Oblivion - Debt Collector 13 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  A slew of staff emerged from doorways and hurried towards a day room.

  “Stay here,” one of the psych techs ordered, glancing at a white electronic device on his hip that was flashing and letting off an audible tone. He hurried away to join his colleagues. Several patients cheered, others cowered in terror and pressed up against the walls as if expecting to be assaulted. Jack looked on, curious. In all his time inside the pen he’d never seen anything like this. By now a prison would be swarming with guards but there were none. To his right a psych tech ordered some of the patients to head into their rooms. They scurried inside like scared mice.

  Within seconds a tattooed man, six foot, over two hundred pounds, came barreling out of the day room with blood down the front of his chin and sweater. Attached to him like leeches were four techs holding on for dear life. He spun like a helicopter tossing one against the wall and another into a row of chairs. They clattered, a couple breaking.

  “Get the fuck off me!” the hulking man cried as he drove his shoulder into a tiny nurse who couldn’t have weighed a buck twenty wet. She heaved as he pinned her against the wall, then crumpled as another nurse pulled him back and tried to inject him. He swatted her like a fly, knocking the needle out of her hand. The tech beside Jack rushed to assist his colleagues only to be punched square in the jaw and soar across the heavily waxed linoleum floor like a curling stone. Every attempt to subdue the giant ended with another staff member being pulverized, thrown or threatened with a chair that he was now swinging like a baseball bat. Instincts told Jack to step in, to help, but experience taught him otherwise. That could mean signing his own death sentence. It was one of the unwritten rules of incarceration. You didn’t rat. You didn’t help the man.

  Still, it didn’t seem he had much choice.

  With staff out of commission, the muscle-bound, wild-eyed freak made a beeline for the door behind Jack with every intention of barreling through him if he didn’t move. Call it a snap decision, self-preservation, but Jack sidestepped at the last second, then slammed the edge of his shoe into the crook of the giant’s knee causing him to buckle. He followed through with a forearm to the neck causing his head to bounce off the cinderblock wall.

  That was all it took.

  He crashed to the floor wailing in agony. Before he could get his bearings or Jack could finish him, techs pile-dived both of them. Jack hit the wall and was instructed to not resist. He didn’t put up a fight but simply raised his hands while the others handled Goliath. Face red, eyes bulging in anger, as they pinned him to the ground he yelled at Jack. “You are dead. You hear me. Dead!” he thundered. The tattooed freak glared then shed his hard exterior for but a moment as a nurse wrestled to get a needle into his arm.

  “The voices. They made me do it. No. NO!”

  Cops and more staff from the unit on the floor above arrived a little too late. Three of them burst in, pepper spray at the ready, just as the shrieking alarm went silent. The additional psych techs dealt with the crowd that was gawking at whatever had occurred in the day room, the rest looked at Jack.

  “You gonna be a problem?” a nurse asked, a syringe at the ready.

  “Nope,” Jack replied as he watched the cops strong-arm the brute down to a seclusion room. He fought them every step of the way, kicking and screaming as they dragged him inside. Then the cops came out and waited.

  Shuffled down the hallway, Jack and the others were shoved into rooms as a voice bellowed over the speakers.

  “Lockdown.”

  “Ohhhh… yoooou’ve… done it now,” a slow voice said from behind him, each word drawn out — not a stutter but some kind of speech disorder. Jack turned to find a small fella with a thin face but a large smile. He had long dark hair on one side, swept behind one ear with gel. “I’m Edgar,” he said extending a hand before turning and pointing to a rat-faced fella laying on a bed on the far side of the room. “That’s Harvey but we all call him Cowboy. Don’t we?”

  The guy peered over a magazine, unfazed by the ruckus. The room was very basic. Four beds, two on either side, baby blue blankets covering white sheets, a side table for each bed and open closets for personal belongings. Jack gave a nod and returned to looking through the double-pane window. He could just glimpse a slice of the day room as a nurse and several other staffers gathered around someone on the ground. A pool of blood was visible, and from his vantage point it looked as if whoever was injured was a staff member. A team of paramedics rushed into the room with a gurney.

  “And you are?” Edgar asked.

  “Jack,” he replied.

  “You’re new.”

  He gave a nod but didn’t turn. He was too distracted by what was happening. A dozen staff members moved back and forth down the hallway, all with a pained expression.

  “What happened out there?” Jack asked.

  “Oh the usual. You’ll get used to it. Though you better watch your back from here on out. Tyler Sutton doesn’t make empty threats. Isn’t that right, Cowboy?” Cowboy grunted but didn’t look over. “He shanked Cowboy last year. Came within an inch of a major artery.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yep, Cowboy wouldn’t give up his bread.”

  Jack might have been surprised if he hadn’t done a stint in Rikers. Inmates got shanked for as simple as staring too long. He returned to watching the commotion as medics went to work with an IV line. Minutes later they loaded what appeared to be a woman onto a gurney, secured her and then hurried down the hall. Staff slammed unit doors behind them and then it went silent. Inside the day room, a cleaner entered with a mop and steel bucket and began splashing water over the blood-strewn floor.

  “Who got injured?”

  Edgar slumped on his bed, and tossed a piece of gum into his mouth. “Nurse Harvey. In all fairness she had it coming to her. The woman ruled with an iron fist. That only gets you so far in here.”

  Jack looked around the room, trying to decide which bed was his.

  “You can have either,” Edgar said. “That one there belonged to Lawson but he was taken to the ER last week. They came and got his things a few days ago. Some say he’s in a coma, others say he’s dead. Either way he won’t be returning, so help yourself.” Everything Edgar said was slow and stretched out.

  Jack didn’t have anything to put in the closet as the clothes on his back had been taken four months ago. Seeing an opportunity, Cowboy swung his legs off the bed and tossed the magazine. He spoke in a thick Texas accent. “You need anything, just come to me. I can get it.”

  Jack got up and checked the grated windows. They were locked and couldn’t be opened without a key. “I was told there was a commissary for that,” Jack said without looking at him.

  He chuckled. “Hey Stretch,” he said referring to Edgar. “You hear that?” He looked back at him. “Commissary doesn’t hand out cigarettes, alcohol or… well you know…” He looked around the room. “I would say more but they’re listening.”

  “Staff?” Jack asked.

  “No, the others.”

  Jack frowned and Edgar filled in the blanks. “Cowboy here thinks the CIA has this place tapped.” He put a finger up to his head and twirled it around a few times.

  “Hey fuck you, Stretch. I know what’s going on. I’m not crazy.” He returned to reading his magazine.

  Right then the door unlocked and a young psych tech came in, early twenties, his head was shaved and he wore a scowl. “Is that chewing gum?”

  “It’s from the commissary,” Edgar said.

  “Yeah, from Lawson’s commissary. I saw your list, Edgar. Gum wasn’t on it. You know the deal about sharing.”

  Edgar groaned.

  “Besides. It should be in the commissary box.”

  “Come on, Seth, give me a break. Just this one time.”

  Seth gritted his teeth and raised a finger at him. “One time. That’s it.”

  “Ah you’re golden, Seth.” He looked at Jack. “Seth Adams here is the only decent one on the unit. It’s J
enkins and Porter who let the team down, isn’t that right, Seth?”

  He rolled his eyes and jerked his head. “Winchester. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “The doc wants to see you. Give you the welcome tour.”

  “More like a warning,” Cowboy muttered without looking. “Don’t let ’em break you, Jack,” he said. “He acts all meek and mild but he’s the devil in disguise.”

  Seth thumbed towards the door and Jack looked at the others before reluctantly heading back into the hallway. It was calm, quiet and many of the doors on the dorms were now open. As they passed by the day room, Jack cast a sideways glance. Two nurses were clearing up around the guy who was still mopping blood.

  They continued on past the nurses station and to an office at the end of a long hallway. In gold lettering on the outside of the window was the name: Dr. Chapman. A quick knock and a male voice beckoned them in. Adams opened the door and held the handle as Jack stepped inside the cramped room.

  A rough-looking, overweight, middle-aged man in a creased gray suit sat in front of a single opaque window, behind a metal desk that had one chair in front of it for visitors. In front of him was an aging computer, with a phone to the side. Directly in front of that was a heaped pile of charts, and paperwork stuffed into yellow folders, a red stapler, a container of pens and an overfilled wastebasket on the floor. “Please, take a seat. Excuse the mess. They’re a little behind in getting everything digitized,” he said rising to his feet. He placed a folder inside a dented gunmetal cabinet. “But we’re getting there. Slowly,” he said. Jack took a seat and glanced at the photos of a family. Two children, teen girls, and a wife that looked as if she’d been convinced into taking the photo. Chapman took a seat, set a yellow folder in front of him in and shifted his thick glasses on the bridge of his nose. He sniffed hard and squinted. “Jack Winchester. I must say I have been looking forward to your arrival. How are you?”

  A pause.

  “Is that meant to be a joke?”

  He smiled and adjusted his hands in front of him. “Of course not. I’m sorry you had to witness that today. Ms. Harvey was the head nurse here at Holbrook for the past nine years. A real loss. She’ll be missed, that’s for sure.”

  Jack frowned. “Missed?”

  “I’m afraid so. Died on route to the hospital.”

  “I thought this was one?”

  “Different. We can handle small matters — scrapes, minor cuts, bruises. Our focus though is on mental illness. The ER in Saranac Lake is setup for trauma.” He gave a pained expression then thumbed a few pieces of paper. “Anyway, why did you intervene today?” he asked before peering over his spectacles.

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “Huh?” Chapman said leaning back and removing his glasses. He chewed on an earpiece. “And yet you didn’t know what was right or wrong when you murdered the Lewis family.”

  Jack shook his head and blew out his cheeks. “I didn’t do it.”

  He glanced down. “Well, that’s not what your chart says. Then again it does say you were on meth at the time.” He glanced up. “Probably impaired your memory of the event.”

  Jack snorted and smiled. “I’ve never taken meth in my life.”

  “Well that’s not what your…”

  “…chart says, right,” Jack said, cutting him off. Someone had set him up, of that he was sure.

  Chapman stared at him for an uncomfortable length of time like he was some lab experiment. He scribbled on the sheet but covered it before Jack could see what it said. “Tell me, Jack, are you hearing any voices?”

  “Only yours.”

  “Experiencing hallucinations?”

  “Not so far unless you’re one.”

  Chapman cracked a smile.

  “What about hurting yourself or others?”

  “That’s subjective, isn’t it?”

  “Well you tell me. Did you want to hurt Sutton today?”

  Jack’s lip curled. He could tell the quack was playing mind games with him. “I wanted to stop him.”

  “By hurting him?”

  Jack leaned forward making the doc feel uncomfortable. He saw him reach for the electronic device on his hip. The same one all the staff had. “Sometimes you’ve got to hurt others to stop them, doc. Take this place for instance. You want to stop people going crazy by locking them up. That’s a form of torture.”

  “Treatment, you mean.”

  “Call it what you will. It’s still mental torture.” He took a deep breath. “I did what your staff attempted to do. I stopped him.”

  “And they would have… eventually.”

  “Yeah right. Tell me, doc, were the staff trying to hurt him?”

  “No.”

  “Then neither was I.”

  “But you struck him.”

  “It stopped him, didn’t it?”

  He scribbled again. “It did. However, we’re not allowed to do that.”

  “Are you serious? This is a prison.”

  Chapman looked at him again, leaned forward and ran a hand around the back of his neck. “No, Mr. Winchester, this is a hospital. You can’t be a prison and a hospital at the same time.”

  Jack stared back at him then thought back to the lack of guards in the unit. “Why don’t you have guards inside?”

  “Because hospitals don’t have guards. They have security but you’ll find them at the entrance not walking the ward.”

  “But you have the criminally insane walking the hallways.”

  Chapman got this smirk on his face and leaned back in his chair as if he was about to give some speech. He wasn’t, but he used the opportunity to clarify.

  “That we do. However our staff is trained in conflict management.”

  “Yeah, they really managed today, didn’t they?” Jack smirked.

  He took a deep breath. “A patient’s rights and the mental health laws are tricky to navigate, Mr. Winchester. For years we catered to the chronically insane. Not all of the mentally ill are criminals or violent, however, the majority of those sent here are. Believe me, it’s been an ongoing battle to change policies and add safeguards to protect workers. But until the new bills pass both houses of the state legislature, and facilities are remodeled to implement the new laws, violence is just a part of our life. It comes with the territory.”

  “That’s it? That’s how you handle things?”

  “Trust me, Mr. Winchester, measures are being taken.” Jack got a sense that those measures might mean stepping outside the confines of the law. And just like that Chapman shifted the conversation back to him. “Are you having suicidal thoughts?”

  Jack shook his head. A barrage of questions continued for another five minutes as Chapman filled out a template that was used for writing a report, a report that would be modified, updated and eventually wind up in the hands of a judge to determine if he was still a threat to the community. Why it was being done for him was anyone’s guess as no one had told him if he’d ever get out. “So, we are nearly done here. Usually our head nurse gives the tour but… well, I will be doing that today. But before we head out, I just had one more question.” Chapman leaned in. “In your file,” he looked down. “Dana Grant. The woman you mentioned to doctors who assessed your mental state. Do you still believe she was kidnapped by someone and died in an auto accident?”

  A pause.

  The bastards were playing him. On the first night authorities questioned Jack, he’d asked about Dana but the police had no report of a vehicle accident, let alone someone dying, but one thing was certain, Dana had died on that lonely stretch of road.

  “Yes,” he replied, refusing to deny it even if it meant they thought he was delusional and had written him off as a paranoid schizophrenic.

  2

  The cops had stonewalled her for months. Trying to get information regarding the arrest of Jack Winchester was like trying to get blood from a stone. Until a media outlet released a video detailing Jack’s day in court, repo
rter Kelly Armstrong had been following a tip that had led her to Arkansas but never panned out. Leads dried up, leaving her to make excuses to her boss, Roger Johnson, the editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle. Of course he never bought them so they were forced to return to the city.

  But she hadn’t given up.

  As soon as word came over the newswire of a major incident in Apalachin, and Jack’s name was attached to it, she’d been all over it. With a solid lead, Zach Larsen had managed to convince Johnson to let Kelly go speak with Winchester. He’d fluffed his ego and told him that when the story broke, it wouldn’t just be the Chronicle reaping the benefit, it would be him. Imagine the admiration of your peers. Think of the applause. He bought it... Hell, how could he not? Zach could sell anything.

  Kelly thought the story was in the bag.

  A quick trip to upstate New York, a friendly meeting with Jack in Holbrook and she’d have everything she needed. But that’s where her problems started. Multiple attempts at booking a visit had failed. Family, friends, it didn’t matter what she told them, for one reason or another, they had made it clear that Winchester was unable to have visitors. She’d phoned on different days, at different times, and had even shown up in person but made no headway.

  The administration simply refused to let her in, and directed her to their policies.

  They weren’t the only ones playing hardball.

  Holed up in a motel in Ray Brook, New York, she’d been suckered into a Skype call with Zach who was now in the habit of getting her on video. She hated it. It not only made her feel uncomfortable having him gawking at her but now she had to endure looking at his ugly mug.

  She sipped on hot coffee. “It’s a violation of human rights,” she said. “It just has to be.”

  “No, they just don’t like the media.”

  “I never told them I was from the paper.”

  “These suits can sniff a reporter from a mile away,” Zach said snapping gum obnoxiously.

  “There has to be something we can do.”

  “It’s a forensic facility. They can do whatever they like.” He sniffed hard. “Anyway, I anticipated you would run into trouble so I came up with a plan B.” He leaned back, a sly grin forming as he ran a hand over his unruly mustache. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?”