All My Darkest Impulses (House of Crows), Lisa Unger [top 10 novels .txt] 📗

on the porch for a moment and stared off into the dark distance. The moon was high, dimming the stars in the velvet blue sky. Did he see a glow off in the distance, among the trees? No, not possible. There was so much Samantha didn’t know. So much more to this land than Merle House. And hopefully they’d be long gone before she discovered it.

“Matt, come on,” Samantha’s voice echoed from inside. He kept staring. Did he see a light? Maybe just the faintest dancing, orange glow. Part of him wanted to head out there, through the woods he’d known so well as a kid. He wanted to see if it was still there.

“Matthew! What are you doing?”

“Coming,” he said, turning to walk through the door.

He tripped over the threshold again. This time there was only silence as he followed his wife and daughter inside.

2.

Claire settled into the hard, uncomfortable chair in the nondescript therapy room, organizing her files, taking out her notebook and pen. Then she sat back and focused on her breathing.

You are surrounded by light energy, she told herself. Nothing dark can reach you.

There was always a tension in her body as she waited for him to be brought in. An ache in her shoulders, a tightness to her breath. Claire made sure that these sessions were the last of the day, the final hour of her workweek. Because she knew that when they were done, she would be drained. That was Winston Grann’s special gift, to take everything from the people in his energy sphere.

The truth was that there was nothing she—or anyone—could do for him. His treatment was part of a state-mandated psychiatric protocol that existed for all patients who had been deemed criminally insane. Part of a philosophy that offered “comprehensive treatment that acknowledged the patient’s offense, but also his humanity.”

No one thought that Winston Grann was going to get any better. A serial killer who had murdered at least fifteen young women, he was certainly never going to be released.

Claire heard voices outside the door, footfalls in the hallway. She looked out through the barred window at the great oak that sat in the yard, its roots spreading wide like feet, its thick branches reaching into the dimming blue sky of early evening. High clouds drifted, and Claire watched, focused on her breath, centering herself.

She’d chosen this assignment as part of her research. She was a psychiatrist with a private practice, treating mainly people who struggled with severe depression, crippling anxiety disorders, phobias.

But she wrote extensively about men—yes, mostly men, all men in Claire’s experience—like Winston Grann. So she’d chosen to spend Friday afternoons at four with Winston, even though her mentor, Dr. Sarah Bold, and Claire’s ex-husband, Will, who was still her best friend, had urged her to give up the state assignment.

If she did move on from the Grann sessions, no one would challenge or even question that decision.

After all, the people who cared for Winston Grann did not fare well. He’d been incarcerated for over ten years. During that time, his first doctor, a nurse who attended to him some years later, and then, just recently, a patient he’d befriended in the last few months during supervised group meals had all killed themselves. What did it have to do with Winston? How had he wormed his way into the minds of these people? Was it a coincidence that might be attributed to the high-pressure work for the health professionals and the acknowledged instability of his fellow patient? Very hard to say.

But she knew this: Winston Grann was a sucking vortex, a black hole draining all the light and energy from the area, from people. After an hour with Winston, Claire felt so exhausted she often worried about driving. She felt a deep well of sadness and despair, a persistent, gnawing sense of failure. It often took her the weekend to recover.

“I think you need to ask yourself why you continue,” Dr. Bold had offered. “Is your research more important than your mental health?”

She wasn’t sure. Maybe. Because she couldn’t shake the conviction that he, or the study of him, would provide answers to questions that had haunted her since childhood.

She jumped at the sudden knock on the door, snapping back hard to the present.

“Come in.”

Her favorite orderly, Billy Jenkins, escorted Winston into the room. They were a contrast—Billy young and beefy, always with a smile in spite of the gritty nature of his work. Tattooed on his thick brown biceps was the word MOM, surrounded by a wreath of flowers. He wore a wedding ring, though she didn’t know anything about his wife.

Winston, on the other hand, was a small man, slim, and nearly bald, skin pallid from years of incarceration. He had dark eyes that were alive with intelligence, seeing. His hands and feet were bound with cuffs, connected by a chain. It seemed like overkill; in prison, Winston had been as quiet and well behaved as a lamb. She was often tempted to request that he be freed during their sessions. Maybe she’d make more progress if she offered him this small concession.

But she always stopped short of making the request.

Because Winston Grann believed himself to be the host for a spiritual parasite named Archie. And it was Archie who had driven Winston to do bad things, all his life. Archie, in fact, used Winston’s body to satisfy his dark appetites. Winston didn’t deserve to be punished; he needed to be rescued. He didn’t need a psychiatrist to treat him. He needed a priest to exorcise him.

Or so he said.

Claire wasn’t afraid of Winston, who was mild mannered and soft spoken. She was, however, afraid of Archie.

“Mr. Grann is not having a good day,” said Billy, taking his place in the corner of the large room. He spread his legs and folded his arms across his middle. He’d stand like that, so silent for the hour that she often forgot