Dark Screams, Volume 1 by Brian James Freeman Read Free Book Online Page B

sanity though I suppose it’s understandable you should be convinced I’m guilty of murder. You’re society’s tool and you have no genuine compassion.
    I’m sure you can guess why I was watching you but I’ll tell you anyway. To find out if you’d say anything to indicate you’ve been reading this daybook of mine on the sly. You didn’t, not that I expected you to. Nary a hint of interest in what the magic eyes might be. Not even an oblique reference to anything I’ve written so far. You’re such a cunning psychiatrist head doctor shrink mindsucker. You just sit with your hands folded and mumble about pressure buildups and psychotic breaks and taking responsibility and ask the same pointless questions about my childhood and my relationships with women and my marriage to Lorna while the recorder clicks and whirs and produces another tape for you to add to my file.
    Ah, but you’re not infallible. You may well slip up one of these days, just enough so I can be certain you’ve been invading my privacy.
    Invading. Invader. That’s what you are, Doctor, an invader like the—
    Oh, no. Oh, no. I almost made a little slip of my own there. Wouldn’t you like to know what kind of slip, the significance of the word
invader.
Sure you would because it’s important, very important in a way you can’t even imagine. You’d like to know and I’d like to tell you but I can’t so you’re not going to find out. I won’t write it down and I won’t let it slip to you in person.
    Mum’s the word Doc. Mum’s the word for the duration.
    November 13—Evening
    Another of our sessions today and still no hint that you’ve been in my drawers.
    Hah! Like Myrna Loy’s line to William Powell in the first Thin Man movie: “What’s that man doing in my drawers?” A real howler, Doc, remember? Well, no, I’ll bet you don’t. No plebeian you. You’d never lower yourself to watching old detective movies on TV, not Mr. High and Mighty Doctor Arthur L. Hilliard. What does the L. stand for anyway? Louse? Lickspittle? Wonderful word, lickspittle. Plebeian, too. A college education does wonders for a man’s vocabulary.
    I seem to have drifted off on a tangent. Damn drugs, that’s what they do to you. They don’t just keep you calm cool and collected, they screw up your thought processes, shorten your attention span so you can’t concentrate. I think I wrote that before, I
know
I’ve said it to you any number of times during our sessions. Not that it does me any good to complain.
    We were discussing you being in my drawers, secretly reading these “therapeutic jottings” of mine. You didn’t even blink today when I said very casually and offhandedly that your suggestion to keep a daily log was working out better than I’d expected, that I was enjoying writing down all sorts of interesting thoughts and impressions. Didn’t even ask me what they were. “I’m pleased to hear that, Edward. Now perhaps you understand why I believe it’s a worthwhile form of therapy.” That was all you said. And when I said, “Aren’t you curious about what I’m writing?” you just smiled in that supercilious way of yours and said, “Only if you want to share them with me. Do you, Edward?”
    Well, we both know they’ve already been shared without my permission, you sneaky bastard. That being the case I see no reason not to repeat the inadvertent slips I made earlier. Grim little teasers you might call them.
    Magic eyes. Invaders.
    Meaningful, significant? Or do you think I’m trying to mess with
your
head? You’ll never know.
    Dammit, why don’t you admit spying on me and get it over with. Be up-front for a change, be a man instead of a mindsucker.
    How about it, Doc? As you’re so fond of saying to me, confession is good for the soul.
    November 15—Morning
    I’ve taken notice, strong notice, of one of the new inmates. Miss Dorothy Pringle, Ward C, Room 9 at the other end of the hall from mine. She’s young and rather pretty in a