The Killing Room

by John Manning

He patted the black leather pillion on the motorcycle. “You hop up here and just hold onto my waist,” he instructed.

  Carolyn hesitated. “I won’t pull you too much to one side? I mean, my weight won’t cause you to lose balance?”

  Douglas laughed. “A slim little girl like you? I hardly think so.”

  Carolyn swallowed, then lifted her leg over the bike. Good thing she was wearing jeans today and low shoes. Douglas followed, settling himself in front of her. She gingerly placed her hands on his waist.

  “Hang on!” he called, then started the bike with a roar.

  In moments they were zooming down the long driveway and onto the road that led down the side of the hill into the village. Carolyn gripped Douglas tighter around the waist, her face pressed against his back. She was filled with both terror and excitement-terror that she might fall off or cause the bike to topple over, and excitement from the wind in her face and the intimacy of Douglas’s body. She realized halfway down the hill that her eyes were squeezed shut. She forced herself to open them and looked around and was rewarded by the sight of the shimmering Atlantic off to her right. Soon they were zipping through the center road of Youngsport, past the little shops and white clapboard village church.

  “You okay back there?” Douglas shouted through the wind.

  “I’m wonderful,” Carolyn replied.

  She was grinning widely. She relaxed her grip around Douglas’s waist a bit and settled into her seat to enjoy the ride. Douglas was steering the bike onto the highway now. A tractor trailer rumbled by, and Carolyn flinched a bit. But then the road opened up, and it seemed as if they were the only ones traveling that day. The sun was at ten o’clock overhead. The towering pines on either side of the highway were a deep blue-green. A hawk soared above her through the clear sky. Carolyn smiled again.

  She enjoyed being so close to Douglas. For the first time since David, she was feeling drawn to a man. She watched as Douglas’s blond hair blew in the breeze. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, which worried her a bit. But she had a sense of safety being with him. Nothing bad would happen to them with Douglas at the wheel.

  It was almost enough to make her forget what had brought them together. As they sped down the highway, she could pretend that they were just a couple of people enjoying the morning. She was on a date with a guy she liked. That was all. They weren’t going to meet a woman whose life had been shattered by a malevolent, murderous force that had lived in the basement of an old house for eighty years.

  Carolyn leaned to her right as Douglas gradually slowed the bike down and steered them off an exit ramp. At the end of the ramp, he went left, rattling across a bumpy country lane. They couldn’t have been going more than twenty or thirty miles an hour. The fragrance of pine was thick here, and in some places the trees were so tall and so thick that they blocked out the morning sun completely. After about fifteen minutes, Douglas turned right onto an even bumpier road, slowing down to about ten miles an hour. “Hang on,” he shouted to Carolyn over his shoulder. She obeyed.

  Finally they came to a stop outside a large gate made of stone and wrought iron. On the arch over the gate was the word WINDCLIFFE.

  “Hello,” Douglas said to the guard seated in the booth. “I’m Douglas Young. We have an appointment to see-”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Young,” the guard said, and the gate in front of them magically swung open.

  They buzzed through, parking in a space in an area marked VISITORS. Carolyn got off the bike and removed the helmet.

  “That was fun,” she admitted.

  Douglas smiled. “Maybe sometime I can take you for a ride when we’re just out for a day of fun.”

  She returned the smile. “I’d like that.”

  They said nothing more as they approached the entrance of the place. Windcliffe Sanitarium was an old stone fortress built high on a crag overlooking the ocean. The lobby was sumptuously elegant, with an enormous chandelier and polished marble, not unlike the entrance to Mr. Young’s house. No wonder he’d chosen this place for his niece. A bespectacled woman behind the front desk looked up at them without any emotion. When Douglas told her who he was and who he was there to see, she seemed to snap to attention, a wide smile stretching across her face. She rang for someone to meet them. Carolyn had a suspicion that Howard Young was Windcliffe’s most important benefactor.

  “Mr. Young,” came the voice of an old woman hurrying down the corridor. For her apparent years, she moved quite swiftly. She wore a conservative plaid skirt and matching blazer. Her gray hair was swept back into a severe bun. Her hand was extended. “Welcome to Windcliffe.”

  Douglas shook her hand.

  “I’m Dr. Hoffman,” she said. “Your uncle telephoned yesterday to let me know you’d be here.” Her eyes moved over to Carolyn. “Is this your wife?”

  Carolyn blushed. “No,” she said, shaking the doctor’s hand herself. “I’m Carolyn Cartwright. A…friend of the family.”

  Dr. Hoffman smiled. “Welcome. Come this way.”

  She led them back down the corridor.

  “Jeanette is up and waiting for you,” she said. “We told her yesterday that she was having visitors.”

  “Was there any response at all?” Douglas asked.

  Dr. Hoffman smiled sadly. “No. There never is.”

  Douglas exchanged a glance with Carolyn.

  “But her friend Michael O’Toole is here. I called him to let him know you were coming. And Michael said he believes she does know that she’s having visitors. Michael has a connection with Jeanette that is really quite uncanny.”

  “Michael O’Toole?” Douglas asked.

  The doctor smiled as they turned at the end of the corridor and headed into another wing of the building. Here the rooms were farther apart, and the carpet was thicker and richer. Carolyn deduced it was the section reserved for wealthier patients.

  “Michael has been coming to visit Jeanette ever since she first came here,” Dr. Hoffman said. “Three or four times a week. They were to be married, you know, before she had her breakdown.”

  “No,” Douglas said. “I didn’t know.”

  They stopped outside a door at the end of the hall. The plate outside the door read SUITE 1. YOUNG.

  The doctor knocked.

  The door was almost immediately opened by a stout, balding man with bright red cheeks and thick black glasses. He smiled wide when he saw them.

  “Hello, hello,” he said, gesturing for all to enter.

  The suite was quite large. It looked nothing like a hospital room. There were easy chairs and a sectional sofa, and an enormous painting of what looked like Yale University on the wall. Books lined the shelves, and framed family photographs were everywhere. A flat-screen television was mounted on the wall. But somehow Carolyn felt the books were never read, the TV never watched.

  At the far end of the room, facing a large picture window overlooking the ocean, sat a small, white-haired woman in a large wingback chair. She did not stir when they came in. She just sat there very still, her gaze aimed out the window.

  “I’m Michael O’Toole,” the man with the red cheeks said. Douglas and Carolyn introduced themselves. “I’m very glad you’ve come. And Jeanette has been looking forward to it all morning.”

  “I’ll leave you alone now,” Dr. Hoffman said. They thanked her, and she slipped quietly out the door.

  “Jeanette,” Michael said to the white-haired woman. “Jeanette, this is your cousin Douglas and his friend Carolyn.”

  There was no movement, no sense that she even heard him.

  “Sit down, please,” Michael said, gesturing to Carolyn and Douglas to make themselves comfortable on the soda. He gently turned Jeanette slightly in her chair so that her vacant eyes now looked directly at them. She might as well have been a mannequin.

  Carolyn felt her heart sink. She had read this woman’s impassioned work. She had followed the career she’d almost had. How vital she seemed in her writings of forty years earlier. Now
she was just a shell.

  “Mr. Young,” Michael said, “I remember your father. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”

  “Thank you,” Douglas said.

  Obviously Michael was clueless about the family curse. To him, Jeanette had simply suffered some unexplained breakdown. Carolyn had read the reports from the hospital. Although no brain damage was found, Jeanette had lost all ability to communicate or, apparently, to comprehend. Her body functioned fine. So long as attendants regularly moved her limbs, the muscles remained strong; without such assistance, they would have long ago atrophied. Without outside intervention, Jeanette would simply lie there, not speaking, not eating, not doing anything for herself. Carolyn noticed an IV drip behind Jeanette’s chair. She was fed intravenously, but, according to the notes in her file, she would sometimes chew and swallow if nourishment was held to her lips. On a small table in front of her were the remnants of a muffin on a plate and a half-empty glass of orange juice. Michael had apparently been feeding her before they arrived.

  He sat now on a hassock at her side, looking solicitously up at Jeanette. “You remember his father, don’t you, Jeanette? Douglas. He was a lawyer. Remember when he’d visit? He was such a wonderful man.”

  Still Jeanette made no sound, revealed no flicker of consciousness. But Carolyn felt somehow that her eyes had moved. They were no longer simply staring blindly. They had fixed on her. She felt Jeanette was looking directly at her.

  And more than that.

  She felt she was seeing her.

  “I remember coming here with my father,” Douglas said, his voice uneasy. He was directing his words to Jeanette. “I remember meeting you when I was very young. I remember that painting, in fact.”

  “I painted it,” Michael said, pride in his voice. “Jeanette and I met on the Yale campus. She was a divinity student. I was an artist.” The sadness shone in his eyes. “We were going to be married, weren’t we, Jeanette?”

  Her face remained expressionless, her eyes fixed on Carolyn.

  “Well, we never got married,” Michael said, reaching over to take Jeanette’s hand, “but we’ve still been together for forty-two years, haven’t we, my dear?”

  Carolyn held Jeanette’s gaze. What was she saying with her eyes? There was something…something that Carolyn was sure she was trying to communicate.

  Georgeanne had been right, though. Whatever thoughts, if any, swirled through Jeanette’s head, the woman herself was peaceful. There was nothing about her that seemed in distress.

  “Jeanette,” Douglas said. “I wonder if I can ask you a few questions.”

  Michael stiffened. “What kind of questions?”

  “We’d like to find out what brought on her current state.”

  Michael’s smile faded. “I was afraid that was the reason for the visit. Why is it that so few ever visit Jeanette just to see her? Your father was one of those few. A good man. Never came prying about what happened that night. Jeanette doesn’t know! It was a fluke of the brain. Who can explain the human brain? The human mind?”

  “But her doctors have all been stymied,” Carolyn interjected. “If we could find out what happened…”

  “For what good purpose?” He stood. “It would just upset her! Only once in all these years has Jeanette ever gone from the calm, content woman you see before you to a frightened, shaking creature. And I won’t allow that to ever happen again.”

  “Of course, we don’t want that,” Carolyn said. “We don’t want to upset her.” She paused. “But Mr. O’Toole, perhaps we can help her.”

  He folded his chubby arms across his chest. “Long ago I gave up any hope that Jeanette will ever change. Long ago I accepted that this is our lot in life.”

  “But perhaps…” Carolyn hesitated, trying to find the words. “Perhaps if we at least know the kinds of things that upset her in the past, we can avoid doing them again now.”

  His eyes regarded her sternly; then he looked back over at Jeanette. He seemed to see the way she was looking at Carolyn, and his stance softened.

  “I can tell you this much,” he said. “Years ago, probably twenty-five years ago now, a man came here. He was sent by Jeanette’s uncle. Like you, he wanted to know what had happened to bring Jeanette to such a state. I told him that her doctors had said it was an unexplainable shock. But what brought the shock on? The man wanted to know the answer to that. Possibly nothing, I told him. Doctors say that’s rare, but it is possible. The brain can experience a shock for no reason. A short-circuiting of nerves, so to speak.” He paused for emphasis. “And if there was a reason for the shock, I certainly don’t want Jeanette remembering it.”

  “What did this man say when you told him that?” Carolyn asked.

  “He kept pushing. And because Mr. Young pays for Jeanette’s care here, I couldn’t stop him. Even Dr. Hoffman, despite her better judgment, was forced to let him proceed. And he began saying names to Jeanette. Names that upset her. For the first time, she reacted to outside stimuli-”

  “Which is actually a good thing,” Carolyn observed.

  “Not if it makes her upset! I won’t have her upset!” He calmed himself, looking anxiously over at Jeanette. “She began to shudder. She began to cry. Her face got red. I told the man if he persisted I would physically throw him out of the room.” He smiled. “I was younger then. I could have done it, too. But Dr. Hoffman agreed, and she asked the man to stop.”

  “But perhaps if we could find the reason for her state, we could reverse it,” Carolyn said.

  Michael ignored her comment. “Then, about ten years ago, another man came around. He was with a black woman, who claimed she could read minds just by touching someone.”

  “Kip,” Douglas said, and Carolyn nodded.

  Michael continued, not hearing. “He wanted to say certain things to Jeanette, too, but I forbade it. And the black woman, she touched Jeanette’s hand, and concurred with my judgment. She said Jeanette did not have the information that they sought and they should leave her in peace.” He chuckled. “I’m not sure I believe in all that mumbo jumbo, but I was glad to have her as an ally. They left without upsetting Jeanette.” His eyes narrowed as he stood over them. “And I will not allow you to upset her either.”

  Carolyn sighed. “I see in her files that Dr. Hoffman even tried hypnotizing her, but Jeanette remained unable to reveal anything.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t know anything! Whatever happened that night is gone! All that exists for Jeanette is now! This moment! The moment she lives in. For in the very next moment, it’s gone. Every moment is brand new to her. Her only constant is this room…and me.”

  He sat back down on the hassock and took her hand again.

  Carolyn looked over at Douglas. “I think he’s right. Asking her any questions is pointless.”

  Douglas sighed, clearly disappointed. “Look, Mr. O’Toole. We came here because we want to help Jeanette…”

  “What is it that your family is hiding?” Behind the thick glasses, Michael O’Toole’s blue eyes were blazing. “Why is that, in regular intervals, someone comes around trying to find out what caused Jeanette to be this way? Is the story I was always told not true? According to Mr. Young, Jeanette was found one morning during the family reunion simply wandering by the cliffs. She had left the house sometime in the night, and in the morning, no one had been able to find her. Then they spotted her out by the cliffs. When they caught up with her, she didn’t know them. She didn’t know herself. She didn’t speak. This is what was told to me.” He glared at Douglas. “Is there more to the story? Is there more that I should know?”

  Douglas just looked away.

  “That’s what they always do when I ask that,” Michael said, his anger boiling just under the surface. “They look away.”

  “Mr. O’Toole,” Carolyn said, “what if we spoke with you in private? So that Jeanette couldn’t hear, and nothing might upset her?”

  He stood. “You can come into the kitchen if you like.” He
bent and kissed Jeanette’s cheek. “I’m just going to show our guests around the place, my dear. We will be right back.”

  Jeanette remained motionless in her chair. When Carolyn stood, the eyes that had been looking at her did not follow. They simply fell upon the wall behind the sofa. Maybe, Carolyn thought, she had been wrong about Jeanette seeing her.

  Once inside the kitchen, Carolyn cut straight to the point. “Mr. O’Toole, I think if we know what the names were that upset Jeanette, it could help us.”

  “Help you with what?”

  “I don’t know,” Carolyn admitted. “But we would like to help Jeanette.”

  He frowned. “I can’t see where you can help her where so many doctors have failed.”

  “Please,” Douglas added. “Can you just tell us the names?”

  “Beatrice.” He said the word as if it were bitter on his tongue. “And Malcolm.”

  Carolyn blinked. She had expected Beatrice. But Malcolm…this was a name she had never heard before.

  “Malcolm?” she repeated.

  “Yes. I don’t know if those names were the ones the man and the black woman were prepared to say, because I never allowed them to utter any. But the first man, the one who came here about twenty-five years ago, he used those names. I’ll never forget them.”

  “And what was this man’s name?”

  “He only identified himself as Dr. Fifer. I’m not sure how it was spelled. With an ‘F’ or a ‘Ph.’ But I’ll never forget him either, or how he upset Jeanette.”

  Carolyn figured this Dr. Fifer must have been one of the many investigators Mr. Young had hired over the years to try to find an end to the curse of that room. She would have to go through the papers again to see if there were any files with such a name.

  “I think,” she said to Douglas with a sense of heavy disappointment, “we’ve learned as much as we can here today.”

  “Well, at least come say good-bye to Jeanette,” Michael said. “She may not seem it, but I am convinced she is more aware of her surroundings than any of us know. The nurses here tell me there is a certain brightening to her eyes on days she knows I will be here. Her skin is a little more sallow on days when, for whatever reason, I’ve been unable to make it in. After four decades, you learn to see these things.”