The Dead House
Page 14
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Fifth Entry
I watch them watching me. They stare and they analyze, hoping to figure out what has broken. Where they’ve gone wrong, never for a moment thinking that what I told them might be true. They call me the real Carly now. Suddenly, she’s the alter. Funny how quickly they turn it all around.
48
69 days until the incident
Inpatient Therapy Notes
Dr. Annabeth Lansing
Patient File [Johnson-C-0399524], Session #59
Thursday, 25 November 2004
Carly was found sprinting along the east hall. There were lesions on her hands and feet, and Nurse Tulk informs me that she appeared terrified. When Health-care Assistant Rogers caught her, she scratched his cheek and screamed wildly, kicking out. Nurse Tulk reports that she was staring down the corridor, eyes wide and manic, saliva dried on her lips.
She insists she did not hurt herself, but that “something” was in the room with her. I have no choice but to believe the injuries are self-inflicted, and her nails have been cut short to prevent further damage.
We have started a saline drip for dehydration, and for now she has been locked in her room. I fear she may be a danger to others.
The Johnson Claydon Diaries
Sixth Entry
My mind climbed out the window… They think they can cage me? My nails could be broken and bloody, but what would that matter? My body is a tool.
Up here, my mind seems to open up. I can picture the rows of psychiatric wards that lie dull and dead under a moon that should make them sparkle, and I can almost hear the silent sobs from within each blocky window. This is different from Elmbridge, but it’s still a roof. I can still fly. If I want.
And I still float here and wonder why I don’t—what’s holding me down?
Carly. Please. Where are you?
Carly? Are you there?
49
Inpatient Session Recording #59 [Ref: Johnson-Inp-0033]
Friday, 26 November 2004, 11:13 AM
Claydon Youth Psychiatric Facility, Somerset
Dr. Annabeth Lansing (AL) and Carly Luanne Johnson (CJ)
(AL): What is it, Carly?
[Silence]
What’s so amusing to you? Hm?
[Slow laughter]
Care to share it with me?
[Laughter building]
Carly.
[Raucous laughter]
Come on, now. Let’s talk, shall we?
[Laughter becomes manic]
Very well. We’ll try again tomorrow.
[End of tape]
The Johnson Claydon Diaries
Seventh Entry
I found the patient bathroom—the one Lansing didn’t want me to see. The one in the patient common room. Because of the mirror. But it’s not a real mirror at all, Dee. It’s this imitation mirror that belongs in a toddler’s play area. Thin, plastic, reflective but warped. But even though the reflection was bent and strange, I did see her. A girl, far off in the distance.
Was it you, Dee? I can’t be sure, but if not, surely it must be Carly? It has to be one of you! All I know is that she seemed trapped. Trapped in the churning shadows. Tried to call her. Quite calmly, I thought, but next thing I knew, the ward nurses came crashing in and carried me away, and I got an injection for my trouble.
But it’s okay, because I now have a plan to find a real mirror, not a silly child’s imitation. And then? Then, you’ll see.
50
The Johnson Claydon Diaries
Eighth Entry
It’s a dead place, and I call it the Dead House. It might have looked nice once… painted white, blue-shuttered and perky. Now the white paint is gray, curling away from the wood like dandruff or moth wings, and the shutters, if any remain, hang from hinges rusted and comatose. The door looms before me… I can see it, Dee. It invites me inside. I don’t want to go, and I do…
Unrelated words pop into my head
Teeth. Rust. Sleep. Corn flour.
As I stand there, I realize I’m hungry.
So is the house.
Ninth Entry
I’m learning to like dreaming. They keep the lights on in my room—therapy—but they can’t force light into the Dead House. No. The Dead House is old and worn, dim and dusty, and the perfect hiding place. How ironic that I’ve found it in my mind, where they can’t get at me.
I sleep for hours. I’m getting good.
They have to shake me to rouse me, or they pull me out of bed, but I sleep on, and they don’t know it.
The rooms inside the Dead House are endless. The corridors go on and on. The darkness deepens, thickens, grows denser and heavier the farther I explore. And, Dee, I am beginning to feel it. The house itself. As though it were a part of me that had just awakened.
I seek solace in that dark hiding place, and I know they will never find me if I choose to stay. I laugh in their faces.
So screw you, Lansing. You can’t get me in here.
I can hear the dead ocean.
Tenth Entry
I haven’t found a mirror yet, but I see her in the window sometimes, behind me. It’s the most peculiar thing, Dee, because I’m sure she’s trying to reach out to me, fighting with those pesky shadows—for I only see her at night. I hope it’s her. I hope it’s Carly.
Eleventh Entry
Why do you come inside?
To get dry. To feel cold.
Do you smell the air?
Yes, I do. And the mold, and the mildew, and the silence.
Do you hear the Dead Sea?
Crashing and smashing and waiting below.
Will you stay a little longer?
On and on, I will stay forever.
You are mine.
I am nothing. I am nowhere. Hide me.
Twelfth Entry
Dead House. I love you. I need you. Thank you for staying with me—please never fade away. I sat on the floor of one of the dead rooms, and I asked it to stay. Don’t leave me all alone, don’t leave me behind—I can’t survive all by myself.
I am here, it said—the very timber of the walls seemed to speak to me from some omniscient place that was all around me but also inside me. I can almost feel Carly in there with me. Strange.
You belong here too.
Thirteenth Entry:
The Dead House talks to me; on and on, around we go. It whispers in my ear so I don’t hear the doctors; it tells me things, and it makes me smile. I sleep and I sleep and I won’t ever wake. Soon they won’t be able to
find me at all.
Fourteenth Entry
I might have made a mistake. There is something else here in the house with me.
Carly?
Fifteenth Entry
Where are you going?
I am going home.
This is your home.
I am going home.
Blood in the walls is the blood in your veins.
I will come again. Thank you, good (?) day (?).
You belong to me.
I am nothing.
You cannot leave.
I am going.
Dee, Dee, where are you? Why did you stop talking to me? The Dead House tried to keep me, to trap me, and I’m so afraid. I couldn’t wake up. I couldn’t open my eyes! It wouldn’t let go of me. It was tricking me. I thought I could feel Carly with me in there, but I was wrong. It’s something else. I don’t know. I tried to leave, but the doors were all locked. My haven is a Venus flytrap. I can hear it calling to me even now while I’m awake. I can feel the walls, the damp, the rot—I can hear the churning Dead Sea. Sleep is the realm of the Dead Things, who want me. I must not sleep. I must not sleep.
I’m so alone.
I. Must. Not. Sleep.
51
The following entry is difficult to decipher because of the large amounts of blood spatter and smearing.
The Johnson Claydon Diaries
Sixteenth Entry
I found a mirror! Such triumph! And it’s in Lansing’s own little bathroom—the one off to the side of her office. I broke in during quiet hour, knowing she’d be in group session, and I set the girl free! She isn’t Carly, but that’s okay; she was trapped in shadows just like me, and now she is free! I am ebullient! Hahahahaha!
Inpatient Therapy Notes
Dr. Annabeth Lansing
Patient File [Johnson-C-0399524], Session #62
Friday, 3 December 2004
Carly Johnson now refuses to sleep and has been self-harming to prevent it. She has broken the mirror in my personal bathroom and lacerated both arms up to her elbows, which needed fifty-seven stitches. She is now under careful observation. I am considering sedation therapy, but reluctantly, as it may trigger another catatonic episode. I must admit that I am unsure of the next course of action. I will write to Dr. Sparrow for a consult. I was hoping to avoid permanent readmittance—or worse: removal to the B Ward—but unless I see some signs of improvement, that may be the only course of action.
52
The Johnson Claydon Diaries
Seventeenth Entry
For a little while, or so they tell me, I was catatonic. A while, they say. Shock, they say. Denial, they say. A bump, they say. A bump before I continue on my road to recovery.
At first, I refused to believe, but then… the dates don’t match up in my head. And Jaime was here. They showed me the CCTV footage. The way she looked at me, curled herself into my lap… the way her mouth opened wide before she began to sob her little tears—tears that no child should ever produce, but which seemed so familiar to me… the way Mrs. Bailey said, “This is sick! I refuse to allow Jaime to suffer like this!”
And I didn’t stir. I didn’t move. Jaime sat sobbing in my lap, clinging to my hospital gown, and I didn’t even blink. Jaime… I’m so sorry—
I’ve looked at my arms.
So… maybe…
Maybe I am crazy broken. Maybe I do need help fixing.
Oh, Dee. Maybe Lansing is right.
Eighteenth Entry
Don’t look at me like that, Dee. Especially when you’ve failed that girl in the reflection. See! She’s still reaching!
Inpatient Session Recording #65 [Ref: Johnson-Inp-0033]
Monday, 6 December 2004, 4:15 PM
Claydon Youth Psychiatric Facility, Somerset
Dr. Annabeth Lansing (AL) and Carly Luanne Johnson (CJ)
(CJ): I want to talk to Jaime.
(AL): Why?
(CJ): I need to explain to her… what’s going on.
(AL): I don’t think that’s a good idea, Carly.
(CJ): You have to let me see her. Or just talk to her—a phone call. That’s all.
(AL): I can’t do that, Carly. Not after her last visit. You saw the tape.
(CJ): Exactly! You showed me what I did—I need her to—[Swallow] I need her to understand.
(AL): Carly, Mr. and Mrs. Bailey have filed a restraining order against you. It’s being considered. Until we know the outcome, I can’t allow you to contact her.
(CJ): But… but I… I was sick. You said I was sick, right? And… I’m a minor. Can—can they really do that?
(AL): They’re her guardians now. But… no, I don’t believe they will get the order, so take a breath. Calm. But while it’s not been decided, you can’t speak to her.
(CJ): [Muffled sounds] [Quietly] Kill me. God, please just kill me.
[End of tape]
53
The Johnson Claydon Diaries
Nineteenth Entry
I’ve learned, in my tragic little life, that memories are like water. Not solid, like some people think. Once something happens, it isn’t set in stone. It can change.
You can make yourself believe anything if you lie to yourself long enough.
I’m good at lying to myself. I’m good at it because I have to be. If I believed the life I was in half the time, I would have jumped off that roof and taken Carly with me a long time ago. My biggest secret, Dee, is so pathetic that I can barely bring myself to write it. But I must.
Write it, you coward!
I am afraid of the dark.
No, not just tense. Not just tense at all, Dee. I am was am a child of night—I even need it… and I am petrified of it. Some kind of joke, right? But it’s true. And more than I’m afraid of the dark, I fear the light (ha ha). I fear the sun, and I fear the exposure. So, really, I’m not fit for life. One or the other, kid. And if I face that truth for too long, Dee, it’ll break me. So I have to lie to myself to survive.
But lying is a habit, and it’s addictive. You lie. It breeds. You lie again. It grows. And one day you wake up and realize that everyone around you has this weird idea about who you are, and you don’t recognize the person they’re describing. You don’t understand why they’re treating you the way they do.
Or not treating you.
It’s like you have a cancer.
I’ve pushed everyone away. Even Carly. I live behind a veneer of Teflon that I worked hard to grow and then to maintain. I could blame it on the accident murder accident death fact that our parents left us, left me, but it would be unfair. Because the truth is… I was like this before they died. I pushed them away too, and now nothing I do will ever change that.
They saw a drunk, when I was broken.
They saw sarcasm, when I was sobbing.
They saw me push them away, when I was screaming for their love.
It’s too hard. I can’t admit to this flaw—this chink in my armor. So I walked around in that ever-night, and I felt afraid, and I climbed on the roof hoping that someday I would feel the bright moon on my skin. I still long for that, and more. Until then, Dee… I’ll be honest. I’ll be honest with you.
I’m afraid. I’m so, so afraid.
And I wish there were arms around me and words in my ear, breath on my neck… telling me that everything will be okay, that someone loves me, that I’m not a mistake, not a waste, not a nothing. Telling me that, no, I’m not a child of darkness, and there is a place for me in the light.
I want Carly to tell me.
But if she can’t—if she can’t tell me that and still be with me, then I’ll take the dark. I’ll take the dark gladly—if only she’ll come back to me. If she’ll come back and put me in the back room and take her place in the light.
I’m sorry I ever wanted it.
I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry—
[What follows is indecipherable scribble.]
Twentieth Entry
I feel the Dead House calling to me
when I’m awake. It’s been digesting me. Somehow I know this.
Surrender, it says.
I must not go.
54
55 days until the incident
Inpatient Session Recording #68 [Ref: Johnson-Inp-0033]
Thursday, 9 December 2004, 8:03 AM
Claydon Youth Psychiatric Facility, Somerset
Dr. Annabeth Lansing (AL) and Carly Luanne Johnson (CJ)
[Audio crackling]
(AL): Tell me, why won’t you sleep?
[Silence]
Okay, then why do you feel afraid?
[Shuffling]
(CJ): I’m not afraid.
(AL): Why are you angry?
(CJ): I’m sick of all these questions.
(AL): Fair enough. But if you answer the questions, there’ll be fewer of them on repeat, won’t there?
(CJ): Fair enough.
(AL): So tell me, why won’t you sleep?
(CJ): Just—leave—Shit!
[Panting]
(AL): Take a breath for me. Just stay calm.
[Gasps]
(CJ): I WON’T SLEEP!
(AL): Carly, calm down, or I’ll sedate you.
(CJ): Let me go back t-to my r-room! Just—please—let me g-go—
(AL): Okay. Go.
[Crash, running]
[Silence falls]
Dr. Sparrow, as you can hear, Carly Johnson becomes very agitated when sleep is suggested. I’m not sure what to do at this point except to sedate her for an extended period. Any advice would be welcome.