Unidentified (9 page)

“I just want to uncover the truth,” she said. “And either way: we might find some deep emotional trauma that is behind all of this, or we might just get some clue as to who is doing this. I think it’s all we have left. In the days before Tommy went missing, he had similar nightmares, he was a nervous wreck. He couldn’t go school, he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t go play with friends. He was in constant fear. He would have sudden outbursts of anger, just like we just witnessed. And then … one day he was just gone.”

Evans sighed again, looking off and thinking all of this over. She waited, knowing there was no sense in pushing but hoping he would understand the urgency. What other options did they have at this point?

“If we do this,” Evans looked back to her now, “we have to be careful not to influence her. We can’t force her to recall things that didn’t happen. That won’t help us or her.”

Mitchell nodded. Evans looked back down the hallway towards Stephanie’s room. By now the Nurse and the Clarks had entered the room. The hall with its buzzing fluorescent lights stood stark and empty.

“And we have to clear this with her parents first,” Evans said with a note of finality.

Mitchell looked back down the hallway as if she expected to see anything. She thought of talking to the Clarks and trying to explain all of this to them.

“We have our work cut out for us,” she said.

***

“What you’re asking,” Tim Clark said, his voice heavy, “seems dangerous.”

The four of them sat in the waiting area of St. Jerome. Mitchell had presented the idea of hypnosis and then had looked to Evans. He took over explaining how the hypnosis process would work and why it could prove quite helpful. In silence, Tim and Dorothy soaked all of this in. Finally, Evans had finished talking. After a moment, Tim had finally spoken.

“I assure you that Dr. Evans is a highly trained professional,” Mitchell said.

Dorothy glanced over at her husband. Tim’s jaw remained firm, almost clenched. Dorothy, on the other hand, seemed potentially open to the idea. Could it really be? Tim sighed heavily, looking up at the ceiling.

“Our daughter has been through a lot,” he said. “She’s in a very fragile state as it is. It just doesn’t strike me as a good idea to make her relive whatever has happened to her.”

As he spoke, Mitchell heard someone come through the front doors. Glancing over, she saw it was Pastor Diego. He spotted them right away, but waited near the door rather than approaching.

“You’re right, Mr. Clark,” Evans said. “Stephanie has been through a lot, but I sincerely believe she is strong. It’s clear to me that her subconscious mind is battling something traumatic. And while it can be scary to confront trauma head-on, it’s the only way forward.”

“The only way forward?” Tim said, making no attempt to hide how dubious he felt this notion was.

“She’s repressing memories of traumatic events,” Evans continued in an even tone. “As long as Stephanie is not able to confront and properly deal with whatever is the true cause of all of this fear and anxiety, she will continue to be tormented.”

Tim looked down, saying nothing.

“Mr. Clark, I assure you my only goal is for Stephanie to find healing from all of this,” Evans said. He glanced over at Mitchell before continuing. “We just want to help Stephanie.”

“So do we,” said Tim.

And with that he stood and moved to the door. Dorothy shot an apologetic look to Mitchell and Evans before following him. Reaching Pastor Diego, Tim stopped. They spoke in hushed tones. Tim glanced back at Mitchell and Evans for a second as Dorothy joined them. She, however, said nothing.

“That went well,” Evans sighed.

Mitchell, eyes still locked on Diego and Tim, said, “Do parents often refuse hypnotherapy?”

“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s for sure,” Evans shrugged. He looked over at the trio talking by the door. “Especially if they happen to have some religious objection to hypnosis.”

“He didn’t say so,” Mitchell pointed out. “Or maybe that’s not the issue. Maybe there’s something he doesn’t want you digging up during hypnosis.”

As she said this, Diego happened to glance in their direction. For a brief second, he locked eyes with Mitchell, then nodded. Was he simply being polite? Was he toying with her? She was having a hard time reading this guy.

“So you think Stephanie’s father has something to hide after all?” Evans asked, a bit surprised.

Mitchell sighed. “Just considering all possibilities.”

CHAPTER NINE

Evans yawned as he stared down at his laptop. He had his computer and his notebook set out on the bed of his motel room. Since getting back to the motel, he’d started typing up notes he’d made that day, going into further detail now as he worked on his computer as more observations and questions occurred to him.

Picking up his notebook, he leafed through it, looking over the notes he had made the last couple of days to make sure he’d caught everything. He’d made note of certain common occurrences for alien abductees. Stephanie seemed to have experienced missing time, which was often reported by people claiming to have seen a UFO or had a close encounter of some variety. Even Pastor Diego’s story contained this detail. What had he said? Nearly forty minutes had passed when it had only felt like a couple of minutes? Could it be that all of these people were actually experiencing something quite real?

Evans chuckled. Get a grip, he told himself. You have a bad enough reputation as it is. Don’t become one of those shrinks that actually thinks his patients are communing with beings from another world.

No, missing time was actually connected to other psychological disorders. People who suffered seizures might not be able to account for several minutes or an hour, especially people suffering from psychomotor epilepsy. In those cases, seizures manifest in various forms of random behavior that people couldn’t always account for and often had no recollection of. The amount of time that lapsed during a seizure seemed missing to them. People who suffered a traumatic event often could not recall such an event or even the time around it. Evans had treated a patient about four years prior who had witnessed a horrible accident that involved his daughter. The shock was too great and he’d repressed the memories surrounding the event. The problem was, he struggled to accept the loss of his daughter. His mind became stuck in a loop of denial, unable to accept the reality of her loss and move on. Evans wondered if Stephanie had witnessed something traumatic that she was repressing. Clearly, her lack of memory of her abductions seemed like repression of memories. But could she really be repressing memories from multiple abductions? It seemed almost too neat, too … engineered.

That is, if she was being abducted at all, by aliens or persons.

Turning back to this laptop, he pulled up a search engine and typed in “signs of alien abduction.” He wondered what other details he might be overlooking as far as common occurrences in relation to alien abduction cases. Of course, the Internet was filled with all kinds of pseudo-information when it came to anything paranormal. But even pseudo-information generally found its inception in some tiny bit of misunderstood reality. He browsed through the results for a moment, clicking a few and then abandoning the pages quickly when it seemed clear to him that they were too kooky. For some people, when it came to anything related to UFOs, confirmation bias was so strong that anything, no matter how remote and unlikely, counted as evidence and any counter evidence, no matter how strong, was automatically disqualified. It bothered him that so much of the folklore surrounding UFOs was so easily explained away with rudimentary understanding of science. Yet, facts didn’t seem to matter to such folks.

At last, he found a rather extensive list of “symptoms” people who claim to have been abducted seemed to experience. First on the list was missing time. Second were marks on the body the person could not account for. Third was the sense of constantly being watched. Stephanie had definitely described all three. Fourth was hearing tapping or humming sounds. He paused and read that one more closely. Apparently many people experiencing UFO or abduction related events reported hearing such sounds around bed time or at night. These were the sounds unassociated with their living environment and did not occur on a regular basis. But when they were heard, that meant some kind of event would follow that night, ranging from UFO sightings to abductions.

This went on and included things like waking up in a state of fear or panic for no discernible reason, a sense of being special, a fear or aversion to seeing pictures or drawings of grey aliens with large black eyes, waking with soreness in genitals without any explanation, electronics malfunctioning randomly, and so forth. Evans skimmed through the list, quickly noting that many of these symptoms could easily be accounted for by many other psychological disorders, emotional issues, or far more mundane reasons. Further down the list, one symptom caught his eye. He smiled with amusement. It read: “being afraid of closets or doors.” He read through the description for it. Apparently, some people experiencing close encounters or abductions developed a specific fear of bathrooms and closets and hallways, or really of any door that might be left open. Doors needed to be closed at all times for a sense of safety, particularly at night. Such people found it impossible to sleep with a closet or bathroom door open in their room. In fact, apparently this obsession could apply to all doors in a person’s living space, leading to a need for double and triple checking that all doors were locked or closed before going to bed. Sounds like OCD tendencies getting mixed into this UFO mess, Evans thought.

But of all the symptoms, missing time remained the intriguing one to him. Here was a rather serious lapse in awareness or consciousness. It could be caused by many things, but it seemed indicative to him of rather deep troubles. This wasn’t like other odd symptoms like hearing humming or tapping sounds that could probably be explained by any number of logical means. He was about to reach out to his computer to close the browser when loud knocking made him jump.

He closed his eyes and smiled, feeling incredibly foolish. Opting to simply close the screen on his laptop, he walked over to the door and reached for the lock. Something stopped him. Maybe it was all this reading about paranoia and fear that was getting to him. Logically, he was sure he could safely open the door and simply find out who was standing out there and what they needed. In all likelihood, it was just Nicole.

Agent Mitchell, he corrected himself. She’s not your patient anymore.

In spite of the protests from the logical hemisphere of his brain, he peered through the peephole on the door. Sure enough. He saw Mitchell standing there. Without further hesitation, he unlocked his door and opened it. The moment the door opened, Mitchell began to speak.

“Hey. I wanted to apologize if I pressured you earlier on the whole hypnosis thing. I brought a piece offering.”

She held up a six pack of beer from the local brewery. But as she did so, her expression changed as she looked at Evans.

“You alright? she said.

“Yeah,” Evans nodded. "You just surprised me. I was working and …” He waved his hand in the air, unsure of what he was even going to say next.

“Gets under your skin, doesn’t it?” she said, softly.

He looked at her, sensing sympathy from her. “Yeah. Maybe a little.”

“Then let’s take a break,” she said, holding up the beers again.

***

“So this idiot says to me, ‘Oh, shit, I thought you were a cop,’” Mitchell said, smiling. “So I held my badge up again and said, ‘What the hell do you think the FBI is?’ And he looks at me honestly dumbfounded and says, ‘Wait, the FBIs are cops too?’”

They both laughed. Mitchell took another swig of her beer. A slow and steady rain fell outside now. The continuous patter against the roof and window droned on as they spoke.

“All of a sudden,” she continued the story, “the meth lab in his basement was totally not his.”

“The FBIs,” Evans grinned, his eyes a little glassy. “I’m going to have to remember that.”

They chuckled, looking towards the window. They sat on the floor, their backs to the bed. The room wasn’t particularly big. There was only one uncomfortable chair in the corner. And sitting on the bed and drinking had not seemed appropriate, so here they were. Mitchell took anther drink, feeling the buzz for sure now.

“You really think Stephanie’s father is a suspect?” Evans asked.

She thought for a moment about steering the conversation away from work. But she caved. “I don’t know for sure. But I can’t dismiss it. And you brought it up first.”

“I was mostly just presenting an alternative theory for consideration,” he said.

“But he could be involved,” she pressed.

“Sure. I guess. But what about her mother?”

“You’ve seen her,” Mitchell rolled her eyes. “She defers to her husband on just about everything.”

“And there’s Pastor Diego,” Evans pointed out. “To listen to him, you’d think all this alien stuff is down right chthonian.”

Mitchell paused, running the last word through her head a couple of times. Was she that drunk that she couldn’t understand him? Was he that drunk he couldn’t talk straight anymore? No, he was barely drinking.

“What now?” she said.

He smiled and said, “Chthonian. It’s from classical mythology. Has to do with gods and spirits from the underworld. Sorry. When I get tipsy, I become a bit of a wordsmith.”

“Oh my god, nerd alert!” Mitchell spat out, laughing. She looked over at the one empty bottle next to him and the one in his hand. “You’ve had one and a half. I’m way ahead of you.”

She threw back the bottle and finished the little that was left in it.

“After my fiancé left me,” Evans said softly. “I decided to cut back on drinking.”

Mitchell looked over at him, suddenly feeling guilty about this whole situation. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Is this okay?”

“I’m not an alcoholic,” he said, looking at her. “I just thought, preemptively, I’d avoid numbing my pain with alcohol.”

She’d never seen him in this light before. He’d had a fiancé. She’d left him. All the time she’d spent in his office talking about herself, she’d known that of course he was a person with his own story, his own history. But she never knew any of it. Now that she was beginning to see just a hint of this history, she could feel her perception of him changing. She could see the pain in his eyes. It was obvious he didn’t drink much. The one and half beers he’d had gave his eyes a softer look, as if the careful clinical detachment he normally had about him was only another layer of clothing. And now, with the aid of some alcohol, that layer had slowly fallen off. He’d had a fiancé. She left him. It had been painful. So painful he had to consciously chosen not to numb it with alcohol. There was some kind of fear around that, she felt sure.

Feeling the heaviness that had suddenly taken over the conversation, she said the first thing that came to her mind: “Hm. So what? You numbed it with a dictionary?”

He laughed. “Yeah. And work.”

Mitchell smiled, nodding. “I know something about that.”

“Is that what this is?” he asked, looking at her. “Your drive to solve this case?”

“It’s my drive to solve every case,” she said, looking down at the empty bottle in her hand. She began to pick at the label.

“Even before your partner was killed?”

She kept picking at the label.

“Nicole,” Evans said, leaning a little closer, “let me ask you—as a friend—what’s back there? What’s behind this certainty of yours that there’s a person doing all of this?”

She sighed as a corner of the label on her beer bottle ripped off. “Remember how Pastor Diego said he looked into the eyes of evil?” she said after a moment.

Evans nodded.

“So did I,” Mitchell said, willing herself to look up at him. “Only the difference was, I was looking into my own eyes.”

Evans frowned ever so slightly, clearly unsure of what she meant by this, but he remained where he was, waiting for more.

“Before I joined the FBI,” Mitchell reluctantly embarked on the story, unsure of how to even tell it, “I was in the Army. I did two tours of duty in Iraq. I was young and eager to follow orders.”

She looked back down at the beer bottle in her hands, thinking. How to put into words what was going through her head, what she had experienced, what she had done?

“You remember Abu Ghraib” she heard herself say. Part of her was self-aware enough to know that her guard was down. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the fact that she’d gotten used to telling this man her secrets and fears, or maybe it was the sudden new vulnerability she felt coming from him. But she’d just opened a wound she wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with here. Either way, it was too late now.

“The prison with all the human right’s violations?” Evans asked. “You were there?”

“No,” she shook her head. “But we were detaining insurgents. These fuckers had trapped us on a desert road where they’d planted IEDs. When they blew up the front Humvee, we had to stop. The insurgents were on the surrounding hills, raining lead on us. We lost three men, four more injured.”

Without giving it much thought, she reached down and tugged her dress shirt on the right side of her stomach and untucked it. She pulled the shirt up to just under her bra, revealing a long raised scar that ran down her ribs to her right hip.

Evans looked at the scar with shock.

“Shrapnel from one of the IEDs,” she explained. “Just a glancing blow.” She lowered her shirt, not bothering to tuck it in. “Anyway, we called in two Blackhawks and took them down. Killed most of them on the spot, but captured four. We took them back in for interrogation. Over the next weeks, we got orders to do whatever it took to get these guys to talk.”