Asylum

by Amy Cross

  "No!" he shouts.

  "Give me the knife," one of the guards says, trying again to get close.

  "No!" Mark screams, lashing out at the guard and catching his arm, slicing the skin.

  "Fuck!" the guard says, stepping back. Blood drips onto the floor.

  "Tell me you saw him!" Mark shouts at the guard. "Tell me you saw him or you're a dirty fucking liar!"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," the guard says, holding his injured arm. The other two guards seem even more cautious now, keeping a good distance back.

  "You saw the burned man!" Mark shouts. "He has to leave!"

  "He doesn't exist!" one of the other guards says firmly.

  Mark screams again. "How does he get you to say this?" he shouts, starting to sob.

  "What's going on in here?" says Dr. Campbell, pushing me aside as he enters the room. I walk over to the other patients who have gathered to watch. Nurse Perry is also nearby, but she seems totally absorbed by Mark's actions.

  "He's dangerous," says the injured guard, showing him the slice on his arm.

  "That's nothing," says Dr. Campbell, stepping past the other guards. "Mark, listen to me. What do you think you're going to achieve if you carry on like this?"

  "I want him to go away!" Mark snarls.

  "Who?" Dr. Campbell demands.

  "The burned man," Mark says. "You have to make him go away! I know you know who he is. Make him go away and I'll be fine. I'm not crazy, but he makes me lose my mind!"

  "Listen to me," says Dr. Campbell, taking charge of the situation with a firm, authoritative tone of voice. "There's not a burned man. He doesn't exist."

  "Why are you lying?" Mark shouts. "I've seen him in the mirror!"

  Dr. Campbell says nothing for a moment, just staring at Mark. "We have to end this nonsense," he says finally, lowering his voice so that he sounds calm. "Come on, Mark. We've made so much progress since you got here. Why mess things up now? Give me the knife, and we'll go and have a private session. Just you and me."

  Mark seems to be considering the offer for a moment. "Will Nurse Winter be there?" he asks.

  "No," Dr. Campbell says. "I promise."

  "I can't have special treatment again," he says.

  "No-one's going to give you special treatment," Dr. Campbell reassures him.

  "Will you tell her?"

  "Not at all." Dr. Campbell takes a step toward Mark and reaches out for the knife. "I give you my word that Nurse Winter doesn't have to know about this, but the longer you continue to make a fuss, the more likely it is that she'll find out. Do you understand? And if she finds out, I'm not sure I can do anything to help you avoid special treatment." He turns to the guards. "Each of you must give me your word that you won't breathe a word of this to Nurse Winter, is that understood?"

  The guards all nod in agreement.

  "See?" says Dr. Campbell, turning back to Mark. "If we can get this whole scene over quickly, we can all keep it from Nurse Winter and I can be the one who helps you instead."

  As I watch Mark, I feel someone tapping my shoulder. I turn to see that Kirsten has entered the room.

  "What's going on?" she whispers.

  "He keeps shouting about the burned man," I whisper back.

  "What about him?" she asks.

  "Just that he's seen him, and no-one believes him."

  Kirsten sighs. "He's crazy."

  "I've seen him too," I say.

  "Who?" she asks.

  "The burned man. I saw him on my third night here."

  Kirsten gives me a strange look, as if she's trying to understand what I mean. "Really?" she asks, seeming a little distracted.

  Suddenly there's a scream from the other side of the room, and I look over just in time to see Dr. Campbell staggering away from Mark, with the knife embedded in his chest. The guards rush forward to help him, but he collapses and lands straight on the hilt of the knife, pushing it through and out the back of his torso. When one of the guards kneels down and rolls him over, blood pours from the wound.

  "Everyone out!" one of the guards shouts at the rest of us, but no-one moves. He and his colleagues are trying to restrain Mark, who's lashing out wildly.

  Nurse Perry rushes over, but I can see from the look on her face that there's no hope of saving Dr. Campbell. The knife must have gone straight through his heart, and Nurse Perry is just holding his hand as he gasps and tries to speak. Struggling to breathe, he turns and looks over at me for a moment, his eyes staring straight into mine, before a small amount of blood trickles from his mouth and he falls still and silent.

  "He's gone," Nurse Perry says quietly, reaching out and carefully closing his eyes.

  Mark rushes free from the guards and grabs the knife, pulling it from Dr. Campbell and taking a few steps towards the door before plunging the blade into his own chest. He turns and runs straight towards where Kirsten and I are standing, but he slips and falls, sliding across the floor and leaving a smeared trail of blood before he crashes into the wall. He rolls onto his back and stares up at me.

  "You've seen him," he says. "You'll be next."

  He continues to stare at me, and I stare back for a moment before I realize he's dead.

  "What did he mean?" I ask, turning to Kirsten... but she's gone. I look across the room, but there's no sign of her. She's simply vanished.

  "Everyone back to your rooms," Nurse Perry says, her voice wavering. She turns to one of the guards. "Get them back to their rooms now. They should never have seen this."

  The guard starts roughly manhandling us all, pushing us out of the room. I struggle to stay behind, because I want to speak to Nurse Perry, but the guard slams me against the door and almost throws me into the corridor.

  "Everyone to your rooms!" the guard shouts. "Now!"

  We all hurry along the corridor. I know there's no point fighting back at the moment. I'll have to get to Nurse Perry later. I want to ask her about the burned man, and to find out what she knows about Mark's history. I can totally understand how someone like Mark could hallucinate some kind of dark figure, but there seems to be more to it than that. It's as if other people have seen the burned man too, but no-one's willing to acknowledge it. How can multiple people hallucinate the same thing?

  When I get to my room, I rush in to speak to Kirsten, but she's not there. I sit on my bed, trying to stay calm, but I've just seen two people die from knife wounds and my hands are shaking. I knew Mark had problems - everyone here has problems - but it's still shocking that he'd actually kill Dr. Campbell and then stick the knife into his own chest. It's at times like this that I find myself wondering whether God really is watching over us, or if maybe the world is just chaos after all.

  "Radford," says a voice at the door.

  I look over and see Eddie, the biggest guard, standing watching me.

  "Come with me," he says. "Nurse Winter wants to speak to you."

  I get to my feet and follow him out into the corridor. I look back at the door to the recreation room, and I can see Nurse Perry laying a sheet over Dr. Campbell's body. Grabbing my arm, Eddie leads me along to a part of the ward I've never been to before. It's darker here, and the air feels undisturbed.

  "Why does she want to see me?" I ask, starting to feel nervous. After all, I've heard nothing but bad things about Nurse Winter.

  "Shut up," he says as we stop outside a door. Eddie knocks.

  "Send her in," calls out a female voice from inside. The crazy thing is, it's a female voice I think I've heard before.

  Eddie opens the door and literally pushes me inside, then he steps back out of the room and shuts the door behind him. I turn and see a woman standing over by the window, with her back to me. She's wearing a clean white nurse's uniform.

  I wait.

  There's nothing but silence.

  "You... You wanted to see me?" I say eventually.

  "Yes," she says, still looking out the window. "Do you know who I am?"

  I pause. "Your name is Nu
rse Winter," I say.

  "That's right," she says. "Do you know why I've asked to speak to you?"

  "No," I say.

  She turns and smiles at me.

  It's weird, but at first I don't notice anything strange. She's a little younger than I was expecting, and she has a surprisingly kind face. After all the stories, I was expecting some kind of monstrous old ogre. But as she walks slowly towards me, her steel-capped shoes echoing against the hard floor, I start to realize that there's something horribly familiar about her. It takes me another moment to really understand what I'm seeing, as if my brain can't quite believe it.

  "What's wrong?" she asks as she reaches me.

  I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Instead, I look down at her name tag and see that it's true: Nurse Kirsten Winter.

  "I'm glad you're here," Kirsten says. "Nurse Winter really isn't very happy with you."

  Chapter Eleven

  "What's wrong?" Kirsten asks, still smiling. "You look like you've seen a ghost." She pauses. "Come on, Annie. I know you can talk. We've shared so much already. What's the problem here? Why so glum, chum?"

  I know I should say something, but my throat is dry and there are no words that can express what I'm thinking. For one thing, I'm not certain whether I could just be imagining the whole thing. For another, I can feel my heart beating faster than usual, and I've got this strong urge to turn and run. But I know I wouldn't get very far. Running just isn't an option in this place. All I can do is stand and stare at her.

  "I'm sorry," she says, "did I give you the impression that I was a patient?" She sighs. "Well, I certainly should have been more clear, shouldn't I? Bad, bad Nurse Winter. I'll have to punish myself later." She grins. "I just wanted to get to know you a little, Annie. After all, you're quite the most interesting new patient we've had here for a while. Come on, sit down and let's talk." She stares at me for a moment. "Please?"

  She leads me over to her desk and points to a chair.

  "Most of our patients are dull specimens," she says as I take a seat. She walks around to the other side of the desk. "People like Mark. Classical psychosis, nothing remarkable or interesting about him at all. To be honest, and I know this will sound heartless, but I'm not entirely sorry he's gone, although I certainly wish the circumstances were better. Poor Dr. Campbell, I did so enjoy butting heads with him."

  I still don't know what to say. I thought Kirsten was my friend, someone I could talk to, but instead it turns out that she's actually been Nurse Winter all along.

  "But you," she says, walking back over to the window and then turning to face me. "You're interesting. You hear the voice of God, beaming out at you, and he told you to do something really wicked, didn't he? What did he tell you to do again, Annie?" She waits for me to answer, but I don't say a word. "Oh yes, he told you to kill your little brother. I wonder why he did that? Did he give you any details, or were you just expected to do the whole thing based on blind trust?"

  I turn and look over at the door.

  "You want to leave?" she asks, sounding a little hurt.

  I look back at her.

  "I'm your friend," she says. "I'm still Kirsten. Does it really matter if I also happen to be on the payroll? I thought we got on quite well, Annie. I hope you're not going to disappoint me."

  "Everyone's scared of you," I say suddenly, kind of blurting it out.

  She pauses. "Yes," she says finally. "They are. I suppose it's because I enforce the rules around here. After all, we can't have this place becoming a holiday camp, can we? Take Mark, for example. He kept spreading all those nasty stories about some kind of burned man. Rubbish, obviously, but people in here can be a rather open to suggestion." She fixes me with a firm stare. "A person in a vulnerable state might easily be persuaded to believe that they, too, saw something nasty. Something evil. Something completely impossible."

  I take a deep breath. I know exactly what she's on about. She wants me to say that I didn't see the burned man back in that room. But I did. I know I did. I'm not crazy. Through all of this, I've always tried to remember that I'm not crazy.

  "I'm not saying you can't believe these things in your own mind," she continues. "Feel free. We'll get around to fixing that eventually. But we should be careful what we say to others, shouldn't we? Otherwise we might end up with another situation where a patient loses control, and..." She pauses. "Poor Dr. Campbell. His first name was Arthur, did you know that? A valued colleague. I'm a professional, Annie, but at some point I shall have to take a moment to mourn him."

  "I want to transfer," I say.

  She raises an eyebrow.

  "I want to go to a different hospital," I continue. "I don't want to be here."

  "Nobody wants to be here," she says. "Well, except maybe me."

  "I want to go to a different hospital," I say again.

  "Well, it simply can't be done," she replies, smiling. "No, Annie, the fact that you want to leave is precisely the reason why you have to stay, and I have a court order that backs me up. You don't like it here, and the reason is simple. It's because you're being challenged. And that's very necessary. We're going to continue to challenge you, until you change the way you see the world. God -"

  "I want to go to a different hospital," I repeat.

  "God did not tell you to kill your little brother," she says coldly.

  I stare at her, fighting back the tears. "I want to -"

  "Shut up," she says. "Don't make me order some special treatment for you, Annie. Think about this from my point of view. You killed your little brother. You shot him in the head, and you insist it was all because God told you to do it? You're dangerous, and you're cruel. I'm trying very hard to like you, but you're making it difficult. Most people in my position would have already given you special treatment, but I'm holding back as much as I can. If you -"

  "You can't keep me here," I say, tears rolling down my cheeks. "This isn't a prison."

  "You're right," she says, "it's not. Nevertheless, the judge ordered you to be kept here under our supervision until such time as we deem you to be fit to return to society. So really... it's all up to us." She walks over to me and leans down to look me right in the eyes. "Well, it's up to me. As you know, Dr. Campbell is suddenly unavailable. So if you want to get out of here, you have to make me happy."

  I stare back at her, determined not to show any more signs of weakness. But as I look into her eyes, I see - just for a moment - something that shouldn't be there. I see a flickering red flame, burning in the black of her pupil.

  "Do we understand one another?" she says, turning and walking over to her desk. She rests a finger on the intercom button.

  "Satan," I say.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Satan," I repeat. "I know your name. Don't think that I -"

  "Oh dear Lord," she says with a sigh, pressing the button. "I was so hoping we could avoid this, Annie."

  "God has sent me here to face you," I say, as I hear the door open and footsteps make their way briskly over toward me. "You're Satan," I say, "and you're -" Suddenly I'm hauled up out of the chair and grasped in the guard's thick arms.

  "Special treatment," Kirsten says. "The poor girl's ranting again."

  "She's the Devil!" I shout, as the guard drags me out of the room. I kick out, trying to stop him, but it's no use. "I saw it in her eyes!" I scream, as Kirsten watches me being pulled away. "I saw it in her eyes!"

  The guard drags me out into the corridor and then along to an elevator. Sliding the door open, he drags me inside and then closes the door before hitting a button. The elevator starts to go down.

  "Get off me!" I shout. "She's the Devil! Look into her eyes!"

  "Yeah yeah," says the guard. "And God told you to shoot your little brother."

  "It's true!" I scream as the elevator comes to a halt. We emerge into what seems to be a small storage area, and the guard drags me through a nearby door and into a treatment room, where he throws me into a chair. Before I can
fight back, he straps my arms down.

  "Special treatment?" asks a voice nearby. Another man walks into the room. He's young, almost my age, wearing an over-sized white lab coat. He has kind, friendly eyes, and he looks at me with an expression filled with pity. "What's her name?"

  "Annie Radford," says the guard, stepping back and looking at me with contempt.

  "The one who killed her brother?" the man asks.

  The guard nods. "She's nuts."

  "Kirsten Winter is the Devil!" I shout at the man. "I saw it in her eyes! Go and look for yourself!"

  "Sad," says the man. "I knew she'd end up down here eventually, but I was hoping somehow she might not."

  "She's the Devil!" I scream.

  "Special treatment coming up," says the man, walking over to a computer on the other side of the room. "Hook her up, Eddie."

  The guard comes over and grabs a headset from above, pulling it down until it sits on top of my head like some kind of electric crown.

  "What are you going to do to me?" I shout, starting to panic.

  "Just some mild shock treatment," says the man. "Studies have shown it can help clear up certain forms of psychosis."

  The guard laughs. "Studies," he says, as if it's the funniest word in the world.

  "No!" I scream. "You can't do this! I'm telling the truth! She's the Devil!"

  The man walks over to a switch on the wall. "You gonna watch, Eddie?" he asks.

  Eddie nods. "Fire her up, Jerry."

  "You can't do this!" I scream again. "I'm right! She's the Devil! Look in her eyes! She's -"

  He flicks the switch. I feel the most enormous jolt of pain strike straight down through my skull and through into my neck. The air is filled with a kind of blue static, and it's as if every inch of my body is tensed. I open my eyes as wide as I can, but everything goes black. The last thing I think is: Dear God, please deliver me from Satan.

  Part 2:

  Doctor Lava

  Prologue

  Nurse Winter, 1999

  "Welcome to the nuthouse," says the guard as I step through the door.