Kayla walked through the double doors and into the suite of doctors’ offices. She took the elevator to the second floor and walked down the hallway to door 12A. She paused for a second, then opened the door to Dr. Patricia Reed’s office. Papers, file folders, and boxes cluttered the room. A woman came around the corner, her arms full of books. Kayla stepped forward and helped her put the books into an empty box.
“Thanks,” the lady smiled. “You must be Kayla.”
“Yes,” the girl nodded. “You’re Dr. Reed?”
The older woman nodded as she swept an unruly blonde lock of hair out of her face. “I am indeed. Please call me Patricia.”
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Kayla said.
Patricia opened her mini-fridge and pulled out a couple of Coke Zeroes. She offered one to Kayla and sat down in a nearby chair. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. I’m about to retire, so I got a head start on cleaning out this office.”
Kayla took a sip of the drink. It had been a long time since she had drunk a soda with no alcohol in it. It was truly delicious. “How long have you been a psychiatrist?”
“Well,” Patricia replied, “I started my first job in 1987, so I guess it’s been about 37 years.”
The girl chuckled, “I can’t imagine doing the same thing for 37 years.”
The doctor laughed. “When you love what you’re doing, time flies by. You said you wanted to talk about the Baker case.”
“Yes,” Kayla answered. “I was told that you could help me understand some things that happened back in Wickham.”
Patricia said, “Dr. Baker died in 1965, so the HIPAA rules don’t apply.” She nodded to a small box. “I pulled his files after you called.”
“HIPAA?” Kayla asked.
“Privacy laws,” Patricia explained. “May I ask why you are interested in this case?”
The girl paused, then said, “Charley Miller was my great-grandfather.”
Patricia stared at Kayla, her eyes wide. “Your great-grandfather?”
“Unfortunately,” Kayla replied bitterly. “What can you tell me about him?” She could swear that the doctor’s hands were shaking.
“He was admitted to Wickham Hospital in 1952, diagnosis: catatonic schizophrenia. After a few months, he got well and was discharged. He died in a lightning strike a week later.” Patricia recalled.
Kayla frowned, “What is catatonic schizophrenia?”
“Well,” Patricia responded, “we don’t consider catatonia to be a subset of schizophrenia anymore. It can present in several ways and for many reasons. In this case, Mr. Miller could not move or speak.”
“Any idea why it happened?”
Patricia shook her head, “You won’t believe me.”
The girl held Patricia’s gaze. “Oh, I’ll believe you because nothing you’ve seen compares to what I have seen.”
The doctor’s eyes widened again, but this time in alarm, “You’ve seen that—thing?”
“It killed my best friend, Emma, along with several other people a few years back.”
“The mass murder at the diner in Wickham?” Patricia breathed, remembering seeing something about it on the news.
Kayla nodded, “Yes.”
Patricia shuddered. “So it did come back…”
“I need to know everything,” Kayla said.
The doctor looked at her quizzically. “How did you find out about me?”
“An acquaintance—Hope Hamilton—gave me your name and details.”
Patricia frowned, “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Neither do I.”
Dr. Reed bit back her fear and focused on the girl. She looked to be in her early 20s, but her eyes held shadows that suggested she had seen more in those brief years than most people see in their lifetimes. “Let’s start at the beginning. I’m going to show you the photographs of the two patients who had catatonia.” She pulled an old black-and-white photo from a folder. “This is Charley Miller. I’ve already explained his diagnosis.”
Kayla looked at the picture of her great-grandfather. He was a thin man with big ears and a sharp nose. She was glad that she inherited neither. His eyes stared blankly at something above the camera and his mouth hung open.
“This is James Baker,” Patricia continued, pulling out another photo. This man was young, maybe a little older than Kayla. He would have been quite handsome had he not had the same strange gaze and the slack-jawed look. “Jim was assigned to Miller’s case. He believed he could teach your great-grandfather how to speak again.”
Kayla thought out loud, “Is that possible?”
“In 1952, no,” Patricia replied. “There are some medications and therapies that are beneficial these days. I had some success with Jim using pictures and hand gestures. You must understand that their cases were unique.”
Kayla asked, “Dr. Baker had catatonia too?”
“Yes,” Patricia responded, now fidgeting with a paperclip on the folder. “Just before Miller was discharged, Jim came down with the same malady.”
“Contagious?” the girl wondered, thinking back to Emma and the strange orange dust.
“No,” Patricia responded matter-of-factly. “Miller came to us with an empty mind. He stole the letters of the alphabet and their sounds from Dr. Baker’s mind. When he had absorbed everything, Miller was suddenly ‘cured’ and got discharged. Dr. Baker, however, lost his ability to speak or write.”
Kayla struggled with the implications of Dr. Reed’s story. “How did my great-grandfather do that?”
“He didn’t, Kayla. It was the entity that was inside him.”
“The one that was in Emma,” the girl realized. “Did my great-grandfather breathe orange dust at people?”
Perplexed, Patricia asked, “No, why?”
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“Never mind,” Kayla shrugged. “Please, go on.”
The doctor took a cassette tape from the box. “This is a tape of my interview with Dr. Baker’s fiancée, Fannie Wilson. You should listen to it.”
“I don’t have a tape recorder,” Kayla grinned. “Do they even make those anymore?”
Patricia pulled a tape player from the box and smiled. “You’re in luck.” She handed the machine to Kayla and gestured at her desk. “I need to finish packing my office. Please feel free to listen to it here.”
After Patricia left, Kayla put the tape in the recorder and pressed play.
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The girl sat back and considered the odd conversation she had just listened to. If she hadn’t witnessed the awful events of 2020, she would have thought that all these people were insane. It was such a tragedy that Dr. Baker had been “erased;” and his fiancée, Fannie Wilson, lost her one true love. It was also a tragedy that the creature murdered Emma and Jazmine. The entity only knew how to kill and steal. She understood why Fannie had thought it was a demon. Kayla thought about Hope’s words and realized that the being, this “crawling chaos,” was only beginning to make trouble.
“I see you’re finished,” Patricia said, sitting down on the couch again.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Kayla shrugged. “The whole thing is just so sad.”
Patricia nodded, “Yes, and the murders four summers ago are even more so.”
“Fannie Wilson said she believed this thing was a demon,” the girl continued. “It told me it was an alien.”
“You spoke to it?!” the doctor gasped, her right hand moving to her throat.
Kayla replied, “It spoke to me.”
Patricia grabbed a pen and a pad of paper from the nearby desk. “I must know everything!”
“It laughed about killing my great-grandfather. It said it was experimenting on the town.”
“That’s all?” Patricia looked at Kayla in disbelief.
Kayla retorted, “Isn’t that enough? I lost both of my best friends that day!”
Patricia immediately put her hand on Kayla’s and said, “I’m sorry, Kayla. I didn’t mean to make light of it. It’s just that Dr. Baker told me it was an alien too.”
“I thought he couldn’t speak,” the girl said.
“I gave him a newspaper, and he started screaming. He was pointing to a picture of a UFO,” Patricia recalled.
Kayla thought back to her strange online conversation. “Hope told me that the alien was coming for me and then it would destroy everyone else.”
The doctor recoiled in horror. “It’s coming back? For everyone?”
Kayla nodded, her face sympathetic. She knew well the fear that was coursing through Dr. Reed’s body. “She also told me that there are many of these creatures.”
“Oh, my God!” Patricia whispered. “Are they all this hostile?”
The girl shrugged. “No idea. All I know is that I’m the one who must stop this—alien.”
“But how?” Patricia asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Kayla shrugged, “but you’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Patricia grimaced, “I’m afraid I haven’t helped very much. I only confirmed what you already knew.”
“At least I understand what happened to my great-grandfather a little better,” Kayla smiled sadly.
Dr. Reed put the folders and tape player into the box. She handed the box to Kayla and said, “Take these. You might find some clues that I missed. Nobody will mind, I guess, since all Dr. Baker’s people are dead.”
“Thank you,” Kayla said, gratefully accepting the box. “I guess I need to get home and start studying this stuff.” She made for the door, but turned around and asked, “Do you know what the term ‘crawling chaos’ means?”
Patricia looked at her quizzically, “No, why?”
Kayla sighed, “Because those were my friend Emma’s dying words.”
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Several hours later, Kayla sat in her apartment, surrounded by papers. She had gone through all the documents and chosen the relevant ones. No matter how many times she read them, however, she couldn’t understand how everything fit together. The story was a lot like her life—chaotic and disjointed. She had no idea what to do.
Suddenly, the now familiar chat box opened of its own accord.
Emmajoy03: Having fun?
kamillr2020: its u isnt it?
Emmajoy03: Me?
kamillr2020: the alien
jaz_fury_2018: You’re going insane. You know that, right?
kamillr2020: no im not
catlkr4242: Sure you are, little girl.
jaz_fury_2018: All this talk about aliens and demons…
Emmajoy03: …has made you quite…
catlkr4242: …insane
kamillr2020: wut do u want from me?
catlkr4242: I want to get into your genes.
jaz_fury_2018: I see what you did there, you perverted old man.
Emmajoy03: Hey, Jazmine, could you come over here and pull this bullet out of my chest?
jaz_fury_2018: I can’t. I’m too busy picking brain matter out of my hair.
kamillr2020: u might as well stop bc i no ur all the same person
A pause, then a new name appeared.
crawlingchaos: Better?
kamillr2020: wut do u want from me??
crawlingchaos: I need to hitch a ride.
kamillr2020: wut u need to do is eat shit and die
crawlingchaos: Do you kiss your poor departed mother with that…erm…mouth?
kamillr2020: fck off
crawlingchaos: Oh, I would but I’ve just started enjoying myself.
kamillr2020: wut r u?
crawlingchaos: Have you ever heard of dark matter?
kamillr2020: no
crawlingchaos: It is the real universe. Not this backward little 5% sandbox of what you call “ordinary” matter.
kamillr2020: i dont no wut u mean
crawlingchaos: I answer your question and you’re too dumb to understand it. Typical.
kamillr2020: wut does ur name mean?
crawlingchaos: It means that Lovecraft had a talent for turning his nightmares into stories. Nothing more. I just happen to like it.
kamillr2020: then why did hope tell me to remember ur name?
Seconds passed with no response. Kayla wondered if the thing was gone. She didn’t understand what it had said about the universe but she knew its intentions. Perhaps she needed to be more accommodating to get better answers. Then came the response:
crawlingchaos: Who is Hope?
kamillr2020: u dont no?
crawlingchaos: No, tell me.
kamillr2020: i dont no either.
crawlingchaos: It doesn’t matter. Let’s get this show on the road. Put your hand on the screen.
Horrified, Kayla watched her right hand move toward the laptop of its own volition. She instinctively knew that touching the screen would allow the alien entry into her body. She could not let that happen. She grasped her right arm with her left hand and pulled as hard as she could.
“No!” she yelled, straining against the alien’s command. “I will not!”
She jerked back as she broke the connection. How had she done that?
crawlingchaos: You’re stronger than I thought. Stronger than your great-grandfather.
kamillr2020: wut did u do to him?
crawlingchaos: I fried him with the lightning bolt I used to return home. But, before I did, I left a tiny piece of myself inside your grandfather, Charley’s son, bound to his DNA.
kamillr2020: how?
crawlingchaos: You would find the details distasteful. Let’s just say it involved a sloppy kiss from dear ol’ dad.
kamillr2020: i want to no the details
crawlingchaos: Charley slobbered that DNA into his son’s (your grandfather’s) mouth. Your grandfather then passed that DNA to his son (your father). Then your father passed that DNA to Andy and you.
kamillr2020: ur sick
crawlingchaos: Not as sick as your child-molesting ancestors.
Kayla didn’t reply. She knew from experience how disgusting the Miller men were.
crawlingchaos: From father to son, from son to daughter.
kamillr2020: u passed it on to me?
crawlingchaos: Yes, and that’s I want it to be you who opens the door for the next phase.
kamillr2020: next phase of wut?
crawlingchaos: Fun.
kamillr2020: i get it now. u want to possess me like u did Emma so u can kill everyone
crawlingchaos: Ding, ding. Give that girl a prize!
kamillr2020: ur out of luck bc as soon as i close this laptop im going to kill myself. then u wont be able to hurt anyone ever again
crawlingchaos: You won’t kill yourself.
kamillr2020: why not?
crawlingchaos: You’re pregnant.
kamillr2020: wut???
crawlingchaos: Does Sam know? What will he do when he finds out, I wonder?
kamillr2020: ur lying
crawlingchaos: Go take a test. I’ll wait.
Kayla slammed the laptop shut and threw her mouse across the room. It had to be a lie…had to be. Sam was the only person she’d slept with since she left her boyfriend, and it had only been the one time. A pregnancy test would tell her for sure. She grabbed her keys and headed for the drugstore.
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An hour later, Kayla stared worriedly at the white stick. It seemed like the test was taking forever. All she cared about seeing was that single line that represented no pregnancy. She rocked back and forth in her chair, trying in vain to soothe her frazzled nerves. This couldn’t be happening. She had taken Plan B.
The dreaded plus sign appeared. She was indeed pregnant.