Tunnel Vision Read online

  “Yeah, but if you’re really tired, it might get the dogs off your butt.” Someone had called Damian to say that a car would pick them up at seven to take them to the center. Then he read off the restrictions: “No caffeine drinks after two P.M. No stimulants, alcohol, or sedatives. We can shower, but no use of conditioners, gel, mousse, and skin lotions—something about having good electrode contact with the skin. Eat normally and bring a change of clothes.”

  A little before seven, Zack met Damian at the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues. “Nice T-shirt,” Damian said.

  Zack’s front was the ancient Christian schematic of a fish, but with rudimentary feet and the word DARWIN fashioned like bones inside its body. “I can lend it to you if you ever experience existential doubt.”

  Damian smiled. “Not going to happen, bro.”

  At seven sharp, a black Cadillac SUV pulled up to the curb. A stocky man in a white shirt and dark pants got out and came around. “Is one of you Damian Santoro?”

  “Yes.”

  The man nodded, said his name was Bruce, and opened the rear door of the limo for them to get in. When they got in and Bruce closed the door, Zack noticed that a Plexiglas partition separated them from the front seat.

  As the driver pulled away, he turned on the sound system, filling the car with classical music. They made a U-turn at Gainsborough and headed northeast down Huntington and onto the MassPike at Copley Square. After maybe twenty minutes, they pulled onto 95 South for another twenty minutes, then turned off at the Dedham exit and onto twisty country roads through Medfield and to a large white garrison originally intended as a private home.

  Bruce escorted them through the main entrance, which had been converted into an office lobby with a receptionist. They passed some offices and through a door with steps to the basement. At the bottom, things changed into sterile white walls and fluorescent ceiling panels. Zack did not see the rear of the building when they entered, but it was clear that it had been extended to accommodate the corridor flanked by windowless doors.

  The third door opened onto a spacious office crammed with desks, computers, shelves of manuals, books, and the like. Waiting for them were Drs. Luria and Stern and a black man introduced as Dr. Byron Cates. Also a younger good-looking young woman named Sarah Wyman, who said to call her Sarah. Zack guessed she was a medical or grad student somewhere.

  Once again Zack and Damian were separated, Zack meeting with Sarah Wyman and Dr. Luria, Damian with the others. They moved across the hall to a small bright space with shelves of books and periodicals and a desk holding two large computer monitors. Across from it was a smaller desk where Luria sat. Zack took a seat across from her. On a table behind her sat a framed studio photo of a smiling little boy.

  “We checked your medical records, and all looks fine,” Luria said. “But on your questionnaire you say here you’ve had recurring dreams of dead loved ones.”

  “A few dreams of my father. He died three years ago, but my parents separated when I was ten, and I didn’t see him much.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Luria said. “Can you elaborate on those dreams?”

  “Sometimes it’s stuff we did in the past. Other times he’d show up at the door.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, how exactly did he die?”

  Zack could not see how this was relevant to a sleep disorder project. “Heart attack.”

  Sarah said, “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you dream of any other deceased relatives?”

  “No, and I thought this was a sleep study.”

  Luria’s birthmark lit up again. “It is, and a primary component is the neurophysiology of dreams—the electrical activity that takes place when they happen. So we’d like to get a mapping of your brain.”

  “Will I be put to sleep?”

  “No, you’ll be completely awake,” Sarah said. “We’ll fit you with a helmet with electrodes inside, creating a weak magnetic field to stimulate different sectors of your brain.”

  “Will I feel anything?”

  “Not physically.”

  “Then I will feel something.”

  “That’s what we’d like to determine.”

  She was vague so as not to influence his reaction. “But my brain won’t fry.”

  “Hardly. The magnetic field is no more than that of an electric shaver.”

  “Before we start,” Luria said, “we’d like you to sign nondisclosure and consent forms. Also, because we make a video recording of each session, a release should we use them in further studies or publications.”

  Zack read the forms, then signed.

  “If you feel even the slightest discomfort, let us know and we’ll stop.”

  “Okay.”

  Then Sarah led him out of the office and to a small, dim chamber with an observation window. In the space was a softly padded recliner with a pillow. He removed his shirt as Sarah attached contacts to his chest and to an EKG machine in the observation room. On his head she placed a motorcyclelike helmet with wires running from it to monitors and a computer in the other room. He was grateful his hair had grown to cover the pressure-gauge scar on his skull.

  “This is a more highly sensitive electroencephalographic system than the standard device,” she explained. “There’s also a wireless sensor that communicates directly with the computer to analyze data and produce an electrical profile in real time.”

  “Okay.” He watched her check the connections, admiring her clean good looks.

  “We’ll put a sleep mask on to avoid visual distractions. Again, if you feel the slightest discomfort, just let us know. A microphone’s attached to the helmet to tell us anything you experience.”

  “Like what?”

  From the observation booth, Luria responded, “We’ll be applying magnetic stimulation to areas associated with different emotions and perceptions. So you may experience nothing at all or some sensations. So, just relax and narrate any change you experience no matter how subtle.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll be just fine,” Sarah said, and tapped his arm.

  “How long will this take?” Zack asked.

  “Less than an hour.”

  When he was ready, Sarah slipped a mask on his eyes and adjusted the helmet, turned off the light, and left the chamber. Several minutes passed as Zack sat in the black silence. They had said they’d start low, so he would probably not register anything for a while. And maybe nothing at all. In the soundless dark and womblike chair, it crossed his mind that this was as close to sensory deprivation as he had ever been.

  For a while he detected nothing but the throb of his heart. He counted beats, trying to concentrate on something—anything. Then he recited pi to fifteen places. In high school he’d memorized it to fifty. After a few more minutes, yellow amoebas floated across the inside of his eyelids—the kind of visual white noise the brain produced in darkness. But soon the blobs became haloed in orange and blues and began swirling around one another. “I’m seeing colored blobs.”

  “Okay,” said Dr. Luria.

  His parents used to take turns lying down with him at bedtime. One night he asked his father about the little floaters he saw with his eyes closed. His dad joked that they were tiny UFOs. Zack locked on one and began drifting upward until he was certain he had separated from the chair as if he were filled with helium. “Feel like I’m rising up.”

  “Okay.”

  The O of her response became a bright and rapidly expanding ring. He rode it as it expanded in a featureless void. Suddenly all went black.

  Someone was in the chamber with him.

  His first thought was that Sarah had entered to check a connection. He thought about removing the mask, but his hands wouldn’t obey. “Who’s there?” he whispered.

  “What’s that?” Dr. Luria.

  “Someone’s in here with me.”

  “Who’s there with you?”

  He hesitated for a spell, trying to identify the sensation, which kept fad
ing and returning. Suddenly it got very strong, and he turned his head as if trying to track the intruder. He didn’t feel fear or pleasure, just the awareness of a presence—like entering the woods and feeling as if you’re being watched. The next moment he was at a great height, like a bird riding thermals. He wanted to narrate but couldn’t. Then he began to dive through the gloom—zooming downward through space toward a pinpoint of light. As he glided closer, the spot took on form—a young boy atop a flight of stairs wearing a red shirt and holding a baseball glove—himself. And climbing toward him with open arms was a man.

  “Hey, sport, want to play catch?”

  “Dad.”

  The sound of his own voice startled him back to the moment—sitting blindfolded and wired in a chair with a contraption on his head. He pulled off the blinders as a light went on.

  A disembodied female voice said, “Are you okay?”

  He could see her standing before him, and for a split second he had no idea who she was or why he was in a chair in a booth. Then it all rushed back. And the swelling joy of seeing his father so full and vital suddenly turned black, like a film exposed to light.

  Sarah Wyman was asking how he was. He nodded but couldn’t speak. Grief turned his chest into a hollowed cavity.

  They unhooked him and led him out and into the office, where he took a seat. He had been in the booth for a little less than an hour, but it seemed timeless. Sarah got him a bottle of water, and he sipped on it while he found his center again. Then he forced a thin smile. “What did you do? I felt like I was on an acid trip.”

  “We stimulated sections of your temporal and frontal lobes.”

  Dr. Luria entered the booth. “You said you sensed someone in the room with you.”

  He nodded.

  “Did you recognize who it was?”

  He guessed that the various monitors had picked up an emotional change, blood pressure or EKG quickening or whatever, so there was no point in denial. “My father.”

  Luria gave him a penetrating look. “Your father? Can you elaborate? Where were you? What he was doing?”

  He described the image of his father climbing the stairs to him.

  “And how did your father look? How was he dressed?” Luria asked.

  Zack didn’t know why that was important. “Happy to see me. I don’t remember how he was dressed. But normal, I think—shirt and pants.”

  And he was alive.

  “How did you feel seeing him?”

  He took a deep breath to center himself. “Happy at first.” Zack felt the press of tears behind his eyes. “I was glad to see him. Then he seemed to disappear as he got closer.”

  “Closer to you. And then?”

  “And then I was standing all alone.” His throat thickened by the second. He took in a deep breath and in his head began reciting the value of pi to keep from breaking down.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, but his eyes filled up as melancholy hollowed out his chest. No, grief—what had assaulted him whenever he dreamed of his father, leaving him with deep, racking sobs and an aching in his soul. The dreams were all similar—his dad making a surprise return home, or showing up after school let out, or climbing the stairs where Zack waited for him.

  “Hey, sport, want to hit a few?”

  “Sorry we put you through that,” Dr. Luria said, her eyes black with pupils. She looked fascinated with the results.

  A sudden weariness weighed on him. “Think I’m ready to go home,” he said, trying to sound neutral.

  “Of course. But if it’s okay, we’d like to run some more tests on you. Of course, at the same fee.”

  Zack nodded. Only if you could put me back on those stairs.

  “What are good times for you?”

  “Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  She handed him a check and led him out. Damian was already in the car with the driver. “So, how’d it go?” Damian asked as the car pulled away.

  They had signed a nondisclosure form and sworn not to talk about their experiences even with each other. So all Zack said was, “I could barely stay awake.”

  “You mean you didn’t get anything?”

  “Just a little dizzy.” Zack didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to fall into a deep sleep. “What about you?”

  “Nothing, nada,” said Damian. “But I’m two hundred and fifty bucks better off.”

  Zack nodded. At the moment, he was too drained to think about money. Whatever had occurred had left him with a sadness not felt in years. And something else: a weird and disturbing sense of his father’s presence that went beyond dreams.

  26

  “‘When little men cast long shadows you know the sun is setting.’”

  Norman Babcock couldn’t recall where he had heard that, but it described to a tee Warren Gladstone, whose fat evil face filled the screen of his laptop. He was at the wheel of the Dori-Anne, his forty-six-foot powerboat, late out of winter storage in Newport, Rhode Island. It was a glorious May day, and he was trying out his sea legs.

  Norm had been boating since he was eleven, learning to sail at St. Andrews Prep. But it was powerboats that he loved. And this was his third. Beside him sat Father Timothy Callahan, newly appointed priest of St. Pius Church. Tim was half Norm’s age and thirty pounds lighter. He had a full head of chestnut brown hair, whereas Norm Babcock was as bald as a cue ball. Today Father Tim was dressed in a green golf shirt and shorts. His usual attire was all black with a white collar. Or clerical robes, which some weeks ago Norm had donned to hold “confession” with one Roman Pace.

  “The man is a bloody snake,” said Babcock, looking at the monitor.

  “Yes,” Father Tim replied, his voice weak, barely audible.

  While Gladstone pounded on his podium in perfect Evangelical self-righteousness, Norm turned up the volume so his sermon could be heard over the groan of the engines.

  “The day of the Lord is coming, I’m telling you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. No, I’m not talking about the so-called End time, the Day of Doom. I’m talking about the Day of Jubilation. A day we will all rejoice. A day of eternal light.”

  Norm veered toward Peddocks Island as they headed out to open sea. He knew all about Gladstone—a rube from the backwoods of Tennessee who followed in his father’s footsteps to become a backwoods preacher. In time, the established clergy—other Protestants and Catholics alike—called him a fraud: just another Bible-thumping “evanghoul” getting fat and powerful off the dollars of destitute trailer parkers desperate for hope. His following at first was small because he was competing with dozens of other teleministries around the country and had no distinction—no hook.

  “The day of greatness is coming, and you and I will be there to bear witness.”

  But then his sermons shaded into the occult—near-death experiences. Hundreds of books on the subject had been written over the decades—and all basically the same blather. Someone is pronounced dead from a heart attack, an accident, gunshot, whatever. The victim floats out of his or her body to go moving down a tunnel toward a celestial light, where he or she meets spirits of dead relatives and “beings of light.” To bolster “authenticity,” Gladstone claimed to have suffered a near fatal asthma attack; then, while paramedics attended him, he reported moving down a tunnel to a garden where the Lord Jesus Christ himself welcomed him to paradise. He woke up in a hospital, alert to the glorious possibilities, and wrote a book, self-published, of course, and peddled it to his congregation as evidence of God’s truth—for only $9.99. The same old charlatan but with spiritually toxic snake oil.

  “I’m talking soon, within weeks. I can’t be more specific, but when that day comes, you’ll see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, the living testimony to the presence of God on earth. On that day, all shall rejoice. Every Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu … every human, godly or not.”

  “There it is,” Norm said, stabbing his finger at the screen. “Devil’s blasphemy, point-blank. The son of a bitch.”
/>   Father Tim nodded, but his face wore a hangdog expression. “I still don’t like it, Norm. We’re complicitous to murder.”

  “Tim, what he’s doing is an abomination. You heard with your own ears.”

  “Yes, but hiring a hit man makes us murderers in the eyes of the law and God.”

  “Let me remind you that the Jesus Christ he met with open arms was not the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a counterfeit, the same fake Christ met by all near-death claimants. That was the avatar of Satan, because the real Jesus doesn’t teach that redeemed and unredeemed sinners alike go to heaven. Paradise doesn’t have an open-gate policy.”

  “I can’t be more specific, but we shall have proof, glorious proof of the Holy Spirit. Peter says in verse eleven that all true believers shall witness the sacred light. The great day of the Lord is coming.”

  “Now the bastard enlists the Holy Word in service of Lucifer,” Norm growled. “Sacred light. Let’s not forget that Lucifer’s very name is a lie—Bearer of Light.”

  “But I’m still not comfortable with this whole thing.”

  “Look, these people have taken it into the laboratory. He and his scientist pals are trying to do what nobody’s dared before—or had the means to. And once he has his so-called proof, he’s going on TV to show the world. And then what? Bloody Armageddon, that’s what.”

  “But murder.”

  Norm paused the video. “Review your book of Matthew, my friend—every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Need further consolation? Then consider Ecclesiastes: ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven,’ including ‘a time to kill.’ This man is evil, and what he promises is an abomination against God and the Holy Spirit.”

  “Are you going to send this Pace after him, too?”

  “That would attract too much attention. Just those doing his bidding. And then all his legions will see that the emperor has no clothes.”