A Night at the Asylum

by Jade McCahon

  She seemed to be deliberating. I wasn’t sure what there was to deliberate. “I have a bad feeling about this…” she murmured.

  As she moved the car onto the shoulder, the gray sedan veered around us, the sirens and lights going crazy. Both of us gasped with relief, but our gratitude went cold as we realized who the police car was after.

  “Oh my God, he’s pulling Bonita over,” Jamie whispered.

  “Stop the car,” I ordered. “Turn off the lights.”

  Jamie crammed on the brakes and pulled to the shoulder, clicking the headlights off. “What is going on?” she cried, straining to see past the dust that clouded around us. The chalky smell of disturbed gravel invaded the car. Everything was eerily quiet.

  For a moment I thought we might see a chase. The Mustang’s driver seemed to hesitate as Jamie had. Then nearly ¼ of a mile ahead of us, they finally turned onto a gravel road and eased to the shoulder. The police car made a wide left turn behind them and straddled the road, effectively blocking them from escaping back to the highway.

  Something about that just seemed…off. Without a word Jamie and I both reached out and pushed down the locks on our doors.

  It was so dark, almost impossible to see. There was the sound of a door slamming, the crunching of gravel under heavy boots.

  Suddenly, all hell broke loose.

  Loud shouts emanated from the Mustang. Dark legs scissored in front of the headlights of the police car. There was a brief struggle there, the participants no more than bobbing shadows. A hulk of a figure hit the ground and was dragged into the dark out of view of the headlights. As we watched, entranced, Jamie leaned over the steering wheel to get a better look. Of course her elbow slipped and the horn bleated. She jerked her arm back as if she’d touched a hot stove. “Crap!” she hissed. I could have slapped her. We’d just given ourselves away for sure.

  Apparently, it was all the distraction the driver of the Mustang needed to get away. A few seconds later the black car peeled out on the gravel, delving completely into the ditch to get around the police car. The back end of the vehicle fishtailed as its tires spun onto the road again.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Jamie whispered, terrified.

  “You think?” I spat. As the Mustang whizzed past us back toward town, I tried to get a look at the driver, but all I saw was the dark tint of the windows.

  Of course, the police car was turning around too.

  “Get down,” Jamie hissed, pushing her small body under the steering wheel and into the floorboard, pulling me down with her. This would do us no good I knew, but I stayed there anyway, praying the farfetched prayer that the cover of the deep rural darkness would be enough. We waited for what seemed like hours, only the sound of our tense breathing echoing in the stillness. Then gravel crunched under creeping tires, the hum of an engine ominously close. My heart thudded in my temples and I panted in terror. What had we seen that we obviously shouldn’t have?

  Jamie clamped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, as if to make herself disappear. Boots crackled in the rocks. Somewhere very near my head, a door slammed, metal on metal.

  “What should we do?” Jamie mouthed at me, her eyes like saucers. I’d never seen her so frightened. I was shaking myself, nearly paralyzed with fear. Maybe the Mustang’s driver had started the fight and the cop was defending himself. Or maybe he was a crazed psychopath. I knew we were screwed either way.

  Jamie blew her breath out, seeming to come to a decision. She moved so fast, I had no time to put in my two cents. All in one motion, she leapt into the driver’s seat and cranked the wheel to the left, slamming her foot on the gas. I don’t know how we avoided hitting anything or anyone. The little blue car whipped out into the road blindly and skidded into its own reversal back toward town. I was thrown against the side of the dash mercilessly, unable to climb out of the floorboard thanks to the g-forces. With a loud grunt I finally heaved myself back into the passenger seat, buckling my seatbelt again. The vehicle spewed gravel and dust, shimmying toward the ditch and then back out onto the road. “Careful!” I screamed. “Turn on your lights!” Jamie did as she was told. She worked the wheel and the brakes until the car straightened itself out, both of us squealing and cursing as she fought to find traction on the highway.

  Jamie frantically searched the mirrors. “Is he following us?” I turned around and saw nothing but a cloud of dust.

  I exhaled. “Not yet. Jamie, why…what…”

  “I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do!” she shouted in answer.

  I had to agree when the gray Crown Victoria appeared again behind us, and unbelievably and horrifically, began pummeling the back of the PT Cruiser with its front bumper. We were thrown forward, and Jamie struggled to keep control of the wheel.

  “He’s going to kill us!” she screamed. I braced my hand against the dash. This is not happening, I told myself over and over. There is no way in hell this can be happening.

  The gray car lurched forward again, this time barely grazing our back end. My muscles tensed as I waited for the impact. It was impossible to see who was driving. We were approaching town now, though, and the streetlights could help. This cop wasn’t using the cherries or loudspeaker or trying to maintain any semblance whatsoever that he was on the right side of the law. Whoever this was had gone completely off the deep end.

  We entered city limits. I gripped the seat with one hand, the dash with the other, and prepared for another hit. But instead the Crown Vic backed off unexpectedly. There was a squeal of tires and the police car turned, disappearing down a side street in a cloud of burnt rubber.

  “What the hell?!” I shouted. “Jamie – he’s gone! He turned down that road!”

  “What should I do?”

  “Just keep going! Keep going!” I ordered.

  A minute passed and he didn’t come back. In fact, the streets were empty, as they usually were this time of night. There was no sign of anyone around.

  The streetlights brightened the interior of the car and we began to breathe – loud, rasping, giggling breaths of relief. What was going on in this town? Was everyone insane? And then I remembered the Mustang…and the assault on whoever had been driving it.

  “Oh my God…Raymond,” I whispered, looking at Jamie. She stared at me, her eyes wide.

  “Call him,” she said.

  I pulled out my phone and stared at it. “No. I can’t.”

  “Do it, Sara. If that was him back there…”

  I shook my head. “No…no…”

  “Oh, come on.” Jamie snatched the phone from me and dialed Raymond’s number. He actually answered. Somewhere in the back of my mind that sparked hope. It made me feel a little foolish. “Raymond? It’s Jamie. Hey – where are you?”

  I glanced out the back window of the car, keeping an eye out for the cop, trying to distract myself from the conversation going on next to me. I wasn’t ready to talk to Raymond. I wasn’t ready to see him or hear him. But I did need to know that he was okay.

  “Sara? She’s right here.” My head swiveled toward Jamie. So now he’s asking about me. Great. “Yeah. Okay, I will.”

  Jamie snapped the phone shut. “It wasn’t him,” she said.

  I took the phone back confusedly, shoving it in my pocket. “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t him. He said he’s on his way to the asylum right now.”

  “Well then who –”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Bonita was alone.”

  “You think that was her that—”

  “I don’t know!” Jamie repeated. “But we have to tell someone. She could be hurt. She could be…”

  “What are we gonna do, call the cops?” I sneered.

  “Crap.” Jamie tucked her hair behind her ears with the fervor of a madwoman. Her aversion to hardcore cursing – one of her many annoying quirks – seemed even more ridiculous in this situation. “Crap! What do we do?” The car swerved as she flailed her arms.

&nbs
p; Then, as always, she pulled herself together, her mouth set in resolve. “We’re going to the asylum,” she said.

  “What?!” I exclaimed. No. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

  “What, you want to go home after this?!” The way she screamed made me afraid that the police car was lingering far behind us, watching us, waiting. Tailing us the way we’d tailed the Mustang. I glanced nervously out the back window. “I told Raymond we’d meet him there,” she said, and I opened my mouth to protest but she cut me off. “He has to know about this! If he is…with…Bonita, he needs to know. I’m sorry, Sara, I know that’s awful. I’m sorry. I probably should have told him over the phone, but…no, we need to go there anyway. Where else are we going to go?”

  “To my house. With my parents. Please.” I had the irrational belief that if I just climbed into bed with my mother and father like a ten year-old girl, all this would go away. “Jamie. Whoever was in that cop car is nuts and they’re still out there. And frankly, I have exceeded my quota of nutcases for one night.”

  “And what if he finds out where you live somehow? If he’s still out there he’ll find us.”

  “Yes, which is why I’d much rather not be on the road right now, if you don’t mind. Besides, what cop in this one-horse town wouldn’t recognize your car while they were smashing into it? Whoever it is, he already knows where I live.”

  “Which is exactly why we’re not going there.”

  Dammit.

  This was why I hated her.

  I collapsed against the seat, defeated.

  “Did you seriously just say ‘one-horse town’?” Jamie giggled.

  “Shut up!”

  Twelve miles away, on the other side of the county, the Heaven’s Gate Asylum waited for us at the end of a long, dark highway. It was like a horror movie cliché, like a reality series flophouse, having served eight towns in its heyday as a receptacle for all of society’s local rejects. Its hulking exterior loomed over the expansive grounds like a sleeping giant, gray and sagging in the dark. The Kirkbride architecture, once beautiful and sweepingly alive, was now peeling with decay, the brick-swallowing ivy the only living creature left.

  There were no houses near the asylum, few lights on the narrow road leading to it. Tommy and I had spent countless weekends scouting the three crumbling floors. In spite of passing patrol cars and sporadic security, it was the ultimate teenage hangout. It was amazing that no one had ever hurt themselves here. Which wasn’t exactly true – but all suicides aside, it was a relatively safe place to drink, explore, hang out with your friends, or whatever else you might be brave enough to do there. I’d even once gone through it and taken pictures for a school assignment, after Tommy had filled his own camera full of amazing photos. As a teenager, I couldn’t stop taking pictures. And the asylum, with its twisted, decaying beauty, was the ideal location.

  Of course there were stories about this place. Its history was full of blemishes. Much like any hospital that was eventually abandoned, rumors circulated about the torture of patients, the lobotomies, the experiments on the physically incompetent and the mentally ill. There were awful medications and unconscionable therapies. There were tales of abuse and neglect. Inside, an eerie sense of the place having been left in the middle of normal daily life – wheelchairs in the halls, lockers full of junk, papers still on desks and littering the dirty floors – penetrated every hallway and crevice. After the initial forsaking by society…well, that’s when we found it, the generation of weirdly belated hipsters, who never suspected our ideas were just rehashed nonsense. We at least recognized the artistic inadequacy of the barren walls and for that we all had to be proud. The life-size Led Zeppelin Swan Song Angel spray-painted in the front lobby was a testament to that.

  It was unfathomable that such a grand structure could be left alone to rot and be desecrated. From far off it looked like a woeful haunted castle. In the rooms with the arched windows and even the ceilings with holes that moonlight poured through, the smell of dirt and mildew and rotting wood permeating everything, it was easy to believe you were in a whole other world. In the belly of a monster, where you could sense death was close enough to touch, perhaps even standing behind you breathing down your neck.

  ****

  Jamie guided the little blue car into the parking lot of the church across the street from the asylum’s grounds. There were other people here. A lot of people. We both sighed with relief. We pulled into a space and Jamie shoved the gearshift into park.

  “I never want to be that scared again,” she commented.

  A loud rap on the window caused both of us to cry out.

  “You girls getting out?” There was a guy standing at the driver’s side door, staring in at us.

  I looked down at the digital clock on the radio. It read 3:59. Jamie turned the ignition off and the glowing numbers on the clock disappeared. But I swear I could still see a dimmer version of them lingering there, like a ghost that faded slowly away.

  ****

  Four O’Clock

  I climbed out of the car, my face cracking into a smile. “Hey, Cole,” I said, gasping as he grabbed me up in an enthusiastic hug.

  “It’s great to see you, Sara,” he said earnestly when he finally let go. “It’s been a while.”

  “Thanks.” For more than the hug, I might have added. I smoothed my clothing, feeling pleasantly violated.

  Cole grinned, his smile wide and infectious. Tall and boyish, with glistening eyes and dark hair, he’s exceptionally cute if you’re into the warm-hearted but overly-pierced type. He and Raymond have known each other since preschool.

  “Is that new?” I asked him, eyeing his lip ring. “Every time I see you, you have more holes in your face.”

  “Nothing else to do in this goddamn town,” he shot back good-naturedly.

  Next to us, Jamie cleared her throat loudly. Apparently she felt the need to remind us of her existence.

  “Oh.” I nodded. “Jamie, this is Cole Allison. Cole, Jamie Pfeffer.”

  “Hi,” they greeted each other in unison, and suddenly, it was as if I wasn’t even there. He was looking at her, she was ogling him…I could have spontaneously combusted with neither of them noticing. Both realized the other was staring and laughed uncertainly at the same time. I rolled my eyes.

  It was my turn to clear my throat.

  “So, did you come out to see some architectural carnage?” I asked Cole, turning to gaze behind us where the asylum languished on the other side of the hill.

  “Of course! There’s no way I’d miss this place getting smoked.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Ah, so you're not on Raymond's side tonight?”

  “No way. I want to see it die.”

  “Where is Raymond, by the way?” Not that I really wanted to know. I had no idea what my runaway mouth would say to him, or if I’d just stand there like an idiot and say nothing at all.

  “I actually just got a weird text from him.” Cole took out his phone, pushing buttons. “Hang on...” he read the message word for word. “‘Something came up but I’ll be there ASAP.’” He shrugged.

  “When did you get that? We just talked to him.”

  “I got it literally as you two pulled up.”

  “Great.”

  A look of sympathy crossed Cole’s face. “Didn’t you guys…?”

  “Yeah.” My cheeks burned. “We broke up.”

  “I’m sorry.” He touched my arm. “He seems pretty torn up about it. He must have done something really bad, right…?” Cole raised one eyebrow, politely inviting me to spill the story behind it all.

  “Um, he broke up with me,” I gasped, surprised. “I’d like to know what happened myself. Any ideas?”

  “No,” Cole seemed confused and slightly embarrassed to have dredged the whole thing up. “But then, before about a week ago, it’d been a while since I’d talked to him. He told me you guys weren't together anymore, but that's about it.”

  My own confusion deepened. I k
new my silence with Raymond had to end, but wasn’t sure when I would be ready to hear the truth, now that he seemed willing to tell it. Either way, it was too stressful to think about right this minute. “Well,” I looked at Jamie, her eyes still glued to Cole. “What do we do now?”

  “What do you mean? You guys can hang with me till he gets here,” Cole responded with enthusiasm, speaking mostly to Jamie, I thought. He made a sweeping gesture toward the dark hill, where there were now a few groups of teenagers happily loitering. We could hear voices, laughter. “You ready to go in?”

  Jamie’s eyes were pleading. “Five minutes. Just till Raymond gets here. I’ve never seen the inside.”

  I groaned. “Five minutes.”

  As we soldiered across the overgrown courtyard on our way to the massive building, Jamie and I fell behind a few steps. “We should tell him about Bonita. About the police car,” she whispered, tucking her long scarf into her coat.

  “Maybe.” I folded my arms over my chest, realizing I’d left my own jacket in the car. Thank God I still had my cigarettes. “Do you have a lighter?” I asked, but she only stared at me, puzzled.

  “What’s with you?” She narrowed her eyes at me inquisitively. Once again she had tapped into the turbulent inner-workings of my brain.

  “Do you think Raymond…” I shifted my weight nervously from one leg to the other. “Do you think him not being here has anything to do with all that?”

  Jamie sighed. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon enough. Please, just promise me you’ll talk all this out with him…not just about what happened tonight, but everything. Get it out in the open already. Out of the closet. You’re killing yourself.” She smirked. “And the suspense is killing me.”

  “I will.”

  “And while you’re at it get me a date with Hotty McPiercings over here,” she giggled wistfully, nudging me with her shoulder.

  “He’s as good as yours.”

  Cole stopped just ahead of us as his phone rang. We were almost to the top of the hill, the dewy grass staining the legs of our pants, soaking cold through our shoes. To our left was a grove of gangly, leafless trees; a few more steps and we’d be overlooking the tall, foreboding building and its deteriorating grounds.