The Murmurings

by West, Carly Anne

  A curtain of black, oily hair spills from the glass, obscuring the eyeless face and moving, silent mouth. Long skinny digits follow, twitching on the ends of blackened, rotting hands—a decaying body and halting legs emerge last from the mirror, leaving a layer of oily residue in their wake.

  My joints lock into place, freezing me in a stiffened pose, as if they’ve given up hope before my mind has. My reflection in the mirror is gone. I’ve already been blotted out of existence. The Taker is laying its claim to my body in an attempt to restore its own.

  It lumbers toward me with painful movements, as if every effort is excruciating. It throws its limbs in wild advance, each step, each sway of its body exaggerated and uneven. It thrusts a shoulder forward, then a hip—giving the impression of moving in stop-motion, like a hiccup on a film reel. But it moves fast. Faster than last time.

  “Please” is the only word that seeps through my lips.

  It’s less than three feet from me. Less than two feet. It’s mere inches from me when the gasping in my ear elevates to a near scream, and the dampness on my neck drips to my shirt.

  The teeth clack together, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I know I’ve reached the end now. And the only face that I can conjure is Nell’s.

  Her green eyes and thick, wavy hair. I remember her hands twisting around my own straight hair, weaving it into braids while it was still damp—the smell of conditioner filling the bathroom. The sound of her voice commands me to lie still as I sleep so I’ll have waves like hers when I wake up.

  Her voice orders me to hold still. Wait, it’ll all be over soon.

  And then I realize that it isn’t Nell’s voice at all. It’s high and whining, straining with immense effort. An imposter’s voice.

  “NOOOO!” I scream as loudly as I can, my throat burning with the effort, my muscles tensed against whatever might come.

  All at once, I’m on my back, my head ringing with a tremendous pain, vision fading in and out.

  I crawl to my feet and clutch my head until I regain my sight. When I do, I’m staring into the empty bathroom, the smell of bleach strong in my nose, the full-length mirror across the room revealing only a small, terrified version of me and a little dark spot somewhere in the middle.

  I spin on my heel and find that I’m inches from a starched white smock. The Pigeon’s birdlike face smiles in a way I’ve never seen and would be happy to never see again.

  “Oh dear,” she says. “Whatever was I thinking, letting you use the restroom with the mirrors? How utterly foolish.”

  “You—you—” I stutter, unable to find words to hurl at her.

  “Choose your next sentence wisely, dear,” she says, cupping my chin in her talon, her thumb and forefinger finding the bone under cartilage. “I think you know that I’m not one to make empty threats.”

  “Don’t you think Dr. Keller would have been disappointed to find his second to last Seer hanging from the ceiling?” I sling at her, hardly believing the words coming from my mouth. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt closer to death. Saying it aloud only makes it that much more real.

  “Don’t you dare presume to know what Dr. Keller wants. He is hardly in a position to know what that is anymore, let alone you. Besides, the good doctor has entrusted his entire operation to me while he’s . . . indisposed. Don’t be surprised if we’re seeing more of each other from now on.”

  She releases my chin from her grip with a flick of her wrist, pushing me back on my heels. With her other hand, she grips me by the elbow and drags me behind her as we traverse one long corridor after another. Finally, we arrive in one that looks familiar, and she slides her keycard through a reader above a door handle and swings the door open to reveal the place I’ve come to recognize as my room.

  “Sleep well tonight, little girl. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow,” she says. She pulls the door shut behind her with a metal clank, leaving me to bury my face in a pillow that smells like souring citrus and metal.

  I curl myself into a tight ball and refuse to give in to the temptation to whimper. Because I know that if I begin to cry, I’ll never stop, and I refuse to give the Pigeon that kind of satisfaction.

  A shuffling in the wall above my bed startles me.

  “Sophie, are you awake?”

  “Deb?” My throat catches.

  “Where did she take you?”

  My mind pans to the bathroom: the mirror with its rippling image of me, the thing that subsumed that image, the Taker that got so close.

  “Sophie? Are you okay?”

  I realize I’ve left Deb in silence. “I’m . . . Deb, we need to be more careful. She’s—Gladys, that bird-looking lady. She’s out of her mind.”

  “Trust me, you don’t need to tell me that,” Deb says almost too quietly for me to hear. “She thinks she’s taking over, and honestly, she might be right. Dr. Keller, he’s losing it. I’ve heard them all talking about it. They don’t know who it is he’s trying to reach, trying to bring back. They don’t know all that we know. They have no idea her death sent him down this path, that finding a ghost is the only thing that’s kept him going all these years. Obsession is a strong motivator for sure.”

  We’re both silent for a minute, and then Deb’s comment makes me remember something the Pigeon said to me.

  “Deb?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Do you think we’re, I don’t know, like, cursed or something? Is that why we see the things we see?”

  Deb’s quiet for a minute, and then I hear some rustling before she says, “I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t hear the murmurings. I just remember being relieved it wasn’t my dad yelling for me. He used to . . . ” She trails off. “He was a really angry guy, you know? Me and my mom . . . ”

  Deb doesn’t finish, but I don’t need her to. I keep my mouth shut, not knowing what to say even if I could make the words come. Evan never mentioned this about his uncle. Maybe he didn’t know. It didn’t sound like his aunt and uncle were all that close to Evan’s parents, judging by the way they left town without a word after they sent Deb away.

  Deb starts talking again, but my brain is still working through the pain I feel on her behalf.

  “When I started seeing the shadows, I hated it, but I guess it didn’t surprise me much. I’d already seen some scary things. Then I came here, and for once I didn’t feel crazy. It’s hard to accept that your whole existence is a curse, you know?” she asks me, and I can’t seem to locate an answer.

  Deb has been in this place for longer than Nell and I combined. A lot longer. It should have occurred to me before now, but it didn’t. Maybe that was a reality too painful to form into a solid thought. But now my brain gnaws on the information like a bone.

  “Before I came here, I didn’t know anyone else like me,” she whispers.

  And there it is. That forced independence—a need to rely on only oneself. The spark that ignites people like Deb. Like Nell. And perhaps Adam. Maybe.

  But me? I’m not so sure.

  “But there’s more. Something I didn’t get a chance to tell you in the rec room,” Deb says after another long silence. She’s moved on, and out of respect, I fold up the conversation and stash it away in my brain. Or maybe I just don’t want to think about it anymore.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I found something. Well, someplace. Near my room. I’m pretty sure they’d kill me if they found out I knew about it. I didn’t get very far exploring, though. They should be taking us to the courtyard tomorrow. I’ll tell you more then. I’ve got to get back to my bed.”

  With that, her voice ceases. And silence follows.

  A slow ache creeps over my forehead, resting in my temples. My brain plays a reel-to-reel of the childhood I imagine Deb and Evan shared: They play “pretend” games, which were only pretend to Evan. I overlay the images with my memories of Nell, and the things I started to hear and see only after it was too late to tell her she was right, that she hadn’t imagined the voices, the vis
ions, and that she didn’t need to protect me from them anymore.

  Protection.

  I picture Evan’s arms, his strong body, shielding me from the Taker he hasn’t seen but believes is there. He believes me. If only I could tell him how close he was to finding Deb—how right he was to beg me not to come here alone. I would give anything to feel his arms around me now.

  My heart doesn’t stop racing all night. My restless sleep is tormented by nightmares of things rotting and blackened.

  22

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING ARRIVES TOO fast, which makes me even more irritated to see Robbie the orderly, who wheels my breakfast in on a rickety metal cart.

  “Bon appétit,” he taunts, leaving the tray on the bed and backing himself and the cart out the door—shutting me in.

  Today’s breakfast is nearly the same as other mornings, though it appears they’re experimenting with styles of eggs. Joining the bread (this time untoasted) and fruit cocktail are two glossy sunny-side-up eggs, staring at me like unblinking eyeballs. I take a few bites of the runny egg whites and swallow my fake pills, then eat the fruit from the syrup of the cocktail.

  I get more creative with the orange juice this time, breaking the yellow yolk in the eggs and smearing it on the plate, then pouring some of the juice in with the yellow paste. I sop up some of the mess with the untoasted bread, then pour some of the orange juice into the cocktail syrup. There’s still about a quarter of the glass left when I hear the pinging of the lock slip. Once again it’s Robbie, who immediately eyes the juice still left in my glass.

  “Down the hatch,” he orders, looking tired even though it’s first thing in the morning and the start of his shift. Something tells me Robbie hates this time of day more than anything. This happens to be my new favorite time of day, tormenting the only orderly I seem to have any effect on in this place.

  “I have to use the bathroom,” I say, and when he tightens his lips and crosses his hands over his chest, I obligingly dump the remainder of the orange juice into my mouth and slam the plastic cup back onto the tray,

  “You know the way. Make it quick,” he orders.

  I hustle to the end of the hallway and around the corner. The minute the bathroom door shuts behind me, I spit the juice into the toilet and flush just in time to hear the door open. The pucker-lipped orderly with the heavy ponytail looks me up and down as I emerge from the stall, cinching the drawstring on my pants to complete the ruse.

  I splash my hands under the sink and wipe the water on my pants while she nudges me down the hallway toward the the courtyard.

  It’s chilly outside this morning too, but I am focused on seeing Deb. Her revelation from the air vent kept me up half the night. Whatever it is she found could finally be a lead for getting the hell out of here. Between cycles of nightmares, my brain swirled with snippets of conversation from my session with Dr. Keller, trying to tie that with what Deb said about Susan’s missing bracelet. And for the first time in days, I reflected on entries from Adam’s blog.

  It takes something else, too. Some sort of object.

  Suddenly the significance of that statement takes on a new weight. I’m all but convinced Adam stole the bracelet from Dr. Keller before running away from Oakside with Nell. What I don’t know is why. That’s what I’m hoping Deb can help me figure out. Maybe that’s what she was trying to tell me yesterday.

  The pucker-lipped orderly deposits me in the courtyard and accepts a cigarette from Robbie’s pack before finding her place in the sun with a couple of other staffers. A quick scan of the space reveals I’m the only patient out here.

  I march up to Robbie. He’s the only one I think I have even a chance of getting an answer from.

  “Where’s Deb?” I ask, my voice shaking.

  “Who?” he asks.

  “She means her little friend. The mousy blonde with the googly eyes,” the pucker-lipped orderly says, the lines around her mouth deepening as she releases a crackling chuckle, which triggers a wet, phlegmy cough. I stifle my rage at seeing Pucker-Mouth laughing at Deb’s expense, and refocus my gaze on Robbie while the rest of them look at me like a specimen in a dish.

  “Do you know where she is?” I ask with as much humility as I can muster.

  But Robbie just shrugs and says, “Look, kid, they don’t tell me anything around here. I just bring you breakfast and make sure you drink the juice.”

  He receives a swift slap in his gut from Pucker-Mouth. Then she moves her stare to me, resting her eyes on mine as the lines return to her face, and her lips set in a deep frown.

  “Gladys says Dr. Keller doesn’t want you two spending so much time together anymore.”

  “Why not?” I ask, then remember one of the first things Deb told me. “Aren’t you interested in, you know, seeing if we can get anything to happen?”

  I say this while twinkling my fingers in the air, hoping I convey the possibility of some sort of magic, but I only receive a deeper frown in response.

  “Sweetie, if we want you guys to make something happen, trust me, we have ways,” she says, giving in to another phlegm-filled laughing/coughing fit.

  I back away and find the bench where I had my first face-to-face conversation with Deb. I pull my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them in the same way she sat. I tell myself over and over that she’s just in her room, that they’re not doing anything to her, that they only want to keep us apart. I am resolute in my attempt not to think about the bathroom with the mirrors where the Pigeon took me. I am resolute and unsuccessful.

  After the orderlies have finished their inane conversation and I’ve chilled myself to the bone in the shade of the building, Robbie guides me back to my room.

  “What are they doing to me today?” I ask him, a little of my former panic seeping back in. The thought of more drugs, more tests, more clipboards, makes me queasy all over again.

  He gives me the same tired look he gave me at breakfast and slams the door.

  I imagine that doesn’t sound as final as I think it does, and I slip underneath the scratchy covers, curling myself into a ball until the warmth returns to my body. I wait for what feels like hours—my heart speeding with each set of approaching footsteps and subsiding only when those footsteps continue past my door without stopping. Have they all made a pact to torment me today—to keep me guessing as to what they have in store?

  I can’t stop thinking about what they might be doing to Deb. Is it possible they figured out whatever secret she discovered?

  I’m pretty sure they’d kill me if they found out I knew about it.

  I slow my heart and hug my legs, seeking the warmth that just won’t seem to stay.

  After who knows how much time has passed, a set of squeaking shoes stops at my room, and a metal latch slips in its bolt, cracking the door open to reveal a tight bun.

  The Pigeon stares at me like I’m her dinner.

  “Time for a little recreation,” she says, and I slide obligingly from my cot and follow her out of the room, brushing fresh gooseflesh from my arms.

  The lobby is dim with the growing dusk, and my stomach drops like it does every time I see the sliding glass doors. Freedom is only feet away and totally unattainable.

  I turn to the Pigeon and immediately regret it. A slippery smile peels across her face, and I know she enjoys tormenting me. She likes taunting me with a glimpse of the parking lot, and the road that could lead me to a gas station, a neighboring house, a phone. To rescue.

  “Make yourself comfortable, dear,” she tells me, motioning toward the far corner of the room where Kenny used to sit. “There’s a whole bucket of Legos over there that no one’s using anymore.”

  A hot anger spills through me, and I clench my fists to keep my hands from shaking.

  I start walking to the opposite side of the room, when from the corner of my eye, I spot a blue-cotton-clad knee poking out behind the chair at the table where Kenny used to sit.

  “Deb? Oh my God!”

&n
bsp; I rush to her side and take inventory as quickly as possible. Deb’s lids droop over her downcast, glazed eyes. She sits cross-legged, slumped with her back to the wall. Her hair is stringy and loose around her slack face. A cotton ball is stuck to the inside of her elbow, pinched by a strip of white medical tape. Her hands are limp at her sides, palms upturned, fingers curled but loose and unable to grasp my hand when I try to hold hers. In her lap is a yellow bag of unopened peanut M&M’s.

  “What did you do to her?” I demand of the Pigeon, but she’s not paying attention to me.

  She strides to the pucker-mouthed orderly, who is settled behind the admitting desk with a magazine.

  “What is she doing here? Dr. Keller’s instructions could not have been clearer. You were to return her to her room immediately following her session.”

  The pucker-mouthed orderly leans away from the Pigeon and takes in Deb with one quick up-and-down evaluation, then turns back to the Pigeon.

  “Look at her! What do you think she’s capable of right now? Honestly, Gladys, you’re starting to get as nuts as he—”

  “You can stop right there,” the Pigeon warns, and Pucker-Mouth leans even farther away. “You forget your place. We wouldn’t want you saying anything that might get you a reprimand, now would we? I think we both know how sensitive Dr. Keller is these days to orderlies who betray his trust.”

  I take this opportunity to reach out to Deb again. I squeeze her hand to try to get her attention.

  “Deb, I know you’re in there. Whatever they did to you, you’ve fought against worse. Deb?”

  But it’s no use. Her mouth hangs slack, her dry lips parted on an unhinged jaw. A tiny trail of spittle slips from the corner of her mouth.

  “Deb, you just hang in there, okay?” I tell her, wiping the drool from her pant leg with the end of my shirt. But as I begin to blot away the moisture, I notice something rigid tucked into her sock.

  I glance over my shoulder. The Pigeon is still berating Pucker-Mouth. Turning back to Deb, I place myself in front of her and keep my hands out of view. Lifting her pant leg, I find a stiff rectangular card with a magnetic strip tucked deep into the folds of her scrunched socks. It’s identical to the cards I’ve watched the orderlies pull from cords on their belt loops and drag through readers on nearly every door here at Oakside. I search her eyes for any sort of hint about how she got it, but I receive only a dull stare in response. In one swift motion, I slide the keycard from her sock and into my own, covering it quickly with my pant leg.