Dead Stream Curse: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked

  He shook his head.

  “Not much anymore. It feels better if I don’t straighten it. I don’t know if I thanked you, but thank you, Liv, and George too. I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

  Liv didn’t like to think of that either, and she wanted to probe Stephen. His mother must have said something, but she knew asking would only upset him.

  Liv pulled several sprigs of grass and began to braid them together. It was hard to look at Stephen. Her throat had grown thick with tears she refused to shed.

  “I’m dreading your being gone,” she murmured.

  “I’ll still come home. I’ll hop the trains. I am an expert stowaway now.” He winked at her.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. She wanted him to come home, but she thought again of him locked in the cellar, his knee swollen and dark.

  “She’s better when I’m not home. When I’m at boarding school, she gets lonely, so when I do come home, she’s nicer.”

  “Has she always been like this, Stephen? Your mother?”

  Stephen gazed out at the lake; his mouth turned down.

  “I think so. Maybe not in the days before I came along. She never wanted children. My dad did, but not her.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  He chuckled and flicked a small green bug that had landed on his leg.

  “Yep. On my thirteenth birthday. My birthdays were always hard for her. She talked about her labor and how painful it was. ‘Your dad wanted you, he should have carried and given birth to you. Except he couldn’t have, because he was weak. All of you men are weak,’ Stephen said her words in a shrill voice that made Liv’s heart give a little throb. She wanted to hug him, and almost did, but he’d turned away and his body had grown as rigid as the trees beside them.

  “My mother is throwing a costume party on Halloween. Will you come?” he asked.

  Liv started at the abrupt change in subject.

  “A costume party?”

  Stephen nodded, some of the anger draining from his expression.

  “She hosts one every year. I’ve never been allowed to go. I’m usually away at school. I want you to come. We’ll wear costumes. She’ll never know.”

  Liv had never been to a costume party. Once in a while, Liv heard her mother reading about dress-up parties in New York City, but such affairs seemed to happen in another world.

  “I thought she didn’t like people in the house?”

  “She doesn’t allow me to bring people into the house. She has people over all the time. She throws parties, hosts dinners, entertains men.”

  Liv blinked at him, trying to make sense of this mysterious mother who was throwing parties while the rest of the world ate cabbage and wore shoes that flapped when they walked. And abused her son, let’s not forget that, she thought.

  “We’ll do the curse, too,” Stephen added. “I’ll invite Veronica. I mean, what better night than Halloween?”

  Stephen’s face lit at the suggestion, but Liv’s heart sank.

  “Sure, a costume party and a curse. This will be quite a Halloween.”

  Chapter 28

  September 1965

  Mack

  Mack’s first morning in the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane dawned like many others, except his bed was narrow, his room cold, and a large man with a lazy eye and a habit of grinding his teeth woke him repeatedly in the night asking if he’d brought the sandwiches.

  Mack had gotten loaded the night before and stumbled into the psychiatric hospital, crooning about his lost love and insisting he be committed.

  They complied.

  He’d woken once in the night to Corey’s ghost hovering over his bed, glaring down at him from empty black eyes. Mack’s roommate had howled like he was on fire, and an orderly had rushed in to calm the man. The patient continued to blubber and stare into the corner where Corey had been.

  Mack wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake.

  Each hour that had passed since his night in the dead man’s cabin took him further from the clarity of those moments.

  George Corey had told him what he must do, and yet… had the man really been there at all? Or was he merely a hallucination from the fear of being lost in the forest?

  “Mack Gallagher?” an orderly with arms bulging beneath his white uniform called across the room. “It’s time to meet with your doctor.”

  Mack followed the man out of the ward and down the hall. They stepped into an office as sterile and bland as Mack’s own room.

  A man with startling pale blue eyes looked up from his desk.

  “Have a seat,” the doctor told him.

  He was tall and thin, with hair as black as coal and pale, unblemished skin. He reminded Mack, rather uneasily, of Dracula. He’d watched the film with his mother at the marquee as a boy. For weeks after, each time he stood before a mirror, he’d spin around expecting to see the Count standing behind him, clawed hands raised and pointed teeth bared.

  Mack glanced at the small gold placard on the man’s desk. It read Dr. Stephen Kaiser, PhD.

  Mack sat in the chair. His head pulsed behind his eyes, and he wanted to crawl into a dark hole and sleep for three days.

  “Mr. Gallagher, my name is Dr. Kaiser. I’ll be your psychiatrist here at the Northern Michigan Asylum. Explain to me briefly why you committed yourself.” Kaiser opened a folder and lifted his pen.

  “I have a problem with drinking,” Mack told him, pressing a finger hard into his right temple.

  Kaiser arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

  He asked several other questions, and then slid a series of ink-splattered pages to Mack.

  “Tell me what you see on the first page.”

  “A bird.”

  “And this one?” Kaiser held up the second page.

  “A man riding a bicycle.”

  “And this.” Kaiser held up the third.

  “A hag stone,” Mack murmured, because that was what he saw in the dark blot with the hole in its center.

  Kaiser looked up sharply and gazed at him for several long seconds.

  “And this one?” Kaiser asked, pushing the next in front of Mack.

  “A mountain.”

  “I’m curious about your third answer. What is a hag stone?” Kaiser asked, linking his fingers together on his desk.

  Mack sighed, clenched his eyes shut against the pounding in his head. The lights were getting to him.

  “It’s a rock with a hole in the middle.”

  “That’s it? A rock with a hole in it? Interesting. Tell me, where did you hear of such a thing?”

  Mack glanced behind him, but the orderly had left. He considered the truth, but he was in an insane asylum. He didn’t want the doctor to order electro-shock therapy if Mack suggested he was being haunted.

  “My grandmother. She used to collect rocks by the river, and she called the ones with a hole in them hag stones.”

  Kaiser’s eyes remained fixed on Mack.

  “Are you in pain, Mack?” Kaiser asked.

  “I had a few too many last night. Feels like a horse and buggy ran right across here.” Mack drew a line across his forehead.

  Kaiser shuffled the ink blots into a folder.

  “You’re here to dry out,” Kaiser said finally. “I’ll advise morphine and rest.”

  Mack studied the man’s hands. They were long and slender, his fingernails so pale they almost looked purple.

  Kaiser stood and opened the door, sticking his head out.

  “Edmund, the patient is ready to return to Ward Six.”

  * * *

  Mack sat in a wooden chair near the window. His head throbbed and his guts felt as if someone had reached inside and twisted them in his fist.

  Two days without a drink had him ready to keep the ghost, if he could walk into town and get a shot of whiskey.

  A man beside him shuffled a deck. Each time he flipped the top card, the ace of spades
appeared.

  “Ace of spades,” the man muttered.

  In the corner of the room, a patient gently bumped his head against the wall. When Edmund, the orderly, attempted to steer the patient away, the man screamed as if Edmund had sliced him with a razorblade.

  Mack closed his eyes. He needed to retrieve the wooden box and hag stones, which he’d hidden on the grounds before checking himself in to the world’s most deranged hotel.

  George Corey had been clear about Mack’s need of the stones. Without them, he would be unable to recognize George’s daughter — and more, the man who murdered him.

  “I need some fresh air,” Mack told another orderly, Marvin.

  Marvin shook his head and gestured at one of the tall windows. Rain gusted against the glass, obscuring the world beyond.

  Mack tried to read, attempted a game of checkers with a man who preferred to stack the black and red pieces into little towers and then flick them over yelling, ‘Take that, Larry, you one-eyed son of a bitch!’

  Eventually Mack retired to his room.

  As he lay on the bed, he noticed a dark figure from the corner of his eye. When he turned, the corner stood empty.

  “Maybe I am losing it,” he muttered before falling into a fitful sleep.

  * * *

  Mack cupped the stone in his hand, leaning his forehead against the side of his knuckles as if he had a headache — which, miraculously, he didn’t.

  Discreetly, he half-opened his hand and peered through the hag stone at the group of doctors gathered in the hallway. He didn’t know what he was looking for.

  He had asked Corey for names, descriptions, but the man had shaken his head.

  “There are rules in death magic. The stones will be your guides.”

  The men looked ordinary, white coats and grim expressions as they took turns looking through the small viewing window into a newly admitted patient’s room.

  “Wake up!” a voice shrieked in his ear, and Mack stumbled, almost dropping the stone.

  A small, wiry man with a thin black mustache stepped toward him.

  “No sleeping in Nam, you stupid shit. You want a bullet in your back?” The man shook his head angrily and stormed past Mack.

  Mack gritted his teeth and rested against the wall, stuffing the stone into the pocket of his jeans.

  After three days, they’d given him his regular clothes and he’d been surprised how much it elated him to wear his own pants again. Primarily due to his size and the fact that the patient attire clung too tightly to his chest and barely fit over his thighs at all.

  Still, most of the shakes had worn off, and the headaches had slowly vanished with the help of the morphine. For the first time in his adult life, Mack was three days sober.

  * * *

  Mack shuffled into Dr. Kaiser’s office and took a seat.

  Kaiser glanced up from a form he’d been reading.

  “How are you feeling, Mack? Edmund mentioned the night sweats have subsided?”

  Mack nodded, touching the stone in his pocket.

  “Today’s been better.” Mack held up his hand to show the doctor that the tremble in his fingers had calmed. “The truth is, Dr. Kaiser, physically I feel okay, but mentally,” he tapped his head, “I want a drink like I’ve been trapped in the desert for a month. I think about it constantly. I thought maybe you had a book about head stuff, like how to change your mind.”

  Kaiser stood and turned to the bookshelf behind him, nodding.

  “I do have some books about changing habits,” Kaiser offered.

  As his fingers brushed over the titles, Mack slipped a stone from his pocket and held it to his eye.

  A black, swirling mist surrounded the doctor. It seeped out of him and leaked over the walls and floor. The darkness crawled like oozing black vines up the plaster and across the ceiling.

  Mack sat frozen, the stone pressed against his eye.

  The doctor selected a title and turned abruptly.

  Mack jerked his hand from his face, and the stone skittered across the floor.

  The doctor seemed not to have noticed.

  Mack’s hands shook as he took the book from Dr. Kaiser.

  Kaiser held the book, studying Mack for a moment before releasing it.

  “Guess that tremble is lingering on a bit,” Kaiser murmured. “Benzodiazepine should do the trick.”

  “Sure, doc, whatever you think,” Mack told him, forcing an evenness into his voice.

  “The mind is very powerful, Mr. Gallagher. To control it takes continued effort, but most all, a desire to change.”

  Not taking his eyes from Mack, Kaiser sat back in his chair.

  “You’re free to go,” he said.

  Mack glanced at the rug where the stone had landed. He could not retrieve it without alerting Dr. Kaiser to its presence.

  “Thanks,” Mack grumbled and stood.

  * * *

  “We have a problem, Mack.” The voice roused him from a deep sleep.

  It was Kaiser’s voice, low and accusatory. The doctor had found the stone and understood the implications. Mack was trapped in the asylum. The man could subject him to anything.

  Mack sat up and swung his legs off the bed, ready to fight.

  The room stood empty save for Rodney, Mack’s roommate, snoring with every exhale.

  Mack’s own breath rushed out in a whoosh.

  Kaiser was not in the room.

  * * *

  Mack stepped into the canteen and inhaled the rich, spicy smell of chili.

  “Chili?” he asked the guy next to him.

  “Yep, and they don’t skimp on the garlic either.” The man rubbed his belly and winked at Mack.

  Rufus was on another floor at the asylum. He suffered from seizures and a disease that had him falling asleep at inconvenient times. Mack had first met him when the man slumped over while standing in line at the canteen.

  “Out like a light,” another patient had told him with a nudge.

  On the opposite side of the room, squeezed between two orderlies, stood a small, fine-boned woman with long golden hair and slanted blue eyes. She looked like a grown porcelain doll, and Mack did a double-take when he saw her.

  “Who is that?” Mack jostled Rufus, who glanced toward the woman.

  “Sophia,” Rufus mumbled from the corner of his mouth. Unlike many of the patients in the asylum, Rufus adhered to the same social expectations of the world beyond the asylum. You could talk about people, but you didn’t make it obvious. “Sophia the Seer.”

  Mack looked at her again. The woman watched him. A small frown turned down her pretty mouth, and her forehead was creased with worry. She locked eyes with Mack for an instant and then looked quickly away.

  Her expression unsettled him.

  Mack got his cup of chili and followed Rufus into the sunny day. They walked back to their building, but Mack turned around again and again, looking for Sophia.

  When she stepped from the canteen, the women orderlies stayed close, as if they didn’t dare let her out of their sight.

  “What’s with the guard dogs?” Mack asked.

  Rufus shrugged.

  “Dr. Kaiser claims she’s dangerous. I’ve only seen her at the canteen twice, and she’s been here for years. She’s in the high-risk women’s ward.”

  Mack frowned.

  “She doesn’t look high risk to me.”

  “They never do,” Rufus said matter-of-factly.

  “What’s with the name? Sophia the Seer?” Mack asked, watching the women orderlies hurry Sophia back to Building Fifty.

  Rufus looked sidelong at Mack.

  “People say she speaks with the dead.”

  Chapter 29

  September 1965

  Mack

  A twenty-dollar bribe bought him five minutes with Sophia.

  A quickly arranged meeting set up by two orderlies in a seldom used hallway.

  “Are you George Corey’s daughter?” Mack asked her.

  Soph
ia stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes looked red and swollen, as if she’d been crying.

  “No,” she told him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She pressed her lips together and gazed past him.

  “What do you want?” She sounded weary, as if she barely had the energy to stand, let alone meet him secretly in a hallway.

  “Can you see the… the ghost?”

  Sophia’s eyes stayed fixed beyond him, and then she blinked away. She nodded.

  “Does he speak? I’m trying to find his daughter,” Mack went on.

  “He doesn’t speak. He watches you. That is all.”

  Mack frowned.

  “I’ve been doing what he says, but I need help. His daughter is here in the asylum.”

  Sophia’s eyes brightened.

  “There are rumors that a woman is being kept in the attic of the women’s cottage.”

  “In the attic?” Mack grew excited.

  A door banged open at the end of the hall, and the orderlies stopped talking.

  The woman orderly grabbed Sophia’s arm and pulled her roughly away.

  “I’m sorry,” Mack called out. “I’m sorry you’re here.”

  Sophia offered him a nod; her mouth pressed grimly as they disappeared down the stairs.

  * * *

  Mack sat in a rocking chair that creaked back and forth. The sound grated on him, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

  He tried to remember that night in Corey’s cabin.

  You must retrieve an item from the man who murdered me. You will find it near his heart, Corey had told him.

  Dr. Kaiser was the murderer. He had to be, but why? The man gave him the creeps, sure, but he couldn’t exactly picture him sinking a knife into George Corey’s heart. Why had he done it?

  Mack imagined Kaiser sitting across from him in his office. In the breast pocket of the doctor’s coat, Mack had noticed a small bulge. Perhaps the item Corey meant for him to take was in there. But how could he get it?