Boy, I'm just rocking on these chapters today, aren't I? I guess that's what extra spare time will do for you.
Anyway, enjoy the next part!
Unseen Part Three
Rated: PG
“Help me!” A woman screamed. “Oh God! Help!”
MacGyver searched for her, but he saw nothing but complete, murky darkness in all directions.
“Where are you?” He asked, groping blindly.
The woman screamed again, a tormented, ear-piercing, almost inhuman shriek, sounding as if she were in the agonizing death throes of her final moments, filled with absolute terror… “MacGyver! MacGyver, wake up! It’s all right!” Pete shouted, attempting to rouse him before his violent motions caused further damage to his already broken body.
MacGyver’s eyes shot open widely, darting around the room, frightened and bewildered. It took him several minutes before he could reorient himself and recognize the surroundings of his houseboat. Gasping, his face glazed with a fine sheen of sweat, he looked up at Pete, still lost and confused.
“Pete?” He asked groggily.
“It’s all right,” Pete said. “You were having a nightmare.”
“Tell me about it,” MacGyver said, sighing, straightening himself on his sofa as best as he could, mindful of his broken limbs, trying to relax. “Ever since I was discharged from the hospital, I’ve been having frequent dreams about that woman.”
“The woman you saw at the accident?”
MacGyver nodded.
“Well, I wonder what that means,” Pete said, a puzzled expression on his face. “I still can find nothing to explain it. I’ve talked to the paramedics, police, the man who found you…none of them had any clues or could provide me with any answers. They didn’t see her.”
“You’ve been telling them what I saw?” MacGyver asked, appalled.
“Mac, I was trying to help you.”
“By making me sound crazy?”
“I want to know who she is as much as you do,” Pete said. “I thought you would be curious and would support me in trying to find some answers.”
“All right, I guess so. I guess you’re right. But still, I don’t like how it sounds, me seeing things…”
“From everyone I’ve talked to about it, it’s perfectly normal given the condition you were in at the time.”
“Yeah well, it doesn’t seem normal to me, especially now that I keep seeing her. What does it mean, Pete?”
“I don’t know, but you sure looked pretty disturbed in your sleep.”
“She was asking for my help,” MacGyver said, staring at his rumpled sheets on his sofa.
“What?”
MacGyver looked back up at Pete. “She was screaming in my latest dream, as if something terrible was happening to her. She was pleading with me to help her, but I couldn’t see her and couldn’t find her. I…I don’t understand…”
“No, you’re right,” Pete said. “That doesn’t make any sense. It seems that she helped you somehow during the accident, and now she’s asking for your help? It’s all so strange.”
“What’s happening to me, Pete? Why do I keep seeing her? What…what could be wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said, sighing. “I do know that there is a way we might be able to find out.”
“How?”
“Dr. Jansen at the Foundation.”
MacGyver rolled his eyes.
“Now, I know what you’re going to say, but she has pioneered and specializes in new methods of hypnosis.”
“You mean past life regressions,” MacGyver said, not disguising the contempt in his voice.
“She does that, but she also does it for other reasons as well. She might be able to help you and help us find the information we need as to why you keep seeing this woman, you know, make sense of it all.”
“Hypnosis is not a completely accurate science, you know. It has its flaws.”
“I know that, but we should at least give it a try. We could do it here, in the comforts of your houseboat, so that you’ll feel safe and won’t have to go anywhere in your condition. It couldn’t hurt anything.”
MacGyver sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this,” he mumbled. “All right, fine. Send her over for a session.”
***
“Are you ready to begin?” Dr. Jansen asked in a soothing, calm, even tone.
“Yes,” MacGyver said, already in a highly receptive, hypnotic state, his eyes closed, his body as relaxed as it could be in casts, propped up and supported by pillows on his sofa.
Dr. Jansen glanced at Pete, who was watching with intense interest and concentration, hoping for the answers they were seeking as to the identity of this woman who frequented and sometimes haunted MacGyver’s restless, pain-filled sleep. She returned to her subject.
“All right, now I want you to visualize the woman you have been seeing. I want you to think about her until she appears. Do you see her?”
A ghostly, vaporous form appeared before him. Instantly, he recognized her. “Yes,” he said.
“What is she doing? Is she saying anything? Can you ask her what she wants and why she keeps appearing? Can you communicate with her at all? I want you to try, if you can.”
The woman’s attractive form grew distorted, her body twisting and writhing, her face contorted in agony and terror. She released another scream. “N-no! No!” MacGyver shouted, twisting in bed. Pete reached out to steady him and once again prevent him from harming himself.
“What is it? What do you see?”
“She’s…in pain…I-I don’t know why…”
“Can you ask her? Can you talk to her at all?”
The ghost-like apparition of the woman vanished, replaced by a grainy newspaper photograph of her beautiful, refined face. “Newspaper,” MacGyver muttered.
Dr. Jansen and Pete exchanged perplexed glances.
“What do you mean by ‘newspaper,’ MacGyver?” She asked.
“Photo…she’s in…newspaper…”
Pete sat up, his interest increasing.
“You mean, there is a picture of her in a newspaper?” Dr. Jansen asked.
“Yes.”
“This could be something,” Pete said, not directing his comments to anyone specifically, unable to contain his excitement, intrigued by what MacGyver was saying in his hypnotic state.
“What is the date of the newspaper? Can you provide me with any more details?”
“June tenth…six years ago…” MacGyver’s voice trailed away, and he seemed to fall into a deep, undisturbed sleep, the images of the woman he was seeing gone.
Dr. Jansen looked at Pete again. “I think that’s all the information we’re going to be able to get from him for now,” she said.
“Yes, but that was quite a lot of information,” Pete said. “This could prove helpful.”
Dr. Jansen nodded and returned to her subject. “I’m going to wake you now, MacGyver,” she said in her same level tone. “By the count of three, you will awaken, feeling completely relaxed and refreshed. One…two…three…”
MacGyver’s eyes slowly opened, and he stared up at Dr. Jansen. “Is it over?” He asked.
“Yes MacGyver, it’s over,” Dr. Jansen said.
“It happened so quickly. I don’t remember anything. What did I say?”
“Quite a lot, actually. You’re a better subject than you give yourself credit for. You should open yourself up to the possibilities of hypnosis more often.”
“Yeah well, I don’t know when that’s going to happen again, Doc.” His eyes shifted to Pete. “So, what did I say? Anything useful?”
“Maybe,” Pete said. “You told us this woman you’ve been seeing has a picture in a newspaper.”
“More precisely than that, you had an exact date.”
“If we can reference the archives of local newspapers for that date, we might find something,” Pete said. “It’s worth a try.”
“What if it’s not in a local paper?” MacGyver asked.
Pete shrugged. “Then we have a major research project on our hands, now don’t we?” He asked with a teasing grin. “That should be easy for you. After all, it’s not like you have anywhere to go in those casts.”
“Funny,” MacGyver said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “I swear this is getting too strange. Why a newspaper? Are you telling me this woman is a headline somewhere, that she might be real and not some figment of my imagination?”
“There’s only one way to find out, now isn’t there?” Pete asked.
***
Accessing all media archive databases at the disposal of the Foundation, both in print and electronic form, MacGyver and Pete poured over massive amounts of newspapers, searching for a photo of the mysterious woman who had so often haunted MacGyver’s dreams. The project was tiring and much more difficult than they expected, occasionally causing patience to shorten and tempers to flare.
“I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” MacGyver said, his voice almost in a whine. “We’ve been looking for God knows how many days now, and I haven’t seen her face anywhere. Not to mention my hand is turning black from all this newsprint.” He made a gesture with his good hand, indicating not only that it had been smudged and blackened from the newspaper but that his casts had too, taking on the appearance of dirty snow.
“Well, at least now your casts have lost some of their pristine white luster and look lived in,” Pete said jokingly.
MacGyver glared at him. “Seriously Pete, I don’t now what we’re supposed to find,” he said. “So what if I said some nonsense about a newspaper during hypnosis? It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“Or maybe it does,” Pete said, staring at the computer screen.
“What is it, Pete? What did you find?” MacGyver asked, moving his wheelchair closer to his computer desk.
Pete said nothing, seemingly stunned into speechlessness. When MacGyver saw the image on the screen, he understood why. Staring back at him with smiling, friendly eyes was the woman.
“It can’t be,” MacGyver murmured. “She’s real?”
He read the headline above her pleasing photo.
LOCAL TEACHER KILLER’S LATEST VICTIM
“She…she was killed?” MacGyver asked, still not believing the information on the screen.
Both men read the story.
“I remember this,” Pete said when he was finished, rubbing his sore eyes from staring at the computer screen for such a long period of time. “It was a serial killer murder case. It was all over the news.”
“How come I don’t remember it?” MacGyver asked.
“You were on assignment at the time. They called him ‘The Unseen’ because he used an unusual method to kill his victims. Instead of hacking them to pieces or strangling them or doing something else blatantly violent and graphic, he preferred to use chemistry to kill them slowly, painfully, and without detection.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’d walk casually along a crowded, busy street somewhere, always dressed differently or under disguise, and he would bump into his victim, injecting them with a toxic substance, usually a neurotoxin of some kind. Also unlike other serial killers, he didn’t have a pattern other than his killing method. His victims were chosen at random, having nothing linking them. He managed to kill six people before abruptly ceasing his activities. Police have still been unable to find him, even after all this time. The case has gone cold. Whoever it was they speculate had to be a chemist or work in a laboratory somewhere. They had a list of potential suspects, but none of them turned out to be legitimate leads.”
“I can’t believe this, Pete, I just can’t believe it,” MacGyver said. “I saw her. She was there. She helped me.”
“Now it appears she’s asking for your help to find this killer.”
“From beyond the grave?” MacGyver asked, sounding doubtful.
Pete shrugged. “Why not? Stranger things have happened,” he said. “Look, I know this is difficult to accept. It’s difficult for me to accept. But maybe there is a reason you keep seeing her. Maybe we should try to find this killer before he decides to strike again.”
“Why would she choose me? I don’t even know her.”
“True, but maybe you know the killer. Maybe we both do, and we just don’t realize it.”
To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
