Dr. Thorne entered his home and locked the door behind him. He placed his briefcase on the entry table and stared at it as he took off his tennis shoes—he longed to skip the down time, take the chemicals from within, and inject them into his next patient.
Paralyzed
VI: Home Again
But he had to wait.
This was the hardest part.
If he could stand being with himself for the next eight hours, he’d have the time of his life at work.
He took his gaze off the briefcase, not wanting the time to drag on—like a child waiting up past midnight for Santa to come.
Snatching up the briefcase again, he placed it on the round kitchen table.
It was all he could do to close the briefcase again, sealing the chemical vials within.
He then made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sat at the little table. He thumbed through the pages while he ate.
The patient was Hajime Kutsuki; black hair; sixty-five; five foot, nine inches; suffered from spinal instability.
He adjusted his thick square glasses as he read. And he read until he had memorized every detail.
Dr. Thorne thought his mind was ordinary, but he had an affinity for memorization. This made for dull years in the education system. He frequently found himself leaps and bounds ahead of his classmates. Despite this, he didn’t develop a superiority complex.
So he committed Mr. Kutsuki’s file to memory.
And he thought about how painful a spinal fusion would be. He actually couldn’t imagine it, and he wished the subjects of his experiments could open up to him about their experience.
But he knew this was too much to ask for. He had realistic expectations.
He put the papers back in his briefcase and got up from the table.
Dr. Thorne went through his nightly routine, and he climbed into bed.
He didn’t have trouble falling asleep that night. He went to sleep with ease every night.
His mind was an extraordinary thing indeed.
It’s happening again, Dr. Thorne thought.
Panic coursed through his body as he lay on the bed.
He didn’t know how long it had been since he fell asleep.
He tried reaching for his phone, but he knew that was useless. His hand was still by his side.
It’s fine, he thought. It’ll go away.
He could see most of his room as he lay on his back. He could think—remember even. He now remembered the last time he couldn’t move—and that dark thing that came to him.
But he had awoken every time, even if the dark thing longed to keep him bound. The shadow creature wearing the fedora wanted his body unmovable.
He frantically tried to lift his arms—and he thought he saw them moving up and down—but he was still stuck in bed. He suspected the moving arms he saw were hallucinations.
The first time he experienced sleep paralysis was a few weeks ago, and he had done his research since. He found a lot of interesting information, though he never got the answers he was looking for. Mainly, what causes it?
So he lay there waiting, his mind in a panic. Though he knew he would wake, it felt like an eternity had passed. Time seemed to melt and fold in on itself.
And after he felt like he had lived through the end of time, he saw the thing standing at the foot of his bed.
Just like the other times, it was a shadowy figure wearing a fedora and a black suit, and it hid its head under its hat.
The thing was both at his bed’s foot and leaning over him at his side. No. There were two of it. But that wasn’t true—the one leaning over him was wearing black robes, and a hood covered its face.
He could smell the rotting breath of the one at his side. Hallucinations, he thought. During his research, he had found that seeing these things was a common occurrence during spouts of sleep paralysis.
Dark figures. Two of them stood over him.
But they seem so real, Dr. Thorne thought, and he tried to shake his right foot. He had successfully woken himself by this method once before, and it was all he could do.
The tricky part of sleep paralysis was his brain told his body he was asleep, so he couldn’t move. But if he thought really hard about moving his foot, he could make it move.
There was no thinking while that thing leaned over him and pulled up his bedsheets. He could feel it examining him with unseen eyes. Then it slunk into his bed with him. Beside him.
He could feel his heart race as he felt sick from fear.
The one at the bed’s foot still loomed over him, staring at him from behind its fedora.
He could feel his bed becoming colder by the thing’s presence. His eyes darted from one to the other, and he wondered if they were actually real.
My Red Angel will come for me, he thought, though he had wanted to say it.
The one cuddled next to him hissed. It then took its slender fingers and pulled back its hood.
Dr. Thorne thought his heart stopped at the sight of the thing’s face.
It was pale white and gaunt, having long and deep wrinkles running down its cheeks. It’s mouth was like a hypnotic spiral of razor fangs. It’s eyes were soulless and black. And it had strands of long gray hair that almost danced around its head.
He felt fear pulsating through his body, and he wished he could close his eyes. He could feel the sweat running down his forehead. Why can’t I go back to sleep?
But sleep had abandoned him.
He involuntarily stared at the horror thing beside him, and he wanted to throw up as it traced its forefinger along his cheek and jaw. He thought he saw a smile from the thing standing at the foot of his bed.
Suddenly the one beside him vaulted under the covers and was slinking its way on top of him.
New horror shot through him as he felt his boxer-briefs sliding down his thighs. This isn’t sleep paralysis, he thought. This is just a dream.
The thought didn’t awake him, and his underwear stopped at his ankles.
He then felt the thing atop his body—how cold it was—and he felt its hips settling in place to take advantage of him. Get off of me! He wanted to scream.
The smell coming off the thing was like a chicken’s corpse that’s been left outside in the summer. Putrid rot. Nasty decomposition.
The thing writhed on top of him, and to his shock, his penis was playing nice.
He felt like he was about to climax when—
Gasp.
Dr. Thorne took a deep breath and shot up from his bed.
His mind raced as he tried to piece together what had happened. His eyes darted left and right, but he couldn’t see the shadow figures anywhere in his room.
“A dream,” he said, and he felt relieved. “Thank god it was only a dream.”
He was about to lie back down and try to get some more sleep, but he felt his bare butt against the bed.
Dr. Throne became alert, and he realized his boxer-briefs were at his ankles. Then he felt the wet spot on his bedsheets at his crotch.
He felt sick then, and he thought he could smell a lingering rot.
“Not a dream,” he said, his head getting light.
And he puked on his bedsheets and passed out.
Dr. Thorne woke up to his alarm blaring in his ear. He tapped his phone until the noise stopped.
He felt like an MMA fighter had slapped him around all night.
His vision was blurry, but he smelled the vomit on his sheets. He grabbed his glasses, and seeing the dried mess of puke and semen on his bed made him feel sick.
Memory washed over him about what happened during the night, and the dread came over him.
A sense of dirtiness swept through his body, and he shuddered.
He didn’t know what to think. Were the shadow figures figments of his imagination? How could they be? He didn’t imagine his boxer-briefs sliding down his legs. That had happened. No matter what the research said about the dark creatures, something had happened.
“My angel would’ve come if I called,” Dr. Thorne said, as he got up and pulled his sheets off to wash.
After cleaning up his mess, he got ready for work, putting on his black suit and tennis shoes. This was an easy task to adjust to. He knew what the day would bring him—and an experiment was the perfect distraction from the shadow figures.
Dr. Thorne finished his second bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Afterwards he snatched up his briefcase and left his house.
He soon found himself in the car halfway to work. Found himself because he had been driving without really thinking about where he was going. He snapped his mind out of the comatose-like state it had been in. Don’t want to end up in an accident. Those kill people.
Now focused, Dr. Thorne drove the rest of the way to St. Gressil‘s Hospital without incident.