Free The Spectral Book of Horror Stories by Mark Morris (Editor) Page B

her what was wrong, so he didn’t. She deserved better—he didn’t understand how he’d gotten so fuzzy-headed. There was probably a pill for that, something to erase a certain percentage of your thoughts, clear out some space so you could pay better attention to the people you loved. So much for the benefits of exercise. Sam was feeling worse and worse.
    By the time they reached the drug store Sam was ravenous. He sat on the padded bench and devoured two packets of crackers while Elaine got her many prescriptions. He’d already filled his last week before they moved. The lady across from him frowned. He looked around—he was spraying cracker crumbs everywhere. He didn’t know what to do—he couldn’t very well get down on his hands and knees right there in the store and sweep them up. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see either the lady or the crumbs and continued to eat.
    When he was small his mother would drag him all over town on her errands. She took him along even if he was sick, but that was just what you had to do when you were a single mother. The worse he felt the more clothing she put on him; he supposed it was meant as a kind of protection. Sometimes he’d get so hot his head would swim. She’d sit him down somewhere in a chair, or in the shopping cart, or even in some out-of-the-way corner of the floor and let him nap. He’d dream he was a bug in a cocoon, waiting to be someone else. That night she’d reward him with a long bath before he went to bed.
    “Sleep is what you need,” she’d say, stroking his forehead. “Go to sleep and let the night doctor take care of you.”
    Over the years he’d tried to make some sense out of it. Plentiful sleep, of course, was bound to help, to lower stress, to permit the body to bring its own healing. However it worked, he almost always felt better the next day. He didn’t even have to wait until the day arrived, he could take a nap in the middle of the day, and then the night doctor could come. The night doctor didn’t necessarily require night, he simply required that you be asleep so that he could properly do his business on you. All that was needed was that it be nighttime inside your head.
    Had he really believed that the night doctor was an actual person? He’d never believed in magic, exactly—a person or a thing had to act, had to do something. So as a child he’d believed in Santa Claus because he was a person, sort of, this larger-than-life thing, an agency . He didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny because he knew a kid who had a rabbit who’d smelled and bitten him once.
    It had been oddly reassuring, and yet not reassuring at all. Because if Santa were a person, then he was fallible. He could be late, or if you moved he might not find your house. The same with the night doctor. And he had had proof—he’d once visited his grandparents for two weeks and he’d been sick the whole time. The night doctor obviously couldn’t find him.
    It had all been a great cause for anxiety. The fact that no one but his mother ever talked about the night doctor had only made it worse—he’d never even seen a picture of the man. Or woman, or whatever.
    “Sam, darling? Are you ready to go?”
    He blinked. Elaine was looking down at him, smiling. Had he overslept? Suddenly he felt lost, outside his body and not quite knowing the way back in.

    “I fell . . .” He yawned. “I fell asleep waiting. Sorry.”
    “You must have needed it,” she said, helping him to his feet. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Maybe I’ve pushed you too hard today.”
    “Exercise is good for me. I don’t get enough,” he said, moving slowly with her arm in his as they rocked their way down the aisle, Elaine’s bag full of pill bottles rattling at her hip. He willed the blood to flow; his feet were numb. By the time they got out of the store they were better, he could feel them tingling. He supposed the day would eventually come when they didn’t get better, when they