Lake Jacomo

Craig couldn’t be any happier to return to the frozen-over lake. The refuge appealed to him so much he ran straight for it. He pressed his back to the snow-covered ice and formed snow angels. Flakes dropped from the sky in light blankets, and he let them touch his tongue and melt.

He was free of Alice’s tragedy. Guilt attached itself to his freedom. It was the same regret he experienced that exact night. He abandoned her. He failed to see her through the ordeal. But it was over now. The snow, the lake, the seclusion, it was easy to shove Alice back into his deepest memories and move on.

As he expected, Dr. Krone crunched across the snow, bounding down a set of long ice-covered stairs to reach the lake. Craig was about to verbalize a greeting when he caught the doctor’s grim expression. He stopped three yards from the iced-over lake.

Dr. Krone accused, “You.”

The scowl continued to take shape, everything in his features curling and then hardening. The fat man’s face was capable of many expressions despite its soft quality. “You’re not going along with the program. You ran away from her. What kind of a friend are you? This was supposed to be a turning point for you. A big one, too. You were supposed to see her through her horrible time.”

“I was scared,” Craig argued, standing up from the ice and struggling not to slip on the way up. “I’m doing fucking fantastic, I think. It’s hard going back in time and reliving your hardest memories. It’s messing with me, so forgive me if I screw up. I’ve always had regrets about Alice. I have no idea if she’d ever forgive me for that night or if she hates me.”

“You had no problem with that memory with Susan. Oh, and those kids who played the joke on you at the Italian restaurant, you embraced it. You have to take the good with the bad, Mr. Horsy. It’s part of your treatment. You can’t get better without complete participation. Give yourself over to the treatment.” Now a whisper. “Give yourself over to me.”

Craig refused to accept the scolding without a fight. He charged at Dr. Krone and pushed him to the ground. He flopped backwards, legs lifting high, as he connected against the ice with a thud. “Fuck you, Doctor! Until you’ve run the gauntlet yourself, I suggest you settle down.”

He glared up at Craig, offended. His face was cherry red and turning darker. Dr. Krone worked back to a standing position, and after a long struggle—even waving Craig off after he offered to help him despite his current sentiments—he moved in close to Craig, cocking his head to the side. “Mr. Horsy, I’ve experienced my mind inside and out. I have ‘run the gauntlet’. I’m perfectly happy with my past. And I’ve been in many heads—yours and maybe a thousand others. It’s mesmerizing, and it’s a dreadful shame you’re not embracing the tragedies with the rewards. It offends me that you shirk in the face of perfection. Yes, you flinched. They all do. That’s why I’m the doctor, and you’re the patient. You need guidance. I give all my patients a chance to treat themselves, so to speak, but it sounds like you need my help as much as the rest.” Eyes brimming with angry tears, he rasped, “I guess I have to intervene.”

Craig backed up, suddenly terrified of the man, the genius lunatic. He was the one in power, and the doctor wanted to use it. He was unsettled and knew he couldn’t continue with this mysterious, cutting-edge treatment anymore. “Okay, let me go. Unhook me from the machine. This is finished. I don’t trust you. If you’re so genuine and honest, then I can leave when I want to, right? You forced me onto that machine against my will.”

“It had to happen that way,” the doctor said. “Nobody hands themselves over to treatment without sedatives and restraints. This happens in many treatments. You’re no exception, Mr. Horsy.”

“How did I get here?—that letter, I was really supposed to be at Dr. Herbert’s office. You did something to me. Tell me how I got here, and no more of your lies.”

His eyes widened, their color as bright as wind-kissed embers in a fire pit. “Fine, I’ll show you.”

The blink happened.

Craig rose from his twin-sized bed and clutched his back. Every time he slept longer than eight hours, the kink in his back was razor sharp. It was the day of his psychiatrist’s visit, and he dreaded it. Afterwards, he’d drive to the unemployment office and seek work. The first unemployment check hadn’t shown up. His case was under review.

He stripped from his pajama bottoms and the faded Cinderella metal band T-shirt. He trudged to the bathroom, washing his face in the sink. When he lifted up his head from the first splash, Rachael opened the bathroom door. Startled, the event happening too fast to process, he was seized by the neck, bent over, and a pinprick entered his back. His body went loose, and he flapped his arms against invisible waves of liquid, and drowning in them, he dropped to his knees. Then a black curtain fell, ushering him to sleep in the darkness, but first he seized Rachael by the leg, brought her down, and that’s when she growled at him, and the weapon swiftly came down in a blur of metal. A quick refraction of silver in light, and the head of the hammer pounded into his skull.

The blink happened.

He returned to Lake Jacomo. The winter. The snow pelted him, the light curtains now firing down in blinding fury. The doctor was disguised by the curtain of snow and rain mixture. The man’s secret was revealed, and he was prepared to explain why it happened.

“I kidnapped you. Yes, you were supposed to be at Dr. Herbert’s, but I took the initiative to take you in as a patient. Nobody gives themselves completely over to any treatment. But like my father, I want to cure people through and through. I won’t waste your time with expensive and pointless visits and introspection that fails to go anywhere. Talking does nothing. Dr. Herbert would’ve failed you. That’s why I reference other doctors’ patients in the area, and I get my hands on whoever I can, like you. Rachael’s a master of breaking into facilities and stealing information. It’ll benefit society in the long run. You’ll see. I did this for the good of mankind. Sometimes bad things have to happen before something good can happen.

“Being in the moment heals, Mr. Horsy, like facing your fears, living your regrets, changing your past, that’s how one copes with life. I’ve barely scratched the surface of your treatment, Mr. Horsy.” He put his fingers together. “My father called this part of the treatment ‘shock therapy’.”

He waved his hands to prevent Craig from speaking. “No, I won’t send electrodes into your skull. That’s along the lines of those false alternatives other doctors offer. I might as well resort to bloodletting or pouring ice-cold water over your body to shock the anger out of you. No, I’ll do things to your mind you won’t understand. It takes the threat of death to make one appreciate their lives and cope with their past. Yes, you can die during this treatment, Mr. Horsy. Clinically dead, Craig—I won’t lie. Many do perish during these exercises. You’re a danger to society, and the reasons are as volatile as the treatment. If you overcome my procedure, you’ll be worthy of mixing with the world again.”

“I’m not a danger to society!” Craig balled his hands into fists, appalled at the ludicrous explanation. “I made one mistake. Yes, my childhood was fucked up. I’ve joined the club, Dr. Krone. Willis was a mistake, my only mistake, you lunatic. I’ve listened to you, and you’re the one who needs to take your own medicine, not me. You can’t keep me here. I don’t want to be here.”

This was the defining moment he was waiting for, the actual truth. Dr. Krone had kidnapped him. He was hooked to a machine, in God-knows-where, under the control of this madman. Now the man admitted he could die. It came off as a promise. He wasn’t safe. The gut feeling was correct. The man and his female assistant were criminals. He was helpless in his mind.

How could he escape a place without an exit?

Desperation sent him to his knees. He clutched a flap of the doctor’s lab coat. “Just let me go, okay? I’ll forget any of this happened. I’m sorry for what I did to Willis. It’s a mistake. Send me to jail if that’s what it takes. I can’t take any more of this memory shit. It’s too much.” Throwing his head back and unleashing a wild roar, “Let me out of my mind!”

Dr. Krone kneed him in the chest. The connection forced the air from his lungs, and it took him a moment to relearn how to breathe, sprawled out on the ice.

“What is it that you’re after, really?” Craig gasped, the winter’s cold suddenly setting in. Whatever protected him from the elements before had suddenly been lifted. “Why did you pick me?”

“I’m not allowed to practice legally,” Dr. Krone confessed, shaking his head as if consoling himself. “My father wasn’t either after his breakthrough. Stripped of his license, actually.” He mulled the question over longer. “You interested me more than the rest in the stack of files. Your history, your potential, I couldn’t resist treating you. There’s nothing like being inside you, Mr. Horsy.” He stared at him with big eyes. “I can fix you. My father wanted to cure people with this machine, as do I.”

“This has nothing to do with treating me or some doctor’s code of honor.” Craig rose to his feet. “Your life isn’t interesting enough so you have to become someone else, is that it?”

The doctor didn’t refute the statement. The doctor was on the verge of many wild, ridiculous expressions. It chilled him to wonder what channeled through the man’s head.

“Your machine’s an excuse to be a voyeur. You watched Susan and me make love. You’ve been there the entire time while everything’s happened.”

“I’ve gotten to know your family and friends quite well too.” The doctor kept on track with his own agenda. He was on the verge of many wild, ridiculous expressions. “And they’re not happy at all with you. Now, it’s time for the real treatment.”