The Quiet Ones

by Brandon Massey

  Ben screamed. He swung the bat.

  The meat of the bat crashed against the doctor’s shoulder. He staggered, but didn’t fall.

  “Tell me how to let them out!” Ben shouted, hand pressed against his open wound, trying to staunch the bleeding.

  Dr. Faustin was shaking his head.

  “This is insanity,” Faustin said. “No more.”

  The surgeon took off running, footsteps echoing down the corridor.

  69

  Mallory heard Ben shriek in agony. She wanted to believe it was someone else, perhaps someone Ben had attacked in self-defense, but in her heart, she knew it was him. Hearing it brought her to a halt in the middle of a white corridor lined with more isolation cells.

  Tell me how to let them out, Ben shouted to his mystery assailant.

  “Ben!” Mallory screamed into her phone. “Ben, baby, are you okay?”

  She heard an unfamiliar man say something that sounded like no more, and terror leaped in her chest like a wild thing.

  “Ben!” she said again.

  “I’m okay,” Ben finally answered, but he didn’t sound okay at all. His labored breaths roared like a bellows through the speaker. “Ran into the mad doctor himself. He cut me good, but I’ll live. I think he’s outta here, Mal.”

  “I’ll come back for you.”

  “Don’t even think about it, babe. You keep going. You’ve got this.”

  Mallory swallowed the lump of emotion that tightened her throat. She lowered the phone.

  Leah had wandered to one of the cells: number 19. She cupped the edges of the porthole, her face pressed to the glass.

  “Leah?” Mallory asked.

  The young woman ignored her. Mallory approached and peered over Leah’s shoulder.

  Her heart skipped.

  Rachel lay on the cot inside.

  Lying on her back, a pillow wedged beneath her head, she appeared unconscious; Mallory remembered seeing her lying on a stretcher as Dr. Faustin rolled her along the corridor. An IV bag hung from a hook on a section of wall above her, the intravenous tube trailing to a port on Rachel’s hand.

  We’re going to remove one of her kidneys . . .

  “Come on,” Mallory said to Leah. “We’re going to get her out of there. We’re going to get all of these ladies out.”

  Leah stood as rigid as a stone pillar. Mallory touched her shoulder. Leah shrugged off her touch and hissed at her like a feral cat. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “Do you know her, too?” Mallory asked. “You do, don’t you?”

  She saw the answer reflected in Leah’s glistening eyes before Leah returned her attention to the window.

  “Okay,” Mallory said. “I think I understand. But I’ve got to keep moving.”

  Leah didn’t even look as Mallory edged away.

  70

  The woman known as Leah—that wasn’t her birth name, but it was the name to which she had learned to answer—stared into the cell, her eyes glassy with an unending flow of hot tears.

  She had hoped and prayed that her younger sister would find a way to escape Sanctuary. But there she was, lying on a bed after a horrific surgery, a victim of the same miserable fate that had ensnared Leah.

  Leah wanted to help Mallory, but she couldn’t tear herself away from her sister. They had lost each other once before, when Leah had been sent to the stable, doctored up, and dispatched into the town to serve the men of Ratliff. She couldn’t risk losing her sister again.

  She banged her fists against the glass. The window was impenetrable and barely registered the impact of her punches. But her sister’s eyelids fluttered. Her head shifted toward the door.

  Sis, I’m here! Leah screamed, but her voice was only in her mind, despite what Ben had told her.

  You can actually speak, Leah. Father didn’t really remove your larynx. It was a trick. Please, believe me.

  She wanted to believe Ben had told her the truth. He was a good man—a man of such upstanding character that he didn’t succumb to temptation when she had been commanded to seduce him back at the motel. He wouldn’t have lied to her.

  Her sister’s eyes shone with pain—but recognition, too.

  Leah’s dry lips parted.

  I’m here for you, sis. I’ll never leave you again!

  But only a whimper came out.

  71

  Rushing into a deserted, green passageway, fearful that she was already covering old ground, Mallory at last discovered something new: a black arrow.

  The arrow pointed to another passageway on the left.

  Mallory hurried in that direction. The short corridor ended at a black wall.

  An elevator with silver doors was set in the wall, too.

  Only Liz acting as Father would have required an elevator to travel throughout the stable.

  There was only one call button; she didn’t know whether the car traveled up or down, and she didn’t see a position indicator above the doorway that might have told her how many floors the elevator served.

  Heart thrumming, she pressed the call button.

  She heard the car traveling along a shaft from somewhere above her. A few seconds later, the steel doors parted.

  The interior of the car was white as the inside of an eggshell. She crossed the threshold and examined the operating panel.

  There were buttons for L1—the current floor—and L2.

  She chewed her bottom lip. Her finger hesitated above the L2 button. The elevator chimed. The doors began to slide shut.

  She slipped outside the car.

  She didn’t trust it. They could have controlled the elevator, trapped her inside like an insect immobilized in amber.

  Besides, if there was an elevator, she reasoned, there also had to be stairs somewhere close. She hurried farther along the black corridor.

  Not far ahead, on her left, she reached a doorway. The image of a staircase was printed on a panel beside the door, in white paint.

  The steel lever was cold to the touch, but it yielded to her. A dimly lighted stairwell lay beyond. Concrete stairs and a black iron railing spiraled upward.

  She pounded up the steps, her feet, protected only by athletic socks, almost noiseless as she ascended.

  The staircase ended at a landing marked by a windowless black door.

  This has to be it, she thought, her mouth dry.

  She pulled the door open.

  A short hallway—white tile and black walls and ceiling, lit by tubes of fluorescents—lay beyond. The corridor terminated at an open doorway that led into to a large, brightly lit chamber.

  From her vantage point, she saw displays screens in that room and panels with blinking lights.

  Yes! Finally.

  As Mallory started forward, she heard the familiar whirring of a motor. She froze in mid-step.

  Liz rolled through the doorway in the wheelchair. She was in full Father mode again. The tinted glasses, the beard, the Afro wig, the gloves. The black undertaker’s suit.

  Liz stopped just past the room’s threshold, blocking Mallory’s path.

  “Liz,” Mallory said, her voice cracking on her sister’s name. “You said we have to free the girls. That’s what I’m here to do. Let me go in there and do it.”

  Liz pursed her lips.

  Then she pushed out of the wheelchair.

  “Do you know the happiest day of my life, Princess Butterfly?” Liz said, and her voice was alien to Mallory—it was neither Father nor Liz, but something altogether different, sharp-edged as a razor. “It’s the day I slit that old motherfucker’s throat and took over everything.”

  “Liz, no.” Mallory trembled. “It’s me, your sister. Come back to me, Liz.”

  Liz snarled, and charged her. Mallory raised her arms in a defensive posture. She had the pocketknife Ben had given her, but she didn’t want to use it, didn’t want to hurt her.

  Liz grabbed a fistful of Mallory’s hair and yanked back Mallory’s head. Mallory tried to push her away, but her sister was
almost inhumanly strong. She drove her fist into Mallory’s ribs. Mallory cried out and buckled over, agony rippling across her abdomen.

  “Liz will never get the light again!” Liz shrieked.

  Gagging on pain, Mallory tried to pull herself upright. Liz backhanded her across the face so hard that Mallory saw stars. Mallory wobbled and teetered to the cold floor.

  “Please, Liz,” Mallory gasped. “I know you’re there . . . sis . . . please . . .”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Liz got on top of Mallory, her knees pressing against Mallory’s chest. She wrapped her hands around Mallory’s windpipe.

  She squeezed.

  Mallory gasped for air.

  She felt her eyes bulging. Her lungs burning.

  Liz levered all her weight into her arms and tightened her grip on Mallory’s neck, her hands like steel clamps, her face contorted in a mask of pure evil.

  Darkness leaked into the edges of Mallory’s vision.

  It’s over.

  She was going to die like their mother died, choked to death.

  The darkness was spreading, swallowing her.

  She felt something in her hand. What was it? Her brain was steeped in fog. She couldn’t remember.

  Her finger touched the edge of it.

  Yes. The knife. A little blade, but sharp. Deadly.

  “Time . . . to . . . be . . . quiet!” Liz squeezed.

  With her last reserve of ebbing strength, Mallory swung the blade at her sister.

  The knife punctured Liz’s throat and slid deep into her flesh.

  Liz grabbed for her wounded neck, glasses tumbling off her face. Her eyes flashed wildly. Gasping, she pulled the blade out. Blood flowed from the wound, in thick, dark gouts. She gawked at the gore on her hands as if she had no idea where it had come from.

  “I’m sorry, sis,” Liz whispered.

  She collapsed on top of Mallory.

  Shuddering with sobs, Mallory held her.

  72

  Her shirt drenched with Liz’s blood, Mallory crawled to the control room, knocking over the wheelchair as she dragged herself forward. Once inside the chamber, she grabbed a desk chair and used it to lever herself to her feet.

  She felt dizzy, and her body ached terribly, but this wasn’t the time to pass out or take a breather.

  Ben was talking to her over the open phone line; she realized he had been talking to her for a while and she hadn’t been listening.

  “Baby, are you there?” he asked. “I’m with Cecil now. What happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I found the room, give me a minute.”

  The wall of perhaps a dozen screens, those screens further sectioned into numbered quadrants, displayed every square foot of the stables with the exclusion of the control room itself. She saw Rachel, and many other young women imprisoned in isolation. She saw Nimrod skulking along a corridor. Saw Ben kneeling on the floor, Cecil’s head in his lap. And Leah standing in front of Rachel’s cell in the same spot where Mallory had left her.

  But she didn’t see Tabitha, and if she knew her niece, she was headed for only one destination.

  She studied the control panel. It featured a plentitude of buttons and blinking lights that served questionable purposes.

  But the big green button in the middle of the console was marked with a single word: Release.

  She mashed the button. A buzzer sounded, three quick blasts of noise.

  That should do it.

  In the passageway behind her, someone screamed, a soul-wrenching cry of grief.

  Mallory lowered her head. Slowly, she swung around and shuffled to the doorway.

  Weeping, Tabitha cradled Liz in her arms. She rocked back and forth.

  “I’m sorry,” Mallory said. “I’m sorry for all of us.”

  Tabitha turned her tear-streaked face to Mallory. So much hatred seethed in her niece’s eyes that Mallory took a step back.

  “You ruined everything,” Tabitha said.

  Tabitha picked up a gun that she had brought with her: Cecil’s revolver.

  “Tabitha, no!” Mallory said.

  “I’d rather die than go to prison.” Tabitha jammed the muzzle in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

  73

  Aching but resolute, Mallory staggered through the multi-hued corridors.

  In the white sections, the cell doors had sprung open. Young women shuffled out of their prisons, their faces confused and hesitant.

  “Help is coming,” Mallory said to each of them. “You’re free now. And you can speak, too. You’ve always had your voice, sister.”

  She came across Leah. Leah had her arm slung over Rachel’s shoulder and carried Rachel’s IV bag. They picked their way forward along the hallway.

  Rachel smiled, weakly, when she saw Mallory.

  “Thank you, both,” Mallory said.

  “My sister,” Leah said, in a whispery voice as delicate as a butterfly wing. She wiped tears from her eyes. “Thank you . . . Mallory.”

  Rachel, Leah, oh my God, Mallory thought, as understanding sank over her. The sisters Liz had told her about, the impetus for Liz to reach out to Mallory. They were the ones who had inspired her.

  Because of these two, all of them were free.

  Mallory met up with Ben. He knelt next to Cecil. Cecil’s eyes were watery, but he was alive.

  “Heart attack,” Cecil said, his hand resting against his chest. He coughed. “Ain’t the first one, ain’t gonna be the last. Guess I should stop smokin’ and drinkin’ so damned much.”

  “Thank you.” Mallory clasped his hand.

  Ben gazed at her. “Are you okay, babe? I heard everything, you know.”

  “It’s not over yet,” she said.

  “It sure is, the calvary is here. While I was on lockdown at the town jail, I recorded Norwood’s rant on my phone and sent it to the GBI, FBI, every agency I could think of. The feds are rounding up the chief and his boys as we speak and should be pulling up outside at any second with paramedics, the whole nine.”

  “That’s great news,” Mallory said. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Tabitha, Nimrod?” Ben asked.

  “I wasn’t talking about them, either.”

  “Then I don’t follow you,” Ben said. “Your sister?”

  “Like I said,” Mallory said. “It’s not over yet.”

  74

  Seven months later . . .

  Mallory visited once a week, every Saturday.

  Often, especially at the beginning, Ben accompanied her for moral support. Lately, she preferred to go alone.

  Brookside State Hospital was located outside Athens, Georgia, about a ninety-minute drive from Atlanta. On Saturdays, visitors were accepted for four hours, from nine to one. Mallory liked to arrive shortly before the doors opened, to maximize her time.

  She parked in the visitor’s section of the parking lot, underneath the boughs of a crepe myrtle that had recently begun to bud for spring.

  Brookside currently housed two hundred and eighteen inmates. Only four of them were women.

  All of them had been classified as criminally insane.

  She sent a text message to Ben letting him know she had arrived. He responded with a thumbs-up emoji.

  Ben didn’t bring up the subject of marriage anymore. I’ve finally figured out that no one can pressure you into anything, Mal, he had said one evening during dinner at home, a few months ago. All I know is that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me.

  Oh, I’ll definitely have you, she said, and leaned across the table to kiss him. She clasped his hand, tugged him out of his seat, and guided him to their bedroom. I think I want to have you right now, matter of fact.

  In the visitor’s lobby, Mallory signed in at the reception desk. By then, the guard on duty recognized her and paid her a warm smile.

  She passed through the security checkpoint. An officer conducted her through a series of hallways and finally, to a la
rge outdoor patio. The patio featured wood tables and benches bolted to the concrete slab, but at least it was outside, allowing them to take in the flower-scented air and sunshine.

  Mallory sat on the bench and waited. After about ten minutes, two armed correctional officers brought Liz outside and guided her to the opposite side of the table. Her sister carried a large sketch pad.

  “Hey, sis,” Liz said. “Another wonderful day in paradise, huh?”

  When Mallory had stabbed Liz with the knife, she had missed her sister’s carotid artery by a hair’s width. Liz had lost a large quantity of blood, but she had lived. A new, faded scar marked her neck, overlapping the cut Father had carved into her flesh all those years ago.

  “Hey, you.” Mallory smiled.

  Although Liz wore the orange prison jumpsuit and restraints on her ankles and wrists, she looked good. Her eyes glittered with childlike mirth, and her mischievous smile came easy, like the old Liz from bygone days.

  A staff of state psychiatrists had subjected Liz to an extensive series of examinations. Their conclusion was that Liz suffered from a genuine case of dissociative identity disorder. They had uncovered five distinct personalities, at least two of them dangerously psychotic.

  But none of the doctors had been able to tell Mallory, conclusively, why Liz’s mind had fractured. The prevailing theory was that the sexual abuse she experienced during her childhood, combined with extreme trauma and psychological manipulation at the hands of the original Father, had triggered Liz’s mind to create multiple identities as a survival mechanism.

  During her incarceration, Liz received daily treatment, which mostly involved counseling and occasionally medication. The treatment had successfully kept the most volatile of her personalities—the malevolent Father—at bay. Mallory had not seen Liz lapse into the Father personality even once since her incarceration, and it encouraged her.

  “How’s the book coming along?” Liz asked.

  “In fits and starts, but I’m not quitting,” Mallory said.

  Mallory had taken a leave of absence from her newspaper job. With Ben’s generous support, she asked for eighteen months, unpaid, and her editor had agreed. She suspected her editor secretly hoped she would write a non-fiction book that would bring a fresh outpouring of accolades to the newspaper, but she had been mum about the subject of her project.