Dark Winter: Last Rites

by Hennessy, John

  The Administrator looked at the file once more.

  “Put Mr Currie in Room 14.”

  “It’s Curie, not Currie,” said the officer. “Donald J. Curie.”

  “Whatever. R14. He’ll be cleaned and fed. Therapy starts tomorrow.”

  The officers looked at each other, as if to say that’ll be a waste of time.

  As the door shut on Room 14, laughing erupted from within its walls. He was already planning his escape.

  Over the five years he was institutionalised at St Margaret’s, a succession of therapists came and went.

  The voices told him it was time. With a new therapist due to arrive at Section D, he decided to put his plan into action.

  ***

  The next day, Annelise Lister arrived to begin the first of many projected therapy sessions. Patients at St Margaret’s Hospital may have had all sorts of reasons for being there, but only a handful ended up staying at Section D. For most of the five years on the inside, Section D had housed only a few patients. Donald Curie was one of them.

  Two of the officers that had been posted had been as good as their senior’s word, and had stayed outside of Room 14 all night. One of them looked like he had experienced a poor night’s sleep.

  Annelise asked him what was wrong, and he answered that Curie had been whispering to him all night.

  Annelise asked them to unlock the door. When they went to follow her inside, she told them she didn’t need their help.

  “Sorry Miss, we have our orders.”

  She looked at twenty-two year old Donald Curie, who was sitting on the bed, looking out of the window.

  “My name is Miss Lister. We’re not going to have any trouble from you, are we Donald?”

  Without turning his gaze away from the window.

  “From me? No. From Them? Quite possibly.”

  Annelise Lister was twenty seven years old, a smart young woman who was dedicated to helping difficult patients come to terms with their illness. She was an idealist who wanted to see the best in everyone. She decided to ignore his cryptic statement, though it wasn’t lost on her, that as a small child who had roamed the woods, she had seen some things a child is not supposed to be able to see. As an adult, she hadn’t seen those things, not even once.

  The analytical side of her dismissed those sights as the overactive imagination of a child.

  The officers chained Curie to the bed, and restrained his legs with a locking bolt.

  “Is that really necessary?” she asked the officers.

  “Yes, Miss, it is,” they replied.

  She rolled her eyes. This was going to make an already difficult job an impossible one.

  “You’re concerned for my welfare,” said Curie. “That’s nice.”

  “I don’t care about nice, Donald. My only concern is efficiency. I am here to make you well.”

  He shuffled a little on the bed. “The restraints are valid, Miss Lister. I could hurt you. Hurt them. That’s why they restrain me.”

  “You’re not going to hurt me,” stated Annelise. “You are going to do what I say. Exactly what I say.”

  “Oh yes, Mistress. Do give me your instructions, won’t you?”

  “Here’s my first instruction to you. Do not call me Mistress.”

  Curie smiled. “Just a little fun. There’s not much here in the way of fun.”

  “They restricted your fun. Is that why you are so angry?”

  Curie looked confused. “Do I seem angry to you?”

  “Calling me what you just did, would seem to aim to elicit an angry response. But I am experienced at what I do, so it won’t work on me. I have a number of questions for you, and I expect you to answer them. No smart answers. Just nod if you agree.”

  He nodded, but never took his black eyes off her.

  “I am picturing you naked,” he said. “But first, I imagined you just in your bra and underwear. Red, I think. You’re wearing perfume too, the kind of scent a woman would wear in the evening. Have you somewhere to go, after you’re done with me?”

  She sat quietly for a moment, reading through his file.

  “You’re pretending to ignore me,” he said. “But we both know that you’re listening to my every word, and processing it in your mind. I can tell you all what is in that file, but I’ll give you more. I will give you the unabridged version. After all, all I have is time, and plenty of it.”

  She closed the file, uncrossed then crossed her legs, and pressed the rim of her glasses towards her eyes.

  “Sometimes, it takes just a few sessions. For others, it can take months. I wonder how long it is going to take with you?”

  “Are we talking about sex, or therapy?”

  “Therapy, Donald.”

  Curie smiled. Annelise used his name as if she was familiar to him.

  “You call me by my first name, yet I don’t know yours.”

  “If you’re good, maybe I will tell you.”

  “Hah!” he spat. “If I was good, do you think I would have ended up at this fine institution?”

  “I’m not here to determine that.”

  “Then what are you here for, exactly?”

  This was a question that came up time and again during therapy sessions. Some subjects were like stone – they decided they were not going to speak, and it was a position they held onto. Others, like Curie, never knew when to shut up. But he had a cold, calculating way of speaking that deeply unsettled her.

  “I’m here to help you come to terms with what you did.”

  “Are you referring to the death of my mother and brother?”

  Annelise looked up from the file which had been sitting on her lap. “I am referring to the murder of your mother and brother. A murder that you committed.”

  Curie’s eyes scanned the room, which he had covered with his own drawings and illustrations over the years.

  “That picture, above your right shoulder. That’s one of my mother and two brothers.”

  “How come you let your other brother live? Did he promise you something?”

  “He….wasn’t home at the time. He’s twelve years older than me.” His eyes stopped scanning the room, flickered a little, then he repeated himself. “He wasn’t at home when it happened.”

  “You sound disappointed,” said Annelise.

  “Not really. It all worked out in the end.”

  Curie spoke as if he was already envisaging his time post incarceration at the hospital. Though she was loathed to acknowledge it, she just had to say it.

  “You’re speaking as if you have already left this place.”

  “That must seem very strange to you,” he said. “The kind of statement one who is insane might make, isn’t that so?”

  “We’re trained not to say such things,” Annelise replied. She instantly regretted her words. “Can we get back on track?”

  Curie tilted his head. “Why, Annelise? Are you lost?”

  Her heart rate sped up as he spoke her name. How did he know? How? was all she was thinking.

  “Let me help you get back on track, Annelise. Close the file you have there, and I will tell you everything. How it all started, the things I did, the things I wish I had not done, what I have done since coming to this place. Everything.”

  Okay. To get to this man’s soul, not just his brain, but his very soul, she would have to play it the way he wanted it to be played. Otherwise, she would never be able to reach him. She had read his file. But the killing of two family members, only to leave a third alive, went against everything she believed about Donald J. Curie.

  People had died since his incarceration at St Margaret’s. Oh, the rumours were that the victims were found in their last moments uttering the word of Diabhal, but Annelise felt she was closer to the truth. This man, not the Devil himself, was responsible.

  Unless of course, the Devil had manifested itself in the shape and form of this man.

  If this were the case, surely Donald Curie was a victim too? Any reasonable person
could see that he was a tool, being used by Diabhal to carry out his work on this Earth. Perhaps, perhaps not.

  She had to know for sure.

  “If we’re going to get the best out of these sessions, you had better level with me from the start. Leave nothing out.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Cure, a wicked glint in his eye. “Most people wouldn’t want to chat with me with subjects other than the weather and last night’s football results.”

  “Let’s start with something simple,” stated Annelise. “Donald J Curie? What does the J stand for?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said Jesus.”

  “No,” replied Annelise in a clipped tone. “I would not. No deceptions now, come on.”

  “Well,” spoke Curie with surprise in his voice, his brow furrowing with confusion. “I thought that was the general theme for these sessions. Deception. After all, you are attempting to deceive me, aren’t you?”

  “My job as a therapist-”

  “-is extremely well paid. Life has been good to you, hasn’t it Annelise?”

  “Fifteen minutes has already been wasted,” snapped Annelise.

  “What’s the matter? Are you frightened you won’t have anything to report after our little get-together? Just how much are they paying you to treat me?”

  Annelise thought about that for a second. It clearly wasn’t enough. She made for the door.

  “Oh don’t play the hurt little girl routine with me, Annelise. Sit down. Sit. I’ll tell you what you want to know, and probably lots of things you don’t want to know. I do hope you don’t have a weak stomach.”

  She turned around slowly. Annelise had read the file. It told her the basics. Curie showed psychopathic tendencies from an early age. He was also a sociopath – he did not seem to think that the murder of two family members should have been something of concern to him. He had been moved from Section A through to Section D over the years. No-one seemed to be able to reach him, and the hospital workers had others to attend to, and could not waste all of their energies on one individual.

  “Okay then,” said Annelise, who started recording on her dictation machine. “Why don’t you tell me about the demon?”

  “Demons in general? Or my demon? Believe me, I don’t want to frighten you. My demon would scare you.”

  “I don’t scare easily, Donald. Do enlighten me about your demon.”

  Curie took in a huge intake of breath. “You’re mocking me. I do not like that. The demons don’t like that. You’ll end up being taken by one of them, and then – you and I will have an understanding.”

  “Talk, or I am going. You’re not the only patient I have to see.”

  “Acting all hurt again, are you Annelise? Who ever else you see, I doubt that they’ll tell you anything of note. I have a strong feeling – you’d call it intuition – that you’ll remember everything I have told you today.”

  Annelise resumed her seated position. She was surprised that he actually began to talk. He wasn’t trying to wind her up. There were no more verbal or non-verbal exchanges. He spoke as if she wasn’t there.

  “The first time I saw something die, was when my mother, Eloisa was her name, swatted a large housefly that had been buzzing around the room. I must have been eighteen months old, but it had been buzzing around my cot, and my mother was trying desperately to keep the winged insect away.

  I found it fascinating, and I could not take my eyes off it as it continued its flight plan. I could hear Mother saying things like ‘blasted thing’ and other words I was too young to understand. It was small, yet it could fly. It could actually lift its body off the ground and fly. Whilst I kept my eyes on it, Mother went in and out of the room, bringing in larger objects to make it go away.

  I didn’t realise she was actually trying to kill it. Then, it zoomed in towards me, and hit me on the side of the face. I didn’t like the sensation. The buzzing was loud and made my ears hurt. It’s wings had veins and its black body had an unpleasant look about it. As it made its ascent, Mother must have believed it was going to attack me again.

  This time, the magazine she had rolled up into a weapon connected with the black winged one. The buzz lost its intensity, and it fell to the floor. The bedroom was decorated with a dark blue carpet. It would be near impossible to find the housefly, and kill it for sure.

  Mother seemed satisfied that it could hurt me no more; so she tucked me in more tightly and left the room. As she was leaving, the word I had never said before left my mouth.

  ‘Fly,’ I said. Mother turned to look at me. I had gotten used to that look, from the doctors in the hospital, to the last moments of my brother Malcolm. Mother often wore this look – one of horror, despair, and terror.

  Still, as the head of the household, she tried so hard to keep control of me. ‘Yes, Donald. It was a fly. Go sleep now.’

  She would walk off, her assured walk in high heels would be lost whenever I said something that unsettled her. As I grew older, I said many more things that would unsettle her. That night, the night she killed the fly, was the start of her return to drinking. My beautiful mother had started to become a demon herself.”

  Curie paused for a moment. He wanted to check that Annelise was still listening, still paying attention. The clock was ticking on, yet Curie only appeared to be getting started. He had so much to tell her.

  “It was just a fly, wasn’t it?” asked Annelise, wondering why he was making so much of it. Curie had intimated that it was the first time he had witnessed anything dying. Surely a fly could not be the catalyst for the evil deeds he had committed? It was her turn to pause, and he took the opportunity to continue.

  “It was early Autumn, so the nights were drawing in noticeably and far more quicker than even a month before. Back then, Mother tucked me in around 7:00pm, and I would soon drop off to sleep.

  One night, I dreamed about the fly. Actually, in the dream I was convinced that I was the fly. I recall being able to soar above my bed, and see my own body at rest. The buzzing sound was muffled, yet I could still hear it. There was no mistaking that sound. I wanted to fly towards the mirror, and check exactly what I resembled.

  All of a sudden, I found myself back in the cot, where the buzzing sound had amplified. Uncomfortable feelings turned to horrific ones. My legs were crawling with flies – their wings sticking to my skin, others crawling up my body towards my face, my mouth, and my eyes.

  My reality, my dreams, my nightmares had all rolled into one. Any sympathy I felt for the fly evaporated with every advance they were making on my small body. I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell them to stop, but if I opened my mouth, they would have crawled inside, filling my throat with so many little black bodies that I would be unable to breathe. I could feel their tiny little bodies being crunched between my teeth.

  Then, my mother would walk into check on me, only to discover I had been a victim because of her wrath towards a weaker being. But collectively, these flies were a menace, possessing far more power than I ever could.

  You can’t imagine my relief when I woke up, in my own body, in my own cot, not a fly in sight.”

  “So!” exclaimed Annelise. “It was dream.”

  “That’s what I thought, yes. Mother came in the next morning. She looked awful, as if she had been drinking all night. She hadn’t taken her makeup off from the night before, and it was all horribly smudged all over her face. For the first time, I viewed my mother in a very unattractive light. Prior to that, she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.

  ‘Donald,’ she said, the slightest of slurring in her words. ‘I couldn’t sleep with the racket you were making last night. All I wanted was my sleep, and you stole it from me, you little demon.’

  “I didn’t know what the word demon meant. The way Mother said it, I believed it was a way of softening her words. I just knew that somehow, I had been responsible for how she looked. Dishevelled. Unkempt, and yes – ugly. I had to do something to make it right. My tho
ughts and the words I wanted to say were far apart, and all I could say was an innocent sounding word, but one that made her erupt like a volcano.

  “Fly.”

  ‘Yes, the damned fly,’ she said irritably. ‘It was in my room too. Every time I got to sleep, it buzzed by my head, time and again. Do you know what I’ll do if I see that damned fly again, Donald? I’ll kill it, just kill it.’

  Annelise just had to cut in.

  “Was your mother drunk in the morning? Surely she must have known better than to leave her makeup on the night before? Why didn't she check it? Why was she so obsessed with the fly?”