Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 12 (1943-07).djvu/29



FIRST heard about George Torey when a colleague of mine at Belvedere Hospital where I am on the psychiatric staff came to me and said: "Dr. Manning, I've got a patient who won't sleep. From the medical standpoint, he seems on the mend but he has a strange fear of sleep. I wonder if you'd look in on the case?"

That was the beginning. Dr. Cobb, the M.D. in charge, gave me the following details: Torey had been in an automobile accident. He had been pretty badly smashed up. A couple of broken ribs, a dislocated elbow and a badly wrenched back. But there didn't seem to be any complications, at least, at first. But by now, when he should be getting well—he wasn't. He was afraid of going to sleep. A thirty-year-old man afraid of going to sleep like, well, like a little kid.

"I've come to the conclusion that there must be some sort of mental hitch here somewhere," Cobb told me that first day in the doctors' lunchroom. "Mr. Torey keeps begging for sedatives at night, for sleeping medicines. Yet he admits he isn't in pain. If we won't give them to him, he tries to keep himself awake. Of course, I've asked him to explain his horror of sleep. He tells me the most outlandish stories." Dr. Cobb shook his head.

I asked the nature of these stories. Cobb hesitated, then said, "I'd like you to get the whole picture directly from him. Can you come up this afternoon?"

I said I'd work it in somehow.

I confess I didn't think much more about Mr. Torey for the rest of the afternoon.

After all, we psychiatrists see many patients who are afraid of about everything, including going to sleep. It's not uncommon in a case of overwrought emotions. Torey, from Cobb's description, had had quite a smash-up. My snap hunch was that the man was still suffering from the after-effects of severe shock. That's all I thought about it.

At 4:30 that afternoon I went upstairs and asked the floor nurse for Mr. Torey's room. When I went in, Cobb was waiting for me. He grabbed my hand as though he were really glad to see me and led me over to the bed.

"Mr. Torey, this is Dr. Manning. He's the chap I've told you about. I think he's going to be able to help us with your sleeping difficulties."

Torey simply groaned. I still hadn't gotten a look at him. His head was turned in toward the wall. One lean hand was visible, clutching the bed clothes in a vise-like grip.