The Exorcist (14 page)

"Temporal lobe. Sure, maybe schizophrenia's a possibility, Sam, but the onset's much too sudden. She hasn't any history of it, right?"

"No, she hasn't."

"Neurasthenia?"

Klein shook his head.

"Then hysteria, maybe," offered the consultant.

"I've thought of that."

"Sure. But she'd have to be a freak to get her body twisted up like she did voluntarily, now, wouldn't you say?" He shook his head. "No, I think it's pathological, Sam--- her strength; the paranoia; the hallucinations. Schizophrenia, okay; those symptoms it covers. But temporal lobe would also cover the convulsions. There's one thing that bothers me, though..." He trailed off with a puzzled frown.

"What's that?"

"Well, I'm really not sure but I thought I heard signs of dissociation: 'my pearl'... 'my child'... 'My flower'... 'the sow.' I had the feeling she was talking about herself. Was that your impression too, or am I reading something into it?"

Klein stroked his lip as he mulled the question. "Well, frankly, at the time it never occurred to me, but then now that you point it out..." He grunted thoughtfully. "Could be. Yes. Yes, it could."

Then he shrugged off the notion. "Well, I'll do an LP right now while she's out and then maybe we'll know something."

The neurologist nodded.

Klein poked around in his medical bag, found a pill and tucked it in his pocket. "Can you stay?"

The neurologist checked his watch. "Maybe half an hour."

"Let's talk to the mother."

They left the room and entered the hallway.

Chris and Sharon were leaning, heads lowed, against the balustrade by the staircase. As the doctors approached them, Chris wiped her nose with a balled, moist handkerchief. Her eyes were red from crying.

"She's sleeping," Klein told her.

"Thank God," Chris sighed.

"And she's heavily sedated. She'll probably sleep right through until tomorrow."

"That's good," Chris said weakly. "Doc, I'm sorry about being such a baby."

"You're doing just fine," he assured her "It's a frightening ordeal. By the way, this is Dr. David."

"Hello," said Chris with a bleak smile.

"Dr. David's a neurologist."

"What do you think?" she asked them both.

"Well, we still think it's temporal lobe," Klein answered, "and---"

"Jesus, what in the hell are you talking about!" Chris erupted. "She's been acting like a psycho, like a split personality! What do you---"

Abruptly she pulled herself together and lowered her forehead into a hand.

"Guess I'm all up-tight." She exhaled wearily. "I'm sorry." She lifted a haggard look to Klein "You were saying?"

It was David who responded. "There haven't been more than a hundred authenticated cases of split personality, Mrs. MacNeil. It's a rare condition. Now I know the temptation is to leap to psychiatry, but any responsible psychiatrist would exhaust the somatic possibilities first. That's the safest procedure."

"Okay, so what's next?" Chris sighed.

"A Lumbar tap," answered David.

"A spinal?"

He nodded. "What we missed in the X-rays and the EEG could turn up there. At the least, it would exhaust certain other possibilities. I'd like to do it now, right here, while she's sleeping. I'll give her a local, of course, but it's movement I'm trying to eliminate."

"How could she jump off the bed like that?" Chris asked, her face squinting up in anxiety.

"Well, I think we discussed that before," said Klein. "Pathological states can induce abnormal strength and accelerated motor performance."

"But you don't know why," said Chris.

"Well, it seems to have something to do with motivation," commented David. "But that's all we know."

"Well, now, what about the spinal?" Klein asked Chris. "May we?"

She exhaled, sagging, staring at the floor.

"Go ahead," she murmured. "Do whatever you have to. Just make her well."

"We'll try," said Klein. "May I use your phone?"

"Sure, come on. In the study."

"Oh, incidentally," said Klein as she turned to lead them, "she needs to have her bedding changed."

"I'll do it," said Sharon. She moved toward Regan's bedroom.

"Can I make you some coffee?" asked Chris as the doctors followed down the stairs. "I gave the housekeepers the afternoon off, so it'll have to be instant."

They declined.

"I see you haven't fixed that window yet," noted Klein.

"No, we called," Chris told him. "They're coming out tomorrow with shutters you can lock."

He nodded approval.

They entered the study, where Klein called his office and instructed an assistant to deliver the necessary equipment and medication to the house.

"And set up the lab for a spinal workout," Klein instructed. "I'll run it myself right after the tap."

When he'd finished the call, he turned to Chris and asked what had happened since last he saw Regan.

"Well, Tuesday"--- Chris pondered--- "there was nothing at all. She went straight up to bed and slept right through until late the next morning, then---"

"Oh, no, no, wait," she amended. "No, she didn't. That's right. Willie mentioned that she'd heard her in the kitchen awfully early. I remember feeling glad that she'd gotten her appetite back. But she went back to bed then, I guess, because she stayed there the rest of the day."

"She was sleeping?" Klein asked her.

"No, I think she was reading," Chris answered. "Well, I started feeling a little better about it all. I mean, it looked as if the Librium was just what she needed. She was sort of far away, I noticed, and that bothered me a little, but still it was a pretty big improvement. Well, last night, again, nothing," Chris continued. "Then this morning it started."

She inhaled deeply.

"Boy, did it start!" She shook her head.

She'd been sitting in the kitchen, Chris told the doctors, when Regan ran screaming down the stairs and to her mother, cowering defensively behind her chair as she clutched Chris's arms and explained in a terrified voice that Captain Howdy was chasing her; had been pinching her; punching her; shoving her; mouthing obscenities; threatening to kill her. "There he is!" she had shrieked at last, pointing to the kitchen door. Then she'd fallen to the floor, her body jerking in spasms as she gasped and wept that Howdy was kicking her. Then suddenly, Chris recounted, Regan had stood in the middle of the kitchen with arms extended and had begun to spin rapidly "like a top," continuing the movements for several minutes, until she had fallen to the floor in exhaustion.

"And then all of a sudden," Chris finished distressfully, "I saw there was... hate in her eyes, this hate, and she told me..."

She was choking up.

"She called me a... Oh, Jesus!"

She burst into sobs, and shielded her eyes as she wept convulsively.

Klein moved quietly to the bar; poured a glass of water from the tap. He walked toward Chris.

"Oh, shit, where's a cigarette?" Chris sighed tremulously as she wiped at her eyes with the back of a finger.

Klein gave her the water and a small greea pill. "Try this instead," he advised.

"That a tranquilizer?"

"Yes."

"I'll have a double."

"One's enough."

"Big spender," Chris murmured with a wan smile.

She swallowed the pill and their handed the empty glass to the doctor. "Thanks," she said softly, and rested her brow on quivering fingertips. She shook her head gently. "Yeah, then it started," she picked up moodily. "All of that other stuff. It was like she was someone else."

"Like Captain Howdy, perhaps?" asked David.

Chris looked up at him in puzzlement. He was staring so intently. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I don't knows." He shrugged. "Just a question."

She turned to the fireplace with absent, haunted eyes. "I don't know," she said dully. "Just somebody else."

There was a moment of silence. Then David stood up and explained he had to leave for another appointment, and after some reassuring statements, said goodbye.

Klein walked him to the door. "You'll check the sugar?" David asked him.

"No, I'm the Rosslyn village idiot."

David smiled thinly. "I'm a little up-tight about this myself," he said. He looked away in thought. "Strange case."

For a moment he stroked his chin and seemed to brood. Then he looked up at Klein. "Let me know what you find."

"You'll be home?"

"Yes, I will. Give a call." He waved a good-bye and left.

**********

A short time later, after the arrival of the equipment, Klein anesthetized Regan's spinal area with Novocain, and as Chris and Sharon watched, extracted the spinal fluid, keeping watch on the manometer. "Pressure's normal," he murmured.

When he'd finished, he went to the window to see if the fluid was clear or hazy.

It was clear.

He carefully stowed the tubes of fluid in his bag.

"I doubt that she will," Klein told the women, "but in case she awakens in the middle of the night and creates a disturbance, you might want a nurse here to give her sedation."

"Can't I do it myself?" Chris asked worriedly.

"Why not a nurse?"

She did not want to mention her deep distrust of doctors and nurses. "I'd rather do it myself," she said simply. "Couldn't I?"

"Well, injections are tricky," he answered. "An air bubble's very dangerous."

"Oh, I know how to do it," interjected Sharon. "My mother ran a nursing home up in Oregon."

"Gee, would you do that, Shar? Would you stay here tonight?" Chris asked her.

"Well, beyond tonight," interjected Klein. "She may need intravenous feeding, depending on how she comes along."

"Could you teach me how to do it?" Chris asked him anxiously.

He nodded. "Yes, I guess I could."

He wrote a prescription for soluble Thorazine and disposable syringes. He gave it to Chris. "Have this filled right away."

Chris handed it to Sharon. "Honey, do that for me, would you? Just call and they'll send it. I'd like to go with the doctor while he makes those tests... Do you mind?" she asked him.

He noted the tightness around her eyes; the look of confusion and of helplessness. He nodded.

"I know how you feel." He smiled at her gently: "I feel the same way when I talk to mechanics about my car."

They left the house at precisely 6:18 P.M.

**********

In his laboratory in the Rosslyn medical building, Klein ran a number of tests. First he analyzed protein content.

Normal.

Then a count of blood cells.

"Too many red," Klein explained, "means bleeding. And too many white would mean infection."

He was looking in particular for a fungus infection that was often the cause of chronic bizarre behavior. And again drew a blank.

At the last, Klein tested the fluid's sugar content.

"How come?" Chris asked him intently.

"Well, now, the spinal sugar," he told her, "should measure two-thirds of the amount of blood sugar. Anything significantly under that ratio would mean a disease in which the bacteria eat the sugar in the spinal fluid. And if so, it could account for her symptoms."

But he failed to find it.

Chris shook her head and folded her arms. "Here we are again, folks," she murmured bleakly.

For a while Klein brooded. Then at last he turned and looked to Chris. "Do you keep any drugs in your house?" he asked her.

"Huh?"

"Amphetamines? LSD?"

"Gee, no. Look, I'd tell you. No, there's nothing like that."

He nodded and stared at his shoes, then looked up and said, "Well--- I guess that it's time we consulted a psychiatrist, Mrs. MacNeil."

**********

She was back in the house at exactly 7:21 P.M., and at the door she called, "Sharon?"

Sharon wasn't there.

Chris went upstairs to Regan's bedroom. Still heavily asleep. Not a ruffle in her covers. Chris noticed that the window was open wide. An odor of urine. Sharon must've opened it to air out the room; she thought. She closed it. Where did she go?

Chris returned downstairs just as Willie came in.

"Hi ya, Willie. Any fun today?"

"Shopping. Movies."

"Where's Karl?"

Willie made a gesture of dismissal. "He lets me see the Beatles this time. By myself."

"Good work."

Willie held up her fingers in a V. The time was 7:35.

At 8:01, while Chris was in the study talking to her agent on the phone, Sharon walked through the door with several packages, and then flopped in a chair and waited.