From outside her door, Dr. Braun heard someone singing softly, off-key. The mirror fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.
I'll tell thee ev'rything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw a selfish man,
Whose ego was so great.
“Who is this selfish man?” I said.
“And how is it you live?”
And his answer drilled right through my head
Like water through a sieve.
The chair slid out from under the doorknob and across the floor of its own accord. Dr. Braun watched the keyhole as the tumblers fell into place without the key. Tears welled up and splashed down his face, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
His treatments cruel they all did fail:
He left me in a daze,
And when he came to use the drill,
I set them all ablaze;
The door opened wide. There stood Alice, her head and arms hanging. Dr. Braun’s pant legs grew warm and wet as his body reached the pinnacle of fright.
Then I shook him from side to side,
Until his face was blue;
"And now the time has come," I cried,
"To do the same to you!"
She pointed to the doctor, and the upset chair righted itself, spun around, and shot across the floor into the backs of his legs, forcing him to sit.
From behind Alice, the shadows stretched to loom above and around her. And out from the darkness stepped the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. The purring Cheshire Cat curled around the doorframe, having followed the trail of blood and consumed every drop in the hallway. Its impossibly long, black tongue licked up the rest of the red spatters in the room with one luxurious and disconcertingly long stroke.
“Off with his head!” Alice commanded.
The Mad Hatter cackled and approached the doctor, dragging his shiny blades along the wall and leaving perfect cuts in his wake.
At Alice’s command, the Queen of Hearts obediently brought her arms up before her. Out from the wounds in her flesh dress shot streams of chains with hooks; they wrapped around Dr. Braun, binding him to the chair. With a final clank, the hooks embedded themselves into his skin and pulled tight. He shrieked through shuddering tears.
“Step One.” The Mad Hatter bowed, with a sweeping gesture, toward the Queen of Hearts. “Sensory Deprivation.”
The queen lifted her arms toward the ceiling. Her chains instantly snaked from around the doctor’s chair and torso to anchor to the ceiling and walls, lifting him from the chair to suspend him horizontally above the floor by his arms and legs.
“No, please!” he cried out, his voice breaking. “It was all for the good of humanity. Alice, you must understand why!”
“Sensory Deprivation begins. Turn out the lights,” the Mad Hatter giggled.
“First you needed total quiet. I had to eliminate all outside input!”
The doctor’s explanation ceased and became a blood-curdling scream as the Queen of Hearts used her two long, pointed fingernails to scoop out his eyes. Blood ran from the sides of his face. She dropped both eyeballs to the floor where the Cheshire Cat had taken up his post, waiting for new morsels to consume.
“Step Two — so very shocking. The Cognome Machine,” the Mad Hatter continued. “Oh, do stop with the incessant screaming, sir. It’s very unbecoming for someone of your station.”
He stepped around behind the doctor and grabbed the chains that bound the doctor’s arms.
“Let’s turn you on!”
White arcs of electricity jumped from the smiling man’s hands, down the chains, and over Dr. Braun. His body convulsed upward into a rigid arch. Slammed with electric current, his teeth locked together and foam bubbled out of his mouth.
“Oh there you go. I bet your mind is clear now.” The Hatter grinned and released the chain.
Dr. Braun’s body went limp and swung slightly to and fro. He did not answer, having gone into shock.
Cheshire, having consumed the eyeballs and washed the blood from its mangled fur, reached up to drag its black tongue across the doctor’s dripping ankle wound. Its tongue felt like small shards of glass, and served to widen the cut. The blood flowed faster, and the searing pain snapped the blind doctor back to consciousness.
“ALICE!” he screamed. “LISTEN TO ME!”
Alice stepped up onto the doctor’s torso and leant down, perched like a gargoyle on his chest. She studied his bloody face with her yellow eyes.
"The Cognome Machine … the electricity … you needed it to connect to your world … to see it … what is it … Wonderland? And then, we — we could go to the —”
“Step Three. The Saturation Chamber,” the raspy voice finished.
“To let you project your world to us! To let us see the images and — and to get in! Don’t you see, Alice? You have a gift! You created a world! And I created a way to share it with the world!”
She tilted her head, staring at him silently.
“If only you would have worked with me. With my machines, there would have been peace! All of the sick, all of the insane … to see your Wonderland and be part of it, all together, bringing peace to the minds of the mad with only one thought!”
Alice touched the center of his forehead. “To control them. To rule them. Like the Queen.”
“For God’s sake, Alice! I wanted to open your mind and share it with everyone! It could have controlled them all, cured them ALL! It’s how my mother helped me … with her world!”
“Open your mind, doctor,” the dead voice filled his head.
“NO!” he screamed, as her small index finger pushed through his forehead.
POP!
The doctor’s exquisite pain peaked as blood jettisoned from his cranium in an impressive fountain that rained down to the floor below. The Cheshire Cat leapt to hastily lap at the delicious treat.
Alice stepped down from her slackened perch.
“Come,” she said and walked to the door. The Queen of Hearts withdrew her chains into her dress, and the doctor’s body fell to the floor with a solid whump.
ROOOwwwwwwwwwRRRRR?
The Cheshire Cat prowled behind the lifeless body of Henry Braun.
“Go ahead. But don’t be late,” Alice answered without turning around.
Alice left the room with the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. The demon cat opened its maw wide and began to swallow the doctor mouthful by mouthful, starting with the feet and working his way up with only the sound of crunching bones.
The door to the check-in room hung ajar amid the pandemonium. Nellie and Dorothy rushed inside and slammed the door shut.
“Look for your name!” Nellie urged, holding the door handle, lest an inmate or nurse try to force entry.
Boxes flew across the floor as Dorothy slid them out of her way. “Found it!” Dorothy cried. She pulled the silver, blood stained slippers from the box and hugged them. “I thought I’d never see them again!” She placed them on the ground and stepped into them.
“You ready?”
Dorothy nodded.
Nurse Ball ran down the hallway with her long hair flying out behind her, her white cap having fallen off two floors back when the demonic White Rabbit first began its pursuit. She glanced over her shoulder to find the creature still bounding after her, its skipping hops playful in sharp contrast to her long-legged, panicked strides.
The body of an orderly in her path sent the head nurse sprawling to the ground. She slid to a stop and put her palms to the ground in preparation to push herself back up. Her fingertips, however, touched small, bare toes.
Nurse Ball looked up and shrieked, scrambling backward from the form of Alice, leering over her.
“Alice Liddell. What — what have you done?” she stuttered.
CRACK!
The White Rabbit caught up to its prey, and shoved its giant walking stick into the nurse’s spine. It lifted Nurse Ball up off the floor. She slid further down the stick, which the
n passed through her back and stomach. Blood ran from her mouth.
The White Rabbit’s face was surrounded by metal contraptions which began to click and whir, slowly peeling back its skin. There, inside its face, was the upside-down head of Dr. Braun, screaming out in agony.
She turned back around, unable to scream or move, waiting for death to take her pain. Yet, unexpectedly, she was set back down to the floor to the sound of hair-raising screeching. Nurse Ball struggled to turn around.
There stood an impossibly tall and gaunt creature in a floppy, black hat. It was Dorothy’s scarecrow, and it now lifted the White Rabbit off the floor by the metal shears it wore in place of hands.
The rabbit thrashed around wildly, kicking, screaming, and flailing against the metal shears that held it, stuck and bleeding, to the scarecrow’s arms. Nurse Ball knew this could mean only one thing. She dragged herself by the elbows across the floor to see beyond the clashing demons. There stood Dorothy, side by side with Nellie.
“You can’t hurt anyone else, Alice,” Dorothy said, clenching her fists.
Alice did not respond, but instead took a staggering step toward them. Dorothy’s body tensed.
An arm suddenly snaked around Alice’s legs and clung to her tenaciously, halting Alice in her tracks.
“RUN! Get out of Bedlam!” Nurse Ball bellowed, with all of her strength. Blood ran from her lips as she locked her arms, fighting with Alice for control.
“Come with us!” Nellie cried out.
“GO! I’m already dead!” The nurse coughed up blood and spat, still struggling to keep the girl immobile. Alice’s eyes turned from ghastly yellow to glowing white. Nellie and Dorothy watched in horror as Nurse Ball started to sizzle, smoke, and then burst into flames.
Nellie tugged at Dorothy’s arm. “Let’s go!”
They tore down the hall, leaving the scarecrow to finish the fight with the rabbit.
When they finally reached the asylum entrance and slid to a stop, they found that it was still locked down. Worse yet, a gruesome barrier had been erected in front of the door: a wall, made up of contorted and disfigured bodies of nurses, dead orderlies, and wire had been hung, arranged, and stapled. Layers of dried blood cemented the mass together, a human mortar and brick wall.
Nellie dropped to her knees and wept.
“You were right,” Dorothy’s small voice cut through the silence. “We have to fight.”
CRACK!
They looked to the ceiling from where the abrupt sound had just come. A crack split the ceiling, and thick, black, smoke-like shadows seeped through and fell toward them. The darkness spread through the room, swallowing the light and swirling toward Nellie and Dorothy.
CHAPTER 27
Nellie looked toward the stairs for an escape route, but the black smoke fell down each step from that direction as well.
“Nell, stay back. It’s my turn now.” Dorothy closed her eyes and held her arms out at her sides, clenching her fists just as she had done in the barn on that fateful night.
Nellie gasped and scooted backward behind Dorothy. A blue aura had begun to shine from around Dorothy’s entire being. Her silver slippers sparkled in the blue light, and a dark red viscous liquid flowed out from the slippers and spread across the floor toward the shadows.
From the blood-like growing puddle, a metallic hand shot upward. It was followed by the arm, shoulders, head and torso of a tin man, whirring and clicking as he crawled up from the floor to stand next to Dorothy.
Nellie watched in amazement as a great, tawny paw with deadly talons emerged and the brawny form of a lion hoisted itself upward. A green hand with long red nails pushed upward and flexed. One by one, hands and heads appeared from the liquid that formed the gateway from which the horrors of Oz could emerge.
The shadows roiled down the steps and fell from the ceiling to gather before the crimson pool. From the shadows, Wonderland’s demons stepped forth to crawl and slither toward Dorothy.
“It doesn’t have to end this way. Why are you doing this, Alice?”
The decaying form of Alice Liddell staggered to the front of her warriors. “They took Wonderland away from me. Twisted and distorted it with their sadistic experiments. I need a new place to call home. I rather like Oz.”
“No! Just because they’ve destroyed your dreams gives you no right to take mine.” Dorothy’s blue aura strengthened with defiance.
“Doesn’t it?” Alice’s mottled, crimson lips cracked into a wicked grin. She glanced around at her army. Grotesque and mutilated, they were still hers. “Kill them,” she commanded, with a gravelly voice. “Kill them all!”
The room filled with deafening sound — roars, screeches, screams, and wails. The walls of the asylum rattled and the forces of Wonderland and Oz clashed.
A flurry of claws, metal, skin and fur blurred together as demons from both sides leapt upon one another. The tin man chunked forward to grasp at the Mad Hatter, but the stealthy man in black velvet and human leather easily side-stepped him and drove his long razors into the tin torso. He pulled the lengthy razors upward, slicing through the tin and causing the organs that had so carefully been packed into its chest cavity to spill out onto the floor.
The Wicked Witch drove her long red nails into the chest of the Queen of Hearts, and the Queen countered by sending her metal chains around and around the witch’s neck, pulling her backward.
The lion emitted a cacophonous roar when the March Hare drove its silver knife into the small of the Lion’s back and twisted. Next to them, the White Rabbit slammed its walking stick straight through the March Hare’s foot.
Nellie watched Dorothy and Alice stand motionless in the midst of the fray. Each concentrated on their demons, pushing them forward against one another. Dorothy’s blue aura now surpassed Nellie to light the room where Alice’s blackness towered over and behind her.
“Mommy?” A child’s voice rang through the din of the war, and only Nellie could hear it.
“Rose?” Nellie scrambled to her feet and looked all around. There, in the mirror. The small girl with brown curls stood in the mirror’s reflection, surrounded by light.
“What have you done with her?” Nellie shouted at Alice.
Alice glared at Nellie; the raspy voice echoed in her head. “She’s safe,” it snapped. “Safer than she was with the doctor.”
“Give her back to me! She’s got nothing to do with this. She’s innocent!”
“If you want your daughter back, Nellie, kill Dorothy.” The yellow eyes turned from her back to the battle.
The asylum was falling apart at the seams. Walls crumbled, flames shot up from curtains toward the ceiling to be extinguished by cold blasts of wind, shelves toppled and smashed to the floor. Weapons slashed and cut through wooden structures, demons gnashed and snarled, grasped at one another, threw one another to the ground.
The Mad Hatter grabbed the tin man by the arm and swung the metal creature directly into a crumbling wall where the pipes burst and sprayed hot water onto a yowling Cheshire Cat.
Nellie looked to Dorothy, who in a trance-like state commanded her warriors. A long thick metal pipe clattered from inside the wall to the floor and rolled toward Nellie. This was her chance. Nellie grabbed the pipe and dashed toward the center of the fray.
“DO IT!” Alice’s voice screamed in Nellie’s head.
Fury flowed through Nellie as she charged toward the girl. All she could think about was her baby, her precious Rose, trapped in the mirror and beyond her reach. Nellie dodged the lion’s swinging arm and ducked beneath the White Rabbit’s whirling walking stick. She lifted the pipe over her shoulder and brought it around and down with all her strength. It connected solidly with its target.
“Give me back my baby!” Nellie screamed, as Alice flew backward, the pipe connecting to Alice’s head with a solid clang.
Alice rose right back up to her feet, and a burning pain entered Nellie’s head like a hot knife through her eye. Nellie screamed, fell to her knee
s, and grabbed at her eyes.
But the break in Alice’s concentration was what was needed. Dorothy raised her arms and pushed forward, her blue light overtaking Alice’s shadow. The denizens of Oz grew larger. The tin man righted himself, his gashes mended together in a flash of blue light. The lion’s arms and legs doubled in size, his claws protruding. The Wicked Witch kicked a striped leg forward to impale the March Hare with the long, sharp heel of her shoe and push him backward toward the mirror. The scarecrow swept his long arms into the fray and grasped the Mad Hatter. He pitched the flailing man with red eyes toward the ornate looking glass.
One by one, the demons of Wonderland backed up against the mirror and dissolved into black smoke. The smoke drifted up and into the cracks in the mirror, pulled by an unseen force.
“No!” Alice cried, clenching her fists at her sides. The White Rabbit picked his mistress up, kicking and flailing, to carry her toward the mirror. “NO! NO! NO!” she shrieked. He put his paw to the mirror and together, they disintegrated into wisps of black smoke, pulled into the cracks.
The pain in Nellie’s head ceased and she dropped to the floor, panting.
The warriors of Oz began their retreat. They stepped backward to stop in the crimson pool. And just as they had come into the world, they retreated back to Oz. As they did, the pool receded backward to Dorothy’s sparkling silver slippers.
Dorothy slipped her feet out of the slippers and ran to Nellie.
“Are you alright, Nell?”
Nellie shook her head and ran to the mirror, slapping its glass surface with her palm. “Rose!” she yelled.
Only Alice’s laughter answered. “If you want your daughter, you’re going to have to come get her.”
The reflection in the mirror wavered with white light. A portal had emerged. Through its center, Nellie and Dorothy could see small Rose in the distance in Wonderland. She lay upon a metal bed surrounded by glass, eyes closed.
Bedlam Stories Page 17
