Rag Doll Bones: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

Max swallowed the rock in his throat and pushed on, slowing only when he reached his car, which he hadn’t driven in weeks. He used it regularly enough on rainy days or to buy groceries in the summer, but this had been an unusual summer.

  He’d been opting for his motorcycle because it felt… better somehow, like he’d embarked on a perilous journey and his motorcycle was his trusty sidekick. Without his sidekick he’d never have made it to that moment. He didn’t know how, but felt it was true just the same.

  And yet when he’d driven to the asylum two hours before, he’d walked into his garage with barely a thought and climbed behind the wheel of his car.

  “Because the keys,” he muttered to himself.

  After he’d hung up the phone with Abe, the keys to his Toyota had been sitting at his elbow, right there on the kitchen table, though he always hung them on the hook by the door.

  39

  Ashley walked through the woods crying, not bothering to stifle her anguish as she pushed the bike, the back rim so bent it barely turned. Her hands trembled, the scrapes on her elbows seeped, and she wanted to curl into a little ball and cry until Grandma Patty appeared with a cup of apple juice and a story about how she’d once lost something she’d treasured too, but somehow it all turned out okay.

  Except Grandma Patty was dead, and the bike Ashley had been saving for, for over a year was destroyed, and it wouldn’t be okay.

  She leaned the bike against a tree and walked toward the raccoon den. She could hold the babies at least. That would be something.

  As she moved closer, goosebumps prickled along her arms. She wanted to stop. The den didn’t look right. The board that kept the babies from falling out had been ripped away. The gaping black hole into the hut was dark and ominous.

  She started to run, stopping a few feet away, her hands going to her mouth.

  She could see blood splashed across the interior, blood on the little yellow blanket Sid had brought from home.

  “No,” she shrieked as her eyes registered the pile of gore and fur.

  They no longer looked like raccoons. They’d been crushed, mangled. Protruding from the grisly heap, she saw one tiny black paw.

  She stepped back, her head slowly rotating from side to side as if her body couldn’t accept what her eyes insisted was true.

  She backed into a tree and flopped down, putting her face into the leaves and wailing.

  “Noo!” she howled.

  The rain, as if God had truly heard her anguish, splattered in fast heavy droplets.

  It mingled with her tears and the dirt, and soon she lay in a puddle of muck.

  It was all too much, first Starfire and now her raccoons. She wanted to kick and thrash and hurt someone.

  Had Travis killed them, or had it been the monster in the woods?

  In that moment, the monster didn't scare her. Let him come, she thought. Let them all come. She wanted to punch and tear at the face of whoever had murdered the baby raccoons.

  It had been human; she knew that. An animal couldn’t have gotten into the tree and ripped the board away.

  As she lay crying, her body shaking with the grief and shock of the previous hour, a tiny whimper drifted up from the leaves.

  She sat up and perked her ears, for a moment hearing only the falling rain.

  It came again, a mewling sound.

  She crawled on hands and knees to a thick fern beneath the tree that had held the raccoons. She reached into the leafy plant, searching. Her fingers brushed against something soft and damp.

  Peeling back the glossy leaves, she saw him.

  Alvin teetered closer to her hands, his little mouth opening as he released another chittering cry.

  “Oh, Alvin,” she cried, sweeping him up and clutching him against her chest.

  He trembled beneath her fingers, and she pressed her face into his sodden fur.

  She held him and rocked back as the rain slowed to a drizzle.

  * * *

  “Honey, are you awake?”

  Ashley opened her eyes. A slant of light snaked through her cracked bedroom doorway.

  She started to sit up, but then remembered Alvin tucked close to her beneath the comforter. She reached down and brushed his spine. He wriggled against her hand.

  Her mom opened the door all the way. More light poured through.

  “Hi, baby,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  Ashley nodded and used the hand not clutching the raccoon, to rub at her sleepy eyes.

  Ashley’s mother walked in and sat on the edge of the bed, resting her hand on Ashley’s leg.

  “I saw the bike,” her mom said, her face pinched. “What happened?”

  Ashley started to explain, to release an ugly litany of insults against Travis and his friend.

  Instead, a gurgling sob rose from her guts. She burst into tears.

  Her mother’s own pain deepened in the grooves of her forehead.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, scooting closer and taking Ashley in her arms. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. You were so excited about that bike.”

  Ashley, forgetting she was supposed to keep the raccoon hidden, pulled Alvin out and revealed him to her mother.

  “And…” she sputtered between sobs. “Someone killed the raccoons, all of them except this one. Crushed them.”

  She put the raccoon up to her cheek. He nuzzled his wet little nose against her.

  Ashley’s mom eyed the creature wearily.

  “Where did he come from?” Rebecca asked.

  “I have to keep him, Mom,” Ashley said, her words blurring through her cries. “I’m all he has.”

  Ashley’s mother stroked her daughter’s hair. She looked again at the raccoon and her face softened.

  “Shh, it’s okay, honey. We don’t have to talk about this tonight.”

  Ashley nodded, continuing to cry onto Alvin’s back.

  Her mom helped her recline, fluffing the pillow beneath her head.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  She disappeared and returned a moment later with a cup of apple juice in Grandma Patty’s favorite mug, a little white and red speckled cup with a heart painted on the side.

  Ashley sipped the juice as she watched Alvin wobble across the bedspread.

  Ashley’s mother petted his back with a single finger. “He’s tiny,” she said.

  Ashley nodded, thought of his brothers, and felt a wave of fresh tears course down her face.

  “What if I bring in Bernard’s old cat bed? The raccoon could sleep in that.”

  Ashley started to shake her head no.

  “He can still sleep on the bed,” her mother added quickly. “That way you won’t squish him if you roll over.”

  Ashley blinked at Alvin, and after a moment nodded.

  “Okay. But he’s staying on the bed.”

  Rebecca went out and retrieved the tattered blue pet bed that had belonged to their now dead cat, Bernard. Bernard had died when Ashley was eight. She’d built a rock pile on his grave. She and Grandma Patty had painted the rocks in shades of blue and purple. Grandma Patty had even painted mice on a few of the rocks. Ashley had tried to paint her own mice, but they’d turned out like purple blobs with tails.

  Ashley lifted Alvin into the cat bed and left her hand curved around his fragile body.

  “My lover of wild things,” Rebecca murmured, stroking Ashley’s hand.

  Ashley rolled onto her side, her tears mostly dry now and a trickle of embarrassment at her outburst sneaking in.

  Her mom rubbed her back. “Do you want to tell me about the bike?” Rebecca asked.

  “In the morning, Mom,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

  * * *

  Max carried Percy into his house and laid him on the couch. He sat in the chair across the room, leaving the lamp on, watching and waiting.

  At midnight, the man stirred and then again at two followed by twice more in the four o’clock hour. Sometime around dawn, Max dozed off, and he woke to find Percy watchi
ng him. His face was drawn and his eyes were bloodshot, but Max knew right away the man was lucid.

  Percy looked around. “Where am I?” he asked.

  Max sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked at his watch. Quarter to nine in the morning. In the center of the floor lay Heart of Darkness.

  Percy followed Max’s gaze. He stared at the book for a long time.

  “Have you read it?” Max asked.

  Percy tried to laugh, but only a dry croak emerged.

  “I used to call it my manifesto, my destiny.” He shook his head, his mouth turning down. “My curse more like it.”

  “Because you traveled to the Amazonian jungle?”

  “Because I was a young fool.”

  “Mr. Hobbs, my name is Max Wolfenstein. I’m a teacher here in Roscommon. Four children have disappeared from my town. Two have been found dead. I need you to tell me your story.”

  40

  “I traveled to Brazil and into the Amazon Rainforest. I was naive, a scientist and a scholar, foolish in my quest for discovery,” Percy started, leaning his head back on the couch and closing his eyes.

  “Our journey began as three: myself, a French botanist, named Antoine, and David, one of my colleagues from Dartmouth.

  The Sanapu lived as a sort of ghost tribe. They were spoken of but rarely seen. When Antoine learned of their miracles regarding plant healing, he insisted we travel deeper into the forest and find them.

  Three days into our journey, Antoine fell ill with malaria. He succumbed to the disease before we ever saw a glimpse of the tribe. David, on the other hand, was taken by El Lobizon.”

  “Spanish for-?”

  Percy nodded and picked at his thumbnail.

  “El Lobizon is a South American myth of sorts. It’s much like our legend of the werewolf. Perhaps our legend arose from theirs. There are a few key differences of course. In the South American legend, El Lobizon is a curse on the seventh son. If a family produces seven sons, the seventh will be afflicted with this curse. He will turn into a half man, half wolf, and in a state of frenzy he will attack and kill.”

  “A werewolf?” Max said, remembering Jody Hobbs’s words that her brother was a ‘very sick man.’

  A half smile played on Percy’s lips.

  “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s best if you do. If you want to stop it, that is.”

  Max sucked in a fowl breath as if the air in the room had soured. Had he just committed a crime, abducting this man from a mental institution, only to run into yet another dead end? It was worse than a dead end, a madman’s boyhood fantasies.

  As if in response to his thoughts, a crash sounded in the kitchen.

  Percy stood up on wobbly legs, immediately falling back onto the couch.

  Max strode into the kitchen, expecting to find police in swat gear with their guns drawn as they readied to apprehend the kidnapper.

  Instead, his back door stood wide open, wind and rain blowing in. On the floor, Fruit Loops lay scattered from the welcome mat to his kitchen table.

  Max closed and locked the door, not bothering to clean up the mess. He returned to the living room and perched on his chair.

  “Okay, tell me,” he said.

  Percy glanced questioningly at the kitchen, but he continued. “The tribe who took me, they had a special shrine. It was built from wood, and it looked like a ferocious wolf lunging through the air. As I learned more about them, I came to understand that the shrine had been erected for their fallen shaman.

  “According to their stories, he’d lived a thousand lives. And unlike most beings, he’d retained the knowledge of every life. Not only was he the healer of their tribe, he was the protector, the warrior. But he did not fight battles. When night fell, he slipped into the forest and turned into El Lobizon. He crept into other tribes and attacked their leaders. He consumed their blood and flesh, adding their knowledge and strength to his own tribe.

  “He left instructions for his tribe after his death. The warriors of his tribe ate the shaman’s flesh and drank his blood. They boiled his bones for thirteen days to remove the meat. Then they built a statue of El Lobizon, constructed partially from the bones and teeth of their fallen leader.

  “Each month, on the full moon, they dismantled the wolf and they built it anew five days later. I asked why they did that, and what I discovered quite chilled me.

  “Every full moon, five warriors in the tribe took apart the wolf. The women sewed crude little dolls for each of the warriors. The dolls were a mixture of the shaman’s bones and the men’s own hair, fingernails, and blood. The men would slice their arms and drip blood onto a seed from the embauba tree - the heart of the doll. That night, they would go into the jungle and defeat their enemies. They turned into El Lobizon, not the same as the shaman himself had, who seemed to have appeared more wolf than man during his shifts. But they ran on all fours and they tore at their enemies with their teeth.”

  Percy blinked at the floor as if recalling a terrible memory.

  “I followed them one night, a fool after his great discovery. I followed them, and I watched them fall upon a tribe of men. They pulled the men from the trees and ripped out their throats. I’d never seen anything like it, Max. They were not merely pretending to be animals. They jumped as if they had the muscular haunches of a jaguar. Their teeth seemed to glow sharp and yellow in the moonlight. They returned home, blood soaked and panting like dogs. They collapsed in a heap and slept. In the morning, I saw the women washing them.

  “I lived with them for six months. And then one night, in a moment of madness, I stole teeth and bones from their altar and ran into the forest. I don’t remember how I got away. It’s a dream, a nightmare perhaps. I stumbled into a group of white men, traders who’d gone into the forest to barter for cocoa. They took me with them.”

  Max rubbed his temple, considering the man’s story.

  It was absurd. No sane person would believe it. But his dubiousness was met with a memory. Simon Frank’s rotting body, a gash in his throat no knife could make.

  “How did you end up in the asylum?” Max asked. He needed the whole story. Maybe then it would make sense.

  “Pride,” Percy told him, bracing his hands on the couch. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. One of my father’s favorite quotes. He was a farmer, a man of the land. American land, naturally, not some heathen’s land. He never understood my desire for travel. Neither did I for that matter. How do you explain such a call? A need so powerful it reaches into your chest and takes ahold of your heart until the rhythmic beat sounds only like go-go-go.”

  Max thought of the man Percy had been the day before, a man imprisoned, not only in an asylum, but also in his own body, held captive by a flurry of drugs meant to sedate and confuse him.

  “It was pride that landed me in the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane. I had a colleague there who for a long time I had considered a friend. No more, of course,” he smirked.

  “We roomed together at Dartmouth. Guy Lance was in the top of his class in every subject. I’ve never met a more brilliant mind. I took him home once during Christmas leave. His father traveled for work. His mother had died young. He would have gone home to Boston to an empty house and a supper prepared by a maid.

  “The moment we stepped from the car onto my snowy desolate driveway, I saw his disgust at my meager home. I regretted bringing him with me, but it was too late. He drank and ate with abandon, without prayers or thanks.”

  Percy sagged back on the couch as if humiliated in the retelling.

  “My father pulled me aside later and said, ‘that is not a man. He is a snake dressed in silks and golds. He will be your downfall.’”

  Percy paused and blinked, chewing his thumbnail. “I get the shivers realizing how right he was. A strange feeling came over me after that trip. Instead of seeing Guy’s true nature, an arrogant and selfish man, I grew obsessed with pleasing him, and later, outdoing him. I had to get higher marks, date
prettier girls, and go on more grand adventures than he could ever imagine.”

  Percy sat up again, running his hands over his head as if he had a full head of hair.

  He stopped, touching his scalp, running his fingers from brow to spine. “They cut my hair,” he murmured. “I had no idea.”

  He returned his hands to his lap.

  “Pride goes before destruction,” he murmured a second time. “When I returned from the Amazon, I’d gone half mad. For weeks I sat each night, drinking whiskey and staring at the bones, elated at my escape and wracked with guilt.”

  “Guilt?” Max asked.

  “Guilt for having stolen them. The ghost tribe had taken me in. I’d have died without them. They’d fed and washed me. They had told me secrets they’d told no one. I’d betrayed them, and the queer thing is, even as I floundered through the jungle after I’d stolen the bones, I thought of Guy Lance. I thought, I have finally outdone him! It’s mortifying to admit these things. My father is more than turning in his grave. He’s probably climbed out and is hitchhiking across the country to put his boot in my ass.”

  Max tried to laugh, but the image conjured in his mind was not a fantasy, but a nightmare.

  “I called Guy several weeks after I’d returned to America. Boy, do I have a story for you, I told him. Mind you, I’d lost my traveling companions. Where was my remorse, my grief? Buried in my pride, in my desperation to beat him once and for all. He came to my house, and I told him the story. We drank a bottle of scotch sitting by the fire. He did not speak. Not a word for three hours. And then I brought out the case and showed him the bones.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he laughed in my face.” Percy’s mouth hung open after he spoke the words as if he could still hardly believe it. ‘Too much ayahuasca with the natives,’ he told me. I’d drank so much scotch by then, I could barely stand. Otherwise I might have punched him. I passed out sometime in the night, and when I woke in the morning, Guy Lance and the bones had disappeared.”

  “He stole them?” Max asked. “What a scoundrel.”