Teddy Watt's Dirty Little Pictures

     Marcy is my oldest friend; my bestest pal, my closest compadre. She lives down near Mt. Pleasant, in the very shadow of Massaraty Asylum where she runs a small plant nursery and raises herbs. I tease her about being a witch, though she's not; and teases me about being a kook-reporter, though I'm not---or so I like to think. But Sunday morning, September 28, the terror in her voice knocked aside our usual kidding and teasing. I dumped my cup of joe into my big travel mug and hit the pike.

     Marcy wrung her hands anxiously as she told me what had happened to her. I noticed each time that as she finished telling the story, she crossed her knees and rocked as if in pain and dread. She rubbed her left thigh with her fist. I went to the kitchen and made her some chamomile tea and added a little rum. When I handed it to her, I said, "Now tell it to me again but this time, tell me what you've been leaving out."

     She took a sip of tea and shuddered, though I don't know if it was from the rum or the memory, and told me her story again.

     "I had been in bed about two hours asleep when I woke up because I heard someone calling my name. I thought it was John at first, but since he left me two years ago, you know I haven't heard a thing from him. The house was empty; Peaches the cat had curled up at the foot of the bed, I heard the clock ticking downstairs. Quiet as the grave, you know. Then I thought I saw a sort of glow coming from the skylight. I thought I was just tired, but it grew brighter and brighter. It wasn't car headlights or anything like that---how could it be? How could it get up on the roof like that. Then all of a sudden, I saw him---this kid all glowing like a firefly looking down at me in bed from the skylight with this sicko-smile on his face. I wanted to scream---I remember trying to do that last night---but I couldn't. I couldn't move any part of my body no matter how hard I worked at it, nothing budged! And then, Adellé, he came through the glass---he didn't break it---he passed right through it like a ghost and this crackling and electricity snapping all around him as he did it."

     "My legs spread apart by themselves, I don't know but I think he did it somehow. He was only a kid, not even 15, maybe 11 or 12 years old---wearing nothing but a green or blue flannel robe. He floated down on top of me like a cloud of steam. It felt like the time I had that electrical trouble here and the shower turned into electric pins and needles all my body. It was so awful because it didn't stop, it didn't let up at all. I don't know if he raped me or what he did to me, Adellé, it was so weird. I know I'm not dreaming because it's different every night. The second night it happened, Friday night, he somehow flipped me onto my stomach and I thought---"

     Marcy cringed and gulped at her tea. "I think after that's when I started hearing him laugh. It's a shrill, evil giggle. I thought I was imagining him but then this morning when I got dressed, I saw this..."

     She stood and dropped her pants. There on the inside of her left thigh was a tattoo, her skin still red and flecked with blood from the needle. It was an elaborate piece of artwork and should have taken a talented artist and patient client many hours to execute. Marcy certainly couldn't have done it herself, she had trouble drawing simple geometric shapes. The tattoo was of at least 200 little tessellating male and female human figures enacting an incredible orgy of carnal behavior in a band three inches thick running around her thigh like a garter.

     "You're sure about the robe?" I asked, my suspicions mounting. She nodded. "When was the last time you delivered flowers to the Asylum?"

     "Last week, I took them to some staff doc---let me see, it was Dr. Stoudt; that was his name. I took them to him in Four East---my God, that's the pediatric floor! Adellé, you're not insinuating...?"

     Dr. Alan Stoudt held his office door open for me. I entered and sat down on the uncomfortable oaken school chair in front of his desk. He sat in his comfortable office chair and produced a broad, patronizing smile. At once I knew I was dealing with a petty, insecure man.

     "Dr. Stoudt, what do you know of Astral Projection?" I asked.

     I had heard of the Ferson Case less than two weeks ago, but little had been written about it. Abundant rumors claimed that 12 year-old Teddy Watts had a crush on his 17 year old neighbor. When she rejected him, he rampaged through his school, assaulting teachers and other students until the authorities dragged him to Massaraty. The next day, Linda Ferson woke up covered entirely with obscene words and pictures tattooed all over her body. Her parents blamed the Watts boy but, never said why.

     "Ms. Cavalier, your friend is clearly delusional---perhaps stress related. I admit she has described Teddy Watt but she could have heard about him from anywhere."

     I placed the photographs of the design on Marcy's thigh on his desk. "Does this sort of design look familiar?"

     He stifled a queer little giggle, "Perhaps in Hong Kong during my Navy days, but that was ten years ago.

     "That's not what I meant," I said. "Have you seen anything like it before in this facility?"

     "You can't really expect me to comment on something like that, do you? I have a sacred trust of confidentiality with my patients."

     "Could I talk to Teddy? Just for a little while?"

     "I don't think under the circumstances that would be a very good idea, Ms. Cavalier. Do you? Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a busy day..." He escorted me out into the hall and walked with me to the elevator. We had only gone a few yards when I saw a piece of tape with the name "Watts" written on it stuck to a door. As we walked by, I grabbed the knob and dove inside.

     Massaraty Asylum's grim green walls provided the canvas for perhaps the best picture of Marcy I have ever seen. But cleverly arranged along edges of shadows framing her face were patterns composed of tiny human figures immersed in a carnal orgy of desire.

     The boy looked up from his seat on the floor, his paints lay jumbled before him. He smiled broadly at me. "Hi, I'm Teddy. You're pretty."

     "Surprising skill considering he's only 12 years old," remarked Dr. Alan Stoudt as he grabbed my shoulder from behind. "We let him work on it as part of his therapy. It's better you work out your frustration and anger this way, right Teddy?"

     The boy nodded happily. He returned his attention to his paints, muttering in a breathless chant, "Girls....Girls....Girls."

     "Now, Ms. Cavalier, we'll just be on our way now, alright?" he said steering me out of the room back into the hall.

     "Why did you order flowers from Marcy Connor and have them delivered here?" I asked him as the elevator opened its elevators.

     "I thought Teddy could use them to paint from but, he wasn't interested." He pushed the button, the doors began closing. "Good-bye, Ms. Cavalier."

     My account of my visit and the picture in the boy's room terrified Marcy. I volunteered to stay the night. We sat up late drinking white zinfandel on the sofa and talking about how our lives had drifted so far from their original courses. I had wanted to become a big time news reporter, she a researcher in the rainforests of the Amazon. We went on like that well into the wee hours when at last we started dropping off.

     "Adellé."

     I sat up. The clock on the VCR read 3 AM. Marcy snored.

     "Adellé. You want me, Adellé. I know you do."

     "Who's there?" I shouted. Marcy twitched, knocking over her half-filled glass to the floor with her outstretched arm.

     "What is it?" she hissed.

     Something moved outside the window opposite us. It started glowing---snapping and cracking. Then the glowing form of a boy floated into the room. I recognized it as Teddy Watts.

     "You want me, Adellé, don't you? You want me!"

     I tried shouting but only gagged. I couldn't move. Instead, my arms were pinioned behind my head, and my legs were moving apart by themselves. Marcy screamed in rage, jumping to her feet, but suddenly she was thrown across room smashing into a floor lamp.

     "All you pretty girls want me. I've always known it. You've always wanted me, but you never knew just how to ask. You're all so scared, you pretty things," the boy said, floating towards me. He seemed all too real and yet, he was vapor, a phantom. I writhed, helpless. Suddenly, the all seams of my jeans burst apart and piece by piece flew off onto the floor. "Little reporter girl wants a big story; I've got your big story," he said. Then he uttered a queer little giggle. It made me sick. And then I recognized it: it was Dr. Stoudt!

     Suddenly, I felt like I was being enveloped by thousands of huge pins and needles dancing under my skin at the same time.

     I saw Marcy out of the corner of my eye, wrestling with something unseen. Then, she picked up the floor lamp---the glass shade had broken and the bare bulb blazed brightly---and she threw it at the boy.

     I felt a sharp pain in my hip and then the room exploded.

     I came to my senses a minute or so later. Marcy had hit me in the hip with the lamp's bulb. The bulb had broken and the electric shock had tossed me over the back of the couch and left me with a painful burn on my hip. I staggered back to sit down on the couch. The apparition had disappeared. Marcy sat on the floor sobbing. About five minutes later, sirens rushed past the house on their way to the Asylum. On a sudden twinge of intuition, I jumped into another pair of pants and headed off to Massaraty. When I got there, I hurried up to one of the EMT's holding the ambulance door and what happened as the small shrouded body was loaded into the back.

     "Some kid electrocuted himself up on the fourth floor. What's weird is, we can't figure out how."

     I hung around, waiting for Dr. Stoudt to show up. An orderly told he had been called at home, but no one answered the phone. Indeed, I waited until 8:30 AM; but he never showed up nor phoned and has since then vanished without trace.

     I have no explanation for what occurred save that I believe Dr. Stoudt had manipulated Teddy Watt's power of astral projection to serve and satiate his own perverse needs. A little research showed this was possible. Stoudt had served with U.S. Navy Intelligence and before that had extensively studied parapsychology at Georg von Podebrad College. But the clincher came a few days later when I happened to set the photos of the tattoo on Marcy's thigh in front of a mirror. It was then that I plainly read Teddy Watt's frantic message spelled-out by his lust-crazed figures:

     "Stop Him!"