Godless (14 page)

“That's when I woke up,” she explained. “Or rather, when Troy woke me. I spent the next few hours vacillating between panic and prayer. And then I decided I needed to talk to someone.”

Alex sensed there was more. “What else?” he asked.

“This isn't the first time I've had this dream. Well, most of it anyway.”

“Go on.”

She explained that the first part of the dream had dogged her two years earlier. Then it went away shortly after she met Troy.

“I was told the dreams probably had something to do with my absent father. But that didn't explain the connection.”

“Connection?”

“The first face, the young man who sank beneath me, was the face of Antonio Santos.”

Alex didn't recognize the name.

“He was the minor who died in a NEXT transition clinic. It became a wrongful death lawsuit.”

“That's right,” Alex suddenly recalled.

She looked toward Mrs. Mayhew to confirm secrecy before leaning forward to whisper. “Antonio Santos died on the day those dreams began.”

Alex felt a mild shiver. “Whoa.” It was all he could think to say.

“What's more,” she continued, “I received a copy of Antonio's journal from his older brother, the one who had initiated the lawsuit.”

Julia reached toward the floor to retrieve a digital device from her purse. She tapped twice to call up a document before handing the tablet to Alex. “Read this portion. It's something the boy wrote to his mother.”

Alex looked up in disbelief.

“That entry was posted on the last day of Antonio's life,” Julia whispered eerily. “Which was also the first day I had the nightmare.”

He sat quietly for several moments as his mind sifted through the implications. Nothing he had learned in seminary had prepared him for this. He knew that none of the vintage volumes on his bookshelf would provide the perfect quotation or explanation. Julia Simmons had inherited a dying boy's nightmare. Was such a thing biblical? Forget biblical, was it even possible? And if so, what could it mean?

“Do you think God is trying to tell me something about…” She reached for the words. “What did you call it, his redemptive purposes?”

Alex had no idea. “I do,” he said anyway, opening the floodgates to Julia's other nagging questions.

“Why would God give Antonio the dream first?

“Should I keep it secret or tell others?

“Am I supposed to write about it? Is that why he chose a journalist?

“If he wants me as some sort of mouthpiece, why would he let me lose my column with RAP Syndicate?

“Who is the man trying to pull me under? Should I know him? Will I meet him? If so, should I approach him or run from him?”

Alex could only nod in solidarity at Julia's questions. She appeared disappointed but sympathetic to his baffled expression.

“Or am I just losing my mind?”

Finally, a question he could answer with certainty.

“This much I know,” he reassured her, “your mind is in perfect working order.”

Julia received the diagnosis gratefully.

“You didn't imagine Antonio's journal entry,” he said, pointing back to the tablet. “And you seem perfectly clearheaded now.”

She flashed an I'm-not-so-sure look in his direction.

“Trust me,” he said. “I've seen lots of mentally disturbed people in my office through the years. You wouldn't fit in with that crowd.”

“I don't know whether that makes me feel better or worse,” she confessed. “At least if I were nuts Troy could have me committed.”

The menace of dread dissipated as they shared a much-needed laugh.

Alex had a thought. “Julia,” he began, “tell me your first impressions. You know, what you felt during the dream, or in the few moments right after you woke.”

“I'm not real good at getting in touch with my feelings,” she said with some embarrassment. “It drives my kid sister crazy.”

“I didn't realize you had a sister,” Alex said. “I guess I always assumed you were an only child.”

“Maria. We lived together until I married Troy. Anyway, she calls me a high-control person because I use to-do lists instead of therapy to overcome my problems.”

“I understand,” Alex said. “But dreams contain more than images, they also convey emotion. What were your emotions telling you?”

She sat back in her chair, then closed her eyes as if trying to reenter a memory. The words finally came, each filled with potential significance to the mysterious meaning of the dream.

“I felt fear,” she began. “No, terror.”

Alex watched Julia's distressed face as she let herself relive the scene.

“Especially when I let go of the hand of the man on the surface.”

“What did you
feel
about the man?” Hearing himself butcher the moment, Alex suddenly considered the barely passing grade he had received in Psychology 101 a gift of charity.

“Angry, at first,” she explained. “I thought he had abandoned me. But then I saw his outstretched arm extending in my direction. He wanted me to swim toward him. Which I did, as soon as Antonio released my leg.”

“And when you reached the man?”

“Relief. Gratitude. Security.”

A brief pause.

“What else?” Alex prodded.

The answer seemed to stick in her throat on the way up. “Dependence.” She opened her eyes. “That's another thing I've never been good at.”

“Dependence?”

“I spent most of my life resisting the need for anyone else. Especially men.”

“But then you met Troy.”

“That's right.”

“So do you think the dream has something to do with becoming dependent upon Troy?”

She appeared momentarily flustered by the question. “Maybe. In part.”

“Go on,” Alex suggested. “Any other feelings connected to what you saw?”

Julia closed her eyes again. “Just an overall impression that I'm being asked to cling to the mysterious man who seems to embody a calm, confident goodness.”

“And the laughter? What overall impression do you have of the laughter?”

She shivered at the chilly reminder. “It comes from someone exactly the opposite of the mysterious man. Someone evil who craved a next meal. No, a next rape. And murder.”

“You said you went back and forth between panic and prayer.”

“I did,” Julia confirmed.

“What did you pray?”

“What you might expect.”

“No, tell me specifically. The same God who gives dreams also gives us the words to pray when we don't know what to ask. Do you remember what you said or what you felt when you prayed just after the nightmare?”

“I do,” she said with visible relief. “I do. I recall asking God to protect Troy and Amanda and a few other people.”

“What other people?” Alex pushed. “Your sister?”

“Actually, no,” she said in what appeared to be surprised alarm. “For some reason I didn't feel like she was in danger.”

“Then who?”

“I prayed for Kevin and Angie Tolbert and their kids.”

Alex smiled at the mention, then showed concern. “Are they OK?”

She nodded. “We spent a day with them this past weekend. The usual headaches, you know, but nothing ominous as far as I could tell.”

Alex noticed a second look of surprised realization overtaking Julia's face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I just remembered something.”

He waited.

“Now that I think about it, my most intense feelings came when I prayed for one of Angie's kids.”

“Which one?”

“Baby Leah.”

Matthew Adams
took one last glance at the items in his bag. He was determined to handle his first assignment properly, which prompted him to confirm that everything was in order before ringing the doorbell.

The summer heat bore down on the back of his neck, adding a stream of sweat to the nervous perspiration Serena Winthrop's message had provoked ninety minutes earlier. As expected, service call details had been sent to his assigned message box with no advance warning. Ms. Winthrop had encouraged him to think like a fireman. “When the bell rings, be ready to slide down the pole and jump on the truck.”

So that's what he did, tossing his carefully prepared collection of supplies into the car and driving to a somewhat dilapidated section of Castle Pines, a once-respectable neighborhood half an hour south of downtown Denver. He arrived ten minutes early, which gave him time to gather his thoughts, practice his script, and, most importantly, recheck his inventory:

• One small tube of sterilization cream to use before and, most importantly, after assisting the client 
  
• A medium-size inhaler for volunteers who requested optional halothane vapor so they could sleep through the procedure 
  
• One rubber tourniquet 
  
• Two needle-capped syringes 
  
• Three vials of PotassiPass 
  
• A generous supply of towels and plastic bags 
  

Matthew had expected more coaching than he had received. He had hoped to get specific answers to his lingering questions.

“What's the best way to calm the client's nerves?”

“Is it better to ask any family members to leave the room or let them stay?”

“Can I talk to them about spiritual matters, or is religion off-limits?”

But he was told the company considered him an experienced professional and trusted his instincts on such “soft-side” decisions. The only real training he got was a few video demonstrations of the formal procedure, a fairly simple process. Stick the needle in quickly; that's more comfortable for the client than if you hesitate.

“The most important thing,” the trainer had explained, “is to remember all of your gear. We seriously frown upon the need to reschedule due to an oversight by one of our associates.”

Everything appearing in order, Matthew reached for the doorbell.

The sun felt suddenly hotter on his neck.

He waited.

No sound.

He pushed the button again.

The silence prompted him to rap his moist knuckles on the hardwood door.

“Ms. Jackson?” Matthew said through a slight opening in the door. He could only see the left side of her pale face peering beyond the protection of a chain bolt lock. A curious posture, he thought, for a woman awaiting death. “My name is…” He almost gave his real name. That would have been his first blunder. He glanced back down at the digital screen to refresh his memory. “My name is Jed Smith.”

The name meant even less to the woman than it did to Matthew.

“I'm here at your request.”

Still no reaction.

“With your…procedure.”

“Procedure?” she finally said. “I don't want any procedure. Go away.”

She shut the door in his face. Matthew looked back at Ms. Winthrop's message, then at the address on the front of the house. He had the right place.

Another knock as Matthew half shouted through the wooden barrier.

“Ms. Jackson,” he called. “I received notice that you requested a companion for your transition. My records indicate you confirmed the appointment last night.”

He heard the sound of the small chain sliding free from its locked position. The door opened slowly, giving Matthew his first glimpse of the woman's unconcealed eyes. They did not, as he'd expected, betray sickness, depression, or even fear. They revealed something worse: apathy.

“You say I have an appointment?” she asked.

Odd
, thought Matthew. “Yes, ma'am,” he said. “I'm a transition companion from NEXT Transition Services. I'm here to help you with the procedure.”

“I'm sorry,” she said listlessly. “I forget things. Please, come in.”

One glance around the front room of the house told Matthew that Brianna Jackson lived alone. No other human being would have been able to tolerate such disordered stacks of everything imaginable: large cardboard boxes filled with old clothes, and piles and piles of disheveled papers suggesting Ms. Jackson had never converted to the digital age. Perhaps she believed her collection of handwritten notes, print magazines, paperback romance novels, photographs, insurance claim forms, check stubs, and a hundred other tree-killing keepsakes would one day prove valuable. At the moment, however, they merely blocked access to a sitting area that appeared to have been gathering dust since the days of telephone wires and cable television boxes.

Matthew followed the woman through a narrow pathway between the front door and the kitchen, where another mess awaited: fermenting leftovers stored conveniently on the counter, table, and stovetop rather than in the refrigerator. He shuddered to think what moldy heirlooms must reside there.

“Have a seat,” she said after shoving aside a stack of flattened boxes that had once held frozen entrees and breakfast cereal.

He complied after a quick glance to make sure the chair contained no sticky residue or crawling parasites.

“Thank you,” he said, careful to continue breathing through his mouth rather than risk a gag reflex from the pungent combination of moldering leftovers and prehistoric perfume.

Brianna didn't join him at the kitchen table. She instead walked out of the room.

Matthew waited for a moment before calling out, “Ms. Jackson?”

No response.

“May I call you Brianna?” he asked in an elevated voice. He had decided using the client's first name might help put her at ease. Less clinical. More sociable.

He waited again. No reply. He continued.

“Well, you can call me Ma—” A second close call. “You can call me Jed.”

The procedure was supposed to take place in the bathroom, the client sitting comfortably in the tub while the transition companion handled what the registration form called “a painless sequence of three steps” that consisted of wrapping the tourniquet around the upper arm to make finding a plump vein easier, wiping a bit of sterilization cream on the forearm—which seemed an odd step in light of the purpose of the procedure—and injecting the PotassiPass serum into the bloodstream. Perhaps Ms. Jackson had gone to clear a small mountain of empty soap and shampoo containers out of the tub so that they could use the space as intended.

Matthew heard the faint sound of a flushing toilet. He sighed, then waited a few more minutes for Ms. Jackson to rejoin him in the kitchen. But she never came.

“Brianna?” he said while walking slowly toward the hallway down which Ms. Jackson had disappeared. “Is everything all right?”

He continued toward the back of the house, carefully navigating an obstacle course of tied-up plastic trash bags and mounds of clothes that had never made it to the washing machine.

He found the now-empty bathroom. The door was open, giving him a glimpse of a tub that had
not
been de-cluttered.

He walked farther to pass the open door to what looked as if it had once been the guest bedroom and then the storage facility for the first ten years of Ms. Jackson's clutter and junk fetish. No Brianna.

One more door remained. It was closed. He knocked. “Brianna? Are you OK?”

The door opened. Ms. Jackson appeared alarmed, as if suddenly confronted by a phantom. “Leave me alone!” she shouted while taking a backward step. “I don't have your money!”

Matthew recognized the look in Brianna's eyes. He had seen it before, during the final months of his mother's deterioration.

“It's OK,” he said softly while extending a hand of reassurance toward her quivering arm. He touched her tenderly, just as he had done when trying to keep his mom from a tailspin of confused anxiety. “It's me, Jed Smith. You invited me into the house a few minutes ago.”

Her eyes searched for the memory. Then she relaxed. “Oh, yes,” she said with embarrassment. “I forgot.”

She placed her hand on his gratefully.

“I forget things.”

“I'm here at your request,” he said in response, “to assist your transition.”

The explanation seemed to calm her further.

Matthew escorted Ms. Jackson back to the kitchen, where he carefully explained her own recent history based upon the data points listed on the assignment form.

“It looks like you contacted our office last month to initiate the approval process. We contacted your next of kin to confirm sound mind.” He paused to look at his client doubtfully before scanning the third entry. “And I see that we obtained both required digital signatures, yours and someone named Blake Jackson. Your brother?”

A thin smile crept onto Brianna's face. “How is Blake?” she asked. “I haven't seen him since…since…how long has it been?”

Matthew could only guess. “I would assume you saw him last week.”

“Did I?” she asked with an edge of self-disgust. “Forgive me. I forget things.”

Matthew looked at the next item. “And you decided to make Blake the sole beneficiary of your estate?”
Lucky guy
, Matthew thought,
inheriting the world's largest collection of useless rubbish
.

Brianna gave no response. She appeared distracted, as if temporarily visiting a different time and place. “I miss Blake. Did he ever get approved for treatment?” she finally asked.

“I'm afraid I wouldn't know,” Matthew answered, feeling an impatience rise that reminded him of conversations he had had with his mother two years before. “I just need to confirm one last detail before we proceed.”

Her glossy gaze returned to the present moment. “I'm sorry. You were saying?”

To meet the legal requirements, Matthew read word for word the next item, which she might or might not have understood whenever she'd decided to volunteer.

“Ms. Jackson,” he began, “NEXT Inc. has reviewed and approved your request to participate in the beta-test phase of a new in-home transition assistance service. Despite the presence of a representative of our company, your transition will be categorized as a ‘Self-Administered Termination,' described in Section 349 of the law commonly labeled the ‘Youth Initiative.' My cooperation with your decision will be restricted to those services defined as ‘Aiding Volunteers' and disposal of your remains will be handled in full compliance with the instructions detailed in Section 421 of the same statute. It is therefore understood that you assume complete responsibility to use the supplied kit as instructed and waive all right to hold NEXT Inc. liable for any unintended consequences of the procedure.”

Matthew looked up from the tablet to visually check Brianna's comprehension. Then he tapped the first option on the screen: “Client Waives Liability.”

Matthew placed the tablet in front of the woman. “Please press your left thumb onto this square section here.”

She did.

“Perfect,” he said, pleased to properly complete the legality.

Nearly finished, and not a single mistake.

“So,” he continued, “I suppose we should move to the bathroom.”

“Oh,” she said, as if suddenly remembering her manners. “Just down the hall. First door on the left.”

He reached down to pick up the bag of supplies he had placed on the floor beside his chair, then stood. But she remained seated. He offered his arm, which she didn't accept. He knelt into position to look her in the eyes. Then he placed a hand on hers.

“It's perfectly normal to feel a bit scared,” he said. “But it will be painless. I promise.”

She returned his gaze. He didn't sense relief. He sensed bewilderment.

Matthew felt a fleeting hesitation. What if she had changed her mind? Was he supposed to pack up and leave? Suggest a new appointment time? Fail on his first assignment?

Then he remembered. Ms. Jackson forgets things.

“Listen to me, Brianna. You're doing the right thing. The heroic thing.”

The attempt bounced off an apathy that ran deep. How long had she lived in solitary confinement? Even when such confinement was self-imposed, the absence of human interaction, human affection, could steal one's will to live. But a trace of that will remained in Ms. Brianna Jackson, it seemed, no matter how faint. She might not care to live, but she didn't want to die.

She pulled her hands away from Matthew's tender grasp. “Why are you here?” she asked brashly. “What do you want?”

“I told you, my name is Frank…I mean Jed. You scheduled me to come and help you…”

“I don't need your help,” she barked. “I'm fine all by myself.”

Matthew felt his heart pound with a sudden rush of panic, and anger. His first NEXT client was getting ready to hand him his first failure. His promising new career threatened to fizzle at the hands of a befuddled old woman who hadn't the sense to put leftover fish sticks in the refrigerator.

“Besides,” she continued in a fit of foggy paranoia, “I don't have the kind of money you want.”

“I'm not looking for money, Ms. Jackson. I'm here to…”

But it was no good. She shuffled hastily out of the room.

Matthew looked back and forth at nothing and everything. What to do now? Should he chase her down and force her into the tub? Did forgetting your transition appointment make your approval null and void? He had been given no instructions for this situation. Why would he have? Most volunteers probably served their transition companions cookies and milk before rolling up a sleeve to face the end with defiant resolve instead of running out of the room in reaction to a delusional mirage. What did she think he was, a hit man from the mob squeezing money out of pack rats? Or perhaps a crazed killer stalking harmless debits to steal a stack of old
Good Housekeeping
magazines?