Escape From Asylum

by Madeleine Roux

  “True, but they’re low on staff. I’m gone and Mosely is out with an injury.”

  “She’s right,” Ricky rejoined. “I heard Nurse Kramer complaining about it.”

  “So if more than one of us needs immediate medical attention, we might be able to overpower whoever takes us upstairs,” Nurse Ash finished.

  “It won’t work,” Tanner said firmly. “Say it goes exactly to plan, then what? Do you really think a bunch of ranting and raving in the lobby will get your point across? That’s exactly what the warden’s rich friends on the outside looking in would expect.”

  Whatever small flicker of hope had been kindled was abruptly snuffed out. Ricky groaned. He was right. Even Ricky was surprised they were having this calm of a conversation—them, the worst of the worst housed in Brookline. It didn’t matter if he knew they deserved a second chance at a normal life. No one else would.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Nurse Ash asked, placing her hands on her hips.

  “No,” Tanner admitted with a shrug. “But I never promised one.”

  “It’s worth trying,” Kay said. She had been gazing at the wall with her brow furrowed, and for a while Ricky had assumed she had just tuned out the conversation entirely. “Worst-case scenario is that nothing happens at all.”

  Or the warden tries to shut us up for good.

  “Who else would have to get sick?” Ricky asked, fearing the answer.

  “Well . . . You, right? Your parents think you’re improving. It would shatter the illusion if they heard you were having episodes.”

  I knew it.

  “I’ll do it,” Ricky said. “But we need to be organized.”

  “Yes. Real. It must be real.” Dennis, who still had unhealed cuts from his outburst at the gala, had finally spoken up.

  “Thanks for joining us,” Kay muttered under her breath.

  “Yes, Dennis.” Although Nurse Ash addressed him politely enough, she avoided looking in his direction. “It needs to be very realistic. We won’t get pulled out of here for anything less than a life-or-death situation.”

  He felt Kay’s hand wrap around his wrist, her whisper taking him by surprise. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “Funny, that’s what I said,” he replied with a half smile.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know this was her big idea.”

  “I do have to do this. Targets on our backs, remember?”

  “I like you already, no need to be a hero,” she murmured, tightening her grip around his wrist.

  “But it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Seriously, Ricky, don’t risk this. We can think of something else.”

  It was tempting to back down. He had, after all, thought he could survive Brookline by doing nothing, making it into a game, the way he’d done at Hillcrest and Victorwood. But that chance had passed, and he saw now that the inaction of others, hundreds of others, from the nurses to the janitors to the orderlies to the doctors, had allowed the warden to run amok unchecked.

  “No, we’re getting out of here,” Ricky said finally. “No matter how many times it takes, we have to try.”

  Everyone was asleep and the ward was silent when the warden came to visit.

  Ricky knew it was him just from the tread of his footsteps. He heard soft whistling, a merry, winding tune, and he shuddered, sitting up slowly so as not to disturb Kay. On she slept, curled on her side away from him. The footsteps grew louder, coming nearer, the song coming with the light rhythm of his feet.

  It was not a dream, he was sure of that, but he pinched his arm anyway just to be sure. Soon the warden would be at their door. He slid off the cot and crossed to the opposite side of the cell, flattening himself against the wall. Parallel to the door, only Kay could be seen if anyone looked inside through the observation slot.

  Just as he predicted, the footsteps halted and the observation window eased open, so slowly and softly it was almost imperceptible. He breathed through his mouth, deeply but soundlessly, straining his ears to hear through the drips of the damp cell and the creaking of the pipes overhead. Kay looked so vulnerable on the cot, alone, an empty space where he should be lying next to her.

  “Don’t be shy, Mr. Desmond,” the warden cooed. His voice was low, thin as a knife’s blade and just as sharp. They were back to Mr. Desmond. It figured, of course, since Ricky was no longer his chosen one. That was his hope, anyway. He wondered if going off the medication was enough. According to Kay he had been up on the third floor for weeks. He had lost track of how many days he had spent in that chair, strapped down and subject to the warden’s constant hypnosis.

  “I thought I would check on you personally and see how these new arrangements agree with you.”

  He kept up a conversational tone, as if Ricky were standing right there in front of him.

  “How long do you think you’ll survive down here?” he asked, chuckling. “Nurse Ash is dangerous. She’s one of us, but you know that already. Dennis is unpredictable. A gentle giant one moment, and the next he might have his hands wrapped around your neck. Tanner is broken. Watching his friend die destroyed him. Patty is docile as a clam. Can you even trust your cellmate? Are you sure I haven’t gotten to him? These misfits aren’t your friends, Mr. Desmond. I am your only friend in this place.”

  Ricky shook his head but kept quiet. Just the sound of the warden’s voice pricked at something buried deep in his mind. So he wasn’t totally free. He had suspected as much, but the confirmation terrified him. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, his breaths coming in more rapidly now. Part of him wanted to cry out for help, to respond to that voice inside that insisted he could trust the warden.

  Under the jacket. Don’t forget, we haven’t forgotten you—

  The warden lingered but got no reply.

  “I’m excited to see how long you last, Mr. Desmond. It’s only a matter of time before you come crawling back. I’ll be seeing you real soon, won’t I? I know you. I accept you. I wanted you. You know, I went to a lot of trouble to get you here. We were sending information about Brookline to your parents for months, and nothing. I thought I might have to drag you here myself, but your mother did the work for me. She took the bait. I found your father, I found your mother, and I found you, too. You did the rest. You attacked your stepfather. This was the natural place for you after that. The perfect place, in fact, because I wanted you here. And isn’t that what you wanted all along? To be wanted for who you were?”

  And then he was gone. His footsteps retreated, unhurriedly, his whistled tune even happier as he left. Ricky slumped to the floor, pressing both palms to his face. He wanted to be wanted, but not by a snake, not by a monster.

  “You didn’t sleep.”

  Ricky had been—almost—dozing on his feet while Nurse Ash and Tanner debated the ins and outs of their grand plan. The more they talked, the more Ricky saw holes appearing in the scheme, but he let his concerns go unvoiced. Exhaustion was leaving him inarticulate at best.

  “The warden was down here,” he confessed. “He wanted to talk to me. I didn’t say anything back, but God, I wanted to. He set it all up. He made sure I wound up here so he could experiment on me like he did to my father. And I wanted to scream at him. Does that ever go away, nurse?”

  “Joss,” she corrected him. “I’m not a nurse anymore.” Her hair had been tamed down a bit but she still looked frazzled, the spaces below her eyes just as dark as his. Sometimes he heard Lucy crying out in the night. Maybe that’s what was keeping Jocelyn up. “And to answer your question, I don’t think it does go away. I know that’s not exactly a morale-booster, but it’s the truth.”

  “He did it to you, too? And Tanner?” he asked. They wandered slightly from the group. Lucy played patty-cake with Angela, and Dennis stood still as a statue in the corner, watchful.

  “Yes, and he did it to Madge, too,” Jocelyn replied. She rolled up the sleeves of her simple patient’s dress and shrugged. “I knew something was off about this place when I start
ed work, but nothing could have prepared me for this. I wanted to make a difference here. I tried to protect Lucy but failed at that, too. Then Madge started to behave so strangely, like she was in a daze all the time. At first I just thought it was the stress of working here, but it was more than that. The warden tried to brainwash me into thinking I had killed her. For a long time I even believed him. I go over that night every time I lie awake in bed. Every single night. Even when I’m sure I didn’t hurt her, there’s always that shred of doubt. It was his leverage over me, and it worked.”

  Ricky picked at his thumbnail, at a loss. It all sounded so similar to how he felt. Most of the days spent in that torture chair were completely gone. Fragments came back to him and dissolved before he could make sense of them. “I believe you, Nurse Ash.”

  “Joss.”

  “Joss.” He gave her a wan smile. “I might have killed Lucy if I hadn’t started coming to my senses. It was just his thoughts, his commands in my head. But that’s what scares me about this plan. He might be able to just snap his fingers and control us again.”

  “Try to think of a touchstone. Something that should always bring you back to yourself. Mine is seeing you in the basement with him, about to go into Lucy’s room. It’s so vivid. Among all my other memories of this place, it’s the most real. He didn’t want to mess with my brain but I still need something to keep my hope alive in here.”

  “It’s my dad’s patient card,” Ricky said. “Thank you for getting it back to me.”

  “Of course. I came to this place to help people and wound up making things worse. Now all I can do is try my best to tear down the warden’s plans,” she told him softly. “I’m afraid I don’t really know what those plans are yet. Not the scope. Not the danger.”

  “We’re all time bombs.” He hated saying it, but in his heart he knew it was absolutely true. Even after all that had happened, even after the warden had tried to make him a murderer, hearing the man’s voice the night before had almost triggered a relapse. None of them were free of his influence. “He could set us off at any moment.”

  “I think you’re right. Gosh, I hate it. But I really do think you’re right.”

  “You two figured out how to save the world yet?” Kay joined them, resting her head automatically on Ricky’s shoulder. It did look a little funny, her being the taller of the two of them.

  “Mostly commiserating,” he told her. Lucy erupted into giggles, apparently having finished her game of patty-cake. Then she came and stood next to Jocelyn, tugging on her sleeve as she always did when she wanted to say something.

  Kay kicked him lightly in the shin. “Sounds productive.” Her eyes wandered to Dennis in the corner. He still hadn’t moved, his arms straight and stiff at his sides. “I’m worried about him. I never know whether he’s going to take a nap or start swinging his fists.”

  “The stress is hard on everyone,” Jocelyn replied in a whisper. “He was never my patient. Madge handled Dennis when she was still alive. Sometimes . . .” She lowered her voice even more. “Sometimes he really frightened her. He’s never threatened one of us, and most of what he says doesn’t make sense. Something about the White Mountains. About posing people.”

  “An artist, maybe?” Kay suggested.

  Dennis is unpredictable. A gentle giant one moment, and the next he might have his hands wrapped around your neck.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Nothing the warden said was true, anyway, and Dennis barely seemed interested in them. Ricky glanced his way and noticed that he was watching him back.

  “I really don’t know,” Jocelyn was saying. “But he deserves to be free of this place, too. If he’s ill, he should be helped, not abandoned.”

  Dennis seemed to perk up at that, his body completely still and only his mouth moving. A brighter, livelier light entered his eyes. “No hope, only survival. Only survival.”

  “Sure thing, big guy. So when do we fly the coop?” Kay pressed.

  Jocelyn put her hand on Lucy’s head, playing with the girl’s hair absently while she chewed over the question. “If I’ve been keeping track of the days accurately, it should be Thursday. The warden scheduled this second fund-raiser for Friday. I’d never forget because he and Nurse Kramer wouldn’t shut up about it, and he was determined to show Ricky off to everyone like a trained monkey.”

  “I might still get to make an appearance,” he said with a dry laugh. “But that’s tomorrow night.” Too soon, Ricky thought. But was that possible? Why give the warden more time to come for him if they could try to get through to one of the scandalized guests now?

  “It’s quick, I know,” she said, giving both he and Kay an apologetic glance. “It may be one attempt of many, and we can’t afford to lose even one.”

  On Friday morning the staff took Tanner out of his cell, hauling him to the first floor kicking and screaming. When they were gone, his shouts still ringing in the ward, Ricky heard pounding on the door across from there’s. It was Jocelyn, desperately trying to get his attention.

  The commotion had disturbed Dennis, who banged against his cell door with his head or his foot, almost drowning out her voice as she tried to call to Ricky.

  “Rick . . . Are we still going through with this?”

  “We have to,” he called back, wincing. Of course the warden was starting to separate them. He had to have guessed that Ricky wouldn’t simply wait down in the basement quietly. “If they hypnotize him, if he’s questioned . . .”

  “I know!” He heard her swear. “Dennis! Could you keep it down, please!?”

  The banging went on and on, then grew louder.

  “Stick to the plan,” Ricky told her sternly, sinking against the door. “Our first real shot, right? We have to take it.”

  And so they waited. He sat with Kay quietly on the bed until the agreed upon time. They were quiet for most of it, because he could read on her face the dread, the anxiety . . . She had kept up a constant stream of jokes the day before, but now they had run out of words. Dennis crashed against his door ceaselessly, robbing them all of sleep.

  “If you don’t get us out of here soon, I’m gonna kill that creep myself,” she muttered, rubbing her temples.

  “Listen, if they take us away and leave you down here . . .”

  “I’ll be fine, all right?” She took his hand and placed it on her knee, then leaned over and brushed a kiss across his cheek.

  “Thanks,” he said, strangely shy. He had gone further with other people, but this felt special somehow. “The hero always needs a smooch before his suicide mission.” He forced a laugh. Neither of them smiled for very long. “This isn’t like a big last speech or anything, but I wanted to tell you that I really love your dad’s band. I’ve been a fan for years. No, let me finish. He’s a selfish idiot, I get that, and you’d be a better band leader anyway. You should start your own group when you get out of here.”

  “If,” she corrected.

  “When,” he double corrected. “Even if we screw this up, he’ll come to his senses eventually. Nobody is that mean.”

  “You don’t know that, Ricky, and I’m not sure how you can say that. You’ve seen what the warden will do, plenty of people are that mean.”

  Ricky shook his head. “I wasted a lot of time thinking I was so smart and so hip. Now I just want to be good, and to do that I have to believe other people are good, too.”

  “You are good. I know you tried to help me when you were upstairs,” Kay murmured. “They eased off the shock therapy for a while. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I was up above you, right? Had to be a guardian angel.”

  She rolled her eyes, but he saw a blush creep up her neck, too. “Corny.”

  “Probably.”

  “I’ll keep trying even if you mess this up completely,” Kay promised. “That’s as good as I can do.”

  “And it’s plenty.” Ricky leaned into her, feeling a knot in his stomach tighten by the minute. “If we can survive in here, we can do anything.”


  “Focus on the gala tonight,” Kay told him with a wry smile. “First things first, right? We have to make it out of here before we can dream big.”

  It would be time soon, time to playact the tantrum of his life. He would need energy and all he felt was exhausted. Sometimes he wondered if he could just sink into the misery of the place, give up and let hope die off for good inside, just live in a fantasy of being on the outside, of running away somewhere with Kay.

  But it was no good. She was there, warm and alive; dying, even just in his mind, couldn’t be an option.

  The time to start came too soon. The loss of Tanner weighed heavily on his mind. The warden was persuasive, if they really pressed him they might have found out what the plan was; they might ignore anything that went on in the basement. But he had to believe that Tanner wanted them to get out just as much as the rest of them did. His friend had died here, and they all would follow her—sooner or later—and Brookline was not an appealing grave. He wouldn’t die there like his father had, he had to fight.

  And the thought of those glamorous so-and-so’s mingling above them made him sick. Furious. His temper wasn’t a good thing, he knew that, and in an ideal world, he might really have gotten treatment for it. But just for tonight, his temper could be something useful. They probably weren’t giving two thoughts to the patients stuck in Brookline. They probably thought they were helping science. The warden had them brainwashed in a different way, blinded to what was really happening behind the white, clean veneer of the hospital. Brookline was rotten to the core, he just had to force those people to take one worm-ridden bite.

  He heard the signal through Dennis’s pounding on the door. Three quick taps, a pause and then three more.

  “This is Phase Three,” he said to himself, to the warden, softly. “The one where we expose you for the fraud you are.”

  Ricky went first.

  He had never hollered so hard or so much in his life. If Dennis’s racket hadn’t brought anyone running, then Ricky would have to outperform him by a mile. He threw himself on the floor and screamed at the top of his lungs, inhaling as deeply as he could before giving another long, piercing wail. Kay joined in, but she started calling frantically for help.