"Anxiety"

Before Mary went to Doctor Beakman she had been afraid her crippling anxiety would only respond to powerful drugs. The gently smiling, almost grandfatherly, doctor listened to her patiently as she explained how the fear and worry ate at her every day, how some days she was too afraid to go outside because she may have to interact with strangers and how difficult it had been just to come see him today. Whenever she faltered he would gently encourage her to continue without seeming to put any pressure on her. When she was done talking he briefly reviewed his notes and told her that he didn't think she would need anything too powerful. As a matter of fact he suggested she try a homeopathic medicine of his own making, an extract of Salmacis he called it. He said that when the anxiety got to be too much for her she should take a small dose and watch a relaxation video that he provided. He even included an audio CD of relaxing sounds free with the video. He also advised that she continue to see him twice a week for the time being for hypnotherapy.

Within two months she no longer needed her twice weekly appointments and only needed her medicine or the video during extremely stressful periods. That summer for example. It was a stressful time for everyone with so many children from the neighborhood disappearing. When the bodies of the missing children were found in Mary's basement that fall she was unable to explain how they came to be there. She had no memory of killing them. Police tested her medicine to determine if it could have caused her to have a psychotic break and discovered that inside the vial was nothing but water. When Doctor Beakman was contacted about this he replied that he had slowly been weening Mary off the medicine and that at this point she was only taking a placebo.

If they had checked the video and the CD perhaps they would have found the subliminal footage of children being tortured and killed or the subliminal audio that simply said over and over "Do it, Mary." Or the last subliminal frame of the video, where Doctor Beakman can be seen shaking hands with a man in a dark robe and a beaked mask.