Dr Carson rewound the Dictaphone. The last session involved Stuart regressing back to the day before his collapse into a coma. What she had heard in the actual session, and on the Dictaphone since, completely contradicted the information she held to be true about the day before his collapse. According to his colleagues and his brother, Stuart had spent all day in his office at the zoo before enjoying a night out in the pub. During the course of that night he met a woman named Angela who he took home with him when leaving the pub. The one strange outcome from that night was Stuart had left his house without telling the woman. His whereabouts between leaving her and waking up in the morning is unknown.
She pressed play on the Dictaphone and listened to the interview again.
I’m watching the mother and cub pacing up and down in front of the bars. They look unusually agitated. The mother’s prowling backwards and forwards past the hatch at the back of the shed leading into the enclosure. Her head’s hanging low as if it’s too heavy for her to lift and her mouth is draped open in a grimacing smile. She’s panting and drooling, snorting in the air from outside every time she passes the hatch. The cub is mimicking her but then he crouches by the hatch breathing in the air from a gap at the bottom. I haven’t seen them behave like this before, it must be the heat. It’s a hot day and they haven’t yet shed their winter coats. I’m opening the gate now to let them into the enclosure.
The cub is scrambling underneath the rising metal frame before it is high enough for him to walk through. The female is even more eager, she almost bends herself double, turning on the spot and shooting past the cub into the enclosure and out of sight.
I’m running out of the shed and over to the fence so I can see them. The female is tugging at something. I can’t quite make out what it is. Oh shit, it’s a body, a human body. She’s got hold of the foot and she’s dragging it toward a ditch in the centre.
I’m running back into the shed to get a rifle and tranquiliser darts. The rifle’s loaded and cocked and I’m back outside where the female is still dragging the body toward the ditch. I’m taking aim through the fence and I pull the trigger. The dart is in her behind before she has chance to react to the crack of the gunfire. She’s dropped the body and is snapping at the stinging metal in her hind quarters. She’s running around in circles like a demented dog chasing its tail. Now her back legs are giving way and she’s on the ground. The cub is back inside, spooked by the gunshot. I’ve got to help the intruder. I’m fumbling with my keys to unlock two sets of barred gates. The anaesthetic will only keep the female down for about twenty minutes. I can’t find the right key, I’m sure I’ve tried all of them. My hands are shaking and now I’ve dropped them. I pick them up again and thank God that this time I get the right key first time.
I’m inside the enclosure now standing over two bodies. One of them is breathing rhythmically, making a deep nasal groan with every inhalation. The other is lying at the end of a trail of blood, still and lifeless.
He looks dead. He’s somehow familiar but it’s difficult to make out any defining features due to the horrific injuries he has sustained. He’s naked so there’s nothing to help identify him.
He has three deep gashes spanning his face from his left ear, across his nose and mouth, ending just below his chin. He has several deep puncture wounds in his throat.
The female didn’t inflict these injuries in the short amount of time she’s been in the here. It was definitely a wild animal though…………………………………
Oh shit, the male. I’m looking at the gate to his quarters and it is wide open. Everything feels like slow motion now as I turn around through a hundred and eighty degrees expecting to see a three hundred and fifty pound Siberian tiger prowling toward me. But he’s nowhere to be seen. I’ve got time to think now but panic grips me. I’m running toward the exit but I’m not getting anywhere, the ground is lifting beneath me, I’m spinning uncontrollably into the air trying to grab at something to steady myself but there’s nothing to grab. I’m engulfed by darkness and I’ve lost all sensation of what is up, down, right or left.
Dr Carson considered the implications of what Stuart was describing here. She had always suspected his delusions were deep set but to be able to conjure up such a vivid account under hypnosis was unheard of. Outwardly he had made considerable progress. His acceptance that the news of Lauren’s death had been the trigger for the disassociation disorder was remarkable. This made it all the more difficult to understand why subconsciously his mind still persisted with the delusions. Just for a moment a frightening thought occurred to her: What is the difference between someone who is not delusional being convinced they are and someone who is delusional not accepting they are? Is he delusional and I’m helping him or is he sane and I’m deluding him? She shook the thought from her mind. Considering the evidence presented in this case no one would question her diagnosis, no one but herself.