by Scott Baron
They headed off through the crowd, weaving their way around the numerous bodies on the way to the spinning ride. Dorothy was trying not to spill her soda, while Curtis kept bumping into people with the three-foot tall stuffed Cat in the Hat he had won at the ring-toss game.
When they arrived at the ride, a young girl of maybe six years old looked up with wonder at the enormous stuffed animal, like it was the coolest thing in the world. Naturally, Curtis did what any other self-respecting escaped mental patient hiding out in a carnival would do. He flashed his brightest smile and gave it to her.
The girl was unsure at first, looking back at her mother questioningly to see if it was okay. After all, why would a stranger give her such an amazing thing? Curtis simply smiled at her and gave a cheerful wink at her mother.
“Go ahead, he’s yours,” he said, handing it to her. “He told me he wanted to go home with you instead. You two have fun now!”
With his arms now free of the hindrance of an enormous stuffed animal, he stepped through the turnstile with his fellow escapee in tow. Dorothy stared at him with a confused look on her face as he took his seat.
“Didn’t you just spend twenty minutes trying to win that thing?”
“What? It’s not like we can take it back with us. Might as well make a kid happy, right?”
“Curtis?”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t really hear the stuffed animal talking to you, did you?”
He smiled and gave her a wicked little wink and pulled her to the nearest teacup.
This guy is full of surprises, she thought, just as the ride jolted with a start and her world began to spin. Naturally, the faster it spun, the harder Curtis laughed.
When the whirling teacup ride eventually came to a stop and spilled them out into the thinning crowd, they finally decided it was time that they left. Dorothy weaved a bit as she walked, a residual dizziness tweaking her gait. What she found unusual was that she was totally all right with it. Her first outing with Curtis, doing ridiculous things no less, and she was having a blast.
She could also tell he had no romantic intentions toward her whatsoever, which was convenient. He had instead latched on to her as a protector, seeing her much as his kid sister he needed to look out for. The way things had gone up to that point, she was glad for it.
Of course, he still gave her grief from time to time, though one could argue that’s exactly the sort of thing a big brother would do.
“Come on, I want to hear you say it again,” he prodded her as they walked.
“Fine. ‘Hello, my name is Dorothy,’” she said. “There, you happy?”
“If that keeps little kids from crying, and their parents from calling the cops on the crazy Death-lady, then yes, I’m quite happy, thank you very much.” He hip-bumped her affectionately as they walked, letting her know he wasn’t really mad.
“You can’t keep introducing yourself as Death. Freaks people out. Now me, I don’t mind. Then again, I’m an escaped mental patient, so I guess that doesn’t say much, does it?”
“Not so much, no,” she replied with an amused chuckle.
They had just turned down a dimly lit street on their long trek back to Camview when Dorothy felt an unexpected wave of gratitude wash over her as she reflected on her wonderful night out.
“I think I get what fun is all about,” she said after a moment. “Why people value it so much.”
“Well, carnivals are kind of required by law to be fun. I think there are even fines and stuff if they aren’t.”
“I just want to say thank you, Curtis. That was wonderful. I never would have guessed. Experiencing is so much different than observing.”
“Aw, don’t get all sappy on me. It was my pleasure. See, I told you there were good things in life.”
As if to provide a counterpoint to the statement, a rather large and heavy-bearded man stepped out of the shadows, his denim-clad mass blocking their path. With a creepy leer, he looked Dorothy over appreciatively.
“Hey there, pretty thing, how about you and me go have a little fun?”
Curtis took a half-step in front of her.
“You know, I don’t really have a type, but you’re definitely not it, big boy.”
“Oh, a funny guy.”
He roughly shoved Curtis to the side as if he were just a scrawny child, to which Dorothy instinctively, and without fear, raised her hand to use her powers to kill the man.
Of course nothing happened.
Oh come on. Seriously?
“What, you tryin’ to use ‘The Force’ on me?” the man said with a malicious chuckle. A hungry look flashed in his eye and he made a move to grab her outstretched hand, but she was ready.
Dorothy quickly dropped her hand out of his reach and then swiftly delivered an Earth-shaking (or in this case ball-shattering) kick to the crotch, dropping him in his tracks.
Curtis stood there staring in awe, his jaw dropped wide open at what she had just done.
“Hooooly shit!” was all he could manage to say, a huge grin spreading across his face.
Dorothy realized the man would only stay fetal for so long, so she grabbed Curtis by the arm and pulled him down the street toward an area with more people, and more light.
Once they were safe on a well-lit stretch several blocks away, Curtis finally gathered his wits enough to say something coherent.
“That was awesome!” His grin was immense. “Where did you learn to do that? Some secret, grim reaper martial arts academy?”
“Saw it on TV.”
He stopped in his tracks and stared at her. She was dead serious, the realization of which made him burst out laughing even harder.
“And they say nothing good is ever on,” he laughed, tears of mirth trickling from his eyes.
He couldn’t stop his fits of laughter until a block later, when they paused at a sports bar with several TVs in the window. One television showed a newscast describing a narrowly averted tragedy with unexpectedly minor casualties. This time the scene was that of a tour bus carrying a load of senior citizens back to Arizona from a casino trip to Las Vegas.
It had been sideswiped by a car and had rolled off the road, but despite the advanced age of the passengers, miraculously, nearly everyone survived, though there were a few serious injuries.
“They should have died,” Dorothy said with a sigh, her mood suddenly sullen.
“Jeez, maybe you really are Death on hiatus.”
The news report had snapped her back to her dilemma, the fun of the night suddenly seeming far away.
“He was right. People are slipping through the cracks. It’s not nearly as bad as I feared, but I don’t know how bad it can become. Something is stemming the tide, so it could be years, even, but I must find a way back to set this right.”
“How do you plan on doing that? I thought you said you didn’t know how to get back.”
“Retracing my steps didn’t work, and I can’t seem to die. I hate to say it but Pestilence might be my best bet.”
“But that guy? Really? I mean, I don’t mean to be super rude, but he’s kind of an asshole.”
“Well, he is a Horseman of the Apocalypse.”
“Doesn’t mean he has to be a complete tool.”
“Maybe not, but whatever his personality quirks, it’s imperative I figure out how to get back. You see what’s happening, Curtis. Eventually it’ll be more than just a few people here and there who survive when they shouldn’t. This will continue to build.” And if that happens, then things will start to get bad. Really bad.
“Okay. But one big question. Have you even figured out why you’re here in the first place? Maybe that’s a good place to start.”
Gee, you think I haven’t been wondering that?
“Thanks, that’s a good point, Curtis,” she replied, managing to say it without the razor-sharp sarcastic edge she had running through her mind.
Curtis stopped, a serious expression on his face for a change.
“Look, as m
uch as I enjoy your company, you really don’t have to go back with me, ya know. You’ve made it back outside. You’re free.”
“No, I must speak with him.”
“But he’s still in isolation.”
“Even so, I have to find a way. He may be my best chance at getting back.”
A realization flashed across Curtis’s face. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Look at the time! I wasn’t paying attention. It’s late! If you’re coming back with me, we’ve gotta hustle!”
Daylight crept into the sky, and the sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the halls of Camview as the morning shift fanned out to begin their day, herding the easier patients to breakfast as chore number one.
It had become a two-tier feeding system, not by some grand design, but rather, out of necessity. There were only so many hands on deck to run the lines and watch their charges, and but a handful of difficult cases could easily throw the whole thing out of whack if there weren’t enough staff nearby to keep them in check. Just one more side effect of Doctor Vaughan’s cost-cutting maneuvers.
The patients confined to wheelchairs tended to be a bit challenging at times, but not a huge problem. Of course, having to use the hydraulic lifts to transfer them from their beds to their chairs and back could be time-consuming, pulling multiple nurses and orderlies from their other duties.
Really, though, it was the combative ones that made things difficult.
Staff had to sit with each one of them to not only make sure they ate their food, but also ensure it went in their mouth and wasn’t flung at other patients or employees in a sudden outburst. They would have liked to just drug them up, but they had quickly found that the food-throwing instinct seemed to find a way to manifest regardless of how clouded a patient’s mental state was.
Dorothy had found she was one of the people lumped in with the earlier group, as they had classified her as a fairly easy patient to handle, despite her earlier escape, and subsequent recapture. With exterior doors and connecting wings locked down, the staff felt secure in their new routine, and she wasn’t perceived as a real problem.
Sure, she thought she was Death, but at least she wasn’t actually killing off the patients and staff, and aside from her superior attitude, she was easy enough to deal with. Unfortunately for her, however, she had managed to make things difficult for Doctor Vaughan, and no matter what she did moving forward, she had already lodged herself quite firmly on his bad side.
The resonating footsteps moved closer to Dorothy’s room, the sound of doors opening and shutting as they spilled their residents out in the hallway, one after another, until they stopped in front of her room. With only a quick knock’s warning, her door swung open, and the morning nurse leaned in, glancing at the bed as she called out. “Wake up! Breakfast!”
There was no movement from under the sheets.
Slightly annoyed, the nurse stepped into the room and crossed to the bed, leaning over to reach down and shake the lump under the covers.
“I said breakfast.”
Dorothy’s head popped into view as she sleepily looked at the woman.
“Thank you, I’ll be right there.”
Satisfied, the nurse left the room, letting the door swing shut behind her as she continued down the hall.
Dorothy threw the blanket off, still wearing her outfit from the night before, having only just barely made it back into the ward before the lights came on and the morning shift began their routine.
That was too close, she thought as she pulled her psych ward clothes grabbed in their mad dash from the tunnels out from under her pillow, ten slipped out of her Black Sabbath T-shirt, and began dressing in her mental hospital attire.
Curtis had been a resident at the facility for quite some time, and his comings and goings were damn near an art form. He could improvise, if needed, but most importantly, he knew the ebbs and flows of the hospital and how to ride them as needed.
When the morning staff came to tell him it was breakfast time, they found him already standing in his room, bent in a strange pose twisting with one hand resting on his bed.
“Curtis, breakfast,” the nurse said.
“Thanks, Myra.”
“What on Earth are you doing?”
“Morning yoga. It’s good for the circulation. You should join me sometime,” he offered.
“Me? Yoga? Not likely. Now get cleaned up and join the others, all right? We’ll see you in the chow hall.”
“Okay, be there in a minute.”
Myra closed the door behind her and continued on her rounds, leaving Curtis to what was apparently his latest habit.
If she only knew.
He untwisted his body, the motion letting his hospital clothes slide into place, then tucked his outside clothes under the mattress a bit more discreetly, flattening the lumps as best he could. Ideally, he’d have stashed his clothes in their usual place in the boiler network, but he and Dorothy were so late in returning that there really hadn’t been any time.
Still, it hadn’t gone that bad. He’d nearly been caught and had only barely broken a sweat. Of course, sweating while doing yoga was perfectly natural, so suspicion about his activities had been zero.
“Damn, I’m good,” he chuckled to himself as he made his bed, smoothing it over one last time.
He stepped out of his room and began the slow stroll to breakfast, a rising commotion easily heard coming from one of the adjacent hallways. From what he could make of it, it sounded like one of the early riser group had chosen today to make a fuss, and a pretty sizable one at that. It seemed that someone was about to be put on the naughty list, and he seriously doubted they’d even get so much as a lump of coal in their stocking come holiday time.
All hands on deck quickly reacted to the disruption. Myra and two orderlies dropped what they were doing and answered the call for assistance, taking off down the hallway at a fast trot.
It was then that Curtis noticed the door left adjacent in their haste.
It was simply too tempting to pass up.
Curtis ambled over to the unattended supply room nonchalantly, then, trying to look as casual as possible, he took the knob in his hand and gave a gentle push. The door swung open.
He was both thrilled and amazed they’d forgotten to lock the door in the commotion, and who was he to pass up such a prime opportunity?
“Bingo!” he whispered to himself excitedly as he slipped into the room, careful to be quiet as he closed the door behind him.
He scanned the shelves, eyes lit up like a kid in a candy shop. The med cart with paper cups of pills sat unattended, and the normally locked cabinets were still open. The first one he looked in was full of gauze, tape, Band-Aids, and other basic first-aid gear.
“Lame,” he muttered to himself as he dug through it. “Boring.”
He opened another cabinet.
“Hmm, and what do we have here?” he mused. “Risperdal, Prozac, Xanax,” he read the labels as he pocketed several small bottles, taken from the back so hopefully no one would notice their absence for a long, long time.
“Namenda, Ativan… ooh, what’s this?” he said, holding up a forgotten and dusty bottle. “Chloroform.” With a little smile, he briefly added it to the collection in his pocket, but the huge bulge it created gave him second thoughts about it.
Sure, it was neat to have, but Curtis knew that unlike movies and TV shows, it actually requires several minutes of breathing concentrated chloroform to knock someone out. Not terribly efficient, and not nearly as cool as films made it out to be.
With a reluctant sigh, he slid the bottle from his pocket and returned it to the cabinet, nevertheless happy with his other newfound treasures.
Peering out the door, he carefully made sure he left the room as he’d found it, then slipped back into the hallway, off to stash his new treasure in his room before heading to breakfast.
CHAPTER 16
Petty dictators always seem to enjoy giving rousing speeches to crowds of adoring followers
. A personality trait of megalomaniacs in need of ego inflation and validation. Doctor Vaughan certainly fit the bill.
Lacking traditional means to bolster his own self-worth, at least so far as dictatorial stage performances go, Doctor Vaughan would, on occasion, stake out a section of his facility to perform amateur magic tricks for the patients under his care.
While, at face value, it may have seemed a good deed, done for the betterment of the morale of the Camview residents, the unsavory reality was Doctor Francis Xavier Vaughan wasn’t a performer who enjoyed providing entertainment for his audience with his tricks and sleight of hand. No, his performance was influenced, and some might have even said purely driven by, a rather thinly veiled mean streak. Where those with good motives might take pleasure in the smiles and reactions of an audience’s joyous amazement at his skills, he reveled in the feeling of superiority that tricking mental patients gave him.
Yes. Tricking mental patients.
Decidedly not cool.
Now, make no mistake, there certainly exist plenty of other men and women with nasty streaks in his profession, but more often than not, they had once dedicated their lives to helping others less fortunate until one day, it finally burned them out, leaving them bitter and resentful.
Doctor Vaughan was not one of these people.
He had always possessed a bit of a mean streak, along with a substantial ego problem, and his quirks and cruel habits had only strengthened with age. In fact, some employees mused (out of Vaughan’s earshot, of course) that if he weren’t the chief of staff of Camview Psychiatric Hospital, with all his quirks and personality issues, he might very well have been a patient there.
As he performed a series of sleight-of-hand illusions for his small but captive audience, he felt his pride swell with every ‘oooh’ and ‘aah’ from his mostly sedated and easily impressed audience. The flashiness of his performance seemed to increase in tandem with his ego, growing as it was stroked.
While some people were addicted to drugs, Doctor Vaughan had a less chemical, yet equally addictive, proclivity.
He was ramping up his performance when the large door to the meeting room just down the hall swung open, releasing a quietly murmuring throng of patients, some of whom sported tear-reddened eyes.
