Controlled Chaos (Deadly Dreams Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Seven

6:00 p.m. Tuesday Night

Just like she said, thirty minutes later, Dr. Gomez came back into my room with the nurse from last night. I saw that it was the female nurse that brought me my notepad the night before.

I was naked underneath my gown, and both women were let’s just say...looking at all of me. They both scanned my body and touched my skin just about everywhere. Both women were looking at me like I was some freaky science experiment that had gone haywire. It wasn’t the hot moment I imagined a moment like this to be. Quite the opposite of anything that would resemble a fantasy. I might as well had been covered with leeches. I felt like they loathed me.

“There isn’t a single scar on his body,” Nurse Susan said. “Last night, he was covered in bites. Gashes even. It makes absolutely no sense.”

“I have a question for both of you. Why the hell am I still in the hospital?”

“Observation. You were found unconscious and bloody at a park. We don’t just release patients quickly under those circumstances,” Dr. Gomez said. “I’m just very confused.” Dr. Gomez looked at the nurse and then at myself.

“It makes no sense, Dr. Gomez,” the nurse said. She showed the doctor my left wrist. “He had a gash in his wrist that looked like it had been filleted.”

Filleted flesh? I was as horribly confused as much as the two women were. I looked down at my own body, and I never looked better. As a matter of fact, my skin had a milky tone that I hadn’t ever quite noticed. I should have had scars and wounds all over my body.

“All I know ladies is that I was attacked viciously last night by three men. They overpowered me and ripped into my flesh like rabid dogs.”

Dr. Gomez looked down at me completely perplexed. I could tell she wanted to believe me, but the evidence was screwing with her brain. How could any of that be true, if just a day later I had zero injuries? “Are you sure, Hunter?” She looked at the nurse and said, “Susan?”

“Why don’t you ask the policeman who found me?”

“The report that was given to me read that you were bleeding from multiple wounds, but I’m telling you, there isn’t a cut or scar on your body.”

“A report?” I asked. “A police report?”

“No, it’s a report that doctors do as we come on and leave our shifts. I read that you were a bloody mess. All I can say is that I guess the blood on your body wasn’t yours.”

I felt as if I was losing my mind. None of this made any sense to me. “Then what the hell am I doing here? If I’m not injured, then there is no reason for me to still be in the hospital. Take out my IV and let me go home.”

“I can’t do that,” Dr. Gomez said to me. “You haven’t been released yet.”

“Well, I’m releasing myself!” I ripped the IV out of my arm and snatched my clothes, which were laid out on a chair.

I whipped off my hospital gown and put on my jeans and sweatshirt. I didn’t care that I was butt naked in front of the two grown women as I changed. I just wanted to get the hell out of this place. I slipped on my shoes. I wanted to leave. Dr. Gomez pleaded with me to stop, and to lie back down. This whole experience was just too surreal. I needed to find some answers, and this place had even less of a clue about what happened to me last night than I did.

“I appreciate your hospitality ladies, but I’m out of here.” With that, I left and went down the hallway to the elevator. I had no idea what floor I was on. I made my way down to the bottom level and got outside.

I had a problem. I still had no car. I reached into my pocket, and thank God my cell phone and wallet were still there. I looked into my wallet and noticed all my cash was still in it. The attackers didn’t want my money?

What the hell was that about? Why would they attack me? What did I do to them?

There was a lot I didn’t understand, and with the bizarre dreams I was having, I was starting to think maybe I was losing my mind. I had a problem with that theory. I had never felt more alive and sane in my life.

Chapter Eight

8:00 p.m. Tuesday Evening

I decided not to call Steve to come pick me up just yet. It was midnight, and I knew Father Fitzpatrick would be up. He answered his cell phone. Priests with cell phones. That wasn’t even the weird part. Father Fitzpatrick would text me regularly. Nothing specific. Just words of encouragement. He was an awesome man, which was why I called him.

“Hello, Hunter?” Father answered.

“Yes, Father; it’s Hunter,” I replied. “I was in the hospital. I was wondering if you would come by and we could talk.”

A normal person would have said, ‘It’s my bedtime. The nerve of you calling me!’ Not Father Fitzpatrick. “I’ll be there is ten minutes,” he said.

He lied. He showed up in eight minutes.

I was in the donut store parking lot, sitting on a bench.

Father pulled up in his white, beat-up 1982 Ford Courier truck that he’d had since we were kids. He stepped out of his vehicle. Father Fitzpatrick was Irish. Go figure? He was small in stature. He was about 5’8” and only weighed 140 pounds, if that. I’ll be honest, very few people have stepped up in my life as much as this man.

He walked up to me and sat next to me on the bench. He was quiet. As a matter of fact, he didn’t say a word. He just sat next to me silently.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“When someone calls me at midnight, I usually just let them jump right in and tell me what is going on,” Father said, with a nice, pleasant-sounding voice.

I began to tell Father Fitzpatrick the whole nine yards. I told him everything from the attack—to the dreams—to the disappearance of my injuries.

I remembered having these moment with Father much more often before I was an adult, and I was grateful to have this man in my life. When I was done talking to him. Father Fitzpatrick looked at me and simply said, “Oh, Hunter, I have lost you. Just remember what I taught you.” Then he got up and began walking to his car.

Huh?

This was highly unlike him. He was leaving me.

“Father, what has happened to me?”

Father Fitzpatrick turned around and looked at me and said, “You will soon figure it all out.”

“Why are you leaving?” I yelled out.

This time he didn’t turn around and all he said was, “I love you, Hunter Simon.” He got into his beat-up truck and left.

What the hell just happened?

I took out my cell phone and called Steve to come pick me up. He would bitch, but he would come. Why do two grown men talk about being best friends if you don’t do this type of shit for each other?

Chapter Nine

10:00 p.m. Tuesday Evening

Steve picked me up at the donut shop. I had zero appetite. I had no idea when the last time I had eaten. I didn’t recall the hospital feeding me at any point. So if that was the case, those sweet and sour wings from Ricardo’s were the last things in my stomach over a night ago. Still, I had no desire to eat. Just the thought of food made me nauseous.

I jumped into Steve’s black Ford F-150 and told him to take me to my house.

Steve looked at me from the driver’s side and said, “You look pretty good for a guy who got mugged last night.”

“I didn’t get mugged. They didn’t take any money out of my pocket. I was assaulted for no apparent reason. It was three guys piercing me like a bunch of fucking vampires. As a matter of fact, as I think about it, there were four of those bastards in the beginning.”

“Maybe that’s all it was. Some kind of weird cult,” Steve said, as serious as the day is long.

“Well if it was, how come no one has spoken to me about what happened? I never even saw a police officer when I was in the hospital. This whole thing has my brain spinning. I have no idea what’s up and what’s down.”

Steve looked at me and nodded. I was the most level-headed guy he knew. If I was this flustered, there was a Goddamn great reason for it. I’m the most optimistic person in the world. And for me to have such a negative attitude, it could only mean some crazy ass shit had been happening to me over the last 24 hours. “Look Hunter, I’m taking you to go see Munson. He works at midnight tonight at the station. We’re going to get to the bottom of what is going on.”

“Seriously? I know you like Munson, but I don’t if I can trust him. You said it yourself that you fully didn’t trust him.”

“You can trust him with this X-Files kind of shit. This is the shit that gets him off.”

Steve stared at me. “You can trust Munson like a brother. Why? Because I trust you and Munson as brothers. Get the familiar connection? Just because I’m a paranoid dipshit doesn’t mean I don’t surround myself with high quality people.”

“I get it,” I said. If Steve was this certain about Munson, I could take peace in telling him all that was happening

I got in Steve’s black truck. It wasn’t too big and it wasn’t too little of a truck. In about twenty minutes, we pulled into the Placentia Police Department. Steve led me to the back of the department through a side door where only a few people know how to get into without going through security.

We went down a hallway and into Munson’s office. Munson was sitting at his desk typing up what appeared to be a police report. Munson was heavyset, probably weighing close to 300 pounds. He had grey, fuzzy hair and always reminded me of a grizzly bear. He looked at us, snickered, then smiled. “Look what the cat dragged in. A couple of strays. Does Father Fitzpatrick know where you two boys are?”

“You know Father?” I asked Munson.

“I have been to a few of his services,” Munson replied.

“Are you Catholic?” I asked Munson.

Munson laughed. “Is anyone really Catholic anymore?”

I grinned. “Well, I would like to think I am. Because I believe my parents both were.”

Munson gave me a look of sarcastic pity and said, “And you want to see them someday. So if you make us this fairy land where all is good and everybody has cheesecake and beer, you can see them again.” Munson got a hold of himself and said, “I went to Brigham Young University. Religion and I don’t mix. Father is always cooperative whenever I need his help. You know who he reminds me of? That there new pope that’s over in the Vatican. The pope with the kind eyes that seems to sound more like a libertarian than a Catholic.”

I thought about the experience I just had with the Father earlier in the night, and wondered what the hell that was all about. “Father is a good man. I don’t care if you’re Protestant, Catholic, Mormon or Atheist. A good man is a good man.”

I looked at Munson and I knew there was something more compelling he wanted to talk about than to just chat about the best local priest in the community.

“So how you doing, Hunter?” Munson asked. “Looks like your scratches have healed.”

“Scratches?” I said. “They were a little more than scratches. I’m only about twenty-four hours away from having the attack and my injuries have healed like it has been months.”

“They seemed a lot worse when I first came over to you last night. With the amount of blood I saw, I thought you were missing a leg. By the time they cleaned you off at the hospital, you just had a few scrapes.”

“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” I said. “I was practically eaten alive by those savages.”

“They might have just nibbled and didn’t pierce your skin?”

I stared at Munson and gave him a look as if to say, ‘Did you just hear what I just said, followed by what you just said?’

“I’m not sure what they put on the police report.”

“What police report?” I asked. “If there is a police report this is the first time someone in uniform has talked to me about what happened.”

I was expecting Munson to say, ‘That’s odd, no one spoke to you?’ or ‘Are you fucking kidding? No one got a statement from you about your attack?’ I didn’t get anything. I got zero response; instead, he changed the subject.

“Did you come straight from the hospital?” Munson asked me.

“Yes, I did. Steve picked me and brought me to you.”

“Look Hunter, you’re tired and your memory is probably foggy. I’ll stop by your place tomorrow morning and get a statement from you. I guess it was overlooked.”

“Look, Archie,” Steve said. That was Munson’s first name. “I vouch for my buddy. If he says it happened the way it happened, that’s the way it happened.”

Then Archie Munson and Steve exchanged a couple of looks that were about as unusual of an expression as I’d seen each of them have. They were obviously communicating without words. But communicating about what?

When Steve and I got to the car, I wanted to know what that was all about.

“Look, Steve,” I said. “You and Munson had your own little language in there. What the hell was that about?”

“You’re overanalyzing everything, the way you love to do. We were both just surprised you healed fast.”

I looked at Steve and sat back. “I need to get to my house. Maybe that will clear my mind. Right now, I’m not sure what the hell is happening.”