Cherry Hill

by James A. Moore

  Crowley looked at him and nodded, a smile playing at his lips. “Made a detour to find pants, but other than that, I’ve just been snooping in your files.” He lifted one leg and showed the dark green surgical scrubs he’d managed to acquire somewhere along the way. There was also a matching top. Whatever had happened to his robes was a mystery that could wait for another time.

  “Those are confidential!” Roger half ran to the desk, as offended by the violation as a priest who found an eavesdropper at the confessional.

  “Oh, please.” Crowley stood up and dropped the thick file he’d been looking over. “What am I going to do? Spread nasty rumors about the murderers in this place?”

  “John, that’s not the point. Would you like it if someone just came through here looking over your file?”

  “First, I’m a trained psychologist and second, at least one of you asked me for help with the bugaboos around here, so I’m helping.”

  “Okay, fair enough on the trained psychologist, but how does looking over medical files for the patients here help with a ghost problem?”

  “You ever think the ghosts might be acting up because of one of your patients?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  Crowley spoke slowly, straining to make sure Roger caught the gist of what he was saying. “Well, first I have to look at the files and then I can make an educated guess on the why part.”

  “John, you need to ask before you start looking over patient files.”

  “You might have said no, so I didn’t bother. Plausible deniability: you don’t know about it, you can’t get in trouble for it.”

  “And while I appreciate the concern for my job stability, I still can’t have you wandering around and looking through files whenever it strikes your fancy.”

  “I noticed the extra security.” Crowley looked at him, a smug and amused expression on his face. “Were you worried about me, Doc?”

  “Frankly, I was worried about the safety of the staff and patients.” He crossed his arms and scowled at the man.

  Crowley shrugged. “I was perfectly fine staying in my room, but then somebody had to go and ask for help with their self-mutilating patients and employees. I can always go back to my room, you know.”

  “No, John. You’ve already created quite a stir around here. Why don’t we just go over what you might have learned so far?”

  “Not much, really. I’ll need to do more research and walk the place a few times.”

  “John, I can’t have you walking around Cherry Hill without an escort.”

  “Fine. Find me a volunteer.” Something about the edge in his voice when he said it made Roger leery, but what else could he do?

  “John, forget the legalities, forget all the insanity of whatever has happened to you. Please, be on your best behavior.”

  Crowley smiled. “You wanted help with your problems here and I intend to help. While that’s going on, I promise not to kill anyone who doesn’t bother me first.”

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t at all comforted by the comment.

  ***

  “You’re joking, of course.” Phil Harrington stared at his superior and tried desperately to find any sign of humor in Finney’s expression. Sadly it seemed he was completely serious. “You want to give Jonathan Crowley run of the whole place?”

  Harrington had an amusing and morbid image of Crowley being pushed through the Asylum, strapped in place in a wheel chair. The man had endured substantial brain surgery only the day before and while he liked to think he was a damned fine surgeon—barring a few unfortunate incidents—he certainly doubted that his patient was going to be up and about.

  “Not the whole place and not free run. He’ll be escorted at all times.”

  “I think you’re being ridiculous.” Harrington shook his head, his mouth locked in a scowl of disgust.

  Roger froze, then shrugged; when he spoke again, the temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees. “You’re entitled to think whatever you please, Phil. Just remember to phrase it nicely next time or we might have a problem. I don’t expect anyone under me to hold back from stating his or her opinions, but you’d do well to remember who is in charge at this facility.”

  “I’m sorry, Roger. I don’t know what got into me.” The last thing he needed to do was screw up his chances at Cherry Hill, but, really, what the hell was his supervisor thinking?

  “Apology accepted. Part of the problem is that you haven’t seen Jonathan Crowley in a few hours. I think we should rectify that as soon as possible.”

  There was something that Finney wasn’t saying, and despite the temptation to call him on it, Phil decided to keep his tongue. He simply nodded and followed as the older doctor led the way.

  They did not go back to Crowley’s cell. Instead they turned toward the infirmary. That at least went according to Harrington’s belief as to where Crowley should be and what he should be doing, which was currently as little as possible until he had a chance to recover from his surgery.

  Finney led him into a room where a stunningly attractive woman was currently cowering in the corner, dealing with a man who was berating her in cold, menacing tones. Both of them immediately grew quiet as soon as the door was opened.

  Phil stared at the woman for a few seconds before making himself look away. Did he know her? No, but damned if he didn’t want to.

  The man was dressed in surgical scrubs and a pair of paper slippers. He turned to face the door as Finney moved in and then nodded at Phil. Phil nodded back without thinking about it, and then tried to place where he might know the stranger from. He was nothing remarkable, brown hair, brown eyes and a leanly muscled body.

  Then the man smiled and Phil stepped back. “Jonathan?”

  Crowley shook his head and mocked a scowl. “What? You don’t even check to see if your patients are recovering anymore, Doc? Here I thought you were the conscientious type.” There was no mistaking the smile he’d seen, or the voice that he heard. Either Jonathan Crowley had undergone a massive change or he had a grandson capable of mimicking his speech patterns perfectly.

  “How did…?”

  Crowley cut him off. “I really don’t have time to chat. I need to get busy with this whole thing, or I’m going to have to keep listening to Amelia try to make everything right in the world again.”

  “But what?”

  “Later. I’m sure Dr. Finney can fill you in on the details.”

  “Not likely,” Finney snorted. “That would mean understanding it myself.”

  “Don’t really have the time to chat things up, gentlemen. Seriously, I don’t know what’s going on in your little corner of the world, but I think it’s going to start getting worse soon.”

  Finney shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t have all the facts yet, of course, because I’m still waiting for my escorts.” He looked archly at Finney as he spoke. “Unless I’m wrong, and I seldom am, you’ve got an accumulation of psychic residue building inside Cherry Hill that’s going to try to manifest itself physically sooner or later. If it succeeds, things will get nasty.”

  The woman—Amelia, was that the name Crowley had used?—shook her head. “Believe me, if Jonathan says it’s bad, then it’s bad.”

  Crowley spun fast and pointed a finger at her. “You I don’t need to hear from right now.” All hint of pleasantry left his face as he talked. “You’re already in deep water with me, understood?”

  She nodded meekly and averted her eyes.

  “Jonathan, you have to listen to me. Whatever’s happened to you, you’re still a patient in this facility and we still need to continue our sessions.”

  “No offense, Doc, but I’m not your patient anymore. Send me a bill or whatever. If you or anyone in the place thinks I’m going to sit still for another round of questions, you’re delusional.”

  He turned toward Finney before Phil could respond and continued. “Listen, I’ve been a patient and I know you’re trying hard to get a gr
asp on everything I’m saying, but I can’t very well help you if you don’t help me. I’m still waiting for the escorts. If they aren’t here in five minutes, I’m going on without them.”

  “John, we’re still trying to work out all of the details.” And Finney was holding up his hands and making a placating gesture, practically begging the man for patience.

  “Five minutes. That’s as long as I’m going to be patient.”

  “Jonathan, you aren’t in a position to make ultimatums.” He was talking before he thought the situation through and Crowley pounced on him the second the words were out of his mouth.

  “Stop me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you think you can do anything about it, Doc, you go ahead and stop me.”

  “I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation, Jonathan. You’re still here as a patient and not all of the attitude in the world will change that.”

  Crowley shook his head and grinned again. “We’ll discuss this later, I have things to do.”

  Without another word, his patient turned and walked out of the room. Roger chased after him, calling his name and still sounding like he was whining.

  Phil just stared, not believing the way his day was going. “I can’t believe this nonsense.”

  “What do you mean?” Amelia Dunlow spoke softly and he listened, struck again by the sudden desire to know her much better.

  “First, that can’t be Jonathan Crowley, but it is. Second, he’s acting like an arrogant teenager.”

  Amelia shook her head. “Actually, he’s almost on his best behavior.”

  “He’s worse than this normally?”

  “Doctor, he hasn’t even gotten started. Believe me, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  ***

  Losing the good doctor took no real effort. Crowley knew more tricks for hiding than the man would ever be able to figure out. Credit to the designers of the place, they’d done an excellent job of building a solid structure. They had not, however, done a perfect job. Two minutes after he’d left the room, Crowley slid into a storage area and scrambled up the wall with the help of a few crates used as a stepladder. After that all he had to do was push past one of the acoustic tiles to get out of sight.

  Then he had to figure out how to avoid falling through tiles never designed to hold the weight of a full-grown man. There were pipes running along the ceiling and while it took effort, he managed to wrap his limbs around them and push himself forward far enough to get him to the first corner, where he settled himself for a few minutes to think.

  “Come on, old man, now is not the time to get disgruntled.” He looked around at the darkened manmade tunnel and tried to calm himself down. The challenges were more than he’d expected. First, much as he hated to admit it, he was feeling wonderfully energetic. It felt good to feel good and it felt alien after years of being well past his prime. Second, he was still trying to sort through preposterous amounts of information that had been reinserted directly into his brain. Emotional overload didn’t come close to defining the problem. His emotions seemed to be bouncing faster than a manic depressive on speed; one second he felt fine and the next he wanted to scream in rage and right after that he wanted to cry. It was debilitating and he wanted it finished. He also didn’t expect to get what he wanted in this case. There was just too much going on in his head for him to reasonably expect to feel calm for a long time.

  So that left him with doing something to distract himself. Despite the temptation, he wasn’t going to kill Amelia. Ripping the spine from her back wasn’t going to make all of this go away. So dealing with the troubles at hand was the only viable option. Running away from the asylum wasn’t something he was willing to consider at that point. He’d been asked to help and that meant he was now obligated because, fool that he was, he’d said yes.

  Now it was time to get to work. Though it took effort, he managed to move around until he’d reached the end of the wing’s construction. He knew he was in the north wing of Cherry Hill, but beyond that he didn’t have much to go on.

  One careful peek told him the corridor was empty. From there it was a simple matter to drop down onto the tiled floor and reorient himself. The door wasn’t an option. Not yet anyway. He could see the wires leading to the sensors that would trigger an alarm if he tried exiting. Besides, what he wanted was inside the asylum, not out in the open.

  The monsters weren’t waiting out there, they were lurking somewhere in the building proper. The next trick was to get into decent clothing, because as comfortable as the scrubs were, they stood out too much. Very few of the people on the floor would be dressed for surgery and none of the staff he’d seen so far walked around in surgical greens. Somewhere within the building there had to be real clothing. That was all there was to it.

  Every door he tried was locked, which was hardly a surprise. One uttered phrase, under the breath, was enough to fix the problem. He twisted the handle of the first door he came to and it opened for him, locks be damned.

  Naturally, his luck was holding true. He hadn’t bothered to notice that the sign above the door said Locker Room. The four men inside were all in different stages of dress, and none of them looked overly pleased by the interruption.

  “You supposed to be here?” The man who spoke was short, round and filled with attitude. He was also the very same guard who normally handled the floors late at night. It was apparently time for the shift change. Crowley looked at the man and smiled, remembering their conversation from a few nights before and the little bastard’s willingness to pulp his fingers.

  “I don’t think we ever got properly introduced.” Crowley stepped into the room and crossed his arms. “I guess it’s time we got better acquainted.”

  Crowley closed the door and felt a shiver of satisfaction when the automatic lock did its thing.

  ***

  Alex Granger was doing nothing at all worth noticing, so it left him in peace, slipping from his body and roaming through the halls of Cherry Hill. It had learned so much, but the mysteries it wanted best to understand still eluded it.

  Filled with both the energies of the dead and the flesh-memories of Andrea Tartelli, it tried again to build a form that was useful and functional. First the infrastructure: a collection of bones to support everything else. The concentration required was draining, but it managed as best it could. The level of complexity was minor, but without anything to hold the bones together the puzzle kept breaking apart, falling to pieces and adding to its frustration.

  Already exhausted from the effort, it stopped and moved on to another avenue. There were life forms other than human in the buildings it called home. Perhaps the time had come to study them as well.

  Once again it drifted, dropping down to where it had recently feasted on the infant spirits, and started studying the creatures still down there. Some were miniscule, far too small to be of use, but still worth examining. The differences between the newer lives and the humans were fascinating. Some of the creatures had four legs, others six, and others eight or more.

  Working slowly, methodically, it started with the smallest of the entities and felt through the forms, testing synaptic responses and nerve design, feeling the flow of life blood through the bodies and the emotional panic that came in response to the invasions.

  Though in its earlier stages of evolution it hadn’t felt the need for labels, it began accessing the accumulated knowledge within it to decipher what each of the different life forms was called. The centipedes were amusing, but offered little that was useful by way of possible adaptations. Even now it was just possibly too human in its way of thinking. Spiders had definite potential. Of particular interest were the methods employed in distributing blood through the body. The roaches proved as interesting as the spiders, with certain aspects of their form that were repugnant, but useful. Then there were the rats: The creatures were as complex as humans, but so different in their function. The way the body moved, the way the eyes adjuste
d to darkness, the amazingly keen sense of smell, all of these things caught its attention and held it.

  The minds of the rodents were fairly simplistic; far more oriented in the present and less inclined to focus on emotional issues and past occurrences.

  There was potential in the design of the creatures.

  Slowly, carefully, it began examining the possibilities each creature offered as a learning tool. Humans were frightened easily by finding pieces of half-formed bodies. It had sensed their reactions and knew that leaving behind the evidence of its trials was a mistake.

  Perhaps it needed to work out the finer points of motor function and bodily responses before trying again with a complete and very complex form. It examined its surroundings carefully and decided that where it was currently might well be the best place to carry on its experiments. Nothing human had been in the area for a very long time and for now it required privacy.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carl Branaugh rubbed his eyes and prayed for a cup of coffee. He’d read the depositions, spoken to all of the witnesses and watched as the mortal remains of Andrea Tartelli were carried from the building and now all he wanted to do was rest.

  Naturally, that wasn’t about to happen. Jonathan Crowley had apparently slipped away again and now the lockdown that had been in action earlier was in effect again. No one was permitted to enter or leave the premises until the escaped mental patient was safely back in his room.

  So far only two things had gone right today. The first was having enough coffee to keep him in a decent mood. The second was meeting Amelia Dunlow.

  He got two cups of coffee and then sat down at the same small table where she was currently trying to relax. The way she sat—ramrod straight in the chair—and the worried expression on her perfect features, let him know she wasn’t having much fun.