Mystery Walk

Ask Max to go through the M files and bring me the letters from Mr. Reginald Merkle.' She spelled out the name, and then Anita left. 'Now. What can I do for you, Mr. Creekmore?'

'I've . . . come because your letter asked me to.'

'I expected a reply by mail, not a visit. And besides, that was some time ago. Are you here in Chicago with your family?'

'No, ma'am. I'm here alone.'

'Oh? Where are you staying, then?'

Billy paused, smelling disaster. 'Staying? Well, I . . . left my suitcase downstairs. I thought I'd be staying here.'

Dr. Hillburn was silent; she nodded and spread her hands before her on the blotter 'Young man,' she said, 'this is not a hotel. This is a workshop and research center. The people you probably saw downstairs, and those in the labs, have been invited here after long consultation. I know nothing about you, and to be perfectly honest I can't even recall why we wrote you in the first place. We write hundreds of people who don't answer us. Our labs certainly aren't as well equipped as those at Duke University and Berkeley, but we have to make do on the budget we get from the University of Chicago and small grants. That budget is hardly enough to continue our tests and research on the individuals we select; and certainly there's no room here for someone off the street.'

'I'm not here off the street!' Billy protested. 'I've come a long way!'

'Of course you have, young man. But I'm saying that . . .' She looked up as a middle-aged man in horn- rimmed glasses and a lab jacket brought in a file folder containing several letters.

'Thank you, Max,' she told the man, and when he'd gone she put on a pair of reading spectacles and took several letters from the folder Billy recognized Dr. Mirakle's spiky handwriting.

'What kind of place is this?' Billy asked her. 'What goes on here?'

'Pardon? Don't you know?' She glanced up at him. 'The Hillburn Institute is a death survival studies clinic, sponsored in part by the University of Chicago. But as I say, we . . .' She trailed off, engrossed in something she was reading.

'What do those people downstairs do?'

'They . . . they've had experiences with manifestations or spirit controls.' Dr. Hillburn looked up from the letters and pushed the spectacles up onto her forehead. 'Young man,' she said quietly, 'you evidently left your friend Mr Merkle deeply impressed. The experiences he's written down here are . . . quite interesting.' She paused, returned the letters to the folder, and said, 'Sit down, won't you?'

Billy took a chair in front of her desk. Dr. Hillburn swiveled her chair around to stare through the window at the park, her face illuminated by pale gray light. She took her glasses off and put them in her jacket pocket. 'Young man,' she said. 'What do you think of our city?'

'Well, it's noisy,' he replied. 'And everybody's running around so fast.' He didn't tell her that he'd seen the black aura twice—once clinging to an elderly black man on the bus and once surrounding a young girl a few blocks away from the bus station.

'Have you ever been this far away from home before?'

'No, ma'am.'

'Then you must feel the ability you have—whatever it is—is very special. Special enough to leave Alabama and come such a distance? Why did you come here, Mr Creekmore? And I'm not talking about the letter. Why did you come?' She turned toward him again, her gaze sharp and watchful.

'Because ... my friend, Dr Mirakle, said I should. And because my mother wanted me to. And . . . maybe because I didn't know where else to go. I want to understand more of why I'm like I am. I want to know why I see things that other people don't. Like the black auras, and the entities that look like mist and carry so much pain, and the shape changer. My mother could see the same things, and her mother before her . . . and it's likely that my son or daughter will be able to, as well. I want to know as much as I can about myself. If I'm in the wrong place for that, tell me now and I'll leave.'

Dr. Hillburn had been observing and listening to him carefully. She was a trained psychiatrist as well as a parapsychologist with two books on death survival studies to her credit, and she'd been looking for telltale signs of emotional instability: inappropriate gestures or grins, facial tics, a general irritability or melancholia. She sensed in Billy Creekmore only a genuine desire for self-knowledge. 'Did you think, young man, that you could just present yourself on our doorsteps and we would offer easy answers for all your questions? No. I'm afraid that's not to be the case. As I say, this is a workshop; a damned difficult workshop, I might add. If there's any learning to be done, we learn together. But everything has to be verified through extensive tests and experiments. We don't deal in trickery here, and I've seen enough psychic fakers in my lifetime. Some of them have sat where you're sitting now. But sooner or later their tricks fail them.

'I don't know anything about you, except from what I've read in these letters. As far as I know, you don't understand a thing about death survival research. You may have a psi ability—though I'm not saying I'm convinced you do—but as far as I'm concerned it may only be a figment of your imagination. You may be a publicity hound. You may even want to disrupt the work we're trying to do here, though God knows we have enough disruptions. Do you believe you can communicate with the dead, young man?'

'Yes. I can.'

'That remains to be seen. I'm a born skeptic, Mr. Creekmore. If you say a traffic light's red, I'll say it's purple, just for the sake of an interesting argument.' Her eyes had taken on a shine. 'If I decide you're worth being here, you might rue the day you ever walked through the gate. I'll throw every test I can think of at you. I'll take your brain apart and put it back together again, more or less as it was. In two or three days you'll hate me, but I'm used to that. You'll have a room the size of a closet to sleep in, and you'll be expected to work around here like everyone else. It's no free ride. Sound like fun?'

'No.'

'Now you've got the idea!' She smiled cautiously. 'Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock you'll be right here, telling me your life story. I want to hear about your mother, and the black auras and the entities and . . . what was it? A shape changer? Indeed. Dinner's in fifteen minutes, and I hope you like Polish sausage. Why don't you go get your suitcase?'

Billy rose from his chair, feeling confused about the whole thing. It was still at the back of his mind that he should leave this place, and he had enough money for a return ticket home. But he'd come this far, and he could stick out whatever was in store for him for at least three days. He didn't know whether to thank the woman or curse her, so he left without saying a word.

Dr. Hillburn looked at her wristwatch. She was already late getting home, and her husband would be waiting. But she took the time to read Merkle's letters again. A pulse of excitement had quickened within her. Is this boy from Alabama the one? she asked herself—the same question she asked when any new subject came to the institute.

Is Billy Creekmore the one who'll show proof positive of life after death? She had no way of knowing, but she could hope. After a moment of reflection, she stood up and took her coat from a rack beside the desk.

48

Wayne Falconer's scream cracked the silence that had fallen over the Krepsin estate.

It was just after two o'clock in the morning. When George Hodges reached Wayne's bedroom—one of the few rooms in the strange house that had windows—he found Niles already there, pressing a cold washcloth to Wayne's forehead. Wayne was curled up on the bed, his eyes feverish with fear. Niles was still dressed as if he'd just stepped out of a business meeting.

'A nightmare,' Niles explained. 'I was walking along the hall when I heard him. He was just about to tell me what it was, weren't you, Wayne?'

Henry Bragg came in, rubbing his eyes. 'Who screamed? Wayne? What the hell's . . .'

'Wayne's fine,' Niles said. 'Tell me your dream, and then I'll get you something for that headache.'

Hodges didn't like the sound of that. Had Wayne gone through his Percodan and codeine capsules yet again?