Immortal
by John E. Miller
“Immortal” by John E. Miller. Copyright © 2006 by John E. Miller
Published 2009 at Smashwords
A Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
John E. Miller is the co-author of the following print books:
Bones of the Woods
Mind of a Mad Man
Dime Store Novel (available late 2009)
To view other e-books by John E. Miller at Smashwords, visit:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mobius
“Ha ha! Good morning, Doc,” a familiar voice boomed out from behind the lobby desk.
Feldman winces, but tries not to let it show. He hates the fact that being called “Doc” still sends an icy tremor down his spine. As a doctor, he despises irrationality, especially his own.
“Good morning, Max… New joke?
“No sir, I met your first patient. I’m sorry, but you have a winner on your hands today.”
“Now Max, I’m here to help these people. Their sickness is nothing to laugh at.”
“I know sir, but he says the funniest things. And he even laughs at himself.”
Feldman smiles. “I guess that’s good. Is his paperwork here or with Lisa?”
“With Lisa.”
“Very good and the patient is in the ready room?”
“Yes. Phil’s with him right now and he’s been no trouble.”
“Good. I’ll have Lisa call when I’m ready for him.” Feldman turns toward the elevator.
“Yes, Doctor Feldman. Oh by the way, your wife called and said that Billy can get the cast removed today.”
Feldman nods.
“So what is that, the third break this year?” Max asks genially.
“Yes. I wish he would take up a safer sport than motor cross racing.”
“It could be worse.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh I don’t know, cave diving?”
Feldman chuckles. “Please don’t bring that up to him.”
“Don’t worry, Doc. I won’t.”
Feldman walks to the elevator and presses Up. When the elevator opens, he steps inside and glances at the buttons. Funny, he’d never noticed before that the contractor was superstitious; he had skipped the 13th floor and made it the 14th. Lucky for Feldman, his office is on the 7th floor.
As he steps out of the elevator, he sees Lisa through the glass walls. He can’t figure out know how he let his wife talk him in to having full glass walls in his waiting room. It was only that one time, Feldman reminds himself. Who would have thought a man would freak out about glass walls?
Feldman steps into his empty waiting room.
“Good morning, Lisa. Any calls?”
“Good morning, Dr. Feldman,” Lisa looks up from her typing and smiles at him. Just your wife about your son’s arm, but I would guess Max already let you know about that.”
“Yes he did.”
“I put the new patient’s paperwork on your desk.” She leans toward him slightly and mouths, “Good luck.”
Feldman raises an eyebrow, “Is he dangerous?”
“No… but he is out there and it seems that weird things happen around him”
Feldman gives a short snort, “Weird things?”
“Yes,” she turns back to her typing. “It’s all in the report.”
“Alright. Could you start some coffee?”
A laugh lit up his receptionist’s face. “Oh please Doctor! I already have your coffee made for you. Just like I always do.”
Feldman could swear that for the last ten years he had usually made his own coffee, but he smiles. “Why thank you Lisa.”
She laughs again, but this time a bit nervous. “You’re welcome. Are you okay, Dr. Feldman?”
“Yes,” he gives her a puzzled look. “Why would you ask?”
“I don’t know. It has been a long time since you thanked me for making coffee. It’s always been part of my daily tasks.”
“Well I should be more appreciative of the hard work you do.”
Lisa glances at her desk calendar to make sure it’s not Secretary’s Day, then looks her boss over curiously. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Feldman laughs, “Yes, quite.” He walks into his office and shuts the door behind him.
Feldman pours himself some coffee from the freshly made pot and sits at his desk. He looks at the picture of his son and wife sitting on the edge of his desk and wonders, not for the first time, how many times the boy will have to break a bone before he learns to be more cautious. Then he takes a sip of coffee, strong and black the way he likes it, and opens the new patient’s file.
As he reads the file, Feldman makes mental notes about the case, ‘Hears voices, see things, self destructive…Not a difficult diagnosis....classic schizophrenic. Wonder why the state would send the patient his way.” He reads on.
“Doctor, are you ready to see your new patient?” Lisa’s voice echoes through the speakers on his phone.
Feldman picks up the phone, “Not quite yet, Lisa. Would you come in for moment?”
A few moments later, Lisa opens the door and steps into his office, filling the air of his office with a heavy floral scent. Funny, he didn’t remember smelling perfume in the waiting room. She must have put it on after he left.
“Yes Doctor, what is it?” She moved toward his desk.
He turns the file toward her and points to the page. “It says here that he had two other doctors. One committed suicide and the other went on a killing rampage?”
“Yes Doctor. I called and checked on that and it is all true.”
“It says both incidents happened during a therapy session.”
“Yes Doctor, all true.”
Feldman clears his throat. “Well now, how is it that he falls into my hands?’
“Well didn’t you write a book on people like him?”
“No, not really.” Feldman glances at the book displayed prominently on his shelf. “My book defrauds the so-called techniques some doctors use to treat schizophrenics. How it sounds, I am the state’s last chance to help this person.”
“I wouldn’t know, Doctor.”
Feldman sighs, “Have Max and Phil bring him up.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
It seems like only moments pass before the guards bring in his new patient. “That was quick, gentlemen.”
“He was in a hurry to see you,” Phil smiles.
Feldman looks over his new patient, a small man, but he holds himself like a giant; very generic looking, could be anyone’s brother or son. His clothes hang off his frame as if they were hand-me-downs from a much larger man. His hands are cuffed, but between his hands he holds a plain cloth-bound book. As far as Feldman can tell, there is no writing on the binding or cover.
“Gentlemen, he doesn’t need the handcuffs. He is no harm to me and I have nothing he could use to harm himself.”
Max speaks up, “He wants it this way, Doc.”
Feldman flinches.
“Doc, everything okay?” Phil asks.
Feldman shakes his head to clear it. The man looks harmless enough. What happened to the other doctors might just be coincidence.
“Yes, everything is fine.” He turns toward the patient and motions to the chair in front of his desk, “Please have a seat….”
The man moves toward the desk. “Most people know me as James… James Ryan. A few know me as Cuthric Orion. It’s a pleasure to meet you again.”
“Well, what would you like me to call you?”
James laughs and leans across the desk, “Scary bastard.”
“Now I don’t think we need to call you any thing like that,” Feldman glances down at the folder.
“Oh, you will Doctor, in the end. Oh, and don’t worry. I won’t call you Doc.”
A shock passes through Feldman’s body and he struggles to regain composure. “You may call me what you like. Please have a seat. Gentlemen, thank you. I won’t need you any longer.”
Max and Phil nod and walk out the door.
James takes a seat.
“May I ask why the handcuffs?” Feldman motions to James Ryan’s cuffed hands.
“To keep myself in check… Well, myself and the others.”
Feldman nods and makes some notes. “Okay. Is this were we start?”
“No, doctor. We started when you looked back out at the rain.”
“Excuse me?”
“Didn’t you look back at the sidewalk in that little area between doors?”
“In the foyer?”
“Yes. I guess that is what it’s called.”
Feldman convinces himself it was only a lucky guess and picks up a pencil. Feldman stops for a moment. Wasn’t he already holding a pencil? He looks down at his notepad. It was blank. “Yes, I did look back at the rain. I enjoy the rain, for the most part. Now if you don’t mind, let’s get to our work at hand. How many voices do you hear?”
“In total, three. There is me, Cuthric, and the monster.”
Feldman takes a deep breath. He could feel this was going to be a long day.
“Which of the three would you like to talk about?”
“None”
Feldman curls his brow, “None?”
“If I had it my way, none.”
“Okay. Why don’t we start with what you said earlier?”
“Which was?”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you again. I don’t recall us ever meeting.”
“We have met two other times. Once about 15 years ago, but I was an older man who chained smoked. Then about a month ago, I was a weaker person, not truly formed, and in fact, neither were you.”
Feldman scribbles on his notepad and reminds himself to screen state cases before he accepts them in the future. He has his hands full today. He’d better have Lisa clear his calendar. “Excuse me for a moment.”
“Take your time, doctor.”
Feldman walks out of his office into the waiting room. “Lisa, do I have any other patients today?”
She looks at her computer, “No, everyone has been rescheduled.”
“Really?!”
“Yes, that’s what you wanted. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but I hadn’t told you yet”
“Well you must have or I have the power to read minds,” Lisa laughs. “Maybe I should be doing your job.”
Feldman gives her a quick half smile, “I must be working too many hours.”
Lisa’s laugh turns to a concerned smile, “Are you sure you’re alright Doctor? I can get Max and Brian back up here to take the patient away.”
“Brian?”
Lisa kind of rolls her eyes. “Yes, Brian. Max’s helper, been his helper for five years now.”
Feldman feels his forehead crinkle and his eyes narrow, “I’m sure his name is Phil.”
“Phil? No it’s Brian.” Lisa looks at him with genuine concern. “You sure you don’t want to take the day off? Does this guy make you that jumpy? He’s not like the last one the state gave you, is he? I mean, given what happened to those other doctors...”
Feldman shakes his head a bit. “No. No... I will be fine. He may be a little quirky, but I don’t feel he’s a danger to me.”
“Alright, but if you have any problem or worries just let me know and I will call the guards.”
“I will, Lisa.”
Feldman walks back into his office and sees James sitting in the chair, looking at the blank pages of his book.
“It has started,” James whispers.
“What has started?” Feldman asks.
“Oh, nothing.” James clears his throat and closes the book. “I see your nameplate on the desk. J.R. Feldman. What does the J stand for?”
Feldman was taken aback for a moment. He hadn’t displayed that plaque since the attack. “May I ask where you got that?”
“It was sitting right here by your picture.” James reaches out with both cuffed hands and picks up the plaque.
Feldman didn’t remember pulling it out of his desk. In fact, he didn’t remember bringing it back to the office.
“So, Doctor Feldman, does the J stand for Jay, James, maybe Jack? No wait, I know. John. That’s it John. Good strong name.”
Feldman had to stop and think for a moment. Was his first name John? John. Right, it is John. God, I do need to take some time off. Feldman forces a smile and puts his hand out. “If you don’t mind, could I have that back please?”
James looks down at the plaque, and sees that he is fumbling with it.
“Sure, Doctor. I didn’t mean any harm,” James leans forward and hands the plaque to Feldman. “I wasn’t going to use it like your one patient. You remember, the one who always called you Doc.”
Feldman quickly puts the plaque in his top left drawer. “Now, how do you know about that, James?”
“Well that is quite simple, Doctor. It’s in the book the monster gave me.”
“One of your voices gave you a book?”
“Yes, you could say that. Here. Take a look, but I do want it back.” James hands him the old olive green hardbound book. The cover is made of coarsely stitched cloth smells of mold.
Feldman flips through the blanks pages. “Don’t worry, James, I won’t keep your book. What is it called?”
“Immortal.”
Feldman hands the book back. “Immortal? So the monster gave you a book called Immortal. Does it outline how he is immortal?”
“Now that is a hard question to answer. I would have to say yes and then no. It is more important to the monster to make you and me immortal. That way he becomes immortal also.”
Feldman points to himself and then to James. “You and I?”
“Yes, quite funny don’t you think?”
Feldman sits back down in his leather chair behind his desk. He picks up his pad and pencil and makes a few notes.
James sits back in his chair and sighs, as if relieved about something.
Feldman looks up from his notepad, “That sigh makes me think that you were nervous about coming here.”
“No, not really, John.” James leans forward, as if to reveal a deep confidence, “Now, Cuthric hates doctors and he will do anything -- and I do mean anything -- to drive one nuts. But my big fear was that the monster might have changed the story again.”
Feldman quickly makes note of that, trying not to take his eyes off his patient. “Ah, I see. I would like to come back to the monster a little later. Tell me more about Cuthric Orion.”
“Well, he’s the one that wants me to hurt myself all the time. He wants to test the boundaries to see if we really are immortal. That what happened to the other doctors, if you were wondering.”
Feldman pulls a new notebook from his bottom right drawer, checking if the can of mace was still there. He thinks, “Now we are getting somewhere.”
“So this Cuthric guides you in your self-destruction and caused the death of your other two doctors? I might be able to buy the first, but not the latter.”
“Well it is all true, John. You see, Cuthric gives me the strength to commit the acts on my body. I’m too weak myself to do them without him, but overall it is the monster who decides what really happens.” James lets out a laugh.
“Something funny in that, James?”
A huge grin spreads across James’ face, “Yes, it just dawned on me. Don’t you see, John? The monster first put Cuthric in my head so I would be crazy. Then he waited, giving Cuthric time to slowly slip into my head. But I just realized that, as far as reality goes, you, me and Cuthric are voices in his head”
The grin fades from James’ face and scowl lines crease his forehead. “No, sorry John. He just changed the story a little.”
Feldman slowly nods and scribbles notes furiously. He feels his own forehead tighten and wonders if he will need that can of mace.
“John, don’t worry. You will not need that can of mace. I promise you that.”
Feldman wonders if he’d spoken out loud or if he’d simply misunderstood what his patient said. He opted for the latter and tried to continue the discussion casually, “So you believe we are voices in the monster’s head?”