Eyes Wide Open

by Ted Dekker

  “Right.”

  “And why do they think that?”

  “Because she’s the patient that went missing.”

  “Precisely. Look at it from their perspective. You show up inside a secure facility with no identification. No phone. Nothing. Think about it. Who breaks into a mental facility? No one. And who would be in charge of a patient population? Fisher—director of admissions. But Fisher suddenly finds himself in a tight spot because he’s been found out. By me. He’s got to cover his tracks.”

  A beat.

  Her face went slack. “He has to get rid of the real Alice. She knows too much.”

  “Exactly. She knows what he did to me. But he can’t just get rid of Alice because Alice is in the system. Instead, he turns you into her. She was just checked in. You are her. End of story. No missing patient.”

  “So he turned us both into mentally ill patients…” she said.

  Austin didn’t bother responding. It seemed plain enough.

  “If he’s willing to do that, what’s to stop him from doing something worse to us?” she said. “What’s to stop him from killing us?” Her voice escalated.

  “Calm down,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “They’ll hear us.”

  She pressed, this time in a harsh whisper. “What’s to stop him from killing us?”

  He hesitated. “Nothing.”

  “Wait. Alice. She’s the key, right? All we have to do is find her. She knows the truth. You said she’s in the basement, right?”

  “Was. Fisher’s not stupid. By now, he’s cleaned up whatever evidence was down there and has put Alice somewhere else. Or worse.”

  There was a long silence.

  “So we’re trapped,” Christy said. “What now?”

  “We’ve got to get out of here. We get out of here and we go to the authorities. We tell them what’s happening here. Whatever I saw goes deep. Deep enough that Fisher’s willing to falsely admit two perfectly sane people into a psych ward to cover his tracks.”

  “But which way is out?”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “I walked down the hall.”

  “Your door wasn’t locked?”

  “No.”

  “Were there guards in the hall?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “I’m sure.”

  “They must have some other security measures in place. Video cameras probably, which means we have to move fast.”

  “Don’t they lock these sorts of places down? It’s not like we can just walk out of here.”

  “We have to try. There’s got to be an exit somewhere.”

  “What if they see us?”

  “We’ve got nothing to lose. Fisher probably thinks I’m still sleeping off the sedative.” He grabbed Christy’s hand and led her toward the door. “What did you see in the hallway?”

  She glanced through the door’s narrow window. “There’s an administration office to the left. It dead-ends there.”

  “To the right?”

  “Just more hallway.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s fine. It’ll lead somewhere. We’ll follow it until we find a door. We’ll find a way out.” He squeezed her hand. “You ready?”

  She nodded.

  “We run and we don’t look back, understand?”

  “Okay.”

  “No matter what you hear behind us, keep running forward. Stay close.”

  Austin pulled the door open gently. Peered out. Except for an old woman with a walker, the hallway was empty.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  They turned down the hall and started to run. Doorways lined the hallway on either side every ten feet or so. Patient rooms.

  They skirted past the old woman, who shuffled slowly in the middle of the hallway.

  She smiled a crooked smile and waved. “Don’t touch the whiskey, you hear? Stuff’ll rot you dead.”

  They both ignored her.

  “Hey, kids,” she said, “got any whiskey on you?”

  A plastic sign hung next to a fire extinguisher. A fire evacuation chart.

  “Over here,” Austin said. They pulled to a stop in front of it. A rough schematic of the facility was etched into it. The psych ward was U-shaped. They stood where the left side of the U met the bottom.

  He glanced down the hall. “Down that way and to the left. Main exit. Hurry.

  They followed the hallway until it jogged left again. Took the turn at a run.

  Deserted except for two patients: One, a bald Asian man who stood in a doorway doing nothing. Just beyond him, a teenage boy sitting in a wheelchair backed against the wall. He watched them without expression. Just another day for a patient without much of a mind.

  Austin veered to the left side of the hall to keep distance between them. “Keep going, don’t stop,” he whispered.

  The Asian patient lifted his arm and pointed at them as they passed but addressed the boy in the wheelchair. “Jacob. Look, Jacob. Two birds running. I hear the wolf snap-snap-snapping at their heels. I hear him. Do you hear him, Jacob?”

  The man’s laugher filled the hallway.

  “Snap-snap-snapping. Gonna chew ’em up.”

  Double doors, straight ahead. Austin quickened his pace to a sprint, and Christy matched his stride. As they moved his eyes scanned for video cameras, but he hadn’t seen any.

  They were going to make it.

  His hand slammed down on the lever and they pushed through.

  The stark clinical lights of the psych ward faded as the doors closed behind them. They pulled up in a warmly lit room. A reception area of some sort. To the far right, an unmarked metal door. Ahead, another door with the word EXIT glowing in green letters above it. To the immediate right, a small receiving area enclosed in Plexiglas. It reminded Austin of the reception area at a family physician’s office. To the right of it, another door no doubt opened to the office area behind the glass.

  “There’s no one in there,” Christy said. “Let’s go.”

  She rushed forward and pushed the release lever on the EXIT door, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Locked.

  Austin walked to the receptionist’s window. Empty. Lunch time? “It’s a secure door, probably an electronic lock. There’s got to be a button they use to buzz people in and out.”

  He pressed his face close to the glass. A plastic box of paperclips and a pen sat on the countertop. Beyond it and to the right was a small green button. Out of reach.

  “We have to hurry, Austin!”

  The paper clips drew his attention. He grabbed the box and pulled it out. Walked to the office door and dumped them on the floor. Handed his file to Christy.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “We have to open this door.”

  “The only way we’re going to do that is by pressing the button behind the glass.” He scattered the clips on the floor and selected two larger ones.

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “Tumbler manipulation,” he said, reshaping it into an L-shaped tension rod.

  “Pick the lock?”

  He bent another clip into a J-shape then knelt in front of the lock. Fed one clip into the lock then the other. “Simple mechanics. Opening a lock is easy if you know how they work.”

  After another twist, the lock disengaged and the handle turned. He pushed it open and went through.

  “Go to the door,” he said.

  Christy ran to the door. An electronic lock clicked the moment he punched the button on the counter.

  “It’s open!”

  He hurried to the exit, took the file from her, and stepped through. “Follow me. Hurry.”

  A dimly lit hallway stretched in front of them. Recessed lights in the ceiling created puddles of light on the linoleum floor every twenty feet. No doors that he could see and no exit signs. It ran for another hundred feet before disappearing around a
corner.

  “Where’s the exit?” Christy said.

  “It’s gotta be ahead. Just keep running.”

  They ran to the end of the hall where it turned left.

  “Did we miss a turn somewhere?”

  “No.” He was certain of it.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s this way,” he said and started walking. “It has to be. We just haven’t gone far enough.”

  Christy followed close on his heels.

  Austin knew they would eventually find a door, and that door would lead outside.

  They hurried to the end, where the hall angled hard left and followed it. When they did, an identical hallway lay in front of them.

  What? But there was no other way to turn. No patient rooms. No doors in the hallway like the ones in the psych ward. Just smooth, white cinderblock walls. New construction?

  He said nothing. Kept them moving forward.

  They reached the end of that hallway, pushed through the door, and pulled up sharply. Another hall.

  “What’s going on?” Christy said, the panic rising in her voice. “Is this right?”

  “It has to be. I haven’t seen any other exits. Or doors, for that matter.”

  What had he missed?

  He pushed the question from his mind and ran for the single door at the end of the hall they were in. “Come on!”

  No alarm had sounded. Austin had the file that would incriminate Fisher. They would be out soon enough.

  Austin reached the door first and slid to a halt. He cranked the knob and leaned his shoulder into it.

  Christy came too fast and collided with him, pushing him through the door. He stumbled forward and pulled up hard, half expecting to see yet another long hall.

  But it wasn’t another hall.

  They were in an office.

  A sharply dressed man sat behind a desk, combing through paperwork of some sort. He glanced up casually, looking over his glasses at them. If he was surprised by their dramatic entry he didn’t show it.

  The door clicked shut behind them.

  Christy gasped.

  The man behind the desk smiled. “Hello, Alice. Nice to see you again. And so soon.”

  She backed to the door they’d come through.

  “I can assure you. That door is now locked.” He reclined back in his seat. “Go on, check it if you like, but I assure you it’s quite secure.”

  She tried, desperate to get out. It was locked.

  “Those doors can be quite deceiving, can’t they?” the man said. “Which one to take?”

  The nameplate on the man’s desk read KERN LAWSON. The administrator Christy told him about.

  The man pulled his glasses off and tapped his chin with one of the earpieces. “And you brought a friend, I see. I don’t believe we’ve met. You are?”

  “Austin Hartt.”

  “Ah, I see. The other new arrival. Fisher told me about you.” He glanced at the red folder in Austin’s hand. “You brought your file.”

  Austin felt his pulse thrumming in his temples. His mind spun through their options. He could make his case now—accuse Fisher of foul play—but in doing so, he would only tip his hand. Lawson would take his man’s word over a patient’s without hesitation.

  He could take more time to think through their options. Maybe telling Lawson would end up being the right course. Maybe not. He had to give it more thought.

  “Please, have a seat.” Lawson indicated the two stuffed chairs facing his desk. Beyond them, a wood-panel door stood closed. The main entrance into the office. They’d entered through a side door.

  They sat.

  The administrator picked up a jar of jelly beans that sat on his desk. “Candy?”

  Christy sat still, face as white as a ghost’s. Austin had never liked jelly beans.

  “All right. Plenty more of these in the lounge if you change your minds.”

  He popped one in his mouth and set the jar down.

  “Now then. Let’s be clear about one thing. I understand how disorienting it can be for those with your particular challenges to adjust to a new space, but I want to assure you both personally, as the administrator, that there’s nothing to fear here.”

  He spread his hands, palms up, indicating the facility.

  “We’re here to help you, not hurt you. Can you accept that?”

  Austin hesitated, then dipped his head once. Christy didn’t move.

  “Good.”

  “I have copies of both of your files right here.” He picked up two red files from the corner of his desk and plopped them down in front of him, eyeing them over his reading glasses.

  Lawson flipped open the top file.

  “Alice Ringwald. Acute anxiety disorder. Psychosis. Subject to paranoid delusions with a four-year history of the same kind of behavior we’ve seen from you today. The rest is all here, in perfect order.”

  He set the file aside and opened the cover of the second.

  “And one Scott Connelly. Delusions of grandeur, acute paranoia, psychosis among other things. Evidently you have quite the mind, Scott. We’re here to help you free that mind.”

  He closed the folder, stacked them neatly in the corner, and folded his hands in front of him.

  “But we can’t help you until you first accept the truth. Both of you are quite ill. Some would say mad. Insane. Bonkers. I prefer challenged. I need you to embrace that much if nothing else. Fair enough?”

  This time Austin couldn’t bring himself to react. He wasn’t sure if the man had an angle here or was merely deceived by Fisher. Maybe a bit of both.

  “Just how deep that challenge runs will be up to you.”

  The administrator pushed himself back from the desk and stood. “Either way, I can assure you that there’s no way out of this ward without my authorization. And I mean no way. Trust me on that.”

  He walked over to the door they’d entered through and placed his hand on the knob. Turned back. “Please don’t try again. It will only delay your progress.”

  He opened the door. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to step out for few minutes.”

  Lawson reached into what was now a shallow closet inlaid with wood paneling, pulled a long black coat off the rack, and shrugged into it as he turned.

  Austin couldn’t tear his eyes from the closet. How?

  He glanced at Christy, who was also staring at that closet, fried.

  “Welcome to your new home, my friends,” Lawson said, then closed the closet door. “I’ll check in with both of you in an hour.”

  With that he walked to the door, nodded at two security men who were waiting patiently just outside, and strode out.

  “They’re all yours.”

  ​CHRISTY PACED behind the table, chewing on a fingernail she’d already worn to a nub. Austin sat, nervously tapping his fingers, staring at the wall. They’d been led to the same room in which she’d been profiled by Nancy Wilkins. At the time the therapist had seemed reasonable and understanding. But wasn’t it Nancy who’d concluded that she was mentally cracked?

  “Do you mind sitting down?” Austin glared at her. “You’re going to wear out the carpet.”

  Austin had remained quiet, lost in thought, which was his way when he became engrossed. To say he was single-minded didn’t begin to describe just how cut off he could become when he put his mind to a task—anything from reading a thick textbook to watching a boring lecture, one leg bouncing, eyes fixed on the screen.

  How often had she told him things in his flat only to learn that he wasn’t even hearing her? Nothing short of yelling seemed to yank him out of his fixation. In this way, she’d always been invisible even to Austin, her closest friend. She’d always known that she didn’t belong to anyone or anything, and Austin’s preoccupation with his own inner world only reinforced that certainty.

  Christy ignored his request to sit.

  “We have to get out of here, Austin.”

  He said nothing, which only increased he
r anxiety. He was hearing her perfectly, and it wasn’t like Austin not to have some answers. She’d never seen him quite like this.

  She could understand most of the logic behind most of the events that had put them both in the psych ward. But something seemed out of balance in her mind, something that prevented her from shaking the one thought that had buried itself in her mind like a stubborn tick.

  What if the administrator was right?

  What if she was delusional?

  “Austin?”

  He offered her a halfhearted grunt.

  “I’m worried.”

  Austin looked at her for a few seconds. Took a long breath.

  “I know you are. But it’s going to be okay. I’ve already explained that.”

  “Tell me again.” When he hesitated, she said, “Please? Just for my reassurance.”

  He closed his eyes briefly and then glanced up at her.

  “You stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time. I followed you and stumbled into something no one was meant to see.”

  “Alice.”

  “Yes, Alice. Fisher needed to get rid of Alice and get rid of me. So he made you Alice, which takes care of her—”

  “He killed her.”

  “No, we don’t know that. But he got her out of the picture. Don’t make things worse than they are.”

  “Sorry.”

  He continued. “He took care of me by admitting me as a patient who suffers from delusions of grandeur, given to fanciful stories. Nobody on the inside or outside is going to believe a word I say. Nor you. So now we have to figure out how to either get out or get word out before anything worse happens to us.”

  “What if we can’t?”

  “We will. It’s only a matter of time. But we have to play it smart, and that means keeping our heads on straight.”

  Her mind stalled. And what if my head isn’t on straight?

  Austin saw her hesitation.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, you’re not schizophrenic or delusional, Christy.” His voice was stern yet calm. And he anticipated the subject of her greatest concern without waiting for her to ask yet again.

  “Everything that happened in Lawson’s office has a perfectly logical explanation. Knowing that unstable patients might try to get out, they set up the reception room to fool them, like it fooled us. The door without the exit sign is the way out to the main hospital. The buzzer opened one that leads to Lawson’s office.”