Don't Sleep Just Yet | Chapter 5

            “That’s a nasty cut on your lip,” Jay snickered as he leaned back in his chair, watching Dr. Adair’s face pale. “How’d that happen?”

            Darcy didn’t say anything. If he had known that he was about to sit down right in front of Ansel’s obsessive former friend, he would’ve left the hospital instead. Unfortunately, there he was, alone in his office with Jay himself, and he didn’t know what to do. His office had windows, but they had blinds over them, and the doctor glanced at them; if Ansel were to walk by with Dr. Park, would Jay be able to see them? He assumed so, and it made him nervous, but he put his gaze back on Jay. “Jay, then.” He whispered, ignoring the question that had been asked. Feigning a small smile, Darcy secretly reached his right hand up under his desk, aiming to press the little red button to call security. He, personally, had never used the button before, but it seemed there really were firsts for everything.

            “Don’t even think about pressing that button.” Jay remarked suddenly, causing Darcy to freeze. “That’s right. I took the liberty of looking around your office a bit. I know about that red button under your desk.”

            Darcy indiscreetly clasped his hands over his lap. “Fine.” He spoke. “You’ve got me. Now, are you here for a reason, or are you just here to torture Ansel?”

            Jay scoffed and brought his hand to his chest. He seemed offended. “Me torture him? What lies has he spoon-fed to you? You’ve got it all wrong, Dr. Adair: I’m not here to torture him. I’m here to get vengeance.”

            “By torturing him?” Darcy inquired with raised brows.

            The man shook his head with a sigh, then admit, “I can’t expect you to understand. You’ve only heard Ansel’s side of the story. It’s fine that way, though. You don’t need to know why I’m doing this.”

            “What do you want from him?”

            “Companionship. I can’t seem to get that, though.” Jay pointed at him. “Yet, you have. So, that only leaves one question for me: why you? Why are you worthy of his affection, but I’m not?”

            “That was two questions.” Darcy told him flatly.

            “Still,” Jay remarked, ignoring his attitude, “it’s good that you and I see eye-to-eye. I got what you asked for.”

            Darcy furrowed his brows in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

            “You know. The footage. From the security camera.”

            “I don’t understand what you’re saying. What security camera?”

            Jay gave him a funny look. “You mean you really don’t remember?”

            “Remember what?”

            Jay snickered again. He reached down to a bag under his chair that Darcy hadn’t even noticed was there and pulled it up onto his lap. As he dug through it, Darcy unclasped his hands and started reaching for the button again, just in case Jay pulled a gun on him or something. Instead, however, the man revealed a CD in a clear case. He put it down on the desk, then pressed his fingers against it and pushed it closer to Darcy. “You might want to watch this, then, rather than destroy it.” He instructed with a malevolent smirk. Disturbed, Darcy stared daggers at Jay, glancing occasionally from him down to the CD. After the third or fourth time he did his, he held his gaze on the man, and shortly after, Jay zipped up his bag and stood up, wrapping the straps over his arms and holding them at his sides. “I’ll let myself out.” He announced, then opened the door. Before leaving, he turned back and said one final thing: “Tell Ansel I said hello.”

            The door closed, and Darcy vacantly glanced down. The CD was still there. He could only imagine what was on it, and why Jay thought he had asked for it, considering they had never spoken so much as a word to each other, and had only just met for the first time less than two minutes prior. Then, he started to worry about what he would tell Ansel, or if he even should tell him. It was with great reluctance that he reached forward and picked up the CD case, popping it open.

            The CD was brand new by the looks of it. Written across it in black marker that was already fading were the words, “For Darcy”. There was nothing else in or on the case; no further indications as to what the CD might contain. Just holding the disc in his hand made him feel anxious, but at the same time, he was ridiculously curious. He wanted to know what security camera Jay was talking about.

            He decided to make a folder for Jay just as a record, so he stood up and walked over to his box of patient folders. He pulled it down from the shelf and placed it onto his desk, and as he reached to grab a fresh folder from the front, he saw the letter “H” and hesitated. For no other reason than to comfort himself, he reached to the back of the “H” section, looking for Ansel’s patient information folder. He knew it was last, since “Hunnisett” came last in that section alphabetically when grouped with his other patients. However, the folder he pulled up belonged to a woman with the surname “Howland”. Figuring he had merely misplaced the folder he was looking for, Darcy sifted through the “H”s, but failed to find Ansel’s folder, so he looked at every folder in the box. Ansel’s was missing.

            “What the hell…?” Darcy murmured to himself. He liked to be organized. He would never have left the folder out of the box. Scratching his head, he went around behind his desk and started looking through the drawers. “Where is it?” Then, it dawned on him.

            Jay had said he’d looked around his office. He must have taken the folder.

            With a frustrated huff, Darcy walked to his door. There was a corded phone on the wall that he could use, and pressing “0” would connect him to the front desk, so he did that.

            “Yeppers,” answered Ryan.

            “Hey.” Darcy sardonically sung. “Could you do an all-call for James Thorne to return to my office? Thanks.”

---

 

            The Valium left Ansel feeling dizzy and disoriented, but he dared not mention this to Dr. Park, who was taking another long look at the corpse of Mr. Adair. Instead, he put his sweater back on, then slipped his coat over it. Moving made him feel woozy. “When can we go?” He slurred.

            “Whenever you feel up to walking.” Dr. Park responded as she finally closed the shelf that the corpse was on.

            “Eh, I think I’ll sit here a minute longer.” Waiting to regain his strength but not sure if he would, Ansel leaned back in the chair, resting the back of his head against the wall. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, but he only opened his eyes when he heard a gurney being pushed into the room.

            “Dr. Park,” greeted an old man who had entered with two nurses. Ansel looked at the gurney. There was a body on it, covered by a sheet, but dangling over the top edge was long, dark brown hair.

            “Dr. Raimondi,” replied Dr. Park, who sounded a bit embarrassed.

            Raimondi glanced at Ansel, then back at the woman. “Why are you here with a patient?”

            “Long story,” Ansel mumbled.

            “Valium?” The old man, supposedly the coroner, asked, gesturing at Ansel. Dr. Park nodded. The man shook his head in what could’ve been disappointment, then turned back to the gurney. “Please leave. I have an autopsy to conduct.”

            “Who’s under the cloth?” Ansel inquired in a drawl.

            As if seeing no point in keeping the truth from him, Dr. Raimondi solemnly answered, “Ms. Isabelle Montgomery. She was here on a trip. Apparently said that she got a call from her son, asking her to drop by.”

            Dr. Park’s face drooped with what looked like shock. Ansel didn’t understand why until she spoke, saying, “Isabelle Montgomery? She… She wasn’t married to a man who died just recently, was she?”

            “Yes, I’m afraid this is that Isabelle.”

            “I don’t get it.” Ansel groaned. “Who is she?”

            Dr. Park looked at him, her face pale and gaunt. “She’s Dr. Adair’s mother…”

---

 

            “James Thorne, return to Dr. Adair’s office. That’s James Thorne to Dr. Adair’s office.” Ryan announced over the public announcement system. Darcy huffed as he took the paper Jay had written on from its clipboard and slipped it into a new folder. He doubted that Jay was even still in the building, but it was worth a shot. If worst came to worst, he could just get the guy’s cellphone number from Ansel somehow. He closed the folder in his hand, then set it down against his desk and pulled a Sharpie from a tube-shaped container. Using the pen, he wrote “THORNE, James” along the space allotted for the folder’s name, and then he slipped the folder into the “T” section of his box.

            He was surprised when he heard the knocking on his door. Perhaps he had misjudged, and Jay had returned to fess up. He thought that up until he heard the voice behind the door.

            “Darcy.” It was Ansel, and he sounded firm despite the slightly tipsy slur he’d developed, the latter of which was probably a side effect of the Valium.

            Darcy opened the door for his friend, finding him to be standing in front of the door with his arms firmly pressed against the walls to his sides, as if he was trying to seem somewhat intimidating. “Are you alright?” The doctor asked, genuinely concerned. Slurring was a serious side effect that he had to find a way to counteract, and Ansel seemed a bit ill… as well as furious, for that matter.

            “Did you see a guy named James Thorne?” The younger man demanded to know.

            Darcy straightened himself. “Yeah, I saw Jay.” He admit. Ansel threw his head back in annoyance, then let out a groan that was half growl. As he did, Darcy reached out, wrapping his arm around Ansel. “Come on, get in here and sit down before you fall on your face.”

            “I have bad news.” Ansel revealed.

            “It can wait.”

            After sitting Ansel down on one of the chairs in front of his desk, Darcy thought aloud: “Okay, five hundred milligrams of caffeine cancels out twenty milligrams of diazepam, so fifty milligrams of caffeine…”

            “What are you mumbling?”

            “Sit tight, Poppet. I’m going to get something to perk you up.” The doctor pat Ansel’s knee before getting up.

            “Poppet?” Ansel sneered jokingly at the old-fashioned pet name, “Piss off.”

            “You know you like it.” Darcy quipped back, then he left Ansel alone in his office. He walked further down the hall, planning to head to the cafeteria to buy Ansel a cup of coffee, but then he noticed a soda machine and remembered how much his friend despised coffee. For a moment, he stared at his options, then he looked over his shoulder for someone to ask for advice. He saw a nurse walking by that wasn’t Ryan, so he raised his voice. “Excuse me,” he asked, “Which of these has the most caffeine?”

            The nurse glanced at the options. “Definitely Mountain Dew.”

            “How much per can?”

            “I’m not sure. Something like fifty to sixty milligrams?”

            That would do.

            “Thanks.” He said and pulled his wallet from the pocket of his coat. Luckily, he had enough change, and when the machine rolled out a green can, he picked it up and returned to his office. Ansel was still sitting in the chair he had been left in, but Darcy knew he’d stood up, since the chair had been turned to face the door, and the moment he walked in, his friend held up the folder he’d made for Jay with a hard expression on his face.

            “Really?” He flatly questioned the doctor. “He’s formally a patient of yours now?”

            “Yes.” Darcy answered as he closed the door. “He’s a patient of mine, just as you were.”

            “Oh, joy. One more thing I have in common with this sick son of a b***h.” Ansel seethed, slapping the folder down on Darcy’s desk. “What’s the CD?”

            “He gave it to me.”

            “Throw it out.”

            “I don’t want to. I’m curious.” Darcy protested softly.

            “Curiosity killed the cat, Darc.”

            Darcy ignored him, kneeling down in front of him and popping open the can before extending it toward him. “Here.”

            Ansel seemed amused, as he raised a brow and smirked. “You’re giving me a Mountain Dew? Very professional, Dr. Adair.”

            “Maybe not professional,” Darcy admit, “but friendly. I supposed you’d rather not have another needle stuck into your arm.”

            “Fair enough.” Ansel took the can without further argument and took a swig.

            Darcy sat down behind his desk again, and as he did, he loosened the scarf that had been around his neck since he’d left the apartment. “You said you had bad news for me?” He inquired.

            “Yeah,” Ansel fretted, carefully managing to turn his chair back toward Darcy’s desk, “but I’m still trying to figure out how to tell you.”

            “Tell me what?”

            The young man took a deep breath. The serious look on his face made Darcy’s friendly smile fade.

            “What happened?”

            “Darcy… Your mother, she’s… She’s gone, Peanut.”

            Darcy didn’t understand. “Yeah. No. What?”

            “The morgue… She’s there.”

            The doctor paused for a beat, then inquired, “My mother’s dead?”

            Ansel only managed to nod. He watched Darcy lower his head, and both of them were silent for a long moment. “Darcy,” He keened sympathetically after about thirty seconds of silence, “I’m so sorry.”

            “How did she go?”

            “You won’t believe it. It’s the damnedest thing.”

            “Tell me.” Darcy gave Ansel a firm, though unaggressive, look. He watched his friend breathe slowly before he spoke.

            “She hung herself, too.”

            “Why was she here?” The doctor requested, not missing a beat. “She lives in another state. Why did she come here?”

            “You don’t seem that upset.” Ansel remarked, surprised at Darcy’s cool composition.

            “Oh, I’m upset. I’m very upset. Devastated, even. But all I care about right now is answers.”

            Shrugging it off, assuming that Darcy was just closer with his father, Ansel decided to answer with what he’d heard. “The coroner said that she came here as a trip,” he made eye contact with his friend before continuing, “because her son called her.”

            Darcy furrowed his brows. “I never called her. I don’t even know her number.”

            Ansel shrugged. “I dunno either, man. I’m as confused as you are.”

            The older man exhaled loudly and ran his hands through his hair. “There’s got to be a connection. Something’s going on here.” He glanced down and picked up the CD, looking at its case once more. “Do you think this has answers?”

            “Nope. Not at all.” Ansel denied.

            “Well, thanks for being honest, at least.”

            “You’re still going to see what’s on it, aren’t you?”

            “Yep.”

            “S**t.”

---

 

            It was five past ten when Darcy and Ansel stepped back into their apartment together.

            “Look, I just don’t think this CD is worth your time.” Ansel told his best friend as he immediately headed to the fridge.

            “I need to know, Ansel.” Darcy insisted. “It’ll bug me all day if I don’t.”

            “Oh, God forbid.” The slightly-shorter man grumbled bitterly, pulling out a carton of milk and silently cursing when he discovered it to have been put back empty�"probably by himself. “Look, you do whatever you wanna do with that CD. I don’t care. Okay, well, I do care. But I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

            “What? Why?”

            Ansel tossed the carton into the trash can. “That work I need to do needs to be finished by December.”

            “That’s Thursday.”

            “Exactly.” He asserted. “I don’t have a day to spare.”

            Darcy laughed, but only a little. “I swear, you’re going to work yourself to death one of these days.”

            “Probably.” Ansel chortled.

            There was a computer in the bedroom that neither of them really used, since it was a hand-me-down from Darcy’s father and it ran like s**t. However, since he didn’t know exactly what was on the CD, Darcy figured it was his best bet, so he turned it on. It took a few minutes to finally start up, but when it did, the doctor opened the disk drive. He popped the CD from its case, looking at it one last time before placing it into the tray and closing the drive.

            The CD contained a single large MOV format video file. Its filename was the date of Thanksgiving night, which made Darcy even more curious. With almost no hesitation, he double-clicked the file, and after a few seconds, it started to play.

            It was security camera footage, alright. Silent black and white security camera footage of his father’s kitchen.

            “What…?” Darcy breathed. He didn’t recall his dad ever installing security cameras in his home. Had they been installed after he moved out?

            Skipping through the video, which spanned the entire day, Darcy watched his father cooking, then saw his own entrance into the dining room at 7:12 PM. He was seized by emotion as he saw himself and his father disappear to the table, which was out of eyeshot for the camera, but he forced himself to continue. He kept jumping along, seeing himself leave. Then, he watched his father start washing the dishes, right under the camera. His lips were quivering, and he was blinking back tears, as he wished that everything could go back to normal. He wished that his father’s death wasn’t true.

            At 9:00 PM on the dot, Darcy saw someone step slowly into the dining room. He moved his face a bit closer to the screen, trying to figure out what he was seeing. Ansel had been wrong: the CD really did have answers, it seemed. However, it wasn’t until the mystery person stepped into the kitchen that Darcy made a terrifying discovery.

            It was him.

            What he was seeing was impossible. He distinctly recalled returning home to find Ansel asleep on the couch at 8:30. Yet, there he was on the tape, sneaking up to his father. Once behind him, he just stood there as he washed dishes. This went on for about two minutes, and Darcy watched the entire thing in tense horror.

            It was 9:04 when Darcy clamped his hand down onto his father’s left shoulder. His dad screamed at the grip that had been strong enough to leave a bruise, and though the recording was silent, Darcy could hear the cry in his head as if he’d been right there when it happened.

            “No,” Darcy gasped as he watched himself grab his dad in a headlock. “No!”

            With a twist of his head in his son’s arms, Mr. Adair stopped struggling due to sudden death via spinal shock, and his arms fell limply at his sides. Darcy watched himself stand there for a few seconds before finally letting go of his father, allowing him to crumple to the floor at his feet, and then he belted out a loud howl of grief and terror.