I could hear them talking about me, that doctor and his minions. They stood across the room looking at me like I was some kind of interesting circus freak. Normally, I would give them a show. Something to write down in my ever growing in-patient chart maybe: “Patient showed a new symptom today - Bouts of verbal diarrhea” or whatever the hell they write. It was never accurate; that much I could tell from the countless hours I have spent on the couch in Dr. Norris’ office. Like I said, Normally I would give them a show, but I can't today…I have more pressing things to deal with.
HE was back, influencing my thoughts, directing my words, and moving my body. His power over me was growing, and each time he took control it was becoming harder and harder to get it back. He, Calvin Jacobs, had taken up residence in my body after my best friend, Sarah, had convinced me to attend an séance with a local psychic. At the time I thought that it would be innocent enough. Me, being the forever skeptic, thought I might even get some good joke material to razz my friend about at a later time. As it turned out, I was the one that got more that I had bargained for.
Madame Serena had begun with some odd sounding words, at the time I could have sworn that she was making them up, and then dramatically she fell forward onto the table we had all been seated around. When she sat back up her eyes were glossed over and her voice was eerily deep.
“Oh, she’s good!” I had whispered to Sarah who was seated to my right. “I’m almost buying this!”
“Quiet Woman!” had been Madam Serena response to my interruption. Well at least it was her mouth that the words came from. The voice was definitely more male and very angry. I think I had rolled my eyes in the direction of the psychic, but had sat back and just let the group have their little fun. So Serena was a great actress, I wasn’t going to buy that there was actually someone talking through her.
The group took turns asking Serena, aka the spirit, who called himself Calvin Jacobs, different questions: “What is your name?” a woman in her late sixties asked. If I remember correctly she was there trying to connect with her recently departed husband.
“Calvin Jacobs” had been the response from our host.
“When did you live?” Sarah had asked
“In the late 1800’s, and I had a good time while I was alive” Came the response. Oddly enough as the “spirit” spoke the last part, Madame Serena’s eyes looked towards me, and I could have sworn that there was a slight curl to her lips, almost as if she were suppressing a small smile. Creepy.
When it was my turn I asked the only question that I could think of, one that I was surprised no one else had asked: “How did you croak…Oh, excuse me…die?”
“I was put to death. You see I had a little too much fun while I was alive. I love women. Especially pretty dark haired women.” I felt myself blush. Not only was Madame Serena, and supposedly Calvin Jacobs staring at me with a very intense look, but also I had attracted the stares of all four other people around the table. This was going too far, I was done with participating in this sideshow.
“Well it’s a good thing that you’re dead then” I scoffed. “I guess I have nothing to worry about”. I looked over to Sarah, who I knew bought all this crap. Her mouth was hanging agape at my rude questions and responses, “You can stay if you like but I’m outta’ here.” I had told her.
As I stood Calvin’s voice spoke to me: “You guess wrong my pet”. My body had gone cold and I felt instantly sick. I don’t remember much after that, but when I work up I was here in this hellhole they call a hospital. I was told that I had been here in a comatose-like state for three weeks. That was a year ago.
After three or four months of trying to convince everyone, Dr. Marvin Norris the psychiatrist in residence, included that there was nothing wrong with me, I gave up and resigned myself to my new life. All my pleas and reasoning had fallen on deaf ears. I decided that if I was going to be stuck here, I was going to at least have fun with this. During my free time, if there were such a thing here, I would go online and search mental disorders. Then I would choose a new one every couple of weeks and act it out. I guess had they been a bit more tech savvy they could have gotten around all the clean up I’d done to cover my tracks on the computers, figured out what I was up to, but they were doctors and I was a computer programmer. Well at least I had been before all this. I had been playing my “Crazy” part for the last two months when Calvin had started to make his presence known. At first it was just in my dreams, and I had dismissed it as my mind still trying to make some sense of why I was here, but then he started to talk to me during daylight hours, and I began to truly question my sanity.
“Thinking about the way we met my pet?” My body shuddered as I felt him try to slip into my mind.
“NO!” I mentally screamed at him, pushing him back into the pit of my stomach where he seemed to reside when I was in control of myself. Was there any wonder that I was sick to my stomach all the time if that is where my invader has taken up residence? Sometimes I think that I must just be dreaming, or perhaps I have fallen into some twisted version of The Twilight Zone meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
From the corner of the brightly lit dayroom, perched on an institutional style metal desk, I could hear the doctor talking to one of the nurses, Sam Diaz. I liked Sam. He at least acted like he believed there was nothing really wrong with me. He was the one that had allowed me to have the materials I now clutched in my hands.
"Has she done anything with the tape or the pen?"
"No sir, She's just sat there holding them. She's been that way for a good thirty minutes Doc. Should I go see if I can get her to give them back? Or ask why she wanted them in the first place?"
"No. Sam, just give her time. Although, do watch her with the pen this time, we don't want another incident like last month when she claimed she was a big game hunter and tried to stab half the nurses on her floor."
I smiled, allowing myself to replay that day in my memory. That had been one of my better performances. Not to mention it had been incredibly fun. I'd smeared lipstick on my cheeks to look like war paint, messed my dark brown hair into a matted state, and frayed the edges of my hospital issued scrubs to look like I'd been out running through wooded areas. I'd even collected bits of twigs and grass that I'd twisted into my hair. The toping on the proverbial cake had been when I had actually stuck each nurse I could find with my one bic pen I’d been issued to write letters to family and what friends I still had that cared to acknowledge that they still knew me. It had taken me almost three weeks to earn the right to have another writing utensil. I'd done a bang-up job, I thought, of playing the part. I figured had it been taped and televised I'd have been up for an Academy award
“As well you should have my 'lil faker…it was a grand performance. One I very much enjoyed. I love it when you get all raw and crazy!”
“CALVIN NO!!!” I tried to push him back out, but it was too late. I could feel his presence in my mind, taking over. Twisting his cold, snake-like self around my thoughts, my memories, around me. I hadn't let my guard down for that long, had I? How had he snuck in like this? The tape! I grabbed for it. I'd read an article online a few days ago about how to create a voodoo doll from household items. Funny really. It had been me that was the skeptic with Madame Serena and her séance and now here I was trying to remember how to create a magical voodoo doll. It was supposed to draw out and banish unwanted spirits, and Calvin definitely was an unwanted…whatever he was.
“And just what are you going to do with that my precious woman? Another frail attempt to remove me? Tisk Tisk, my princess. I told you, you are mine… I chose you out of all of them. You should feel privileged.” Suddenly my mind was filled with erotic images of a tall man with graying short hair in bed with me. My body betrayed me and responded with a flush of sensation in all the correct areas. I pulled a strip of the masking tape I'd been holding and quickly rolled it into a tight ball. I could feel him moving deeper into my conscious mind, trying to figure out my motives for the tape and the ball I was creating from it. I worked faster. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block him. Tried to keep him from accessing my entire mind.
Suddenly my left hand dropped the tape ball and slowly started to move off the table and down in between my legs.
“You dirty old bastard, stop it! Leave me alone!” I felt him laugh, heard it echo in my mind. So dark. So cold. I wasn't going to have time to finish the doll.
“Yes, my pet. Submit to me. You know you want me to have control". The nurses and Dr. Norris’ heads snapped to look in my direction, and I quickly looked down at the table. I need to get back in control. I heard the Dr. Norris slip from the desk and walk towards me. The last words, they hadn't been in my head, I had said them. Well, not me, but Calvin, but they had defiantly been spoken out loud.
"Layla, are you alright? Who do you want to have control over? I didn't look up. I couldn't, I tried and failed. Calvin held my head down, looking at my right hand still clutching the masking tape roll. For the first time I wanted that idiot doctor to know what was really going on. This time I really needed his help.
"I'm fine" I heard myself calmly respond. No! I screamed from inside my head. Help me, I'm not talking to you, HE is… PLEASE Help me!!!
"Whom do you want to control?" he asked again.
"No one Sir, I just want to be left alone to do my little craft project." came the response from my mouth. I sounded so childlike, and innocent, quite the opposite of the monster in controlling my words.
"And what are you working on?" Dr. Norris knelt down to be closer to my eye level. Calvin’s ploy to passively get him to leave quickly had failed, and I could feel his annoyance and anger with the doctor building. Calvin wanted to be left alone with me. The distraction of Calvin’s preoccupation with Dr. Norris allowed me to regain some of the control of my body, and quickly I pulled a strip of tape from the roll scribbling a note on it. I felt a glimmer of hope that at the very least I could get a message across to the doctor.
Perhaps I have enough control. I tried to speak, to explain that I wasn’t alone, tried to beg him to help me, but still was not able to stop Calvin's voice from speaking through mine: "Nothing, Sir, I just want to be left alone to see if the muse will strike me." I felt my eyes flicker to my moving hand. Calvin had noticed my actions. I rested my arm over the small strip of tape, blocking the writing from his/my view. Again I tried to look up towards the man kneeling next to me and was unable. Calvin was regaining his hold.
"All right Layla, but you can come talk to me whenever you need to" I heard Dr. Norris stand.
"Oh, I'm quite sure that won't be necessary" I heard myself respond.
"Ummm Hummm" was the only response as he slowly walked back towards the desk he had previously occupied.
“Just what are you up to my precious? Let me see…” I could feel Calvin pushing his dominating presence over my physical being. I forced all my strength into blocking him from my last bit of sanity as I pulled off three more strips of tape and scribbled three additional notes.
“Just let go. Let me have you. It won't hurt. We always have so much fun when we are one, don't you think…” His voice trailed off in my mind, as I began to fill my brain with the most vulgar, sexually explicit images I could muster. I took a note from his playbook and hoped it would work. So far it had and I got his attention, distracting him long enough for me to place each of the four pieces of tape across my mouth, each one on top of the other. He was not going to speak for me again. If I am going to lose myself, I am damn sure going to make sure I can trap his ass.
My images were now being merged with ones of his own, with of course, himself being the star of his own sick little porno. At least he is still so involved and occupied with that and I can get a hold of my body. I stood up and began walking slowly towards Dr. Norris, Sam and the other short female nurse. What is her name? I can never remember her name… I blinked my eyes and tried to refocus on my goal. Her name had nothing to do with my situation.
"Layla, are you Ok? What do you have on your mouth?" Dr. Norris walked towards me "Help me he's in my head" he read the first strip of tape as he reached me. "Who's in your head Layla?"
I felt a tug on my face as Dr. Norris remove the first strip of tape and he read the next one: "I'll soon be gone, I’m giving in” He read “Layla, where are you going? Nurse Rains, I need a tranq. injection over here." he called over his shoulder. I quickly glanced up slightly to see saw the dark skinned woman head off to the small glass enclosed room behind the desk. Rains, that was her name. "You know that we won't allow you to hurt yourself here" Dr. Norris was still talking. What had he said? I don’t think I care. My insides were being torn apart.
“If they drug you, you'll have no way to fight me off darling - you're making this too easy for me.” I didn’t see Nurse Rains, or the needle, but I felt the medication, and my vision began to blur.
I felt another tug as the second tape strip being removed and faintly heard Dr. Norris read the third message: "Cure him!"
Suddenly my body gave in to the tranquillizing medication and I slumped against Dr. Norris. His slight frame struggled slightly under my almost dead weight. I closed my eyes and felt myself slip farther and farther away. Even the cold, hard floor had little effect on me as I was being lowered to it.
“This last one is for you Calvin, from me to you. My final statement…” I weakly thought into my mind as the third strip of tape was being removed to reveal the final message. I opened my eyes and looked at my reflection in the eyeglasses that sat on the worried face of Dr. Norris. My eyes, once a very pale blue were now appeared to be a bright emerald green. I knew they were his eyes, Calvin’s. He would completely have control very soon, but it was still my mind, if for only a moment more and I shouted at the intruding man in my mind: “SHUT UP!” Childish perhaps, but it got my point across.
Rage over took my capture and he filled my body completely with his presence.
Then the darkness came.
