Oakwood Island

by Cormier, Angella; Arseneault, Pierre C;

  Epilogue

  November

  The air in Norah’s room at the Daye Psychiatric ward was chilly. It seemed cruel to her that she couldn’t even pull up her own blanket to warm herself, as she was restrained to her bed at the ankles and wrists. She had had an outburst the day before and the staff did not want to restrain her, but told her time and again that she left them no choice.

  “But they’re really here! Don’t you understand? They’re right there and won’t shut up! I can’t take it anymore!” Norah had screamed at the top of her lungs and swung a chair towards the wall. Her outburst, though not directed at the orderlies and the nurse on staff, was still too agitated to be left without restraints. Crying as they buckled her up, Norah moaned a sad and deep cry, her memories of being tied down in her own basement by her twin sister not long ago still fresh in her mind.

  Her escape hadn’t been much to celebrate, as she had come upstairs to find a mauled Ryan on her kitchen floor, who later succumbed to his injuries and died in the hospital. What of her current state? She was trapped in a room in the psychiatric wing of the very hospital she once worked in, against her will, with nothing but visions of Richard and Harriett, arguing and fighting, keeping her up most of the night.

  The nurses and doctor didn’t believe her. Didn’t they see old Doc Edwards standing right there, half his head smashed in and bloody? Didn’t they see Harriett, her hysterical cries growing louder and louder? The exhaustion and emotional banter that she was a witness to on a nightly basis had left Norah feeling hopeless and at her wits end.

  Now, as she laid perfectly still in her bed, her blanket dangling off her legs to one side, ready to fall onto the cold floor of her room, she watched as tiny snowflakes started to swirl around outside. The first snowfall of the season, and already she felt the coldness creeping inside her just as it settled outside.

  Norah no longer felt the need to make sense of everything. She knew it was a losing battle to try to fight the curse she had inherited once Amy died. The same monster that had killed Ryan had probably taken Amy’s life too. With Amy gone, Norah knew she was the one that carried the burden of a life of living horrors, casting visions and growing fears of everyone she encountered.

  There was no going back in time. She accepted this and embraced the chill that crawled across her bare arms and shoulders. She closed her eyes and let the darkness come in fully, finally accepting her fate.

  * * *

  Stanley Jones stood at the foot of his new patient’s bed. He watched her sleep in her light beige nightgown, blanket off on one side, ready to fall to the floor. Normally he would have rushed to cover up his patient again, especially with the chilly air inside the building. Fall’s chill was slowly transforming into winter’s cold. Stanley watched as Norah slept, her eyes fluttering wildly, she was no doubt dreaming up more crazy visions. Asleep or awake, she always seemed to have them.

  When Norah had first arrived and was assigned to Stanley’s wing of the building, he had been oblivious to just how much strife she would bring into his life. She had seemed very calm and manageable. He couldn’t remember exactly when he realized she was trouble. It had been a gradual process, where little incidents and happenings increased in both frequency and duration. His perception of Norah quickly morphed over the past week, however. Now, gripping the foot of the bed where Norah slept to steady himself, his mouth went dry as he went over the events of the past week.

  A few times when he had first tended to her earlier on, he had noticed her voice sounded eerily like that of his babysitter, when he was seven years old. This disturbed him greatly, as just the sound of that bitch’s voice meant a renewed bout of anxiety for him. The memories of this particular sitter, Patricia had been her name, was something Stanley would have preferred never to have to deal with again.

  Now here was this new patient, armed with the voice of a child abuser from his past. The beatings and the screaming had all come back, as fresh as it had been during that summer of his seventh year of childhood. He had eventually told his parents, who reported Patricia to the police and got Stanley a good therapist who helped him learn how to deal with his subsequent anxiety and panic attacks. He had chosen a line of work to help others who weren’t so lucky and had to deal with severe mental disorders that were too extreme for medication and therapy alone. But now, he questioned everything. Was he really better off than his patients?

  One day, when he had been cleaning Norah’s room, her voice had been not only similar to Patricia’s. With his back to Norah, mop in hand, he froze in place as he had heard the shrill voice. “You fuckin’ retard. You can’t even hold a mop right!”

  Frozen in place for a few seconds, Stanley had then snapped around, staring at the woman who sat in the chair near the window. Stanley felt like he was seven again. Just as surprised as he had been to hear her say the words, she seemed doubly surprised. She gasped and ran to her bed, where she pulled the blanket up over her head and hid there like a little child, afraid of a consequence, that of course, should never come to one committed in such a facility. Though shaken, he took a break and went on with his day, the incident replaying over and over in his mind throughout the day.

  The next day proved worse when he had gone to bring Norah’s lunch. She once more vocalized her disgust at his very being, and threw the food tray, hitting him with it in the process. He called for help and was able to subdue the cursing and upset Norah, seemingly possessed by his old babysitter Patricia.

  Norah had claimed she was being visited by a dark witch with bright red hair that called herself Peggy Sue, but this seemed like more ramblings from one who had clearly lost her mind.

  As for Stanley, a panic attack later and a few pills to calm down, he worried maybe he was losing grip with reality. How could his patient sound so much like Patricia? How could he recognize Patricia’s eyes, full of hatred and bitterness when it was Norah looking back at him? Stanley questioned his own sanity as the tormented memories of his abuse came rushing back.

  Strangely enough, that very evening, when he had gone to shower, the memories of Patricia’s harsh voice aroused him. He spent extra time in the shower that night, his anger taking the form of his spent arousal being washed down the drain with the dirty water.

  Now, Norah had been sleeping shortly after Stanley had come into her room to empty her trash can and do a round of checks for anything that shouldn’t be in patient’s rooms. He had made sure to give her a little extra medicine to make sure she would sleep. He waited until she had dozed off to do his work because he didn’t want to have to deal with any more of the abuse, imagined or not. But this time, the voices came without Norah speaking a word. He heard Patricia in the room with him, as mean as ever, her voice coming out of thin air it seemed, echoing in his ears.

  “You pathetic little shit! You deserve to fucking be locked up in the closet again. I don’t want to see or hear you again, shit head!”

  It was this last incident that had left him in a rage and made him act out on his own distorted and misplaced anger. The hurtful words came with the feeling of being struck in the head and grabbed by the arm, just like he had felt all those years ago when he was a kid. The words she spat out made him feel just as helpless as he had back then. But something in him stirred when he got closer to the woman that was sleeping in the bed. He didn’t see Norah anymore, but Patricia. He looked down at her and screamed in her face.

  “I’m a man now, you bitch! You don’t get to talk to me like that! I’ll show you how much of a man I am now!”

  Norah slept through everything. Her curse had made Stanley’s own worse nightmare come to life. Both in seeing his abuser again and his subsequent becoming an abuser himself. He tied her ankles and arms down and then pushed up her beige nightgown to her waist while he made himself harder, preparing to penetrate the bitch who stole his innocence.

  Though it was Norah who slept, drugged and completel
y out, Patricia was who he saw, mocking him still as he penetrated her violently. He raped his patient in a quick and violent rage, grabbing her hip with one hand and slapping her with the other. His climax came quickly and he let himself ejaculate inside her. Something he never would have done with any lover. Stanley had declared he would never want nor have kids and always wore protection. He climbed off and as he pulled his scrubs up again, he looked to see Norah staring at him with eyes wide. Shock and horror at the realization that he had just raped his patient made Stanley stumble back a few steps. Norah just stared at him, her eyes fixed on his. No words needed to be exchanged.

  Stanley blurted out “I’m so sorry…I…I don’t know what happened…it wasn’t you..”

  Norah threw her head back and in Patricia’s voice she laughed and yelled out to him. “Oh but you loved it, didn’t you? You loved every fucking minute of it, you sick fuck!”

  That last comment made Stanley lose it. Running out of Norah’s room, he ran down the hall, but seeing two nurses coming out of the elevator, he backed up a few steps before turning and running down the hallway and to the stairs. He needed to get outside to some fresh air. To forget what he’d just done. He was a rapist. He would be fired. He might even be arrested.

  Tears started to sting his eyes as he swung open the door leading to the stairwell. His eyes noticed something on the ceiling, and they automatically went upwards. There, floating and smiling down at him was a man, dressed as a doctor, with half his head smashed in, blood and brains oozing from the large gaping hole.

  Stunned by what he was seeing, Stanley never noticed the wet floor sign right in front of his feet as he kept on, trying to run away. His feet tripped over the sign, his arms reached out into thin air as his body lurched forward and down the stairs. His neck snapped as it hit the bottom stair. Stanley’s head bent down to the side, his empty eyes staring up at the now dissipating Doctor Edwards.

  Stanley would never get to explain what he had seen and why he’d raped his patient. He was dead before the nurses came running through the door just seconds later.

  * * *

  July

  As Doctor Kingsley finished examining Norah, he turned to the nurse assisting him.

  “Why is she drugged and bound again? I’m not sure that’s the best way to treat someone in her state.”

  The nurse nodded her approval and replied, “Trust me, I know. It was Doctor Steele’s orders. He was adamant that we keep her in this state, no matter what. She kept asking him to kill her and to kill them. She hasn’t mentioned it again though since he passed and you came to fill in. We just figured we’d keep to the same orders as nobody told us otherwise.”

  The nurse grabbed a clean white towel and swept away the clear liquid from Norah’s expanded belly. After pulling up the blanket to cover her patient, she swept a hand through Norah’s hair and spoke quietly.

  “I think he had some issues of his own though. He kept going on and on about the rats in his office for weeks until that day he jumped out his office window. They searched that office high and low and never found any trace of rodents, of any kind. I think he might have had some kind of psychotic breakdown himself.”

  Doctor Kingsley removed the latex gloves from his hands and flung them into the small wastebasket in the corner of the room.

  “Well, whatever the case, may he rest in peace now. As for Norah, her psychotic state aside, she is doing great. Not dilating yet, but you should be ready for an early labour. It’s quite common with twins.”

  The nurse nodded her agreement and unplugged the portable ultrasound machine. As the pair walked out of the room, Norah opened her eyes and heard them talking about where her twin girls would be placed.

  “The Open Arms Orphanage is a great institution. I’m sure if they can’t find anyone to adopt them that they will be in great hands there. It’s a shame she won’t tell anyone who the father is.”

  The voices trailed off into the silence as Norah’s door closed softly. A hand patted hers, in a calming motion. As Norah looked up at her sister Amy’s spirit, a tear formed and slid down her cheek.

  “It’s ok, sis. We’ll make sure wherever they end up, we will always watch over them.”

  THE END.

  Author’s Note

  In 2011, two who would become friends met because of books. The pair discussed fiction, a conversation revolving around books and movies. After all these years, the conversation continues to this day. Sharing a passion, the two would inspire each other to write.

  A while later, Angella shared with Pierre a short story she had written called Maggie. She followed up with a couple more called Frozen Fury and Norah. These short stories were set in a place she called Oakwood Island and Pierre was hooked. He loved the setting and the characters she had created and was enthralled by the predicaments she had set upon them.

  Needing more and having to know what other fates would befall the residents of Oakwood Island, we had several conversations that would not only inspire us to write but to also collaborate. So together we made a few revisions to those previously mentioned short stories and developed these into one larger multilayered tale. We grew quite fond of many of the fictional characters in this novel, and for this reason they had to endure much turmoil and strife.

  The cover photos were a combined effort and compromise. We hunted and searched for the perfect locations to provide an accurate depiction of what we envisioned Oakwood Island to be represented by. The front cover picture was taken by Angella’s father, Leo Paul Cormier, an avid and passionate amateur photographer who took the photo in Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada. The picture appearing on the back cover was taken by Pierre himself in the small community of Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada. Angella then used both pictures to design the final covers for this book.

  We hope you have enjoyed this story as much as we enjoyed writing it. Just between the three of us, we may not have taken the ferry boat back to the mainland quite yet…

  About the Authors

  Angella Cormier grew up in Saint Antoine, a small town in south east New Brunswick, Canada. This is where her love of reading and writing was born. Her curious nature about everything mysterious and paranormal helped carve the inspiration for her current passion of writing horror and mystery stories. She is also a published poet, balancing out her writing to express herself in these two very opposing genres. Angella is a mother of two boys as well as an established freelancer in graphic design. Previous titles include Dark Tales for Dark Nights published in 2013 (written under Angella Jacob) as well as A Maiden’s Perspective: A collection of thoughts, reflections and poetry published in 2015. For more information, please visit: www.MysteriousInk.ca

  Pierre C Arseneault, the youngest of eleven children and grew up in the small town of Rogersville, New Brunswick, Canada. He fulfilled a childhood goal in 2004 and became a published cartoonist. His first published work of fiction was in 2013; a collection of short stories called Dark Tales for Dark Nights; written in collaboration with Angella Cormier. This was followed up by Sleepless Nights, a collection of short stories published in 2014. Pierre currently lives in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

  Table of Contents

  Open Arms Orphanage

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Authors

 

 

 
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