pterodactyls which tore pieces out of the wings. I regarded them coldly for a time and then closed my eyes again. They were still distracting, and I wanted to think about important matters, like what I was going to say to my former employers when I reached their headquarters.