He winced and threw the comic down on the desk with a sharp thud.
He didn’t need to check to see who was responsible. This wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to take action against the resident of Cell 27. When he had first arrived at Briarcliff, the instructions were to just keep him for observation, in Section A. But whatever doctor had given those instructions obviously hadn’t spent much time assessing this patient. In a matter of days, he’d caused so much trouble with both the other patients and the orderlies that they had one of the local MD’s change his designation. No one bothered to check with the doctor responsible for his incarceration; they were afraid he might override their decision. They just moved him to Section F, where he became Atkins’ problem for almost twelve hours a day, and for his relief man Wilson the other twelve.
According to reports from Wilson, the man in Cell 27 appeared not to sleep at all. His wailing screeches caused havoc with the other patients as often in the night as they did in the day.
And here he was again.
“Ah, Bloody Hell!” Atkins moaned, as he levered himself up and headed down the hall. He passed a number of locked doors, left and right, but his gaze was fixed, straight and narrow. He was not a man to borrow trouble, and that’s what looking into the windows of those tiny cells always meant: trouble.
As he approached Cell 27, the unseen patient’s shrieking descended into a constant, liquid babbling that echoed down the long hallway. Atkins still lumbered forward, his breathing forced, and as he went he muttered, “I swear to Christ, if that nutta doesn’t shut the hell up I’m going to shut him up myself, permanently.”
He paused outside the door to Cell 27 and glared at the name tag next to the lock: Babbitt, B. The babbling was behind it: a single muffled voice with a Cockney accent, talking and pausing, half a conversation.
“No! I can’t do that. The Reveren’ made me promise I’d be good.” Babbitt screamed out. “NO! NOOOO! I WON’T LISTEN!”
Atkins hurriedly fumbled with a huge ring of keys. As always, when he was in a hurry, he could never find the one he wanted. After checking out a number of possibilities, he came up with the right one.
He cringed one last time, as Babbitt wailed like a wounded banshee. Then he slid the key into the lock and turned it the required three times. This security concept, Atkins figured, was most certainly dreamed up by some university graduate who had never had to actually use the thing he’d invented.
Finally, Atkins opened the door ... and entered.
The room was basically four walls and a lightly padded floor. It’s all a maniac like this bird deserves, Atkins thought, as his eyes slowly became accustomed to the dimly lit cell.
Brendan Babbitt stood at the far end of the narrow room, faced away. His curly black hair jutted out in all directions, as if he’d been constantly tugging on it. His arms tightly hugged his painfully thin body and he rocked back and forth in place. He didn’t notice Atkins enter; he was deeply immersed in his conversation with … no one – at least there was no one else in the room.
Nuttier than a fruit cake, just like all of them, Atkins thought. Hell! If he’d just keep it down, and talk to his invisible friend in soft murmurs like most of the other patients, I wouldn’t mind the fact that he’s crazy.
“Y’know I don’t want ta be ‘ere. But I promised t’be good.” Babbitt seemed to be caught in turmoil, not wanting to give in to whatever his unseen visitor was suggesting. He cocked his head to one side. He listened carefully. “I couldn’t do that, anyway. It’s locked.” Then he frowned, angry now. “Just leave me alone.”
Still without turning, he suddenly slammed both his hands over his ears and squeezed them tight, trying to block out the noise in his head.
“No! No no no–”
Atkins had had enough. “Oy! Bren-dah! What’s all this rubbish?” He purposefully emphasized his twisting of Babbitt’s name. He liked to piss this one off whenever he could.
Babbitt froze in place. His hands slowly dropped to his side. He stopped rocking and turned. He didn’t answer. Instead, he wiped his hooked nose with the back of his left arm, then clenched the long sculpted fingers of both hands into fists and just glared at Atkins.
Atkins drove his closed right fist into his chubby left palm with a loud fleshy slap. In his mind, he owned the place. “Who are you talking to, Bren-dah?”
He stepped closer, each word punctuated with another slap of his fist.
Babbitt smiled, not afraid. His tone was deathly, chilling. “I’ve bin talkin’ t’ me friend. Me only friend. ‘e just ‘elped me t’ understand. I thought the reveren’ was me friend, but he sent me ‘ere.” He looked at a spot near the roof of the cell; listening. “So ‘e ain’t me friend, is ‘e?” He shook his head, finally agreeing with whatever it was he was hearing. “So I don’t ‘ave to keep me word.”
He turned and glared at Atkins. “I don’t ‘ave t’ let this bleedin’ git scare me anymore.”
Atkins didn’t like where this seemed to be heading. He glanced quickly at the door, thinking he might want to get the bloody hell out of Cell 27 and come back with some help.
But Babbitt stepped to his right, effectively cutting off any escape.
The move didn’t scare Atkins. It just pissed him off. What the hell am I thinking, here, he told himself. I’m the guard. He’s the damned prisoner.
“Don’t start getting’ crazy ideas, Bren-dah. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.” With each statement Atkins drove his fist harder into his palm.
But the docile Babbitt was gone. He actually stepped closer to Atkins. His words clear, calculated … and definitely not Babbitt’s. There was an almost metallic overtone to the perfectly sounded British accent; there was no hint of the Cockney Babbitt now.
“It’s Brendan, you moron.” The words hissed. “B-r-e-n-d-a-n.” Babbitt lifted one hand, still clenched in a fist, as if he was holding a secret in the palm of his hand. “It’s always been Brendan.”
Atkins found himself mildly amazed. This was usually a pretty easy deal: he’d threaten violence; once in a while he’d he have to actually wallop Brendan a couple of sharp rights to the head; then it was over. Crazy as he was, Brendan was smart enough to know not to resist. But the weird voice thing sent an unexplained chill down Atkins’ spine.
Still, he shook it off. I’ll figure out that trick later on.
Atkins smiled. He thought only of the punishment he could inflict. Forget the rest. And I ain’t gonna feel bad about givin’ this upstart a whooping.
He took a step closer. His anger rose with every word. “Oh, really? Bren-dah seems to be feeling a little big for her britches today. We’ll just have to kick up the meds, won’t we? Gotta keep you manageable, don’t we? Gotta keep you pliable.”
Babbitt shook his head – very slowly, very decisively. “No. No, we won’t.”
Atkins leaned forward, mocking astonishment. “What’s that then? What did you say to me?”
“I said you won’t touch me,” the perfect British accent stated. “Ever again.”
Atkins tried to bluster, but something about this was seriously off. He was suddenly concerned. “You just … just step back into that corner, there, Brendan, and we’ll sort this–”
Babbitt ignored him and took a step forward.
“–I’m goin’ t’ set ya a’fire, Mr. Atkins.” His Cockney accent was abruptly back.
“You’re what?”
“I’m goin’ t’ burn ya. From the inside out.”
Babbitt took another step forward, but Atkins was unimpressed by this approach. He glanced around the barren cell, grinning as he did. “What, you hide away a couple of kitchen matches? Somebody give you a Bic? You’re not gonna do nothin’–”
“–With this, Mr. Atkins.” Babbitt cut him off and snapped up a hand and hung it in front of Atkins’ face. “Just this. I’m gonna put me ‘and on y’ ‘ead and think o’ me special friend, and – poosh! – ya tiny little brain will fry lik
e an egg.”
Atkins stopped grinning. He was truly rattled now. But he held his ground, defiant; once a bully, always a bully. It had never failed him before.
“Y… you are out of your friggin–”
Babbitt reached forward and seized Atkins by the forehead, clamping down on his skull. The instant he touched the orderly, the room filled with a bizarre sizzling sound.
“Feel that, Mr. Atkins?” Babbitt danced in one spot, his excitement mounting.
Atkins cried out. He tried to reach Babbitt, to push him away, but he couldn’t.
“Feel ya brain cells meltin’ t’gether?”
Atkins tried his usual approach. “Let me, go! Let me go, goddamn you, or I’ll beat the shit–”
“Feels like y’ead’s on fire, dunnit? It’s not really, though. Really, it’s just ya cerebral tissue vaporizin’.”
Atkins voice was suddenly a guttural groan. He lost it, crying out in pain. “It ... gah, it ... gahhh...”
The orderly’s head erupted in blue flame with an almost whispering whoomp, like a fiercely burning gas jet. His features were now buried in blue fire, a gaping mask. Only his rolling eyes and thrusting tongue were visible.
“D’ya see it now, Mr. Atkins? D’ya see it?”
Atkins screamed – a long, loud, aching bellow – and fell to the ground like a sack of rice. The instant he lost contact with Babbitt’s hand, the fire winked out.
Babbitt stood over Atkins’ corpse, still smiling, his hand curled into a claw and trembling just a little.
“An’ d’ya know what the best part is, Mr. Atkins? Them stupid git doctors will probably diagnose it as a stroke.”
Wild-eyed, Babbitt licked the corner of his mouth like some wild feral animal. Then he did it again ... and again. “Y’re a good candidate, y’are: middle-aged, overweight, a smoker. Lots a bad ‘abits that can ‘urt ya. It will look like ya just opened the door t’ me room ‘ere and bang!”
Babbitt shoved at the body with the toe of his shoe.
“Pop!”
Atkins was clearly dead, his head twisted one way, his legs twisted another. A wisp of steam curled from his mouth.
“Boom!”
“Ya dead.”
With a shudder, Babbitt straightened his shoulders and fastidiously smoothed his shirt. Then he stepped over Atkins body and sauntered out of the room, in no hurry at all.
*******
A short time later, Norm Wilson, the night shift orderly, casually approached the featureless north side of the Section F building. As usual, he’d had a meal at what was laughingly called the Briarcliff Mess Hall, a small kitchen and dining area inside the walls of the Facility. It was usually pretty bad, but it was hot and it was free, so he’d learned not to expect much. He strolled alongside the dirty brown structure, just as he had more times that he wished to remember. As usual, all was still. Silent. Nothing moved. Nothing appeared abnormal.
But as he rounded the corner of the building and saw the huge Security Door to Section F, he stopped, astonished. It was wide open, hanging uselessly off its hinges. There were deep scorch-marks all along one side that seemed to be burned deep into the solid metal. Threaded into these charred grooves were flecks of a strange almost neon-green substance, not immediately recognizable.
Wilson glanced frantically about, desperate to make sure whoever or whatever had done this was nowhere near. Then he backed away from the open door and grabbed a small beige electronic device from the top pocket of his white uniform jacket.
Bare seconds after he activated a red button on the device, a loud mournful siren’s wail ripped through the quiet. It rose in volume, louder and louder.
So loud, in fact, that Brendan Babbitt heard it from over a mile away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
John’s office in Malibu, California, was open and sunny. Outside its large French Doors was a neatly trimmed grass lawn that edged the wide sandy beach. The tide was waning, the frothy waves barely reaching the shore before they hurriedly returned to the sea at this edge of the Pacific Ocean. The office housed an eclectic number of odd-looking artifacts and two large, partly filled book shelves. Like John’s apartment in Santa Barbara, one corner was devoted almost entirely to recording equipment that now included a fancy new sound mixer. His acoustic guitar case – now papered with new stickers from an array of foreign countries – leaned against a far wall. A Fender Stratocaster, practice amplifier and synthesizer, completed this collection of music paraphernalia. Against one wall sat a huge polished-wood desk, and, across the room, facing it, were two bulky, comfortable looking armchairs. This was a lived-in but organized piece of John’s world.
Hanging on the wall near the bookcase, was the mounted newspaper clipping of a bold headline. It read:
AMITYVILLE HORROR II, A TOP TEN
NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER
IN FIRST WEEK OF RELEASE
To its left was hung a second mounted clipping. It read:
AMITYVILLE HORROR II
NEW BOOK-OF-THE MONTH-CLUB CHOICE
John sat at the desk, writing in a fresh page of the Journal. The front doorbell chimed and he got to his feet and went to answer it. In the long hallway he spied his reflection in a distinctively shaped mirror hanging on the wall. Pony tail’s getting long, he noted. The silver white streak in his hair, now almost two years old, was more pronounced than ever.
The hinges complained loudly as he swung open the front door. It opened onto a small porch in a fenced-in red-brick covered outdoor area that abutted the Pacific Coast Highway. The purr of high-powered cars and the occasional roar of a large truck passing by set up a constant backdrop of sound. A solidly framed gate in the eight-foot high wooden fence, that normally secured the area, sat slightly ajar.
At the door, a large FedEx Priority Mail Box in hand, was a guy modeling the best of Beverly Hills cool, right down to his RayBan glasses, Armani shirt and slacks, and Bruno patent-leather slip-on shoes. He reached out with his free hand to shake John’s hand.
“Hi!” he said cheerfully. “You must be John Jones.”
But John was in no mood for niceties. He frowned and stared blankly at this fashionable dressed stranger. “I don’t know who ya are or what yer sellin’, mate” John snapped. “But whatever it is, I don’t want any.” He stared at the gate, angry that it was open. “And how the hell did you get in here? I locked the gate myself less than an hour ago…”
His words slowly trailed off, his indignation suddenly blunted. He stared at Daniel, and then frowned. “Wait a bit, here! Don’t ... don’t I know you?”
He stood, his forehead scrunching, attempting to search his memory for a name to match the face.
He remembered all this, somehow. It had all happened before …
“’Fraid not,” Daniel answered.
Then both men spoke at the same moment.
“Daniel … right?” John asked, just as the other man said –
“–I’m Daniel Farina.”
John nodded his head in agreement. “That’s right, Daniel.”
Daniel grinned and quipped: “I just said that.” Then he frowned, confused. “But you already knew. Now that’s weird.” He hesitated for a moment, as if trying to decide if it was good or bad ... then he shrugged it off and put out his hand again. “Anyway, we got that worked out pretty well.”
This time John took it, more by instinct than anything. Daniel held the greeting longer than normal, staring down at their clasped hands with a quizzical frown. Still not breaking his grip, he looked John squarely in the eyes. Something about all this had him seriously bamboozled. He shook his head, and then stuttered out: “Wow! She was right.”
John had no idea what he meant. And he wasn’t sure he really cared to know. He pulled back his hand and stared at Daniel, wondering if he had a crazy man on his front porch.
He was in the process of deciding what to do with the guy, when Daniel suddenly remembered the FedEx Box and awkwardly handed it to John. “Oh, here! This is for
you. It was leaning against the gate.”
Still at a complete loss about this entire situation, John cautiously took the box from the stranger and checked the address. It was for him: something from his book publishing company.
Daniel began to speak rapid-fire. It seemed normal for him. “I wouldn’t pay much attention to Gwen’s letter,” he started. “She’s a nice enough old lady, but a little...”
He whirled his right forefinger in a circle above his right ear and hurried on...
“... you know. Says she read your Amityville Horror book, was really afraid, so she threw it out into the rain and it melted. Go figure. The other letters aren't much better. But the brown package from the Devlin family needs someone’s serious attention. And right away, I’d say.”
John hadn’t had a moment to get a word in, but now he’d had enough. He swung the package under his arm and straightened, his words sharp, his meaning all too obvious.
“You can’t be who I think you are. And I have no idea what you’re babbling about. So, you have exactly ten seconds to start making some sense, or I’m gonna show you a cute Australian custom called kickin’ your arse out into the street.”
At that exact moment, the front gate swung fully open and Jennifer entered the small yard. She wore yet another long flowing dress and the circlet in her hair. The Light Sigil still dangled from the silver chain around her neck. She smiled up at John and sighed. “I finally found a parking place. Not easy here in Malibu.”
John was stunned – totally speechless. His jaw actually dropped open. If I’d thought for a week about who might walk through the front gate, today, he told himself, Jennifer would never have even come to mind. He had to admit, if he’d had a choice, she’d be at the top of the list. But for her to actually be here was … mind-boggling.
Amityville Horror Now Page 16