Asylum Box Set

by Sian B. Claven

  When I arrived in Block E, Dr Reed was rubbing the back of his neck. He looked flustered and tired, as though he had a long night and had now discovered this. I realized that he must not have done his rounds last night if he only now found a very dead Mitchell Lee.

  I would later ask Hans about it, but for the purpose of keeping my diary in chronological order I will continue with what I witnessed first, not my later discoveries.

  Note: I sound so impressive, like Hans, right?! He is definitely rubbing off on me!

  Dr Reed asked me who the night nurse on duty was and I shook my head. Block E didn’t have a night nurse because patients were locked away. Only doctors and orderlies did rounds on Block E after lights out. He nodded and asked if orderlies had keys, to which I responded they did not generally have keys, no.

  He then said that Mitchell Lee killed himself, rather poetically by ripping off his scrotum and penis, before bleeding to death in his bed. The orderlies did not report it last night; it seemed in the darkness it looked like Mitchell Lee was simply asleep. When Dr Reed checked on him this morning he made out in the faint light of early dawn that everything was not fine and promptly opened the door to discover the man dead, his privates in his hands.

  I had to use all my willpower not to smile at this point. Sweet justice was served and no one was the wiser. Dr Reed dismissed me for the day, saying I was too fragile to handle this sort of clean up. In a way I am grateful, because I am exhausted from last night.

  I went down to see Hans and found him making notes in a notebook. I had never noticed this notebook; it almost seemed like a journal of some sort. He quickly closed it when I came in and I find that slightly saddening. Why would he want to keep anything from me?

  I quickly put it out of my mind; I wanted to report back the happenings in Block E. Hans was most pleased and then explained that a previous patient of his had seduced Dr Reed last night and that’s why he looked tired and why he hadn’t done his rounds. I couldn’t help the smile that spread on my face at that point - knowing I wasn’t the only one in this institution that had a secret love affair.

  Hans and I spent the rest of the evening simply being in each other’s company, sharing a few kisses, before I came to my room to record my thoughts and to get some rest.

  25 April 1971

  Hans has gone away to a conference for a few weeks, so I’ve been on my own just going through the motions of every day work. I’ve been assigned to keep an eye on Joshua, a sex addict in Block C, while their regular nurse, Erika, is on honeymoon.

  Joshua seems sweet, well, when he isn’t making lewd remarks about what he wants to do to me. There have been a few instances where he copped a feel, trying his luck, and the orderlies had to restrain him. There’s nothing for it, though; he is who he is and we are here to treat him. At least he isn’t a child rapist.

  According to his medical file, Joshua has gotten over thirty-six girls pregnant over a period of four months. Can you believe it?

  His parents had him committed after the last pregnancy was confirmed and thereby bypass the law that he has to pay child support for each child by proving he is a sex addict and cannot control his urges.

  I wish Hans is here. He will love this case and will love to cure Joshua so he can be a father to all his babies. I can’t wait to have babies of my own. Since the day Hans mentioned ‘our children’ and how he will protect them from people like Mitchell Lee, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

  We haven’t done anything sexual … yet, but I am hoping, when he comes back, perhaps he will make more forceful advances. I know his work means the world to him, but I am dying to have him touch me, to have him devour me. I won’t lie to you, diary, there are nights I have come back after spending hours with him that I touch myself. I dream of the way he touches me and electricity courses through my veins. If that is how I feel just by my own fingers, I cannot imagine how it will feel when it is his, his fingers, his tongue … and so much more.

  Alas, he is not here to satiate any desires I have and perhaps it’s more on my mind lately, having to deal with Joshua. I won’t lie, sometimes Joshua says things, things he wants to do to me, and I get all hot and flustered. Mostly because they sound erotic and I want Hans to do them to me. I don’t want to be too forward and just blurt out what he must do. I don’t want him to feel less manly because of something I say.

  26 April 1971

  I had a brilliant idea! While Hans is away I’m going to conduct my own experiment! Joshua is a prime specimen to test on! I think I can cure his sexual addiction. All I have to do is ‘rewire’ his brain like Hans did with the homosexual patients.

  If I can find a corpse to use and convince Joshua it is alive, then perhaps he will have sex with it, and once I reveal it is a corpse he’ll be so disgusted, he’ll never want to stick his penis into anything ever again.

  I am so excited! If I do this, if I accomplish this, then Hans will be so proud of me.

  Now I need to figure out how I am going to get Joshua to comply. I mean, I don’t think it will be hard. The man will have sex anytime. He is constantly in restraints because he is forever rubbing his penis through his pants! That’s it! He’s bound to be put back in solitary and when he is I will sneak him here to our laboratory where he can have his fill. I’ll follow Hans’s original plan and let him do it a few times before I reveal that the whole time he was having sex with a dead person. It’s perfect. It’s Genius! I am so proud of myself.

  01 May 1971

  Joshua is back in solitary. Now is the time. I managed to shake Elsa today because she has so much work to do, and I managed to sneak out a female cadaver before anyone noticed. She is a Jane Doe, so I doubt anyone will notice she is missing.

  As per Hans’s notes, I brought her to the boiler room where the hospital is the warmest and left her there to defrost. The most gruesome part of this was that I had to feel her … well … her insides (it was gross) to make sure those were warm as well.

  Then I went upstairs and waited until solitary rounds were done and got Joshua, promising him the night of his life.

  Joshua had a hard time not giggling the whole way down and it was annoying. I was so sure he was going to get us caught, and then I truly will be fired before Hans even gets back and before I have any time to execute my brilliant plan.

  Once we reached the boiler room, Joshua got really excited on seeing the woman lying on the table, half covered by a sheet. I egged him on, telling him she wanted him. He didn’t need much encouragement. He was at her like flies drawn to garbage.

  I watched and, if anyone asks, I will say it was for medical purposes, but honestly, I was fascinated with the act itself. Joshua dropped his pants, his penis already fully erect. He spat on his hand and rubbed it up and down his erection before guiding it into the corpse.

  Then, I can only describe the next part as - he went to town.

  He picked up her dead legs as though they weighed nothing and threw them over his shoulders; he rammed in and out of her, groaning happily as his thrusts got harder and harder. It felt like an eternity that I stood there, with my notebook in hand but without any notes taken down, before Joshua finally pushed as far as he could into Jane and I can only assume he ejaculated from the shaky breathy groan that escaped his mouth.

  He dismounted her, dropping her legs hard on the table and reaching down to pull his pants up.

  And that, diary, is when my trouble truly started.

  He knew it was a corpse. He had known from the moment he walked in. He hadn’t been shocked, or repulsed or horrified. No, he had been turned on, because, as he explained to me and I quote, “I don’t care what I stick my dick into, as long as I cum good and hard.”

  He then blackmailed me.

  He threatened to tell everyone what I did, to scream his head off, to tell them about the laboratory and what I am doing down and where they can find Jane Doe and why, unless I keep him satisfied. That includes, when he doesn’t have something to romp
with, that I will be his romp.

  Oh, diary, I don’t know what to do. I am in way over my head. I don’t know when Hans is coming back and I can’t cheat on him, not even to save my job!!! I just don’t know what to do. For now I have to hope there is a steady stream of corpses for Joshua to satiate himself with. Hans will know what to do.

  Hans will fix this.

  11 May 1971

  Joshua’s demands are getting more and more ridiculous. He now wants me to sneak him into another sex addict’s room regularly so they can pleasure each other. On the one hand I am glad, because it means I will never have to do it, but on the other hand this can cause a lot of trouble for me.

  I also now have the arduous task of informing Hans of what I have done. He came back yesterday, I saw him wandering the corridors of Block E, but he was too tired to speak last night. I am afraid. I realize now that using his methods may have put his paper in jeopardy and he may be very angry with me.

  I have to do it, though; Joshua is way out of control and I have no power over him at all. I can’t even get him to take his medication and often have to throw it out for him or he threatens to tell everyone what we have been doing.

  I’m going to tell Hans tonight.

  Wish me luck.

  12 May 1971

  Hans was furious. He spent several hours berating me for trying something so stupid without waiting to consult him first. Apparently he has been developing a cure for male sex addicts and now I have put everything at risk. We will have to cure Joshua, or put an end to him, was what Hans eventually said.

  After all the tears I could have cried had left my body, he took me in his arms. I inhaled his comforting smoky smell and he stroked my hair. When I looked up from his shoulder I got such a fright; I was facing a mirror and it looked like, just for a second, I was being held by something that was completely burnt from head to toe. I pulled away quickly, only to discover my handsome Hans looking at me, puzzled.

  I am losing my mind.

  Hans and I have made up and he has promised to help me with Joshua, but it will require a lot of discomfort on my part.

  For now, I have to continue with how things are.

  24 May 1971

  I have to convince Joshua that I want to have sexual intercourse with him.

  This shouldn’t be hard, because the man will literally have sex with anything, including dead people, so I know I can get him down to the laboratory. What Hans is going to do with him then, I’m not sure.

  Hans wants me to do this within a week so I can be free of him. Hans has forgiven me now, but I know better than to try experiments on my own going forward, or at least without consulting him. He is so wise and so kind; I don’t know what I did to deserve such a man!

  30 May 1971

  Tonight was the night, diary! We are finally rid of Joshua, or at least his mind. Let me start from the beginning.

  I let Joshua know this evening that I had something very special planned for him this night. He was really excited. I got him out of his room after everyone had gone to bed and brought him down to the laboratory. I told him I was going to strap him down and give him the time of his life. He was already erect when I pulled down his pants. As Hans said, this was the part I would not be comfortable with. I stroked his penis. It was the most disgusting yet most fascinating thing I have ever done. The way he responded to my movements, the pleasure he derived just from my hand, actually made me flustered. I can’t wait to see Hans respond to me like that.

  It didn’t take long before he ejaculated; it sprayed in a sticky stream to the floor and down on his pants. That was when Hans sprang into action. Quickly he sedated Joshua, giving him an anaesthetic before removing his entire testes. Hans assured me that this, coupled with a problem in Joshua’s brain, will quickly settle him down.

  Hans positioned a strange looking tool above Joshua’s left eye and hammered it down. He called it a lobotomy, which I have heard of but have never seen performed. I didn’t even know we still did them. Once done, we made sure Joshua was clean and taken back up to his room without any problems.

  On my way back to my room I bumped into Dr Wellbottom, who didn’t say anything about me being out so late; he merely stared at me. It was almost as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

  Nonetheless, I know I am going to rest easy now that my knight in shining armor has come to my rescue. I love him so, diary. I will follow him to the grave.

  Chapter Twelve

  KAREN

  01 August 1971

  There is something not right in this place. Something that is truly evil and I don’t know how to explain it. It has been a long time since I recorded my thoughts, but today I write, not into some silly diary like a school girl, but my thoughts on what I think has happened, and what I think should happen.

  I don’t know where to start except to say it began shortly after the incident with Joshua.

  Dr Reed conducted many interrogations with the other doctors regarding Joshua’s unauthorized lobotomy and vasectomy. He didn’t interrogate the nurses, just the doctors, but when I asked Hans, he had no recollection about Dr Reed at all, let alone of Joshua or any interrogations. I found this really odd.

  Other strange things have happened that I can’t explain. I have seen things. I don’t know who to turn to; when I speak to Hans about it he seems frantic, talking about evils and spirits and burning. I don’t know what has happened to the man I love, but it’s like he has lost his mind. Sometimes it feels as if he doesn’t even know I am there.

  Everything is so confusing.

  It started when I saw the little girl again.

  Clara.

  That was what he called her. Mitchell Lee.

  I saw her in a hallway and waved. The way she looked at me unnerved me. She just stood there, staring at me, as though she looked straight through me.

  I walked towards her and she turned away towards one of the older wings that weren’t fully restored yet. When I stepped into the wing I was suddenly somewhere else. I can’t explain it any other way. I stood in a forest, and Clara was there. She pointed a gun at me. I backed away from her, scared for my life.

  “He likes to touch me. They all touch me,” she said. “And you let them. You let them touch me, but not anymore.”

  That was verbatim what she said. I didn’t understand her, and I told her as much. I explained that I would never let anyone hurt her. I would never let anyone touch her, but she pulled the trigger anyway.

  Although I found myself standing in the hallway to the wing where I had last been, the fear was real and my hands were shaking. I also swore I could taste blood in my mouth, and smell it, as though I HAD been shot and the blood had flowed into my mouth and filled my nose.

  I ran from that place.

  As quickly as I could, I went to the cafeteria for something sweet to calm my nerves and replace the taste in my mouth. As I passed one of the day rooms I heard a commotion and went in to see if I could help.

  Patients were screaming wildly and a nurse I did not recognize was trapped in the safety booth, being viciously raped by a patient I didn’t recognize. There were two orderlies with guns. I didn’t know that orderlies were even armed, but there they were. I watched as the patient killed the nurse, then the orderlies killed the patient. I screamed and screamed and screamed and the next thing I knew I was in the empty day room with Elsa shaking me, asking me if I was okay.

  I am losing my mind.

  Crazy apparently is contagious.

  Elsa took me to the cafeteria to get me the something sweet and I explained what I had seen. She was determined that I was coming down with something. That perhaps I had a temperature induced hallucination or something. It wasn’t so. I know what I saw. It had been so real.

  Once I’d had something sweet, I assured her I would get some rest and check in with her later, and then I went to find Hans. I had to see him, to feel him, to have something that was real. I found him in the laboratory, but he was experi
menting on a patient.

  I couldn’t believe what I had walked into.

  The man I loved more than life itself had a midget woman - yes, a midget - on his metal table and was sewing a penis to her vagina. I couldn’t fathom what had made him do this. What kind of mad science had my Hans delved into? He wouldn’t listen to me as I tried to reason with him. He wouldn’t even look at me.

  I left then and came to my quarters. I lay down because I felt dizzy and sick. Was this all a hallucination? Was I seeing things? Perhaps it was time to confide in Elsa all that I knew.

  I did just that, a few days later. I asked Elsa to meet me in the garden of the grounds and told her everything. She looked sick to the stomach as I told her about Mitchell Lee and Joshua.

  What startled me, however, were the questions she asked.

  Who was Dr Hans Brock?

  Who was Dr Wellbottom?

  What patients had I seen?

  Didn’t I know we had no children admitted to any wards?

  She was worried about me. She said I needed to tell Dr Reed, but I begged her not to. I told her that we first needed to get to the bottom of this before we took anything to him.

  She asked me again who I was talking about and I told her everything, about Hans and me, our love, the laboratory.

  From her side of things, which I will now record for you, it seems that much is not as it seems.

  Elsa says that although I started out alright, I spent many nights in the abandoned basement setting up a laboratory. When she asked me about it I simply said I was doing as I was instructed to do. She says that when I mentioned certain doctors, she asked me about them and I didn’t answer.