Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1)

by Christopher Rankin

  She leaned back in the chair and nervously jostled her feet as the needle went into the soft skin of her arm. She forced herself to stop staring at the glass vial, which her heart was pumping full. Instead, she looked at the phlebotomist and noticed a particularly strange tattoo on the young woman’s arm. It was mostly obscured by some cover up makeup.

  “What does that mean?” She asked the young, albino nurse in pink scrubs, who hadn’t spoken at all during the procedure. “I’ve never seen a tattoo like that. It looks it was done by a real artist.”

  “You shouldn’t have been able to see that,” the nurse said as she noticed the cover up makeup was starting to smudge off. Underneath, there was a strange scrawled outline of a face with all sorts of symbols and details. The albino woman’s hair was dyed jet black. “I’m sorry,” the nurse said as though she didn’t mean it at all. “We’re supposed to cover these up.”

  “It’s OK,” said the pregnant woman, “I was thinking of getting one myself. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you happen to have that one done?”

  “You can’t have this one,” the nurse answered. She pulled the needle out of the woman’s arm and put down a cotton ball to stop the bleeding. With her patient not looking, the nurse snuck the vial of blood into her pants pocket. She added, “You can’t just buy one of these tattoos. They’re special.”

  The idea that her nurse possessed something out of her reach seemed to bother the expectant mother. Her tone took on an argumentative quality. “Well, why can’t I have one?” She asked. “I can certainly afford it.”

  The albino nurse looked down at her and laughed. It seemed to bother the soon-to-be mother even more. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” the nurse said. “I just meant that I didn’t get this in one of the regular shops.” At that point, the nurse brought over a syringe with pinkish-clear liquid and started to swab her patient’s upper arm with rubbing alcohol.

  “What’s that needle for?” The patient asked, looking somewhat confused. “I thought we were finished.”

  “Oh, this,” the nurse said. “It’s vitamins. A little something extra the doctor wanted you to have.”

  “Is it B12 and folic acid?”

  The nurse smiled at her in a way that seemed almost threatening. It was as though the patient had asked one too many questions. Her expression made the pregnant woman nervous. “You got it,” she finally answered. “Keeps your mood up and helps you keep the extra weight off. These injections are becoming all the rage with the active new mothers.”

  The pregnant woman leaned back in her chair as though she had somehow become excited at the prospect of the shot. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m ready.” The needle sunk into the flesh of her arm and the contents of the syringe slowly dumped into the woman’s blood. An empty glaze of a smile started on her face and her pupils began to swell. Her body went limp in the chair as the nurse finished the injection. “I want one of those tattoos,” the pregnant woman mumbled in a kind of slow, half groan. “I want one real bad.”

  “My master gave it to me,” the nurse said, looking deep into her black eyes.

  The pregnant woman seemed half-anesthetized. Her body was too limp to stand. She tried to get up but collapsed back into the chair. “I want to meet your master,” she started to moan as her eyes closed and the effects of the drug got stronger. “What’s happening to me?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about, deary.”

  “Oh. OK.”

  “You know I always wanted to be a mother,” the nurse told the woman.

  “That’s good,” the pregnant woman mumbled. “Babies are wonderful.”

  “I would have but,” the nurse said as her face took on a threatening quality, “I was poor for too long. Living on the streets for years, eating garbage and sleeping on toxic waste took its toll. I’m infertile.”

  “Oh no,” the pregnant woman groaned. “Babies are wonderful.”

  “That they are,” the nurse said. “I always thought it was my destiny to be a mommy but now I know it will never happen.”

  “Oh no. Babies are wonderful.”

  “People like you, the royalty of this godforsaken place, destroyed everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s why my family and I are going to make you and the people like you suffer so much.”

  “I know,” mumbled the pregnant mother as her body went almost completely limp.

  “I know that you know,” the albino said, scowling hard at the mother. “Tonight,” she explained, “you are going to pay us back what you’ve taken.” The albino nurse wound up and slapped the intoxicated woman across the face.

  The drowsy mother didn’t realize what had happened but woke out of her trance nearly instantly. “I must have dozed off. Am I finished already?” she asked the nurse.

  “Oh yes. You’re finished.”

  ...

  That night, in the Asylum Corporation Airplane Scrapyard, Bernard Mengel looked over his flock of desperate young men and women. Ivy took her place at his side. A group of a half-dozen crestfallen homeless kids slowly marched toward the bonfire.

  Bernard took out his fiddle and played an ancient Keltic melody of death while the youths started to form a circle around the bonfire. “My little boys and girls, step right up!” he shouted over his playing. “I’m gonna show you a trick I learned from a brujo in Haiti!” He whispered only to Ivy, “I’m thinking romantic getaway when this is all over.”

  Bernard asked the albino nurse, who was standing around the fire, “Did you do as I asked today?”

  She nodded, saying, “Of course, my master.”

  “Did you find us the perfect little womb?”

  “The very best one in SouthBay,” the nurse said, wiping away the tears from her eyes. She was suddenly smiling like a little girl bringing home a set of A’s on a report card.

  “Very good,” Bernard said. “Then it won’t be much longer then.” He told everyone to gather around the bonfire, to link their hands and focus their intent. Everyone except for Bernard and Ivy bowed their heads and closed their eyes. The group started to hum. At that moment, the bonfire, which was nearly ten feet tall, started to flicker and dance as though mysteriously fanned.

  The fire looked alive. It stared into the eyes of everyone as it spat and danced. It started to reach for Ivy, but Bernard commanded the flames to keep their distance. “No, no,” said Bernard to the bonfire. “She’s all mine. Stay back flame! She’s for me to consume! Not you!”

  Bernard went back to the same Keltic tune on his fiddle. While the notes drifted off into the night with the sparks from the bonfire, someone walked into the scrapyard.

  Barefoot and wearing a maternity nightgown draped over a fully swollen belly, the young mother from the clinic looked delirious. Her eyes were black and her face conveyed no awareness or emotion. She slowly marched toward the bonfire like an automaton.

  “Ah,” said Bernard. “Our guest of honor has arrived.” He told her to stand in front of the bonfire. She didn’t seem to hear him but complied. “My beloved nurse has fetched us quite a fertile piece of land on which to grow our fruit. Everyone please give a round of applause to our young mother. For her sacrifice.”

  The coven clapped slowly while they formed a circle around her. Flames soared even higher in air as the bonfire suffered a vicious outburst. Bernard shouted to the crowd, “Look at the flame! It knows we’re here and what we’re about to do!”

  Without being told, the young mother laid herself on the ground in front of the fire. Her eyes wide open and pupils fully swelled to black, she moved like she was sleepwalking and someone in her dream was directing her.

  “Very good,” Bernard told her while the crowd watched in awe. He told the albino nurse, “Get her ready.”

  She slid a hunting knife out of its sheath and walked over to the pregnant woman on the ground. With the woman completely unaware and paralyzed, the nurse started to c
arve something into the palm of her hand. The nurse seemed to delight in cutting the mother. She was like an artist with a paintbrush.

  “I got the fluid from work like you asked,” she told Bernard. “I got even more than you wanted.”

  “That’s my girl,” said Bernard. “Bring it over and get it ready.”

  It seemed nearly too heavy for her to carry but the nurse brought over a large paint bucket and put it down by the pregnant mother. Still very much out of it, the woman just stared straight up to the stars. Each member of the coven dipped their hand in the bucket and pulled out a hand full of what looked like runny slime. Then they each rubbed some on the young mom’s face.

  “Amniotic fluid has special significance,” Bernard told the crowd. “Make sure each one of you makes solid contact when you touch her. Make sure your intent is clear and your mind doesn’t wander.” He directed the nurse to cover the young mother with the remaining amniotic fluid.

  The crowd formed a tighter circle around the bonfire. Bernard told them, “My children, this world is not what it seems. We are not of this Earth. It’s an illusion. MoneySexPower has gone nowhere. He’s around us. He’s everywhere. All he needs is a place to go. A vessel. We need to give him a path to follow on his way back. Everyone focus. Everyone let your minds meld together. Focus on the fire.”

  The bonfire took on a life of its own and started to pulsate like a firefly. It made strange air-gulping noises like a wolf panting. The young mother started to hyperventilate. With a crusty coating of amniotic fluid covering her face and body, she began to tremble on the ground. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Then she screamed like she was about to give birth.

  Tiny threads of red light like glowing spider silk started to appear overhead. At first, the strands seemed random like cobwebs. Then they began forming into a structure. The glowing filaments started to look like holographic tree roots germinating in the air.

  “See it! See the structure,” Bernard told everyone. “That is the order behind the chaos. Not many humans get to see this!”

  The strands of light continued to extend and weave together until the form was nearly solid red light. The thing had taken over the entire sky of Los Angeles. It seemed to extend to infinity like the ocean. The massive red storm flashed and thundered above. Then it sent a red lightning bolt right through the pregnant mother on the ground.

  The crowd, having been totally enraptured, started to yell and cheer. A few people in the crowd had digital cameras. They pointed them up and tried to take pictures of the red sky. Whatever the thing was, it wasn’t showing up on any of the cameras.

  “Watch carefully!” Bernard told the group. “It’s happening!”

  Bernard reacted to the crowd like a seasoned magician, tipping his hat into the air and bowing. “They haven’t seen anything yet,” he whispered to Ivy. She was standing next to him, watching attentively. He wrapped his arm around her waist and gave her a long kiss, which she took like someone under anesthesia. “I really feel like I’m on stage,” he said so that only she could hear. “You make quite a beautiful assistant, my dear.”

  Screaming suddenly got everyone’s attention. The young mother had regained some consciousness. She howled like someone waking up on a surgery table in the middle of a gut incision. Her abdomen was in such excruciating pain that her body twisted on the ground.

  It looked like a seizure as the woman screamed on the ground in her maternity nightgown. For a moment, she regained some lucidity and looked around at the crowd. She fought to stand up and begged those around, “What’s happening to me? Please. What’s happening to me?” The young people in the coven just laughed and taunted her back. She spotted the albino nurse in the crowd and said to her, “You. I remember you. You’re the last person I remember talking to. What’s happening? I want to go home.”

  “Oh, you’re going home,” The nurse mocked.

  The woman fell back onto the ground in more pain than ever. Now the pain had spread from her pregnant womb to her entire body. She screamed like every patch of her skin was being burned at the same time. Her stomach began to contort as the fetus underneath seemed to be doing gymnastics.

  Then, as though the pregnancy had never happened, her stomach suddenly collapsed flat. She grabbed for her abdomen to find all signs of the growing fetus gone.

  “Don’t worry,” Bernard told her. “Not gone. Transformed.”

  Suddenly the woman’s abdomen started to swell up fast. It became as large as it had been. Then her womb kept growing to very unnatural dimensions. It looked as though the poor woman was ready to give birth to a litter of eleven. She screamed when she saw how large she was swelling.

  Something was trying to get out of her, but it wasn’t a baby. Just before the woman passed out from the pain, a small, bloody hand ripped through her belly button. Whatever it was kept ripping until the crowd could see a bloody, tattooed face.

  MoneySexPower’s dancing tattoos showed themselves through the layers of blood and amniotic fluid. The toddler-sized thing easily took to its feet. It walked around while it inspected the group around the bonfire.

  “Welcome back,” Bernard said to it. “You’ll find your new accommodations much more comfortable than the last boy. This way, you can be in your natural state. You’re real.”

  Then Bernard took Ivy by the arm and stepped away from the fire for some privacy. “My love,” he told her, “my work here is almost done. Only one more detail. Soon you and I will leave this awful place behind us.”

  “What about Dade Harkenrider?” Ivy asked, staring back blankly.

  “Don’t worry, my dear.” Bernard told her. “You two will have a lifetime to cause each other pain. It’s your destiny after all.”

  ...

  The following evening, Ann Marie was resting in Dade’s bed in the lab. She was at the end of a rather speedy recovery from her experience in the tank. Still a bit weak himself, Dade attended to her while she received an IV drip of vitamin fluid. He sat in one of the rolling lab chairs next to her by the patio doors. While he stared out the door to the Pacific, it looked like he was standing guard over her.

  “You know I’m fine,” she told him. “I don’t need a damn IV.”

  “Have you gotten in touch with your mom yet?”

  “She’s staying with her new boyfriend,” she answered, sitting up straighter in bed. “Mr. wonderful. I left her a few messages the other night but she isn’t getting back to me.”

  “Is that like her?”

  “My mother,” Ann Marie said. “Yeah. She’s been known to disappear when a new man is in the picture.”

  “I should have never let that happen,” he said, changing the subject to the tank. He kept his eyes fixed on the ocean and sky out the window. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  “You keep saying that,” argued Ann Marie. “I’m fine.” She got up from the bed without much difficulty. “You don’t need to be sorry. I made a choice to go into the tank. I’m glad I did it too. I would have died of old age waiting for you.”

  “There are a few things we should probably discuss.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Dade said, sounding as though something important was coming, “what we did wasn’t just a regular trip to the other side. It was also your first time going over completely.”

  “You’re scaring me. What are you trying to say?”

  “Its just...” Dade started to say. “You know how you started to see shadow people after your very first exposure. Well, this is a whole different ballgame.”

  Ann Marie’s phone rang and she noticed it was her mother. “Speak of the devil,” she said before picking it up.

  “I would like to see my beautiful, brilliant daughter,” said Lori the moment Ann Marie answered. “I am such a bad mother for not calling you back before.” Before her daughter could even respond, Lori went on, “I need to see my best friend in the world. Can you meet me at The Pink Pelican?” When Ann
Marie agreed, her mom said, “Good. My new man is here and he wants to get to know the great doctor Bandini. Now get down here, young lady.” After that, Lori hung up.

  On her way out of the lab, Ann Marie seemed relieved, telling Dade, “She still sounds a little drunk but nothing like the last time. I think she’s getting better.”

  “I hope so,” Dade answered. “Be careful on your way down the hill. The fog is rolling in. The road will be dangerous.”

  Ann Marie smiled because she loved when Dade showed his protective streak with her. “I will,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  On the way down the hill, the road began getting hazy very quickly. The fog started as flying white wisps before it started to erase the road in front of her. She slowed the car down and tried to find the yellow lines in the middle of the road. It was difficult to see them but she managed to keep the car going in the right direction. One side of the car was bordered by rocky cliffs, the other by a steep drop to the ocean.

  Keeping her car under fifteen miles per hour, she kept a close watch on the road in front of her. She even turned the music all the way down to open up more of her senses. “Come on, road,” she said to herself, “don’t disappear on me.” She slowed the car to under ten miles an hour.

  Without warning, the handle to the passenger door lifted and car door quickly opened. Someone was sitting in the car beside her. He lifted his hat to Ann Marie.

  “Never ever, ever leave your car door unlocked. Never ever, ever,” Bernard Mengel said as he started to laugh. “You could end up in the most precarious position unprepared.” Ann Marie started to panic and the car nearly went off the road. Bernard grabbed the wheel and corrected their path. “Now now, be careful,” he told her. “Young drivers,” he remarked.

  Ann Marie’s hands were starting to tremble but she did her best to keep it out of her voice. “Good to see you again, Bernard,” she said. “Is this visit about anything in particular?” She looked terrified but delivered the line without any quiver in her voice.