Another powerful short story from one of our talented authors, just in time to creep you out for Halloween.
PHOBIA by Shanna Murchison
PHOBIAS CURED!
No need to fear!
No more embarrassing moments!
Do things you've never been able to do!
No fear too small!
Live a Normal Life!
was blazoned on the front page of every newspaper in the city, since the ambitious Dr McMcManus had begun to advertise his clinic to the general public.
Dr Fox came in holding copy of the Times and congratulated his boss.
"You have to admit, it sure looks good!" the chubby, red faced psychologist grinned.
"I doubt if anyone phobic reading it will pass up the opportunity of living a normal life again," Dr McManus said smugly, reclining in his chair. He was tall, thin, distinguished looking, with slightly greying hair at the temples.
The intercom buzzed. "Another patient to see you, sir," came the disembodied voice of his personal assistant.
"That's the fourth new patient today. Just you wait. We'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams in no time," Dr McManus gloated as he hit the button in his desk and instructed, "Please show him in, Kelly."
The door opened, and in stepped a tall, strongly built man of about thirty-five. He exuded power and mastery from every pore as he strode over to the desk and introduced himself, hand outstretched.
"My name is Brough, Sean Brough. It is an honour to meet some one with such a prestigious reputation in the field of psychology," he said to Dr McManus, whilst nodding at Dr Fox, who stood by the window.
Dr McManus introduced his colleague, and invited the new comer to sit.
"So what embarrassing phobia do you have for us today, Mr Brough?" Dr Fox asked briskly.
Well -uh," Mr Brough blushed.
Dr McManus smiled, showing glinting white teeth., reminiscent of a shark's.
"Don't worry, Mr Brough, everything you tell is of course in the strictest confidence. We keep no records which could ever compromise your privacy."
Mr Brough began to relax in his chair. "I know it's childish, but I have always been afraid of insects, you know, creepy-crawly things," the usually arrogant businessman said with a shudder.
"That is one of the most common phobias we treat here," Dr Fox said reassuringly.
Dr McManus flicked the intercom button on his desk again. "Kelly, could you please assist Dr Fox in setting up treatment room 101?"
Dr Fox left the room silently, and Dr McManus began to give his smooth sales pitch from memory. "It is really very simple. The course of treatment can last as long or as short a period of time as you would like. We will start you off slowly, having you just look at an insect, before gradually moving you on to actually having enough confidence to touch one. You'll be amazed at our success rate. I've never had a complaint yet."
"That's marvellous! When can we get started?" Mr Brough asked enthusiastically.
"As soon as you sign these papers," Dr McManus replied with a mercenary glint in his eye, pushing forward a folder which contained a thick sheaf.
"This contract says you are undertaking the course of treatment of your own free will, and this agrees to payment in full of all fees from your bank account directly."
Mr Brough looked slightly doubtful, but Dr McManus said suavely, "Well, of course, of you want to postpone your treatment while you take these contracts home to peruse them, I could fit you in again at say, the end of next month?"
"No, no, I'll start straight away!" Brough exclaimed, taking a fountain pen out of his breast pocket and putting his signature on all the papers with a flourish.
It had been so easy--only a few seconds was all it had taken, McManus reflected gleefully as he led his next victim down the long ocrridor past a variety of room labelled 'agrophobia,' 'arachnaphobia,' and 'astrophobia,' until they finally reached 'arthrophobia.'
"Okay, Mr Brough. In you go!" Dr McManus said heartily.
The door swung open like a gaping maw, revealing nothing beyond but darkness.
"Er, now hang on a minute," Mr Brough hesitated, taking a few steps back.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of," Dr McManus smiled winningly. "I myself and terrified of fire, and Dr Fox is afraid of knives and sharp objects."
"Why don't you cure each other then?" Mr Brough asked with an uncomfortable laugh.
His guard was down. With an almighty rush, Dr McManus sent Brough hurtling into the pitch black room and slammed the door shut.
Mr Brough felt his feet slip, and never saw the edge of the pit. He slid down a tube about eight feet, and landed with a sickening crunch upon something that felt like a bed of dried leaves. Only now these leaves started to rustle and move of their own accord. Insects!
There were millions, billions of them. They were everywhere, in his hair, his pockets, his ears, his trousers. Some crawled up his face, trying to burrow into his nostrils. Some wriggled into his mouth as Brough screamed.
He shrieked. He bellowed. He howled in pure terror for what seemed an eternity, begging for mercy.
Dr Fox came up to stand beside Dr McManus. The two colleagues exchanged glances.
"Turn on the light if you please, Dr Fox," Dr McManus requested.
Fox clicked on the lights and the whole churning mass of writhing insects was now brightly illuminated. Antennae waggled furiously as Brough screamed again, in the ululating pitch of a man losing the last shred of his sanity.
Brough thrashed about wildly, swamped by the sea of multi-legged creatures. After a few seconds he resurfaced, shrieking and flailing his arms maniacally.
After a time he calmed somewhat. The two doctors could see foam creeping out of the corner of his mouth, and Brough's glazed eyes told them he had already gone over the edge.
"Damn," said Dr Fox. "Another failure."
Brough started whimpering, his mouth opening and closing uncontrollably, utterly oblivious to the insects now invading his every orifice.
"All right," said Dr McManus dejectedly. "Let's get him out."
Dr Fox walked over to a trolley and took a small dart gun out of his pocket. He went down the elevator, and opened the door briskly. A landslide of insects slithered onto the floor.
Fox waded and crunched his way through the clawing creatures, until at last he reached the insane Brough and tranquilised him.
He picked him up over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, ignoring the crunch and squelch under his feet, and the cockroaches scrabbling at his ankles and, brought him over to the waiting stretcher.
He flung Brough down like a sack of potatoes, and then slammed the door and pushed the trolley down the hall to the so-called "recovery room."
He unlocked an unmarked door a bit further down the hall, and unstrapped Brough. He laid him down on the floor of a large cage, where about seventy other near-savages sat gibbering incoherently to one another.
Suddenly several of them charged Dr Fox. He easily fended them off with a cattle prod, and the wounded fell to the floor as the others howled their hatred of him.
Brough, lying on the floor, came to, and recognising the man partly responsible for his torture, bit him in the leg viciously.
As Fox turned his back on the others to electrify Brough into submission, the others rushed at him, and knocked him to the floor.
By this time, Dr McManus had returned to his office, and looked out at his marvellous penthouse view of the city.
Stupid failures, he thought. They sign a contract enabling me to clean out their bank accounts, and only a select, strong-minded few could ever be cured.
If the police ever managed to trace his victims to the clinic, he would simply say they had elected not to take treatment after all, or feign complete innocence as to ever having known anyone of that description. That any money that could be traced had been a charitable donation he could easily produce the paperwork for.
The intercom buzzed, interrupting his self-satisfied reflections. Dr McManus smiled thinly. Another victim.
"Yes, Kelly?"
"Kelly dead! Kelly dead!" shrieked the intercom, setting his ears abuzz.
"She's no longer afraid of drowning, doctor. The hydro pit did wonders for her!" came a high-pitched voice, followed by the sound of sinister laughter.
Dr McManus flicked on his security camera monitors. He selected the camera at the the hydropool, and there was Kelly, lying face down in the water, her dress billowing around her as she floated lifelessly.
Flicking the monitors to various vantage points around the complex, he spotted Dr Fox with dozens of knives and scalpels sticking out of every part of his anatomy.
McManus started to panic. The window? No. He was in the penthouse suite.
Trying to keep his wits, he grasped his desk chair high over his head, and smashed it to the floor, snapping off one of the metal legs to use as a weapon.
As the door burst in, he swung the chair leg like a baseball bat, catching two of the Failures off guard with a rib-crunching blow.
But a muscular savage snarled rabidly and took McManus down with one tackle. His head cracked against the floor punishingly, and he was soon overpowered.
He was hauled away kicking and screaming to one of the treatment rooms. Upside down, he couldn't see which, but the smell of gasoline was overwhelming.
"I tried to help you! I'm a good man! Please don't kill me, please!" Dr McManus begged.
"You robbed us of our money, our lives! You locked us away like animals so no one would ever know your treatment didn't work. You tortured us, preyed upon our worst fears! You hurt us, Dr McManus, and now you're going to find out just what you really did for yourself," threatened the leader of the Failures, a shaggy-wild eyed man wearing the pitiful remains of a three-piece business suit.
"It was all for you! You were phobic! I was trying to be kind!" Dr McManus pleaded, struggling against the bindings which held him down on the gurney they had lashed him to.
He saw one of the other savages pour gasoline all over the floor, and then they all crowded in the doorway to watch the exciting spectacle.
"Oh, you're kind, doctor, just not our kind," the shaggy man replied, lighting a match and hurling it into the room with one deft movement.
As the conflagration engulfed the room, Dr McManus' screams pierced the air.
The leader of the Failures looked at the doctor's hysterical, agonised face and shook his head.
"Damn. Another failure," he muttered, as he shut the fire-proof door with a final click.