White Walls

by HMC

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll protect you.’ She smiled. Freddy was one of the only people to show sympathy instead of suspicion and she appreciated it. She was so tired of telling and hearing about the story over and over. Freddy, with his gentle humour and quirky imagination, always managed to take her mind off troubling thoughts – even as troubling as the recent ones.

  After a while, Freddy went quiet. His face was eerily serious and Sam paid attention.

  ‘We have to get out of here.’ Sam knew it, too. She looked up at her ceiling and her eyes followed the lines of the walls. She was surrounded, caged in – but it wasn’t the walls that kept her there, they could’ve been made of paper, for all she cared.

  The hospital itself couldn’t hold her, but what she had newly discovered about herself would be much more difficult to escape.

  She cared.

  Sam had never truly cared about anyone but her father, and maybe Travis. Now she had Freddy. He was too gentle and sweet to protect himself. She couldn’t just leave him. Sam didn’t even want the murderers to kill George. There had to be another way, other than just running away and leaving everyone else behind. She may’ve thought herself a hard-arse once, but this was serious.

  Sam sat up suddenly. There was only one way out and that was through Jade. But before she could convince her doctor that someone was purposely after them all, she had to convince herself first. Sam wanted proof and couldn’t believe that she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘Come with me.’ She bounced off the bed.

  George Barter was sitting outside, in the courtyard, with a hardcover copy of The Chronicles of Narnia resting in his lap. The uncharacteristically pleasant expression on George’s face was due to his having to squint at the sunshine that poured in. Underneath his brave exterior, George was absolutely terrified. Every sound or sudden movement made him jump, so he decided to do something productive and keep watch. He’d see any strange, out of the ordinary character approaching the home and he would expose them like he had the first one. There would be no sneaking in on his watch – not this time. Devious bastards. He knew who they were – they’d been after him for years.

  They wouldn’t have the chance to get that close again.

  The treetops swayed in the wind. The slow, heavy exhale of an imminent storm made whooshing noises that rushed past his ears. Each sound made him increasingly anxious. The bilious clouds moved closer, and though the afternoon rain would bring a comfortable drop in the temperature, it would also mean abandoning his post.

  Over the susurration of the trees, George heard movement behind him. His heart hammered in his chest. He jumped up and turned toward the intruders, ready to use his hardbound book as a weapon.

  Freddy howled with laughter. ‘We won’t hurt you, Georgie Pie.’ He continued to giggle as he pulled up a chair beside him. George fumed, but Freddy’s smile softened most everyone, eventually.

  ‘What do you want?’ His face was red with embarrassment.

  ‘We’re on your side,’ Freddy promised.

  ‘Tell that to this one,’ he grunted, indicating Sam.

  ‘Sorry to startle you,’ she said.

  ‘You scared me to death. Don’t you know someone is trying to kill me?’

  ‘They’re trying to kill me, too, George, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.’ Before he could say anything, Sam pulled up a chair.

  It was hard hiding so much. George was wearing down and it was time to share the burden – even if it was with Sam. She was messed up, but so was he, and maybe she could help. ‘I’ll start from the beginning then, shall I?’

  Sam stared at him and he cleared his throat.

  ‘I’ve always known people were watching me … after something. But I don’t know what. I’ve thought a lot about it, about what it is I could possibly have. I thought about my art, my antiques. But those things are easy to take. I’m an angry man, somewhat prone to violence, but as you both know I can be taken down pretty easily. A lot more bark than bite, I’m afraid.

  ‘Besides, from what I can remember, they’ve been here for a long time. I don’t have a memory without them – people watching me, taking notes from a distance, informing each other, like I’m important. Doctors call this ‘delusions of grandeur.’

  ‘I call it being part of a human ‘ant-farm.’ He chuckled to himself, but it wasn’t honest. ‘It started when I was young. I was at a boys’ home for the first ten years of my life, in and out of strange places with strange people. It was a long time ago, but you don’t forget.’ Sam listened and Freddy twirled his hair.

  ‘I remember the mornings of washing piss out of raggedy sheets in freezing cold water, the way your feet hurt because your shoes were two sizes too small. Kids these days don’t know shit. You got head lice, you got your head shaved, girls and all. You didn’t get no bloody day off school.

  ‘Work? Kids don’t know work. The unpaid work that went for fourteen hours a day, on a good one. You worked ’til you were half-blind with pain and then you worked some more. You complained, you copped a punch in the head. Your hands hurt so much it felt like razors slicing into them. But you kept going – you had to.

  ‘I remember the abuse wasn’t seen as abuse. Not back then, and I’ll tell you back then ain’t as long ago as you’d think. Wasn’t just the physical abuse that got us, the floggings and such, but the sexual and verbal abuse, too. Being spat on, urinated on, and told that I was a waste of space.

  ‘I’ll tell you something for nothing. What I’ve seen would make any man barmy. I’ve never seen a war, like Roger, never been in a robbery or watched a man killed like I did the other day, but I’ve seen kids strung up and bleeding, screaming. You couldn’t do a thing about it or you’d be up there next. I’ve had friends made to do things I swore I’d never tell.’ Freddy put his arm around George lightly.

  ‘I’m sorry, George,’ Sam said.

  ‘Why are you sorry? You went through it, too. Different time and place, same kit.’

  ‘Not like that. It was never that bad for me.’

  George didn’t believe her. ‘So the point to the story was that we were all corrupt little buggers before we hit puberty, so of course we snooped. We found all sorts of stuff. Once we found the dead body of one of our mates hidden far out on the property. He was really messed up. Cut across the face. They hadn’t even bothered to bury him, yet.

  ‘We used to hear them talking about the ‘trading.’ We knew they were trading kids for money, but I never found out any more than that. Something was going on. I never really got to find out what, but it was bigger than us – bigger than all of us now. We don’t stand a chance, Sam. We’re fucked.’

  Her shoulders slumped.

  ‘It’s all the same people,’ Freddy muttered.

  Sam frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ Freddy remained silent and looked off into the distance.

  George went on. ‘Can’t think of anyone else who’d want me dead. Do you think it’s just a coincidence all of us being here at the same time, Sam?’

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘Did you hear about trading kids when you were little or anything like that?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  George looked back and forth at Sam and Freddy. ‘They took us all, messed with us and have been watching ever since. We’re all an experiment and now they’re done with us. It’s time to take out the trash. It took me a while to realise they needed us all in the same place to get rid of us. Easy, quick: one, two, three.’ He could see something in Sam’s eyes now.

  ‘No. My father put me in here.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. All I know is that someone made it happen.’ George rubbed his tired eyes. ‘In the past, I honestly didn’t know how to differentiate between reality and fantasy. But now, it’s all changed. All of a sudden my excuse that I’m not right in the head has been destroyed by a very
real occurrence. What do you think, Sam?’

  ‘I think you could be on to something and it’s the best we’ve got.’

  They stared at each other for a moment, enjoying the new feeling of camaraderie.

  ‘The numbers you have tattooed on your neck… George, I need to ask you about them.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘What does 1842 mean to you?’

  ‘I don’t remember, exactly. I just know they’re important – to never forget them.’

  Sam glanced at her watch. ‘Maybe we can talk a bit later. I need to think for a while.’ They both nodded as Sam stood to leave. Freddy stayed put, mesmerised by George.

  Jade Thatcher was playing reruns of her recent divorce mediation in her head and it was different every time. The process had reminded her of how much she’d once loved her husband.

  She’d once taken her own hand, stupidly plunged it into her chest and ripped out her beating heart for him. She’d held it up for him to see and waited in that endless moment between the reveal and the reaction – when in slow motion, he’d smiled at her and said I love you, too.

  The fairy-tale ending, the horse and Prince Charming, birds and deer prancing around the forest and the perfect wedding had all come to fruition. Then, ‘happily ever after’ had become hell forever after. He’d dropped the heart she’d entrusted to him, to have it smash to the floor in pulsating pieces. She would feel the heartbreak for eternity, or at least until the moment she felt like she was actually going to be able to breathe again. If she managed to get through it, she’d never offer her heart to anyone again. Ruined.

  Jade felt selfish to be focussing on herself after what had happened. Today was the day she would return to work and the tragedy of Martha-Jane had cut her ‘holiday’ short. Her patients would need her more now than ever, and she was finding it difficult to understand how it had happened. Rowan’s Home was locked up tight and there were security guards and cameras.

  Jade paced her home office, as she often did when thinking, cracking a case, solving a puzzle.

  Perhaps it was some idiot with a grudge against the system, maybe thinking he was freeing the patients somehow. ‘Angels of Death’ within the medical field did this sort of thing, thinking it a kindness.

  Jade was getting a headache. It wasn’t her job to solve the case. She was a doctor not a detective. She had her patients to attend to and the detectives had their criminals – period.

  Her mobile phone rang in her cargo pocket. When she fished it out, ‘Anne Hospital’ flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Hello, Anne.’

  ‘Jade.’ Her warm, honeyed voice told Jade that no matter what Anne wanted at the moment, she was probably going to get it.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, sugar, but it’s Sam. She’s been asking for you.’

  Jade reached down to pat her new, impulsive and very violent kitten. She had spotted him in a Grisham City pet store and had brought him home to comfort her. He returned the affection in the form of four tiny but painful fang marks in Jade’s hand.

  ‘Ouch! You little … ’ She’d called him Hercules after he’d pranced around the living room with his new toy – a teddy bear three times his size, in his teeth. She loved the adorable thing, no matter the scratches that covered her arms and legs.

  Anne chuckled at Jade, which after swearing in the kitten’s general direction, brightened her mood. ‘I’ll come now.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc.’

  On the way to the hospital Jade drove by many of the old familiar places she’d passed a hundred times, growing up in Fairholmes. The old farm where she first kissed Luke Stevenson was still almost standing, the quarry where she used to get caught playing and chased away by the workers – so many memories.

  How could a murder take place in her little town? Nothing ever happened here. Jade caught herself thinking about the dead man. The murderer who became the murdered and how it came to be, that Damon had done what he’d done.

  It had been two days since the incident and she wondered how Damon was doing. Jade wanted to speak with him to determine if he was all right and hadn’t been too adversely affected by the experience. There would be a court case of some sort.

  She thought of Freddy. His nightmares would be worse and she wished she’d been there for him. Instead she’d been stuck tying up loose ends with her divorce and seeing her husband, soon to be officially ex, which had been far more difficult than she would’ve guessed. Especially considering that he hadn’t even bothered to wait until the divorce was over to share the information that he was living with his new girlfriend Tiffany, the bitch he’d cheated with.

  As she drove closer to the middle of Fairholmes the houses pinched together. The grass was greener in this area. Everyone could see each others’ lawns and it was a competition to have the lushest. She envisioned old men in their stained, yellow chesty-Bond singlets, Stubbies shorts and weathered sunhats that their wives would make them wear, out in their front yards working with fertilisers and weed killers for the best lawn in town. And they’d yell at you if you put a foot on their grass. She let Fairholmes take her mind off things for a while and the next thing she knew, she was pulling into the driveway of the home.

  Jade moved into her office and made herself comfortable in her office chair. The first thing she did was stare at the empty wall in front of her; it was an old trick she’d learned in medical school to get her mind working in a more structured manner.

  Her main concern was how to help her patients release their fear now.

  Psychiatric wards, in essence, were to care for people who couldn’t care for themselves in the outside world, to make sure they were looked after and treated for their problem ... cured if possible. But Rowan’s Home seemed more like a holding pen. Her patients were under attack by someone from the outside world. None of it made sense. The blank wall trick wasn’t working.

  There was a note on her desk from Anne. Sam could no longer see her today. She had a severe migraine.

  Probably caused from all of the stress.

  Freddy would be her first patient at ten AM.

  It was now 9:55. Perhaps she could pop her head in quickly to check on Sam.

  When she did so, Sam was fast asleep. Her skin was white and her hair greasy and separating. Jade noted that when her patient wasn’t washing her hair, it meant she was stressed. Her chewed nails were a good indication, too.

  Her room smelled like old socks. Jade stooped to collect some of her clothes off the floor and threw them into a laundry bag, before heading out for her first appointment.

  ‘Hi.’ Jade broke into a natural smile when she saw Freddy Parks.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘You look sad.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he whispered.

  Jade waited, but Freddy simply sat and stared at her.

  The poor man had bags under his eyes and Jade could see how exhausted he was. ‘Sam is feeling scared. She won’t say it out loud, but I can tell.’

  ‘I can understand exactly why Sam would be feeling scared. She’s just been through something awful and she needs some special attention right now.’ Jade knew that Freddy was trying to be brave, but she would have to break him down. ‘It’s best for Sam to talk to me about this, otherwise she won’t feel better.’ He took the bait.

  ‘My heart hurts. I feel bad about Martha-Jane. She was nice. Fast too.’ He giggled but covered his mouth, looking guilty.

  ‘It’s okay to remember the good things about Martha. She would’ve liked that.’

  Freddy nodded. ‘I’m sad about her. But I’m glad Sam’s alive and that’s hard because … I feel bad all the time.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘It’s Sam they came for.’ He paused and looked at the wall. ‘They didn’t get her. They’ll be back.’

  Jade found herself leaning closer to Fredd
y. She was suddenly overwhelmed with regret for not having been here sooner.

  ‘There was another doctor who worked here before you came, Jade. They got him. They always get who they’re after.’

  Uh oh. It was much worse than she’d thought. They were going back to Dr. Harry Hanson, again. She’d worked through this with him already over the past month, but she supposed regression was normal, under the circumstances.

  ‘We’re here to talk about you today. Nothing is going to happen to me. There is nothing that you can tell me that will make me disappear.’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ He scrunched up his little nose. ‘Well, promise me you’ll keep your eyes open. I care about what happens around here.’

  Jade was taken by surprise at Freddy’s candour. ‘I promise. Now let’s talk about you.’

  ‘Ergh, all right.’ He slouched into his chair. ‘But you should know that Harry would say: don’t go anywhere by yourself. That’s how they getcha.’

  She resolved to find out more about that later. What was that doctor thinking! No wonder Freddy had nightmares.

  KEYS FOR AN EAVESDROPPER

  Freddy had been on the alert since his conversation with Sam and George. They were all in danger and it was up to him to help protect them. He knew Damon was there to do the same thing, but even Damon didn’t suspect the woman.

  She was an ordinary looking woman – so ordinary that when she walked up the front steps to Rowan’s Home Psychiatric Facility no one batted an eye. Why would they, though, when she was accompanied by Dr. Clancy Green? ‘Fancy a name like Clancy,’ Anne would say to Freddy.

  The ordinary woman clutched a brown furry handbag that looked alive. She was a visitor, or so it was assumed by most, since it was visiting hours at the home, broad daylight, when she walked in.

  Even though security was much tighter since the incident, no one was scared during the day. It was as if the sun would somehow protect them from harm. The only person who noticed the ordinary woman was Freddy, and he knew darned well that bad things could happen during the daytime.