Excerpt from Mind Over Monsters

ONE

a conversation with
dr. george herbert black, ph.d.

I was surprised to find that a man who wore a three-thousand-dollar suit was staying at the Comfort Inn. I thought for sure he’d be at the Hilton, not the hotel known as the best place in town to have a quickie. His choice in lodging does not inspire confidence.

I walk down the hall as slowly as I can. I’m good at delaying the inevitable. I’m not sure if it’s the fact I have nothing in my stomach or the fact that I’m scared out of my mind that’s making my legs wobble like two blobs of Jell-O. As I reach room 403, I take a deep, cleansing breath like I was taught at my one yoga class. Do I really want to do this? What if he’s some crackpot waiting for me to come in so he can attack me and chop me up with a chain saw? Dang it, I should have left a note.

Dear Nana, went to meet some strange guy who came to my hospital room today and started talking about ghosts, goblins, and ghoulies. If I don’t come back by morning, I’m probably floating in the Pacific being eaten by sharks. P.S. Sorry I almost killed Brian tonight.

Yeah, she’d finally throw me in the loony bin for sure.

The door swings open without warning, nearly giving me a heart attack. A small gasp escapes my throat. I’m not usually the jumpy type, but the last few days have really taken it out of me. Dr. Black, who towers a foot above my five foot four frame, is still wearing his perfectly pressed gray suit and gracious smile. That grin melts twenty years off his seventy-year-old face as his multitude of wrinkles smooth out. The shiny silver hair covering his head like a helmet accentuates his tan skin. He’s painfully thin. I probably outweigh him by forty pounds. Ichabod Crane in Armani. I’m pretty sure I could take him without lifting a finger. Of course, that’s exactly why I’m here in the first place.

“I was getting worried,” he says.

“Sorry, I had to change my shirt.” Which is code for I turned the car around half a dozen times.

He steps to the side, gesturing me to come in. His suitcase rests on a blue and white floral bedspread underneath a picture of a garden. Two double beds, a cheap dresser, cream-colored lamp shades. I’ve only been in hotels a handful of times and they always look the same.

“Were you surprised to hear from me?” I ask.

“Not in the least. I could tell you were intrigued. I knew that curiosity would eventually get the better of you. Just not so soon.” He walks over to his suitcase and pulls out a water bottle. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid all I have is water.”

“I’m fine.” I take a seat in the chair next to the window. The view is pretty unimpressive, just cars passing on the freeway.

He walks over to the edge of the bed closest to me and sits. It barely moves under his thin frame. “So, care to tell me what happened tonight that prompted your call?”

My back goes ramrod straight. “Nothing,” I say not too convincingly. “I was just curious. Don’t get to meet a parapsychologist every day.”

“There’s no need to lie to me, Beatrice,” he says. “There are no judgments here.”

“Nothing happened,” I say again.

“Beatrice,” he chides, “I don’t have to be psychic to know something is upsetting you. In the hospital earlier today you were very adamant for me to leave and then five hours later you call. Now please, tell me what happened. I might be able to help.”

“I—I can’t.” I shake my head vigorously. “This was a bad idea. Uh. Maybe I should just go.”

“Listen to me, Beatrice,” he says in a sympathetic voice, “whatever it is, I can assure you I’ve heard much worse.”

“I doubt it,” I say on a quick exhale.

“You’d be surprised. Please. Nothing you say leaves this room. You came here for help. Let me help you.”

I look into his cauliflower eyes. Sympathy. Huh. Haven’t seen that in a while. Lately it’s just been fear everywhere, and that gets old after a while. Even in the hospital, where bleeding drunks come in ranting and raving about aliens implanting devices into their heads, I was the freak. A few machines dance in the air, an orderly has to be sedated, and suddenly you’re Freddy freakin’ Krueger.

He’s right. If I want him to help, I need to tell him everything. And once I start talking, I can’t stop. I confess about tonight and what I did to my brother Brian. About the first time something flew across the room when I was six, knocking my mom’s boyfriend unconscious. I tell him about my mother’s suicide.

Finally, I tell him about Leonard.

He just sits there, occasionally nodding but saying nothing, that sympathetic expression never wavering. When I’m done, he walks into the bathroom and comes out with a box of tissues. I take two and dab my eyes.

“Thank you,” I say through the sniffles.

He sets the box next to me and returns to his position on the bed, crossing his long legs. “Are you all right?”

I sniffle again. “No. I almost killed my brother tonight, just like…” I shake my head to push the image of that man out of my head.

“What precipitated this incident? What did your brother do?”

Just the thought of that scene starts the tears again. The whole thing comes in pieces. The fight. Brian’s rage-filled words spewing out as Nana tried to calm him down. My body tightening like a coil with every syllable, while the pressure inside my head increased twofold. My palms throbbing where the nails dug into flesh. Our dining room table rattling as if a five-point earthquake had hit, plates clattering to the floor. More words. Freak. Abomination. She hated you as much as I do. She should have killed you before you were born!

Then, no more pressure. The table flipping mid-air off its legs, landing a few inches shy of Nana’s feet. A huge crack cutting across the back wall as if an invisible knife slashed through it. Then the screaming. Agonizing. Horrible. High pitched, like a lobster thrown into a boiling pot. Brian grabbing the left side of his face, clawing at it. Two red streams of blood dripping out of each of his nostrils. The whites of his brown eyes quickly turning red from burst capillaries. Then Nana. My Nana looking at me as Brian always had. Like a monster.

Two minutes later, I tried to kill myself with a bottle of aspirin.

“Do you often lose control like you did tonight?”

I blink away the images, returning to the tacky hotel. Before I can form words again, I take a few breaths to lessen the sobs. “No,” I manage to get out. “I mean, not like that. It felt like something broke inside me.” Dr. Black stands again, retrieving the bottle of water. This time I take it.

“That’s common with psychokinetics.”

“Huh? You called me that before in the hospital. I don’t know…” I trail off and sip the water.

“It’s more commonly known as telekinesis. You move matter with your mind. Didn’t you know there was a name for it?”

“No.”

“You never did any research on your gift?”

“I saw the movie Carrie. Well, part of it. My friend April made me watch it, but I don’t like scary movies. And that was just a movie.”

“True, but people like you have been chronicled through the ages. Saint Teresa of Avila levitated during deep prayer. In the first century, Simon Magnus floated to the top of a column during a duel. There are others, of course, in Russia, India, England, all over the world. However, none have lifted an entire car before. Have you ever tried to use your gift? Consciously, that is?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He stands from the bed again, picking up the box of tissues. He sets it down on the desk a few feet away from me. “I want you to pick up this box and have it glide onto your lap. Can you do that?”

“I—I can try.” I look at the box, concentrating on it, letting its image fill my mind. Okay … lift! It doesn’t move. Lift! Still nothing. I squint until I barely see the box. Lift, for God’s sake! Nada. “I can’t do it. Sorry.”

Dr. Black nods. “It’s okay. You’ve never really directed your gift before, only when your survival depended on it. Can I assume it works unconsciously?”

“Yeah.” I sip the water. “Um, sometimes I turn around and see cabinets opening by themselves. My bed floats some nights too. It’s really put a damper on my social life,” I say with a quiet scoff. “How can I have people over when my plates dance in the air?”

“Who else knows about your gift?”

“Just Nana, Brian, and my best friend April. I couldn’t let anyone else know in case they decided to chase me out of town with torches and pitchforks or something.”

“How lonely you must feel,” Dr. Black says.

“Yeah,” I whisper, willing the tears away. I’ve cried enough over loneliness for twelve lifetimes. “But I suppose the whole of America knows now after what happened with the car.”

The car. Geez. Was that only three days ago?

I was about to get into my car after a long day at school, looking forward to reading the latest Jennifer Crusie book while watching the Doris Day marathon on Turner Classic Movies when I saw him. Randy Dodson, one of my students, playing that gangster video game I had confiscated two weeks before, walking oblivious to the world. Without glancing either way, he stepped into the street, fingers still jumping on the buttons. At the same time, a shiny black Hummer—a monstrosity every man and soccer mom seems to be driving in San Diego—rounded the corner like a demon chased by the Devil himself. The moment the behemoth came into view, I knew without a doubt that the car wouldn’t stop. I knew it. I was about to watch the boy I helped with fractions earlier get splattered on the street. Instinct took control of my body. I moved faster than I thought myself capable of. As the car zoomed closer, Randy glanced up from his game. He couldn’t move. Neither of us had time to jump.

There but for the grace of God, I reached him before that tank did, pushing him to the ground and shielding his small, trembling body with mine. In that same instant, I stared at the car, filling my mind with it. Its shape. Its wheels. Its weight.

LIFT!

It soared off the ground, flying over our heads with the wheels spinning midair, inches from us. The engine roared, almost shattering my eardrums while the exhaust burned my already tender eyes, and hot blood ran out of my nose and ears. My head felt as if it was underneath the tire, the pressure and pain so great I couldn’t even scream. The two-ton vehicle landed with a crash a few feet beyond us, sparks shooting everywhere as metal hit concrete. That was the last thing I saw before passing out: the Fourth of July in March.

I woke up three days later in the hospital to floating machines, a blinding headache, and a well-dressed parapsychologist sitting by my bed, business card in hand, offering to help me.

It’s been a heck of a week.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Dr. Black says. “It will be chalked up to simple physics in the end. The world relies on Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation is often the right one. Which would you believe, that the car hit an incline or that a school teacher lifted it with her mind?”

“I guess.”

“You would be surprised how deeply the public’s deniability of things they don’t understand runs. We rely quite heavily on it.”

“ ‘We’?”

“The people I work for.”

“And who do you work for? Let me guess, the government,” I say mock seriously.

“Yes, of course.”

The image of me tied up to a bed being poked and prodded with sharp metal instruments in the name of science dances into my head. I stand quickly. “I have to—”

He stands as well. “Oh, no. Don’t be afraid,” he chuckles. “I haven’t come to cart you off to some lab never to be seen again. I’m afraid television and films have given us a bad reputation.”

“Us? Who’s ‘us’?”

“Technically, we’re an offshoot of the FBI. A highly classified one, naturally, but we have several trained official agents on our team. When we’re in the field, we carry FBI badges as part of our cover, but their rules and regulations don’t really apply to us.” He begins to chuckle, “If they did, I’m afraid we couldn’t get anything done. But we also work with the military if the need arises.”

“The need for what?”

“Our help.”

That sends a shiver down my spine. They handle what the military can’t? Not a glowing endorsement for my involvement.

“Please sit down, Beatrice,” Dr. Black says with a smile. “We have a lot more to discuss.”

Despite my apprehension, I sit. I’ve always been too darn curious for my own good.

Dr. Black sits back on the bed across from me. “Now, you’ve trusted me tonight, and I know how hard that was for you, but I’m going to ask you to trust me once more. Because what I am about to tell you may be a bit shocking and hard to believe, but it’s all true. I ask that you keep an open mind. Can you do that?”

I nod.

“Good,” he says. “You are not as different and alone as you might believe. There are possibly hundreds of people with psychic gifts in this country alone. These gifts manifest themselves in different ways. Some can read minds; others can see spirits and communicate with them. It’s different for everybody. Moreover, there are others who can do extraordinary things, like transform into animals or walk through solid matter. Basically, every manner of creature you thought only existed in fairy tales and films does, in fact, exist. Trolls, werewolves, witches, vampires, all of them. And sometimes—not often though—these creatures harm others. That’s when we come in. The creature responsible has an edge over humans, often preternatural strength or even immortality. We simply … even things out a bit. Are you with me so far?”

“Yeah,” I say, “Dracula and the wolf man are alive and kicking. Do they share an apartment with Elvis?”

All humor fades from his face. “I’m being serious, Beatrice.”

I scoff. “Well, forgive me, but I have a hard time believing that there are vampires and werewolves and whatnot walking around and nobody’s found out.”

“Says a woman who can move things with her mind.”

I shrug. “Still.”

“If a werewolf attacks a human, it usually gets written up as a wild animal attack, which is exactly what it is. Vampires work hard to hide their existence, just as you do. Most don’t even need to kill to feed. But you’ll learn all about this more intensively during your training. Now—”

“What? My what?”

“Training. There’s a flight leaving for Virginia tonight.”

My eyes bug out of my head and my jaw drops. “Wait. You told me in the hospital you’d help me get this thing under control, you didn’t mention anything about becoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I jump out of the chair. “Uh-uh. No. I don’t even like killing bugs! After I saw Dracula, I had to sleep with the lights on for a week! You’ve so got the wrong girl.”

“You ran into traffic and single-handedly saved that boy. You are definitely the right woman.”

“Anybody would have done that.”

“No. They wouldn’t.” Dr. Black stands from the bed again, taking a step toward me. “I do want to help you. We have scientists and military personnel who will train you to use your gift. And you’ll have a chance to be with others like you. As of right now, there are six members of the F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad, all with—”

“The what?”

“Federal Response to Extra-sensory And Kindred Supernaturals. F.R.E.A.K.S.”

“I am not a freak,” I say, voice deceptively quiet.

He smiles. “Well, not yet, no.”

“Look,” I say with a glare, “I appreciate you listening to me and not, like, tying me to a stake to burn, but … ” I shake my head. “I teach fourth grade. The worst thing that could happen to me is I get glue in my eye. I think I’d like to keep it that way.” I bend down and pick up my purse. “And I sure as heck don’t want to be called a freak anymore than I already have. It was nice meeting you.” I step past the frowning man toward the door. “Good luck with the trolls or whatever.”

“Beatrice,” he says as I pass, “do you honestly believe it’s that easy? To go back to the way things were?”

I stop at the door. “What do you mean?”

“You said it yourself—something has broken inside of you. To be frank, I’m fairly sure it has. I’ve seen it before. The part of yourself you’ve worked your entire life to contain is out of your control now. What happened with your brother tonight, I’m afraid, may become a daily occurrence unless you learn to harness your power. I fear that you will be unable to resume your position at the school. What if a child or parent brings about your anger? You could kill them.”

He might as well have punched me in the stomach. His words knock what little breath I have out of me. Because he’s right. Lord knows the kids do tend to infuriate me on an hourly basis. Some days it takes all my strength not to scream at them for talking back or disrupting class or just behaving like a bunch of unruly nine year olds. Not to mention the parents! One time during a particularly intense parent/teacher conference, I noticed the bookcase in the back of the room floating a foot in the air. I counted to ten and it dropped. Next time I could lose it and brain an irritating parent with a desk. Or worse.

No. I feel like slumping to the floor in a heap. I love teaching. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. The smiles on the kids’ faces when they’re working on an art project, the pride when they master a new math or reading skill, the thrill of reaching them, of shaping them into productive, good, decent human beings. I don’t want to give that up. It’s all I have left. After this horrific day and the last grueling confession, I don’t even have tears left.

“I’m sorry, Beatrice,” he says. “Perhaps after you complete your training you can return without fear of harm coming to the children.” I hear him taking a step toward me. “I’m sorry. I am. But I want to help you.”

I spin around. “For a price.”

“Everything has a price. We’re talking about millions in taxpayers’ money to train you. They should get something in return, no?”

“They should get my life?” I ask incredulously.

“You’ll be instructed in weapons, combat, and—most importantly—your gift. You’ll be working with some of the strongest creatures on the planet. They will protect you, and you them. We haven’t lost a member in over two years.”

“But you have lost some.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he says in a low voice.

“Then forget it. I’m a fan of breathing, so I’ll just keep my life, thanks.” I turn around again but this time I make it to the door.

As I’m about to step into the hallway, Dr. Black speaks. “What life, Beatrice?” he asks in the same low tone. “You can’t go back to work. Your family’s terrified of you, with good cause. You almost killed your brother. Who could be next? Your friends? Your grandmother? What’s left for you?” He walks and stops only a few inches from me. I can feel the warmth from his body on my back. “I know you’re frightened. I know you’ve been frightened all your life by what you’re able to do. And I know how lonely you’ve been. Feeling different, being different, having no one to talk to about what you can do. Having to hide it. It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. I am giving you a chance to belong,” he whispers. “A chance to be yourself for the first time in your life. A chance to help
people with your God-given talent. Will you let me do that?”

I stand at the door looking into the hallway. My exit. The eternal dilemma: should I stay or should I go? All that waits for me down that hallway is a lonely life locked in my apartment, afraid to go outside in case someone makes me mad and I accidentally drop a dumpster on them. Behind me, a chance at a semi-normal life, that is if I survive. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Just … damned. Story of my life.

I slowly turn back to Dr. Black. “Can I leave anytime if I want to?”

“Yes,” he says, “but trust me, you won’t want to.”

“And you’ll help me control this thing?”

“Yes.”

I open my mouth to give my answer but the words are stuck. I gulp them down and sigh. Here goes. “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal.” I hold out my hand and he gives it a firm shake.

“You’ve made the right choice.”

What choice?