He didn't recognise the woman on the far side of the street. Her face was cast into shadow. "Hello?" he called. "You heading to the hospital? I can walk-"
She turned, and Bo's heart skipped in his chest.
The woman was pale, her cheeks spotted with moss. Her eyes were black. Her dress was torn down to the waist, revealing her sunken ribs, the taut geography of her stomach. Her jaw hung low, and even from such a distance he could see blood on her teeth.
He couldn't move as the woman stepped from the grass out onto the road, her bare toes clutching at the macadam. Rain spattered on her shoulders. Her hair knotted around her neck. She moved like a drunkard, uncertain, teetering before snapping upright. Her right foot slapped on the bitumen and her left dragged along behind, nails scraping on hard gravel. The skin of her toes was bloodied, ragged. Her hands twitched like spiders.
"Jesus," Bo whispered. "Are you okay? Are-"
The woman began to run.
Bo had just begun to raise his hands when she bore him down into the dirt, one skinny knee jammed up into his gut, clawing at his face. He shrieked as her nails tore into his cheek. She had him pinned but he wrestled his right arm free and punched her in the ribs, hard enough to send a bolt of pain up his wrist. Something cracked beneath the woman's skin.
He called for help, his voice echoing strangely off the trees, and suddenly his mouth was full of fingers, ragged nails scratching his tongue as she forced his jaw open. He tasted the filth on her hands. She was thin and frail but she weighed too much to buck off, too much by far. He hit her again, sinking his thumb into her eyesocket. Something popped and ran thickly over his palm.
The woman didn't seem to notice. She pulled Bo's mouth open further until he thought his jaw would break and lowered herself as if to kiss him, her lips parting to reveal the hollow of her throat.
Something coiled there. Not her tongue but behind it, unfurling from her oesophagus. Black and thick like a railroad spike, dripping spit, studded with thorns.
He screamed as she pressed her mouth to his, and his screams were choked off as the black thing pushed past his lips and scraped over his teeth and forced its way down.
It hurt, but not for long.
Chapter 3
The first two days in Saint Jeremiah's were a blur of bright lights and valium.
Doctors took her blood, spit and urine but when Kimberly asked when the police were coming back they just told her to relax. They loosened the straps binding her wrists and ankles but the solid thunk of the lock when they left was enough of a signal that she wasn't leaving on her own recognizance.
She screamed on the first night, begging for a nurse, for the police, for anyone. They never came.
On the second day, her so-called husband came to visit. The stranger with the big hands and the sour breath stood in the doorway, head down, hands clasped before him. "Kimmy-"
"Go away!" She snatched the empty bedpan off her bedside table and hurled it across the room, steel ringing as it bounced off the doorframe beside the stranger's head. He ducked but didn't move from his position. "Fuck off!"
"Kimmy, please. Curtis needs you-"
"Nurse!" Kimberly hammered the call button by her bed. "Police! He's here!"
That was when she saw the nurse standing in the hall behind the stranger, embarrassment written into every line of the poor woman's face. "Sir," she told the stranger, "perhaps you should go."
"She's my wife." The stranger's jaw clenched. "I'm not going anywhere."
"After she's had her medication-"
"She's my goddamn wife!" He crossed to Kimberly's bedside and tried to take her hand. She pulled away, tucking herself beneath the sheets, heart thudding in her ears. "Please," he whispered. "Kimberly. Look at me. I'm here, okay? I'm right here."
She refused to roll over. "I don't know you," she said. "You're going to jail, you sick fuck."
"Kimmy, don't say that-"
"Get out!" She slapped at him, beating him around the head, and he scampered back to the doorway, mouth hanging open in shock. "Get-"
The nurses rushed in, one-two-three, and before Kimberly could roll away they had her by the shoulders, forcing her down into the mattress. The stranger was shouting, "Don't hurt her, don't you hurt her! I'll sue the shit out of you!" Kimberly punched one of the nurses in the face so hard she felt something pop in her hand. Then came the sudden, bright pain of the needle. Her limbs became lead. The world swam around her.
She fell back into the pillows.
The door slammed shut. The lock clicked.
She was alone again.
On the evening of the second day, Detective Goodwell returned with a sheaf of papers. "Your bank account details," he said, sliding a sheet of paper across the bedspread. "Co-signed. Your mortgage. Your health insurance policy. How long are you going to keep playing this game, Mrs Archer?"
Her head throbbed and the ends of her fingers tingled. The sedatives were still wearing off, and her tongue was so numb that she drooled when she spoke. "He kidnapped me," she whispered. "Why won't you help?"
Goodwell made a coughing sound in the back of his throat. "These are photos of you and your husband at the aquarium. Here, at the fair last year. And here, your wedding." He set a polaroid gently atop the bedspread. Kimberly snatched it up. Her hands trembled as she took in the image of herself in white silk, standing beside the stranger in a traditional black tux. They were framed by a wicker archway woven with red roses, and they were smiling.
She frisbeed the polaroid into the corner of the room. "I never saw that man before," she said. "You're not listening to me!"
Goodwell sighed as he gathered the photos back into the folder. "I am listening, Mrs Archer. I'm doing my best." He patted her hand, crossed the room, and paused at the door. "Last chance to tell me the truth. Please, believe me. I want to help you. If he's been abusive, if he threatened you-"
It was too much. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. "Go away."
"Excuse me?"
"I want to call my fiancé! If you won't get me a phone, then-"
Goodwell slipped out. The lock clicked.
Later that night she pounded on the door, face pressed against the wood, screaming, until two nurses arrived and slid back the locks. They glared through the gap in the door. "You're keeping the other residents awake."
Kimberly stepped back, letting them see her empty hands. "I want to make a phone call."
"You're not allowed," the first nurse said. "Doctor's orders."
"Nobody in this hospital is sleeping until I make a call." She stared the two men down. "What're you doing to do? Restrain me? Dope me up again?"
The nurses looked at each other. "If you don't quiet down, Mrs Archer... yeah. We can do that."
"God damn you." Her shoulders trembled. "One call. Please. Then I'll shut up, I promise."
The first nurse drummed his fingers on the doorframe. He checked his watch, looked over his shoulder, and sighed. "Yeah, whatever."
It was the first time she'd left the room since arriving at St Jeremiah's. The hallway was tiled in white, the floors mopped mirror-clean, but the ceiling was stained and the cornices were spotted with lichen. The air smelled of antiseptic and microwave meals. In the distance, someone was crying.
The nurses didn't give Kimberly time to look around. They marched her to a bank of payphones and said, "Five minutes."
Kimberly stared. "I'm gonna need a quarter."
The first nurse dug in his pocket. The coin thunked into the slot and Kimberly dialled Aaron's home number. She hunched, hiding her face from the nurses, the cold plastic of the receiver pressed against her ear, whispering, "Please, please..."
The phone burred for aeons. Aaron didn't pick up. The two nurses made grumbling noises, crossing their arms, looming too close for Kimberly's liking. "Hold on," she said, hanging up, retrieving the coin and dialling again. The tone seemed muted, distant, like she was hearing it through a thick plaster wall.
She rested her
head against the cool steel of the payphone. "Please..."
Nobody answered. She hung up, retrieved the coin, and slotted it back in before the nurse could grab her hand. "One more try," she whispered, and dialled her mother's number.
This time the tone was warped, bubbling. She imagined the receiver full of water, or something thicker, honey or blood, each burr of dialtone sending little bubbles racing up the line, bursting in her ear.
She waited. The nurses scowled. She waited more.
Then, finally, a click. The voice on the far end was so quiet it might have been an echo in the halls. A woman, her voice distorted. "Hello?"
Kimberly felt faint with relief. She gripped the phone tight in both hands, as if to let it go would allow the voice to escape. "I'm here! Mom, is that you?"
There was a pause. Then, "Robert?"
"No, it's Kimberly! This is Kimberly! I'm in Rustwood and I need help. Call Aaron-"
The voice fluctuated, stretched by static. "Get... of there!"
It wasn't her mother. It wasn't anyone Kimberly recognised. "What?"
"Get out of there! Trust..." Another burst of static.
"What?"
"... trust Goodwell!"
"Please, I need to speak to my mother! Put her on! Please, just-"
The line went dead. Kimberly stared at the receiver, then set it back on the hook with shaking hands. "I," she began, and swallowed. "I need another quarter. One more, that's all."
The two nurses took her by the arms and, gently but forcefully, walked her back to her room.
Doctor Keller was a thin man with a gentle smile. His glasses were huge and square. They distorted his features, making his eyes bulge, which put Kimberly in mind of a kindly owl wearing a suit jacket and tie. He sat in the chair opposite Kimberly's bed with his papers in his lap, watching silently, as if waiting for Kimberly to make the first move.
She wanted to stare him down, to be the stronger of the two, but she hadn't slept properly in four days, not since the phone call. She dreamed of the voice, the mystery woman, the knife-edge scream of panic carrying down the line.
"I want to go home," she whispered. "The police won't listen to me and they won't let me leave."
"Mrs Archer, I apologise." Keller flipped through some papers, nodded, and set them aside. "I want to see you home and well as soon as possible, so let's not waste any more time. I notice you've been speaking frequently with Detective Goodwell-"
"He's an asshole."
"He's doing his best to help, Mrs Archer. If he'd had his way, you would've been released days ago."
Kimberly couldn't muster up the energy to believe. Not after a week locked in a tiny white-washed room, tonguing sedatives every six hours and flushing them as soon as the nurses left the room. Even without the drugs, the isolation left her drained. She couldn't scream any more. Her throat was raw. The veins on the back of her hands stood out, blue behind papery skin.
"Detective Goodwell believes you're the victim of an abusive relationship, and that you want to leave without having your husband arrested. Don't look so shocked - it's surprisingly common, and always sad. So many women remain loyal to their husbands through any amount of hurt... But I don't believe that's what's going on here. Do you remember what we spoke about yesterday?"
How could she forget? An interview that stretched for hours. She'd discussed Aaron, New York, the apartment they wanted to buy, their plans, the interview with Penguin. The hand at her back. The lights bearing down.
"It was quite the story, Mrs Archer. Too vivid for a lie, and far too consistent. In addition, your husband says that you've had trouble sleeping since the birth of your child. That's natural. I only managed a few hours a week for months after my firstborn. The noise, the constant stress, the fear of cot death, anxiety as to whether you're fulfilling your duties as a parent... Coupled with your financial situation and the isolation of being a stay-at-home mother, it's no wonder that you've begun to feel trapped. A lack of energy, no outside interaction..."
Kimberly's hands bunched into fists beneath the sheet. "What're you saying?"
"Are you familiar with the term 'postnatal' or 'postpartum depression?'"
She nodded.
"And the term, postpartum psychosis?"
"Excuse me?"
Dr Keller stood and paced the room, hands knotted behind his back. "As well as a surgeon, I'm a qualified psychoanalyst," he said. "If there was a practising psychologist in Rustwood, I'd send you there instead. I've got too many drains on my time already, but we make do with what we have. Mrs Archer, postpartum psychosis affects around one in one thousand women. Not common, but not rare either. It's a serious mental illness that can manifest in insomnia, paranoia, nymphomania, mood swings, and delusions, including auditory and visual hallucinations."
Her stomach twisted. She wanted to vomit. "Don't say it."
"You're sick, Mrs Archer. Sick, but not dangerous." Keller turned his back, staring out the window at the raindrops pealing on the glass. "I believe you know what is true and what isn't, and you choose to believe in the reality more appealing to you. I don't think hospital care is a real solution. The love of your husband and your child would be the best therapy, in my opinion."
Kimberly trembled. She felt heat on her cheeks and realised she was crying. "How can you-"
"Do you want to go home, Mrs Archer?"
"It's not my home!"
"Is that the truth, or is that what you want to believe? Do you want to leave Saint Jeremiah's?"
She thought of the locked door and the long white hallway. The rain pattering eternally against the window. She thought of the C train she'd never boarded, and Aaron waiting on the platform, watching her fall.
She still couldn't remember what'd happened after hitting the tracks. The lights advancing, enveloping. Then the bedsheets. The warmth of the stranger beside her.
Her voice trembled. "I can't stay here."
"Your husband didn't hurt you, did he?"
She knew what she had to say. The lie itched at the back of her throat. "No."
"He is your husband, isn't he? You know what's real and what's not, when you concentrate. When you're calm."
"When... when I'm calm."
"Meditation," Doctor Keller said. He scribbled a final note and collected his papers. "Meditation and bed rest are more effective than any drug. I can't keep you here indefinitely, Mrs Archer. Not when there are people turning up dead and injured on our doorstep. I want to continue these discussions over the next few days and re-evaluate before committing to any release. Even after you leave, I'd like to meet regularly and discuss how you feel about this imagined world, and your interactions with your husband and child. Recovering from psychosis of any sort is a long and delicate process. There's no magic pill. You understand?"
She nodded, her voice a bare whisper. "I understand."
"Excellent." Keller patted her leg beneath the sheets. His hand lingered a little too long. "Get some rest. I hear dinner is chicken kiev tonight. You'll love it."
She watched him leave. The door locked with a heavy steel thud. Her fingers tingled, bloodless, beneath the sheets.
At least she now knew what to say.
Doctor Keller visited three times over the next eight days. In that time, Kimberly learned to lie.
There were some things she told Keller she couldn't recall. The wedding, the birth. But she invented moments between her and the stranger pretending to be her husband. Kisses exchanged in parked cars. A screaming fight three days after they'd brought the baby home. Sullen silences.
Keller made notes. His pen was always moving.
She spoke of Aaron less and less. When Keller asked about him, she would pause. "Oh, yes. That guy." She pushed him back until the man she loved grew misted in her memories.
Keller made more notes. The scratch of his biro on paper was maddening.
People cried in the corridors at night, and Kimberly slept curled into a tight ball, the sheets bunched in her fists.
She dried her tears on the pillow.
Fourteen days after she'd entered St Jeremiah's, Keller returned. He sat beside her bed with the door wide open behind him. "Mrs Archer," he said. "I have some forms for you."
She barely dared believe as she took the pen. "Are these-"
"I've discussed your needs with your husband. I hope you understand how much responsibility he's accepting. Many people would ask us to keep their spouse under lock and key until we..." He coughed. "Fixed them, but Peter believes the best place for you to recover is at home."
"He said that?"
"He did. He loves you dearly, Mrs Archer."
The word Mrs made her shudder. "Kimberly," she said, forcing herself to smile. "I think we're on a first-name basis, don't you?"
"In time, Mrs Archer," Keller said. "In time."
The stack of papers was as thick as her thumb. Medical forms, waivers of liability... She signed and initialled until her hand was numb. Then, still expecting Keller to slam the door closed in her face and shout gotcha, she stepped out into the corridor without escort for the first time in two weeks.
"Really?" she asked Keller.
The doctor nodded. "He's outside."
The stranger named Peter Archer was parked by the front steps in a red Volkswagen Rabbit. He waited by the car as she shuffled out into the rain, an umbrella propped on her shoulder. They'd let her take the pyjamas and a pair of cardboard-thin slippers, and the rain was already soaking through the soles. Her plastic bracelet swung on her wrist. Even through the sky was grey with cloud, the thin sunlight ached.
The stranger opened the passenger door for her and she slid inside, hands in her lap, staring straight ahead. The stranger sat beside her. He gripped the wheel but made no move to turn the key. His mouth opened and closed.
Finally he whispered, "Did you get all your medications?"
Kimberly nodded. Her heart beat a marching-band rhythm in her chest. The back of her pyjamas were soaked with sweat. He was close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the heat rising off his skin.
Rust: One Page 3
