The Physician’s Reckoning

I hear voices chattering. I cannot make out what they are saying; conceivably murder, perhaps, the clues are prevalent, I suppose. 

“Murder-suicide, most likely,” the Crone shouts out in an alto voice. It sounds like she has a tribe of ghouls at her side as they mumble, sometimes cooing delightfully. I do think it is Satan’s bride herself coxing me deeper and deeper into despair. 

Voltaire once wrote that every man is guilty of all the good he did not do. I assume he was thinking of young gentlemen who, like me, can start their story with, “If only these walls could talk.” In my case, they do.

The Croneish voice speaks every few nights. It’s coming from the walls of this stately place. She says not to me but about me. “It happened right here.” she trumpets. 

Then, one night on her devilish tour, she flashed a bright light and said, “You paid good money to see a ghost tonight, so here you go!”

Her actions made it so! I could finally see them, but it appeared they couldn't see me. I was seated upon the once beautiful chaise, now ragged and torn. It’s where they were all staring, but I saw no eye looking directly at me.

Am I a ghost, an apparition or is it a guilty conscience that needs to be examined? 

“This is where it happened.” The Crone continued with her chatter. Each word felt like daggers to my heart. “Right here on this depressing green tufted chaise is where the young doctor killed his predecessor's young widow before killing himself.” 

I had to reply to this vulgarity, “I think not, Madam; that is not true.” I shouted, “You know nothing of which you speak!” I uttered in a whisper with my apparent inaudible voice. “Only I know the truth, only I.”

In my hellish solitude, I can only remember that night. I live it repeatedly. If I am a ghost, her screams will forever haunt me. I was only here to help as I swore an oath to do.

I was fresh out of medical school and new to the new territory. I followed Dr. Evans in lending a hand in building his university here in this god-forsaken frontier in our modern year of 1860. Upon my arrival, I heard that my mentor, Dr. Lansing, the very man I was to intern with, was dead, and Denver City needed a doctor now. Even if only a young, inexperienced doctor like myself who navigates his buggy hitched to a young, unruly gelding like a rookie. I know the Western cowboy types are criticizing my lack of horsemanship. So, I must prove them wrong and win their admiration through my medical talents. 

The first appointment was to check on the young widow of Dr. Lansing. I have been told the beautiful young widow is half the age of her deceased husband yet in deplorable condition, both physically and mentally. She lives up on the hill above the wooden huts. It's the only stone house in the area. 

As I arrived late afternoon at the large stone house that sits further on the outskirts of the town than predicted, I noticed the structure was something of a mansion, not like from the East, but a smaller version meant to serve its inhabitants here in the savagery of the West. I rushed as I heard screams coming from inside the home.

I tied the bay gelding, which neighed and repeatedly struck the ground with his front left hood because he was still bound to his buggy. I told the steed, “I’ll be right back,” and patted him gently on his firm neck. My attempts at comfort went unnoticed as the equine panicked and broke his lead. I returned to tie him tighter with a leather rein, not understanding his actions were meant as a premonition of the evil I would find inside. I then grabbed my bag and ran inside. I found it odd that the large oak door was unlocked, and no house servants were within sight. 

Upon access, I find a sleeping female lying on the chaise lounge just off the parlor room. This very chaise upon which I sit. As I slid the partition door aside, I could see she was provocatively clad, tossing and turning, screaming and crying in her unrest, "Please don't do this, Reginald! I love you so!" No other soul was in sight; however, she spoke directly to someone. Her husband Reginald, who she alone can see. I presume she is suffering a psychotic fit.

She is beautiful, my Euphemia Lansing. Perhaps I should address her correctly, the widow Mrs. Reginald Landsing. She seductively lay before me as my first patient, the exquisite young woman, lay upon this very couch with her delicate arms lifted above her flowing reddish blonde locks. Although her body withered from lack of food or drink, her white breasts were pert and still showed signs of youth. All twisting away from the high dosage of laudanum floated in her stomach. 

Her wrists were wrapped in gauze, covering the wounds of her attempted suicide. “Oh my dear, I am here to help you,” I gently said. 

She heard me speak but did not bother to stand. The tiny rays of the May sun streaming through the shutters gave me a glimpse of her unrestricted form. No corset or bustle, only a sheer cover of a lace gown pink in color, gave me a hint of her nakedness lying underneath. Her body told my medical mind she might be only 20 years old. I looked at my chart that said she was the widow of Dr. Reginald Lansing, who passed at over twice her age. 

She woke as I made a noise, leafing through my notes. “Are you my attendant?” she questioned.

“No, mam’ I stuttered with my voice embarrassingly breaking. I am Intern Theodore March, and I am here to check in on you, Mrs. Lansing.

“Please call me Effie, Theodore.” she looked me over, “By the looks of you with that remarkable full head of raven black hair and those wide open grey observing eyes, I’d say we are close to the same age.”

She followed with “24” as I overspoke her with “27”.

Then she laughed with a precious laugh befitting an angel. With that, I felt an immediate connection. I must admit I did need to calm my heart. 

“I am here to comfort you, my dear friend.” I was trying to comfort her, but my masculinity might have led to something more. “I’m not a learned leech with some new psychiatric drug. I am accomplished, but I did not study alienism.” I lightened, “My father was a sawbones and a damn good one at that. I did wish to follow in his footsteps and become a chirurgeon.”

“Oh my, I would never be able to cut open another. I suffered immensely from cutting myself,” she lifted her wrists, reminding me why I was there. I sat close to her and put my arm around her small frame.

“I found his corpse, you know.” she began her melancholy story, “He was seated in his favorite cigar chair. I came running in to tell him about my trip to Greely. I had been gone for only a week, you know? From behind him, I reached over his shoulders to cover his eyes. He loved my playful spirit. I thought I would surprise him. But he sat stiffly. He was gray and cold, and his eyes were, oh, his eyes.” She continued folding her legs on the chaise. She hunched her back and took on an upright fetal position, pushing me away and shifting back and forth. Then she whispered, “his eyes were open and staring at me.”

Getting out my stethoscope and sitting her up just a bit, I sat next to her on the chaise. “I’ll need to listen. To your heart, dear Effie, I hope you don't mind as this tip is ice cold.” I said this with the sweat of lust dripping from my brow. I felt such the sinner as it was my heart I heard beating out of my chest, hoping that the desires permanenting from below didn't show. At that instant, she hugged me with a death grip and cried mournfully on my shoulder. 

As I held Effie, I tried to remain simple and solemn as a man of medicine and faith. Effie was unlike the women I knew, who wore gowns with bustled skirts and bright colors. This beauty’s gown was childlike, intricately decorated with ribbons, lace, and folds. 

I couldn't help but notice her simple gown was formfitting, creating a slender silhouette. The ribbon gently tied around her neck, gayly trailing down her back, unnaturally made her provocative. I fought my urge to do as I pleased with her and instead held her firmly, comforting her in her time of need. “There, there, now, I am here to protect you.”

She fell into an unsettling sleep. I must admit I started to doze when she shrieked an ear-piercing scream! “Stop it, please! Please do not hurt him! Don't Reginald, stop!” she pleaded with her eyes closed.

“Effie, wake up, I gasped. “It was only a dream, my dear, nothing to fear.” 

While quivering as if she were freezing, she grabbed me and said, “Theodore, in my dream, Reginald is so harsh and cold to me, and I have never seen that woman he is with. She is tall and sleek, but her eyes are glowing green and appear to contain gases from Hell. The floating entity was holding Reginald’s hand, which seemed to be free will on his part. She pushed me back as she seduced my husband in front of me.” then Effie shrieked and began clawing at her bandage wounds, producing blood stains.

“My beloved is having an affair in the afterlife!” she lay back on the chaise and continued coldly, “I am left behind here in a cold, cruel world while he mounts the devilish Vamp. So, I adapted to join my love in the afterlife, the only way I could imagine. I used his hunting blade to slit my wrists, you see?” she unwrapped and then lifted her wrists by reaching up to me. 

“Oh, that looks horrendous,” I sighed, noticing that they were cut in such a fashion they would not have been proven deadly. 

My heart was broken by the terror this young woman endured. I held and comforted her for hours, and then, when re-examining her, I broke my sacred othe and kissed her. Easing her pain by telling her dreams can not hurt you. “It's just a dream, darling.”

Just then, she thrust herself upon me, beating my chest with her half-gauzed-clad arms. “Run, I tell you! They're coming soon. Look there in the mirror! Do you see their heathen forms? It is Reginald sent from Hell to torment me!”

My medical mind knew she was undergoing a psychotic break, but as a gentleman, I looked in the floor-length mirror to appease her. It was the oddest thing; I saw no reflection of myself nor Effie, only a swirling of some fog-like substance. 

A lightning bolt struck with a mighty blast, making us both jump with fear. 

Looking outside, I saw my new red gelding lying on the wet ground as if he had been pierced through the heart by the finger of an angry force. 

I ran out to aid my horse, to no avail, as the poor thing was killed by it. I tried to re-enter the house to find the doors and windows were bolted shut. I peered through a separation between the shutter and glass, only to witness three forms. 

“Effie was not dreaming after all,” I screamed in robust panic. I grabbed the loaded small pistol under my seat in the now dilapidated buggy. The ungodly lighting had devastated it. 

I remember leaping over my red horse, which now existed steaming hot with a fire within it. Fire has burned away a portion of the horse's face, making him look like he’s smiling an evil clown-like grin. 

I make it to the trellis that leads to a small window. As I break the glass and slide through pieces of shard glass that imbed my stomach, my white shirt turns red from blood. 

I run toward Effie, now unconscious, who is hanging from the ceiling beam tied by the ribbon she wore around her neck. The sultry female demon floats to me, her eyes glowing and her long tongue slithering like snakes exiting from her parted red lips. Her long arms extend further than the doctor envisions. She claws my face from left to right, gauging my left eye from its socket.

“God forgive me!” I closed my working eye and fired a shot at the demonic sultress, but she had become invisible. I dropped to my knees when I saw I hit my beautiful patient right between her lovely breasts.

Shot through the heart, she is now lifeless. 

The evil spirit and Effie’s ghostly husband exit the room through the mirror where they had entered. I knew the dwellers of Denver City would think I killed my patient.

 “They will never know the horrible truth,” I moaned as I placed the cold metal of my pistol against my temple on my blinded side. God forgive me. I confess I pulled the trigger. 

This building, the former home of Doctor and Mrs. Reginald Lansing, a museum the city hoped would house hundreds of Western artifacts into perpetuity, has turned into a mocked scandal– primarily a scandal of the incompetence of a young medical student, me.

I shall spend eternity without her here in her home. She would have never wanted me, young and naive as I was. Not altogether obedient, I had not lived long enough to be brilliant, yet we entered the afterlife together. Hers was a journey to heaven, and mine is purgatory. Here, in her home, only I will remain to hear the evil voices coming from the walls.

My salvation is not as apparent as my reckoning is. I am sorry. The ghouls will forever walk through my afterlife. repeatedly, the Crone will lead them, “Ladies and Gentlemen shall we continue? The next room is where Doctor Lansing performed his procedure.”