Alter by C. Dennis Moore

Author:C. Dennis Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: kidnapping, multiple personalities, super powers, superheroes
Publisher: C. Dennis Moore

“WAS THAT YOUR SON I saw leaving here yesterday?” Nurse Kaplan asked John’s mother as she set a breakfast tray down in front of her.

“Yeah,” his mother said. “Sometimes anyway.”

Nurse Kaplan gave a confused look, but didn’t press it.

“His name’s John, right? Your husband was John, too. So he’s Junior?”

“No, not really.”

Another confused look.

DR. LYNCH WAS TIRED AND hungry, but not broken. The Shadow-Man sat across from him, still shrouded in darkness. He took the tape off Dr. Lynch’s mouth and said, “Tell me how you met John Darrow.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I have the gun,” the Shadow-Man said, raising the barrel close to Dr. Lynch’s face.

“That works,” Dr. Lynch said. “I met John Darrow five years ago. He’d been living with D.I.D., which is dissociative identity disorder, what people used to call multiple personality disorder, for ten years, but had just recently discovered his alters. He came to me in the hopes that I would be able to cure him of it.”

“Could you have?”

“A cure for D.I.D. is integration, where you’re able to meld the alters back into their original unified form, like gluing a shattered glass back together. I could have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Dr. Lynch peered around the room, still trying to figure out where he was and who was this man in front of him, but all he could see were shadows upon shadows.

“You know John Darrow is, not only a patient of mine--which automatically prohibits me from talking to you about him--but you also know he’s the man called Alter, so why don’t you already know this part, too?

“Let’s say I’d like a fresh perspective on the events.”

“Alright. Well, it was the plan that I would help him integrate his personalities, until he began to speak to them, and them to him. John can communicate with his alters and suddenly he’s still seeing me, but no longer so interested in integration. He’s all of the sudden got this Alter thing going on, but I’ve seen the good he’s done with it, so I leave him to it.”

“Is he still considering integration?”

“Awful interested in John’s mental state.”

“As long as I’ve got the gun, I can be interested in the kind of toilet paper you prefer, if that’s what floats my boat.”

“I suppose,” Dr. Lynch said. “You know all of this goes against the confidentiality of the doctor/patient relationship. But, yes, lately he’s been talking about it again.”

“You’ll live. Let that be compensation for your conscience. You should be home by morning, I’d think. My message to John Darrow should be arriving anytime now.”

With that, the Shadow-Man left the room again, closed and locked the door, and left Dr. Lynch, once more, to the darkness.

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