Read Online The Syndrome by John Case - Free Book Online

it. It’s like … like an elevator without walls, an escalator without stairs.”
    “And then what?”
    “I’m in a room … in the sky.”
    “What kind of room?”
    “Like … an auditorium.”
    “And what are you doing?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Why not?”
    “I can’t move,” the Dutchman said. “I’m turning in the air—”
    “What?”
    “I’m slowly … turning in the air.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m on display … like a bug … in a case. A glass case.”
    “Are you alone?” Duran asked.
    The Dutchman shook his head. “There are seats all around—and they go up, row after row.”
    “Are there people in the seats?” Duran asked.
    De Groot shook his head. “I can’t see. The light is so bright—they’re just shapes.” Suddenly, de Groot stiffened, and thrashed.
    “What’s the matter?” Duran asked.
    De Groot answered through gritted teeth: “I am being interfered with.”
    Duran looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve told you! I am
interfered
with.”
    “How?”
    “I am examined by … I don’t know who … I don’t know
what they
are.”
    “Doctors?”
    “No!” de Groot shot back, his voice suddenly loud and scared. “Not doctors.
Figures!
Shapes. I don’t want to look.”
    “Then … why don’t you run away?” Duran asked.
    “I can’t move. The light won’t
let
me move. It holds me in the air.”
    “And what are the shapes doing? What’s happening?”
    “They … insert instruments.”
    “Where?”
    “In my nose. Mouth. Every
hole
.” De Groot winced, and his eyes slammed shut.
    “Yes?”
    “It feels bad!”
    “What does?”
    “I’m not to remember,”
de Groot muttered. “For my own
welfare.
I am not to remember.”
    Duran pushed.
    “It’s all right to remember, Henrik.” He laid a hand on his client’s shoulder. “It is good to remember. But you have to relax. You have to breathe. Thaaaaat’s it. Now, just concentrate on breathing. It’s safe here. You’re not in the light anymore: you’re on a rock at the edge of the water. You can hear the waves lapping at the rock. There’s a breeze. And seagulls wheeling overhead …” Duran let him think about this for a while, and then: “Now, let’s go back to the other place, the place in the light. But don’t be frightened—I’m with you. I want you to tell me about the instruments … what do they look like?”
    “Tubes.”
    “And what are they made of?”
    “Glass. Metal.” Once again, de Groot shuddered.
    “What’s the matter?” Duran asked.
    “They’re cold.
So
cold … they stick to my skin—and they burn.”
    “And what are they doing with … the instruments?”
    De Groot took a deep breath, and shuddered. “They put them in me.”
    “Where?”
    “No.”
    “Henrik—it’s for your own good.”
    “But you know!”
    “Of course, I know—but you have to tell me.”
    De Groot shook his head.
    “Where?” Duran insisted.
    “My willy! My … arse.”
    “But why? Why are they doing that, Henrik? Do you know?”
    The Dutchman nodded. “They’re feeding the Worm,” he said. Suddenly, de Groot whimpered, and his face clenched with a mixture of sadness and pain.
    Duran glanced at his watch. To his surprise, he saw that fifty minutes had gone by. “Okay, Henrik, that’s enough. That’s enough for now.”
    He brought the Dutchman back to wakeful consciousness, disappointed that he was still unable to surface the trauma underlying de Groot’s delusion. He needed to help de Groot
push through
, reversing the process of sublimation which had generated this absurd story of alien abduction (if, indeed, that is what it was). As things now stood, de Groot was being tortured by an event that his mind had encrypted, repressing the memory by transforming it into something else.
    The Dutchman sat up, blinked and looked around. “What happened?” he asked, his voice thick with suspicion.
    “You did great,” Duran told him. Then he switched off the tape recorder, and got to his