Read Online Orgonomicon by Boris D. Schleinkofer - Free Book Online Page B

had the same nightmare, every night, for
three weeks running, and then it suddenly stopped. His brothers
teased him mercilessly about it, though he was unable to make it
stop. The next string of bad dreams were about being pulled through
the wall and taken to the metal room, where horrible people did bad
things to him that he couldn't remember. He always had
nightmares.
    Sometimes he had nightmares that happened
during the day, when he was awake.
    Like the time he saw the invisible person at
his school, running across the playground faster than anybody
could, like a bolt of clear lightning. It had stopped and turned to
face him, staring at it open-mouthed through the window in his
classroom; it waved a hand at him and Jaime became suddenly aware
that he was surrounded by the invisible beings, and then it had
gone.
    Jaime had been removed screaming and stayed
home for three whole days; this was when he started being taken to
the doctors. And his parents were crazy for the doctors; they
couldn't get enough of them, he was always in one doctor's office
or another, treating his ADD or his asthma or crooked teeth. He had
a handful of different pills he had to take every morning, just to
try to be normal.
    No one knew what was wrong with Jaime, or
what he was seeing.
    The first doctor they'd taken him to was the
nicest.
    He'd given him a comfortable chair and talked
to him the whole time in a calm, slow voice. At one point he'd
said, "I'd like to try a little light hypnosis," but then Jaime
didn't remember anything after that because he'd fallen asleep.
When he went back for his next visit a week later, the doctor had a
little wood-paneled radio that he sat down before the boy, telling
Jaime to turn it on only after he'd left the room. He'd waited
until the doctor left and then switched it on just as he'd been
shown; the radio set made no sound other than a very quiet hiss. He
sat back in the chair and waited patiently, but nothing seemed to
be happening, and so he fell asleep. Jaime seemed to sleep a lot
when he went to see the talking doctor.
    The next doctor he went to was not so nice.
Jaime didn't like the way the man put his hands on the back of his
neck and pressed, sliding the bones around into painful positions.
He tried to tell his parents that he didn't like going to the
painful doctor, cried and pleaded with them not to make him go, but
they refused to let him get out of it. It was an adjustment he'd
learned to accept.
    The pain was familiar to him by the time he
went on the field trip to the aquarium with the entire fifth grade.
It was weird, seeing so many kids in one place, herded around like
farm animals. It had almost been enough to distract him from all
the rest of the strange happenings going on around him.
    It hurt to turn his head so much, trying to
take in all the sights and make sense of the unusual circumstances;
at least half of it didn't make sense. There were people dressed in
costumes, but only a small number of them belonged to the aquarium;
most of them were characters from the theme park across town. There
wasn't any good reason for them to be at this park. And
there were a whole bunch of men in black suits, way more than
seemed normal, and none of them had kids with them. Something about
the men in suits made Jaime nervous; it seemed like they were all
staring at him from behind their dark sunglasses. One of them saw
Jaime watching him and took a step toward the boy, speaking into a
mouthpiece and reaching purposefully into his jacket as if he was
going to pull out a gun or something, but then the tour had
started.
    Their first stop was the dolphin tank. Jaime
wanted to watch the dolphins leaping to take the fish from the
trainers' hands, but the pain in his neck wouldn't let him make any
sudden movements with his head. The other children clapped and
cheered every time the splash announced another successful
performance, but Jaime's eyes stayed glued to the giant metal plate
in the floor on which they