Tunnel Vision

64

It was nearly three in the morning, and Zack and Sarah were still sitting in his apartment, the obits in a pile on the kitchen table between them. “There’s another possibility,” he said.

“What?”

“That I crossed over and linked up with something evil on the other side.”

“Evil? Like supernatural?”

He nodded. “Sarah, my mind feels violated, like I’m psychically bonded to a psychopathic killer.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Is it? You all said I experienced transcendence, right?”

“Yeah, clinically. But—”

“And my blood showed spikes of rage?”

“Well, the adrenaline—”

“And that I merged with another mind?”

“Possibly.”

“What if that other mind is my dead father?”

“What?”

“I know how crazy that sounds,” he said. “But what if I crossed over and released his spirit, and it’s hot with vengeance, and he went after those bastards. And somehow I mind-linked with him. I’ve been feeling his presence since that first day in the lab.”

“You mean his ghost came back and killed them?”

“Got a better explanation?”

“No. And I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Neither did I, and now I’m afraid of them.”

“Zack, even if ghosts exist, I doubt they can overpower a weightlifter or drive a car.”

“If I didn’t do it myself, then what the hell am I picking up?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t believe you killed them.”

“That’s a relief.” She didn’t want anything, but he went over to the refrigerator for another glass of milk. Milk, he thought as he stared into the glass. So innocent and ordinary. It wasn’t long ago when his own life was innocent and ordinary. “So, if it wasn’t me, how the hell did I see those murders?”

“I don’t know. I can’t even explain transcendence, and every metric says your mind left your brain. But I can’t tell you how.”

Zack sipped his milk. “I feel like that kid in The Sixth Sense. He sees dead people. I watch them die. It’d be funny if it weren’t so friggin’ real.”

She thought for a moment, then looked up at him. “Maybe you really did have a paranormal experience. Really.”

“That works in books and movies, but how do you explain telepathy or astral projection or whatever the hell in rational terms?”

“Something I’ve been wondering since I started. But if you picked up someone else’s sentience, it has to be through one of the four known force fields—nuclear, atomic, gravity, or electromagnetic. The first two don’t count—the ranges are too small. And as far as we know, gravity doesn’t carry information. That leaves EM waves.”

“Like light and radio waves.”

“Yeah, but to pick up thoughts of someone five miles away, you’d need a power source that would cook your brain. And Gretch was in Connecticut.”

“So how do you explain it?”

“I can’t, but Elizabeth would say you experienced the supernatural.”

“But what do you think?”

She shook her head. “I’m still a skeptic. Either an unknown medium—something we’ve never seen before. Or we’re missing something in the diagnostics. Don’t get excited, but the only way to know for sure is more suspensions.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen.”

“Can’t say I blame you.”

“But what if she’s right? What if there’s a whole other level of awareness—what mystics have been talking about forever? Some kind of mind pool I tapped into.” He finished his milk and walked to the sink. “My head feels haunted. And it’s been this way since I started these friggin’ tests.”

“Did you ever, you know, ever have psychic experiences before?”

He could hear the guardedness in her voice. “Once.” And he told her about the night at the Foxwoods Resort Casino.

“How come you never mentioned that?”

“Because I thought it was nothing but a weird coincidence.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you made a freak connection or something. That’s something you should have told Elizabeth and Morris.”

“Elizabeth and Morris have done enough damage.” He moved to his desk and removed some papers and handed them to her. “Three homeless people were found dead with tetrodotoxin in their bloodstreams over the last two years.” He poured himself another glass of milk and warmed it in the microwave while she read the articles. “Each of them died bizarre deaths. One guy was mercy-killed with a baseball bat. Another threw himself under a truck. The third, a woman, rammed a screwdriver through her ear into her brain.”

“What?”

“According to friends, each complained of headaches and bad visions. One guy claimed he was possessed by demons. Another said bugs were eating out his brain. Whatever, they were tormented to death because of their suspensions.”

Sarah continued reading.

“The kicker is that each of them had tetrodotoxin in them—nothing the police had seen before.”

“Because it’s a research drug.”

“That’s my point.”

Her face clouded over. “All our drugs are under lock and key, and we’ve never had a break-in. ’Least not while I’ve been there.”

“I think they were test subjects before you came aboard.”

“No way. If subjects complained of a side effect, they’d stop the tests. Besides, volunteers came from local colleges, not homeless shelters.”

“But you’ve only been there a few months.”

“So?”

He turned one of the articles toward her. “The guy who threw himself under a truck had a friend who said he began to complain about beetles and terrible pain in his head after some scientist guy offered to pay for sleep tests.”

She read where he pointed. “This doesn’t have to be us.”

“How many labs you think are doing sleep tests using tetrodotoxin?”

She stared at the paper. “I don’t believe this.”

“Tell me about it. Since you started, how many subjects have you suspended?”

“I don’t know, maybe fifteen out of a hundred interviewed.”

“You know how many since they started?”

“I never checked the records.”

“You might want to, because I think you’ll find a bunch of illegal aliens and bogus names.”