The enemy within, p.1
The Enemy Within, page 1
THE ENEMY WITHIN
GREG PLAYER
The Enemy Within
Text copyright © 2025 Greg Player
Edited by Lisa Diane Kastner
All rights reserved.
Published in North America and Europe by Running Wild Press. Visit Running Wild Press at www.runningwildpress.com. Educators, librarians, book clubs (as well as the eternally curious), go to www.runningwildpress.com.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-960018-94-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-960018-84-7
For my girls:
Jennifer, Em, and Kate.
CHAPTER ONE
With each breath he sucked the plastic closer to his mouth. His teeth clamped down hard but missed the bag. He swallowed, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of blood and chemicals.
Miles always feared he would die from asphyxiation. Once as a child, he was pressed by a crowd from every side, making him unable to expand his chest to breathe. That feeling of air hunger haunted him ever since. What he didn’t expect was how long it would take. By now he thought his mind would drift from consciousness. Instead, his thirst for air only increased, repeatedly bringing the bag flat against his face.
If only he could move his hands that were paralyzed beside him. They were being held down by The Void. Others may not see The Void, but the entity was real. The Void had followed Miles his entire life. It started as a thought, a fear of failure. This fear pushed him out of his hometown of two thousand souls to an Ivy League college. He was one of only a handful of Chambers men to ever graduate high school or stay out of prison.
When his fear grew from a thought to a voice and finally took shape—a black figure, darker than any darkness around it, like a skipped space in the air—he gave it a name, The Void. It was now behind him, pinning his hands to his waist and tightening a belt around his neck, cinching the plastic bag over his head.
His chest burned. Miles surrendered, hoping death would take him. His last project was meant to cement his legacy and be his crowning achievement: the creation of a weapon that would incapacitate a nation without firing a single shot. A weapon that would leave the enemy unable to organize a counterattack, or even a coherent thought. Everything was executed according to plan, but somewhere along the way he screwed up. The weapon was effective—the manifestation of The Void was proof enough.
He should have developed the antidote before he finished the weapon. There was a window when he could have. Now that window was firmly shut. Miles would be the first victim—surely the first of many with no antidote. He accepted his fate: the culmination of his worst fears—failure and suffocation. If only fate would accept him. A sharp breath slammed the plastic against his lips. His lungs felt like they would explode. How long would he remain in this purgatory of suffering?
CHAPTER TWO
CLAIRE
Her cool arm. That’s what stuck with me. No living thing should feel like that. There were plenty of other signs that she was gone: how her head sagged, her vacant eyes, the gape of her mouth, even the empty pill bottles on the coffee table. But it was the feel of her skin that made it all real.
I couldn’t rid my hands of that sensation. Sometimes I would wake up and have to look down to make sure I wasn’t gripping my sister’s bloodless arm. Even when the feeling would leave, touching anything lifeless brought it back in an instant. And most of what I touch in a day is lifeless.
No one seemed to enjoy living more than my twin sister, Amy. Her constant smile, energy, and endless optimism all grated on my nerves—something I feel guilty about. I’ll never hear her annoying giggle again or her imitation of our mother until I laugh so hard I wet my pants. I’ll never hear her defend our nosy neighbor or her creepy boss. No, she wasn’t trying to irritate me; she was just a happy person.
But that all changed. Suddenly, it was as if all the good in her 125-pound body had been scooped out and its shell had been replaced with a sad, desperate girl. My sister, who had never been sick for longer than a day, was bedridden with all sorts of ailments. Headaches, stomach pains, nausea, dizziness—and those were her good days. After she had suffered in her body, her mind betrayed her. What started with sadness ended in madness. By the end, she literally tried to peel her own skin off, convinced it was poisoned. Our skin may be thin, but it’s strong enough to withstand a few sharp nails. But that didn’t stop Amy from trying. In places, she had clawed her arms down to the muscle.
I had pulled her body to the floor by her damaged arm, lacing my fingers together to pump her sternum. Thirty compressions, pausing for a breath, then thirty more. I repeated this until my arms burned. Until I heard sirens. But I knew. I knew she wasn’t coming back. In truth, something had killed my sister long before that day.
My name is Claire Long, and I’m alone in the world. At least that’s the way it has felt since my twin sister died.
I’m at work again. Not because I had to be and not because any patients were on my schedule. Mainly I went back to work because I couldn’t stand staring at the same four walls of my home and hoping the next hour would be different. Now I’m staring at the four walls in my office and still feel horrible.
I made my way down the hall to Mia’s office. Mia is my business partner and a fellow therapist. We met ten years ago in school. With my sister gone, Mia is my closest friend. I knocked on her door with the back of my knuckles.
“It’s open,” she yelled.
I turned the knob and entered her office. Mia sat by a far window, surrounded by tropical plants. Her face was obscured by a giant, pink hibiscus flower. From a corner fountain, water trickled over a set of stones. “In the jungle, I see?”
She stood up, her head cleared the plants. “My happy place,” she answered. Mia walked towards me, away from her tropical oasis. Her office was basically divided into two parts, a therapy room for patients and a therapy room for herself. Something she called immersion therapy.
“Immerse yourself in an environment that brings you joy,” Mia explained. “That’s immersion therapy. It’s simple. For me, it’s the island of Kauai.”
Why didn’t she just move to Hawaii and really immerse herself? Or better yet, visit Kauai for the first time? That seemed more logical than a simulated jungle in the back of an Atlanta, Georgia, office. But I didn’t push that idea. I needed Mia—now more than ever.
I took a seat on one of the two couches facing each other. Mia sat opposite me. We were separated by a round, glass coffee table. “Claire, aren’t you back a little early?” she asked. Her eyebrows were raised, forming a set of wrinkles on her forehead.
“Don’t worry. I’m not seeing patients,” I told her.
“I know that. It’s just—” Mia stopped talking. She looked up and down my body.
“Yep, I look terrible. You don’t have to say it.”
Mia gave me a maternal smile. Something she must give struggling patients. I hated it.
“No shower, no makeup. Going on…let’s see…at least three days now,” I answered.
“That’s not like you,” said Mia. More head wrinkles, another maternal smile.
“Neither is finding my sister dead,” I answered.
Mia let out a heavy sigh. “Maybe you should be at home a bit longer. Or visit your parents.”
“I’ve been at home. It’s not helping being alone, without her.” I leaned forward and asked, “Does it make sense to you? What happened to Amy, I mean?” I didn’t wait for Mia to answer. “She had no history of mental illness. Nothing bad happened in her life, at least nothing I knew about. But it was like this thing, this monster, overtook her. And she just couldn’t shake it.”
“That monster is called depression,” answered Mia, “and it takes over a lot of people.”
“Well, I’m a therapist and her twin sister. But I couldn’t help her.”
“Claire, it’s not your fault. You know that.”
I nodded.
Her voice sounded far away. “Why do you keep wringing your hands?” Mia asked.
“What?”
“Your hands. You keep rubbing them together. Is that a new habit?”
“Oh.” I looked down at my hands in my lap. “I didn’t notice. I… um… sort of have this feeling of her dead skin in my hand. When I touched her arm, it was—”
“Oh, Claire, it’s okay.” Mia raked her fingers through her black hair, pinning it behind both ears. Her own nervous habit.
“The thing is whatever Amy was feeling, I don’t know, but I think I can relate to some of it.”
Mia motioned for me to continue.
“Not all of it, of course. It’s just… when she first changed.” I followed Mia’s eyes back to my lap to see that I was still rubbing my hands. “Right, in the beginning she had these body aches, nausea, fatigue, and headaches. She started complaining of feeling unsettled, anxious for no reason. You know, nothing like Amy.” Mia nodded in agreement. “I’m feeling some of those things—especially fatigue and headaches. And I don’t know, just hollowed out. I’m not picking my skin off or guzzling a bucket of pills, not yet anyway.” I forced a laugh. Mia didn’t smile back. “But something is off, and every day seems to be a little worse.”
“Claire,” Mia stroked her hair again, “you really need to get some help. Talk to someone.”
“That’s what I’m doing now, right? Aren’t you a therapist?”
Mia said nothing. The room was silent, except for the trickling water from the fountain. She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly from her mouth. “Yes, but I’m too clos
“Even better. I don’t think a therapist can know their patient too well,” I told her.
Mia stood up and smoothed her cream skirt out against her legs. She walked back and forth in a tight line in front of the couch opposite me.
“You seem uncomfortable,” I said.
She sat down. Another deep breath through her nostrils. “I am.”
“So?”
“So I don’t want to get into this with you,” Mia said.
“Into what?”
“Your relationship with your sister.”
I looked down and forced my hands to stop rubbing together. Maybe it was already a habit. “You might as well,” I told her. “I am incapable of being offended at the moment.” It was true. My emotions were blunted. I had skipped all the stages of grief except depression. Anger, denial, bargaining, guilt, well, maybe guilt. But mostly just sadness.
“Fine. I have often thought you and your sister were codependent. Don’t get me wrong. Your relationship was beautiful. But I think the way she kept you from having to develop certain parts of yourself, and the same was true for her.”
She paused—I guess to gauge my reaction. I didn’t interrupt. “What I mean,” she continued, “is that the natural tendency of your personality, to want to be in control, went into hyperdrive with Amy. Her free spirit made you double down on the need for control. I guess, for both of you. Like all codependent relationships, some areas in a person don’t grow. In her case, responsibility, and in your case, spontaneity.” Mia cleared her throat and leaned forward. “I’m not surprised you feel a little lost and confused. I’m also not surprised you believe you’re sharing some of her same feelings. She was your twin sister; it’s not just a death in the family. It’s like a part of you died.”
I leaned back on the couch, sinking into its cushion. “I thought you didn’t want to give me any therapy.” I let out a weak laugh. This new fatigue in my body was almost paralyzing. A kind of weariness where activities of daily living were a chore. “The thing is, Mia, I felt like this before Amy’s suicide.” I laid back, now flat on the couch. “The day she died I knew it before I opened the door to our apartment. I knew there was something seriously wrong behind that door.” I looked up at the ceiling. “Do you remember that instructor, Neil, from school?”
“Dr. Vonn?”
“Yeah, Dr. Vonn. You remember that speech he gave about rose-colored glasses?” Mia nodded. Neil Vonn lecturing popped in my head—his bushy beard, steel-rimmed glasses, the faded jeans with a rope belt, his hairy chest pressed against a tightly buttoned shirt. “‘You must have rose-colored glasses to live in this world,’ he would say. ‘The truth is we are born without a known purpose into a world where everyone we know is going to die. That inevitability draws closer with each day. If you can’t find a way to see that with rose-colored glasses, if you see that the way it really is, you will go mad.’”
“Dr. Vonn was an atheist who used mushrooms during his therapy sessions,” Mia countered.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think I have any more rose-colored glasses,” I said.
“Claire?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I never thought I’d ask this, but have you thought about hurting yourself?”
CHAPTER THREE
I flipped the card over in my hand. Javier Blanc, followed by a train of letters: MD, PhD, FAAN, FAPA. The card was thicker than any business card should be, like a formal wedding invitation. A cursive JB watermark faintly colored the background. His own logo. Well, that’s a bit pretentious.
Mia had set an appointment already. I changed my mind twice in the past hour, something I rarely used to do. But now, even deciding on a grocery store run was difficult.
I took off more personal days from work. I wasn’t doing well, which caused waves of distress. Other times I felt detached, like I was watching a sad person suffer from a distance. Mia had checked on me two days earlier. At least, I think it was two days ago. She cleaned a dirty dish pile, vacuumed, stripped the sheets off my bed, and made an appointment with Dr. Blanc. Not necessarily in that order. “The appointment is at two o’clock. Even you can’t sleep past two,” she had said.
For a while sleep seemed to be my only respite. Now, it was hard to come by. I watched the clock most nights. Too tired to get out of bed but unable to sleep. I placed the thick business card down, finally deciding to cancel the appointment when the phone rang. Mia.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Claire. I’m checking in. Making sure you are ready for your appointment with Dr. Blanc.”
“Sure,” I lied.
“Great. Do you need a ride?”
“Um, no, I can still drive, Mia.” I looked at the JB watermark, the personal logo. “This guy is pretty strange, isn’t he?” To have a reputation as a strange psychiatrist was difficult.
Mia laughed. “You know he is. But he’s the best. No genius is normal. You know that.”
“He’s a genius now?”
“So I’ve heard,” she answered. “I guess you two will have that in common. I mean the genius part. Just quit making excuses and go.”
I looked at my watch, already one o’clock. I agreed and hung up. There was no use canceling; Mia would just keep making appointments.
My usual hour routine of making myself up was cut to ten minutes as of late. No longer did I straighten my hair or apply makeup. Now, a face wash would do.
Dr. Blanc’s office was in a high-rise building in downtown Atlanta. I parked at a nearby deck, then walked across a pedestrian bridge to the lobby. From there, I waited for a set of gold-plated elevators to bring me to the forty-eighth floor. Also waiting were two men and one woman, all dressed in power suits—she in navy pinstripes, the men in black. They looked me up and down without smiling. They were probably wondering what business I might have in their fancy building. We filed into the elevator. The three of them smelled fresh, expensive. I couldn’t remember if I’d showered and just hoped I didn’t reek. One of them pushed the forty-eight button, another forty-nine. The elevator shot up so fast that I could feel my stomach drop.
The woman and I got out on forty-eight. A directory on a far wall showed two offices: a law practice and the office of Javier Blanc, followed by the same tail of letters—MD, PhD, FAAN, FAPA.
I turned to a set of frosted glass doors, each etched with Dr. Blanc’s logo in the center. I pushed the door open to a gleaming marble floor. Two empty olive couches lined a cream-colored wall. A lone receptionist sat behind a modern white desk. In the center of the room hung a massive chandelier with long golden spikes. Each point was lit on its end like a giant firework.
The woman behind the desk looked up. She had blond hair spiked in all directions as if paying homage to the chandelier.
“Hello, I’m—”
“Ms. Claire Long,” her high-pitched voice clipped. “Dr. Blanc is expecting you. You can wait in his office. First door on your right.”
I nodded. Her sunken eyes tracked me as I walked by. She forced a brief smile, which quickly fell from her face. I pushed open the cracked door to the doctor’s office. Once inside, I could see the entire Atlanta skyline. I stopped in the center of the room. The drop from forty-eight stories was dizzying. Just a pane of glass between me and the thin air.
Buildings of all heights stretched to the horizon. People the size of ants passed each other on the sidewalks below. Amy would have loved this.
“Not a bad view, huh?” a voice said behind me.
I turned to see the doctor in person for the first time. He was a small figure, no taller than my height of five feet seven, and dressed in all red. He had a black beard and mustache groomed to three fine points. He looked like a devil in a school play. “Yeah,” I answered, “not cheap, I’m sure.”
“Oh, family money,” he said, waving his hand through the air as if the idea of money was trivial. “You look different from the picture on your website,” he said.
The website. That was years ago. When Mia hired a professional hair-and-makeup team for our headshots. Whatever he meant, I’m sure it wasn’t a compliment. I looked at the little man in the red suit with waxed mustache tips. “You aren’t what I expected either,” I answered.
