Yes, he could take the knife and kill Skinner. That was probably the safest solution. But then what? What lengths would he have to take to stay safe after that? And what would stop him from becoming just like Skinner and Laurence?
“Are you done?” John asked. His question caught everyone by surprise.
Skinner frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“This sick, twisted game you’re playing. Are you done?” John said again.
“No game. I’m simply trying to teach you an important lesson.”
“I’m sorry about your brother, Skinner, but I’m not going to fight you. So, unless you’re the type of coward who stabs an unarmed man in the back, we’re finished here.” With that, John turned and walked towards the edge of the crowd to leave.
But as John turned his back on Skinner, the terrifying realization crossed his mind. Skinner was the kind of coward who would stab an unarmed man in the back.
“No, no, no,” Skinner shouted with growing agitation. “You’re doing it all wrong.”
He lunged towards John one last time. John turned to ward off the blow but was too late. Skinner drove the blade into his side.
“That’s the proper way to stab someone,” Skinner hissed in his ear and pulled the knife from John’s ribs.
John dropped to his knees, his palms pressed against his side where Skinner had stabbed him. Even as he tried to stave off the flow of blood, he could feel the warm sticky liquid soaking through his jumper and covering his hands.
The crowd gasped and cheered as John lay there, Skinner standing over him triumphantly while John’s blood dripped from his makeshift blade. Skinner advanced towards John again, a deadly grin on his face.
John looked around frantically for salvation. A friendly face, a gap in the crowd he could escape through, anything. Buck and Tim stood amongst the multitude, shock, fear, and grief on both their faces.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Skinner said, gripping John under the arm and hoisting him to his feet. John screamed out in pain. “I didn’t hit anything important. A quick kill would spoil all the fun.” Skinner smiled as the throng cheered him on, chanting for Skinner to stab him again.
And he obliged, plunging his knife into John’s ribs just inches above the original wound. John screamed out a second time. Buck lurched forward, but Skinner’s men grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him back.
John was on all fours now, gasping for breath as agony filled his entire body. Kneeling next to him, Skinner wiped his bloody blade on the back of John’s neck.
“I’m sorry John, but this is going to be slow and painful. It’s not personal, you know. I do like you. But I have to make an example of you.” He slowly ran the edge of his blade from John’s shoulder down to his elbow, leaving a trail of blood. “You understand that, right?”
Skinner stood and placed his foot against John’s side, pushing him onto his back. The crowd was in a frenzy now, chanting for Skinner to deliver the final blow.
“You’re a fighter, aren’t you?” Skinner said, circling John as he laid in the dirt. “I respect that. Survival of the fittest and all, right? Maybe that’s why I don’t hate you for killing Laurence. If he wasn’t strong enough to defend himself, then he was simply too weak to go on living.” Skinner kicked John in the side, the toe of his boot digging into his wound. “But I’m the one at the top of the food chain here,” Skinner shouted, kicking John again.
“That’s enough,” a voice said as Fisher finally stepped forward to break up the fight. Smirking at Skinner he said, “You just had to take it too far and ruin the fun again, didn’t you?”
“Sorry about that,” Skinner said, and turning to John added, “We’ll just have to finish this later, Mr. Hunter. We’re going to keep doing this over and over and over again until I’m satisfied you’ve learned your lesson.”
Skinner smiled wickedly, the blade still gripped tightly in his hand as the crowd began to disperse, mumbling in disappointment.
Buck and Tim rushed over to John. Buck checked his wounds as they helped him to his feet. Skinner remained in place, eyes fixed on John. Today, tomorrow, it did not matter. Skinner was not going to stop until John was dead.
John half walked, half limped one step forward as an excruciating wave of pain coursed through his body. He collapsed onto Buck and Tim, who tried their best to hold him up. His strength was gone, and he felt completely defenseless. He took another labored step forward, unsure of where to go.
He thought of the crematorium Buck had earlier suggested as a possible sanctuary—and if it would be enough. If he could even get there before Skinner tried to strike again. Even if he managed to find his way back without Skinner or any of his goons noticing, what was to stop Skinner from looking for him? Finding him? There was nowhere safe, no place he could go where he would not have to look over his shoulder as he waited for Skinner to try and kill him again. It would be easy in his current condition.
He needed a place where not even Skinner could get to him.
Keeper Fisher still stood by, no doubt pleased with himself for having saved John’s life. Summoning all of his strength, John threw himself at him, hitting him squarely in his mangled jaw and sending him stumbling back.
“What are you doing?” Buck shouted.
Furious, Fisher retaliated and knocked John back to the ground, kicking him in the side again and again. With each kick, John felt his insides explode as the air was knocked from him. John looked up to see where Skinner was, but he was gone, having disappeared into the crowd. Unable to stand or even roll away, John wrapped his arms around his stomach, trying desperately to cushion his body against the blows.
Finally, the beating stopped, and John gasped for air, his ribs throbbing with each breath as he slowly rolled onto his knees. His body screamed out in protest from the effort of it. John began to push himself up but froze as something cold and hard was pushed against the back of his head, accompanied by the unmistakable click of a handgun.
John jumped as a gunshot rang out across the yard.
“What the hell is going on out here?” Head Keeper Carson stood at the entrance to the yard, holding his smoking pistol high in the air. He was flanked by two more armed keepers.
“This unfit trash attacked me,” Fisher answered, his gun still pressed against John’s head.
“This is not protocol, Fisher. We are not executioners,” Carson shouted. “If a patient steps out of line, you take him to the hole.”
John felt the cold metal of the barrel dig deeper into the back of his head.
“That’s an order,” Carson warned.
Multiple hands seized John’s arms and shoulders and, lifting him, dragged him through the endless maze of halls and tunnels. Dropping him through a trap door in the floor and onto the dirt ground, the keepers slammed the door, shutting John in complete darkness.
Mental illness makes people uncomfortable. No one bothers the patient mumbling to himself in the corner. So I started adapting some of those practices, mumbling and pissing on myself just to get a moment of peace. It seemed to be the only way to get the keepers to leave me alone.
It’s what they want from me, right? To be irrational, broken, and stupid. Someone they could simply dismiss. Because to consider anything else would be unacceptable.
Except now, I find I am mumbling to myself even when the keepers aren’t around. I suppose this means Emerson was right. If you tell someone they’re crazy, broken, stupid, or “unfit” enough times, they’ll eventually start to believe it.
-Excerpt from Theodore’s journal
The scent of dirt and urine surrounded John, but he welcomed it. This hole was his salvation.
John tried to drag himself to the wall to lean on it for support, but his bruised and broken body screamed out in protest. He drew his legs up underneath himself, rested his head on his knees, and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t sure whether he fell asleep or passed out and he had no way of telling how long he had been unc
onscious, but he was awoken by the sound of arguing overhead.
“He has serious injuries!” Buck shouted. “If you’re not going to take him to the hospital wing, the least you can do is let me treat him.”
“You have ten minutes,” someone else said, and the trap door swung open with a loud bang.
The rustling of fabric was followed by the thump of a body landing next to him.
“It’s okay, John,” Buck said. “You’re going to be all right,”
John moved to pull himself up, but the strain of it made him cry out in pain as he collapsed back onto the ground.
“Don’t move,” Buck said.
“What are you doing here?” John croaked.
“I reminded the keepers that they can’t refuse to treat an injured patient, so they agreed to let me see you.” Buck pressed against John’s arms, his shoulders, his chest. “I need to see where Skinner stabbed you.”
John felt as though his ribs were being ripped apart as Buck helped him pull his arms out of his jumper and wrap it around his waist.
“Where’s Tim?” John said.
“I told him to hide in the library until I come back.” Buck dabbed a damp rag along John’s wounds, sending jolts of pain up his torso with every touch.
Buck continued to treat him, sewing up the gashes in his side with a needle and thread, John wincing with each stitch. Luckily the blade was small and missed anything important. Or so Buck said. John didn’t feel terribly lucky, though.
“I’m not going to make it out of here, am I?” John asked.
“That is why they call it the terminal ward,” Buck responded. “I hate to say this, but it will get easier once you stop fighting. Stop trying to make sense of insanity.”
Stop trying to make sense of insanity. Those words resonated with John in a way he would never have expected as he laid there, bleeding on the dirt in a hole underneath the asylum.
It seemed like an eternity ago that he had lain in bed next to Morgan, stroking her soft skin. The memory made him ache. He pictured their baby growing within her and what it would be like to feel their baby kick. Or to simply hold Morgan’s hand as their child was born.
In the shadow of the asylum, the realization hit John that he would never be a part of any of those experiences. His destiny was to be here, in this hole, all because he had failed a blood test. The same blood that now covered his body. And, for the first time since he was arrested, John surrendered to his grief and let out a sob.
Everything came crashing down on him, every emotion he had fought to suppress, and the despair was overwhelming. He finally realized why, finally knew what it was that he hated.
He hated that he had no control.
Morgan, where are you? he screamed in his mind. Help me, please.
As he cried, he felt Buck’s hand rest on his shoulder, much like a father would to comfort his suffering son. Perhaps it was the act of paternal affection or his own desperation that led John to confess his most dangerous secret.
“My wife is pregnant,” John muttered, realizing just how little of his life he had shared with his only ally in the entire asylum.
Buck paused, the weight of John’s revelation hanging in the air.
“I’m so sorry, John,” Buck said. He cocked his head to the side. “Wait, was or is?”
“Is,” John confirmed.
“How is that possible?”
“The pregnancy isn’t technically illegal until after I’ve been sterilized.”
Buck sighed, a sound infused with equal parts amazement and pity. “You haven’t even been sterilized yet?”
“Morgan found someone willing to help us stall my procedure until after the baby is born.”
“So they’re hiding you in the terminal ward?”
John nodded, tears still streaming down his face as he lay on the ground.
“You’re either very brave or very stupid.” There was no judgment or condescension in Buck’s voice. If anything, there was admiration.
“I’m starting to think it’s the latter,” John confessed. “I want this baby, Buck, but I don’t think I’ll survive long enough to see this through.”
Buck did not respond, a confirmation that he feared the very same thing. They sat in silence as Buck continued to clean and treat John’s wounds.
John felt like a fool for ever thinking everything could be normal after this, that he would be allowed to just go home to his wife and child. Had he honestly thought he could safely hide unnoticed in Emerson Asylum for the better part of a year? This was a place where men were branded like cattle and where history burned bodies instead of burying them, their ashes floating up into eternity and lost forever.
“The vents in the crematorium, do you think they lead straight out to the roof?” John asked.
Buck nodded.
“How hard do you think they are to climb?”
“That’s not a good idea, John.”
“Why not?”
“Assuming the vents are hollow in the first place and you can actually make it to the roof, what would you do then?” Buck asked. “Are you planning on just hopping off a five-story building and running across acres of grass completely unseen? Not to mention the fence. You’ll be shot down within minutes. I know it feels hopeless right now, John, but you already have a sure way of getting out of here. Don’t jeopardize it by doing anything stupid.”
“It’s all falling apart,” John moaned. “I put everything into this. Tears, sweat, blood. I bet my family’s future on this, on the chance we could even have a future, but I’m going to die in here, and then it’s only a matter of time before they make Morgan give up our baby.”
“You need to listen to me, John.” Buck pulled the bandage a little tighter than necessary. “The point of the hole is to break you. Leave a man in the dark long enough and he’ll eventually lose his mind. You need to snap out of it now and find a way to be strong. Find that unbreakable part of yourself and bury it so deep that no one can touch you.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?” Buck said, trying to wipe away the blood from John’s face and torso, but his one small rag was already soaked through and did little more than smear the blood across John’s body.
John twisted to look at Buck as much as he could before the pain in his ribs became unbearable. “Are you really content to just stay here for the rest of your life?”
Buck’s eyes were vacant. “I came to peace with the fact that I’m going to die here a long time ago.”
“How do you come to peace with something like that?” John said. “You’re not even unfit. You’re no more unfit than…”
“You?” Buck finished. “Neither of us deserves to be here, just like the hundreds that have come before us and the thousands that will inevitably come after we are gone. No one deserves to die in a place like this, but people do every day. And so will I. That is my punishment.”
“Punishment for what?”
“For not ending all of this when I had the chance,” Buck said, his countenance heavy. “I don’t know much about being a father, John, but I will say this. If you have a chance, you take it. You do whatever you have to do to keep that child safe, or else every day for the rest of your life, you will wonder if you did everything you could, if there was something you missed, something you should have done differently to save them. You will fall asleep every night wondering what they would have looked like, what it would have felt like to hold them in your arms. And that it is the worst feeling in the world. So you do whatever it takes to make sure you never have to feel that way, John. Fight for your family with everything you’ve got because you will hate yourself if you don’t.”
“Time’s up,” a voice shouted from overhead.
Buck hurriedly finished and helped John pull his blood-soaked jumper back up and over his naked shoulders.
“Don’t give up on life just yet, John,” Buck whispered as the voice from above impatiently yelled for him to come. “I believe, on
e day, you will prove you’re stronger than anyone ever imagined. You have a strength in you, the kind no one can take away.”
“No, I don’t,” John whispered as the keepers pulled Buck out of the hole, leaving John alone in the dark.
John rested his head against the dirt wall and closed his eyes. The cuts on his face stung as sweat from his brow rolled over the open wounds. Each breath filled his lungs with agony and the stench of the hole. He tried to focus only on the smell of the earth walls around him, concentrating on the sharp, metallic scent. He imagined he was somewhere else, walking the streets of Southend hand in hand with Morgan. He tried to remember the way the rain fell on his face the night he first kissed her under the walnut tree. Every detail, every scent, every sound as he desperately tried to be anywhere but where he was, if only for a moment. But as the memories came flooding into view, suffocating grief also began to build. As abruptly as he had summoned them, John banished the memories from his mind.
Minutes felt like hours alone in the dark, making it almost impossible to tell how much time had passed. John could hear a faint dripping somewhere in the hole, and he tried imagining the drips were the ticking second hand on a clock and counted each drop to help count the time. One, two, all the way to sixty where he would start again. He counted like that ten times, then twenty, then fifty. Or was it sixty? He tried to start over but soon felt his mind go blank as he pondered everything and nothing.
There was nothing to do in the hole but sleep. So John slept, slipping in and out of consciousness until he wasn’t even sure how long he had been down there.
The only thing to break up the monotony was the occasional visit from Buck—a hand under his head, a glass of water pressed against his lips. But he was always so far away, as if John was watching him from underwater. He would catch a few words here and there. Something about a fever and how the keepers needed to move someone, but each time John tried to focus on the words, they just felt further away.
Now and then, when John found a moment of lucidity, he would take out the journal still secured in his waistband and flip through the pages, reading by the light of a single beam flooding through a gap in the planks of the trap door. He was only able to take in a few sentences at a time before he felt himself slip back into the darkness.
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