Ghost Station Part 7
The Monster Inside
1 Threats
Evening
June 4, 1958
15 Mott Street Chinatown, NYC, USA
Early this morning
When you knocked upon my door
Early this morning ooh
When you knocked upon my door
And I said, "Hello Satan"
"I believe it's time to go"
Robert Johnson
In bed, Amy had nearly drifted off to sleep when the door handle squeaked and the doctor entered the room, the lit cigarette dangling from his mouth giving off the orange glow she had come to despise.
The glow moved as he took the cigarette out of his mouth. For a moment he said nothing. When he did speak it was soft.
"You performed wonderfully. Mr. Brown was an evil man who meant you harm."
She had nothing to say, so she pretended to sleep in the dark.
"There are many bad people out there who want to hurt you because of your talent. But we’ll show them all."
Somewhere off in the distance a car door slammed, and angry voices drifted through the air. It was a couple arguing about something. Amy wondered if they really had any reason to be upset; they weren't being held hostage.
"I know what's best for you," he said. "You listen to me and your parents will be alright. But if you stop... uh... listening... Well, that could be bad for them.”
The mention of her mother and father sent a cold wave of fear and nausea through Amy's body. She was old enough to understand a violent threat.
"But I'm sure we won't have anything to worry about," he said.
The stale smell of smoke wafting across the room, combined with the rasp of his voice made her think of demons.
Satan was on her heels.
But she knew one day she was going to rise up and drag him back down into Hell.
2 Maryanne
Noon
June 23, 1961
419 Shepard Street, Morehead City, NC, USA
Benny picked me up around eleven and drove me to Tolbert's home, where I would meet Amy Brand's best friend, Maryanne. She was on summer break from North Carolina State. And her parents were out of town for the next week visiting relatives in Chicago.
Before I had left Benny the night before, I requested he try to get a copy of the photo of Amy in the hospital.
He now held the original, which was clearer than what had been printed in the paper three years earlier. Hardy's face cut through the years like some sort of black and white time travel nightmare.
I would have thought getting the photo might have taken longer, but Benny was turning out to be very handy.
The Tolbert family had moved to a cottage style home on Shepard Street, overlooking Bogue Sound. And even though we were heading into a blistering summer, the breeze coming in through the large screened-in windows of the back porch was downright pleasant.
A perfect day; it reminded me of growing up on Ocracoke Island, and I imagined that if I could see out past the distant inlet, I could actually see the strip of barrier islands that had been my home for the first sixteen years of my life.
I could almost see the young me who had run away to fight the Nazis, only ending up fighting a non-shooting war against the communists—two sides of the same fake coin.
Maryanne was a rail thin girl with black hair and sad green eyes, but I felt sure when she smiled it would light up any room. And she had probably been smiling right up until the time when Benny told her what I wanted to discuss. Now she only looked scared and distrustful of me—the guy who was there to dredge up painful memories.
On the way over, Benny had explained that the only reason Maryanne would have ever agreed to talk to me was because she trusted him. So we had worked out my approach, going with a vague story about my being a reporter interested in Amy's abduction, and under no circumstances was I to tell her Amy was still alive.
He started the conversation. "This is Mr. Bill Radford. He writes for the Associated Press, out of Berlin. Now he's back home and doing some work for the News and Observer; and like I explained on the phone he's writing a piece on the investigation of when Amy disappeared."
The cover name and story wasn't anywhere near a professional backstop, but it would have to do.
"Yes," I said. "I'm actually doing a little freelancing for the paper. Hoping to maybe get brought on full time here in the state."
I added the last part just in case she actually read the News and Observer, which was out of Raleigh, where she went to college.
"I'm not going to be much help," she said. "Like I told everybody a million times, I wasn't there the day it happened." Her voice was soft, and a little robotic when speaking about Amy. She was obviously tired of repeating the same story.
"You must be really frustrated having to explain yourself over and over," I said.
She nodded.
"Benny tells me you never believed it was a stranger," I said. "You thought it was someone Amy knew."
"Fat lot of good that did. Nobody believed me. They all thought I was crazy." There was a sudden defiance in her delivery. Yes, she was still angry, and whatever she had told the authorities had obviously been ignored.
"I've covered lots of crazy people, and you don't come across as being one," I said. "And I'd be interested in hearing anything you have to say."
There was a quick glance over to Benny.
"It's okay, Mary, he's good people."
For a moment Maryanne looked like she just might open up.
The moment passed, as she stared out into the sound. The wind was whipping and there were a couple of whitecaps.
"No." She shook her head, a little too violently. "I told the police everything. I was sick that day. And that's that."
I had thought it interesting—not to mention—suspicious that the Feds had not been involved. Especially with Amy's father being on the local police force.
Time to try a different approach. I handed her the photo. For a moment, she stared at it blankly, but then she shuddered. With a shaking hand, she gave it back to me.
Her voice was flat. “Nope. I knew she had the accident, but never saw any pictures."
Maybe I was a hardened member of the CIA, but I knew when it was smart to not push a witness. Besides, her reaction to seeing Hardy was enough for me—and I knew it was him she had seen.
Apparently, Benny wanted to push a bit more. "Maryanne, I've known you your whole life. What did you just see?"
She stood up, and I was sure we were getting nothing else. "Give me a moment," she said.
And she left us sitting in the living room. Two awkward minutes later, and holding a spiral notebook with a pink cover, she returned. Sitting back down, and thumbing through pages, she said, "I guess I need to share this with someone. But I'd rather you not put it in your story."
She stopped turning pages and turned the notebook so we could see it.
"One week before Amy disappeared we were having a sleep over. And she drew this. Said she had a nightmare of it."
Benny and I sat in silence for nearly thirty seconds as we stared at the notebook. There was a front view of what looked to me like a '55 Chevy. On the hood, there was a perfectly sketched face. Every detail.
We were looking at Dr. Richard Hardy, as drawn by Amy Brand before she vanished.
3 Amy
Evening
June 5, 1958
15 Mott Street Chinatown, NYC, USA
Amy Brand was no killer. Not at first.
When the doctor had her kidnapped, she was a scared sixteen-year-old. Trapped in a house; she didn't even know what city she was in.
These are things that will mess up the thinking of anyone, especially someone with her psychological makeup.
It was hot in her room, and it had rained, making the air sticky, like back home on the coast. But here in this tin box of a room there was no ocean breeze to freshen things up.
The stale smell of cigarettes and alcohol surrounded her. Threatened to smother her.
It had been a day since she had made Sully disappear, but she was confident he was better off than he had been in years. He was certainly in a better place than she was.
A new person, a tall and thin nurse, with lots of angles to her face, knocked on her door and peeked in. "Dr. Hardy wants to see you now."
She opened the door wide and gestured for Amy to follow.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"This isn't a request."
"Huh?"
There was no pretense of being nice. "Get up and follow me, girl. Now."
Amy did as she was told. They went downstairs and into a small study. The doctor was there and so was a woman, who was dressed in colorful clothes that were way too tight.
Amy's mother would not have approved.
The doctor waved her in. "Brenda, you can leave us."
The nurse shut the door behind her.
The doctor smiled, and looked down at his desk. Glancing up and grinning, like he was about to make a grand presentation. "Do you know what this is?"
He was pointing at a telephone on his desk.
Amy nodded, wondering why they were ignoring the woman, who stood in the corner staring at her with empty coal black eyes; like she was under a spell.
"Let's call your home. See who answers. What do you say?"
Shock waves ran down her back. This had to be a trick. Amy didn't dare speak because trick or no trick the thought of hearing the voice of one of her parents was almost too much to hope for.
He picked up the receiver, speaking the numbers as he dialed.
It was her home phone number.
Then he pressed a button and there was ringing through a speaker beside the phone.
"Hello." It was her mother coming through loud and crystal clear, almost as if they were in the same room. Her voice sounded so tired.
"Mom, mom," Amy yelled.
"Amy? Oh, my God... "
The doctor slammed the phone down, ending the call.
"She sounds worried," he said.
Continuing to stare at the phone, he said, "I'll let you in on a little secret. We have some men. Really mean men, who are right outside your house. If they don't hear back from me in ten minutes, they are going to go in and hurt your mom real bad."
"My dad will shoot them all."
"But he's still on patrol. Won't be home for hours."
"Why are you doing this?"
He finally acknowledged the woman in the corner.
"I need you to help this young woman the way you helped Sully. But she needs more help because she's been doing very bad things with bad men. Only you can do this."
Hearing her mother's voice had nearly broken Amy. Her voice felt all trembly. "I don't understand."
"Tell her to pick up the envelope opener on my desk and stab herself in the hand."
In the corner of the otherwise immaculately clear oak desk, there was the sharpest envelope opener Amy had ever seen. The blade glistened under the floor lamp. It had an ornate white pearl handle, and looked more like a weapon than something for an office.
"You. Are. Crazy."
He sneered. "No, I help people. And right now you need to be thinking about helping your mother."
Amy looked at the woman and her haunted ghost-like eyes, staring wildly, wondering what she had done so wrong. "I'm not hurting anyone," Amy said. Then she added, "please don't make me."
The doctor just stared at her.
"Tell the whore to cut herself," the old friend in her head said.
4 Maryanne
Noon
June 23, 1961
419 Shepard Street, Morehead City, NC, USA
My state of shock was complete. Amy had sketched Richard Hardy's face a week before he had her kidnapped.
We were looking at definitive proof of some sort of paranormal type of event.
Maryanne smiled softly, seemingly lost in thought. "Until now I never thought anything of what she had drawn. I mean, her imagination was something else. Sometimes really out there. And the days before she vanished she told me she had a bad feeling. That's why I told the police she probably knew whoever took her."
Even after all these years, Maryanne could not bring herself to say Amy had died. And I felt guilt for not telling her she was still alive. But it was too risky.
"You never showed them the drawing?" I asked.
"Oh, I tried. I showed one of the officers. Not her father. Mr. Brand was all undone. Ended up retiring early. The officer I showed it to said she was a really good artist, but probably it was nothing. So I let it drop."
There was no way to blame local police for not taking a drawing seriously. But, my God, this was downright spooky.
"You got sick the night before?" I asked. My voice was probably a bit uneven. Even though it was the middle of the day, it felt like the witching hour had struck.
"Yes."
There was the slight hint of irritation of the kind someone shows when they are exhausted from repeating the same story. And I even thought I picked up the hint of guilt.
"Maryanne, I know you would have done anything to have been there that day. You can't blame yourself?"
"Who are you, really?" She was trying to figure me out. Size me up. Maybe she was trying to believe my weak cover story.
"Just a guy who wants to find out how Amy Brand disappeared into thin air on a walk to school. A walk she had done so many times in the past."
"I've never told anyone what I'm getting ready to tell you. It's too crazy."
"Trust me," I said. "Nothing is too crazy for me."
"The night before that day, I felt fine. Then I went to bed, and was sure someone came in through the window of my bedroom. They put something in my mouth."
She started crying. "I got so sick. Felt crazy with fever. The whole room started to glow, just like it was the middle of the day. All night long. I thought I was being possessed by a demon."
"Your parents?" Benny asked.
"The next morning, those things had gone away. But I felt so sick. I wasn't about to tell my parents what I thought had happened. I convinced myself it was my imagination. That's the real reason I wasn't there. She was my best friend, and I did nothing to help her. Didn't even lift a finger."
I was no stranger to feeling helpless. The feeling comes with the territory when you lose a wife and a child. "That wasn't your fault," I said. "And if you would have told anyone, chances are no one would have even believed you."
"Do you believe me?"
"Not only do I believe you, I can guarantee you it happened. I'm sure I know the person responsible."
An alarm was going off in my head. Loose ends.
5 Galina
Afternoon
June 21, 1961
15 Mott Street Chinatown, NYC, USA
The worst part for Galina was knowing she was on drugs. She rarely drank alcohol, hating the way it made her feel. When you have a memory like she had, even a small chemical imbalance felt like a wrecking ball in her brain.
Whatever they were pumping into her also made her infuriatingly weak.
The blond girl was spooning soup into Galina's mouth. Without the pillow under her head she would have been unable to even sit up.
"I'm so happy you're here," the girl said.
"Who are you again?" Galina asked. "You keep talking to me like I know you."
"The doctor says we're going to be like sisters."
"You aren't my sister. I don't even think we're friends."
"You need to eat."
"I'm not hungry," Galina said.
The girl's voice was back inside Galina's head. "You need to be strong if we're going to escape."
"How are we going to do that?" Galina only had to think the words.
"I'm working on a plan. But I need your help."
6 Maryanne
12:15PM EST
June 23, 1961
419 Shepard Street, Morehead City, NC, USA
"Who exactly are you?" Maryanne Tolbert asked me for the second time.
"Just a guy trying to get to the truth," I said.
"Why don't I believe you?"
She was just as intuitive as I had hoped she wouldn't be, and it was starting to add to the complexity of the situation.
"You know, I never believed her when she said someone was after her."
Benny, who had been sitting like a silent mystic, pulled out a cigarette. "You mind?"
Maryanne sat down, shaking her head, and Benny lit up. I did nothing, waiting for the next revelation, which occurred almost immediately.
"Amy used to talk about the hospital man," Maryanne said, as she started to ramble. "I would ask her what she was talking about and she would say something like 'you remember, the creepy man who was there when I broke my legs.' And I would say, 'you were four, and we barely knew each other.' Who remembers such a thing as who was in her hospital room when they were four?"
Then she stared out the window into the sound. "You ever been to Fort Macon?"
I wasn't sure if the girl was about to go into shock, but it wouldn't have been a surprise. And I would not have blamed her one bit. We were talking about some traumatic stuff to go through as a child. But still I had to admit it was odd for her to be talking about an old Civil War fort.
"Never been," I said.
"Sometimes our parents would take us there on a Saturday afternoon. It's creepy on the inside; real dark, like a prison." She was just mumbling, but neither Benny nor I were about to stop her. "I couldn't stand to be in there, it was so cold and dark even in the summer. But not Amy. She said it was nothing but dead space that couldn't hurt us."
"Maybe we should leave," I said. "I really didn't mean to dredge up bad memories. In fact, I'm not even going to write the story about her."
Benny and I stood and got ready to take our leave, but Maryanne continued to stare out the window. "She was right. Right about everything."
"Are you alright?" Benny asked.
She turned to face us. "Not really."
"We're going to let ourselves out," he said. There was no response from her, but I thought I saw her lips tremble. "Are you going to be okay, really? Why don't you have dinner with us tonight. I'm sure Missy would love to see you."
She looked like she was about to go into a trance of some kind.
"Are you afraid of something?" I asked her.
"Oh yes. I'm terrified. She predicted all of this."
"All of what?" I asked. "We saw the drawing of the car and the doctor's face. Was there more."
"She predicted everything. She predicted today."
Benny and I were frozen, unable to move another step out of the house. Walking back onto the porch, we plopped back down into the same chairs we had been sitting in a few moments earlier.
"What else did she say?" Benny asked.
"She said if anything ever happened to her, a stranger would come who knew the hospital man. And Benny Jones would bring him."
It was settled. We weren't going to be letting Maryanne Tolbert stay home alone. Not after what we had just heard from her.
7 Amy
Evening
June 5, 1958
Hardy's office
15 Mott Street Chinatown, NYC, USA
Pain. Amy felt the letter opener slice into the woman's palm. Felt the warm blood run out and pool in her hand.
Am I really making her do this to herself?
Amy grew dizzy and she threw up in a small trash can in the doctor's office.
The doctor acted as if he couldn't have cared less about the vomit. His reaction horrified her—the wide grotesque smile on his face made her heave again.
The woman looked down at her gashed palm, but didn't scream. She didn't whimper. She made no sound at all.
Is this me? This is what I do? Amy's mind was clouding over. Do have to do his dirty work?
"Oh yes," the little voice said. "And so much more."
8 Galina
Late Afternoon
June 21, 1961
15 Mott Street Chinatown, NYC, USA
Galina had to admit to feeling slightly better since being forced to drink down the broth the girl was forcing into her mouth. But she still didn't trust her.
As far as Galina was concerned this girl was demonic, and had ruined a perfectly good defection plan. And she was working for an insane man.
"Where are we?" she asked again.
"Somewhere in China, but it's also part of America," the blond girl said, smiling, apparently proud of herself.
"You do realize that makes no sense. Don't you even look around when you go outside?"
The girl seemed to be slightly hurt by Galina's words, and her voice lost it's sunny optimism.
"They don't let me go outside."
That's when Galina really noticed the washed-out pale pallor of the girl's skin, which made her appear to be sick.
"Never? How long have you been here?"
"3 years and 19 days." The answer came quick, at a whisper, with such conviction that Galina was sure she was telling the truth.
9 Sully
5 PM
June 6, 1958
The Capuchin Monastery of St. John the Baptist
West 30th/31st Streets, NYC, USA
They say there are no real accidents. Amy Brand had not been so much an accident, as a lightning bolt through the soul of Sully Brown.
Since she had attacked his mind, he had been walking lower Manhattan for days; unkept clothes, tangled hair, wild eyes.
The soles of his shoes even had holes worn in them. His throat was parched from nothing to drink.
And he could not stop. Eventually, he found himself walking higher and higher numbered streets. Having no place to be, he didn't move fast. As he passed Madison Square Garden on his left, he heard church bells.
For no good reason he followed the sound. Somehow, someway, Sully had never really noticed the church sitting between West 30th and 31st Streets. His first thought was to approach the front doors.
I'm not worthy of entering like that.
As he traversed around the structure, he found something else entirely.
An island of medieval-inspired architecture and contemplative life surrounded by the bustling commerce and energy of 1950s Manhattan. He knocked on the door of the Capuchin Monastery of St. John the Baptist.
He didn't know it, but he had found his home for the next three years.
10 Tommy
4PM EST
June 22, 1961
Transatlantic Flight
Three days after getting me dispatched back to the States, Tommy Davidson was on a flight back to Washington. His travel accommodations were much nicer, as he sat in first class on a commercial airliner.
By his estimate, he drank half a fifth of Johnny Walker Swing scotch, but it did nothing to get his mind off the spiraling problems he now had to get under control.
Despite what he said, Richard Hardy was never going to cooperate with the agency, which would give them access to a bonafide mind control solution, along with the greatest intelligence asset he had ever seen.
Galina Orlova had enough information in her head to topple the communist hold on Germany; he was sure of it. Then there was the mysterious girl, of which no one seemed to know anything about.
We're the CIA, how can we not know the identity of some simpleton?
The only good news was the message they he had sent out through the Numbers Station. The entire intelligence world had been working overtime to figure that one out, and the beauty was hardly anyone knew it was him.
The purpose had been straightforward. Scare the hell out of the Russians. And it had worked. He still thought the message was funny:
"Soviet deep-cover asset, 3+ years embedded Western intelligence. Complete operational knowledge. Auction Sunday."
When his foreign counterparts had inquired—in various states of panic and shock—he had simply told them he had no idea what they were talking about.
The plan had been—and this was his most pressing problem—to slowly leak some of the intelligence out in individual broadcasts.
BUT... that moron, Hardy, was playing hardball. He had even moved Orlova; probably back to the states.
And it was Davidson who had to answer as to why they didn't have the second batch of information ready to transmit. This plan had been his brainchild.
And he couldn't forget me, and my meeting with Viktor Brenner. He knew Viktor's secrets—his distaste for the CIA's more esoteric and robust tactics—and had worked hard to keep the agent stranded in enemy territory. Exposing him to the Japanese had been Richard Hardy's finest moment.
They had managed to keep Brenner in a role where he could do little to no damage to their plan.
But now everything was backfiring spectacularly. And if he wasn't careful he was going to end up being collateral damage.
11 Galina
Later that evening—after reduced medication
June 22, 1961
15 Mott Street Chinatown, NYC, USA
For the past couple of hours, Galina had been feeling so much better, at least more herself than she had since the night she had tried to leave East Germany.
Then she realized the irony of her situation. She had actually accomplished her goal of getting out of the Soviet held part of the city.
Careful what you wish for. The thought made her giggle.
"Oh, you're sounding better," the girl said. "It's working."
"Why? How?"
"Cause I'm playing a little trick on them. I told that wicked witch nurse to give you less medication."
Galina sat up in the bed, and was amazed at her amount of energy. "She just listened to you?"
"Sure. I did it with my mind." The girl seemed very pleased with herself, beaming with an ear to ear smile.
To Galina, it was endearing. It was the first smile she had seen out of her. "What's your name? And sorry if I'm already supposed to know it."
"It's okay. They like to try and keep us drugged up, but I've done some work on the nurse. Doctor Hardy doesn't know a thing about it." Again, the beaming smile, practically commanding Galina to at least grin.
"My name is Amy. And no, the mind stuff doesn't work on the doctor. But don't you worry. I'm going to get us out of here."
"I'm Galina, and the doctor killed a friend of mine. And I still don't know why."
"He has a lot of murders to answer for. And he makes the monster inside me do the worst stuff."
For the first time Galina actually felt like things might just work out. She also wasn't sure if this young girl might actually be satanic.
But at least she didn't feel drugged out of her mind. That was a real start.
Start at the beginning
Part 1 The Nightingale Operation
Part 4 Welcome To The Inevitable
Part 5 Hell Or Something Worse
Monthly
Former Fortune 500 consultant. Published in The Federalist. Now writing the Cold War Sci-Fi thriller Ghost Station.