The Diaper Man

by Vincent Todarello

  THE DIAPER MAN

  By Vincent Todarello

  This Story Was Inspired By Actual Events

  Copyright 2013 Vincent Todarello

  Cover Art & Graphic Design By VinTod Photography

  www.VinTodPhotography.com

  Several Years Ago - Kings Park Psychiatric Facility, Long Island NY

  “How much time do you have, Betty?” Jennie asked.

  “Two months. I give them ten years and they give me two months.” Betty huffed a frustrated breath.

  A flash of lightning turned the stormy night into daylight for a split second through the barred windows, as if someone flipped a light switch on and off in a dark room. A moment later the monstrous clap of thunder that followed shook the entire century-old hospital to its foundation.

  “Jesus Christ.” Jennie peered out the gridded panes of the institutional windows. “The rain’s coming down in sheets out there. And I forgot my damn umbrella today too.”

  “Pretty soon we’ll all be out of here anyway,” Betty continued. “They’re closing every wing down one by one, and moving all the patients over to Pilgrim State.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup.

  “Won’t they need more nurses there then?” Jennie asked.

  “I guess, unless it’s budget reasons.” Betty shrugged. “Bob didn’t say anything to me about it just now though. Just said two months and I clear out, along with his usual bullshit.”

  “When are they moving the patients? I mean, how long until I lose my job?” Jennie asked.

  There was a knock at the break room door between flickers and rumbles. “Ladies?” Bob sang the word, his voice muffled through the heavy wooden door. “Are you decent? You’re not getting naked in there or anything, are you?”

  “Pig,” Jennie mumbled.

  “How did that creep ever become a doctor?” Betty whispered.

  “Not to mention running the place,” Jennie added. “Come on in, Bob,” she raised her voice.

  The door swung open a few inches. After an agonizing moment a bald head peeked in and Bob scanned his piercing, beady little eyes around the room. “Damn. I was hoping you guys would be naked and going to town on each other.” His gaze dropped down from Betty’s eyes to her chest. “Or at least smashing your twats together to make a fish sandwich.”

  “You know if we weren’t all being laid off I’d slap a harassment lawsuit on your ass,” Betty said as she covered her tits with her hands.

  “Wanna get laid, Jennie?” Bob raised his eyebrows with hope.

  “Fuck off, slime bag.”

  “Off. Wanna get laid off, I said.” He laughed.

  “No. I don’t, thank you. I need this shitty job to pay my bills,” Jennie answered.

  “Alright. Well we have to have the talk. I have to tell everyone. Them’s the rules,” Bob explained.

  “Betty already told me.”

  “I know, I know. You girls... Always with your gossip. Did she tell you about my dick too?”

  “Are you kidding me right now? Yeah. She said it was microscopic.”

  “Microscopic! Whoa! Now that’s a big word for a blonde, isn’t it?”

  Both nurses rolled their eyes.

  “But seriously. If you ladies, you know, come to my office for a private consultation... I think I’ll be able to work something out where you both get to transfer over to Pilgrim with all the crazies...”

  Betty cut him off. “Gross. I’m hitting the showers and then heading home.”

  “Need help getting those hard to reach places?” Bob asked through a dirty grin.

  Betty slapped him in the face and walked out, slamming the door behind.

  “Were you serious about that?” Jennie asked him quietly.

  “What? The proposition?” he asked as he rubbed the sting from his face.

  Jennie nodded her head yes with a sly smirk.

  “I knew it. I always knew you wanted a piece of this,” Bob said confidently.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I just need a job.”

  “More like a boob job,” he replied as he brought his hands to where his eyes were staring.

  “Here? Right now?” Jennie asked with her mouth hanging open in shock as he groped her chest through her shirt.

  “Hold that face, babe. Keep your mouth open just like that. On your knees.” Bob pointed to the floor and started to take his pants down.

  Jennie pulled her shirt off over her head, revealing her small but perky tits.

  “Oh... I can work with those,” Bob said.

  Just then there was a loud smash from down the hallway, and immediately afterward a rattling of metal on the floor.

  “What the fuck was that?” Jennie asked just as she was about to grab hold of Bob’s cock and stuff it into her mouth.

  “The storm,” Bob flippantly suggested. Anything to shut her up and keep her focused on his dick.

  “That didn’t sound like thunder to me.”

  “Who cares? Probably just one of the lunatics throwing a tantrum in his room. Come on. You’ve got a career to think about now...” A grating, squealing creak of old iron hinges rang out from the hallway. “Although that sounded like one of the patients’ doors,” Bob realized aloud.

  There was a blinding streak of lightning, and the instant crack of thunder vibrated the room. The sustained rumble went on and on, and the buzzing fluorescent tubes overhead flickered on and off.

  “We’ll finish this later.” Bob pulled his pants back up and sharpened his ears to the hallway. “I better check this out.”

  Jennie shook with nerves as she put her top back on. “What the fuck was I thinking?” she mumbled to herself.

  The lights stopped flickering and everything went dark. In the hall, the sound of glass breaking and falling to the floor shattered the rainy silence between thunder claps.

  Bob reached for the door handle and slowly pulled the door open. The heavy wood made the old, rusty iron hinges creak a deep and nightmarish sound. Bob poked his head out into the hallway, and his face was instantly met with the business end of a fire axe. Thin strings of gore sprayed backward, coating Jennie with a sprinkler-spray of warm life juice. Half of Bob’s head was sheared off from the brutal swing and bounced off the filing cabinets nearby. He collapsed to the floor in the doorway. His corpse slowly twitched to a stop while his bald skull cap spun beside him like a gyroscopic top. His lifeless body gushed a blood slick onto the silver-flecked tile floor.

  Jennie stood frozen in fear. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the darkened pile of death into a bright crimson mess. She shrieked with terror at the sight of it. And for just one fraction of a moment she caught a glimpse of the horror before her; a beast of a man, covered in blood and naked except for the soiled cloth wrapped around his waist. Jennie whimpered like a child, knowing exactly who the savage animal was. His terrifying image flickered in strobe with the lightning strikes as he approached her. It was a nightmare come true. And it was the last thing Jennie saw before his axe came down.

  #

  Betty dried her soft, wet skin with a stiff, scratchy towel in the shower room. A slow and steady drain drip filled her ears, but it was interrupted by what sounded like breathing. She turned to find the noise. The uneasy feeling of being watched consumed her. She quickly pulled her panties up over the round of her ass and covered her bare breasts with her bra, hooking it behind her back as fast as possible.

  “Who’s there?” she called out. The only responses were the muffled rumbles of thunder and her own echo bouncing off the cavernous shower room walls.

  The lights flickered and then finally cut out. Other than the occasional flash of light from the foggy windows at the far end of the room, it was complete darkness in the showers. Betty ha
stily toweled off the rest of her body and started to put her clothes on. But the faint sound of rubbing and slapping caught her ears. “Is that you Bob?”

  All was silent again as she listened intently. To her it sounded like a man masturbating. She huffed and mumbled frustrated words like “disgusting” and “pig” to herself as she finished dressing and cursing. Then there was a low and pleasured moan.“You sick bastard!” she yelled as she began to walk around the shower stalls and look for the pervert in the dark.

  Betty slowly walked toward the wall separating a row of sinks and toilet stalls from the shower room. It was dead silent, except for the sheeting of rain hitting the windows. Just as she was about to turn the corner to look down the row of sinks, she lurched and jumped back with fear. The power suddenly kicked back on and the emergency alarms started blaring. She grabbed her things and ran out of the bathroom, down the hallway.

  Then from the corner of her eye she sensed something odd. Among the blur of familiar peripherals in the hall she noticed a void. An open patient room door. Wilbur Sampson’s room. He was always jerking off. It must have been him in the shower room. Then suddenly the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. They’re all open. She clopped her heels to a halt in total shock in front of one room: No... Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. No!

  She bolted toward the nearest exit as fast as her heels would allow. Along the way she heard what sounded like the security guard speaking over the facility’s PA system. But only bits and pieces of his words made it past the sound of her racing heartbeat, over the clattering of her sprinting footsteps, and through her strained, fearful breathing.

  “Consider... Dangerous... Patients... Escaped... Extremely violent...”

  Betty burst her way through the exit doors to the staff parking lot. To her surprise a number of police cars were on the scene. Their red and blue flashers gleamed halos in her eyes as she ran toward them in the heavy rain. She made out the faint shapes of policemen running toward the woods line with their guns drawn.

  She paused for a moment to catch her breath and look for her car through the blinding torrents. She saw it in the flashes of lightning just ahead. Just get the hell out of here, she thought as she trotted toward the car. Her fingers shook with nerves, and she fumbled her keys into the door lock.

  A hail of gunshots rang out in the distance, followed by a strike of lightning and an instant clap of thunder. The shadowy figure of a large man fell against the silhouette of the dark tree line.

  “We got him!” one of the cops shouted.

  But Betty felt no relief from their triumph. There’s still more of them out there. Not as bad as him, but still... When she lifted the car door handle an axe was buried into the back of her head. Her skull split in two and butterflied open all the way down to her shoulders.

  He stood over her, his malformed body slick with filth, his axe in hand. His diaper was soaked through with blood, piss, shit and rain. Then the half naked axe murderer slinked into a nearby abandoned section of the facility, never to be found that night.

  Present Day

  “You guys heard the story, right?” Ryan asked as he squeezed through a hole in the rusty chain link fence.

  “The Diaper Man? Bits and pieces only,” his brother Connor answered.

  The ivy rustled on the fence as they all slipped onto the property.

  “He invaded the home of this family. Just walked right in and started hacking people to death.”

  “Come on. Why are you trying to freak me out?” Layla complained.

  “Don’t worry baby,” Connor comforted his girlfriend.

  “You know I don’t like that shit,” she continued.

  “It’s alright, just let him finish the story.”

  “I’ll give you the short version,” Billy said. “Ryan will go on and on all day.”

  “Just trying to set the mood, man,” Ryan responded.

  “Make it the really short version, because I don’t even wanna know.” Layla was already frightened. “All I wanna know is why they call him the Diaper Man.”

  “Because he’s so fucked up that he scares the shit out of you, and you need a diaper to catch the dump that tumbles out of your ass.” Ryan laughed at his own joke.

  “The family was all dead. They found the guy upstairs, covered in the blood of their eight month old baby. He was wearing nothing but a shitty diaper. His real name was Abraham Davis. They locked him up in the loony bin. But people around here say he escaped one night, and there’s all sorts of stories about how the cops covered it up to spare themselves the embarrassment of killing some other inmate...”

  “Patient.” Layla corrected Billy.

  “Whatever.” He continued. “The official story was that they chased him down and shot him, but it was the wrong guy. He really got away.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Layla doubted.

  “The place was shut down soon after,” Ryan added to the tale. “They were closing down anyway because of budget cuts and stuff. And the rich people in this nice part of town didn’t want crazies in their backyard either. They were already petitioning to shut the place down and using their influence to close the place for good. When a maimed body turned up after the escape it sped up the process. They transferred all the patients out to another hospital. Then the place was just abandoned. Like suddenly one day no one was there anymore. Papers left on desks, food in the break room fridge, all that. A ghost town.”

  “Dude you forgot the best part,” Connor said.

  Layla ribbed him with her elbow. “I’ve heard enough.”

  “A fire burned part of the buildings and destroyed the records, so no one knows for sure if the Diaper Man got away,” Connor said.

  Layla shot him a nasty glare. “I thought you only knew bits and pieces?”

  “Oh shit! You ain’t getting any pussy today little brother,” Ryan joked.

  “C’mere babe. Sorry.” Connor hugged Layla. When she didn’t reciprocate he started to tickle her to make her laugh. Then she planted a kiss on his lips.

  “People say the cops switched the identity of the guy they killed on the night of the escape to make it look like they got him,” Billy went on. “A bunch of patients got out that night. They say the Diaper Man let them out. Most were recaptured, too stupid to get away. One was killed. The official report was that the one they killed was the Diaper Man, but some of the former staff came forward later, when more bodies kept showing up nearby. That cast some doubt on the official story. There were murders on the abandoned property and at the school across the road. Also hushed up by officials; there were very few reports on it. He definitely got away. No doubt. He’s still out there somewhere. Maybe still living in these old buildings.”

  The four kids emerged from the woods that circled the facility to behold a beautiful but apocalyptic site. The place hadn’t been touched in years. Walls were collapsing underneath wild ivy, walkways were overgrown with weeds, windows were shattered, and small trees sprouted from ledges and rooftops.

  Ryan pulled out his digital camera and started snapping artistic photos of the buildings, crouching low to create creepy angles and effects.

  “Why would he stay here if he escaped?” Layla asked.

  “Maybe he’s too retarded to know better,” Billy said.

  “They say he’s all scarred and burned from the fire too,” Ryan added. “He was trapped inside or something when it happened. You know, the legend gets better and better as time goes on. People add to the story, make it scarier. Oh and he still wears the same crusty diaper.”

  “It’s not a story. It’s real,” Billy corrected.

  “Maybe some of it. But no one’s been killed lately right? Not for years and years. Maybe he’s dead now,” Ryan reasoned.

  “Or maybe people learned to stop coming here,” a frightened Layla added.

  “I’ll keep you safe, baby,” Conner said.

  Billy and Ryan started cracking up at Connor.

  “Tough guy! Yeah Co
nnor will protect you from the psychopath axe murderer. Don’t worry,” Ryan said through a chuckle.

  “Let’s go in that one.” Billy pointed to a tall decrepit building.

  “No we have to look for the morgue,” Ryan said.

  “We’re going in?” Layla asked. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “Hell yeah we’re going in,” Connor answered. “My brother‘s gonna make a homemade zombie movie here so he’s scouting the location. Plus it’ll give us some privacy to be inside.” He rubbed up against Layla and kissed her neck from behind.

  They plodded through the three-foot high weeds to the back of a building, one that was isolated from the others by at least a hundred yards.

  “Based on the maps I saw online I think this is it,” Ryan said as he snapped some photos of the old brick structure.

  “Oh shit. Look dude. Diaper Man lives.” Billy read the words that were spray painted on the old metal door leading into the back of the building. He walked up to the shattered square window embedded in the steel door and tried to look inside.

  “See anything?” Ryan asked.

  “Nah. Pitch black in there.” Billy tugged at the door handle but it was locked.

  “We gotta get in there. An old morgue is the perfect place for the opening scene.”

  “Come on, let’s just go walk around to some of the other buildings,” Layla suggested.

  Billy bashed the remains of the window in with a nearby metal pipe, giving Layla a jolt. She nearly leaped out of her skin.

  “Oh shit!” Ryan said. He started laughing in his hand. “Damn dude. I didn’t realize how committed you were to this movie!”

  “It’s not like a few more broken windows are gonna get noticed at this shit house. No harm done,” Billy said as he reached in to unlock the door from the inside. His face contorted as he felt around for the latch. He looked back at Ryan, then Connor. His eyes widened in fear as he shifted his gaze to Layla. He shook and twitched in agony, screaming in pain.

  Layla fell to her knees in horror and started to cry, and Ryan and Connor both lunged forward to Billy’s aid. Then Billy’s tormented screams turned to maniacal laughter, and his face changed from horror to hysterics. He was laughing at them.