by H. T. Night
“There’s a difference between action and reaction, Kevin,” Bruce advised. “That’s what you have to learn... how to tell the difference between the two.” He stood up and went to dump his tray. He was done talking to the impetuous teenager. But I was just getting started.
As it turned out, Kevin had landed himself a permanent residency at Fulton; life imprisonment in a mental institution for the murder of his father. Apparently, that’s what you earned in Georgia when you suddenly up and blew the brains out of the man who’d been abusing you for the last ten years of your life. Kevin had been given a lenient sentence from a progressive judge. Even so, he’d kinda been permanently flipped out after that… something I could completely relate to.
Chapter Ten
Over the next few weeks, Richard, Kevin, Bruce and I became fast friends. To me, we seemed like a pack; Richard, of course, loved that analogy. Bruce was the wise sage, Richard was the spy, Kevin was the enforcer and I was the planner. And boy, did I have a plan up my sleeve.
As a reward for my good... no, great... behavior, I’d been given more freedom around the hospital and with that freedom, came some nice perks. The computer lab was one of them. A couple hours were hardly enough time when the dial-up took a solid five minutes to connect to the Internet and the computers themselves belonged in the Ice Age. Yet, something was always better than nothing in my book.
Every day after lunch, Terry would come to my cell and escort me to the recreation wing of the facility. There was a game room, TV room, even a gym and an indoor basketball court. However, every day I chose to spend my free time in the computer lab.
Luckily, the guards here weren’t tech savvy. They didn’t let us have email, but they hadn’t removed the preloaded chat programs. I knew I was on borrowed time until they figured out we could chat outside the prison. Until then, I was going to chat up as many people as I could for my own sanity.
I trolled the chat rooms I used to visit in my spare time at work before that fateful night when Annie died. Before too long, I found someone to chat with. Cassandra Dalton was the heiress to her father’s St. Louis transportation empire. She was rich, bored and not easily impressed by much… but my story completely intrigued her. I was getting the sense she was falling in love with me. 1 needed to use this to my advantage.
As the days went by, we would talk more and more, going further in depth about vampirism, Annie’s death as it had been reported in the newspapers, and the events of my trial. Cassandra even found the day-to-day stuff that happened at the mental hospital interesting. It felt nice to be able to be honest with someone about who or what I was, and not have them try to change me or convince me that I was somehow demented.
About a week after we had first connected online, Cassandra asked me a jolting question.
“Do you ever have dreams of being on the outside, Fang?” she asked, calling me by my screen name. I’d thought ‘Fang’ sounded much better than ‘Bitey.’
“I haven’t thought about it much,” I typed, lying through my teeth. “I just thought the best thing right now would be to serve my time and let them rehabilitate me.”
“No! You can’t let that happen, no matter what. Don’t let them cheat you out of your identity, Fang. Trust me, that’s not something you should give up lightly,” she responded.
“What do you suggest, then?” I asked, leading her to the answer.
There was a long pause, and she seemed to be thinking hard about this…
“Maybe I should just pluck you right out of the exercise yard with my father’s helicopter,” she typed. I was shocked, but at the same time, I felt triumphant. The final piece of the puzzle might just have peeked out from under the pile. “I’ve been trying to learn how to fly that thing for about a month now. It would be so exciting to put it to use.”
I didn’t take the obvious opportunity to instigate any wayward thoughts in Cassandra’s mind; I simply didn’t stop her train of thought. I let her imagination take her where she wanted to go and imagine anything she wanted to about me and the many possibilities of what could happen between us if I were to be on the other side of the fence at Fulton.
Don came and knocked on the computer room door to signal my free time was coming to an end. I was due in the kitchen where I worked as a steward, arranging the food trays and plastic cutlery for dinnertime in the cafeteria.
“I have to go. It’s time for cafeteria duty,” I typed quickly.
I shut the AOL chat window and powered down the computer before Cassandra could send her response. I felt the conversation should be left exactly where it was. If she was being serious, she would have to think about what she was willing to do to help me escape from here, and that decision would have to be made on her own.
I really hope she is being serious.
Chapter Eleven
From my cell, I heard Terry’s rubber soles roaming up and down the halls.
Coming up on six in the morning, I prepared for our daily wake-up call. Once I’d stopped lamenting the situation I was in at Fulton and the theft of my canines, I’d become more aware of the schedule of the place and allowed myself to settle in for the ride. After all, I wasn’t planning on being on that ride for as long as everyone believed.
Terry and Don were talking loudly in the hallway and I could pretty much make out every word they were saying.
“Don’t shush me, Terry. What does it matter if these freaks hear what I’m saying anyway?” Don replied defiantly.
“He’s been behaving himself well these last few weeks. Becoming rehabilitated and following the rules. What would be the use in riling him up again?”
Obviously, they were talking about me. I moved close to the solid metal door and strained my ears to hear what they said next.
“If I’m lucky, he might give me a reason to have some fun with him… I just find it hilarious that his precious teeth ended up in a sideshow exhibit of urban legends.”
“It’s an occult exhibit, numbskull.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Terry sighed and lowered his voice some more. “What doesn’t matter is why they sent his teeth to L.A. They’re not evidence and they aren’t anyone’s property anymore. The director can do with them as he sees fit.”
What I heard left me in shock. Dr. Redfield had sent my fangs to Los Angeles? What in the hell for?
The two men stopped in front of Richard’s cell next door. I quietly slid back onto my mattress, rolled over on my stomach and pretended to be asleep. Just in time, too. Don banged on my cell door with his nightstick and slid the slot open.
“Time to wake up, Bitey!” he said with a smile in his voice.
“Okay, asshole,” I mumbled under my breath.
For the rest of the morning, Don and Terry’s conversation played over and over in my head. An occult exhibit in Los Angeles. How would Redfield even know where to start looking for a buyer for something as oddball as overly long human canine teeth? And why would he think he had the right to sell my teeth anyway? Something seemed fishy about the whole deal and I decided to do some checking of my own.
That afternoon, instead of logging in to the chat room to talk to Cassandra, I pulled up Lycos.com. In the search field, I typed: “occult exhibitions.” There were a few results, but nothing showed up in the Los Angeles area. Pondering where to look next, I changed my search to: “occult organizations.” Perhaps the two clods were mistaken, and my teeth had been sold to a research facility or something similar.
That was when I struck gold… an article with a caption of, ‘Secret lodge at center of murder investigation: Victim’s former employer refuses to comment.’ I read as much as I could, as quickly as I could, all the while trying to retain as much of the information as possible.
As I read the article, I suddenly recalled Bruce saying something about how Don’s father had worked at Fulton before him and that something had ‘got’ him real good, just outside the gates of the institution. As far as I knew, Clive could have been ‘got
’ by anything out there; apart from the one-acre field that ran along the south side of the hospital, the place was surrounded by woods. Thick woods. He could have been attacked by anything from a bear to a wolf… or some other wild animal. Even so, some of the investigators in the case and Bruce weren’t convinced that Clive’s death had been caused by an animal attack—at least not from any critter native to the area.
Time to find out what happened and why.
Chapter Twelve
It took me another few days, but I managed to piece together the details of Clive’s death and the surrounding circumstances. Interestingly, Dr. Redfield’s name came up online in connection with an organization known as the Darkened Door Lodge. The lodge was described as a sort of social club for influential gentlemen in the area, but something about it seemed sinister. I mean, the name was Darkened Door. They weren’t exactly hiding their intentions by giving their lodge that moniker.
As it turned out, Viktor Redfield was the son of an Eastern European who’d defected to the United States in the midst of the Cold War. Viktor’s father had been recruited by the government to help medical researchers develop antidotes for various chemical weapons. When the Cold War ended, Viktor’s father was reassigned to a research facility in Missouri—a mere twenty-five miles from the Fulton Institute.
Viktor’s father was recruited by the Darkened Door Lodge in Missouri and was said to be advising them on the history of paranormal and supernatural beings. Quite the expert on the occult, he assisted the lodge in procuring an extensive and priceless collection of artifacts connected to the occult and the black arts. Books, medallions, scrolls and paintings were loaned by the lodge to exhibitions all over the world or sold at auction for ridiculous profits. The organization soon grew wealthy and powerful, which brought them under suspicion from a few government agencies. A new generation of members, under the influence of popular literary works and investigations, had formed a small militia group... hunters, whose mission was to identify any existing paranormal or supernatural beings and capture or kill them.
Among the listed members of this new generation of devotees were Clive and Don Killian. And as I looked further down the list, there was Viktor Redfield.
I was able to speak to Cassandra at the end of my computer session. It sounded like she was a go with the escape plans. I wasn’t sure how she was going to pull it off.
I just needed her to do it.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’ve been talking about this crazy scheme for a week, Aaron,” Bruce whispered over the table. “Some things are better left as they are, and all our asses patiently doing our time at Fulton definitely ought to be one of those things.”
“What the hell are you scared of, Bruce?” I was seriously sick of his ‘put your head down and become institutionalized’ bullshit. Kevin was also losing his patience, and dealing with an aggravated Kevin was a bad idea. “The plan’s finally ready. I want all of you to come with me.”
“I’ll take my chances on the inside, thank you very much!” Bruce stood up to return his breakfast tray.
Suddenly, Kevin grabbed a hold of his hand. “Sit down, old-timer! Shut up and listen to what the vampire has to say... or else!”
Bruce slowly took his seat again. “Let’s hear it, Aaron. Make it quick. You’re cutting into my drawing time.”
I smiled at my three friends and took a quick look around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on us. Satisfied that we were ignored, I focused on my little pack of escapees and started going through the plan. Everyone had their role; everyone had a function to fulfill before, during, and after. I played to each man’s strengths and abilities while taking into consideration their various weaknesses. Every step was timed for precision. When I finished, Bruce sat back and smiled.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. It was a lot for anyone to process, with plenty to be done over the next two days in preparation. Still, what I had already managed to put in place gave us a nice head start.
“A helicopter?” Richard couldn’t believe I hadn’t used any vampire voodoo magic mind-control spell on Cassandra to convince her to bring a helicopter for the escape.
She’d volunteered the service, agreeing I should be free from Fulton Institution ahead of the legally recommended schedule. It just so happened that I’d decided my friends deserved the same shot.
“Yeah, dude,” I confirmed. “But remember, it’s like I said. If any of you don’t want to do it, I’m not here to twist anyone’s arm. At the end of the day, it’s your life. If you don’t want to spend it running from the law, I can respect that. But for me, I’d rather be free and on the run than cooped up in a cage for years to come.”
“Hey, I’m with you, man,” Kevin said. “I don’t want to spend another waking moment in this place. I would kill any motherfucker who would try to bring me back here.”
I winced internally at Kevin’s comment, though he would come in useful if things went south. Seeing Bruce’s and Richard’s broad grins spreading across their faces made up for it.
“You know I’m in, dude. There’s a whole forest out there. No way can they find me, once you set me loose,” Richard said.
“I never thought I’d say this in my lifetime, but I’m tired of doing nothing, man. I don’t care if this is the last thing I ever do while I live and breathe, it’s worth the chance of freedom,” Bruce said, to my great relief. His artistic skills would be crucial for the big distraction to buy us enough time to escape to the yard and board the helicopter. “My only thing is navigating the forest out there. You have a plan for where you are gonna land that bird? You can let Richard off in Fort Leonard Wood all you want to; I ain’t going in there.”
“What’s wrong with the forest?” Richard asked warily.
“Bruce has this idea that it’s a ‘thing’ getting people out there,” I replied sarcastically.
“It’s no joke. Just ask Don what happened to his dad outside the Fulton gates five years ago.”
“What happened?” Kevin seemed genuinely curious.
“Something tore Clive Killian to shreds and dragged what was left of his body up into a thirty-foot poplar tree,” I replied, when Bruce refused to discuss it. “I’ve done my research.”
The others looked to Bruce for confirmation, to which he nodded.
“That was one of the contributing factors to why I escalated this escape plan. It seems our hospital director and Don are members of a secret society that deals heavily in the occult. Don’s dear old dad was a member too. I suspect Clive was some sort of hunter and was going after someone or something that Redfield had tried to keep contained here, but it escaped and killed Clive when he tried to recapture it.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Aaron?” Kevin eyed me disgustedly. “I mean it’s all well and good that you think you’re a vampire and Richard here thinks he’s a werewolf.”
“I do not think I’m a werewolf. I told these people I believe they exist, but never that I’m one of them! I’ve seen them… vampires, too.”
“Shut up, Richard!” Kevin snapped.
“Hey, now. Come on, guys. We’re not going to be going at each other’s throats. We’re together in this, and no one at this table is your enemy... they are.” I pointed over my shoulder in the guards’ general direction.
“Well, just listen to this ‘old-timer’ for a minute,” said Bruce. “You think it’s a coincidence that almost every case that comes in here seems to be somehow connected to something of that nature? Aaron identifies with vampires; Richard saw werewolves and vampires in a turf war in the Anaheim Hills. They’re all the way from California; what kind of jurisdiction does a Missouri mental institution have over them? Neither of their cases were federal, and this isn’t a federal institution. Strings were pulled to gather them all here. Kevin, you’re from Georgia; what the hell are you doing here? I’m the only local boy in this wing, as far as I know.”
“Well, if Redfield is collecting rare cases, what’s tha
t have to do with us?” Kevin asked. “We’re average joes, right, Bruce?”
“Not exactly. When I was put in here, people thought I was predicting the future in my drawings,” he replied. “Maybe I was. I don’t know… I was working the fair circuit, drawing portraits and caricatures and stuff. A couple times, I sat down to do a picture and I drew the person in an unfamiliar place or landscape. Townsfolk said the images I drew came true.” He looked down at his broken hands. “As for you, Kevin, are you familiar with Frankenstein’s monster? How about the Incredible Hulk? Your rage gives you superhuman strength. What sinister organization wouldn’t want that at their disposal?”
“When you put it that way, it makes sense there could be more going on here than meets the eye,” Kevin conceded.
“That’s all I want you to be aware of, all of you,” Bruce said. “The whole picture is never easy to plainly see; sometimes, you need to look beneath the surface in order to see the whole story.”
“Fair enough,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand. “When we leave here in the chopper, we’ll be headed deep into a forest reserve southeast of here. As long as they don’t have air support and we move fast enough to lose anybody on the ground, they’ll never catch us. Cassandra has made some excellent arrangements.”
Chapter Fourteen
As the day of the escape grew closer, I rescheduled the day with Cassandra, once we found out some important information regarding Don, Terry and Dr. Redfield.
Don and Terry were scheduled to escort Dr. Redfield to the airport, where he was catching a flight to St. Louis and then going on to Los Angeles. This meant our three most formidable opponents at Fulton were going to be gone for at least two hours, come seven-thirty a.m. Breakfast was at eight, so it would be the perfect timing for us to eat, take over the place, and be on the chopper and gone before Don and Terry could make it back to the hospital. Cassandra needed to be on time, since by her own admission, she was more than a little iffy flying the damned thing.