The Pure: Book Three of the Oz Chronicles Read Online Free Page A

makes perfect sense.
    We reach the janitor’s closet. We both
stare at the door as if it might explode.
    “No matter what you hear in there, don’t
come out,” Bones says staring at the doorknob.
    “What am I going to hear in there?”
    “Don’t know, but Gator was normal before
he went in there.” I look at him wide-eyed.
    “Gator?”
    He looks at me for a split second before
he busts out laughing. “I’m just yanking your chain. Gator ain’t never been in
there... or normal, far as I know.”
    I look to my left and then to my right
before putting my hand on the doorknob. Slowly I pull the door open and step
inside the surprisingly roomy closet.
    Bones gives me one last reassuring grin
as the door slowly closes. “I got your back,” he whispers. As the door clicks
shut and I lose all light, I try to convince myself that it’s reassuring to
have Bones right outside the door.
    I stand motionless, not knowing exactly
what to expect or do. The sound of muffled voices comes from the back of the
closet. I carefully step toward them. They are high up, toward the ceiling. My
eyes adjust to the darkness , and I can make out a vent. The sounds of a
conversation escape the metal grate.
    The first voice I can make out is Dr.
Graham’s. “The other patients look up to you,” he says.
    “They’re idiots,” his companion answers
back. “It’s kind of like being looked up to by a pack of greasy rats. It don’t
mean much.” I know by the comment more than the voice that it’s Archie
Scoop-face.
    “You shouldn’t dismiss the others so
easily.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yap, yap, yap. For a
shrink you sure do talk a lot. Shouldn’t you be listening?”
    “Okay,” the doc says sounding more than
a little irritated. “Talk.”
    “Not here.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The couch. I want to go under.”
    There is an awkward silence.
    “Hypnosis? Why?”
    “What do you mean, why?” Scoop-face
chuckles. “It’s what you do, ain’t it?”
    “You called it a gallon of goose crap
last week.”
    “Last week?” Scoop-face chuckles even
louder. “You can’t hold a crazy man’s feet to the fire for a thing he said last
week.”
    The doc clears his throat. “I don’t like
that word.”
    “I know... I had a change of heart,
that’s all. I got some things I want to explore in the deep recesses of this
dented head of mine. Now, are you going to help me or sit there with that puppy
dog look on your face?”
    I can hear movement. The doc shifts in
his leather chair. I wonder how you hypnotize a man with no eyes. Are the eyes
necessary? They aren’t when you’re under.
    A chair squeaks. One of them clears his
throat. “Very well,” Dr. Graham says.
    Silence. Then I hear the chairs being
pushed back.
    “Get your hands off me,” Scoop-face
snarls. “I know the daggum way.”
    Now I hear the shuffling of his feet. In
my mind’s eye, I see the doc nervously following him, watching him carefully,
almost willing him to the couch without incident, one hand out to steady him if
Scoop-face should happen to run into some errant piece of furniture.
    Scoop-face can feel him there. He grunts
in protest, but knows the doc doesn’t mean anything by it. People do it to him
all the time. They aren’t as concerned about him as they are about themselves
having to witness the possible catastrophe of a bumbling man with no face
crashing to the floor.
    I hear the swish of leather as Scoop-face’s
ass hits the couch. Dr. Graham adjusts his chair.
    “Are you certain about this?” Dr. Graham
asks.
    “I’m on the couch, ain’t I,” Scoop-face
answers. “Do your stuff, Doc.”
    I hear the soothing rhythm of the
metronome begin. I breathe deeply as the soft ticking seeps in and fills the
closet.
    The doc pulls out his heavy monotone
voice. “Listen to the sound of the metronome. Not just the sound it makes, but
the sounds it doesn’t make. Listen to the soft chorus of its entire existence,
from sound to silence to sound