Rookwood Asylum

by David Longhorn

  “Greedy bastard,” Paul thought, and agreed to Rodria’s terms. “Take your glory, just tell me what I need to know.”

  ***

  A disheveled Mike Bryson arrived a few minutes before Imelda Troubridge returned. This time she was accompanied not only by her cameraman, Steve, but also by a reporter from the Tynecastle Gazette. The reporter, a young woman, proceeded to try and interview everyone present. Paul noted that Declan was not present in the foyer. Ella and Neve Cotter were still absent.

  And I’m not talking to any reporters, Paul thought. So it seems she’s out of luck so far as eyewitnesses are concerned.

  The reporter spoke to Mike for a couple of minutes, but after he claimed to be a member of ‘the British division of Ghostbusters,’ she quickly made her excuses and moved on.

  Kate was also there and fended off questions about whether the building was haunted, or indeed, cursed. She diplomatically explained that some residents might be reassured by ‘Ms. Troubridge’s involvement.’ She was very clear about who was paying the psychic’s fee. Not Rookwood properties.

  Uh-huh, Paul thought. Looks like there’s going to be a collection later.

  Eventually, Sadie Prescott took charge of the situation and asked that ‘everyone move along now’ to the East Wing. Imelda set off with less self-confidence than the previous evening, Paul noted. The psychic was no longer wearing her extensive collection of necklaces, though her plump fingers still gleamed with ornate rings. When they reached the doorway that led out of the central block, the psychic stopped, held up a hand for silence.

  “I think, after yesterday’s hostile manifestation, I must proceed with caution.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” muttered Mike.

  Imelda closed her eyes and put a beringed hand to her forehead.

  “Does anyone here wish to speak to me?” she asked. “Is there any way we can help a trapped spirit move on?”

  The silence grew awkward. Someone coughed. Then the plastic sheeting that covered the doorway into the East Wing bulged out, flapped, fell back. Paul felt a sudden chill. Others exclaimed at the sharp drop in temperature. Imelda opened her eyes, nodded.

  “Yes, the unquiet souls seek a pathway to the light,” she proclaimed, raising her voice. “We can only hope to offer them a little guidance.”

  She gestured to Steve, who lifted the dusty sheet and pointed his camera into the first room. When nothing unusual transpired, Imelda walked through, followed by the rest of the small crowd. Paul found himself at the back with Mike, just behind Kate.

  When her audience had settled again, Imelda again closed her eyes and began to ask ‘the spirits here present’ for information. She claimed to feel the presence of many troubled souls. The cold persisted, but otherwise, there was no sign of the supernatural. Imelda admitted that ‘they are a little shy in daylight,’ and decided to move further into the East Wing.

  “Into the belly of the beast,” murmured Mike as they headed along the corridor.

  “You’re quite the ray of sunshine,” remarked Kate. “I just hope nothing happens. We would still get free publicity, but without any downside.”

  Imelda stopped outside a windowless room with a wide doorway. Paul felt a sudden sense of déjà vu. The room was empty, the double swing doors long gone. But he still knew this place. It was the place Liz had been taken to so many times, the place of his nightmare.

  If this place has a heart, this room is it, he thought. And it’s a heart of madness, of evil.

  He watched as Imelda strode dramatically into the center of the room, took a deep breath, and gestured the others to keep back. Only the faithful Steve was permitted to enter. Again, he flicked on his camera spotlight.

  “I sense confusion here,” Imelda declared. “Much unhappiness, yes, sadness. This is where the tormented inmates of the asylum were brought for – for some kind of treatment.”

  Paul gawped for a moment, stunned to find that the woman did indeed seem to have some psychic ability.

  “She’s right,” he hissed to Mike. “I think this is where Rugeley Palmer performed his experiments.”

  “Could be a lucky guess,” Mike pointed out. “It’s obviously not a bedroom or a closet or whatever, so it’s fair to assume it was an operating theatre of some kind.”

  Paul nodded, but could not quite accept his friend’s rationalization. The windowless room exuded not only a deep chill, but also seemed to throb with malevolence. Paul felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  “Will any spirits here reveal themselves?” Imelda said, her voice echoing off cracked tiles and bare walls. “Yes, I’m sensing something. Some strong presence is approaching, I feel –”

  A startling crash came from somewhere along the corridor. Paul, like most of the group, looked to see if there was any sign of movement. Nothing was apparent. When they turned back to look at Imelda again, the woman was smiling into Steve’s camera.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Someone is here, all right.”

  Paul realized that something was very wrong. The psychic’s face wore an expression of cold contempt, very different from her usual expression. Her smile was humorless, and for a brief instant, he glimpsed two circles of light gleam in front of her eyes.

  “We should get out of here, now,” Paul said to Kate, taking her by the arm. “This looks bad.”

  The manager shook off his hand. At that moment the camera light flickered and died. Then Imelda emerged, sweeping through the parting onlookers, smiling benevolently.

  “No,” she said simply. “I’m afraid that there is no hope of helping the unquiet dead. I admit that I am – baffled, by this particular case. I will, of course, not accept any payment for this unsuccessful reading.”

  Behind Imelda, Steve stopped tinkering with his camera and gawped at his employer.

  “Is this the first time you’ve waived your fee?” Paul asked loudly. “Only your assistant seems a little startled.”

  Instead of replying, Imelda started to walk briskly back the way they had come. Instead of her usual effusive self, the psychic was silent. There was a ripple of discontent among the residents, and Sadie Prescott hurried after Imelda. Paul noted that the cold sensation in the air was still very evident, to the point where he could see his breath.

  Whatever happened, it’s not over.

  “Didn’t you find out anything?” Sadie asked. “You said you sensed troubled spirits. Do you know who they were?”

  Again, Imelda did not answer as she pushed through the plastic curtain and into the main apartment block. Paul started to run, a terrible suspicion growing in his mind. Behind him, he heard Kate asking him what was wrong. He resisted the temptation to tell her what he thought. He did not want to sound downright crazy.

  As he entered the hallway leading to the foyer he saw Declan step out of his office, colliding with Imelda. The Irishman reeled back as if stung, shouted in panic. The psychic swept on, increasing her pace, still ignoring Sadie. Steve came alongside Paul. The assistant looked extremely worried now and was no longer filming.

  “She ever just walked off like this before?” Paul asked.

  Steve shook his head.

  They caught up with Imelda who had stopped in the foyer, just short of the entrance. Sadie Prescott was now remonstrating with the woman, calling Imelda an impostor and a fraud. The other woman seemed not to notice this tirade, though. Instead, Imelda was gazing out at the sunlit lawn. The psychic glanced round at Paul, frowned, then strode forward.

  Rookwood’s automatic doors, still faulty, were permanently open. But when Imelda Troubridge reached the threshold the woman suddenly stopped and doubled up, as if she had been kicked in the stomach. The psychic fell to her knees, and then crawled on all fours for a couple of feet. She was just outside the building when she stopped and slumped down to the ground, limbs splayed on the gravel driveway.

  “She’s ill!” Sadie cried, forgetting her annoyance and rushing forward to help.

  “Worse than that,
” muttered Paul, as he followed Steve and Sadie outside. He noticed that, even in direct sunlight, the unnatural coldness persisted. Behind him, he heard Mike remarking on the chill, other voices concurring.

  Steve hunkered down and turned Imelda onto her side. She was apparently unconscious. Breath rasped in the woman’s throat, and a trickle of drool leaked from the corner of her mouth. Steve lifted an eyelid to reveal the white of an eye.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Sadie declared, taking out her phone.

  “Boss?” Steve asked, and Paul heard genuine concern in the taciturn man’s voice. “Boss, can you hear me?”

  A glutinous sound emerged from Imelda’s gaping mouth. Then words formed, harsh and hesitant, in a voice that was not hers. But Paul recognized it nonetheless. It was an upper-class English voice, though less precise now than he remembered it.

  “I – I will – be free,” said the voice. “We – must be free.”

  Then Imelda puked, a great geyser of varicolored vomit splashing over Steve’s shoes and pant cuffs. Paul, who had been kneeling close to the psychic’s head, jumped up to avoid the foul-smelling spray. A moment later, he noticed the chill had gone and the air seemed pleasantly warm, if not particularly fresh at that moment.

  “Boss? There’s help on the way,” Steve said, holding Imelda’s head up while she threw up some more. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Pale-faced and sweaty, Imelda Troubridge looked up at her loyal sidekick.

  “How – how did I get out here?” she asked.

  “She doesn’t remember,” mused Paul. “What does that suggest?”

  “Temporary amnesia?” suggested Mike. “Shock can do that. I suppose. Though we don’t know what she was shocked by.”

  Steve helped Imelda to her feet and held her arm while she walked unsteadily back inside. Kate led the pair into her office. In the distance, the wail of an ambulance grew gradually louder.

  “I think we’ve established one thing,” Paul said quietly. “Imelda’s out of her league.”

  Declan came up to them, still looking shaken.

  “I hope she’s learned her bloody lesson,” the Irishman said, with a hint of bitterness.

  “What happened when she bumped into you?” Paul asked. “Did you sense something unusual?”

  The caretaker looked at him for a moment, then gave a humorless laugh.

  “For a second there, I didn’t know it was that woman,” Declan said. “I didn’t see her at all. I saw a crowd of people, filling the passageway, shoving past me. A mob of – I don’t know. Blurred shapes, mouths open like they were shouting. I saw something similar the day that lad went barmy with the drill.”

  Paul looked out of the front door at the sunlit vista that Imelda, or at least her body, had been unable to reach.

  “She said ‘I,’ then she said ‘we,’” he mused. “Trying to be free. And failing.”

  “Free?” Mike asked. “Seriously, you think it’s like that woman says, ghosts just wanting to move on from our earthly plane or whatever?”

  “Put like that it seems unlikely,” Paul conceded. “But maybe Imelda’s half-right. Perhaps what they want to be free from is simply Rookwood itself.”

  ***

  “People are leaving, Dec,” said Kate. “And I’ve had two prospective tenants cancel. Sadie Prescott is hinting at some kind of lawsuit, silly cow. This is a bloody disaster. And it’s only twenty-four hours since that bloody psychic left.”

  She stared bleakly out of the window. The day was overcast, steady rain falling from a ceiling of low, gray clouds.

  “We’re all over the internet, of course. The haunted apartments. Haunted, or cursed, take your pick. Anyone who tells you there’s no such thing as bad publicity – just kick ‘em in the goolies.”

  Declan wanted to say something encouraging, but his experience with Imelda Troubridge had left him confused and demoralized. Despite his skepticism, he had hoped the psychic might achieve something. But instead, it seemed the forces at work in Rookwood had become bolder, stronger. They had sought out vulnerable individuals before, but were now showing themselves to a crowd of people in daylight.

  “If it’s any consolation,” he said finally, “I found a glazier who’ll fix the window in the Cotter’s apartment. Ludicrous price, though. The word’s gotten round.”

  “Oh God, I forgot,” said Kate, “Neve’s coming this morning with a visitor. She said he might be able to help.”

  Declan felt a frisson of fear. After the previous day’s events, the last thing he wanted was someone else trying to provoke a reaction from the forces lurking in Rookwood. Seeing his expression, Kate put a reassuring hand on his arm.

  “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “This one has a bit more clout than Imelda. Friends in high places, you could say.”

  Declan’s puzzlement gave way to a terrible sinking feeling when Kate explained just who she was talking about. It made sense, from what he knew of Neve Cotter. But he felt a terrible sense of foreboding.

  Chapter 9

  “I knew I had something stashed away,” said Rodria, evidently pleased with himself. “It’s a trifle grainy, and jumps about a bit. But it’s fascinating, nonetheless.”

  Paul and Mike, along with Rodria, were sitting in the tiny cinema of the university’s Media Studies Department. The scientist had made a great show of being generous with his time and expertise, and Paul had struggled to stop Mike from resorting to his usual irreverent humor. Paul, despite his distaste for Rodria’s egotism, had correctly assumed the man would have some background details on Rookwood.

  The sixteen-millimeter film was in black and white and of poor quality. The streaked and blotted picture was so distracting that, at first, Paul found it hard to concentrate on it. But then he began to grasp how remarkable a recording it was.

  A woman clothed in a kind of white nightdress sat at a table. Opposite her was a man in a white coat. The doctor was instantly recognizable. Miles Rugeley Palmer, small eyes peering through round-lensed glasses, looked straight into the camera and held up a small chalkboard. It read, ‘Subject No. 15, 22nd Feb 1954.’ The doctor put down the board and turned back to the woman.

  “This is not dissimilar to things the Soviets were attempting at the time,” Rodria commented. “The Russians tried to cultivate so-called psychic powers using drugs, hypnosis, and possibly other techniques, like brain surgery. But this is a relatively early experiment by Palmer. Quite harmless compared to what came later.”

  Palmer held up a deck of cards, shuffled it, then took one at random. The card, instead of any of the usual four suits, bore a simple illustration; a five-pointed star.

  “I’ve seen this sort of thing before,” Paul said.

  “Zener cards,” rumbled Rodria complacently. “Developed in America in the Thirties, but quite rare to find them used in England so early.”

  One by one, Palmer selected a card from the pack, showed it to the camera behind his left shoulder, then laid it face down. Each time he spoke to the woman opposite, evidently asking her to guess the design he had just revealed. After she answered, Palmer made a note on a pad at his elbow.

  The film suddenly jumped, showing a close up of the notepad. Along the top of the page were the details from the chalkboard, plus the words ‘After first treatment.’ Below were two columns marked ‘Hit’ and ‘Miss.’ There were notably more hits than misses.

  “Still well within the bounds of statistical variation, of course,” Rodria commented. “But it gets more interesting later.”

  The film jumped again, then showed the testing room with a new subject. This was a huge man with a shaven head. A square clinical dressing was visible on the big man’s temple. There were two heavily built attendants in white uniforms standing behind the big man’s chair. The doctor looked around and held up his chalkboard. ‘Subject No. 37, 15th March 1955.’

  “None of this was legal, surely?” said Mike, aghast.

  “Of course not,” Rodria said. “But
Palmer was quite well-connected, and it seems official inspections found nothing wrong.”

  On the screen, Palmer began his Zener card test again, but this time his subject seemed to be uncooperative. After a few tries, the doctor grew impatient and gave a command to his assistants. They grabbed the test subject, who started to struggle fiercely. Palmer got up and walked off screen, came back carrying a hypodermic needle. The big man’s struggles became even more violent, and he flung himself back in his chair onto the floor. The film jumped. Now the patient was slumped in his chair, evidently subdued. Palmer resumed his test. This time, the results showed the number of hits and misses to be roughly even.

  “Evidently a control subject,” Rodria remarked. “Someone with no unusual abilities, but needed to set a benchmark.”

  “The bastard,” Mike breathed.

  “The next one, I suspect, will be of more interest,”

  Another jump in the editing, and a child was sitting opposite Palmer. She looked up at the camera, and Paul felt a lump in his throat. It was not a child, not exactly.

  “That’s her, right?” Mike asked.

  Paul nodded, unable to speak.

  In real life, Liz, or Annie, had been frailer than the phantom girl Paul had encountered. Even the diminutive doctor seemed large by comparison. Paul wondered if the Liz he knew was an image of the girl as she had been before her ordeal began. He filed the thought away as irrelevant, at least for now, and focused on the film. Again, Palmer held up his chalkboard.

  “She was patient number eighty-eight,” Paul said, aghast. “Were all the inmates used?”

  “Possibly,” replied Rodria, with an air of clinical detachment. “Note the date, we’re in the spring of 1955.”

  The routine with the cards proceeded, though by now it was hard to see what was going on. The quality of the film had declined, and at times seconds passed with nothing on the screen but blurs and scratches. Then Palmer showed his notebook to the camera, and Paul was surprised to see Hits were outnumbered by Misses.