by Tim Marquitz
I dreamt. It was night, and cold. I stood in a bare field; the corn had been cut away. There were no stars in the blackness above. No wind, no sound disturbed the eerie stillness. At the end of the field stood an old farmhouse and barn. From the house, a dim light glowed. The barn was missing many of its gray boards and its tin roof was peeling off. An old red-fendered tractor rotted nearby, its engine and ironworks the color of crusted blood.
What’s all this? I knew it was a dream but it was so vivid, so real. I walked towards the house, determined to see where this illusion would take me. I stepped carefully, though, over each row of dry stalks, dreading to unsettle the deadness.
The planks of the porch creaked as I stepped up. A window looked into a small, plain kitchen. There was a wooden table, stained dark, and a Franklin stove. I knocked lightly at the door and listened. Nothing. I gave a tentative push and the door groaned open. Across was another door that opened into a short hall.
“Hallo,” I called.
I heard someone’s creaking step. A man stuck his head out into the hall.
“Who…?” His face showed fear and astonishment.
But I knew that face. Still it was a moment before I fully recognized Elwood. His hair was darker and thicker, his face smoother; he seemed—younger.
“Who are you?” He asked in a rusty voice.
He can speak! “Elwood, it’s me.”
“You know me?”
“Your roomy, Drew.”
“Roomy?” He blinked. “You’ve seen me? Where am I? How am I? I mean, am I healthy?”
Even in my dreams Elwood was crazy. “Ahh, you seem fine…for being locked-up in a mental hospital.”
“Ah,” he said, after pondering this a moment. “Probably for the best. Better than running around loose. Oh, but I assure you, that thing is not me!” His insulted glare faded and he added, “You should not be here.”
The conversation had slipped from demented to surreal, and I was lost. “Where…” I began but finished with, “But I have no control over my dreams.”
There was something different about him, I couldn’t put finger on it. Speaking, yes, of course, but also he’d looked directly at me, and he seemed more…lucid. Still loony, of course, but this dream-Elwood seemed somehow to be more of a real person than the Elwood I knew.
“Dream?” said Elwood. “If only it were. You must leave, now. It is not safe.”
I would certainly be happy to leave, if I could. “Elwood, what is this place?”
He looked sidelong at me. “Do you hear?” he asked, cocking his ear.
I heard nothing—perhaps a distant gust of wind—a rattle of cornstalks in the field.
“This way. Quickly.”
He pulled back into the room from where he’d emerged.
The room sparkled with flickering candles. They stood all around in a circle encompassing the barren room, following lines that were scratched rudely in the floorboards. In the center was a folded blanket—to kneel upon, I surmised. The room smelled strongly of some strange incense.
He beckoned. “Here, stand within the circle.”
I was more than hesitant; in no way did I trust my host. Perhaps that smell was some kind of intoxicant.
“Hurry! She comes.”
She? He was so emphatic that I followed more out of instinct than good sense. Fear welled up inside me. I reminded myself it was just a dream.
“I thought it was her when you came,” said Elwood. “She comes sometimes at night.”
“Who?”
“The angel, the demon, the Mistress of Night…”
Mistress. That struck another chord of alarm. Then I did hear something, like a whisper: delicate and sultry. The air tingled my skin; it was suddenly cooler. The candles guttered, dimming the room.
“You asked about this place,” Elwood continued, as if nothing had just happened. “It’s my home, was my home. The world of my youth—unchanged these past six years. My own private hell.”
A soft glow brightened the hall. I desperately wished to wake.
“Pray that you escape it,” he finished, in a soft voice.
In the doorway, there appeared a ghostly apparition: a woman in a long dress of some ancient and elegant style. I could see through her gray-glowing translucency to the wainscoting beyond. Her face was remarkably beautiful, the kind of face that held your gaze and kept drawing you back. Her eyes were darker shadows within her smooth luminescence. She glided in, warming the room with her light. There was a strength about her, an air of confidence in her gaze and in the tilt of her head.
“You have a new friend,” she said in a hollow voice.
The Mistress looked at me, or “into’ me would be a more fitting word. I was naked beneath her scrutiny, as if she could see the real me: all my hates, desires, prejudices, selfishness, and fears. A shiver chilled me through.
Then she smiled at me like an old acquaintance just recognized. “Drew Hall.”
Elwood and I exchanged a glance.
“Don’t worry Drew, it is not you I want,” she said.
This dream had just topped the charts in the all-time bizarro category.
“In fact,” she said after a moment. “I can help you.”
Help? I couldn’t find my voice to ask what she meant.
“Help you escape,” she said.
I tried to understand what was happening. When her words sunk in, I struggled to conceal my small, guilty, surge of hope. But no, this was all ridiculous, it was just a dream.
“You must help me also, of course,” she said. “Elwood’s descriptions have convinced me of someone better suited.”
Elwood opened his mouth in confused denial and then closed it. She smiled, enjoying her little torments. She had meant, of course, the Elwood in my world.
Then she came close to me. Panic flared within me but I was held in place, suspended in a long, timeless moment of terror. She was too real.
Who—what was she: a ghost, an angel? She brought her hand slowly to my face. Stroking my cheek, she whispered in her sultry voice, “To remember me…”
But I did not feel her touch.
I awoke to the darkness of my room. Elwood slept quietly. What had happened? Could it have been just a dream? I could not find sleep again until the dimness of morning. By then, I had convinced myself that it had all been some sort of lucid hallucinatory nightmare induced by the meds.
#
“What happened to your face?” Nurse Andrews asked, unstrapping my ankle. A flash of worry wrinkled her brow.
I blinked away the morning glare. Elwood sat upright in his bed looking directly at me. He smiled. It was the first time I’d ever noticed him smile. A tingle of dread crawled up my back. I knew then, with frightful certainty, that the dream had somehow been real. What was he? Some demon spirit? He could strangle me to death at night and I would be helpless to stop him. I had to get out of here.
I noticed then that the left side of my cheek was stiff and itchy. When my hand was free, I felt my cheek. Scabbing blood gritted off with my touch.
I rushed to the bathroom. My stainless steel reflection confirmed it: three long brown lines scratched down my cheek—like the slash of some beast. To remember me, she’d said.
What could she do? What had she meant by ‘someone better suited’? How could I help her? It was all so incomprehensible. But I would not play their pawn. Yet, what choice did I have? I had to sleep and would then be at their mercy.
I resolved not to fall asleep.
That night, as soon as Francine and Khuram were out of sight, I spit my pills out onto the floor. Elwood watched with amusement.
It was the longest night of my life, an eternity of anxious dread. What would happen if my vigil faltered—if my guard lapsed for even a moment? Would I be plunged again into that dream-hell, or perhaps fall victim to Elwood’s violence?
All of my frequent glances found Elwood sleeping quietly. His calm silence was now more eerie to me than his ravings ever were. I pl
anned exactly what I would do should he attack. I imagined his thin groping fingers scrabbling at my neck. I would shout for help, as long and loud as I could, lurching away from his claws with what little mobility afforded me; hoping that someone would arrive before Elwood choked away my life.
I was exhausted. As that cruel night wore on, I found myself continually shaking my head in attempt to clear my drowsiness. But it was like hanging onto a cliff-edge, and fighting the inexorable pull of gravity. My eyelids wavered, and as they dipped closed, some remnant of consciousness deep in the back of my mind would claxon a warning, sending a jolt of pure terror through me. If Elwood or the Mistress didn’t claim me first, my heart would surely burst.
By morning, I was a nervous, muddled-headed wreck.
Dr. Sielinski finally showed himself. His balding, scabrous head was down, reading what I knew would be my file as he entered.
“Good morning, Mr. Hall. How are we feeling?” He inspected me over his glasses. He would note my scratched and haggard face.
“Not well, doctor.” I was surprised by the emotion in my voice and tried to clear it away. “Could we speak…in private?”
I could see he was judging me, already picking out the new medications he would prescribe.
“I’m afraid I have a very busy schedule today, Mr. Hall. Next week though, we can schedule a time—”
“No, let’s do it now.” I had to get away from Elwood immediately. I couldn’t last another night. And being farther away might shield me from his dream world. I didn’t care if Elwood overheard. It didn’t matter anymore.
I’d carefully considered what I’d say to Dr. Sielinski, how I could present my case favorably. I couldn’t tell him the truth. Paradoxically, his thinking I was crazy wasn’t a problem, but it wouldn’t bring me closer to getting away from Elwood. But it was all lost and I said, “I need to get out of here—I mean, at first I wanted to get a private room and have the restraints removed—”
“Unfortunately, we do not have any extra beds,” he interrupted in his patronizing tone.
“I can’t sleep with his disruptions.” I looked over at Elwood. He sat pretending to read Jurassic Park.
“If that is all—”
“No,” I began, more loudly than intended.
“Now, Mr. Hall I had thought you too intelligent to try these obvious ploys. Elwood Carding has always been an ideal patient, has never shown any sign of violence—”
“If you will not move one of us Doctor, then please consider restraining him. I don’t trust him. I woke Tuesday morning with these scratches.” I turned my cheek towards him, though I knew he had already taken it all in. “As Nurse Tettles can attest I was unmarked at lock-in.”
That got his attention. I continued with the clincher, “If I die tonight, with my wrists bound, it will be difficult to declare it suicide.”
He clearly didn’t appreciate how well I’d laid out my argument. Nor could he refute my reasoning.
After a moment, he said, “We’ll find someone to switch rooms with you.” He reluctantly added, “Until then, restraining Elwood might be a warranted precaution.”
I’d won.
But then he said in his low, spiteful voice, “Do you think you can manipulate me as easily as Ms. Gillespie?”
“I—”
“Don’t think I don’t know your game, Mr. Hall. You are not the first patient to come through my wards, attempting to evade justice. I am not fooled by your little dramas.” He looked at me again from above his reading glasses with a penetrating, knowing gaze.
Any doubt he may have held was erased when I looked away: an admission, clear and simple.
“Nurse Andrews tells me she found your medication on the floor this morning.” Dr. Sielinski squinted his eyes with suspicion. “And this self-mutilation is beneath you.”
Sielinski was fishing for a confession now. If he knew I was acting, he could recommend a competency hearing and that I stand trial. I shuddered. I couldn’t go down that path of thought.
“What I see,” he continued, “by your profile and your actions, is an intelligent, rational, desperate, but nevertheless sane man. In fact, I see no barrier in declaring you fit to stand trial.”
“But—” My voice faltered. He had me. He knew he had me.
He was smiling. He’d just signed my death warrant. Even if I could bring myself to plead for my life, I knew it wouldn’t matter. Sielinski would never change his recommendation.
At the door, he turned back to me. “A word of advice, Mr. Hall. Don’t attempt escape. Yes, it is easy enough to guess your simple mind. It’ll serve only to establish your actions as consistent with those of a desperate man. You see, Mr. Hall, I am also no stranger to the courtroom. We all make errors. And we all must pay for them—one way or another.”
I was a desperate man.
That night I swallowed the pills. Khuram had me open my mouth, to be certain. But I wanted them. The Mistress was my last hope. I felt a kind of hysteria, a reckless frenzy that urged me to face the worst and be done with it—one way or another. I was terrified but resigned to do whatever I must to end it.
#
“You will be the conduit,” the Mistress explained. “Elwood here believes he can reclaim his body by sitting in a circle and chanting.” She smiled contemptuously. “But he has succeeded only in sending nightmares. A physical agent is required.” She produced a knife.
I stepped back.
She lifted the blade and cut a lock of her translucent hair.
“What must I do?”
“Your body will hold my essence for a time.” She handed me her ethereal lock. “Then a small cut…and while the blood flows between you, I will take her.”
“Her?”
“That nurse. Tettles.”
I swallowed hard. No. Not Francine, of all people, not her. But somewhere deep inside I had known—feared—it was to be her. I couldn’t do it. Yet, it was my only chance to escape—to live.
I hedged. “What will happen to her?”
“You wish to escape or not?” she challenged, but then offered, “Elwood will draw her from you. They can keep each other company.”
Could I really be the instrument that sent Francine to this otherworld hell? Or was this all just a trick to steal my body? Could I protect myself somehow? But no, why would she take me, a man with no possible future?
#
Finding something sharp in a nut house is no easy chore. I carried the Mistresses’ token with me everywhere, that now raven-black lock, that physical reminder of my unthinkable task. After several reconnaissance strolls in the yard, I discovered a sliver of cracked concrete that might serve. I couldn’t imagine cutting Francine. I remembered Laurie: that crude, ragged hole that had blossomed above her left breast, the impossible amount of blood that had pumped from that wound, soaking the silk sheets and dripping onto the carpet. The bloodless pallor of her skin had made that crimson river even starker. The image made my stomach heave.
How could I come to terms with it? There was no justifying stealing that poor, meek, little angel’s body for my own selfish gain. She was innocent and I’d be her executioner. I could not live with another murder on my conscience.
But I could. In fact, I already knew I would. I was, admittedly, a thoughtless, egocentric ass whose cowardice would override any momentary attack of conscience. I would do it, and then spend every moment of my guilt-ridden life thereafter hating myself for it. The nightly crush of the wheel-of-guilt would just weigh heavier.
#
Waiting there in my bed, gripping that sliver of cement in my sweaty, nervous fingers was its own torture. How could I do this thing? But when I heard Khuram and Francine approach, my anxiety washed away with the adrenaline rush of what I must do. The concrete crumbled somewhat as I pushed, but a ragged crimson line trailed across my wrist nevertheless.
Francine’s bright face, made my betrayal worse. I grabbed Francine’s wrist instead of the cup she offered. Water splashed cold ac
ross my lap as I dug the sliver’s edge into her flesh and shoved it up along her forearm.
She cried out, and yanked away.
I held her, pulling and forcing my bleeding wrist against her forearm.
I felt Khuram’s great bulk press against me, levering us apart.
In the instant that the Mistress swept through me, I felt her cold taint, like a mist shivering over my soul.
It was done.
“Get off him.” It was Francine’s voice, but she spoke in a voice of command.
It sounded as strange and misplaced to Khuram’s ears as it did mine, because he jumped instinctively at her tone, immediately slacking his weight. He glanced at me, and I saw the astonishment in his face. “But—”
“I’m unhurt,” she said softening. “A scratch, an accident.”
He released me slowly.
The incident did not, however, go unreported.
I was given a change in meds and put in the special-care section near the nurse’s station. I’d finally gotten my private room. I was also, apparently, put on suicide watch. I rarely saw the ‘new and improved’ Nurse Tettles anymore and had no opportunity to speak to her privately.
There were subtle changes in the ward in the weeks that followed; an odd air of intensity permeated the halls. Being so close to the nurse’s station, I could catch the occasional fragment of gossip and see when the surveillance monitors were attended. Nurse Tettles had taken on the role of Senior Charge Nurse, supervising and scheduling the other nurses. It was even rumored that she was up for a committee position. Dr. Roth’s recent death (interestingly, it was said that he had gone peacefully one night in his sleep) left a vacancy that needed immediate filling.
Among the inmates though, Nurse Tettles’ nickname had turned into “Nurse Testicles’. Apparently, she had a knack for finding a patient’s weakness and using it to full advantage.
One afternoon I received a call from my lawyer, an old friend from the firm. My competency hearing had been moved forward. He remarked on how unusual it was for a date to be pushed so aggressively. He asked, half-jokingly, whether I had enemies in high places.
Did I owe this special attention to the good doctor or was it my unfaithful new comrade? The hearing was less than a month away. My time had run out.
