I stood up from the chair, infuriated. “You think I’m doing something to the patients? You think I’m not kind?” Tears stung my eyes. I wanted to come here to do good. It hurt that someone was accusing me otherwise.
Anna put up her hands. “Of course not. I’m just worried, is all. I’ve never seen this much activity. There’s something about you, Jessica, that seems to bring it out in them.” She crossed herself at the mention as if she had to ward off the evil spirits attracted to me.
I exhaled. “I’m taking my break,” I announced, feeling the need to get away. I exhaled, stomping off toward the stairwell. She called after me, but I wrapped my arms around myself, beeped my badge, and exited through the door, heading straight to the ground floor and out the building. I’d come to Redwood to disappear, to fit in. Even in Redwood, I didn’t seem to be managing that goal. Even the freakish walls of the asylum were rejecting me. Shit.
Outside of the monstrous building, I paced on the cobblestoned sidewalk, blowing puffs of air into the chilly fall night. The blackness around the property was impenetrable, the thick blanket of trees suffocating Redwood in a blanket of mystery. Tears stung my eyes. Of all things, why me?
I’d wanted to blend in and to just be at Redwood. But I couldn’t escape the attention, even though I wanted to. I was wrapped up in some situation with 5B, and now I was seeing things no one else was. And then there was the fact that he acted like he knew me. Sure, it could’ve just been that he was crazy. But what if Anna was right? What if there was something more at play? What if the spirits knew the truths no one else could?
Perhaps they could see what even I didn’t want to acknowledge, what I had worked so hard to push back down.
I stopped my pacing, leaning against the chilled stone wall of the exterior and exhaled. My hands trembled, and I suddenly wished I smoked. I thought about all the secrets harbored in the walls of the asylum, even now. In the distance, I heard giggles mixed with screams. The paradoxical quality of the sounds intertwining created dissonance deep within. It underscored the solitude I felt outside of Redwood, inside of Redwood, and even in my own mind. I was alone. More alone than I’d ever been in my entire life.
No one would miss me if Redwood sucked me in for good, if the forest around it consumed me and spit me back out, bones and ash gnawed up to bits. My parents were gone, the only people I considered friends back at Mercy Hospital had written me off, and even the staff here must’ve been gossiping about the new girl who was only one step shy of having a room of her own. Only one person seemed to see me, to recognize me. I chilled from the temperature and from the thought.
Sometimes being all alone is better than having companionship. I’d learned that over and over again, but especially at Redwood. The scream echoed again in the distance, so I did the only thing I could. I turned and went back inside the stone walls, where at least the screams of the dead mixed with screams of the living.
Chapter Seven
He sat at the table, drawing furiously when I went into his room. He mumbled over and over about all sorts of things. I noticed a stack of drawings beside him as he continued on to the next, the brown crayon poised in an overhand position. The whole stack of papers were done in brown this time. I stared, studying him at work.
“May I?” I asked, ignoring Anna’s advice to leave him alone when he was in a drawing state. He didn’t look up at me, his trance-like behavior continuing in a flurry of activity. He drew, the crayon pressed so hard to the paper that I thought it might break. I took a risk, reaching for the stack to leaf through.
The first drawing was loosely deemed to be of a boy, tall and skinny. His hair stood up every which way. In the border, worms of all shapes and sizes seemed to wiggle around him, a mound of dirt up to his knees. It was, by no means, the drawing of an artist. It lacked the finesse in the lines, perhaps because of his crayon grip. It was abstract, as if a child had drawn in. Still, something about the drawing irked me.
I flipped the stack.
The next one seemed to be similar, except the boy’s face was contorted into a crude scream. Mouth open, worms seemed to crawl out of the figure’s throat. Over and over, each paper the same, a rough sketch of a tall, lanky boy in brown. Perhaps just the sketches of a warped, overtired mind. I thought about setting them back down. After all, Anna said the doctors had studied them over and over, had believed they were just his way of getting his emotions out. I turned to leave the room, to finish some paperwork, when he paused mid-drawing to look at me.
“They want to go home with you. They need you to take them. He wants to come with you. Please take him. Please. Take him, take him, take him.” His hands were clasped together in a desperate plea as he stood from his bed. It was late—well, early in the morning—when I snuck back into the room of 5B, Anna busy administering medical care to a serial killer in 4A’s cell. It was a simple mend requiring a few stitches, and she had taken one of the doctors with her. I was alone in the B wing, and although other tasks called to me, the call of 5B was stronger. The room was bare, the two of us alone.
“Take who?” I asked to 5B, perusing his body for a reaction. It couldn’t be healthy for me to feed into his hallucinations. But it also wasn’t worth denying it.
“They need to stop. They won’t stop. They won’t. I’m sorry. Please take them. Take him. Take them.” His voice rose an octave, his body alive with frenetic energy.
“Who are they?” I asked.
Wrong question. His eyes narrowed, his voice deepening.
“Be quiet. Quiet down. It won’t hurt a bit, you know. Sit still, goddamnit. Mom, please. Please don’t make me go. Get Tilson. Get him! Goddamnit, Robert. The lieutenant said to stay put. Little red around the bed.”
The chants continued, his movements a frenzied, pastoral chant of fire and brimstone. Bits and pieces melded together in a nonsensical, riddle-like format that frustrated me. He continued on, parts seemingly from the war, snippets from his childhood, chunks from a tenuous past I wasn’t privy to.
I reached out and clutched his shoulders, shaking him. I was desperate. I needed to understand.
“Focus. Who is this?” I pointed to the stack of drawings in my hands.
He grabbed my arms, twisting them. I fought the urge to scream. He pushed me backward. Stupid girl, I thought to myself. However, the fear was quenchable. The desire to learn more about the supernatural presence I’d felt was not.
“You’re no better than me, Jessica. She told us about you. Now make them stop. Help them. She wants you to help them.”
Tears welled as his eyes locked on mine. It was as if he could see deep down my throat, into the belly of who I was. I pictured the nightmare where she’d stood on my porch, her smile beaming as the ribbons danced in the ends of her hair.
“I don’t know how to help you,” I snapped, shoving at him.
He shrank back, as if I’d stabbed him. He held his side, dancing backward like a twisted ballet routine to his bed. He curled up, rocking, as the tears fell.
“Please go away. I need to rest. I need to rest tonight.” He put his hands to his ears, rocking wildly.
I held the drawings in my hands for a moment before setting them carefully on his table. I slowly turned toward the door, but then turned to glance at them once more. Who was the boy? His brother? A soldier he used to know in the war?
On my drive home to my lonely apartment that night, I stopped on the way out of the iron gate of Redwood. In the middle of the road, a flash of yellow, a shriek, the horrible noise.
In my driveway, my head pressed into the steering wheel as exhaustion took over. The film between the real world and the fantasy land that so many of Redwood’s patients lived in was thinning for me. And I began to wonder if perhaps the residents of Redwood were, in fact, the sane ones in this charade of living I’d become privy to.
Chapter Eight
Unnerved, I inhaled before going into room 1A on the second floor. Having spent little time on any other floor, I felt comp
letely out of place. My shoes tapped on the foreign tile as I prepared to distribute medicine to the residents of the floor. Alone.
Spending time there should’ve been a welcome reprieve, as the other floors were “easier.” More relaxed. The residents actually spent time in group therapy, in activities, and had more freedom at certain points of the day. Still, the familiar was always more comfortable, as I’d learned over the years. I didn’t like walking into the situation without an awareness for what was behind the door.
When I walked through the door in 1A, he was sitting at a table staring at the wall. Lost in thought, he startled when I said hello. His murky eye turned to me. Only one eye. I tried not to stare at the patch covering what I imagined to be a gaping hole.
“Hi, I’m just here with your meds,” I said as cheerfully as I could muster. Tension vibrated in the air. I ordered myself to calm down. I’d already survived the worst floor. There was nothing to be afraid of down here. Just as I was reassuring myself, though, he leaped from his seat.
“You’ve got to help me,” he pleaded, his hands clasped together as if in prayer. I took a step back. “Please, please help me. I don’t belong here. I don’t.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured. “Let’s just have a seat and we’ll get you these meds. You’ll feel better,” I reassured. He ignored me, though, continuing.
“Please, I’m telling the truth. I’m not crazy. I’m not. They locked me in here years and years ago. I used to work here.”
I froze at the words, staring at his single, soulful eye. I could see his trembling hands beseeching me to believe him. I shook my head.
It was nonsense. No one at Redwood was sane. But the way he pleaded, the sense of rationality he wore on his face, it sat uncomfortably lodged in my chest, in my head. A single, prowling question wormed its way through.
What if?
What if he was telling the truth? What if this place did swallow him up?
“I’m sorry,” I replied, not quite understanding why the words came to my lips. The tears fell from his gaze and I saw his clasped hands fall to his side in defeat. His eye lost the fire, and he obediently reached for the cup I clasped in my hands. After an obedient gulp, he stepped away from me. I settled him back in, ready to leave, when I stopped at the door. His words were haunting, cold even.
“They’ll get you if you’re not careful,” he whispered.
I wanted to ask who he meant, but I knew better. It seemed that the less you knew at Redwood, the happier you were. Still, I made a mental note to find out his story, to search for the truth about floor two’s resident in 1A. If nothing else, I could put his eerie words to rest.
***
I was stowing away some supplies in the tiny broom closet at the end of the hall of floor two, thinking about 1A’s words when the door clinked shut. The darkness of the closet drowned me, disorienting me so much I couldn’t move.
“Hey,” I yelled, thinking someone had shut me in by mistake. Of course, the staff members were few and far between that night, so who could it be?
“Hey,” I yelled louder, creeping along the shelving system toward where I thought the door was. A muffled noise resonated on the other side of the door. The door was a normal door, not thick enough to enhance soundproofing qualities. What the hell? I twisted the knob. Locked. Go figure.
I pounded on the door, shouting, as panic ensued. I hated the feeling of being locked in. Growing up, I’d take the stairs rather than the elevator to avoid the metal box of death. Even a shirt that was too tight made me feel trapped in a way that incited unendurable anxiety.
“Help,” I shrieked, but the only response was another muffled noise. I could feel that someone was on the other side of the door. Chills spread as I realized they weren’t opening the door. Whoever was on the other side clearly wanted me in the closet, locked away. Shit.
I pounded some more but was momentarily distracted by a crashing behind me. Items fell from the shelf into the blackness as if a tornado were whipping through. I covered my head, terrified that one of the heavy items would crash into me as I backed myself against the door. The knob burrowed in my back. The violent destruction continued, and my hands quivered. I couldn’t breathe. I just needed air, my lungs craving it. The next thing I knew, I was the one flying backward, tumbling out into the hallway of floor two.
“Jessica? What happened?” I looked up from the floor to see Roxy’s familiar face. She leaned down to examine me.
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing back a strand of hair. My hands were still shaking.
“You don’t look fine. What happened in there?”
The hallway light now illuminated the closet enough to see the destruction. I sat up, and Roxy helped me to my feet.
“I . . . I don’t know. The door was locked and then stuff started flying.”
Roxy sighed, shaking her head. “This place. Honestly.”
She shut the door, insisting that cleanup in there was someone else’s problem. I walked with her down to the desk in the center of floor two.
“I was heading down the stairwell to floor one when I heard your screams. You have some lungs on you, girl.”
I tucked my hands into my pockets, hoping to quell their shaking. “I don’t know how anyone stays in this place with all of this,” I admitted.
Roxy snorted. “You’re telling me. I think about quitting every day.”
“What keeps you here?” I asked.
She shrugged, her face going serious for a moment. “The patients. I guess I feel sorry for them. I mean, we get to leave every night, you know? They don’t. And, well, if I’m being honest, getting a job anywhere else isn’t easy for people like me.”
I studied her, hoping she would elaborate. When she didn’t, I decided it was best to let it go. Redwood had enough secrets to worry about.
A few hours later, when Brett showed up to take over floor two, I climbed the stairs to floor five, an enigmatic haven in the island world that was Redwood. I checked in with Anna, who filled me in on the trials of 2A on our floor. She had tried to commit suicide three times back home, and during her last attempt, she’d pulled a knife on her mother. She was only twelve. I shuddered as Anna relayed the tale of her unpredictable behavior the past few hours and her incessant wailing.
“Anything interesting happen to you on floor two?” Anna asked.
I thought about 1A. I thought about the broom closet. I studied Anna, wanting to divulge it all to her but thought about her reaction the other day over the stapler. It wouldn’t do for her to think I was a nutcase, too.
“Nothing really. Just went through the routines.”
She nodded, staring at me. “Any more paranormal activities?” she asked with an edge of playfulness but an underlying hint of skepticism.
“Nope,” I lied as I straightened paperwork on the desk. I looked up at Anna, smiling. “Thanks for everything, Anna, these past couple of weeks. I appreciate all of your help training me.”
“No problem. As soon as you started, I knew you’d be a keeper. It isn’t easy working this job, so when you find someone who will stick around, we like to keep them here, you know? Wouldn’t want all of our crazy secrets getting out, would we?” she joked.
I stared at her, thinking about how many secrets she knew from being at Redwood so long. Thinking about what it would be like to work there for so many years. Part of me couldn’t imagine it, but part of me also couldn’t imagine leaving. I was too invested in the story, somehow. It was like once you started working there, you were woven into the fabric that was Redwood.
Bloody, dripping Redwood.
I checked on the rooms in the B wing, dealing with a psychosis about bats, some tears, and some overall paranoia. Nothing out of the ordinary. I took a breath before heading into 5B, wondering what I’d find.
He was sitting at his desk, predictably so. The red crayon was in his vice-like grip this time, his scribbles maddeningly fast. He didn’t even pause to look up at me as I walked into the roo
m.
“You really should clean up that mess in the closet,” he uttered, and I froze. His words were so matter of fact.
“How did you know?” I asked, my voice wheezy and cracking. My mind raced with possibilities of how Roxy could have made it up to tell him and why she would do that.
“He told me. He’s mad you didn’t listen to me. You’re making them mad, Jessica. It’s getting worse. You’re making it worse.”
My yogurt from lunch roiled in my stomach, and my head was spinning. It was insanity, his imaginary friends and all the drawings. But how could he possibly know about the closet? How could he know?
I took a deep breath and stepped closer to him, watching his frenzied drawing. Pools of red puddled under a little girl in the drawing. She was missing an eye, but her smile was huge. I noticed, however, that in each of the drawings, her head wasn’t connected to her body, floating above it like a cloud. He sketched on, scribbling items and trees and a river. But the little girl was in every drawing.
“Who is she?” I asked, pointing to the girl. I scolded myself for instigating him.
“You’ll see,” he said, and his simple but predictive words freaked me out. I took a step back.
“Wait, wait. Jessica. Wait,” he said, standing with the stack. “Take them. You need to take them. Take them please,” he begged, and I reached out for them like an obedient servant. A stack of red drawings in my hands, I looked into his burning eyes. There was a relief as he handed them to me, as if he were passing off the secrets of his soul in those thin sheets of paper. He waddled to his cot, laying down.
“All better. I told you I’d do it. Yes, yes, she will,” he said, having a conversation with an invisible, nonexistent being in the corner of the room. I folded the pictures, preparing to take them with me after finishing my tasks in his room.
But before I could leave, he halted his conversation with the being in the room. Turning his head at an odd, tilted angle, he stared at me. I swallowed, fear bubbling in my chest.
The Redwood Asylum: A Paranormal Horror Page 5
