The Key to Midnight

God.'
        'A hypodermic?'
        'It'll kill me this time,' she said with pathetic conviction.
        'Rest easy. Be calm. You're safe now. What's so special about this needle?'
        'It's so big. Huge. It's filled with fire.'
        'You're afraid the needle will sting?'
        'Burn. Burn like acid. Squirting acid into me.'
        'Not this time,' Inamura assured her. 'No pain this time.'
        Beyond the closed pine shutters, a sudden gust of wind shrieked at the windows, and the glass thrummed.
        Alex almost felt as if the man with the mechanical hand was in Omi Inamura's office. He could feel an evil presence, a sudden and chilling change in the air.
        'Let's continue,' the psychiatrist said. "The doctor uses this needle, gives you an injection, and then-'
        'No. Not my neck. Not my neck. Jesus, no!'
        She thrashed on the reclining chair, wrenching herself out of the fetal position almost as if racked by an extreme epileptic spasm, flopping onto her back, rigid, shaking, tossing her head from side to side.
        Inamura said, 'What's wrong with your neck, Joanna?'
         'The needle!'
        'He puts the needle in your neck?'
        Alex felt ill. He touched his own neck.
        Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, Joanna was not in Inamura's office. She was deep in the past, living through hell once more. And though the doctor had told her that she would remain emotionally detached from the memory and would report upon it in an objective fashion, she was unable to maintain the distance he demanded of her. She was convulsed by the memory of pain as if she were suffering the real agony at that very moment.
        'It hurts, everything hurts, my veins are on fire, blood's boiling, bubbling, oh, God, Jesus, God, it's eating me up, eating me up, like acid, lye, turning me black inside. Somebody, please, please help me!'
        Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, as if she could not bear what she would see if she opened them. The arteries throbbed at her temples, and the muscles in her neck were taut. She writhed and cried out wordlessly, and her back raised up from the reclining chair in such an extreme arch that only her feet, her shoulders, and the back of her head were touching the upholstery.
        Dr. Inamura spoke comfortingly to her, trying to talk her down from the ledge of hysteria on which she was precariously balanced.
        Joanna responded to him but not as quickly as she had done earlier. She slowly relaxed - although not as completely as before. Still in a trance, she rested for a few minutes, though she never quite stopped trembling. Now and then her hands fluttered up from the arms of her chair and described meaningless patterns in the air before settling down again.
        Dr. Inamura and Alex waited silently for her to be calm enough to go on with the session.
        The wind huffed at the shuttered windows again, harder than before, and then keened shrilly, as if in disappointment, when it was unable to get inside.
        At last Inamura said, 'Joanna, you are in the room that smells of antiseptics, disinfectants. The odor is so heavy that you can taste it. You are strapped to the bed, and the treatment has begun. Now dispassionately, quietly, I want you to tell me what they do to you, what the treatment is like.'
        'Floating. Floating and burning at the same time.'
        'What does Herr Doktor do?'
        'I'm not sure.'
        'What do you see?'
        'Brilliant colors. Whirling, pulsing colors.'
        'What else do you see?'
        'Nothing else. Just the colors.'
        'What do you hear?'
        'The Hand. He's talking. Very distant.'
        'What's he saying?'
        'Too distant. I can't make out the words.'
        'Is, he talking to you?'
        'Yes. And sometimes I answer him.'
        'What do you say to him?'
        'My voice is as distant as his. I can barely hear myself. I'm so far away, high above, high up and floating in the fire, in the pain, lost in the pain.'
        'If you try now, you'll be able to hear yourself. Just listen to your voice, and you will hear it clearly.'
        'No. Can't make it out. I'm flying a thousand miles above myself, too high to hear.'
        'Joanna, he's talking to your subconscious. Your conscious awareness is being suppressed by drugs, and your subconscious is wide open to him.'
        'High, high above myself,' she