by Jay Mason
She turned to go, but as she did so the floor opened up beneath her. Suddenly weightless her stomach heaved and she fell down and down into darkness.
The smell. An overpowering smell of unwashed bodies and worse; sweat, urine, and faeces. And burning. Candle-wax? A rough, choking, smoky odor. Her eyes lids are heavy. Feeling drowsy … Slipping away. Something is tickling her face. She raises her arm to brush it away, but it won’t move. Pain shoots through and around her wrist. The other arm too. Her legs, at the ankles, strapped down. She is strapped to a uncomfortable and damp surface. She feels something sharp at her back. A flea bite. She goes to scream, but the gag is across her mouth.
She has been working it loose for hours. Now one final rip with remaining teeth and the gag disintegrates in her mouth. She spits out the split cotton. God only knows how many mouths it had been before hers. Mouths or worse. The whole place disgusts her. Every kind of filth ever encountered had been smeared around this room. She has touched it all. Been touched by it. Over in the corner, Annie, her white hair wild as a folk lore witch, sits rocking in the corner. Every third rock she lifts her ragged shift and shows her whithered nethers to the world. “Gentleman callers!” she cackles, “Open to gentleman callers.”
One of the older others told her that when Annie came in she was sane except for screaming for her baby. “A gentleman’s daughter, she was. Got knocked up by a slave. They killed him — strung him up like a pig and made him squeal as they cut off his offending parts. Reckon he got the better deal.”
She can’t remember who told her that. He isn’t here any more. One day he clutched at his chest and cried out. The attendant thought he was acting up and left him for two days before removing the body. It had been high summer and he had began to swell — swell and smell. Odors stronger than today — his stomach swelling like a pregnant woman’s. It had given her new nightmares — something different to dream about rather than the same old events over and over. The nightmares of before made her scream, but she would never remember them when she woke up.
Most of the time they told her she was a good girl. She ate her slop. Didn’t mess outside the bucket. Combed her hair with her fingers and had stopped asking when her visitors were coming. When the others came, the ones who dressed in fancy clothes, who laughed and pointed, or whose women in tight dresses fainted at the sight of the inmates, she was the one to be called forward. She could still make her curtesy. Sometimes a gentleman would give her a penny. Once a lady gave her a ribbon from her own hair. The attendants always took this, but she remembered to thank the gentle people politely. If she was good they didn’t tie her up. But last night she had screamed and screamed. She had set off the others. The cackling, the shrieking, and wailing. The noise had been akin to what must lie behind the doors to hell. So they had tied her. Tied her tight as they could with the cloths torn from her shift. But she had been working them all day now. Wrap me in rotten cloth, tie me in rotten cloth and see what happens.
Today she felt different. She felt a new will. For the first time since many summers ago she thought of escape. She remembered that when she had been put in here she had not been mad.
But most of them put in here were not mad to start with. True there with the simpletons like drooling Dick, but he was harmless until you scared him. Then he lashed out and he was big and strong. He’d broken an attendant’s jaw. That’s when the new doctor had been brought in. The new doctor with his pills and potions and new ideas. And with him had come the man with the lantern.
She tore one leg free. The old cloth burned against her skin, but it gave in a sudden rip. Now the other. Then her final hand. She was free. She sat up. Her shift was wet and it smelled. She did not know if it was her mess or someone else’s but they had tied her to it and she stank now. She stank of the madhouse. Tears trickled silently down her cheeks. You learned quickly to cry quietly in here.
What had she come to? If she died today would one soul in the world mark her passing? She slipped off the bed. Her body aches. She knows she is not old, but she is so often confined to small places that moving is strange to her. Flexing her limbs, slowly, like a beetle emerging after the rain, she walked across the room. Her head swung from side to side as she listened for the sound of anyone coming. There is light from between the bars of the windows, but it is so long since anyone has washed a window that the glass is blackened. She almost stumbles into the corner with Mad Aubrey. He yammers at her, at the end of his chain, the iron collar bites into his neck, but he doesn’t care. She remembers once he got loose. He had attacked four women before they got him back. They had to pull him off the last. You can see in his eyes all he thinks about is ‘sins of the flesh’. Her mother warned her about men like him — at least she thinks it was her mother. This is one of the faces she only sees in dreams.
She reaches the door. It will be locked, but if she hides beside it there is a chance she can dart out when someone comes in. She did this once before. She saw a garden before they caught her and brought her back. She felt the sun on her face. It had been worth the punishment. This time, is different, this time she will get beyond the garden. She waits crouched in the shadows. It grows dark. No matter, she will see the moon. Her legs ache with squatting, but it is a familiar enough pain to almost be a friend, a comfort.
Then she hears him, whistling. He always whistles. This is the new man the new doctor has brought in. He has a lantern. He carries his lantern up high, so he can see them. He can tell each of them from another. He is not like the other attendants. He wants to know them. He wants to understand them. He wants to know what hurts them worse.
She shivers, but does not run back to her filthy bed. Tonight she will get out. His light reaches through the small grill of the door. It flickers as he walks and the flame dances. She hears the sound of keys, the scratching at the lock and then the creak of the opening door. He is a pace into the room when she darts behind his back, quiet and as fleet as a mouse. She is out into the cavernous corridor. She runs, her bare feet slapping against the rocky floor.
She runs straight into the arms of the new doctor. ‘Straker’ the others called him. She runs into Straker, who catches her in his arms, but flings her to the floor, so he can drag her back by the hair. He does not want to dirty his clothes more than he must.
“Oh, Mr Lantern,” he calls, “there is a lady here who requires your attention.”
She knows what they will do. She begins to whimper. She cannot help it. He drags her back into the room, throws her onto the bed and rips away her foul shift. Then he beckons the attendant over. She sees his wide, yellow toothed grin as he comes towards her.
“What do we have here, doctor?” He asks. “Another in need of salvation? I will burn the sin from her.”
“If only you had been a good girl,” says the doctor with a sigh. He holds her as the lantern man comes closer and closer, as he reaches down and touches the white hot lantern against her naked skin, over and over and over again. Now she is screaming. Now she is no more than pain. Now she is burning like a hog over the fire. She smells her skin crisp. Hears their laugh and knows there is no hope.
“Alex! Alex!”
There is a voice calling. It drags her back to consciousness, to the pain. She resists, but the voice keeps calling. And then a miracle, beyond her torturers, beyond the lantern, she sees a door made of light. This must be what it is like to die, she thinks. She reaches up and out of her body. She floats towards the beautiful light …
Alex woke in Rusty’s arms. “I thought I had lost you too,” he said. His eyes are suspiciously full. Alex rolled away from him.
Rusty showed her his phone on it is a message, “Alex is in trouble. In the tunnels. Go now. The danger is mortal.”
“I’ve no idea who sent it, but thank god I came. If …, if ….” He reached out and hugged her hard.
7. Reflections of Reality
How Alex got home would always remain a mystery to her. Not the sort of mystery she usually solved, bu
t rather a foggy, confused enigma of walking home with Rusty supporting her. Again and again the sights, sounds, smells, and the pain came back to her. Alex knew rationally that none of these were her memories, but even as she spotted the jaunty little fox that lived in her lane she kept fearing that any moment she would be back in the asylum.
When they reached her house, Alex dug in her pocket for her key and silently handed it to Rusty with a shaking hand. “There’s no way I’ll get up the tree.”
“But your parents?” asked Rusty.
“With luck they will be working late. Something has to be in my favor tonight.”
“Your funeral,” said Rusty. He slid the key into the lock and turned it carefully. At another time Alex would have laughed at the extreme care he used to sneak into the house. No one appeared as Rusty crept across the hall and then pushing Alex before him, charged up the stairs. At this point, even in her bemused state Alex recognised that Rusty had given up all attempt at being quiet and was instead now fleeing in abject panic.
As she locked her bedroom door behind them Alex said, “I didn’t know you disliked my parents that much?”
“I don’t,” said Rusty. “But we have no idea who might be down there.”
Alex shrugged and dropped into her seat.
“So who is this guy who texted me and how did he get my number?”
“That’s c0nundrum. Second letter is a zero not an ‘o’. I have no idea how he got your number. He seems good at that kind of thing.”
“Is he at college?”
“Again, no idea,” said Alex. “He hired me to look into what was happening there, so for all I know he could be another student or even the dean.”
“So you’ve been telling him what was happening?”
Alex nodded. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Rusty scowled. “No,” he said.
“Whatever,” said Alex. “I’ve spent the last few hours being tortured in an insane asylum.”
“What?” said Rusty.
Alex outlined her experience. The more she said the more Rusty’s scowl deepened. “So I think c0nundrum was right. The girls did uncover something with a psychic link — the lantern. They’ve awoken a whole load of — let’s call it emotional energy — down there.”
“This is nuts,” said Rusty.
“Come on, you can’t tell me that you’ve never gone somewhere and felt it had the wrong vibes.”
“Vibes? Are we time traveling too?”
Alex looked blank.
“Back to the sixties,” snapped Rusty.
“A bad atmosphere then. Almost everyone has felt that. I’m not suggesting the place is haunted only that there is a lot of undissipated energy there. Asylums back then were horrific.”
“As Dr. Straker mentioned at dinner.”
“You think I imagined it all?” said Alex angrily.
“I think it’s a big coincidence, don’t you? Or are you going to tell me now that Dr. Straker is c0nundrum?”
“No. I don’t think so. No,” said Alex. “But maybe he knew what we were up to?”
“How?”
Alex rubbed her face with her hands. “Look, it doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is we have to research this link and banish whatever is down there. I have some ideas about how that might be done. There are a lot of exorcism type ceremonies and although this isn’t a person, I think we could adapt one.”
Rusty got to his feet. “I can’t spend any more time with you,” he said. “I need to be at my girlfriend’s bedside. I need to be there for her when she wakes up.”
“But she might not if we don’t sort this out,” said Alex. “We don’t know how badly she was affected by …”
“Enough,” said Rusty loudly. “Enough. I don’t believe in this psychic crap. All you girls are behaving hysterically. There is always — always — a scientific explanation for any strange phenomenon. It might be nice to believe that everything bad that happens is done by some preternatural power, but you know what, Alex, it isn’t. Bad things happen because there are bad people in this world. If I were you I’d cut all communication with this c0nundrum.” He unlocked her door. “And tell him never to call me again.” He slammed the door on the way out.
Alex woke up in her dream. It was a skill she usually prized, but this time she became lucid as her wrists and ankles were being strapped down. She could feel the rough cloth in her mouth. It tasted sour, bitter and earthy. She did her best to stop herself identifying the sources of the taste. Raising her head slightly, she saw she was not in the asylum but in a small white room. Bright, blinding light flooded the room so intensely she found it hard to distinguish any of the room’s features. Clearly it was not the old asylum, but it felt familiar. Very familiar. Under her the couch had a bump that pressed into the bottom of her spine. She remembered that. Remembered telling them how sore it was after — after what? Knowledge hovered on the edge of her mind, but she couldn’t reach it. Then she heard footsteps, regular and measured. They came nearer and nearer until a door opened in the wall. Dr. Straker walked in. He looked much as he had when he had dined at her house, only he was wearing a white coat. He smiled at her as he came over to the bed. He lifted the chart from the end of her bed and flicked through it. “It’s all going well, Alex,” he said in his soft voice. “Nothing to worry about. We’ll be sending you back to your parents very shortly. Only one more trial.”
The word ‘trial’ terrified her. She knew she had survived them before, but each time she had come closer and closer to — what? Madness? Death? She couldn’t remember.
Alex made a concerted effort to look at her hands. She shifted them within the restraints. Her hands. Her world. Her dream.
She woke in bed. Early morning sunlight shone through the windows promising a glorious day. Her heart beat faster. Her skin stuck to the sheets with sweat. She felt the end of the panic flooding through her. “I’m home,” she thought, “I’m safe. It’s over.”
She went to lift her head to look at her hands and discovered she couldn’t move it. She tried to wiggle her fingers. The same effect. She had little sense of her legs let alone trying to move her toes. Her whole body felt fixed in place as surely as if she had been preserved in a transparent concrete. She tensed her neck muscles again and a searing pain shot through her neck. A sob caught in her throat, but she was unable to vocalise it.
Her eyes. She could move her eyes around the room. She looked around the extent of her vision. This was without doubt her house. She did not believe she was dreaming — she could feel the breeze from the open window on her face. Usually the sense of touch was dulled in her dreams.
Alex tried to reason it out. She knew it was possible to dislocate part of your neck when you were sleeping. Sometimes you even needed to a doctor to put it back in place for you. Then there was the drug your body made while you were asleep. It flooded you with a chemical so you did not act out your dreams. It was a safety value to stop you hurting yourself or others. It was also why in non-lucid dreams you always ran slower, couldn’t hit hard and generally flopped around. Your brain and your body got confused by it all. And, serotongeric neural populations — something about that. Commonly called sleep paralysis. She’d read about it. Sometimes hallucinations came with it. It could last from seconds to minutes, not longer. She needed to relax. Wait for her body to catch up with her mind.
Then she saw it. On the wall opposite her was a circle of bright white. No bigger than a dinner plate it blazed with a fierce unnatural light. Alex knew at once it was no reflection. As she watched the light began to move up the wall. Slowly it climbed over posters and pictures, not leaving a mark, but Alex knew it was searching. But for what? It reached the ceiling and began to circle in wider and wider arcs across the room. Alex fought with all her will power to move. Nothing. It was getting closer. She had no idea what it was, but the way the circle moved showed a sentience behind it. A circle of light couldn’t be alive, but could someone or something be using it
to search — and then it hit her — search for her. The light arced closer. The next sweep or the one after it would reach her. Could it harm her?
Alex felt suddenly in terrible danger. She knew with an animal instinct more primary than thought that she had to get away. She summoned her will power. Even rolling off the bed would help. Maybe she could crawl underneath.
Nothing.
She could not move and it would be upon in seconds. Blazing light, white blazing light like …
The doorknob rattled. “Alex, are you coming down for breakfast or what?” called her mother. Alex sat up. The light had vanished. “Coming,” she managed to croak. Her whole body trembled. She put her arms around herself and hugged tight.
Rusty had intended to go into college early to set up an experiment. He hadn’t managed to eat any breakfast. He felt angry. He wasn’t sure if he was more angry with Alex or with himself. It was a close thing. All the rubbish she had spouted had infuriated him. She lived in some kind of fantasy land. He had to survive in the real world. In the world where his mother was an invalid and his girlfriend was in hospital. There was no room for any of Alex’s silliness in any of that. His life was too full of pain to entertain her childish fantasies. That is what he had been telling himself all morning, so why he had walked into the local town library and asked to see any records pertaining to the old asylum he had no idea.
He sat perched on a hard stool pouring over old newspapers. His hands were already dirty with ink. He found nothing. He got up to leave when the librarian, Mrs. Hutton, said, “you could try the old micro fiche section.”
