Stanhope shook his head. “Not really,” he replied. “My guess is I probably managed about fifty-fifty but ...” he looked at his watch and then at the darkening landscape outside “... it’s getting late, I’m getting tired, and despite having been here for hours we still haven’t started work on the real reason I came.”
“Oh, but we have,” said Parrish, almost under his breath, “you just haven’t realized it yet.”
“What do you mean?”
Parrish opened the left-hand drawer of his desk and removed a heavy bunch of keys. “Come and see some of the patients. It’ll help you understand what we’ve been doing here, and I think you’ll get a lot out of it, especially now that you’ve had a chance to hear many of their stories.” He held up a hand as Stanhope began to protest. “I promise I will answer all your questions once we are upstairs. I just want you to get the full picture.” He pointed at the machine Stanhope had long since put aside during the lengthy afternoon. “Don’t forget your little tape-recorder.”
“So you’re saying that every story you’ve presented to me is true?” said Stanhope, getting to his feet and preparing to follow the doctor. At least it would get him out of this room, he thought, as the blood began to crawl back into his legs.
“You’ll find out - all in good time,” said Parrish as he opened the door to his office. He paused for a moment, his hand resting on the ornate brass doorknob. “One last question, Mr Stanhope, if you don’t mind?”
Stanhope shrugged and gave Dr Parrish the resigned look of one who has been bested. “Go on then,” he said.
“Would you consider yourself a sane man?”
A chill gripped Stanhope as he considered how best to answer, the nagging, worrying feeling that had begun at some point while he had been trying to pay attention to all those damned stories now starting to pick at him in earnest. Was this why he had been brought here? He looked at the empty cups on the desk. Had the tea been drugged? He looked through the window. Near-pitch darkness stared back. Was any of this actually happening? He looked at the doctor, calmly awaiting an answer.
Was he, Robert Stanhope, actually already a patient here? And his life outside this place - his job, his past, his marriage, his family - was that all make-believe? Was that what Parrish had been trying to get him to realize in this session, a session which had not been an interview at all but a consultation? Perhaps the most recent of many?
All this occurred to Robert Stanhope in the seconds it took him to answer. Parrish’s expression gave him no clues, but then, thought Stanhope, it wouldn’t, would it? He pulled himself together, licked his lips and said, with all the confidence he could muster, “Yes. Yes I would.”
Parrish nodded thoughtfully before giving Stanhope a smile that made all of the journalist’s concerns melt away. “Good!” replied the doctor. “I think so, too. Follow me.”
~ * ~
They reached the upper floor via a narrow staircase with heavy security doors at both top and bottom.
“There is a main staircase,” Parrish explained as he went through the ritual of ensuring each door had been re-locked after they had passed through it, “but it’s actually quicker if we go this way.”
The corridor Stanhope found himself in was poorly lit and, as it stretched away into the darkness, he could just make out doors set into its walls at regular intervals.
“Are your patients afraid of the light?” he asked.
“No,” replied Parrish, “not the light. The lack of bulbs is just a consequence of government spending cuts, I’m afraid - something I would be very grateful if you could note in your article. You’ll soon get used to it.”
Stanhope stayed close behind Parrish as they made their way down the passage. There were cracks in the walls, and Stanhope found that if he stared at them for more than a few seconds he could almost imagine them moving, as if they were the tendrils of some black and terrible organism that had taken root in this building and was now trying to ensnare him, too. In the distance he could hear dripping and, when he looked up, the plaster above him seemed to shine with an unnatural dampness. Stanhope tried to suppress a shiver, but it did not go unnoticed.
“Sorry if it’s a bit chilly in here,” said Parrish, “but there’s not long to go now. I thought it best if we all met in the theatre.”
“I beg your pardon?” Stanhope’s voice echoed briefly before the sound was swallowed up by the damp blackness that surrounded him.
“The theatre,” said the now almost-invisible shape in front of him. “One of the ways in which we try to provide the residents with something to pass the long hours here.”
Despite the gloom, Stanhope could now see that they were close to the end of the corridor. It ended in a heavy iron door, featureless except for the steel rivets around its border and the heavy locks that held it shut. He also realized that what little illumination there was in the corridor was coming from the strip of white light beneath it. He tried to shut out thoughts that the light might be the only thing that had ever managed to escape from the room he was about to enter.
“Nearly there,” said Parrish as he reached for his keys,
“Thank God for that,” said Stanhope as the door was opened and his eyes were hit by a blinding white light. As he shielded them, his throat felt the prick of a needle.
~ * ~
It was blinding light that was the last thing Stanhope remembered before unconsciousness, and it was blinding light that was the first thing he saw when he awoke. It took him a little longer to appreciate that he was lying on a hard surface and, as his eyes began to adjust, he realized he was staring at a white-painted vaulted ceiling high above him.
He was also unable to move.
From his right came a rustling noise like the autumn wind disturbing a heap of leaves piled in the hospital grounds, or perhaps a cascade of water down brittle stone.
Or an audience in the stages of preparing to watch a performance.
“Ah, you’re awake!” said a familiar voice. “Excellent!”
The rustling noise settled down as the face of Dr Lionel Parrish came into view. “I’m sorry about all that, but it really was the easiest and most painless way to get you ready,” he said with a smile.
Stanhope tried to speak. The words eventually came out as a croak. “Ready for what?” he said.
“Ready for my interview of course!” said Parrish. “Well, my interview-cum-demonstration. I said it was time for you to meet the patients, and here they are.”
At that Parrish depressed the pedal beneath the table on which his charge was lying and tilted it so that Stanhope was now at a forty-five degree angle and could look around him.
It took him a little while to take in his surroundings.
On the wall to his far left was a blackboard on which a number of anatomical diagrams had been drawn, the blood vessels, nerves and lymphatics accurately depicted using a number of different shades of coloured chalk. Between the blackboard and where he was lying were two stainless-steel tables on which had been arranged a number of surgical instruments. Some were clean, bright and sparkling in the glare of the light. Others had obviously been used before and not been cleaned properly.
Stanhope gave an involuntary gasp, which in turn elicited a response from the other side of the room.
Stanhope turned his head the other way, and saw the patients.
There must have been close to a hundred of them, all sitting patiently, all obviously eager for whatever was about to happen. The banked seating that went back as far as he could see reminded him of a Roman coliseum.
He looked back at Parrish. “What is this?” he said.
“Exactly what I told you,” said Parrish. “A theatre. Of course it’s an operating theatre rather than the kind I probably led you to think it was, but in a way I wasn’t really lying. In the days of the real Dr Parrish it really was a playhouse for us.” He looked around him, eyes misty with nostalgic reminiscence. “We did quite
a few of the greats here, you know. Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest.”Then his eyes were on Stanhope again. “I played Prospero in that one.”
Stanhope frowned. “What do you mean, ‘the real Dr Parrish’?” he asked. “Who are you, then?”
The man standing over him frowned. “I’m afraid I have a little bit of trouble remembering that,” he said. “But I know I’m not Dr Parrish because he’s gone. That’s why I had to take over. I mean, these poor people,” he gestured at the audience, “they had no one to look after them after he killed himself.”
“But what about the other doctors here?” Stanhope knew he should be feeling fear now, but his over-riding emotion was one of anger. Anger that he had trusted this man; anger that he had wasted all that time downstairs and hadn’t even realized he was talking to an impostor; and most of all anger that he had let himself be tricked in such a ridiculous way.
“They didn’t understand,” said his captor. “When I found him ... it was my consultation period, and we had reached an understanding that within these walls we would very much respect each other as equals. One of my few privileges was to be able to come down from my room to his office unassisted, if you see what I mean. I remember that day so well, finding his body slumped over that lovely desk where you and I have been having such a nice chat, the blood from his slashed throat still soaking into the newspapers.” Now his expression hardened. “The newspapers with your stories in them.”
“A few news stories, most of which weren’t even about this place, shouldn’t have been enough to drive someone to suicide,” Stanhope sneered.
“Not on their own, no,” agreed his captor, “you’re probably right. But Dr Parrish had been under a lot of strain recently and, well, I’m not really the right person to comment about that. You see, I’ve never really believed that diseases of the mind can be treated with talking and chatting and prolonged procrastinations over this drug or that drug and this dose or that dose. I’ve always believed in a rather more direct approach to such problems.”
Something in the way the man’s tone had changed during his little speech suddenly brought it home to Stanhope that he might not be making it out of wherever he was alive. “Where are the other doctors?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper now.
“We put them away,” was the reply. “Once we realized they didn’t have our best interests at heart.”The man who had claimed to be Dr Lionel Parrish pulled on a pair of surgical gloves as he continued. “I told you when you arrived that there were no psychiatrists upstairs, and now I hope you understand how honest I was being with you.” He gave Stanhope a broad smile. “There are none downstairs either.”
“So you’re not even a doctor?”
Stanhope’s captor looked indignant. “I most certainly am, Mr Stanhope. In fact for many years I was the very finest neurosurgeon in my field. You might even say that I was a star. That is, until my research, and the methods by which I obtained my results, turned out to be too unpalatable for the general public at large, and the General Medical Council in particular.”
“Neurosurgery?” Stanhope croaked.
The man nodded. “I was very good at it, too. Very good indeed. And I still am.” He leaned closer. “For example, I imagine you are in no pain at all at the moment, are you?”
Stanhope felt a gnawing horror squeeze his insides. What had this man already done to him?
“I can see what’s going through your mind,” said the surgeon, nodding, “so perhaps I had better show you.” He picked up a large oblong of silvered glass that had been lying next to one of the instrument trolleys. “There’s a mirror behind your head, so if I hold this one up in front of you, you should be able to see how we’ve progressed so far, thanks to the miracle of local anaesthesia. And of course my skill in applying it.”
But Stanhope was no longer listening. Instead he was staring in horror at his shaved head, at the way in which his scalp had been incised and dissected off his skull, the flaps of tissue pinned back to expose the bone beneath.
Some of which had been removed.
Tears of shock, terror, and desperation filled Stanhope’s eyes as he viewed his own exposed brain in the glass.
“As I said, Mr Stanhope,” said the surgeon with a chuckle, “I can literally see what’s going through your mind. What’s wonderful is that soon my patients will be able to enjoy the benefits of your thoughts as well.”
Stanhope blinked away the wetness and coughed at the tears that were already tickling the back of his throat. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Just a theory of mine,” said the surgeon, indicating the audience to Stanhope’s right with a sweeping gesture. “The patients in this room can all walk, talk, and look after themselves. Many of them are capable of holding highly intelligent conversations on science, literature, religion, politics. The only thing that’s really wrong with most of them is that a tiny part of their brain doesn’t work properly, a tiny malfunctioning area resulting in psychotic impulses that have caused them to end up here.”
He walked over to the nearer of the two stainless-steel tables and selected a pair of fine forceps with serrated teeth at the tips, and a scalpel with a small pointed blade. “That’s where you come in, Mr Stanhope. You are going to give each of my patients here a little piece of your brain - a little piece of your sanity, if you like. Now please don’t protest, not after doing so well in that little examination I set you. I may as well tell you now that you got all of the questions right.”The surgeon paused. “At least, I think you did.” Now he sounded a little unsure. “I must admit I do get confused sometimes, but you certainly acquitted yourself admirably, and your answers felt right, which at the end of the day is all that matters.”
His confidence returning, the surgeon took a step forward, the instruments held high, as the man bound to the table began to struggle. “Come come, Mr Stanhope, there’s no need to be upset,” he said. “After all, you did get your interview, didn’t you? You got to find out all about me and what’s really going on in here, and how I propose to do the very best I can for the patients in my care.”
The surgeon looked up at his audience, members of which were already getting to their feet in eager anticipation. He addressed them in the authoritative tones of someone used to being obeyed without question. “I would be grateful, ladies and gentlemen, if you would form an orderly queue down the left-hand aisle. There’s no need to rush. Everyone will receive their treatment in due course.”
Stanhope could hear the shuffling as the patients made their way towards him, forming a line the way schoolchildren might to receive a vaccination. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the nearest was only feet away, close enough for him to be able to make out the hole that had been drilled in the man’s skull. It was just above the bridge of the nose - an empty black socket that stared at him with a voracious, all-consuming hunger for his sanity.
“I’ve always prided myself on having my patients well prepared,” said the surgeon as he came closer, knife at the ready, forceps poised to take the first tiny piece of Stanhope away from him.
The man bound to the table could think of nothing more to say and nothing more to do. So he did what any sane man in his situation would.
He screamed.
It lasted a very long time.
<
~ * ~
CASE NOTES
ROBERT BLOCH (1917-94) was born in Chicago and later moved to Los Angeles, California, where he worked as a scriptwriter in movies and television. His interest in the pulp magazine Weird Tales led to a correspondence with author H. P. Lovecraft, who advised him to try his own hand at writing fiction. The rest, as they say, is history.
Despite having published more than two dozen novels and over 400 short stories, he will always be identified with his 1959 book Psycho and Alfred Hitchcock’s subsequent film version. His many novels and collections include The Opener of the Way, Pleasant Dreams, Yours Truly, Jack the Rip
per: Tales of Horror, Atoms and Evil, The Skull of the Marquis de Sade and Other Stories, Fear Today Gone Tomorrow, American Gothic, Strange Eons, Such Stuff As Screams Are Made Of, Psycho IT, Lori, Psycho House, The Jekyll Legacy (with Andre Norton) and The Early Fears.
In his 1993 “Unauthorized Autobiography”, Once Around the Block, he explained about writing “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”: “There was nothing particularly unusual about this story’s composition ... it was just more product of the second-hand typewriter mounted on the second-hand card table in a corner of our one-room apartment, as well as a product of my interest in those whose lives were overshadowed by the looming of their own legends.
“The real-life Ripper had captured the imagination of millions, but he himself had never been caught, or even accurately identified. Bringing the Ripper into modern time and using an American city as a new setting for his successfully unsuccessful operations required the addition of a supernatural rationale which I had no difficulty supplying. And which others since then, I might add, have had no difficulty borrowing for their own.
Psychomania: Killer Stories Page 60