Descension

by Shani Struthers

  Ruby was aghast. “Really? Christ!”

  “Yeah, it was seen as a better alternative to incarceration, a kind of way out, if you like, although actually it backfired, and a lot of people weren’t released because any ability to function socially post-op was out the window. And yet, you know, they still continued. It was a quick procedure, yeah? It took around five to ten minutes. On and on they went, experimenting and perhaps in a way, making life easier for themselves. The patient might not be fit enough to re-enter society, but at least they wouldn’t give any more aggro behind closed doors.”

  “Eclipse, you’ve really done your homework, haven’t you?”

  “There’s another reason why I’m so interested,” he confessed. “It’s not entirely because I’m such a sensitive soul. It’s ’cos of my grandmother too.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “That’s right. My gran, Susannah Barrett, had a condition, bi-polar we reckon, although there was never any formal diagnosis, and because of it, she was locked up. My mum was really young when it happened, barely a teenager and it left her broken-hearted. Despite her illness, my mum loved her mum, but the situation was out of her hands. The tragedy of it was felt down the generations; it affected our lives too, mine and Luna’s, and not for the better. My grandmother was released eventually, but apparently she was nothing like her former self.”

  “She’d had a lobotomy?”

  “Yeah, and so much brain tissue had been destroyed she was, like we said earlier, a zombie. It wasn’t here; it was up in Manchester. Nothing remains of the original asylum. It’s a housing estate, like this one. Looking at pictures of how she used to be, really vivacious you know, it was all so…” Eclipse took a deep breath, “…unjust. I hated that she’d suffered, and that we all suffered too. And I hate that these souls in here are suffering. It should be over, but it isn’t. I want it to be over.”

  “We’re here now, aren’t we? We can do something about it.”

  “I really hope so.”

  “Shall we… erm…” she had to be brave, she had to be, “go through to the doctor’s office?”

  “So there’s nothing here?”

  “I’m not picking anything up at the moment.”

  “Okay.”

  He’d warned her the corridors were long and he was right, they were endless. Where the hell is it? The building was a large one, that couldn’t be denied, but it still seemed disproportionately bigger inside, as though they were in some kind of Tardis. A loud bang coming from the room they’d just left made her cry out.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  “It could be anything, a door caught on the breeze maybe? Like I said, that happens often. Do you want to go back and see?”

  Before answering she stood stock still, barely breathing. There was no more noise. “Let’s carry on.”

  The further down the corridor they walked, passing a stairway on their right, and more doors, some open, some closed, the more Ruby could smell something – not mould or damp, traditional odours of neglect, but something more akin to bleach or a cleaning fluid of some kind. Was it an echo from the past?

  Curious, she asked Eclipse if he could smell anything.

  Eclipse sniffed. “No. Can you?”

  “Yeah, there’s a slight tinge of something.” So it was an echo, the past beginning to collide with the present, at least to the one of them that was psychic.

  “This is the doctor’s office,” Eclipse said, and Ruby noticed him swallow.

  “You’ve been in here before?”

  He nodded.

  “By yourself?”

  “Yeah. Madness must run in the family.” When Ruby made no reply, he looked contrite. “Sorry, bad joke. I’m not like my grandmother; I don’t suffer from bi-polar or any other condition. Many people consider me relatively sane.”

  “It’s just jokes like that, in these surround—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and it was obvious he meant it. There was sadness in his voice too, so much sadness that Ruby guessed a bit of humour every now and then was his way of dealing with the weight of his own history. As coping mechanisms went, it was a good one. Everyone needed a method of release.

  The door to the office, like some other doors in this building, was hanging off its hinges, a glass panel within it completely shattered. Edging his way past, Eclipse walked in without any problem, but for Ruby it was a different matter. The door might as well have been closed, or bricked up, because that’s what it felt like was in front of her – a wall of emotions, terrible emotions that engulfed her as a tidal wave might. Deep breaths, take deep breaths, Ruby. Breathe. She did her utmost to obey the self-administered instruction, forcing her feet into a room that was furnished, as Eclipse had said, with a desk and a filing cabinet. To her surprise, Eclipse went straight over to the filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer.

  “When I first came in here,” he explained, with his back to her, “there were patient notes and photographs all over the floor—”

  “Photographs?” Ruby managed to utter. “I’ve seen a photograph of one of the patients on the Internet – Caroline Jennings. Not on the same site where I found your details; another site devoted to Cromer. God knows there are enough of them.”

  “Yeah, don’t I know it, although more people tended to come here when there were more buildings. Now there’s just this one, they don’t so much. They come and they take photos, regarding the patient notes they take photos of photos and then they, well… drop them to the floor again and walk all over them. There are boot marks on virtually every one. Every time I come here, I make a point of picking these papers up, reading them, then filing them away – in here. I’ve even been able to match photos and case notes together. The ones that weren’t torn up.”

  “Why didn’t you remove them entirely?” Ruby asked, curious.

  “To take them where? Home? No, I don’t want them in my home, they’re too… unsettling.” At his words, Ruby nodded, it was fair enough. “I’ve taken photographic records though, of everything I’ve found, and of course, as you probably know, there are records at The Keep, but this is where the originals are, and sure, yeah, they’ve been disturbed by others, but like me, no one wants to take them anywhere. These photos, these lives, are just too real for most people to deal with. When you’re in this room, none of it’s quite so funny anymore, and so, in the end, they leave well alone.”

  Ruby crossed to the filing cabinet too and shone her torch on the bundle inside. “They look like convict photos, don’t they?”

  “Because that’s what they were, in the eyes of those who considered themselves normal; those who never pushed against the boundaries of society, who never had cause to.”

  “So, all of this, you’ve got photos of?”

  “Yeah, on my phone.” He paused. “You don’t want to touch them either, do you?”

  He was right, she didn’t – the emotions coursing through her, emotions that belonged to so many others as well as her own, were hard enough to deal with. What she’d seen was enough – so many eyes staring up at her – dead eyes, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense. She had to turn away.

  “Eclipse, I don’t think I can stand much more, not tonight.”

  “You’d rather leave the theatre for another time?”

  “I think so.”

  He was reluctant but he agreed.

  “Can you send me the pictures you’ve taken, though? I’ll… look at them tomorrow if I get a chance, or more likely the next day.”

  “Sure. Look, Ruby, I realise this must be hard for you. Mental illness is hard—”

  “I know, okay. You don’t have to keep saying.” Her voice was harsher than she intended, something that surprised them both. “There’ve been problems in my family too, so I understand about the ripple effect. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling the way I am.” Damn it, she was going to start crying again if she wasn’t careful. “This… it’s intense, okay. I can deal with it, but perhaps
in small doses, at least until I’ve had a chance to process it. At the moment it’s equal to an onslaught. There’s so much that’s residual here as well as actual. It’s awful. Oh God, it’s just awful!”

  Staggering slightly, he caught her, just in time. She would have fallen otherwise. Her hands were up by her ears, covering them. “The cries, can you hear them, the screams, the wailing, the banging, the crashing? Eclipse, can’t you hear it?”

  Of course he couldn’t, it was only in her head; deep down she knew that – and it had happened so suddenly, as though a radio on mute had been turned to full blast. It was an assault, but what was the intention behind it? To harm, to scare, torture her even?

  She was only thankful this man had his arms around her; that she wasn’t alone. “Eclipse, get me out of here. Please.”

  He’d grasped the sudden seriousness of the situation. Still with his arms around her, he started to move them forwards, both of them shuffling at first, towards the door – the broken door with its shattered glass – after which there was a long, dark corridor to negotiate before any hope of freedom. Hardly daring to look, she kept her eyes half closed, the din in her head as loud as ever. The wails held such torment! Torn from those whose lives had been torn too.

  “We have to hurry,” she whispered, her voice choked.

  The walls either side of her, narrow, claustrophobic even, appeared to writhe. Why? What was wrong with them? She had to look, there was no escaping it – they were just too close. Shapes; blackened things; husks – it was those that lined the walls; hundreds and hundreds, thousands; as much a part of the building today as they ever were in the past. Again, Eclipse seemed oblivious, his grip still tight, intent on fulfilling her request and getting them out of there. Thank God he was oblivious! This was the sort of thing that could drive a person to madness. Hands, misshapen and claw-like, broke free of the walls, reaching for them. She flinched, pressed herself further into Eclipse, forgetting for a moment to visualise white light; to strengthen their shield. Don’t forget, Ruby, you can’t, not in here. Summoning up the strength from somewhere, she imagined bolts of white light and fired it at them, not as a weapon meant to harm, rather she was trying to pierce their armour with love; something they obviously didn’t know how to deal with. Nothing was absorbed. Nothing.

  Halfway down the corridor were the stairs they’d passed earlier, leading upwards to the wards, the cells and the nursery. Like the theatre, she hadn’t explored them yet; she hadn’t even touched upon the worst of it. How would she react when she did? How could she bear it?

  “We’re there, we’re almost there,” Eclipse was busy assuring her, but ‘there’ seemed so far away. Her head was going to explode with the pressure building inside it, she was certain; the misery that was being heaped upon her too much to endure. Despite his arms around her, Ruby sank to her knees, right there, in the corridor of the abandoned asylum, caught between the writhing walls.

  “I can’t stand it,” she tried to explain. “I just can’t.”

  What would he do? Leave her there whilst he went and begged for help? Or would he forcibly get her out, dragging her by the arms? What did she want him to do? She didn’t know. It was impossible to think rationally above the internal cacophony.

  He was pleading with her, she knew that much. He was frightened now. She registered that too. But she could do nothing about it, nothing at all. She was helpless, as scared as him. She’d underestimated the hell of madness, of being perceived as mad. Would he do it? Would he leave? She didn’t know him, not really, nor how he was likely to react. If he left her… Christ, if he left her…

  A barking brought her back from the edge, Jed having materialised at last and snarling at the walls, as they were snarling at him. In her mind’s eye Ruby imagined row upon row of chipped and blackened teeth bared at Jed and him baring his teeth just as ferociously. A wild gesture. Feral. At the same time that Jed appeared, she found herself being lifted upward. Eclipse had no intention of leaving her.

  “It’s okay, Ruby,” he was muttering, “I’ve got you. I’ll get you out of here.”

  As though she were no burden to him at all, he broke into a half-run, a half-stumble. Her feet barely touching the ground, he was virtually carrying her. Jed stayed where he was, standing between them and whatever else was in the corridor – another shield.

  “Jed,” she called, concerned for him, but her voice was weak. Quickly, she transferred to thought. Jed!

  But, like the smugglers she’d recently dealt with, he was a law unto himself, coming and going as he pleased, obeying his own rules. Where do you go when you’re not with me, Jed? Who else do you protect?

  Or was she his sole charge?

  Jed, come on!

  Eclipse put her down at the window of the utility room, and she bundled her way through with no snagging of the coat. He followed. Taking her hand, he dragged her from the building. Both of them crawled under the fence and sped on, not stopping until they were at the edge of the woods where Eclipse doubled over, panting. Ruby was panting too, aware that the sounds in her head had died down. Apart from their breathing, it was silent again.

  When at last he was able to speak, Eclipse lifted his head and looked at her. “Who’s Jed?” he asked, frowning.

  Chapter Nine

  Eclipse accompanied Ruby to her car, sitting in the passenger seat whilst she slid behind the wheel.

  “Jed,” she explained, “is my dog.”

  “Your dog? There was no dog in there.”

  “There was, towards the end.”

  “But—”

  “He’s a spirit dog, an attachment if you like. I first met him at a house cleansing about three years ago. Instead of moving on, he… well, he’s a part of the team now. And a very valuable part too.” She bowed her head and took a long breath outwards. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  “A spirit dog? Shouldn’t he be in the light?”

  “Eclipse, I’m not a magician, I can’t control Jed, okay? He comes and he goes, but I think when he’s not here, that’s exactly where he is, in the light.”

  Instead of taking umbrage at her sharp tone, he softened. “Ruby, what happened to you in there? Tell me.”

  How could she find the words to explain what had happened? She looked at him; at the earnest expression in his eyes.

  “It was like being a thousand people at once,” she finally answered.

  “A thousand mad people?”

  “A thousand ill people.”

  He was immediately contrite. “Yeah, of course. What am I thinking? I can’t imagine—”

  “Which is a good thing, believe me.”

  “I do, I actually really do.”

  “Although… it’s strange; their emotions may have been in my head, but it was as a collective, a mass, I couldn’t distinguish one person from another and so… I can’t imagine the uniqueness of each experience, nor the depth of it.”

  You. Don’t. Know. Those words still rang true.

  “Look, Ruby, shall we go for a drink? Try and get our heads round this.”

  “A drink?” She checked her watch. They’d only been in the building for half an hour, maybe slightly more. It wasn’t so late. She could have a drink and still be home before Cash. But… it was a big day tomorrow, a momentous day; she needed some down time, a chance to recover; to feel Cash’s arms around her instead.

  “I can’t come for a drink tonight, for various reasons, but are you okay? Not traumatised from anything that happened in there?”

  He shrugged, that bright smile back on his face. “I didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary, not today.”

  “Nonetheless, there’s unrest brewing on this estate, I’ve thought that several times lately. And in that building particularly it’s rife; that ripple effect in action again. I’ve had several calls from Brookbridge in the last few days, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more to come. This sense of something brewing is very real; it can be felt by anyone
I should think – dead or alive. And you could be right, it could well be because the last building is due to come down. The majority of spirits may hate this place but they’re attached to it – deeply – they’re institutionalised. That’s what we’re up against here. Spirits of the most resistant kind.”

  Eclipse was nodding avidly. “It makes sense, yeah, it all makes so much sense.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” His enthusiasm raised a tired smile.

  “I know it was difficult for you in there, but you will come back, won’t you? You won’t just… leave them?”

  “Of course I’m coming back. But I want my team with me.”

  “You said this was a private case, yours and mine.”

  “I’m not talking about excluding you, Eclipse, but I can’t go in there again without my team, not now that I know what we’re up against. I need their skills, their experience, and their knowledge. I’m not strong enough to do this on my own.”

  “You won’t be on your own.”

  “I think you know what I mean, without the help of my fellow psychics. I’ve made the mistake of excluding them in the past and I was wrong. Together we’re stronger.”

  “Is it still no fees applicable?”

  “Of course there are no fees! How many times do I need to remind you, it was me who approached you.”

  “Perhaps I should be the one who charges then?”

  She laughed. “You can try.”

  Eclipse smiled too. “You sure your team won’t mind me tagging along?”

  She thought of the Wilkins brothers – both Cash and Presley. “Don’t worry, they’re used to tag-alongs,” she replied, but not without affection.

  “So what’s the plan from hereon in?”

  Retrieving her mobile so that she could send texts saying she was all right, she explained what she had in mind. “I’ll talk to my colleagues this week and get back to you. Two of them are working on a case of their own at the moment; another has a part-time job in a pub, and so we have to bear that in mind and work around them. We need to do more research too. Those photos you have of the patients and whatever medical notes you’ve photographed, don’t forget to send them to me.”