A Lonely and Curious Country (26 page)

              “What happens at seven?” Stephanie asked.

              “Your head explodes,” the doctor calmly replied, then after a beat burst into laughter. “I’m kidding of course. The higher levels have produced no worse than bad headaches and some visions, not unlike a bad hangover. As we are trying to rid you of hangovers, it makes sense to stay low.”

              He turned and Stephanie looked back at the machine, as if reluctant to leave it. She followed the doctor and her mother/manager/monster out of the treatment room and back to the doctor’s office.

              “You will have a private room with private bath, take all meals with the other clients in the common dining room, although the staff will bring any food or drink you’d like to your room any time day or night. You’ll undergo treatment twice a day for two weeks and we’ll see how you’re doing. You will have no contact with the outside world (my apologies, Ms. Thomas, but it’s necessary for your daughter - we want her to focus on getting better). No cell phone, no internet, and you may not receive any mail or packages. We want to keep you away from the things that got you in trouble in the first place. Your mother will return here two weeks from today for an evaluation meeting. It’s my hope that you will go home on that day, cured of your addictions. Now, will that be credit card, cash or check?”

              Her bags were brought to her room, which was small compared to what she was used to, but comfortable and tastefully decorated. She unpacked her clothes and had just jumped on the bed with a magazine when there was a knock at the door and a young African-American man dressed all in white opened it after a moment.

              “Time for your first treatment,” he said.

              “Already?” she asked.

              “You want to wait to get better?” he said, unsmiling.

              She put the magazine down on the nightstand. “Wow, you guys don’t mess around here.”

              In five minutes she was in the treatment room in the recliner. The young man, who never gave his name, waited until she seemed comfortable and then flipped the switch and adjusted a knob. The low hum from earlier rose up. The purple glow grew until it infused the room.

              “I’ll be back in forty five minutes,” he said.

              “Wait,” she called. “What do I do?”

              “Just lie back, relax and let the treatment work.”

              God, she was going to be so bored.

              Except she wasn’t. The sound and the light worked sort of like a sensory deprivation tank. She began to see lights and sparkles in the room. She felt her breathing deepen. Wow, she thought, this could be addicting. It’s like a magic mushroom with no side effects.

              She drifted for a while, neither asleep nor awake but riding the twilight. The lights occasionally flickered on and off like fireflies.

              Then, out of the corner of her eye, it looked like there was a snake on the table moving past the device towards her. Wait, not on the table. It was moving through the table. Snapping into alertness she turned and looked. There was nothing there.

              For the rest of the session she sat there staring at the table but nothing happened and she felt no different when the man came back in the door without knocking and turned off the device.

              “How do you feel?”

              “Fine, I guess. Like, are you supposed to see things and stuff with this thing?”

              “Some clients do; some don’t. I wouldn’t worry about it. Dinner is in an hour and a half.” With that he deposited her back at her room and walked away without another word.

              She suddenly felt tired and, although she began flipping through the magazine again, was asleep in ten minutes, waking only when a low, unobtrusive announcement let her know dinner was being served.

              She walked down the corridor, out of the women’s wing to the central hub and found the dining room. The food did not smell bad. Christ, for what she was paying it should be organic, gourmet, four star cuisine served to her on golden plates. Instead, she found it was healthy, simple and very tasty. She looked around the room at the dozen or so “clients” dining in small groups.

              “Mind if I join you?” said a voice behind her.

              Without looking, she responded, “Whatever.”

              A young man, looking roughly her age dropped into the chair opposite her. He immediately began to shovel the food into his mouth as if he had been lost for three days. “Say what you like about this place, the chow is some of the best I ever had.”

              He was a day or two unshaven, and it suited him, unlike most who tried the look. His eyes were a piercing pale blue and his features sharp. His thick black hair fell just right around his face, framing it as if calling attention to it as a work of art. Stephanie knew she knew him from somewhere.

“Hey, aren’t you..” she began.

“Yeah,” he laughed back. “Aren’t you…”

“Yeah,” she smiled.

“Booze, pills, weed, harder stuff?”

“Take your pick. You?”

“Sex.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. I am a sex addict. I am in almost constant need of sex.”

“Really?” she grinned at this tidbit.

“It’s not fun or funny.”

“Life’s rough for Tyler Lee of 4Ever.”

“Oooh, poor little rich girl from the TV. No sympathy for the hardworking man with an addiction to sex.”

“I wish I had your life,” she said, thinking of her mother/manager/monster.

“No you don’t. You should try being in a boy band.”

“As if.”

“Much harder than your job.”

“Bullshit.”

“On tour 250 days out of the year? More or less living on a tour bus? Not seeing family. Not able to go out in public. No social life. Underage girls throwing themselves at you, trying to sneak into your room.”

“‘Underage?’ I thought you were seventeen.”

He smirked and looked around. “Can you keep a secret? My official bio says I’m seventeen because I look young. I’m actually twenty-four.” He returned to shoveling food into his mouth.

“No fucking way!”

“Shhhhh. Look, it’s good for business. A seventeen year old singing about love and dating to fifteen year old girls is fine. A twenty-four year old doing that is statutory and creepy.”

She giggled. “OK, I’ll be cool. How do you like it here?”

“It’s cool. Tillinghast is arrogant, but knows what he’s doing. I think the treatment is really working.”

“How long you been here?”

“Day eight and no more urges,” he announced proudly.

“Hey, that’s cool,” she said and meant it. “Maybe you can be my rehab buddy,” she said standing up.

“Maybe. Welcome to the Tillinghast Team. A little purple light and everything’s all right,” he joked. She smiled at that and left the dining hall to return to her room and watch some television. As long as she was here, she may as well relax and see what the competition was doing.

On her third day at the clinic, they turned the resonator up to two. “You’re responding well, more rapidly than the average client here,” Dr. Tillinghast told her. The lights became even brighter. She felt warm while it was happening, but afterwards clammy skin and a headache brought her low. She returned to her room and crashed for hours, only emerging at dinner time, barely able to walk to the dining room.

Tyler was already at the table, again eating as if he had never had food before.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he drawled, smiling, when he saw her.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” she responded, ignoring the food and getting coffee.

“Now is that how a good girl talks?” he grinned.

“Sorry. Fuck yourself hard, no lube, is what I meant.”

“Play your cards right…” he began with a smile, then stopped, frowning. “Just kidding. I don’t do that anymore.” He looked at the mug in her hand. “Yo, you need more than that. The resonator can knock you on your ass when they crank it up. You need some sugar or some solid food, not caffeine.”

“Whatever,” she mumbled back, but got up to check out the buffet. Nothing looked appealing, so she had the staff make her a smoothie. When she got back to the table, Tyler was on thirds.

“Off the drugs and joining overeaters anonymous next?” she sneered.

“You know us addictive personalities.” He looked up at her. “You know, I got here the week before you did and my third day was rough, too. Now I’m just feeling so alive. Like everything just looks different. More vibrant. I have this huge appetite for everything. Y’know? For, like, life!”

“Everything, huh? Even underage girls sneaking on the tour bus?”

He stopped, put down his fork and looked at her as if he might snap. Then, suddenly, he smiled and said, “You know what? Not really.”

Later that night, she awoke incredibly thirsty. Something else seemed off. She had been having a nightmare, but now, awake, none of that mattered. Leaving her room, she strolled the corridor and turned down the male dormitory wing. She found Tyler’s door and let herself in.

He was asleep on his bunk, the sheet pulled up halfway over his body. She closed the door and crossed to his sleeping form. She stood for a few minutes, just staring at him, then began to pull the sheet off his body. She could not explain it, but although she had no appetite for food, she found the treatment had somehow awoken a powerful physical need in her. He was in great shape (must be all that dancing, she thought), and only wearing boxers. She climbed onto the bed and straddled him.

“Hey, Tyler,” she half whispered. He stirred. “Wake up, I need to talk to you.”

He opened his eyes, groggy and half awake.

“Steph, what the fu…” Before he could finish the words, she covered his mouth with hers and began grinding against him on the bed. For a second he responded, his tongue flicking against hers and she felt him begin to stiffen under her. Then his eyes opened wide as he became fully awake and he pushed her up.

“What the hell are you doing, Steph? Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

“C’mon,” she purred. “I’m eighteen. It’s not like I’m a virgin. We’re both adults. It’ll be fun.” She leaned back in, prepared to kiss him again.

“Stop it. STOP IT! You have to leave now.” With that he began to scramble back, trying to get out from under her.

“You know you want to,” she said, leaning in to kiss him again while reaching down between them.

“NO!” he yelled and bodily threw her off him, off the bed, to the floor. She was more shocked and surprised than hurt.

He sat up in bed and just looked at her. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked. “I am a recovering sex addict. I have been in treatment for a week and a half and you come in here and…do…this? What the fuck? Am I coming to your room with vodka and E?”

Suddenly, he clutched his head and let out a small shriek. His eyes were clenched tight and for a second she thought something from the inside was pushing against his forehead. (Did I really see that?” she thought). As soon as it had begun, it passed. He began to breathe again and looked at her in pain but with cold distain.

“Seriously, Steph, get out and leave me the fuck alone!” And not waiting for a response, he pulled the sheet up over himself, turned his back to her and made as if he were going back to sleep.

“Fuck you, you fucking homo!” was all she could think to say before storming out and slamming his door.

Afraid that she might have woken those in nearby rooms, she ran down the corridor back to the central hub. She found herself in front of the treatment room. No one around. She tried the door. Open.

              The next thing she knew, the device was on and she was in the chair. Sitting up, she turned the knob to four.

              She sat back and breathed heavily. “It’s just for a few minutes,” she told herself. “Just to calm myself down.” She closed her eyes.

              When she opened them, there was a room in the room. She could see another space, almost identical to the treatment room, overlaying it. It was trippy, but not terrifying. It was like being at a laser show at the Griffith Planetarium on X, seeing both the real world in all its intensity, but also this even more real world on top of it. It was also, she realized, like being in an aquarium. She could see little fishes darting throughout the room.

              “Hello, Nemo,” she giggled, “Your dad’s looking for you!” She giggled some more, then realized she should go. Turning the machine off, she opened the door a crack. Seeing no one, she moved once more down the hall. She figured Tyler would apologize in the morning, and after that she’d ask him if he had seen the fish. Otherwise she’d ignore him. Serve him right for passing up this sweetness, she thought.

              He was not at breakfast. Remembering his headache and the bulge in his forehead, she decided to take the high road and check on him. She knocked on his door, but there was no answer. She tried the knob and the door opened easily. Tyler was not there and the room was devoid of his possessions. It was as if he had moved out during the early morning hours. It wasn’t because of her, was it?

“What happened to Tyler?” she asked the attendant who activated the resonator for her. The young Latina woman, dressed all in white with her hair pulled back in a severe bun, simply said, “I’m afraid we cannot discuss patients with other patients. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes,” and quickly whisked from the room.

The resonator, only set at two now, simply glowed and hummed and did nothing for her. She contemplated turning it up, but since there was no clock in the room she had no idea when the attendant would come back and she figured turning it up on your own would be frowned upon. She spent most of the next hour bored and slightly concerned for Tyler.

She ran into Dr. Tillinghast outside the room right after her session. “What happened to Tyler?” she asked.

“Now Ms. Thomas, Stephanie, you know we do not discuss our clients with other clients.” He then grinned and looked around to see if anyone was in earshot, then leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “But I can tell you he has left here, satisfied with his treatment and ready to begin a new, addiction-free life.”

“He’s gone?”

Tillinghast laughed. “Yes, Ms. Thomas. And you will be, too, someday soon. Once your treatment is over and you have overcome your addictions, we send you home.”

“But when I saw him last night, he had a terrible headache and I swear I saw…”

Dr. Tillinghast’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think you saw, Ms. Thomas?”

Stephanie shuddered in horror at the image in her head of something inside Tyler’s forehead pushing against his skull, his skin, seeking to get out of his head.

“Nothing, I guess.”

“All right then,” Tillinghast smiled. “Besides if you saw him late last night, that would mean one of you was out of bed and perhaps in the other’s room. That would be against policy and a serious temptation for Tyler.”

“Oh, no,” Stephanie asserted. “We both couldn’t sleep and just ran into each other in the dining room for a late night snack.”

“I see. No harm,” he said.

“Out of curiosity, what would happen if someone in their mid-twenties used the machine?”

“What an odd question. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, just curious.”

“As I said, headaches and tiredness, nothing worse. Enjoy your treatment this afternoon.”

He walked away whistling a tuneless song.

Her afternoon treatment at a setting to two was even more boring and useless than the morning session. Tyler’s absence at dinner left her sitting alone and annoyed at the situation.

That night, she again awoke at midnight to a quiet and sleeping center. Slipping out of her room, she moved purposefully to the treatment room.

              Sitting at the edge of the reclining chair, she initially turned the knob to four and the second room burst into her perception. She could see, just out of the range of clarity, vague human-shaped entities in that room, considering her it seemed. Perhaps if she turned the level up they would come into better focus, she reasoned.

She turned the device to five. Simultaneously three things happened. First, a supernova exploded behind her eyes. She could barely see and her head felt too tight. Second, she felt a warmth spreading between her legs. She was not filled with desire, but a strange mix of desire and satisfaction. Third, she noticed the figures were still out of focus, but it was now obvious that she had their attention. The air was also filled with undulating things. She giggled because they looked like eels. Despite the pain, she knew she had to see more, and, reaching over, turned the device to seven.

Malibu police are reporting an early morning automobile accident on Pacific Coast Highway took the lives of television star Stephanie Thomas and singer Tyler Lee of the group 4Ever. The two were in Lee’s Porsche Boxster allegedly exceeding the speed limit when the car struck a cliff and then rolled into oncoming traffic. One witness on the scene described the scene as “gruesome” and “grisly,” although another witness said it looked as if the bodies had almost disintegrated on impact. Police had no comment as the investigation is ongoing. The two celebrities were never linked publicly, but Thomas’s mother, Rhonda Thomas, who also was her manager, in a statement to the media said that they were “close friends, nothing more” and asked for privacy and understanding as the two respective families mourn their loss. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Tillinghast Foundation to support their work with young people facing particular challenges.

Unsung Heroes

Don Webb

              Hitler’s interest in the final battle with the USA is something of an historical curiosity. Although as early as the mid-20s Hitler had referred to an ultimate conflict between Germany and America, the attack on Pearl Harbor shaped American perception of WWII as an American response to Japanese aggression. Hitler’s interest in the USA is usually footnoted in three facts that seem small in the vast tapestry of the Second World War. The first was the creation of the Amerika Bomber. A project of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, a bomber that could travel from Germany to New York had the blessing of Reichmarschall Herman Gȍring, who poured many marks into the project in 1942. The inability of Germany to develop an atomic bomb combined with the decrease of German aviation-production halted the process. The two attacks on American territory – the U-boat attacks on Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and Essex County, Massachusetts are almost unknown to the average American citizen. The former battle was waged by fishing trawlers retro-fitted by the US Navy and is a stirring tale of co-operation between the government and local industry. The later incident is somewhat shrouded in mystery because of the somewhat secretive nature of the good citizens of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. The Germans had dispatched two U-boats, one aimed with a special radio device perhaps to be used in a propaganda campaign. A small group of Americans disabled one of the boats, which was found ashore near the town of Rowley, Massachusetts. The German sailors were dead, seemingly slain by their own guns. The front of the submarine had been torn open. The United States government quieted any press about the incident. In fact the only surviving account of the battle have been found in German records, of the return of one U-boat from a skirmish with Americans. Oddly enough these are not standard German naval records, but an account in the files of Himmler’s Ahnenerbe division, which focused on occult and pseudo-science “Ariosophy” – or beliefs of a secret Aryan tradition.

“Little Known Skirmishes of the Battle of the Atlantic”

Capt. William Henderson USN retired

              The great excitement I feel at being chosen by Reichsführer Himmler to oversee the
Studiengesellschaft für Unterseegeistesur-geschichte
is unbounded. Before the coming of the NSDAP, my theories had been regulated to the ash heap of occultism. Himmler sees the truth. Our Aryan ancestors had not only ruled the primal world of land but the seas as well. Three-quarters of the Earth is covered in water and it is only logical to assume the Will-to-Power that enabled us to claim the earth before the coming of the sub-humans had likewise lead us to conquer the seas. The legends of Atlantis, Mu, and R’lyeh all point to a bygone age of Aryan undersea folk. Of course Jewish science has done much to discredit this. Only the ever-healing movement of history has begun to reveal the watery glories that will empower the Thousand Year Reich.

              I am sad my mother had not lived to see my triumph. I was a sickly and ugly, the butt of school room jokes and a crude prank at the gymnasium. Unlike my brother who has Aryan good looks, I was the asthmatic child of the shadows. The one who reads too much, who fantasy is morbid, whose interests are dark. Had it not been for the coming of Hitler, my life would be overlooked, my monographs on the secret side of history ignored, and one burning dream of finally being part of something great – something that defied the ages – would be like a vision conjured by hashish. Hitler, through the kindly face of Heinrich Himmler , had offered me salvation. What could I do but offer it back? I will be a hero of the Folk! A man whose name is known for a thousand years. Herman Mueller, discoverer of the undersea Aryan people. Heil Hitler! Heil Mueller!

              I had found the story of the undersea Aryans in the Pacific. I had begun my researches with
Antediluvian Folktales, Typhonian Tablets, Migrations of Extinct Branches of the Genus Homo
and the much debated
Cthaat Aquadingen
. I was able to locate Ponape as a likely site of an underwater civilization. In 1889 Spain sold the archipelago of Ponape (together with the Marianne and Palau Islands) to Germany. Certain ruins were discovered in Nan Madol suggested the existence of a high level of civilization which did not match the brown skinned natives. According to the locals the cyclopean stone works were a mere minor construction, an embassy as it were for, for a sea dwelling race known as the Fischvolk. These immortal (!) creatures came to the land to trade gold and platinum jewelry for human workers and in exchange for mysterious (runic?) rituals being performed according to astronomical events. The Fischvolk were said to be in the service of a “Returning Savior” – clearly a folk-metaphor for the future Reich, much as the fictional (?) work of Bulwer-Lytton
The Coming Race.
Two of the Fischvolk named Olosohipa and Olosohopa told the natives that a kingdom long-ago submerged by historical accident would re-emerge on the land when the “stars were right.” Until that happy time the Fischvolk would maintain the undersea world and certain land-dwellers would be tolerated. The leader of the re-emerging Reich would be named Cthulhu. This name, when analyzed by the runic principles discovered by Guido von List reads Fire and Force is Vitally Locked, Until Outer Space Vitality Returns. (Kennaz, Thuriasz, Uruz, Lagaz, Hagalaz, Uruz). Significantly the same name had been discovered by Dr. William Channing Webb’s during a runic expedition to West Greenland in 1860. Unfortunately Lutheran missionaries destroyed much of the lore these primitive brown people had of the white people from sea. The locals killed off the missionaries in 1910, and a rather crazed ship’s captain shelled the island in 1911 – claiming that “Fischvolk were the world’s biggest threat.” After the Jewish-engineered defeat of the war, Germany lost claim to the island, and it became a Japanese possession in 1919. It remains a major source of platinum for the Japanese Empire despite the geological fact that platinum does not occur on coral islands.

              I was fortunate to gain some sketches of jewelry from Nan Madol made by a German missionary. The brooch and tiara he sketched show a massively detailed artistic form reminiscent of Celtic gold work. The undersea imagery bespeaks a vitality, almost a cruelty, that is the very soul of the Aryan confronted with sub-species. I had discovered this all by 1936, and had written two monographs on the possibility of an Aryan homeland in the Pacific. Indeed because of my work (and to be fair Karl Haushofer) the Japanese were granted the status of “Honorary Aryans” in 1937. It was fate, the ever-healing force of history, that enabled me to discover the Fischvolk were not a solely Pacific concern. My article in
Idunna
showing the Nan Madol tiara was read by an American scholar, Dr. Charles Evertt, who provided me with the news that similar jewelry was on display at a museum in Innsmouth, Massachusetts. He believed that the artifacts were from the South Sea trade that had enriched many coastal towns in that part of America called “New England.” I set out straightaway to become an expert on Innsmouth.