The Diaper Man

by Vincent Todarello

  This is investigative reporter James Conway. I’ve made my way into the subterranean tunnel system that mazes through the ground beneath King’s Park Psychiatric Center. I’m attempting to find evidence of a state cover-up. Years ago my eldest sister was brutally murdered by an escaped convict named Abraham Davis, otherwise known as The Diaper Man.

  “See dude? I told you,” Ryan proudly announced.

  Billy shushed him with a finger in the air.

  My mother always suspected the police weren’t telling her the truth about Davis. They said he was killed during the escape, but my mother had her doubts. We were local. Neighbors of this monstrous place. We lived just a few minutes away. I was a boy then, but after seeing how dismissive the police and even government officials were of my mother, I made it my life’s goal to become a reporter to get down to the hard truth of things. Now that I’ve established myself as a trustworthy newsman, I’ve returned back to my home town to right a past wrong. I’m finally going to expose the official misconduct, and make sure the people of this town know there’s still a danger lurking in their backyards.

  I’ve found definitive evidence that someone is indeed living here on the premises. One of the bathrooms in the old patient wing is loaded with feces and urine; the plumbing ceased years ago.

  “Fucking nasty bro,” Billy whispered. “But wait. What the fuck? The Diaper Man doesn’t shit in his diapers? He uses a bathroom? That kinda takes all the scary out of it.”

  Ryan chuckles. “Maybe he just likes to wear them. A fashion statement.”

  Conway’s voice continued as they joked. It could be from a homeless person or a drug addict. I’d heard about people shacking up here in the old days, just after it closed down. The rumor was that those who went in would never come out. Well I plan to come out,

  Billy miffed. “How’d that plan work out, buddy?”

  I plan to get out, and then come back with jars to collect samples. If a lab can extract DNA from the feces, maybe they can match it to whatever records were on file for Davis. But there’s the rub; if the records were altered we’ll come up with nothing. According to my old maps I was in some sort of patient record room in the administration building before finding a hatch down into this tunnel system. The room was completely bare. Empty, rusted metal filing cabinets, and barren, spongy wooden desks and drawers. The only remaining documents were blank forms and useless papers. I suspect the patient files were moved when the patients were transferred to Pilgrim State, but Davis’ record would have undergone one of three things: either they remained here to aid in the cover up, they were altered, or they were destroyed. Either way I’m hopeful that at least something here can shed light on the subject. All it takes is one piece of paper that was forgotten or left behind from back then.

  “This guy had fucking balls man. Taking on the cops like that?” Billy said.

  “Yeah and look where it got him,” Ryan answered.

  I’ve also come across footprints in the dust and debris, particularly more down here in the tunnels. I’m not a seasoned tracker or anything, but the prints look fresh and recent. And there’s a foul, rank smell too...

  Conway’s voice began to waiver and break up, cutting out after a moment of what sounded like shaky breathing and a gurgle.

  “Fuck. The battery's going,” Billy said.

  “No way. Are you kidding me? It sounded like he got killed.”

  Billy slapped the recorder with his palm as if to revitalize the device. It awoke for an instant. Billy quickly hit rewind on the machine and then listened intently. But it was the same. Conway’s voice shook and faded out during an indistinct blur of human audio. Then the green lights on the side of the handheld device slowly faded to darkness. The batteries were dead.

  A realization hit them both at once. The story could really be true; the urban legend, and even the embellishments that were added over the years. The diapers, the fire, the cover up, the missing victims. All of it.

  “We better get the hell outta here. Come on let’s just go back the way...” A loud iron crash interrupted Ryan. The metallic boom echoed through the tunnels, filling the air with dread. Ryan’s skin crawled. Goose pimples covered every inch of his body. The hair on his neck stood on end.

  “The hatch,” Billy said as he slipped the dead voice recorder into his pocket.

  The bleed of light that oozed down the hatch from the morgue building above had been extinguished.

  “You think the wind did it? Or rats?” Billy suggested.

  Ryan put a finger over his mouth to suggest that Billy be quiet. “Shut your cell phone light,” Ryan whispered. There was a grinding, locking sound, followed by slow, methodic steps descending downward from above.

  Billy panicked and turned to run the opposite direction, but Ryan stopped him and silenced him once again. “Slow is more quiet,” he whispered in Billy's ear.

  Billy nodded in agreement. They crept further from the hatch, deeper and deeper into the underground labyrinth of tunnels. They made blind turns, feeling the grimy walls to guide their way. They stepped on rats and heard them squeal under foot. And soon they could no longer hear the footsteps behind them.

  “I think we’re okay to use the lights again,” Ryan said. “We need to get out of this fucking maze and find a way back up.”

  “You know I heard this thing once. That if you stick to the right hand wall of any maze you will eventually complete it, get through. Follow the right hand wall wherever it leads.”

  “You mean like a kids maze? On paper?” Ryan asked.

  “No, like any maze. Even those corn mazes that pop up around Halloween time. I never tried it, but supposedly it works.”

  “What about dead ends?”

  “That’s the beauty of it. Supposedly if you stick to the right wall from the start you just loop right back out, right?” Billy explained.

  “Unless you end up going in circles against some inner wall. And it could take a while too. But alright. Let’s try it. Except we go up as soon as we can. Up is better than right.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay let’s keep moving. Let’s get as far away as we can.

  “Hang on. Lemme piss first,” Billy said.

  “Now? Really? You’re gonna piss now?”

  “Ever play hide and seek when you were a kid, Ryan?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well you ever have to piss so bad while you’re hiding, from the nerves?” he asked. Ryan nodded yes. “Well, multiply that by a thousand and that’s what it feels like right now.”

  Billy finished pissing, zipped up, and they moved onward. They clung to the right hand wall and moved further into the unknown.

  “What the fuck is that smell?” Ryan screwed up his face and covered his nose with the palm of his hand.

  “Smells like shit,” Billy observed.

  Ryan’s next step put his footing into something soft and wet. He felt the bottom of his sneaker suction to the floor when he lifted his foot again. He looked down and shined his cell phone light. A thick red string of goop connected the bottom of his sneaker to the stony floor. “What the hell?”

  “Dude...” Billy was speechless for the first time in his life. “Dude...” He shined his cell phone outward ahead of them.

  Ryan’s eyes followed the bluish rays of LCD light out into the darkness until they fell upon a stinking pile of rotting death. Bones, decaying flesh, blood, and rats. His stomach flipped in that instant, causing him to dry heave. A little bit of vomit even crept up into the back of his throat before falling back down into his stomach. He got a hold of himself and pulled out his camera. He began flashing and snapping the morbid pile of gore.

  Billy watched as the entire tunnel illuminated into daylight with each pop, followed by voids of darkness in stark contrast to the flash. His eyes quickly scrambled to try to readjust to the changing light. He slowly stepped backward as rats and roaches began to scurry away from the mountain of stink. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Ugh that fucking smell is getting worse, man. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  But Ryan didn't answer. He was zoomed in on a bit of flesh hanging from a femur bone. The viewfinder of his camera blocked out everything but that small rectangle of horror. It was all he could focus on.

  The flash popped again and again. Then Billy thought he saw a figure on the other side of the pile. The Diaper Man. But all was dark again. All that could be seen was Ryan’s face pointing downward to look at the controls on the back of his camera.

  “Fucking flash batteries are shot,” Ryan complained, tuning Billy out. “I thought they had some more juice in them after giving the flash a rest before. But nope. These pieces of shit die so fast.” He fumbled with the batteries, swapping their positions and rubbing them in his hands as if it would rekindle their power.

  “He’s here. Come on!” Billy shouted.

  “I gotta get these shots and pick up where Conway left off.” Ryan had no clue. He was so consumed in his photography that he wasn’t even listening.

  “Ryan!”

  “Got it!” Ryan exclaimed with pride as the flash popped.

  But the Diaper Man was right behind him. His dark visage printed onto Billy’s brain in that instant. His face was mangled, scarred, and partially covered by an old, stained linen cloth. Burnt skin crept out from underneath the makeshift bandages. Aside from the number of limbs he had, he was totally unrecognizable as human. His stature was hunched but massive; abnormally tall. His musculature was misshapen; his right arm was twice the size as his left and it hung lower to the ground. His shoulders were crooked too, and his entire body was smeared and caked with crusted blood and dried filth. But the smell... The smell was him, not the pile of death before them.

  “Ryan!” Billy flashed his cell phone light at him. Ryan turned to Billy with a puzzled look on his face. “Behind you!” Billy screamed with horror as he ran full speed for his life. He blindly stumbled and crashed into walls going in the opposite direction. Tears streamed down his face for his friend. I warned him. I tried to warn him.

  But it was too late. Ryan spun around and was met by the hulking lunatic. He gasped with silent fear. The Diaper Man yanked the camera down and snapped the strap, nearly breaking Ryan’s neck in the process. Then he grabbed the back of Ryan’s head for leverage and bashed the camera into his face with all his might, over and over. Ryan fell to the ground, bloodied and unconscious. The Diaper Man ripped the lens out of the camera and continued to bludgeon Ryan in the face with it, until all that was left was a mushy pulp of meat with two eyes. Then he dug his fingers deep into Ryan’s right eye socket and scooped out a stringy eyeball and some bits of brain. Ryan’s lifeless body twitched violently on the cold, bloody tunnel floor as the Diaper Man’s hardened fingers bridged the nerve synapses in his dying brain. He flung the eye and brain bits to the side and shoved the lens as far into Ryan’s eye socket as he could.

  #

  “Where the fuck are we? I thought you knew a way out,” Layla complained through her fear. Connor had gotten turned around and lost his bearings trying to guide them out a quicker way than they had come. All the doors leading outside were locked. “I’m about to just jump out of one of these windows,” Layla continued. But all the windows were barred.

  “This must be where they had the fire,” Connor said as he eyed the bubbled and charred walls that closed in around them.

  “Try your cell again. There has to be a pocket of reception somewhere in this shit hole. Don’t the emergency numbers still work even when there’s no service?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing’s working though. Not even 9-1-1. Looks like my image text to Ryan never went through. I’ll try another.” Connor typed out a message to his brother: Found some weird shit. Call police when you get this. No service where I am. “What’s with that metal cabinet? Look. All the other things are burnt except for that,” Connor questioned.

  “I don’t fucking care. I just want to leave.”

  “Oh come on. We don’t even know if that stuff was real back there.” Connor was kidding himself. “I mean it could have been stuff that was put there to scare people, keep them away. Right?”

  Layla stared at him in disbelief, still shaking and with tears still flowing from her eyes.

  She’s right, but I need to keep her calm or else we’re really fucked. Need to get her mind occupied with something else. “Hey help me with this, will you?” Connor feigned struggle in moving the filing cabinet. “There might be a shaft or duct behind this cabinet that we can crawl through to get out.” He made it up, but it seemed to work. Layla bought it.

  She pulled with Connor, and Connor gave the unburned cabinet a healthy shove so that it fell over. The metallic crash shook the room and blew decades-old soot and ash into the air. A folder full of papers spilled out across the blackened floor.

  “Those are medical records,” Connor said. “This stuff is supposed to be stored private so no one can get access to it. I think this was moved here after the fire.”

  “I don’t see any shaft way on the wall.” Layla stood with her hands on her hips.

  “Maybe one of the others,” Connor motioned dismissively as he rifled through some loose papers. There weren’t many. In fact it was just the one folder in that entire metal cabinet.

  Layla started pulling the other cabinets away from the wall to see what was behind them. She took care to slap her hands free of any dust and soot after each, making sure to keep clean. “A little help would be nice,” she sassed.

  But Connor’s mood had darkened. He found something in that folder of old papers. It was a roll call that had the words Night of Power Outage and Escape scrawled across the top. Beneath was a list of patient names with notations that said Contained in blue ink. The name that stood out was Abraham Davis. Killed during escape attempt was written instead.

  Behind that sheet were transfer papers; patients moving from the Kings Park facility over to Pilgrim State. After that there were older documents. Doctor’s notes from psychiatric examinations. Recommend moving patient into isolation due to frequent violent outbursts. Not suitable for social interaction. Patient anomaly – not responding to increased drug dosage or electroconvulsive therapy. Becomes enraged when dressed in patient uniform. Recommend allowing John Doe to remain in linen cloth diaper, tied, with no pins or sharp objects that could be used as weapons.

  “John Doe? Where the hell did Abraham Davis come from then?” Connor uttered to himself.

  “Hello?” Layla nagged between her efforts to move the other cabinets off the wall.

  “Just a second. I think I found something.” Connor flipped back to the roll call. John Doe. The name was circled and starred. Some red ink was crossed out heavily with the blue. Remnants of the faded markings were left behind, but the only thing legible next to his name said Contained.

  Then Connor turned back to the transfer documents. Again one form was accompanied by a block of scratched out text. Beside it said John Doe. But the patient summary read nothing like the doctor’s notes for Doe. This other guy was learning disabled. Low functioning. No kin to take care of him. No one to claim him if he were to die, Connor thought to himself. He even saw the name Abe peppered throughout the file. “Whoever went through these files swapping out names forgot to change every reference. They must have forgotten to scratch out John Doe’s name on the doctor’s notes too,” he said aloud.

  “What?” Layla asked. “Look I don’t think there’s a shaft or duct holes or whatever over here.”

  “They switched his identity,” Connor realized.

  “Who?”

  “The Diaper Man.”

  She stared at him with an angry blank pause. “Fuck you, okay?”

  “I’m being serious. I don’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry. But Abraham Davis. He wasn’t the Diaper Man. The hospital had a John Doe; a real John Doe with no family or kin, arrested for murder but found to be insane. The man they killed on the night of the escape was Abraham Davis,
just some retarded guy. The files confirm it. John Doe. They never caught John Doe on the night of the escape...” Connor was filled with an odd sense of pride upon his discovery. A half smile even cracked upon his stony face, through all the tension.

  Layla was tearing up again. “This is all some big fucking joke? Huh? This isn’t about scouting a movie location, is it? You guys have this whole thing planned out, like with hidden cameras around here? Hmm? Gonna post this on YouTube later on and get a big laugh out of it? And you got yourself a nice little sex tape too, yeah?”

  “Baby. No. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Fuck you Connor. Asshole.” She stormed out of the room, back into the hall. "You promised me!" she cried.

  “Layla wait! No! It’s not safe!” He took a moment to gather up all the papers before running out after her. She already made it to the far end of the corridor by time he got out of the room. “Layla!”

  She turned, only to see him being grabbed from behind by a massive, hulking figure. She screamed in horror but ran toward him to help. The killer dragged Connor backward into the burned room as she ran toward them, and the door slammed and locked in her face before she could reach them. She pounded on the door, even tried ramming it with her shoulder. It was no use. She could hear his screams fading, as if moving farther and farther away, down some sort of shaft way. Then they suddenly stopped. Everything was silent. She ran.

  #

  Connor's eyes slowly cracked open. He was in a dank dungeon of a room. His head was tipped back when he awoke, so the first things he saw were dark concrete walls rising up high, looming over him like massive tombstones. He looked around as his vision adjusted to the dark. The room was filled with old, dead machinery, completely dark except for one shaft of amber sunlight that beamed down from a hole in the roof above. I’m in the power plant? He was on his ass, and when he shifted his weight to stand, he instantly realized he was tied up. His wrists were secured tightly to a rusty metal pipe that tracked its way along the wall into darkness. His memory came flooding back to him. I was taken. The Diaper Man. Did he get Layla?