The Haunting of Westmore Hospital - Behold the Doctor of Death

by Riley Amitrani

  Bert saw no reason to continue on the same old tact of trying to convince Jamie that she had just imagined the six spirits. They had been over this and over this, and each time she had denied it. He saw no point in continuing on in this vein. The other issue he did consider, though, was Jamie’s propensity toward an interest in the paranormal. It was not that Bert did not believe in such things, but more that he had just never seen such phenomenon first-hand. He had never discounted Jamie’s interest in that area, but at the same time he began to wonder if the stress from her accident in combination with the drugs she was on was making her dream up some sort of non-physical hallucination, due to her interest in the paranormal.

  First it had been the non-existent Dr. Malone and the oxygen mask, and now a whole wrath of entities warning her about the mythical doctor. The worst possibility that occurred to Bert, and he hated himself for even considering the possibility, was Jamie’s family history. When they had been dating for about six months, Jamie had confided in Bert about a history of schizophrenia and a dissociative personality disorder that her mother had suffered from when Jamie was just five or six. Bert had no idea if such things had a genetic component or not, but it did pop into his mind.

  “I know what you are thinking, Bert…” Jamie finally said as he figured she could sense his reticence at believing her story. “You think I am imagining all this! Dr. Malone…the visitors that were just here…”

  Bert did not respond.

  “Bert, you have got to believe me! I am not seeing or hearing things that are not there. I am not my poor, demented mother!”

  That last bit stabbed Bert in the heart. Somehow, she had seen the gears in his brain beginning to turn. He felt guilty for even letting those thoughts come to him, but right now he had no idea what to believe. He felt ashamed at his reaction, but Bert knew he would, for now, have to humor Jamie until he could get some help. And Lucy Tanner seemed to be his best bet for some initial help.

  “I know you are not your mom, Jamie. But something is going on here.”

  “I could not agree more…can you do me a favor and just poke around and see what you can find out about a Dr. Malone in Westmore? Please?”

  “Sure, Jamie…that much I can do. You want anything else to help you sleep?”

  “Hell no! I’ve had enough drugs turning my system upside down for one day, I think…”

  Bert kissed her good night and waited until she had settled in and doused her night table lamp before leaving. He felt duplicitous letting Jamie believe he would research a doctor that Lucy Tanner had assured them did not exist…at least here at Westmore Memorial…as he made his way to see the nurse to try and get her assistance with Jamie and these possible hallucinations. Lucy looked up from her work as Bert approached and waved.

  “Heading home?” Lucy asked.

  “Actually….” Bert began, “you got a minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Can you take a break?”

  Lucy nodded, bringing her pager with her in case there was an emergency as they moved to the waiting room just down the hallway from Jamie’s room.

  “You OK, Bert? You look upset.”

  “I am. It’s about Jamie. I need your professional advice or at least opinion. In confidence.”

  Lucy nodded as she furrowed her brow, wondering where this was going. Bert went through all the visions that Jamie had described to him following the siting of Dr. Malone. He tried to be as thorough and detailed as he could from Jamie’s descriptions of her latest experience as well as the state he had found her in when he returned from the bathroom. Lucy began to take notes as Bert talked.

  “I’m a bit concerned about her mental health based on all of this, Lucy. At first, I thought it might be just some bizarre drug interactions, but now I am not so sure.”

  “Any family history of mental illness?”

  Bert nodded sheepishly and told Lucy what little he knew of Jamie’s mother.

  “Can that kind of thing be passed on from parents to children, Lucy?”

  She shrugged.

  “It depends on who you talk to. I’m not sure I am convinced, though. The drugs can cause certain types of visual and auditory hallucinations, but I agree with you that the window for that explanation has most likely passed. I am not sure what to tell you, but there may be something else going on with her…. maybe we should...”

  But Lucy never finished her train of thought. Before the rest of her sentence was finished, a menacing scream of terror pierced the hallway coming from room 434.

  Call in the Shrinks

  Westmore Memorial Hospital

  Westmore, NH

  April 20, 2017

  11 PM

  Just as Jamie finally felt her body relax and her eyes closing for the night, she detected an odd rustling sound and cracked her lids open to see the large curtain that divided the room in half moving as if a breeze from an open window was blowing it about. The problem, Jamie saw, was that there was no open window. Not even a breeze coming from her door which was just slightly ajar. Before she realized it, the form of Dr. Malone was hovering over her again. This time, however, the doctor appeared much more ephemeral than on his previous visit to her room, much like the group of six specters that had come to warn her about the good doctor. His features, unlike the others, were distinct and solid-looking, but this time Jamie detected a slight difference.

  He was semi-opaque, which had not been the case previously, at least from her recollection. But his movements were also just a bit off. Before he had seemed to move with the normal mechanics and fluidity of any person. This time his movements were a bit jerky or contrived, as if his form was being controlled from elsewhere. He seemed more solid and real than the other spirits, but this time around, not quite so humanoid. Also, if he had feet, which Jamie could not have sworn to, he was not using them. He was floating across her bed as he came at her with the oxygen mask again. He did not speak until he was almost on top of her, but when he did, his voice was off as well. It had this distant echo-like quality to it as he insisted she put on the mask.

  But what really made Jamie’s blood run cold, was when she looked up into the Malone-thing’s face. The eyes were dead and black, much like the quality of a shark that she remembered from the many nature shows she had watched over the years. His mouth was drawn back into a half-grimace, half-sneer of perversion as he lowered the mask toward her face. It was then that whatever spell Malone had over her, Jamie broke free of it and screamed with all that she had as she fought the specter and his attempts to place the mask over her mouth. It was just then that Bert and Lucy burst into her room to find Jamie flailing at the air as she thrashed from side to side, nearly falling from her bed.

  Jamie was alone in her room. All that was moving other than her was a loose oxygen mask that had come detached from its mooring of the tank that sat next to her bed, apparently from all of Jamie’s contortions. It took Lucy and Bert together to collect Jamie and get her to stop all of her thrashing about while she related a hysterical and overly agitated version of what she had just seen: the latest drop-in from Dr. Malone. As Jamie’s ranting and raving went on and on, Bert looked across the bed and caught Lucy’s eyes. The nurse just nodded and left to leave Bert alone with her. Lucy came back in just a few seconds with a pill cup and some water. Jamie looked over at her and her agitation returned.

  “No more drugs, please, Lucy…I am begging you!” Jamie cried out as she struggled in Bert’s grip.

  “Jamie, honey…there is no way you will ever sleep tonight without this and I am afraid another episode may damage the casting on your ankle and that is something you do not want, trust me. You want to go through all of that orthopedic torture again?”

  That last bit seemed to mollify Jamie and she stopped struggling against Bert. He looked over Jamie’s head and mouthed “thank you” in Lucy’s direction. As well, Bert appreciated that the nurse had had the approach to not deny what Jamie had imagined, but rather framed it a
s “another episode”. Jamie relaxed and took the pill from Lucy. The sedative was quick acting and Jamie felt herself slowly drifting away.

  “No need to worry, Jamie…” Lucy said as she took back the empty pill cup. “Both Bert and I will be here all night to keep an eye out for Dr. Malone.”

  Jamie nodded that she understood as she fell back into bed under the effects of the sedative. However, just before she nodded off completely, she looked up to see the form of Dr. Malone back again hovering over her bed, up near the ceiling, chuckling to himself as if he had just heard the most delightful joke ever.

  “This is how it will feel when you die, Jamie…just drift away…no pain…no suffering…no more people thinking you are crazy…like your Mom…just give in and join me…”

  Jamie could hear the man distinctly as if he were whispering in her ear, despite his being far away and up near the top of the room as he flitted back and forth over her. She wanted to call out to Bert and Lucy to warn them…to show them this was real…but the drug was too powerful, and the sight of the Malone-thing and the sound of his mocking voice were the last things Jamie was aware of that night. Her lids grew too heavy to hold open any longer and her world went black.

  ………

  When Jamie awoke the next morning, she felt rested, but did not recognize anything of her surroundings. She was alone in a much smaller room, with bars on the windows. It made no sense. Where exactly was she? Had they moved her? And why? Or was she really losing her mind? The sun was slanting through the lone window, but it did not look like the morning light at all. Had she actually slept through the entire day? It was an odd feeling, to be this disoriented and confused. Jamie remembered a time from high school when she and some friends had gone on a drinking binge and then crashed. When she had awoken from that stupor, the sunlight from outside looked as odd as it did now, giving her no idea if it was morning or late afternoon.

  As Jamie pondered her new digs, the door opened and Lucy Tanner appeared carrying a tray of food. She set the tray on a table nearby and came and sat on the edge of Jamie’s bed. She smiled, but even in her confused state, Jamie could see Lucy’s smile was forced and contrived.

  “Brought you dinner, Jamie….”

  “Not sure I have much of an appetite tonight…mind telling me what is going on? Maybe where I am for starters?”

  Lucy’s smile fell away as she reached out and touched Jamie’s hand with her own. The gesture had good intent, bur Jamie drew her hand away, sensing whatever was up was about to piss her off.

  “Based on what you have been experiencing since we checked you in, Jamie, we decided to move you here to the psych ward for some further evaluation.”

  “Psych ward?”

  “Don’t try and make this out to be more than it is, Jamie. We’re just trying to figure out what is going on with you.”

  “To determine if I am full-blown insane, so you can have me committed? Something like that?”

  “Not at all. It could be some lingering side effect of the medication or…”

  “Or the fact that my mother had to be hospitalized for a few years due to her mental illness diagnoses? And you just assumed it’s a family thing?”

  “Please, Jamie…you are really overreacting…”

  “Really? Overreacting? I came into this place for a broken ankle and end up in the looney bin? Take my belt, shoelaces, remove all the sharp objects from the room…that about right?”

  Lucy sighed with exasperation, as she weathered Jamie’s outburst.

  “It’s just so we can try and understand why you are seeing things…and hearing things that are not there…”

  Jamie knew what she had seen and what she had heard, and she did not understand it all yet, but one thing she did know was that it was not her imagination or hallucinations due to some medication. The other thing she knew was that showing more anger or antagonism toward Lucy or the hospital for her situation was only going to make matters worse. She reluctantly bit her tongue and took a deep breath. In the back of her mind, Jamie prayed that Bert was not in on this decision and that he had trusted her enough to actually look into the history of the hospital, the maniacal Dr. Malone and Westmore. In the meantime, she would have to play along with whatever these people had in store for her.

  “Fine…where is Bert?”

  “It’s late and he went home for the evening. He’ll be back in the morning, though. In the meantime, you should try and eat something. You’ve been out from that sedative for quite a while.”

  Jamie nodded, tamping down her growing anger. Maybe she could at least talk to Bert to see if he was in on this plot or if he was out of the loop and was looking into Dr. Malone’s background.

  “Can I at least call him?”

  “Sorry. No phones are allowed on this ward. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Don’t like it but, yeah…I get it.”

  Help Me Obi-Wan…I Mean Bert…You’re My Only Hope

  Westmore Memorial Hospital

  Westmore, NH

  April 21, 2017

  8 PM

  Jamie had been young, but the memories of the institution where her mother had been locked away were still vivid for her. That place was not as bad as it could have been. In-patient mental health facilities had vastly improved by the time Jamie’s mother had been taken away. But even so, it was definitely not the Ritz. She had tried to visit her after she had been hospitalized, but between the cold, inhospitable atmosphere and her mother’s descent into a personal madness that seemed unreachable at the time, Jamie’s visits began to get less and less frequent. As she thought back on it now, it still gave her an unpleasant shiver down her spine.

  Dinner was now the last item of interest for her, and Jamie slid the tray of food across the table and sat back to think. The odd thing about the Malone-thing was how it had seemed to deteriorate in substance between the two times it had come to her. Its demeanor and malevolence had not changed, though. In fact, if anything, that had gotten worse. Maybe, Jamie thought, there was some weird need for the thing to take her away. The pathetic chants of the spirits that had come to warn her about Malone seemed to be in a kind of torture or agony as they spoke to her.

  The fact that all of these emanations were still strongly attached to the facility made Jamie really curious as to what had gone on here to keep them hanging on. Her brief foray into all things paranormal when she was a young teenager fed this curiosity. She knew from what she had read and heard, that beings who were taken unexpectedly or in a violent manner when physical entities often could not move on. For her spirit friends…that was what Jamie had come to refer to the group of spirits trying to warn her about Malone…that was understandable. If Malone had killed them, it was easy to see why they might be stuck. But why Malone? As she mulled this over, the only conclusion Jamie could come to was that Malone must have had a violent end as well. Perhaps from someone who found him out or by his own hand…

  Unless, the other option was in play here, Jamie considered. What if she really was mentally ill? What if her mother’s ailment was hereditary? The dual diagnoses had come to her mother when she was about the age Jamie was now. What if? The mere idea of it shook Jamie to her core. She had watched, as a child, as her mom slowly deteriorated from a loving, caring, completely devoted mother to the fragmented, paranoid, unpredictable shell of a woman who was finally committed by her family. She closed her eyes as tears of fear and uncertainty leaked from her lids. Jamie would have given into a crying fit full of self-pity and hopelessness, but that was just not her style. Due to her mother’s long absence in her adolescence, Jamie had learned to grow up more quickly than her peers. She had been very self-reliant from an early age…she supposed that was the one positive attribute that had blossomed within her due to her mother’s illnesses.

  The more she thought about it, the more she refused to buy into some hereditary link. She knew Malone and the others had been real. At least real in the sense that she had not hallucinated t
hem. Even if no one else believed in other worldly presences, she did, and she was now convinced that this is where the Malone-thing and her friends had come from. Her only hope now, both to figure this thing out and to somehow get herself out of this predicament in the hospital, lay with Bert. Though not a particularly religious or even spiritual person, Jamie prayed with all her might that Bert was not in on this thing with the hospital staff. That he knew her well enough to be seeing what he could dig up on Dr. Malone, etc... If Bert was not on her side, then she might have no hope of convincing anyone else that she was not just an offshoot of her poor mother.

  Even though it had grown stone cold, Jamie looked over at what passed for dinner at Westmore Memorial, wishing maybe she had not been so stubborn about refusing the meal. She had let her anger at being locked up in the psych ward over ride common sense. The now congealed meatish entrée was not an option, but Jamie picked at the salad and the scoop of jello that had come along for the ride. It was not much, but it was enough for the moment. All she was doing now was focusing on Bert’s arrival in the morning. She just had to get through the night. Jamie lay back and stared at the ceiling, unable to get her brain to shut down enough to let sleep come to her.

  The moon was casting a sliver of light through the window that sliced across the far wall like a dagger. The calm night began to morph as a low wind kicked up rustling the broad leafy trees just beyond Jamie’s window. Clouds rolled in and the dagger of moonlight began to disappear, bit by bit. With no real warning, a rumble of thunder broke the silence of the night and a light rain began to fall. The illumination of the moon was replaced with intermittent slashes of lightning as the rain came harder, pattering against the panes of the window in sheets. A sudden loud clap of thunder rattled the glass and make Jamie jump, the sound shaking the room with its echo.

  She drew up her blanket to her chin as the temperature of the room seemed to be falling inexplicably. The curtain by the window was still in the dim light of her room, but it was like the cold air from the storm outside was somehow leaking around the edges of the window frame and into her room. The room grew colder still as Jamie felt her teeth chatter and she could actually see her breath in her exhalations which were now coming more rapidly. No matter how much of the blanket she gathered up, it seemed to be of no help as the temperature of her room continued to plummet. Just as another clap of thunder broke into the night, and violent shards of lightning accompanied it across the deep black of the sky, the curtains of Jamie’s room now began to flutter.