A work of fiction.
*****
I got this from the author's estate. He recently died of a heart attack.
I've left his notes in - the ones before and after each chapter. I'll withhold his name as well as changing the names and location herein. He didn't change them, but I don't agree with that. Then, too, the company, mentioned below, contacted me and threatened legal action if I didn't change the names and location or if I mentioned their name. Shortly after they contacted me about the names and location, they called back. The company wants these journals and has filed suit, but I'm publishing them before their court action can be seen through.
I'm putting this here, over his Prologue, because I didn't want to put my Prologue in Ch. 01, since he didn't.
So, that's the last thing I'll write. The rest is either the author or one of the participants/victims.
***** The author starts:
At first, I left this prologue out of the story, but now feel that it's important not only to set the context, but also to ask for help (below.)
Ok, I have to fess up. What you're reading is a copy of journals that came into my possession some time back when I received them via the USPS. I tracked down the return address and it was bogus. I have no idea who sent them to me or why.
I've been reading and re-reading them and debating what to do and finally came to the decision that I should publish them.
Part of the reason for even debating whether or not to publish them is that I'm still not sure how the story turned out for everyone in the journals. I don't know who's still alive and who's dead. If I let this out into the wild, could anyone go to jail - or, worse, be hunted down and killed?
Worse yet - could I be hunted down and killed for letting them out?
I didn't know the answers to those questions; didn't have a clue. Naturally, it troubled me greatly. I was concerned about the people in these journals. (and myself)
Consequently, a while back, I hired a company to try to find the people involved and try to establish if the stories in these journals had any basis in fact.
The company has done as best they could over the past year.
Frankly, I was surprised that they found the two that they found.
They also established that there was a Beth.
So you see, these journals don't seem to be a complete work of fiction. I was hoping that they were.
The two? The company found Beth's ex-husband and her daughter. It turns out that the ex was not the daughter's father. The biological father had been found dead, of a heart attack, about a year before Beth had married her last ex.
The current ex and the daughter were both living happily near Everett, Washington. The daughter was about the right age that she would've been if these journals were accurate. She's been married since graduating from college and has a child of her own.
The ex-husband was elderly and died a couple of months after the company found him.
The ex had no idea what had happened to Beth. She was there one day and gone the next. He said that police didn't find anything in the house that would lead them to suspect foul play. He said that the police told him that the house looked like it had purposefully been scrubbed of evidence - or that Beth was one hell of a housekeeper.
The ex said that Beth was't one hell of a housekeeper. That still troubled him, but he was at a loss to explain it. It also troubled me.
The police looked for airline or bus tickets in Beth's name or any charges to her credit cards that could have been used for any type of transportation. There was nothing. In examining the credit cards, they established a hard date beyond which none of the cards were used. The ex said that the mystery man was due on the weekend before the last charge on her card. He said that the guy usually would be flying out that Sunday. Beth's VISA was used Monday of that week at a pharmacy. She had bought medical supplies but the ex could give no reason that she should have.
The police didn't find any restaurants where Beth had been seen in the company of a gentleman. They asked the local hotels if they'd had anyone staying around the dates that the ex said that the mystery man had come to town, but came up with nothing.
The daughter refused to speak with investigators.
Beth had simply vanished from the face of the Earth, perhaps accompanied by a mystery man whose last name they never learned, and they couldn't say that the first name that the ex supplied was a real name. The daughter - again - refused to talk.
The company went over all of the police reports and the investigators' notes, but no further light could be shed on what might have happened to Beth. The police - and the company - couldn't determine if the mystery man or anyone else had anything to do with her disappearance.
The company couldn't find even a hint of any of the other people mentioned in these journals.
After the company's initial report, I had them keep looking. To date, nothing.
There came a time, about a month ago, that I finally decided that these journals were ok to publish. I debated changing the names and locations of everyone but decided against it to preserve the integrity of the documents. Make of them what you will.
But - PLEASE! If you recognize any people in your life that seem to have a backstory that is anything like what is described herein, or rumors around them that allude to something like this, I offer a $100,000 reward if I find even one of the people in these journals. $150,000 if it's Beth.
The notes before and/or after a particular excerpt that I'm publishing are by me, just in case you're wondering.
Buckle up, buttercup. The ride gets bumpy.
***** Preface
When we last were with our happy couple, they seemed to be departing from the usual path of couples in love.
Gad, our dude seems to be in a bit of a pickle! He's tied down like a lamb to be slaughtered!
He's got horrendous drugs in his system - and more to come? Who knows. Oh, wait; I do, because I've read ahead! Don't you dare!
He's at the mercy of a crazy woman, aka
PsychoCat
She likes to toy with her food and he's now on her dinner plate.
Shall we rejoin the feeding frenzy as Beth continues writing in the journal that her paramour had started?
*****
..
After I'd gotten most of the initial push of Valium onboarded, I asked if he was still awake.
He said that he was, but he was busy talking to Daffy Duck and asked if I would ring back later. He then laughed a very slow, rolling laugh as his eyes closed to enclose the narcotic stupor that he was enjoying. He was not about to let any of that escape!
He was always such a funny man! I loved that about him! I hoped that he could retain his sense of humor through this; he was going to need it.
I took the Valium rig out and picked up another rig and stuck it into the port in the line. I hadn't mentioned this to him or he might not have agreed. Indeed, he probably would have tried to escape and that wasn't ever going to happen.
I put some of it in and, in about 5 seconds, his eyes popped open,
"wha... the... fu... Bef... puhleees! Nooo, uh...wow!"
He - whimpered? Nah - my guy would never whimper. Would he? Nah.
"That was just a little Dexedrine to make sure that you don't go to sleep. I need you to be able to focus. I'm done with that, so you won't get anymore." I almost believed that when I said it.
He didn't remark on any of that and his eyes slowly closed again as the rush of the Dex subsided. I guessed that he was ok with it since he didn't say anything else.
I kept explaining things to him because I wanted him to be able to make informed decisions - you know, like when you go in for surgery.
The reason that thiopental is so central to all of this is that the thiopental makes it difficult to focus on complex concepts and this aids in hypnosis. A person needs to be able to completely focus and be subsumed by the focusing. Complex issues make that more difficult.
The CIA used thiopental, extensively, in MKUltra. I found those documents - enlightening.
Thiopental doesn't, however, submerge the person's reasoning in a sea of narcotic haze. That person is still that person, even when Valium is paired with it.
The drawback of the thiopental, though, is that it also prevents the kind of laser-sharp focusing that might allow the person's mind to become completely wrapped up in an object - or the words of the hypnotist.
The hope I have is that the Dexedrine will bring the kind of focus that amphetamines can bring without allowing complex thought back in.