Phobias Read online

  When the Anoka detectives were gone, and the tension slightly eased in the room, Holly began to close up the body bag. “I… I saw how you reacted to something in the detective’s jacket. It was his gun, wasn’t it?” she asked Chad.

  He nodded slowly. “Everyone has their irrational phobias, right? Speaking of which, you never got to tell me yours.”

  “Spiders,” Holly said with no hesitation. “Can’t stand them.”

  Terry looked at Chad, then Holly, then back to Chad. He said, “C’mon, Chad. Let’s let the doctor do her exam.”

  ~~4~~

  After he finished watching the medical road crew pry the remains of Marcia Dean off Interstate 35, the man who kidnapped her returned to his car. He had other business to attend to before getting some sleep.

  He drove south and then west until he came to his large private residence on the edge of Plymouth, a suburb to the northwest of Minneapolis. Over the decades, the property escaped all the subdivision that had happened since the city’s birth, so it sat surrounded by mature trees on over an acre-and-a-half of land. In addition to the enormous three-story house, there was a three-car garage with a large attic over it, two oversized storage sheds, extensive gardens, and a currently unused swimming pool.

  The man, who liked to think of himself as Miedo, the Latin American way of saying fear, was more than a little disappointed that Marcia Dean shimmied out of the trunk of his special car and onto the highway. He spent a great deal of time watching her and planning for her phobia trial and she hadn’t even been able to make it through the first phase. Miedo wondered if it was her fear that was so overwhelming or if it was the stimulant he put in her system. He wished he had the chance to strap her to some of his brainwave monitoring devices. Her phobia was so rare it was almost unique and he doubted he would ever be able to hold another person like her.

  The plus side to her early demise was that Miedo didn’t have to replace Marcia in order to keep moving forward with the others. She wasn’t one of the key players. She wasn’t the drunken ex-cop or the sexy assistant medical examiner. She wasn’t the girl he had in the garage over the attic. Nor was she the young high school football player who Miedo planned to snare into his trap very soon. She was none of those people but he didn’t like not having her all the same.

  Miedo pulled his car into one of the garage stalls and shut off the engine. He walked over to the staircase that led up and began to climb. He made sure to make his steps heavy enough that the girl would hear him ascending.

  The girl, her name was Heather Cline and she was seventeen years old, had a variety of delicious phobias all rolled into one pretty, perky, and precocious package. She was claustrophobic, acrophobic, medorthophobic, and ligyrophobic. Her fears were of enclosed tight spaces, heights, erect male genitals, and loud noises. Miedo had her stripped bare and blindfolded with her upper body wrapped snugly in a straitjacket. Her ankles were bound with a thick zip strip, and she was suspended from one of the rafters. He did have this captive wired to several machines to monitor her vital signs and brain activity. He suspected right about now, with his excessive stomping and two of her other phobias active by the jacket and the sensation of floating, that Heather was just about the lose control of her bladder. Miedo liked that. But he also didn’t want to spend a lot of time cleaning up human waste. So, in the two days since Heather had been in his clutches, Miedo only gave her enough water to keep her from becoming dehydrated. He’d yet to give her any food though. And she hadn’t asked for any.

  Miedo reached the top of the stairs and stomped to where Heather was suspended. When he was beside her, he quietly leaned in. She was breathing heavily, making a soft keening sound, and knew he was right beside her. Miedo glanced over at his monitoring equipment with eyes so dark they were nearly black. The fear centers of her brain were definitely hyperactive. The dancing lines on the screen combined with the smell of fear that poured off of her aroused Miedo.

  “Hey, Heather!” he shouted and clapped right next to her ear.

  Heather bucked in her harness and screamed loudly. Tears poured out from the bottom of the blindfold. The lines monitoring her brain bounced agitatedly. Her heart rate accelerated.

  “Relax, Heather,” Miedo said. “I haven’t even started to give you the special stimulant I’ve created and your fear is already off the charts.”

  “P…p…p…please,” Heather managed. “I… I… I need… to put… my feet… on the ground. P…P… Please.” She sobbed heavily.

  “Oh, I only have you hanging ten feet up in the air, Heather,” Miedo lied. In reality, her feet were no more than a few inches off the ground. But she didn’t know that. “I’ve also got you hanging near a nifty little access plank.”

  “Ac..ac…acess plank?” Heather said with some confusion.

  “Yes, my dear,” Miedo confirmed and ran his tongue across his lips. His manhood shifted behind his zipper as it grew. He was enjoying playing with her fears. “You’ll notice I only restrained your upper body and lower legs. You knees are still able to part… for me…”

  “What!? No!” Heather protested clearly. “You can’t! I’m afraid…”

  “Of my erection? Yes, Heather. I know!” Miedo said. He tilted his head and looked between her legs. The sight of her most private area set him to full attention. He wasn’t going to take her yet. But, again, she didn’t know that so that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun with her. That’s what this was all about after all. Pushing them, using their own phobias against them. Miedo very loudly unzipped his fly.

  “No… Please… No… keep it away,” Heather begged. “Don’t!”

  Miedo extracted his organ, grabbed her by the hips and pulled her toward him, slipping himself between her thighs. Her flesh was hot and slick with perspiration. But he only held her there. He did not insert himself into her. Even still, with the contact of his skin against hers, she shrieked and resisted and kicked. But he held her fast and watched her readings on the nearby equipment. The spikes raced across the monitors and she squealed and thrashed. Her thrashing invigorated him, but he noticed he was going to have to build her tolerance up more, or at least lessen the dosage of the stimulant when he does first take her, or she might end up going into cardiac arrest.

  “Such an irrational phobia, this one is,” Miedo said sternly in her ear. “What scares you about my hard-on? It’s not even inside you.” He, of course, knew why she was afraid.

  “I…I…I…,” Heather stammered.

  Miedo pulled back from her. He swung her away from him. New howls of fear emanated from her as he made her think she was swinging over an abyss. Miedo laughed being sure to make it boom and reverberate off the bare walls and ceiling. After he watched her twist in the wind for a bit, he checked the time, tucked himself back in his pants, zipped up, and grabbed her, stopping her movement. None of this, however stopped her shrieking. Miedo, with a flat fist, slapped her hard across the face. Instantly she went silent except for her sobs.

  “Learn to control that fear and you might get out of this alive, Heather,” Miedo lied again. He had no intention of letting her go or live.

  “I… I… I can’t!” Heather blubbered.

  “Well, when the football player joins us, you might not last very long, then,” Miedo said somberly. He didn’t like the prospect of losing Heather early in the game. Yes, he’d definitely have to adjust the dosage of the drug with her. “I’m going to give you some water now, Heather. You must relax. I put my hard-on away. Just the water and then I have to get somewhere.”

  “Can I… Can I have something to eat please?” Heather asked weakly.

  “No. No you can’t. Not yet anyway. Just relax and… hang out,” Miedo said jokingly. “I’ll be back later.” He looked at the monitors and saw Heather’s readings were waning. “That’s good, Heather. You’re getting better at it already.” He got her some water and set the straw between her lips so she could draw in the fluid. When she was finished he left her alone.

>   Hanging alone, Heather withdrew into a place where she wasn’t nude, bound, and suspended over the unknown.

  ~~5~~

  “So you takin’ Julie out after we get done in here?” the voice said from beneath the shower head next to him. There was the sound of other young men talking and horsing around mixed with the hiss of multiple showers running and the sounds echoed off the tiles walls.

  But Calvin Vale barely heard his teammate speaking or the din of the active boys shower room. He was lost deep in his own thoughts. It was Friday afternoon and the varsity football team’s practice just finished for the day and the week.

  Calvin stood under the lukewarm spray trying to stay calm and to set his sore muscles at ease. He wasn’t having much success with either.

  Someone was fucking with him. And not in a fun or good-spirited way. It could be anyone. He cracked open his eyes and apprehensively looked at the other young men in the shower room. It was probably one of them. Teammates played pranks on each other all the time. But Calvin had a hard time believing one of these guys could be so mean and take things so far.

  “Hey? Cal? You listening, man?” the voice next to him said. It belonged to Walton Bailer who everyone called “Walt.” He looked at Calvin curiously and saw him moving his eyes from one guy to the next.

  But Calvin continued to be deaf to Walt’s words. He looked at the backs of Jeff and Mark, two of the team’s running backs. Could they be the ones to have started this? his mind pondered. Calvin wanted to doubt it. Sure, they knew a little about one of Calvin’s phobias but they were also two of the nicest guys in the senior class.

  Calvin’s eyes moved to Brady, a tight-end. He also knew about the same phobia as Jeff and Mark. Couldn’t be him either he said to himself. And I’m one of the nicest guys in the senior class too! he added. He moved on to the next pair of players. They’ve taken too many hits in the head to figure something like this out. Plus they don’t know shit about me. He felt the water turn slightly colder.

  “Calvin?” Walt said. He decided to break shower room etiquette and took hold of Calvin’s bare shoulder. “You there man?”

  Calvin’s felt Walt touch him and his eyes swung over to him. He eyed Walt suspiciously. Maybe it’s him. He knows me inside and out he speculated. Walt had been Calvin’s best friend since elementary school. “Yeah. I’m here,” Calvin finally answered.

  “What’s going on, man? You were in some kind of zone,” Walt said. He turned his shower off and grabbed his towel from the nearby hook. He started to dry himself.

  Calvin bent at the waist and picked his bottle of body wash off the tiled floor. The water was cooling faster and he wouldn’t get much more of a shower. He quickly squeezed some soap onto his palm and started to spread lather across his skin. “Someone’s fucking with me, Walt,” Calvin said softly.

  “What do you mean?” Walt asked. He put the towel over his head and vigorously began to dry his blonde hair.

  Calvin started to rinse the suds away and said, “Someone knows about my… my… my thing…” He said the last word softly.

  “Dude,” Walt said with a big somewhat envious smile. He let his eyes fall to between Calvin’s thighs. “Everyone knows about your thing. It’s legendary.”

  “Shut up, man,” Calvin said turning a little pink. “It’s not that.” He finished with the shower and turned the water off. He grabbed his own towel and scanned the shower area. Most everyone was gone by now. The hot water didn’t last long in the old building. “Someone knows about my… my… phobia.”

  “Oh,” Walt said simply. He moved the towel from his head, ran it once more down his chest and then wrapped himself at the waist with it. He put his hands on his hips and studied his best friend who was buried under his own towel. “I thought you had more than one. Which one is it?”

  Calvin pulled the towel off his head and worked it across the rest of himself. He looked at Walt with his hazel eyes. “Does it really matter which one?”

  “Sure,” Walt said. “I mean, besides your mom, I’m the only one who knows you have three of them. You haven’t even told Julie.”

  “It’s all of them,” Calvin blurted.

  “Shit, man,” Walt said. “What’s been happening?”

  ~*~0~0~*~

  For Calvin, the first phobia to invade his psyche was oneirophobia, the fear of dreams. It came to him one night out of the blue just over three years ago. His father died the week before, having been victim of a mugging gone wrong. Calvin went to bed the night after his father’s funeral feeling lost and sorrowful. Two hours later, his dreams became filled with unthinkable monsters, heinous demons, and vengeful spirits. They chased, heckled, threatened, harassed, shrieked, and haunted him through his next few hours of sleep before Calvin finally managed to tear free and wake up. When he did wake up, he found his underwear and sheets sodden with nervous sweat and the more pungent aroma of his urine. He spent the next hour, in dim lighting, cleaning up the mess and hoping his mother wouldn’t notice. It was unlikely she would. Since Calvin’s father died, his mother hadn’t made it a night without drinking close to half a liter of vodka. When Calvin was showered and in a fresh pair of underwear, he went to the family room sofa, plopped himself onto it, and turned on the television. He dozed off quickly and immediately fell into another horror scenario in the dreamscape of his mind. Days melted into two weeks and Calvin never slept more than twenty minutes at a time. His violent, malignant, tainted dreams were relentless. Eventually, anxiety coursed into Calvin and, as the sun would set in the day and Calvin knew night was approaching, he began to associate nocturnal things negatively. Night meant time to sleep which meant time to dream. And the darkness came with the night. It didn’t take long before his second phobia, nyctophobia, fear of the dark, joined the first. Fortunately, he was able to counteract the newer phobia some of the time. It was easy to keep a lamp or light on in every room he was in. But it wasn’t easy to close his eyes. Not only could he not sleep because of his dreams, but he couldn’t sleep because of the darkness behind his own eyelids.

  It didn’t take long for his mother to notice something was up with Calvin, despite her own issues coping with her husband’s premature death and her spiraling obsession to find answers she never would in the bottom of a bottle. It was summer vacation and Calvin was home enough for her to notice his sunken, puffy, sleep-deprived eyes. If that wasn’t enough, he was irritable, cranky, and snappish. Nearly all of the friends he had wouldn’t come around anymore and he hadn’t been to see any of them. Walt had been away at his grandmother’s while his own parents worked that summer.

  The solitude at this time in Calvin’s life only escalated his problems. Calvin would never tell his mother what was happening to him in spite of her pressing him. She became certain he wasn’t coping and was self-medicating just as she was, only with something a lot worse than booze. But Calvin wasn’t talking. And his mother had to work. So she left him alone.

  Alone, Calvin’s anxiety about the darkness that came each day and the dreams that followed reached a new level, and he soon found being by himself with his own thoughts difficult to bear. He spent two full mornings and afternoons walking the nearby mall and library just so he didn’t have to be alone.

  Then a Saturday came.

  It was not a good day for Calvin.

  His mother didn’t usually leave the house on Saturdays and Calvin anticipated having her there for companionship that day. But when he heard her shoes clicking on the linoleum of their kitchen and her keys jingling in her hands, he felt panic wash over him. He was going to be alone again when he least expected it. Calvin didn’t exactly realize it then but that was when his third phobia fully took root. Monophobia; the fear of solitude. He dashed to the kitchen and frantically grabbed at his mother. He shrieked, cried, and begged her not to leave him alone. His panic eventually drove him to hyperventilation. His mother added a little panic of her own to the mix and called an ambulance.

  Calvin was seen by a trio of med
ical doctors who easily assessed him as malnourished and sleep deprived. They kept Calvin medically sedated for over twenty-four hours and he was trapped in the nightmare dreamscape the entire time. When he finally woke up, he cried in his mother’s arms until he had no more tears. Finally, he confessed his secret to her and told her about what had been happening to him since his dad had died.

  Calvin’s mother did only what she knew how to do. Before she crossed into the bar across the street and a few doors down from the hospital to begin her daily intake ritual, she called a psychiatrist. She really picked a random individual in that section of the phone numbers that came up on her phone’s internet search.

  But the psychiatrist took interest in Calvin’s predicament and when he came to see Calvin a few hours after his mother’s call and her first drink, the doctor looked at Calvin with curiosity.

  Calvin told the psychiatrist everything. He held nothing back. Calvin knew he couldn’t live much longer like that. If the sleep deprivation didn’t kill him, he would surly end up killing himself.

  The psychiatrist reasoned that everything afflicting Calvin stemmed from his dreams and his oneirophobia. So he found a creative regimen of medications to counteract Calvin’s dreams.

  And the drugs worked. It wasn’t perfect at first but the doctor told Calvin it would take some time.

  Calvin was thrilled that by the time the school year began, he felt almost like his old self. The fears were still there. He knew that and could feel them but they weren’t able to override the medication he was taking.

  Besides his mother and his doctor, Calvin never told anyone but Walt about the phobias that were born to him that summer.

  Earlier this summer, a few summers after they’d begun, Calvin almost forgot about his phobias.

  But then stuff started to happen.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  “So what’s been going on?” Walt repeated after Calvin wrapped his towel around his own waist and they headed out of the showers.