Notorious - John Jones (read after .TXT) 📗

the door, and slipped on the latch. He followed Malcolm inside, who was standing in front of the television. He was holding forth the envelope.

“£500 quid. £500 quid. I need a reading Curio. I need it now. Melissa’s dead. Tom’s dead. Everyone I know is dead”. Curio nodded, and took the envelope.

“So you want me to get in touch with your parents to see what they know?”.

“Yes,”. Malcolm’s face was scarlet, and tears threatened to burst forth again. “Please, Curio, Please”. Curio laid the envelope on the coffee table, and walked around for a few moments, deep in thought, as though he was deciding whether or not to give him a reading. The television had been on mute. He switched it off, the room illuminated by the lamp in the corner.

“Sit down,” he said. “In the armchair”. Malcolm did so, but leaned forward towards Curio.

“Lean back, relax,” Curio continued. “I suppose you forgot to bring a personal item. It doesn’t matter though. I don’t need it. All I need for you to do, is close your eyes and bring up a vivid image in your mind’s eye of your father”. Malcolm nodded. He sat back, and closed his eyes. Curio stood in front of the television for a few moments, looking at him. He stepped across to the side of the armchair and leaned towards Malcolm’s left ear. “Sleep,” he whispered, and clicked his fingers in front of his face. Malcolm slept, his head leaning on his shoulder. Curio nodded, smiled, and stood up straight.

“Got you,” he said, then walked in front of him. He sat on the sofa for a few minutes, simply staring at him, satisfied.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked himself, quietly. He stood up, stretched and walked back to Malcolm.

“When I snap my fingers, you will wake, but the chair will have become like glue. You won’t be able to budge. You can move your head, you can speak, but nothing else”. He clicked his fingers.

“Eyes open, wide awake”. Malcolm woke up, and looked at Curio who was smiling down at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I fell asleep”. He frowned. “What’s happened? I can’t move. What’s happened, Curio? I can’t move!” He tried to struggle, but he couldn’t, his eyes becoming wide with fear.

“Relax,” said Curio. “You’ll be alright, but not for long”.

“What? What have you done?”

“Congratulations Malcolm, you are my final threat. You were one of the hurdles in my path to fame, the last one. You were the only one who came close to threatening my notoriety”.

“What the fuck..?”.

“There is no virus,” said Curio. “That was just something I told Ian to confuse you in- case he never managed to kill you. It throws you off my scent. There is no weird cult. I tried not to speak to your father. In fact, I was very reluctant to do so. He did not come to me, yet he has more reason to be angry with me”.

“You killed him?” said Malcolm, as a statement, trying and failing to move.

“No, he killed himself, and he killed your wife. I hypnotised him into doing so. I then implanted the suggestion in his mind to admit it upon the knowledge of her discovery. Then I planted a timer in his mind that counts down to his suicide, so it does not connect to me. Actually, I should have given your father less time to do so. Instead of three days, I should have said one, but nevermind.

 

It’s the same with the others. The later ones I gave less time to. I suppose I am too paranoid. I can make people forget, can make them not even think of me, but it has potential for failure. My system has not yet been fully explored, but it works. It has many implications which I have yet to understand. The basis of it, Malcolm, is that I can get anybody to do anything. Anybody”.

“You killed everyone, why? Why can’t I move?”

“I am not a strong man, Malcolm, as you can see, but I can make even the most hardened person into a weakling. All I need is about ten seconds alone with them. That’s all. If I get that, they’re mine. If I let you up as you were, what will you do to me?”.

“You’re not a psychic?” asked Malcolm. Curio scowled and pointed an accusing finger at him.

“Yes I am,” he said, loudly, “Yes I am. I have proven the supernatural exists. I know it exists. I am using the hypnosis to help me prove it”.

“How does that work? Hypnosis is not supernatural, and anyway, you have to be susceptible to believe that you are hypnotised. If I don’t believe, I can’t be hypnotised”.

“Then get up”, said Curio, grinning. Malcolm tried, but failed.

“Anyone, Malcolm, anyone”.

“Why did you kill Melissa?” Curio thought about that for a few moments.

“Oh, that goth. She killed her didn’t she? See? There’s no blood on my hands. Melissa, and the others, were all a threat to my path to fame. I wanted to prove the supernatural in the normal, conventional sense, without using hypnosis, but when I knew the potential of it, I knew that I could use it to help me achieve this, achieve recognition, and now I’ve got it. In a few days time, there’ll be a press conference where I’ll be shown to the world as the man who proved the existence of the paranormal. I knew that the tests I had were not achieving what I had wanted, and I used the opportunity when Abe was alone in the room with me to convince him that I had passed the tests and proved the existence of the paranormal.

 

I told him to then leave the room and had sent in five other scientists one by one whom I induced into thinking the same. The thing is, I made a hard choice when I decided to hypnotise Abe”.

“Who’s Abe?”

“That doesn’t matter to you. You’ll never meet him. Anyway. I could have done the tests, achieve what were probably average scores, and walked away, not proving the supernatural. Yet I know it exists, so I used hypnosis to convince them that I am right.

It’s like an athlete that uses steroids to enhance performance, I suppose”.

“You get notoriety as well. Fame, riches. Was that an incentive?” Malcolm asked, sarcastically.

“I know I am right, Malcolm. Fame and fortune comes secondary to proving the facts. I use hypnosis to assist me”.

“You have innocent people murdered?” Malcolm shouted.

“They’re strangers!” replied Curio, pointing at his window. “Who cares about them?” “Obviously not you”.

“Such small sacrifices reap great rewards. I simply give them the order, and they obey. They have to. I have never had somebody not carry out a task I give them.

 

Once, for an experiment, I gave an order for someone to touch the moon. You know, an impossible task, just to see what would happen if he couldn’t carry out his order. Well, I had to get out of his way. His brain, well, I got the impression it melted because of overheating. His inability to carry out the task gave him burnout”.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Well, when I was in uni, training to be a doctor, I reached the part where we learned about hypnotherapy. The thing is, it’s standard. You learn this and that’s that, but I saw that there was more potential. There were areas of it untapped.

 

So I began to basically learn more and more about it and concocted my own experiments to see how much potential there was. Those stage hypnotists that get adults up on stage to make fools of themselves haven’t even scratched the surface. It goes, literally, much

more deeper than that. Don’t they say, whoever ‘they’ are, that we only use 10% of our brains. Well, what lurks in the depths of the unknown? Potential, Malcolm, potential. If this gets out, then we’re all fucked, you know that? I discovered this, it’s mine.”

“Why would we all be fucked?”

“Control. Anybody can be controlled within seconds Malcolm. I can order them to walk to their bank accounts, withdraw money and simply give it me, then forget me. Easy. I didn’t, I wanted my fortune to come from legitimate sources, and it was too risky. Perhaps I should have, but then, I know I have a healthy amount of paranoia. Basically, I didn’t want to get caught. I suppose I could risk it nowadays though, because I understand it more, but my profile is increasing. If I’m caught, then my method could get out and I’m off to prison. This is why I wanted to wipe you out Malcolm, and those linked to you. Paranoia, because you started asking questions about why your father murdered your mother”.

“Just to give you a bunk up the ladder, you’re a fucking loon”.

“Now now, Malcolm, that’s not very nice is it? Don’t forget what I can make you do. You can choose the method of your execution, a method you’re going to carry out. So you’d better be nice to me”. With his hands on his hips, he wondered whether or not to send him out now, but then decided against it.

“I suppose you could sleep with any woman you liked?” Malcolm said.

“Absolutely. I could do anything I liked, but see, that would be non-consensual, wouldn’t it? I have never used it for that purpose, I have a conscience”.

“A conscience? A fucking conscience? You murder innocent people to help you get famous”.

“No, I don’t” Curio said, calmly. “They aid my acceptance in the eyes of the public with regards to them believing the truth. I know the paranormal is real, that’s a fact, but the people whom I have helped the police to discover are part of my proof”.

“What proof? You’re a shark, Curio, conning people into believing you’re real”.

“I am real. I do have psychic ability, the hypnosis helps people take me more seriously. I use it to show that the supernatural is real, that there is a spirit world. It helps people believe”.

“I bet it does, so why can’t I get out of this chair. I’m not a believer. I should be able to just get up”. Curio nodded, looking at Malcolm as though surveying an aesthetically pleasing work of art.

“My probing discoveries led me further into the workings of the human mind. No need to count backwards from ten. No need for you to even relax and then me saying that you are feeling sleepy. The autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary actions, such as heart rate and blood pressure, is connected to the subconscious, which is responsible for dreams and unwanted thoughts. Don’t think of a dog, Malcolm”. Malcolm frowned.

He thought of a dog.

“See?” continued Curio, “You thought of a dog. It’s the uncontrolled actions of our brain that we, our consciousness has no command over. This link between automatic reactions and the subconscious can be manipulated by resonance, Malcolm, resonance. It is the dark area of the mind untapped by science. It is the gateway to the parts of the mind unknown, unexplored”.

“Maybe consciousness passes through that when we die,” said Malcolm.

“Through in to the spirit world”. Curio nodded.

“One path we may take,” Curio continued. “I do not know, but we do get there, and very soon, Malcolm, you will find out if you are right. This area is susceptible to suggestion from the outside, but not by ordinary sound. It needs to be low, Malcolm, a very low ‘frequency’ that the human voice needs to practise. Obviously I have done it. I am proof of that. It is like a whisper, only lower in tone. This taps directly into this area and your autonomic system becomes open to suggestion. I tell the person to sleep. This they understand anyway, so fall asleep instantly. Clicking my fingers helps also as that taps into the areas used by normal hypnotists, the subconscious, but obviously this goes much deeper. All I have to do, is, when I’ve got