The Cabin II: Asylum Read online

  “What are you doing?” Vicky asked again. “You’ll get in trouble if they find you in here. And put that back over him...” she nodded towards my hand - a sheet securely in its grip.

  “Did you see the doctor?”

  Vicky shook her head.

  “He was just in here. I was just talking to him.”

  “I just followed you from the daycare room. He wasn’t here. Look, we really can’t be seen in here. We need to leave.” I looked back to the boy. He was staring right at me - his eyes unblinking.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve not seen him before,” said Vicky. “I’m going. You should come with me.”

  I put the sheet over the boy - choosing to ignore his gaze - and stepped away.

  “Am I losing my mind?” I asked her.

  “If you’re in here - you’ve already lost it.”

  4.

  I was lying on the padded floor in my small cell trying to get my head around what had happened in the mortuary. I couldn’t figure out how I even got there; the way back to the daycare room, led by Vicky, was completely different to the route I had taken to get to the mortuary in the first place. I looked around, on the way back, hoping to see the route Ava led me down earlier but I couldn’t. There were no other obvious routes I could have come down. Nothing made any sense to me anymore. The only thing I knew for sure was what I had done and the mess I was in now.

  Maybe I am insane like the doctors believe. Not just the doctors either. Other people must think I am too or else I wouldn’t have been sent here. The Sheriff would have taken me straight to the courthouse.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I whispered.

  I knew he was there. Not sure how he got in the room - now the door was closed, and locked, for the night - but, even so, I knew he was there; the faint wheezing noise coming from his mouth gave him away. I didn’t look at him as I knew he’d only point at me and scream; he does it every time I catch his gaze.

  “Why can’t you leave me alone?” I felt my eyes start to well up, not that I wanted to cry in front of...him?

  Does a ghost count as a ‘him’?

  Or an ‘it’?

  If I did start to weep would it leave me in peace?

  Would it make this nightmare end?

  I turned my back on it and closed my eyes as I felt a shift in the padded floor as it walked closer to me. Another shift in the padded floor. What’s it doing? A cold hand went around my chest. Seconds later, a cold body snuggled in behind me.

  “I’m scared, daddy. I don’t like it here.”

  “Ava?”

  I opened my eyes. The hand holding the front of my chest has painted nails - a pretty pink colour - Ava’s favourite colour. I immediately rolled over to offer her comfort; reassure her that everything is going to be okay.

  Not Ava.

  A cruel trick.

  The boy opened his mouth. His eyes went wide. His scream filled the small room; not even drowned out by my own scream. I closed my eyes - the best way to make him disappear. Seconds later I realised I was the only one screaming in the room. I opened my eyes. Alone again.

  My heart skipped a beat - just as it was starting to settle once more - when the small flap on the door slid open. The doctor’s beady little eye staring at me with a look of contempt.

  “You’ll wake the other patients,” he hissed.

  “I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I had a nightmare.” He didn’t need to know I saw the boy again. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Seeing as you’re awake...What say we conduct another interview?”

  “Please - I’m tired.”

  The privacy screen slid across, blocking the doctor from my view once more. I heard the lock click back into place just before the door opened. As usual the doctor hid out of view giving false hopes of a forbidden freedom.

  I hesitated for a moment. If I stay here, will he just close the door again and lock me back in?

  “Come now,” the doctor hissed.

  So much for being left alone. I reluctantly clambered up to my feet and left my cell. My cell? I wonder how long it will be my cell for. I fear it will be forever if these people have their way.

  Nothing less than I deserve, I guess.

  They think the same - the doctors - they think I deserve this.

  I know they do.

  I killed my family.

  My daughters.

  Ava was only six.

  Six years old and, thanks to me, she’ll never have another birthday.

  None of them will.

  * * * * *

  Same room as the last time I had a proper sit down conversation with the doctor. My notes are still on the table as are the pins he had previously inserted underneath my finger nails. I wonder whether they’re there to serve as a painful reminder to what he’s capable of if he believes I’m lying.

  “Why did you lie to me?” I asked the doctor. I wasn’t sure if I was going to say anything knowing the lengths they’re willing to go to make things uncomfortable for me but I couldn’t leave it.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said you had dug them up. In the mortuary. You said. My family. You said you dug them up. Why would you say that?”

  The doctor didn’t say anything. He just raised an eyebrow. After what seemed to be a lengthy pause he reminded me, “I’m asking the questions thank you.”

  I didn’t know what to say back to him. Should I have argued? Would that have made me appear saner or would it simply have fueled their fears that I’m not fit enough to leave here?

  An impossible situation.

  “What have you been telling your new friend?” he asked; a stern look upon his face.

  “My new friend?”

  “A Miss Victoria Sheldon...”

  My new friend? Is she my friend? Have I allowed myself to have a friend? She’s certainly comforting to have around. There’s something about her. She reminds me of my childhood. There was a person, back then, who I had nearly forgotten about. Even now I can only vaguely remember how they made me feel when I was scared; they made me feel as though everything was going to be okay. They made me feel like nothing could touch me. I’m not sure why, or how, but Vicky makes me feel the same way. She’s a little silver lining in an otherwise grey world.

  After she led me away from the mortuary we had gone back to the daycare room and, for some reason, I ended up telling her everything. I confessed my crimes, I told her about the boy - the ex-patient with the stolen scream - I even told her how I keep seeing him and hearing the scream in the real world and not just in my dreams. The same cursed scream my father heard. The scream, the locals said, which meant you only had a year left to live. She didn’t laugh at me. She didn’t even give an impression she thought I was mad, unlike the supposed professionals working here.

  “Well?” the doctor demanded - the coldness in his harsh voice ripping me back to the present.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I should just tell him. I know I should. I shouldn’t play games with them. I should have learnt from yesterday. I should have learnt from the pins forced under my nails - which still feel tender.

  “Some of the patients here are fragile people...” the doctor said, “...some of them are going through a strict rehabilitation program. Some of them,” he continued, “are a lost cause. Regardless of their mental state...”

  “I didn’t say anything to her...” I pushed the lie further. Is my subconscious trying to get me punished?

  “...They don’t need you filling their impressionable minds with your farfetched stories...”

  “I didn’t!” I protested again. Not really a lie. To me it wasn’t a farfetched story. It was the truth. Just as, if she had wanted to tell me anything about herself, she wouldn’t have been lying to me. To us the reasons we’re in here are all very real.

  “Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”

  I shook my head.

&n
bsp; “You told her about the boy?”

  I nodded.

  “What did you say exactly?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “There’s a test we can perform to help you remember...”

  “I just told her I had seen him. I told her about the scream. I said it was a ghost story the locals told my father one day. That’s all...”

  Nicotine-stained yellow teeth; the bottom row look a little browner today. The doctor leaned closed to me. His breath was as bad as you’d imagine it to be. An unpleasant pungency caused, no doubt, by a heavy diet of cigarettes, coffee and digestive biscuits. I tried my best not to react to it. “You understand how telling someone as sensitive as she is could be dangerous?” I nodded. I’m not sure whether it’s more dangerous for me or whether it’s more dangerous for her. “We can’t have the inmates thinking there are ghosts floating through the corridors of their safe-haven.”

  I tried not to laugh. Safe-haven? There are war-zones, around the world, which would have a safer feel than this Hell-hole.

  “I just hope you haven’t caused her any lasting damage.” He sat back on his chair and sighed deeply, “We’ve had a meeting about you today,” the doctor continued - the tone in his voice changed. “It seemed only right considering that you’re adamant that you’re cured and ready to stand trial for your crimes....”

  I foolishly raised my hopes. Could tonight be my final night here?

  “We agree...” the doctor paused and shifted his yellow fingers through the files of notes they had compiled on me, “...you’re not fit to stand trial. All this talk of ghosts, the fact you think you only have a year left to live...You seem more concerned about the supernatural than the fact that you butchered your own family...And the store clerk...”

  “I didn’t kill the store clerk.” My heart sank.

  “Regardless. It’s obvious to my colleagues - and I agree - that you’re not well and need to stay with us for the foreseeable future...”

  I tried to hide my tears and frustration but am unsure on how best to react; should I get upset at the thought of staying here? Should I get angry? Is that how a sane person would react or an insane person? Should I start shouting that I’m fit enough to leave here and stand trial for my crimes? Should I...How does a sane person react to news like that and, more to the point, who’s the one who decided, in the first place, the rules and regulations set apart for how sane, and insane, people react? What’s to say the person who made the rules up was sane themselves? They could have been wrong.

  “You don’t think I feel bad for what I’ve done to my family? I wanted to die right there with them...”

  “Ah yes, lack of bullets wasn’t it?” the doctor said. I could tell from his tone of voice he was mocking me. Was he goading me into a fight with him?

  “Fuck you. You don’t think I feel bad? You don’t think I see my family? You don’t think I hear their voices...I do. Every day since it happened...”

  “Well we can help with that,” the doctor jumped upon what I said, “Because you’re unwell. We can make all that go away. We can make you better and that’s why you’re going to stay with us for the foreseeable future...Until all traces of them are gone...”

  “What if I don’t want them gone? What if I want to keep seeing them...What if I want to keep hearing them?”

  “And why would you want that?”

  “Because I’d sooner not forget them and if that’s the only way I can remember then so be it...”

  “And you think that’s normal behaviour, do you?”

  A tear rolled down my cheek, “It doesn’t matter what I think, does it? Whatever I say...Whatever I do...You’ll always disagree.”

  “You sound ungrateful...You should be thankful...”

  “I should?”

  “We’re going to fix you. We stopped you from having to go to jail for the rest of your life. Locked up with other murderers and criminals...At least here we want to help you...Now...We just have a few tests to perform and then you can go and get some sleep...”

  The doctor took the pins up from the table.

  * * * * *

  I sat opposite Vicky in the daycare room; the table in the corner of the room away from prying eyes if there was such a place around here. They could still see us, I expect, and listen to what we had to say if they so desired. I’m sure of it. Be foolish to think otherwise.

  “Have they spoken to you yet?” I whispered to her as I took my seat. I nervously glanced over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming to stop us from talking. No one seemed to care. “They spoke to me last night...Warned me not to talk to you anymore. I’m sorry if you got in trouble,” I continued. I turned back to her, “did they say anything?”

  She didn’t respond; just sat there as though she didn’t see me.

  “Are you even listening to me?” I asked her.

  It was then I saw it; a little trickle of blood matting her hair above her left ear.

  “What’s that?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  She still didn’t respond. I leant forward in my chair and reached out to the side of her head where the blood was. She didn’t even flinch or register I was there; she just stayed perfectly still. When I ran my finger through her hair, a clump of it came away between my fingers when I moved away.

  “Vicky?”

  More blood suddenly trickled from the top of her crown, near her hair-line.

  “What the fuck?” I turned around and called for the one of the nurses, “We need some help! Someone! Anyone?”

  No one looked up. A situation not helped by the fact that half of the people in the room had been reduced to nothing more than dribbling idiots. The other half were on minimum wage and simply didn’t give a fuck.

  “Come on, Vicky...” I urged her. I hurried to her side and took her arm. If they won’t come to us, we’ll go to them. I pulled her arm and tried to walk with her. I had hoped a tug would have pulled her to her feet and she’d have walked with me but it didn’t quite go to plan. She slumped forward in her chair and I couldn’t help but scream as the top of her cranium slipped off as though it were nothing more than a cheap wig. Underneath was a bloody mess but I could still make out her brain - a large chunk missing from either side. I jumped back in shock and couldn’t help but throw up onto the white-tiled floor.

  “What have they done?!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as soon as I had finished puking.

  * * * * *

  I woke with a start, tucked into the corner of my padded little cell. Small traces of blood on the floor’s soft fabric. Must have come from my nails - caked in brown, dried flakes of blood after the pins were inserted underneath them once more. Damn they’re sore today. Can’t take another night of it.

  “You’re awake!” Vicky’s voice gave my heart another jump.

  I sat up and did my best to hide my fingers from her. Seeing as she’s okay...It’s probably best not to tell her about what was said last night. I’ll just have to try my best not to get her in any trouble.

  No reason we can’t be friends.

  Friends?

  It still feels strange to think of us as friends. I can’t help but wonder whether I’d have woken up, feeling the same, if the doctor hadn’t pointed it out to me last night. In his poorly hidden threat he pushed me closer to her.

  Don’t want to get her in trouble though. I’ll be careful from now on. Just talk to her about mindless stuff to pass the time. Avoid the past. Avoid my crimes. Even avoid her crimes if she chooses to share.

  “I was thinking about what you told me yesterday,” she whispered.

  So much for not talking about the past...

  5.

  I was sitting in the daycare room with Vicky. Rather disconcertingly I realised, soon after taking the seat, we were sitting at the same table which featured in my dream. I only hope it doesn’t have the same ending.

  “I was thinking about what you told me yesterday afternoon,” she continued, “you know, about the boy...”<
br />
  “It was the medication,” I lied, “I didn’t know what I was saying yesterday.”

  “You didn’t take any medication yesterday.”

  And speaking of medication - there was something about Vicky today that was different; a spark in her eyes. A welcome glint of life. Clearly she had opted not to take any pills today too.