After the Woods

Chapter 3

Martha hurried to answer the door as she finished zipping her dress. A young woman stood nervously on the threshold. "Kyra, darling, what are you doing here?" Martha asked, stepping aside to let her visitor in. "What has that son of mine done now?"

"Martha, Rick hasn't done anything wrong," Kyra assured her, "but I'm worried about him."

"Why?" Martha asked, her stage persona instantly vanishing.

"Maybe because he hasn't done anything wrong," Kyra explained, "no pranks, no all night TV marathons, no crazy games, nothing. It's not like him. But it's more than that. He's been having nightmares, waking up with tears in his eyes and shoulders so tight he can barely move them."

"Have you asked him what's going on?" Martha questioned.

"I have," Kyra responded, the threat of tears in her own voice. "He told me not to worry about it, that everything's fine. Do you know what's going on?"

Martha's fingers twisted in the fabric of her dress. "I'm not sure. I'll talk to him."

"Thank you, Martha," Kyra said, hugging the older woman. "You were getting ready to go out. I'll go now."

"Mother I'm fine," Rick protested when Martha showed up at his door.

"Richard, darling, your girlfriend has her feet solidly on the ground. She would not be coming to me over nothing," Martha argued. "Now obviously she doesn't know what happened to you..."

"And I don't want her to," Rick interrupted. "I don't want's to lay that on her. Besides, I've put it behind me."

"Obviously you haven't," Martha pointed out, "or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I know you tried. I know you worked at it, but whatever help you got before wasn't enough. You need more. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for Kyra and do it for me."

Rick smiled wryly. "All right Mother, I will. I think I know who to call."

"You're moving up in the world," Rick told Brian Pierce, "an office."

Brian laughed. "A glorified broom closet, but it's somewhere we can talk. So are things coming back on you? Nightmares? Depression?"

"How did you know?" Rick asked.

"Because," Brian explained, "it's happened to a lot of other people I've worked with who've gone through trauma. They think they've put it behind them and then pow! Something triggers the memory and they're dealing with it all over again. The military has been seeing a lot of it as well from the soldiers who were in the gulf. What happened to you to touch this off?"

Rick shook his head. "It's stupid."

"It's human," Brian encouraged, "tell me about it."

"I saw a bunch of people in gray sweats. They had been doing some kind of a race and they were soaking wet and worn out." Rick restlessly ran a hand through his hair. "They weren't even unhappy. They were proud of themselves, but seeing exhausted people in sweats like we wore on the island, everything I tried to forget just came flooding back and I haven't been able to shake it. Is there anything I can do?"

"That's the question," Brian told him. "A lot of people, including the military, have been working on therapies for problems like yours. Unfortunately, so far success has been limited. I'm up on all the protocols though, we can work on it together. There are some drugs out there that have some promise. I'm working with a doctor who's experimenting with some of those, if you're interested. No guaranties."

Rick sat for a moment, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Yeah, I want to meet him."

"Rick, I know you signed all the paperwork, but I'm going to tell you one more time," Dr. Milman cautioned. "This is an off label use of this drug. There can be unwanted be side effects. You may get dizzy, especially if you stand up too quickly. Also for this to work, you are going to have to recall your experience, while under the influence of the drug. Are you absolutely sure you want to do that?"

"I'm recalling it anyway," Rick declared. "I don't see how it could get worse. I need to try this."

"All right," Milman agreed, offering a pill and some water. "You take this and when it takes full effect, we'll begin."

"How will you know?" Rick asked.

"I'm going to take a baseline pulse and blood pressure now. When you're under the influence your pulse should be slower and your pressure lower." Milman replied. "I'll measure them before I ask you to remember. In the meantime, you should do something distracting. You can read, or listen to music, or watch TV."

"I brought my notebook, is it okay if I write?" Rick proposed.

"That's right," Milman recalled. "You're an author. Write about anything you like except what happened on the island."

For the first time since entering the doctor's office, Rick smiled. "I'll write a love scene."

Rick felt a little sleepy as Milman took his vitals. "Rick, we're ready for you to begin," the doctor confirmed.

Rick closed his eyes, remembering his experience, and began his narration. "It was the hottest part of the day. There weren't many girls on the island, not that I saw anyway. I heard a rumor that Joshua had some kind of harem, but this girl probably wouldn't have qualified. She was small in every obvious way for a girl, and being half starved didn't help. She was trying to break up clods in the ground with a little spade, but the spade was dull and the dirt had baked in the sun. It was almost like stone and she wasn't making much progress. One of the black shirts came over and told her she should work harder. When she told him she was doing her best, he beat her, not just across the back or the shoulders, but across her face. She had blood streaming into her eyes and she begged the bastard to stop, but he laughed and beat her more. I couldn't take it. I tackled him, but by that time I was pretty weak myself. He easily put me on the ground and then he raised his crop. I don't know how many times he hit me, but eventually I passed out. He just left me there in the dirt, I don't know how long. When I woke up the stars were out. More crawling than walking, I made my way to the bunkhouse.

The next morning I was too sore to move, but the blackshirts pulled me off my bed, pushed me into the field and dropped me in the dirt. They told me that if I couldn't stand up, I could work from the ground. They laughed as I was trying to pull out some weeds. The most I could do was strip a few leaves and tear up my hands even more than they already were. When the whistles blew, some of the other workers helped me get to the dining hall. I couldn't manage to eat, but at least I got some water. I was surprised the black shirts allowed even that to happen, but I guess they found it more amusing to watch me suffer than to watch me die of dehydration. It went on like that for days until I could manage to sit up and work again, but after that, I was a coward, afraid to protest anything the black shirts did. That was the worst of it. I wasn't a man anymore. I wasn't anything."

"Rick, I think that's enough," Milman told him, breaking the tortuous stream of remembrance. "You are not a coward. You were beaten into submission. None of this was your fault. You rest now. I'm going to call Brian to take you home."

Brian delivered Rick back to his apartment where Kyra waited. Rick had stubbornly continued to refuse to tell her what had happened to him, but had admitted that a friend had steered him to some help for his nightmares. She could only see that he was too quiet. "Rick, what can I do?" she asked.

Rick wrapped her tightly in his arms, burying his face in her hair. "Just let me hold you."