Arsenic for the Soul

by Nathan Wilson

  “I happened across your car and it didn’t take me long to pick up your trail in the mud. I see your date is mysteriously absent. Don’t tell me he…”

  Vivian nodded.

  “He went inside.”

  “And you didn’t hit him over the head to stop him?”

  “I tried to stop him but he…” She didn’t want to explain how he made her whimper with a decadent kiss. She was already furious with herself for yielding to his advances. She didn’t need Camilla adding her laughter on top of that insult. Luckily, Camilla didn’t push for details. Perhaps she already suspected the truth from Vivian’s smeared lipstick.

  “Never mind, we’ll save the stories for another time. Let’s find him and get the hell out of here.”

  The slick courtyard shifted under their heels as they approached the façade of St. Ignatius Sanitarium. Vivian slipped on the rime but steady hands caught her.

  “Thanks,” she smiled, seeing Camilla behind her. A light drizzle pattered against the flagstones as they bore down on the entrance. Camilla’s hesitation screamed as she reached for the doors. Hideous gouges marred the surface. What instrument could possibly render those?

  “Aren’t we going inside? Milo could be anywhere in there by now.” Vivian couldn’t stand another second in the rain while Milo strolled the forbidden halls.

  “Sorry, I just have a strange feeling about this.” Camilla cleared the ghosts of her family from her head and pushed the doors open. A winding corridor beckoned them from beyond the antechamber.

  It felt like stepping into the Vesely Manor again for the first time. She remembered that haunting day when she explored the cellar and discovered a hidden passage to the gardens. How strange that she should think of it now when faced with the sanitarium.

  “Milo must have come this way,” Vivian said, indicating the gas lamps burning on the wall.

  “What do you think we’ll find in here?”

  “Hopefully clues to the tuberculosis outbreak. This is the only link we have between the disease and your mother. They must have had an infirmary here. It’s a sanitarium, after all.”

  They carefully navigated the halls and followed the trail of light left by Milo.

  “There’s no more. It stops here.” True enough, darkness awaited them at a crossroad of corridors. Where Milo ventured was anyone’s best guess.

  The walls were glazed yellow and bore the texture of rot. Holes were gouged into the plaster. Vein-like structures dribbled out and latticed the walls like black webs. To one as imaginative as Vivian, it looked like someone carved lips into the surface.

  Groans penetrated the corridors like an onslaught of guilt drilling through flesh and bone. Camilla had no way of knowing if her imagination invented them or not. Just when she turned a corner and expected to see a misshapen surprise, the noise evaporated. A door creaked under Vivian’s hand and she peeked inside rooms replete with beds and meager furnishings.

  “The dorms,” Vivian indicated. “Milo! M—”

  “Don’t!” Camilla almost clapped a hand over Vivian’s mouth. “We don’t know who else might be in here.”

  “What are you talking about? You think someone else would be lurking in this madhouse at this time of night?”

  Camilla nodded.

  Vivian felt as though she was shifting through a dream. Dust shimmered in the rare streaks of light that parted the darkness. All sound may as well have departed from the world because it felt like Vivian and Camilla didn’t speak for hours.

  Only the sense of sight remained in an atmosphere drenched in dread. It was strangely alluring for all the wrong reasons. Camilla could barely feel her body as she, too, was sucked into this nightmare.

  There was a haunting beauty in the colors, silence, and solitude. Emerald light streamed through stained glass windows in the resident hall. Every surface seemed to contort under the moon’s absinthe-colored caress.

  She felt like one of the last stragglers on earth before oblivion came for them. It was frightening and soothing in equal doses. That beauty turned to revulsion in a few steps.

  Rust-colored splotches on the barren walls alluded to violent skirmishes in the past. The mystery behind those spots only agitated the fear in their hearts.

  Vivian peeked into the infirmary as she strolled past. Streaks of blood lacerated the beds and walls.

  “Oh my God…” Camilla’s jaw dropped at the sight of the gore. Her brain struggled to piece together what must have been the last moments of the former tenants’ lives.

  “What did they do to the patients here?”

  The unseen horrors left the fresh wake of paranoia in her mind. She inspected every shadow in anticipation of rapid movement. There was simply no telling what lurked in the dark beyond the confines of her imagination. She could only sense a hideous and enthralling presence that refused to depart this place.

  Camilla dashed the silence with four ominous words.

  “I can hear something.”

  Vivian tuned out the pounding of her heart and listened avidly.

  A scraping noise called out to them around the corner. Against her better judgment, Vivian stepped into the infirmary. Camilla would have cried out in alarm but she didn’t dare break the silence. Instead, she grabbed Vivian’s arm.

  “I have to find Milo!”

  “You have to stay quiet—” Vivian slipped free and turned the corner into the infirmary.

  The spectacle looked like a slaughterhouse. Sharp lengths of steel were scattered on the floor.

  Vivian had a flashback of the botched surgery in the ER. She imagined the young man, Dominik, sprawled in the emergency room as surgical instruments clattered and cardiac monitors squealed. It built to a crescendo of ungodly sounds that eroded her happiness.

  She almost fainted as the acidic scent of blood rushed to her brain. The obscene scarlet color was inhuman and carnal, almost sexual in essence.

  Then she saw the naked figure standing in the heart of the chaos. Its body was a seven-foot-tall canvas bathed in crimson. It was an appalling contrast with the green-tinged light. Whatever provided the blood was long gone from the room or pulped beneath the man’s heels.

  She thought of Milo. She wanted to vomit at the sight of the gore. She prayed to God that he didn’t wander in here and…

  The figure’s hairless head reared up and looked at Camilla.

  It was the same man who had been following her in the Black Atrium.

  He clutched several blades in each hand like crudely-fashioned machetes. The edges dug deep into his palms, salivating into a cesspool.

  One of his arms was strangely longer than the other and it reminded Vivian of an ape. Cords of muscle rippled across his body slick with the blood. His shark-like eyes practically swallowed Camilla. Anguish welled in her like she had never known before.

  She and Vivian were destined die.

  The man hefted one of his hands as a grin twisted his face. Camilla tensed and waited. Vivian tried not to show her fear as her throat clamped down. She would stand defiant in the face of this monster even as he eyed Camilla hungrily. Suddenly she noticed his wiggling fingers working through jerking movements. Was it trying to communicate with them?

  She tried to make sense of it to no avail.

  “Camilla, stay back,” Vivian warned.

  Faster than she could blink, he snipped off three of his fingers. Blood sprayed from the sheared stumps. The grin never left his face.

  Time froze before hell unleashed upon them.

  Vivian and Camilla screamed as he lunged across the infirmary faster than a two-hundred pound behemoth should be capable of.

  It howled and stabbed at Vivian with strokes that would wrench out her bowels. She heard Camilla’s screams as the blade zigzagged across her chest. The wicked steel grazed her skin. Vivian threw herself backward before the blade could hook around her rib cage and tear her open.

  Vivian bounced off the wall and reached for something to defend herself with. Her hands on
ly slapped at the wall as the blades arced down again. With an angry scream, she floundered out of the way. The heels she wore specially for her date cracked against his shin. To her surprise, it didn’t do much to stall the attacker.

  A burbling sound rumbled from his throat and he lunged. His reflexes were lightning fast and fueled by frenzy. Another kick to his face bought her a few precious seconds to flee.

  Vivian stumbled to her feet, losing her heels in the process. It was just as well because they would only slow her down. Camilla waited for her at the other end of the infirmary. She looked paralyzed at the sight of the brute. Strangely, he didn’t immediately pursue Vivian. Instead, he approached the red cesspool and picked up a grotesquely long length of steel—just perfect for impalement.

  “Go!” Vivian grabbed Camilla and bolted into the halls. The man wouldn’t take long to catch up to them with his uncanny speed.

  Camilla cried out and fell. Vivian whirled around with eyes glazed in fear, expecting to see the stalker towering over Camilla. He hadn’t caught up to them yet. She could hear his blade hacking against hard surfaces in the distance, progressively growing louder and closer.

  Camilla stood up on her twisted ankle but she yelped in pain and fell again.

  “I’m trying to get up… it hurts,” she said between gritted teeth. Vivian saw the purple bruise glowing on Camilla’s ankle.

  “There’s no time!” She slung Camilla’s arm around her shoulder and carried her weight. The peals of the slicing blade sounded like horrific laughter as they raced through the halls. Camilla’s injury was slowing down any possibility of escape. There were too many layers to the sanitarium standing between them and the exit. Any attempt to flee would be cut short by seventeen inches of serrated steel.

  To Camilla’s surprise, Vivian scooped her up and bound up the stairs. They had no choice but to hide from their pursuer.

  Vivian spotted a bathroom and pushed Camilla inside. The orange lights cast a rusty hue across the mirrors and crumbling walls. The air itself was heavy with black dust.

  Vivian bolted toward the furthest stall.

  “Quickly, get inside!”

  They piled into the stall and jammed the lock. They huddled close to the toilet and pressed up against the wall. Even the task of breathing seemed hard to follow through on. Vivian couldn’t imagine anything more oppressive than this three by five foot prison. The bathroom door swung open and a mirror shattered. Glass shards spilled under the stall and nipped at their feet.

  “I’m in too much pain,” Camilla whispered as the creature lumbered from stall to stall. She winced and gripped her swollen ankle. “I’m slowing you down, aren’t I?”

  “Don’t even say that.” She winced as the blade began to scrape across the stall doors. “We’re getting out of here alive. Stay put and try not to make a sound. I’ll find a way out for us.”

  Vivian sank to her knees among the filth. She wriggled into the adjacent stall despite the broken glass littering the tiles. Tiny bits of glass bit into her skin but she endured it without the slightest scream. After all, what were a few cuts compared to decapitation in a bathroom stall? She would take the former over the latter any day.

  Meanwhile, Camilla sat on the toilet under the amber lights. Sweat poured down her limbs as she listened to the man huffing outside the stall. She swore she could feel his breath on her neck already. She peeped over her shoulder and spotted an air vent.

  That sight offered the only plausible escape from this hell. Her ankle screamed in protest as she climbed on top of the dirty toilet. She tried not to look down as she stood on her tip toes. She could barely stomach the pain coating the nerves in her leg. It took every shred of strength to stand upright. She gritted her teeth and stretched her fingers toward the vent.

  Metal screamed against metal as a blade rammed through the stall door.

  Vivian recoiled when she heard Camilla’s scream. She hoped the door would hold against the man until she found a way to aid her friend.

  Vivian slipped soundlessly out from under a stall. Eyeing the creature beating on the door of Camilla’s self-imposed prison, she picked up a shard of glass.

  Her breath came out in spasms as she crept through the grime and shadows. Her body wanted to run but she couldn’t abandon Camilla to her fate—even if it meant both of them would perish together.

  Inside the stall, Camilla scratched and pulled at the vent, trying to claw it open. Another blade sank through the door. It extended like a black tooth poised to sink into her calf.

  Vivian seized that moment to attack.

  The assailant seemed to sense her coming from behind but it was too late. She darted low to evade a swing of his blade.

  Vivian scored a hit and raked the glass shard across his hamstring. Acidic blood spilled onto the floor like foul-smelling oil. A tortured scream sliced through the bathroom.

  The behemoth backhanded her with a blow so overwhelming that it turned Vivian’s world upside. She saw his black eyes for a brief second and felt the blade dig into her arm. Vivian cried out and fell hard on her tailbone. The man with the disfigured mouth practically fell on top of her. He pressed a blade to her left ear, ready to separate it from her face.

  Vivian tried to twist her head away but his strength overpowered her. Black steel hovered above her face. The blade began to dig into her flesh and split the surface.

  The door to the stall burst open behind him. Camilla screamed and brought something down with all of her might on the man’s head. A sharp crack resounded and he fell limp.

  Vivian stared at the body for a moment, in disbelief that she wasn’t dead and that she retained her ear. Plus, she couldn’t believe that Camilla had saved her life with a toilet seat as a weapon.

  “What the fuck is that? Don’t tell me that’s the result of tuberculosis! Is it even human?!”

  “It doesn’t look like a woman,” Camilla muttered.

  “You think? That was pretty obvious from the start. So this freak can’t be a patient. You said Magdalene asylums only take in women.”

  “Precisely. I don’t know how it came to be here.” She bit her lip. “Unless it was waiting here for us.”

  “This is your mother’s doing?”

  “What other explanation is there?”

  “Not too many come to my mind right now.”

  Vivian gave the freak a final kick. She noticed Camilla was still struggling to stay on her feet.

  “Remember that time in the sewers when you asked me to carry you?”

  “I think I requested a piggyback ride,” she chuckled.

  “Well, you can cash in on that offer now. I’m not letting you walk on a sprained ankle for the rest of the way.”

  “That’s really generous of you but I’ll manage. Just give me a hand standing up.”

  Vivian supported Camilla for a few steps as they maneuvered around the man’s body.

  “Do you suppose he’s dead?”

  “I’m not staying around to find out. I doubt that whack to the head would put him down permanently.”

  Once they left the bathroom, Camilla scanned the fortress of abominations. As far as she could see, nothing linked St. Ignatius Sanitarium to the tuberculosis outbreak. Nonetheless, she couldn’t explain the reappearance of the man from the Black Atrium. Personally she didn’t want to dig into the matter any deeper.

  “Let’s find Milo and get out of here. There’s no telling what else might be waiting in the asylum.” They plunged down several sets of stairs before they reached the sublevel of the sanitarium. It was perhaps the only area left to explore. The walls bore a rotten texture and the same mouth-like craters were carved into the surface.

  Camilla froze in her steps when she looked down the hall.

  The dark figure from Kunatrice Forest appeared before her. Her back was turned to them and she appeared to be scribbling on the wall at the end of the corridor. She flickered with seizure-like speed, distorting her movements into something inhuman and jarring. The
drug-like imagery made Camilla’s world spin on its axis.

  Suddenly, the figure fell still in the writhing light, as though she sensed Vivian and Camilla’s eyes on her. Slowly, it turned to meet their gaze. Its eyes focused solely on Camilla, twin pinpricks of ghastly light in the curtains of darkness. Camilla stuttered and locked on the blade in its hand. Darkness engulfed them.

  Lights flickered into existence and the apparition of her stalker was gone. The sight she left behind still took Camilla’s breath away.

  Elaborate markings were traced on the wall where she once stood. It felt like a day and night passed before they reached the end of the hallway and stood in front of the dripping blood.

  “It’s the same mark as before…”

  Camilla reached for it and hesitated. The Veseley family crest was smeared in blood on the asylum wall. It was the same symbol presiding over the Black Atrium art gallery, where they harvested her umbilical cord. Vivian’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  “Maybe your mother’s imprisonment in the asylum broke her mind. Twenty years in a Magdalene laundry would certainly turn me off from religion. Have you considered that she didn’t leave the word ‘sinner’ as an accusation for you but rather something she embraces and welcomes?”

  “I don’t even want to consider it. I hope you’re wrong.”

  Vivian eyed the blood on the wall and the spatter leading further down the hall.

  “Should we follow the trail of blood?”

  “Only you would suggest that.”

  They quietly trekked down the hall until they saw someone prone on the floor. A man was lying face down in the grime. His shirt was torn and fresh blood was drying around his exposed arm. Something about the man’s head of brown curls struck Vivian as vaguely familiar.

  “Milo!” She rushed to his side and cradled his head. His skin was pale but she felt a pulse on his neck. His eyes fluttered open and met Vivian’s. Through half-closed eyes, Milo weakly held up a wrench and grinned.

  “Found it.”

  ELEVEN

  The ER team worked fast to replenish Milo’s lost blood and stitch the incision on his arm. When the madness was over, Vivian watched over him in the recovery room. Fortunately the laceration wasn’t anywhere near an artery or he would have bled to death en route to Prague.