The Cabin II: Asylum

  FROM THE SAME AUTHOR

  Love Life

  The Vampire’s Treaty

  (The Peter Chronicles)

  Happy Ever After

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  A Fresh Start

  PETER

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  © Matt Shaw

  The right of Matt Shaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any format without written consent from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

  The characters, and story, in this book are purely fictitious. Any likeness to person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  With thanks to:

  Elena Helfrecht for the use of the main cover image

  Beth Thurlow and Julie Shaw for their editing

  PREVIOUSLY...

  I opened my eyes. I was face down on the bedroom’s wooden floorboards. I must have blacked out; the shock of what was happening too much for my body to take. As soon as I realized where I was I sat up and cast my eyes around the room. It’s empty. I’m alone again. I must have been unconscious for some time as daylight is spilling in from the window on the side of the room. Thank God for that. I need to get out of here. It’s over...

  BANG!

  No. It can’t be. It came from the front of the cabin this time. What do they want? It’s daylight now. They must know it’s over. They must do. My dad used to tell me things only went bump in the night.

  I heard footsteps across the front of the porch. Will they ever leave me alone? A knocking on the front door followed. No. I’m not having it. I’m not. I looked to the floor and spotted the gun. Without giving it any hesitation I grabbed it and aimed it at the door.

  “I’m in here!” I called out. “Come and get me!”

  Footsteps across the floorboards in the other room. The door opened and I pulled the trigger.

  BANG!

  I screamed and dropped the gun. It hit the floor before Ava’s body did. My daughter. My beautiful daughter. She fell backwards with blood trickling from the front of her delicate face. What have I done? What have I done?

  “Baby?!” I called out as I scrambled over to her lifeless body.

  More footsteps from outside which sounded as though they were running towards where I was sat, cradling the body of my youngest. What had I done?

  Susan screamed as she came through the cabin’s front door.

  “My baby!” she screamed. “What have you done?!”

  I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know how to. Jamie came in and stopped in the cabin’s doorway. Her face was pale as she took in the scene before her eyes.

  I screamed out as Susan pulled Ava’s body away from me and cradled it in her own arms.

  “Daddy?” said Jamie from the doorway where she’d just stopped in her tracks. Her voice was shaking.

  “My baby! My baby! What have you done!” Susan kept wailing over and over again.

  “I’m sorry,” I wept with my head in my hands; tears flowing uncontrollably.

  “Call someone!” Susan demanded. “Make it better! Make it better!” she screamed.

  Jamie dropped to her knees and started to weep, her black mascara running down her pale face, as what happened slowly started to sink in.

  “Don’t just sit there!” screamed Susan. “Call someone!”

  “I’m sorry,” I cried as I tried to put a comforting arm around Susan.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed. The anguish and hatred in her voice flowing through every syllable.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  I stood up and staggered out of the cabin, into the bright daylight of the warm Saturday morning. I didn’t even manage to get off the porch before I threw up over the side, into the foliage below. I’ve killed my daughter. I’ve killed my daughter. I desperately wanted to forget...Block out the pain...But the screams of Susan’s pain and the whimpering of Jamie, from the doorway, refused me the luxury of forgetting and pretending it never happened. I need to call someone. I need to get help. I ran over to the car...I didn’t even hear them pull up...It was an accident....Had I known it was them...I opened the car door, which must have banged shut when they climbed out, and reached into the passenger seat to grab my cellphone. I flipped it open and pressed ‘9’ on the keypad. I stopped.

  Who am I supposed to call? Who can make this all better? No one can. There’s no one. No one can bring little Ava back to life. No one can erase the pain Susan, Jamie and I will feel for the rest of our lives. No one can take away the image of the bullet piercing the front of Ava’s face and the look of shock in her eyes. No one can fix this. They’ll never forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself. Our lives will never be the same again. I’ve destroyed them for good. People won’t believe what happened during the night to make me feel on edge. They won’t. They’ll just know I killed my daughter. And, if I did that, I must have killed the store clerk too. Josh wins. He’ll get away with it. They probably won’t even know he was even in the store when the gun went off. They’ll pin it all on the city-man. I’ve lost everything. I’ve destroyed everything.

  I’m not crying anymore. I’m in shock. Nothing can fix this. Where do we go from here? How do we move on? I sat for a moment with only the sounds of the girls screaming keeping me from being in complete silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Moments later I knew what needed to be done. I know how to take the pain away. It’s the only way. I climbed from the car and walked back to the cabin. I passed Jamie who was still crying in the doorway and I tried to block the image of Susan cradling Ava as I stepped past them and across to the bedroom. With no hesitation I picked the gun up. This is the only way I know how to take their pain away. This is the only way. I’ll have to be quick. I’ll have to make it quick. They don’t deserve any of this. The least I can do is make it so they don’t know what happened.

  “What did you do?!” Susan screamed from the other room.

  I walked back to where she was huddled over Ava and apologized once more. I raised the gun to Jamie first and pulled the trigger. I shot her straight through the head; the force of the bullet sending her out of the cabin’s doorway and onto the porch. Susan screamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. The shame oozing through the tone of my voice. “I’ll always love you. I’m sorry.” I turned the gun on Susan. Her final scream was cut short with the sound of a bang. She slumped over Ava’s body. I just stood there, for a moment, as I took in my actions. Seconds later, without even realizing I had started, I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

  This isn’t my fault. This isn’t my fault. It’s whoever was tormenting me throug
h the night. Whatever was tormenting me. If they had just left me alone, I’d have had no reason to have kept the gun so close to my side. Ava would have run into the room and into my loving arms. Susan and Jamie would have followed. Why did they even come back? Why? They weren’t supposed to come back. They were supposed to wait for me to call them. Susan must have known I didn’t have the numbers because my phone was on the seat. She must have come back to find me. She must have come back to make sure everything was okay. To make sure I was okay. Maybe her mum and dad weren’t in and they had had no choice but to come back? I screamed again.

  “Please forgive me...Please...”

  I walked through to my dad’s office and slumped down in his old chair. I looked down to the picture of my dad and me, for one final time. The picture had been changed again. My face had the eyes crossed out too, along with a scar drawn down my neck. I didn’t care how or why. Not anymore. I was past caring. I raised the gun to my head. As well as the cold metal of the gun against my temple, I felt the horrible feeling of warm breath against the back of my neck. I didn’t care anymore. I was numb to it all.

  “Please forgive me,” I whispered.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  CLICK!

  “NO! PLEASE! NO!”

  I pulled the trigger again.

  CLICK!

  No. It can’t be. It can’t.

  CLICK!

  It’s empty. It can’t be. Please God no. Let me finish it. Please. I frantically started squeezing the trigger again and again and again on the off-chance there was, somewhere, one final bullet in the chamber. I know I hadn’t fired them all. I know I didn’t. There should have been one left. There should have been one left. I wept as I realized the gun couldn’t have been fully loaded in the first place. Come on, keep squeezing the trigger. There must be one left. There has to be one left. Come on, please. Please don’t do this to me. I’ve been through enough. Please...

  CLICK!

  CLICK!

  CLICK!

  I screamed as loud as I could.

  M A T T S H A W ‘ S

  THE CABIN

  II

  ‘Asylum’

  1.

  “Daddy!” Ava’s little voice whispered from somewhere in the back of my mind.

  I’ve missed her dulcet tones.

  I only have myself to blame.

  “Daddy!” she repeated.

  Is this a dream? Or is she really here trying to wake me from my nightmarish slumber?

  “Daddy! Wake up!”

  She’s here.

  She has to be.

  This isn’t part of whatever dream I was having.

  This is real.

  I know it is.

  I opened my eyes. Ava’s voice - nothing more than a cruel trick of my imagination. She isn’t here. No one is here other than me and the jet-black spider which has made the corner of the cell its home.

  I sat up and rested my back against the soft padded wall. I wonder whether the padding on the wall is to stop me from hurting myself, as they had explained when I first got here, or to drown the sounds of my banging and screaming as I beg for them to let me out; not that they ever will.

  They didn’t even let me attend their funeral to give them a proper goodbye. They didn’t permit me to stand at the gravestone and grieve for a couple of minutes by myself. There were no goodbyes. No peace of mind for me as my family got a proper send off. None of that. I’m destined to be stuck with images of them on the cabin floor - dead forever. It’s all I see when I close my eyes.

  Their dead bodies.

  The pools of blood.

  The smell of death, lingering in the air, as smoke filtered into the atmosphere from the barrel of the still-smoking gun.

  “I don’t want that in the house,” Susan had told me when I brought it home from the shop where I purchased it. She hated guns. She always had. I told her she had nothing to worry about. It was for peace of mind, that was all. I told her to trust me. “You know I don’t like them,” she had continued.

  “It’s just for protection,” I always reminded her.

  Protection.

  The word echoes through my mind as I remember what her brains looked like, splattered on the walls of the wooden cabin. Her body slumped next to our daughters’.

  Protection.

  I was awake now. I wished I wasn’t. I wished I was dead. I should be dead. I should have died in the cabin, with my family. I didn’t want to live. I didn’t want to live and I don’t want to be awake now. When you’re awake...They come for you. Even if you pretend to sleep...They know. They always know.

  I jumped as a small flap on the cell’s door slid open. I closed my eyes regardless.

  They always know.

  I sensed a cold eye staring at me. They always looked through, at an angle, so you could only see the one beady eye. Not being able to see the rest of their faces...Only seeing the one eye which was watching you so intently...It always made it worse...Always made you feel even more uncomfortable than you already were. And these rooms, with their padded walls and lack of furniture...Even their lack of bedding...There’s nowhere to hide from their gaze.

  “I know you’re awake,” a voice whispered. “I heard you move around. We thought, perhaps, you might want to answer some more questions?”

  I didn’t answer him. No point. It wasn’t a choice I was being offered.

  A key audibly went into the door’s lock. A little bit of fiddling and it clicked open. No handle on this side of the door, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the door would be open. Seconds. If that. Seconds to contemplate running. Seconds to contemplate fighting him. Seconds to remember they’d have help close-by if I didn’t cooperate.

  Seconds.

  The door opened.

  The doctor stood out of sight in the corridor, giving the illusion of no-one being past the open doorway; an illusion which tempted me further into making a run for it. I know he’s there though. I know he is. They’re always there. I have to keep telling myself not to run. It only makes it worse.

  “Come now,” he whispered from the corridor.

  Slowly I stood up. I hesitated for a split second before stepping into the corridor. The harsh brightness of the lighting stung my eyes. A couple more seconds to adjust. I felt a hand grip my arm and turned to see one of the doctor’s helpers. They always have helpers. Another reason not to run, or to try anything. Could I take the doctor down? Yes. He’s stick thin. Old. Gaunt- looking. He wouldn’t put up a fight against me. Not enough of one anyway. But his helper? His helper looked as though he belonged in one of the rooms. Probably broke out and forged a career as a helper instead of getting locked up again. Twice the man I am. Literally.

  The doctor led the way down the long corridor, past all the other locked doors, towards the usual room in which he questioned me. The helper walked with me, his hand never releasing its tight, unforgiving grip on my arm.

  “Please,” I said, “I’m feeling better now...”

  Both the doctor and the helper ignored me. They always do when I tell them I’m okay now...I promise to them I don’t hear screaming anymore...I promise I don’t see the boy...The boy with the scar down his neck...I tell them I know it was all in my mind...The stress of what had happened in the store with the teenager and the store clerk. I promise...They never listen. When will they listen? A real prison must surely be better than this place...

  I’m supposed to be here whilst they see if I’m fit enough to stand trial. I want to be fit enough. I want to stand trial. I’ll plead guilty. I know what I have done. I was the one who pulled the trigger...Just let me out of here.

  Let me out.

  “Take a seat,” the doctor said. He didn’t need to. I knew the procedure and, even if I didn’t, the helper was on hand to push me into the only seat opposite the doctor’s table and chair.

  I sat down.

  “So...” the doctor continued. He leant forward and pressed a red button on a tape deck which rested on his
desk. “From the top...” He sat back in his chair and waited for me to tell him my story. It was the same story I had told him on numerous other occasions.

  The story that no one believed.

  The story which led me to this hell-hole.

  “I made a mistake,” I said. My voice was shaking. They seem to know everything. Will they know I’m about to lie? If so - did they know before I did that I’d try it on?

  “Go on,” the doctor urged me. His face was expressionless. If he did know I was lying, he didn’t let on. I looked at his helper - his face, also, expressionless.