JACK CASEY - MASON ALEXANDER
1
Elliot and Lori were the proudest parents on the planet. For the first two weeks, family visitors overran the house. All four of Mason’s grandparents spent time there, and even the four great-grandparents on Lori’s side. They fussed over him and took turns holding him and feeding him. The new Swedish nanny, Inga, spent most of her time waiting on the visitors rather than caring for Mason.
Everyone was glad to see the visitors trickle down to one or two a day, especially Inga. She was now able to begin bonding with Mason and setting up a schedule they could stick to. This was actually only her second job as a nanny. She was very determined to get everything right, and she watched her English pronunciation and grammar very carefully. Lori was having a hard time healing from the delivery, so for a few weeks Inga’s job also included taking care of her.
The house was absolutely grand. It was unlike anything Inga had ever seen. Her room was just next to the baby’s, and there was a beautiful private bathroom that connected the two rooms from within. Inga slept with the two bathroom doors open so that she was certain to hear Mason if he woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes she would stand in the doorway into Mason’s room and spend ten or fifteen minutes just watching him sleep.
Mason became very attached to Inga from the beginning, and the feeling was mutual. Inga sensed that there was something special about Mason as soon as she started to know him. Their bonding made Lori a bit jealous, and Inga could easily see this. To preclude any unnecessary hard feelings, Inga went out of her way to bring Mason for Lori to hold a half-dozen times a day or more. Inga loved it here and was hoping to get her contract extended for at least another six months, so it wouldn’t do to jeopardize her relationship with Lori.
No matter how hard Inga tried to keep Lori from feeling threatened, it was becoming quite clear that Mason was treating Inga as his mother. This made Inga uncomfortable, and she hoped that Lori would realize that this was typical and temporary. It got to the point that when Mason cried he only wanted to be picked up by Inga, and not Lori. Inga mentally kissed her contract extension good-bye, but she still did everything in her power to try to compensate for Mason’s preference of her to Lori.
Mason seemed to be a normal baby for the first three months, and then he became rather animated. Inga knew a lot of child psychology from her training in Sweden, and she recognized Mason’s behavior as rather aggressive. The crib had several mobiles strung across the rails and clamped to the headboard and footboard. Mason began reaching for these at three months. That wasn’t unusual in itself, but the way he approached it was. He jerked his body around to gain access to the highest objects; ones which would have been out of reach for an average baby. His passion and persistence were remarkable to see. As Inga watched him, she thought that he looked possessed. He could actually jerk so hard that he lifted his upper torso off the mattress.
In no time flat, he was breaking the mobiles or pulling them down into the crib from their mounts. Elliot had to make a special trip to the toy store to find mobiles that were sturdier. But the best ones were no match for Mason. After he would pull them down he would be totally disinterested in them. It was as if he just pulled them down for sport, or really hated seeing them hanging above him.
At four months, Inga noticed another change. She was expecting Mason to start sleeping through the entire night, but things reversed instead. Mason was starting to wake up four or five times a night. And he usually woke up in a screaming fury. Inga would hold him and sing to him to calm him down, and then put him back down to sleep. She took to watching him more in his sleep, and she noticed a disturbing sign. He thrashed around a lot just before he would wake up screaming. And as he thrashed, he babbled out loud.
Inga mentioned it to Lori, and expressed her concern. Lori trusted Inga’s judgment on such matters, and she agreed that it was worth mentioning it to the pediatrician. But when they mentioned it, the doctor dismissed it as normal behavior. He told them that some babies dreamt more than others, and it was nothing to worry about.
Inga wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t mention it again for fear that Lori would think she was overreacting. But things seemed to get worse, and Lori also started waking up from the sound of Mason’s screaming. At five months, the episodes were so loud that Lori herself began to doubt the doctor.
The cloud of Mason’s horrible nighttime behavior had a silver lining for Inga. Lori dreaded the thought of having to get up herself to take care of Mason after Inga was gone, so she extended Inga’s contract from six months to one year. Inga was pleased, but she prayed nevertheless for Mason to start sleeping through the nights. Her own broken sleep patterns were starting to get to Inga. She was finding herself short with Mason during the day, and she had to make an effort to remain calm. She started taking naps whenever he did, just to accumulate sufficient sleep each day.
When Mason turned six months, he was aggressive beyond belief. He was throwing things out of his playpen and crib. Not just tossing them, but pitching them quite far. The only thing that made him happy was being held by Inga.
.....
Jack was petrified by the new body he found himself in. It was all unfamiliar and out of his control. He was intimidated by all the people that were picking him up and holding him and poking at him. He instinctively sought out a caregiver, but he couldn’t seem to identify one. There was just too much activity for him to follow.
He knew from the beginning that he was an entity occupying another entity’s body. He was fearful that the new entity would devour him. And at the same time he couldn’t seem to find where that new entity was. He had a vivid recollection of his former life, Oren the processor, and Fred Stoner the monster. He also had the knowledge that there was no Heaven or Hell, and he found this a wonderfully comforting thought.
He spent most of his energy trying to learn the operation of his new body. The feel of it was alien to him. It was not as he remembered it should be. But he realized at the same time that it was an infant’s body, and he couldn’t remember anything about his prior infancy as Jack Casey.
Then something dreadful began to happen. He was starting to lose some of his memories. That panicked him, because it could mean the end of his existence as Jack. As soon as he became aware of the memories disappearing, he had a comforting thought in the fact that God had required his soul’s memory to be erased. He realized for the briefest instant that God’s edict must mean that he would never really lose his former life’s memories. But as quickly as this comforting thought came, it disappeared.
He found himself in a strange world where he knew almost nothing except that he was Jack Casey, and he was in potential danger. He was obsessed by the idea that he must take total control of his new body, or.....or what? That was not clear to him.
He finally became aware of his caregiver. She was a wonderful, warm, loving, comforting entity. She smelled so good, and her sounds were so soothing. He became completely dependent upon her. She gave him food, and she took away the bodily discomforts that he occasionally felt. She held him close and kissed him and fondled him. But, she repeatedly addressed him as Mason. She never uttered the name Jack. He knew that Mason must be the new entity’s name. But he still could find no sign of this “Mason” anywhere.
Then his caregiver started letting another caregiver hold Jack more and more. This new one didn’t feel as warm and comforting to him, but when she held him close, he felt hypnotized by the beating sound of her body. It was familiar to him, but still he preferred to be with the other caregiver. He came to understand that Inga was the name of his beloved caregiver. The other one’s name was Mama. Jack felt deep inside that Inga was his natural caregiver, despite the hypnotic sounds of Mama’s body. He knew that when he was unhappy, he wanted his Inga.
One day, out of the clear blue, Jack awoke and saw an image of something horrible and vaguely familiar. It was a face that Jack feared more than anything in the world. And it was hovering right over him in his bed. He instinctively reached to crush it, and as he grabbed it, it jumped from his grip. Then it reappeared just a bit farther away, and he had to reach out farther to seize it. But it eluded him each time, and he found himself helplessly groping for it at a distance just out of his reach. Then it would just disappear. He knew that it was called Fred Stoner, but he had no recollection of what a Fred Stoner was.
The appearances of the Fred Stoner began to increase. Sometimes he was able to get a grip on it, pull it’s ugly image down, and crush it with his hands. But most of the time it stayed just out of his reach and tormented him with its grotesque ugliness.
Soon it became apparent to Jack that this Fred Stoner was everywhere. It would appear before him when he least expected it. He would scream at it and form sounds to express how ugly it was. And just as he would lunge to seize its ugliness, he would fall through a deep void and land in his bed with Fred Stoner nowhere to be found. Then Inga would appear to hold him and comfort him. Surely Inga knew what this gruesome Fred Stoner was, and she was there to protect him from it.
Sometimes Fred Stoner appeared time after time, and Inga would be there each time to save him. He loved her so much. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t just take him away from this Fred Stoner, or simply destroy it for him.
Jack was beginning to feel more and more afraid, and the fear started to consume him. It was with him every day and every night. He had to find a way to end it. There had to be a way. He set his mind to it, and he began to find ways to defeat Fred Stoner and keep him away for longer and longer periods of time. He would lie in his bed waiting for Fred Stoner to appear, and when it did, Jack seized it in his hand and threw it across the room to smash its ugly face. But this Fred Stoner was clever. Jack never knew where it might appear. Sometimes it would suddenly appear where Jack’s Teddy Bear had just been, or his rattle or his Pooh doll. But no matter where it confronted him, Jack could grab it and smash its ugly face to pieces against the wall.
2
Mason’s aggressiveness seemed to calm down by the time he reached nine months. Inga found that he was starting to find other ways to utilize his energy. It was apparent to her that he adored her beyond belief. He was only happy when she was near him. He loved being in her arms. If she left the room for a moment, she would find him crawling to meet her when she came back. He especially seemed to love it when she held him in her lap and read or sang to him. He would watch her face and study how her lips moved as she made her sounds. He began to imitate her lip movements and sounds. Then, like magic, he was talking. He learned to say “Inga” and “mama” and “papa”. Then he began to increase his vocabulary and improve his pronunciation. His greatest reward seemed to be the delight that Inga exhibited when he said or did something new.
They bought him a walker and he took to it immediately. He would fly around the house so quickly in it that he would crash into the furniture and actually tip it over. But he didn’t cry when that happened. He struggled to get out and then waited for Inga to straighten it up and put him back in it.
He was just starting to pull himself up and take steps when he was eleven months old. Inga would gently hold on to his hand for a bit of support, and he would take a step or two, fall down, and then start all over again.
Lori was starting to spend more time with him than ever before. She realized that Inga would only be with them a little while longer, so the baton had to be passed. Inga was usually close by, so he didn’t object at all. Lori gradually took over the role of holding him and reading and singing. She closely mimicked the actions of Inga so that there would be no undue trauma involved in the switch-over. Elliot was away quite frequently as his chain of stores extended out of the Baltimore area. But he too began to make an extra effort to spend as much time with Mason as he could. He felt guilty about his neglecting Mason so much in Mason’s most formative year. But business had to come first, and he promised Lori that he would find some way to make it up to Mason very soon.
As the family got closer to Mason, Inga now began to feel the jealousy. She had come to love Mason as her own, and she wasn’t anxious to leave. But she knew it was for the best, and she had another job lined up anyway. She would be heading to Dallas, so she knew the break with Mason had to be a clean one. As the time approached for her to leave, she began to dread the thought.
By the time Inga was ready to leave, Mason was walking and talking. He was putting simple phrases together, and increasing his vocabulary at an incredible rate. Inga was concerned about his ongoing nightmares, but they only came once or twice a week now, and she hoped they would soon stop entirely.
Leaving the Alexander home was the hardest thing she ever had to do in her life. Elliot carried her bags out to the car and gave her a moment alone with Mason. She picked him up and held him close. She talked to him and squeezed him as hard as she could without hurting him. Then she gave him a rapid series of kisses all over his face, handed him to Lori, said good-bye and left with Elliot for the airport.
.....
Jack was starting to identify Fred Stoner as a person rather than a thing. He was finally getting some control over Fred Stoner. He was certain that it was because of how he smashed Fred Stoner up against the wall. But at least Fred didn’t come around as much lately. That left Jack’s mind a lot less distracted and he could spend more time working on other things that he wanted to do.
He learned how to crawl, but it was a tedious and slow way to travel. When Inga walked away, he couldn’t follow her quickly enough. He could see that walking was the best way to go fast, so he tried his best to do it. It looked so easy when others did it, but it was really hard when he tried it.
Inga started to teach him so many wonderful things. She held him and sang songs to him. This was always delightful, but he wanted to show her that he could sing too. He was sure she saw him trying, because she started to help him learn to make sounds the way she did. He was catching on quickly, and he found himself speaking in no time. As he began to speak, he also began to understand more of the words Inga and his parents used. He was starting to communicate, and he found this new talent particularly helpful in getting Inga to get him things and do things for him.
Mama gave him a new contraption they called a walker. It was a weird looking thing that had a place for him to stand right in the middle. When they put him in it, magic happened. He could walk just like they did. He quickly mastered this walker thing, and he was able to walk so fast that sometimes they couldn’t easily catch him. But this thing was dangerous too. It smashed into everything around it, and sometimes it tipped over. Inga called it “topsy-turvy” whenever he flipped it over, but she always helped him right it.
Mama and Papa started to help him learn things too. He got very good in the walker, and he was now able to walk all by himself. It was easier to fall without the walker, but he could easily get places where the walker didn’t fit.
Mama started reading books to him and showing him numbers and letters and colors. He liked all the learning, but he wished that Inga did it instead of Mama. But he did start to realize that he could learn just as well from either of them, so it wasn’t all that bad. Mama could sing better than Inga, but she sometimes used different words in the same songs. That was a little confusing, but he learned Mama’s words too. He got to a point where he could sing some of the songs with her, but he wasn’t that good at singing.
Even though Inga spent less time with him during the day, she was still his nighttime companion. After they put him to bed, Inga sat with him in his room and they talked and read books together. He knew in his heart that she wasn’t supposed to do this stuff after they tucked him in, but she did it anyhow. And she started kissing him more and more at night too. It was sort of strange to him, but he liked it anyway.
Then one day Inga said good-bye to him and left with Papa. It was confusing to him. He waited all day for her to come home, but she didn’t. Papa came back, but Inga didn’t. He climbed up the stairs all by himself and went into Inga’s room. Everything was gone. He was frightened.
3
It was like night and day. The change that came over Mason when Inga left was beyond anything Lori and Elliot had expected. They knew it would be traumatic, but they weren’t prepared at all for what happened. Mason turned into a raging animal. He wouldn’t talk to his parents. He wouldn’t let them hold him, change him or bathe him without a terrible fight. And Lori swore she saw something ominous in Mason’s eyes.
When she put him in the highchair, he still ate, but he threw what he didn’t eat all around the room; cups, bowls, forks, spoons and all. He developed such strength that he could throw things twenty or thirty feet.
Food wasn’t the only thing he threw. He would scoot around the house grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down. He smashed things onto the floor with a vengeance. He caused thousands of dollars worth of damage in one week. Lori and Elliot were bewildered. They had to clear the whole house of knickknacks, picture frames, candy dishes and everything else that Mason could reach. Even then he would grab lamp cords and yank the lamps off the tables, or pull phone cords until the phones came off the wall or table they were on.
After one week, they got Mason situated in a “prison” they formed out of the family room. They set barriers in the doorways, and got everything out of his reach except stuffed animals and lightweight plastic toys.
Lori set up an appointment with the doctor. She brought Mason in for an examination, and explained what was happening. This time the doctor didn’t dismiss the behavior as normal, and he referred them to a child psychologist.
The psychologist wasn’t much help. He just charged a lot more than the pediatrician. He explained that Mason perceived himself to be abandoned by Inga. He told Lori that Mason’s reaction was typical, but the level of his reaction was a bit extreme. He offered several courses of action to Lori, all of which required additional appointments, and she declined.
Lori and Elliot decided they had to spend every minute possible with Mason. It was the simplest solution and it made the most sense to them. They figured that time would heal his wounds, and that Lori would soon take Inga’s place in Mason’s mind.
Mason eventually responded to the enormous attention Lori and Elliot paid him, but it took two full months. He gradually stopped his fits of rage, and he began to learn again. But there was a difference between the earlier Mason and the new Mason. Learning seemed to be a pleasure for him when Inga was around, but now it was just an obsession. He expressed absolutely no joy when they praised him. He was like a machine. He learned without expressing emotions, but he was very proficient at learning.
At fifteen months the nightmares started coming more frequently. Lori now slept with hers and Mason’s doors opened. This assured her that she would hear Mason’s nighttime screams. She found herself running to his rescue at least once a night, and sometimes as many as three or four times. As the frequency of the nightmares increased, Mason began talking in his sleep. Lori stayed up one night and sat just outside of Mason’s doorway. After an uneventful hour elapsed, she was about to go to bed. Then Mason started talking. She peeked in and saw that he was writhing around and his hands were groping in every direction. She listened carefully trying to pick out any distinct words that she could recognize. Then she heard him say what she thought was “Fred”.
When he woke up screaming, Lori asked him who Fred was, and his reaction was one of instant fear. He never answered or even tried to answer. He just stared at Lori for a moment, then rolled over and quietly went back to sleep.
He wasn’t the same after that night. He still had nightmares and woke up screaming, but he never again let Lori comfort him after a nightmare. Eventually he stopped screaming the moment he realized he was awake, and Lori stopped coming in.
For the next seven or eight months, Mason was concerned with little else but learning. He was turning out to be quite bright, and he was very attentive to everything Lori taught him. He was speaking and communicating well, and he was beginning to grasp complicated ideas. But he never spoke about trivial things like other children did. He behaved as though speech was strictly for the purpose of learning and obtaining his basic needs, like food and drink. There was no gaiety or excitement in him. Lori worried about her two-year-old “machine”.
.....
Jack was furious. Inga had left him. She told him she loved him, then left him. He couldn’t trust anyone! He was determined not to let anyone get close to him again. And he was just as determined to make the whole world suffer the way Inga had made him suffer.
He found a certain pleasure in his revenge. He set about to destroy everything in his path. He used his super strength to smash and destroy everything around him, just like he destroyed that ugly face of Fred Stoner. Mama and Papa tried to move things out of his reach all around the house. But he showed them! He yanked on wires and brought things smashing to the floor.
Then they trapped him in the family room with those wooden gates. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t figure out how to get past those gates. He couldn’t shake them loose or force them out of the doorways. They left him nothing to throw or smash. They had defeated him. They were too evil and too strong for him.
Then, after they had won, they turned around completely and started showering him with love and attention. He tried to fight them off, but he wasn’t strong enough. There was just no way to beat them, so he stopped trying. He knew that he had to get back to his task of learning. Mama taught him well, but it just wasn’t any fun without Inga. So he just set out to learn things without the old fun times.
Fred Stoner was coming back more often since Inga left. Jack still fought him off the best that he could, but he wasn’t doing so well at it. Then one night, right after Fred attacked him, his mother asked him who Fred was. He was shocked. Inga used to help him deal with Fred Stoner. His initial thought was to try and tell his mother about Fred, but then he wondered why she didn’t already know. After all, didn’t Inga know? Then he couldn’t remember if he ever heard Inga or anyone else say the name Fred Stoner. His shock gave way to his resolve. He must not tell his parents about Fred. He had no idea why. He just knew he mustn’t.
The only way to keep Fred a secret was not to let his parents know when Fred came. Fred continued to attack him, but he made an extra effort not to scream or wake his parents when it happened.
Jack formulated an idea around that time. Fred Stoner was particularly crafty. The only way that Jack could beat Fred was to become twice as crafty. He became obsessed with learning everything he could. He needed to find ways to understand Fred’s mind, and he was able to do this by learning language. With learning came power. Jack knew this instinctively, but he really didn’t understand the true concept of the power.
Jack learned everything he could. He learned to speak and understand what people said to him. With the knowledge of language came a desire to read the way Inga and his parents could. He was almost two years old when he decided for certain that he must learn to read.
4
Mason’s progress really picked up at two-years-old. Both Lori and Elliot could see it. He learned to recognize all the letters, and he started to form them himself with pencil and paper. He paid incredible attention whenever Lori read to him, and he made her point to each word as she said it. Before long, Lori found that she could open any book, point to a word, and Mason would say it. He was reading!
At thirty-three months old, Mason was reading from the newspaper. He sounded-out words that he didn’t even know the meanings of. Then he made Lori define them. She was absolutely stunned by his brilliance and quest for knowledge. They would actually argue about things, and Mason’s points were so good that he sometimes actually won the arguments fair and square.
Lori read everything she could get her hands on about gifted children. She wanted to make certain that she provided everything that Mason needed to stay challenged and focused. She read psychology books that helped her understand the unique emotional problems that all gifted children share. She made a conscious effort to separate Mason’s chronological age from his educational age. The books had warned that many parents make the mistake of treating their gifted children as adults. It was very important to encourage friendships and social interaction with normal children of the same age.
Lori exposed Mason to other children his age in the neighborhood and encouraged interaction. At first Mason appeared to enjoy the company of other children. Then he suddenly changed. He refused to be with them.
Lori initially assumed that this rebellion had to do with Mason’s inability to communicate properly with other children. But then she saw that everything about Mason had changed almost overnight. He withdrew from all social contact, and he limited his interaction with his parents to essentials.
It was the most puzzling thing in the world to Lori and Elliot. Lori decided that the best way to confront a problem like this was to do it head on. She decided that she would sit down and talk it out with him.
.....
Jack was himself surprised at the rate of progress he was making. He found that the more he learned, the better he became at learning. He had to guide his parents through the process himself. They didn’t seem to know how to keep up with him. He showed his mother how to point to words and say them slowly. This way he could determine why each one was pronounced the way it was. There were many confusing things about words. Lots of them seemed to be pronounced differently from the way they looked. These he had to learn by memorization. And some sounded exactly like others, yet looked different and meant different things. He memorized these peculiarities also.
The newspaper became the best thing to use for reading. He got to increase his vocabulary at the same time he learned about things that were happening outside of his own house. His grasp of reality was increasing every day. And Mother was helping him tremendously. He didn’t have to guide her as much as he used to. She was keeping right up with his needs, and he was really thankful for her interest. Without her help this would have taken him much longer.
He got to make friends, too. His mother began inviting other children into the house. He met Jerry, Todd, Randy, Bobbie and a few others. He really liked being with other children, but he didn’t like the idea of having to pretend to so many people that his name was Mason. He longed for the day that he could just be Jack.
One morning when Randy and Jerry were over, the most awful thing happened. They were sitting around playing and Jerry turned into Fred Stoner right before Jack’s eyes. Jack jumped on him and started to beat him up, but Fred ran out of the house and took Randy with him. Jack just stood at the front door watching them run away. But he realized that he didn’t see Fred running away. He only saw Randy and Jerry.
He became frightened and he started crying. He closed the door and turned around. There directly in front of him stood Fred Stoner. The rage that built up inside of Jack was incredible. He lunged at Fred with both of his hands reaching for Fred’s throat. In a blind rage he screamed, “Leave me alone you lousy bastard!”
Just as Jack’s hands were about to grasp Fred Stoner’s neck, Fred disappeared. Jack’s hands smashed into the closet door and his knees crashed against the wood. His whole body left the floor. He bounced backward and fell flat on his back on the foyer carpet. As the back of his head struck the floor, he saw a bright flash of light more intense than anything he had ever seen in his whole life......Well, perhaps not.
He was overwhelmed with memories at that very instant. All the long-forgotten secrets exploded within his head. He was taken on an instantaneous journey through the life and death of Jack Casey. He suddenly found himself in a strange and lonely place; the body of Mason Alexander. And he was an intruder in this body. For the first time he could visualize Mason as a separate being. He felt overwhelming sadness. Then he felt a moment of revelation and joy. But it was short-lived. The sadness returned and remained.
5
Lori sat down with Mason. She was determined to help him with his depression. “What’s wrong lately, Mason? For the last few days you’ve seemed so down. I want to help.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think you can help, Mom.”
“Why not, sweetheart?” she asked him.
His eyes filled up with tears, and he tried to keep her from seeing. “I’ll be all right,” he assured her. “It’s just that I feel really tired,” he lied, “and I think I’d like to just rest for a couple more days. Maybe we can stop the lessons until next week. Is that okay?”
Lori asked cautiously, “Do you want to go see the doctor?”
“No, Mom,” he answered quickly. “I’m not sick or anything. I just want a little time off.”
Lori was still convinced that something very serious was bothering Mason. But for the time being she’d let it be. “Okay, doll. But if you change your mind and want to talk, I’m here for you.”
“Thanks,” was all he said. He gave her a quick kiss and went to his room.
.....
Jack carried the weight of the whole world on his shoulders. He couldn’t let anyone else find out what he knew. It was something that he’d have to keep secret for the rest of his life......Maybe even longer.
