Asylum Box Set

by Sian B. Claven

  He stumbled into a large room and froze. This was it; it was the cafeteria where everyone ate and yet he had no recollection of ever being in this place. How could he have been here for three meals a day if he didn’t even remember it?

  There were people dotted here and there, busy eating what he presumed was lunch, and then he saw her.

  She got up from where she sat and came over to him.

  “Hello, Bradley. We were wondering when you would join us.”

  Her name tag read Elsa, and she seemed perfectly normal, as did everyone else in here. He allowed her to gently steer him to sit next to her and almost died when he saw all the food on the table. His stomach growled, and he hungrily reached for what looked like freshly baked bread. He put it on the plate in front of him and then dished up meat and potatoes and vegetables, and dug in. Nothing had ever tasted so good in his whole life.

  He guzzled his food and looked around; everyone was eating contently. Why had he not been to this side of the Asylum before? Or had he? Had he truly been hallucinating about not eating the whole time?

  He reached for a glass of water and sipped it. It tasted cool and refreshing; he downed the liquid and licked his lips. He continued to eat, but a headache started to form from eating so fast, and therefore, he slowed himself down. His heart raced in his chest, and he felt dizzy.

  Elsa patted him on his back. “Are you okay, Mr Walker?”

  He looked at her … and she was decaying in front of him. He scrambled up. Everyone lay dead in their food, rotting slowly away. Vomit covered the tables. Some were missing eyes, and maggots had formed homes in their heads. Bradley looked back at Elsa, and she was dead in her food as well, except there was no food.

  The food he had been eating was all putrid, and the glass that he had drunk from was labelled ‘Cyanide’.

  He put a hand to his mouth, his other holding his stomach as he started to heave. His heart beat in distress in his chest as he stumbled towards the door. He reached the corridor and stumbled along it, heading towards what he thought was the exit to the Asylum. He managed to stagger quite far before he had to puke, which ran all over the walls. He wiped his mouth on his arm and continued, finally reaching the exit. With no one to stop him, now was his time to leave; he had to get to an actual hospital, or he would die here.

  He reached for the door and pulled on it; it gave way slowly and then seized. From inside the doors, he could see they were chained on the outside. He reached through and tugged on the chain, but they wouldn’t give.

  At least his heart wasn’t beating so hard in his chest anymore. He still felt queasy but tried to stick his head through the door, confused as to why it would be chained from the outside. He managed to squeeze most of the way through, but couldn’t quite fit. That was when he saw the signs on the ground and along the fence, all saying the same thing.

  ABANDONED

  DO NOT ENTER

  Bradley froze and then slowly pulled back. He looked to his left and to his right and saw everyone closing in on him, their rotting corpses making their way towards him. Cooper, Kevin, Welbottom, Brock, Karen, Clara, John, Elsa … so many other patients and workers that haunted this abandoned Asylum. He collapsed, knowing he was having a seizure from the poisoning, and the last thing he saw was the dead converging on him.

  ——

  Chapter Eight

  Cole didn’t feel right about dropping Bradley Walker outside the Asylum and leaving. After all, he might get away. Two orderlies were waiting outside, but Cole wondered if they would be a match for Bradley, or how long they would stick around the abandoned Asylum to watch him.

  The plan was to chain the doors closed once they put him in a cell. They wouldn’t lock the cell, so he could come and go as he pleased around the Asylum, but he would be trapped in the building, with no way to get out.

  Cole still didn’t like the idea, but his role was to drop Walker off and leave, and that was all he would have to do with it. Nothing further.

  He was surprised that Walker didn’t comment on all the abandoned signs they drove past. Maybe he was still dazed from when Cole had suddenly slammed on brakes, making Walker fly against the cage that separated him from the detective.

  He had been so cocky during the entire ride that Cole was almost pleased to be rid of him if it wasn’t for his morals nagging at his gut. He wouldn’t be with Jeremy when he watched Walker wander the abandoned Asylum confused, but he hoped, whatever happened to Walker, it happened slowly and painfully.

  ——

  Jeremy Cox had been a good detective for most of his adult life. He had always wanted to be a cop, like his father before him, and it was something he excelled at. What he couldn’t take was another good cop being put down for no reason. That was why he lied to everyone and said there would be a Dr Wellbottom in charge of Bradley Walker at the Asylum. He knew there wasn’t. He had found the name on the Internet when he researched places to stash Walker away. His plan was solid. He was going to let Walker stew for a few days and then Jeremy was going to personally put Walker out of his misery.

  Cole would report that Walker had escaped from the cop car and then there would be a manhunt, but Jeremy would not be assisting in that. He was right where he wanted to be. At home, in front of the monitors, he had set up to connect wirelessly to the various cameras he had placed in the abandoned Asylum.

  Having taken leave, he was free to watch all the fun from the comfort of his own home. Of course, he had invited the others to join him, because if anything did happen, he wanted as many implicated as possible, but he doubted anyone would actually come. Especially not Cole Morris.

  He checked the time on his watch and switched the cameras on. Getting up, he went to his kitchen and filled a cooler box with beers and grabbed some snacks before heading back to sit on the sofa he had dragged in front of the monitors. Tomorrow he would think about hooking up to the large TV in the living room, it would be easier to see them that way, but for now, this would do.

  Jeremy saw the car pulling up to the building and Cole getting out, letting Walker out as well. An intensity built up inside of Jeremy as he watched Cole take off the handcuffs and get back into the car, leaving Walker standing there. What the bloody hell was he thinking?

  Walker, however, must have been suspicious or confused - possibly both - as he stood there staring at an empty space before saying something. He then doubled over in what looked like pain, as though someone had punched him in the gut. He started towards the building, dragging his feet and holding his arms up. It looked almost like someone was pulling him along, except there was no one there.

  For a panicked moment, Jeremy wondered if Walker had figured out that there were cameras and was putting on a show. He sat up on the edge of the sofa, watching Walker closely.

  Walker collapsed inside the building and raised his head to look at the wall. Walker stayed like that for a moment, inclining his head as though trying to hear something, and then he was dragging himself up again, his arms still out as if someone held him.

  He went up a few flights of stairs, and Jeremy wondered what the hell he was doing when he suddenly turned into a corridor, and Jeremy lost sight of him. He quickly flicked through the cameras and found him again, dragging his feet along the corridor. Walker stumbled into a room where there was a metal frame for a bed and a toilet. He fell on the floor as if shoved. Walker turned his head to stare out the door, again inclining his head in a listening attitude. Jeremy turned the sound up on the cameras, but couldn’t hear anything other than Walker’s ragged breathing. Walker got up and shut the door, and the room went black.

  Jeremy quickly found a setting to change the camera to night mode so he could see Walker’s shape curled up on the metal frame to take a nap. Walker moved his hand in front of his face, but Jeremy knew he couldn’t see it. It was pitch black in that room when the door was closed. Jeremy knew that when he set up the cameras.

  Walked eventually dozed off and Jeremy quickly set about his new
plan of rigging the cameras to the big television in his living room. He spent most of the night doing so. Tomorrow he would drive to the Asylum and make sure the doors were chained; Walker could not escape.

  As for what Walker was doing, Jeremy suspected he was acting crazy because he knew about the cameras and wanted to be taken to an actual Asylum.

  Did Jeremy have news for Bradley.

  ——

  Jeremy was up early the next morning. He had slept badly, afraid Walker would at any given moment just up and leave the Asylum, but he was still asleep when Bradley turned the television on. Sunlight streamed through the window high above Walker, so Jeremy switched off night mode.

  Walker groaned and shifted on the metal frame. He sat up, clearly stiff and sore, and stretched. Walker moved around the room, examining it, and Jeremy’s breath hitched in his throat, scared that Walker would see the camera, but he didn’t.

  Jeremy hoped that he didn’t notice any of the cameras he had spent his life’s savings on. He wanted this to last as long as possible.

  Walker banged against the door of the cell once and then swung the door open, standing there and staring at the empty space in front of him. He lifted his arms up, waiting for someone to hook theirs through, and dragged his feet as he made his way out of the room. He walked like that all the way to a large shower room where, in the centre, he collapsed.

  He then got up and stripped. Once fully naked, he left his clothes in a pile on the floor and stepped up to a wall. He spread his legs and arms wide open and pressed himself against the wall.

  “You can’t do this,” Walker said before suddenly snapping his head forward. Jeremy’s eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what game Walker was playing at. Walker shifted his arms, seemingly tugging against an invisible restraint. “You can’t …” Walker started to say, but then he screamed instead. His scream was so high-pitched and so loud that Jeremy had to turn the sound down lest he attracted his neighbour’s attention. Walker twisted and turned his body, but kept his hands and feet stretched towards the pillars either side of him.

  Walker begged for it to stop, for ‘them’ to stop, whoever ‘they’ were. He issued profanities, he begged for his life, all the while twisting on the spot as though being tortured by some invisible force. After a while, he ceased screaming and pleading and slowly pulled his legs together. It looked painful for him to move them after standing in that position for so long. He then lowered his arms and collapsed.

  After that, he got dressed and back to his feet, lifting his arms once more and dragging his feet as he made his way along a corridor and down more stairs. He kept walking until he reached a room that was empty except for two chairs and a table. He sat at the table and held a small metal handle in the centre. The table looked like the kind used to handcuff convicts to when authorities interrogated them; it must have been left behind when the Asylum was abandoned.

  Walker looked around the room and sighed, shifting in his chair but continuing to grip that metal handle.

  After sitting like that for a few minutes, he looked towards the door on the opposite side of the room and Jeremy squinted at it. There was nothing there. He couldn’t make out what Walker was seeing.

  “You’re German. I want an American doctor,” Walker said. “I don’t want no Nazi German touching me.” There was a brief pause, and then he said, “I still want an American doctor.”

  Jeremy shook his head as Bradley Walker spoke as though there really was someone else in the room. It had to be an act, an act to get them to fetch him and place him in a proper institution. Jeremy would not fall for it.

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Walker continued his imaginary conversation. “Bring in that other doctor - the fat one.” There was another pause before Walker got angry. “Fine! Whatever.”

  He sounded like an errant child at this point, and Jeremy couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “So, Doctor B, what do you want to know?” Walker asked the thin air with a sneer. “I killed a cop, I am insane.”

  Bradley was staring at the empty chair in front of him, staring at it as if someone actually sat there.

  “Wait,” Walker said, “I’ll answer your stupid questions.”

  Jeremy was rapt as he watched Walker speak to himself.

  “I don’t know, I guess you’d call it normal,” he said. “She would take me out for ice cream and stuff whenever my father was drunk and disorderly.” He paused and then continued, “Yeah, he was. More to my mother than to me, but the bitch had it coming, always back chatting him and trying to tell him what to do and how to do it.” Another pause ensued. “Women are the lower sex.” Walker sat back in his chair. “Their purpose is to breed and feed, and to shut their mouths.”

  He then stopped talking for two hours and simply sat there, holding the metal bar as, glued to it, before he finally said, “Jesus, where were you guys? I’ve been here forever.”

  He fell silent again and then stretched before suddenly jerking forward. Walker glared at the wall before shaking his head and jerking forward.

  Walker went down the corridor and up three flights of stairs before turning right and going down another corridor. Jeremy had to flip through the different cameras to keep track of him. He’d have to figure out which camera was where to flip to them faster. Walker went through a heavy door, pressing a buzzer as he passed it, and then stopped, holding his arms out like he was being searched. He then went down a short corridor and swung to a door on the right.

  Walker paused for a moment before stumbling forward into what used to be a day room. He flipped the bird at thin air before shifting to glance around the room.

  Jeremy sat back and opened a beer, watching Walker curiously. For a brief moment, he considered that perhaps Walker was mental, but still, he felt like this was all an act and, to be honest, Jeremy was enjoying it because Walker had no idea what he was really in store for.

  Walker inspected a small cage to the left where once upon a time, nurses would sit to monitor patients. He then inspected two wheelchairs left by the window before going to check out a board game still on a table, the pieces from the game scattered everywhere. Walker stared at a chair for a long period, and Jeremy wondered what he was thinking about.

  He smiled at the chair before glancing over at the bookshelf and saying, “What, by jacking off?” He moved to the bookshelf, pulled up a chair and inspected a book. “You a romantic? Reading Shakespeare?” he asked, holding a dusty book in his hand. “Bradley Walker,” he said, holding his hand out to shake someone’s hand.

  Jeremy shook his head. The idiot even moved his hand as though he was shaking someone’s hand.

  “Killed a cop, pleaded guilty but insane, here I am,” Walker was saying, holding his arms out as if rewarded with a get out of jail free card. “What are you in for?” he asked the empty chair beside him. He paused before asking, “How long have you been here for?”

  Another pause. There was a look of surprise on Walker’s face; whatever he thought was answering him had surprised him. Suddenly he squirmed uncomfortably, shifting in his seat.

  “Nah, I’m not horny,” he declared, “but I’ll give you a shout if I ever need help rubbing one off.”

  Walker went quiet again for a while, looking around at various points, seeing something Jeremy couldn’t. Jeremy zoomed in on Walker and watched him closely.

  “Uh, no thanks,” Walker said. He rubbed the back of his neck before standing and backing up. “Easy there, tiger,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to your friend Woody the chair over there and finish what you started.” He stood a bit before going over to the caged area. “Excuse me, miss?” He paused. “Please, I don’t mean to be any trouble, but could I get some food. I haven’t eaten all day.” Another pause followed that statement before he slammed his fist against the cage. “Answer me,” he spat. Another short silence ensued. “And what about breakfast? Come on, I’m starving.”

  He banged his fist against the cage once more befo
re slinking off to sit near the bookshelf. He perused the mostly empty shelves and picked up a tattered book. He rocked his chair back on its legs and started to read.

  Jeremy sighed and played on his phone while Walker read, waiting for him to do something else. Eventually, Walker tossed the book aside and looked around. He got up and crossed the room to inspect the scattered boxes of board games before he picked up an empty box and carried it to a table.

  The rest of the day Walker pretended to take something out the box and place it on the table, mimicking playing a game of some sort. Jeremy set the camera to record, lest he misses anything interesting, and decided to go out and padlock the Asylum.

  The drive out there was peaceful, and he turned the radio up, blaring his rock n roll music as he drove down the interstate. He found the dirt road that led to the Asylum and parked his car in front of the building.

  The building was huge; if Walker was still in the day room, he would have no idea that Jeremy was here. Jeremy got out his car and popped the trunk open, pulling out a long thick chain and a hefty padlock. He went to the front doors and slipped the chain through the handles several times before padlocking the whole together. He tested the doors, and they barely budged, maybe just enough to make out that the door was chained closed.

  Jeremy got back into his car and, music blaring, he drove off, stopping only at the supermarket to get more food and beer before he went back home.

  ——

  Jeremy reviewed the tapes, but Walker spent the entire day in the day room, placing whatever invisible pieces he was playing with on the table. There were instances where he talked to himself, but nothing of interest to Jeremy. Mostly he asked himself questions about the basement before he went to the nurses’ station and demanded his lawyer.

  “I don’t remember eating at all,” he said to thin air. “I didn’t take any medication. I haven’t put anything in my body all day. Not food, not water, not even medication. I would remember.” He was whining to himself. “What about dinner?” he complained and stumbled forward.