The Life of the Mind

Ch. 4: Fissure

A/n: Damn…major déjà vu…

"Ah! God in Heaven! How did this happen?"

Barton recognized the voice of Dr. Gressman. He groaned as his consciousness returned to him. Fink felt a pair of hands force him to his feet.

"How did you get free?" Gressman demanded, shaking Barton by the shoulders. "Lord God, you killed a man!"

"Wasn't me…" Barton mumbled. "It wasn't me."

Gressman looked as though he was on the verge of throttling him. He jerked his head from side to side, his neck cracking just as Chet's had.

"I'm putting you in solitary confinement, Barton," he said in a voice of forced calm. "How the hell did you do it? How could you mange to rip open a man's chest with your bare hands?"

Barton swayed where he stood, gazing at his hands. He was drenched in blood from the neck down and there was blood and fragments of something under his fingernails. Fink realized with a stab of horror that is was human flesh. He fell to his knees and vomited.

"It—wasn't me," Barton protested only to be sick again.

"Then who was it, Mr. Fink?" Gressman inquired.

"Chet—" pause and retch. "Chet LaRouie."

Gressman sighed; he turned to a pair of men and gave a nod. The two men grabbed Barton, strapping the playwright into a straight jacket. Fink was then dragged out of the room and down the hall. Screams and howls emitted from row after row of locked steel doors.

The Earle was nothing compared to this, thought Barton. If this isn't Hell, I don't know what is.

Barton was roughly shoved into a padded room. He quickly lost his balance, as his arms were strapped to his chest because of the straight jacket. Fink sighed as he propped himself up in a corner of the room.

"What is happening to me?" he asked aloud.

"Haven't you figured it out?" asked his own voice. Barton looked around and saw his mirror image sitting leisurely in the left corner of the ceiling. This doppelganger Barton grinned at him, arms crossed lazily against his ribs. He wasn't wearing a straight jacket, but regular clothes.

"What is there to figure out?" the real Fink asked.

The 'Other' Barton took a pull on the cigarette between his teeth before speaking.

"You're a killer, Barton," he said, jumping down from the ceiling to the padded floor of the room below. "You killed Audrey and Mayhew. Don't you remember?"

"It wasn't me!" Barton griped. "It was Charlie! I know it was!"

"Charlie Meadows doesn't exist, don't you see?"

"No!" Barton raged. "Chet himself said that Charlie is the Devil!"

"And the greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing man that he didn't exist," rebuked the 'Other' Fink lazily, taking another drag on his cigarette. "All men have a devilish part in them, Barton. Yours is just…stronger than most. So strong, in fact, that he became a separate person entirely…in your mind, anyway."

"SHUT UP!" Barton screamed. He didn't want to hear anymore. He wasn't crazy and he damn well knew it. Why couldn't anyone else see that? "Leave me alone!"

The 'Other' Barton disappeared from sight, but his voice was audible, echoing throughout the room.

"You are alone."