The Lost and the Damned

by Dennis Liggio

  Yes, I didn’t quite believe it either, but there it was. It fit everything. Maybe it was the red electricity, maybe not. But it just stood up to any argument I could think of other than incredulity.

  I was in the year 1985.

  I didn’t have long for this realization sink. Things went from weird to dangerously weird to weirdly dangerous in this place really quick. Bellingham Psychiatric Institute: the weirdest place on earth. The Santa Cruz Mystery Spot had nothing on this place.

  We were sitting against the wall outside of a room where we discovered a corpse, staring in awe at a newspaper while Katie looked around the hall for something interesting. That’s when I heard the voice.

  I didn’t know what to think of it when I heard it, just that it caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. It could have been a growl or it could have been a moan, I couldn’t say. What I could say was that it was deep. Without a doubt I knew that what it came from was big, really big. And what it came from was mean. I knew I didn’t want to be near it.

  I stood up immediately, my mind completely alert, my muscles tense. The voice was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out. It was far enough away that I could just hear it. I twisted my head and body, looking for where the voice was coming from. Maybe it was the architecture of the hallways, but I couldn’t fix a direction for it. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere.

  Grabbing Katie’s hand, I helped her to her feet. I bet even in her child-like state, she was getting sick of me dragging her around. But at this point, I didn’t have time to hear her opinion. We needed to move. We needed to get away from whatever was making that sound. I ran down the hallway, Katie in tow. I reached a four way intersection and spun, seeing if I could locate the direction of the voice. Still nothing. The voice was freaking me out. I wasn’t sure if it was my excitement bleeding over to her or if she heard the voice too, but Katie was also freaking out. Her eyes were wide, her face pale. She whipped her head from side to side, looking for the voice. The voice continued, pausing between breaths and starting again.

  We ran down a corridor, twisting our heads and our bodies, frantically looking for the voice. I began twisting doorknobs and pushing on doors, finding them all locked. We went down half a hallway, finding no unlocked doors, the voice getting louder. Finally, I couldn’t take it. I took a step back and kicked the door open of a likely office. I herded Katie in and followed, closing the door the best I could.

  It was a small office dominated by a desk and chair. There were also a bookcase and a closet door, but otherwise space in the room was cramped. I led Katie behind the desk and crouched down with her. The voice was still groaning, getting louder and louder. Katie looked at me, fear in her eyes. I stroked her hair, trying to calm her down and console her. “It’s okay,” I whispered to her, barely audible over the voice.

  That’s when we began to hear footsteps. Loud thudding footsteps. The footsteps only confirmed that it was some humongous monster. Monster? I’m not sure why I jumped to that. Some humongous something. I heard slow thundering steps. I still could not grasp where it was coming from and where it was going. All I knew was that they were coming nearer. And still the voice groaned in that same deep, distorted voice.

  The objects on the desk shook from the monster’s footsteps and a book tumbled off the bookcase. Katie squealed and hid her face in her hands. I brought her close in an embrace, shielding her and whispering “Shhhh,” in her ear. She scrunched up against me, but did not stop whimpering. It sounded like she was crying. I could hear the footsteps and the voice. It was coming down this corridor. There was no way to deny that. Every step reverberated in the walls. It sounded like an earthquake was rolling through the hallways.

  I heard a heavy step, landing right outside the door. I could see the shadow cast under the door. I looked out over the desk through the frosted glass and I saw its shadow. It looked like a man, but a huge man, maybe eight or ten feet tall. I saw its jaw shadowed in the window and it was huge and square, as if cut from stone. It paused in front of the door, letting out its awful wail. I could hear it more clearly now. It sounded like, “Maaaaaaaaaaaaak…”

  I hugged Katie closer and closed my eyes. I just wanted it to move on down the hall. In my mind I willed it to ignore us. Any second now I knew it was going to take another thundering step. But that didn’t happen. I opened my eyes and saw the shadow of the monster. The head had either turned toward our door or toward the door across the hall - I could tell which based on the shadow. Then I saw it shift its weight and the shadow move. It was turning! It dawned on me that it was focused on either our door or the door across the hall. I couldn’t take the chance it was ours. We needed to hide.

  I looked around the room for an exit, for some place to hide. I saw the closet. It wasn’t an exit, but it could hide us. If the monster just looked in, we could avoid its sight by being in the closet. Then it would move on down the hall. Right?

  I stood up and opened the closet door. Quickly helping Katie up, I waved her inside. She moved toward it and froze, pausing at the threshold. I didn’t have time for this. I gently pressed on her back, pushing her through. The monster was leaning closer, and right now I didn’t doubt that it was our door. “Maaaaaaaaaaaak…” it said.

  Shivering from that voice, I stepped into the closet, pulling the door behind me, only at the last moment realizing my mistake.

  Nine

  TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW ROOM 5. PATIENT 457. ATTENDING PHYSICIAN: DR. MERILL

  PATIENT: The last thing I truly remember was the place where it all went wrong.

  DOCTOR: And where was that?

  PATIENT: A secret place. A powerful place.

  DOCTOR: Tell me about that place.

  PATIENT: I can’t.

  DOCTOR: Why not?

  PATIENT: It’s all locked away. Some memories should be guarded and wrapped in secrets. Otherwise they become dangerous.

  I was falling again.

  Black space whooshed past me, as I fell through the void, my mind blank. I fell quicker this time, once again landing in the same dining room. I saw the young boy and the blonde haired girl again. The whole sequence of events began again. The boy walks in, she says something to him, and he nods. Then he walks in the living room. I know what’s in the living room and what happens next, and I don’t want to go. I can’t help but follow the boy, as if I am tethered to him as he walks into the living room.

  The adult is in the living room again, dressed in work clothes half unbuttoned. Even before the boy has taken two steps into the room, the man is angry. He starts shouting but the boy doesn’t react. It’s faster than the last time, he grabs the boys arm, there’s more shouting, then a montage of violence. I feel every time the man’s hand strikes the boy, now I just feel all those hits faster. The man’s rage knows no end. Doesn’t he know what he’s doing to the boy? He’ll kill him if he keeps doing this! Yet the rage and anger continues. Pain, humiliation, anger, blood, betrayal, hatred.

  Then it’s the black again.

  Once you’ve become willing to accept time travel as a genuine possibility, a whole range of ideas and theories that had been previously unavailable opens up. Maybe the ideas were too crazy, too out there, too unlikely. They were denied because they had to be impossible. But once you accept the impossible, it’s a wide open world. It’s comfortable for a while, as the world now seems larger and more full of possibility. It’s when you find what lurks in the shadows of those possibilities, the things that hide in the darkness of the impossible that change your mind.

  I woke up, disoriented again. I recovered quickly, quicker than the last time. I was still slow getting my bearings. If I had been clearer of mind, I would be thankful that I didn’t wake up in a closet again. No, this time I was outside. I saw sunlight, though I was laying in shade. I turned and saw Katie next to me, her eyes blinking as she stared at me. We were on the ground lying against a car or a truck or something. The ground was gravel, and looking forward, I saw a gre
at brown rock face rising high.

  I pulled myself up to a standing position and felt my center of gravity just drop, my head suddenly dizzy. I reached out and steadied myself on the vehicle, the disorientation passing quickly. I tried to think how we got here and remembered the office room. I had shuffled Katie into the closet and then stepped into the closet myself. But there was no closet in the closet. Instead of a cramped closet, there was just space. Black, empty, limitless space. I stepped out into the void and then my mind went blank. There was a long gap in my memory and then we were here.

  When my balance returned to me, I stood up. We were in the shadow of a mobile office trailer, the kind you see at construction sites or in movies with spoiled movie stars. We were on the rear side, the door assumedly on the other side. It was the trailer that we laid against in our unconsciousness. I helped Katie to her feet. She seemed okay, just quiet and very confused.

  “I guess my rescue isn’t quite going as planned,” I said to Katie with a half smile. She smiled back with a real smile, clueless to my joke.

  I stretched my arms, looking up at the sky. The rock face rose high, but the sky was clear. It curved somewhat, and I wondered if we were in some kind of a basin. I didn’t feel as freaked out as I thought I would be. I wondered if I had too many surprises thrust on me in a short period of time. Maybe I was tired of being shocked. Maybe things have gotten so weird I was no long surprised. This was at least a change from the hospital. I still had no clue what was going on, but hey, now I was getting some nice crisp air. It smelled like mountain air, and that was nice.

  Enough stretching, I decided, it was time to figure out this next fucked up situation. I peeked around the trailer and didn’t see anyone immediately on the other side. I did see something that interested me more. Stepping from behind the trailer, I stood and stared at the stone temple.

  Before me was something that looked like a Mayan temple gone mad; or something that I assumed was Mayan from the scant images I had seen on cable television. Could be Aztec or Olmec for all I knew. There were stone tiers that went the whole way up the pyramid. Stairs led up the center of each face, reaching the pyramid top. Instead of a point or a building at the top, it was flat. It looked like there was something stone on top, but I couldn’t tell what. Stone arms grew out of the sides of the pyramid, reaching for the sky before turning in on the pyramid summit with points, as if a giant insect had died and fallen on its back. The temple was awe inspiring itself, but it was where it collided with the modern day that was of even more note.

  Around the pyramid and on each of the tiers were stationed all sorts of scientific equipment, machines with consoles and a web of wires connecting them all. Giant floodlights dotted the temple. Scientists went back and forth on the pyramid like ants on an ant hill. Besides our own trailer, a number of others surrounded the pyramid. I stood there, taking it all in, wondering just how weird things could get and just where the hell I was. Were we in Mexico? South America? I had decided time travel was possible, but this was beyond that. Where the hell were we and how did we get here?

  That’s when Katie started screaming.

  The sudden sound nearly made me jump out of my skin. My shoulders tightened and my head snapped around. Katie was standing a step or two behind me, staring at the pyramid. No one was near her and she wasn’t bleeding, she was just standing there, looking and screaming. Then she turned to me.

  “WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE? WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING ME BACK HERE? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE?”

  She just continued to scream at me as I stared dumbfounded. This soon passed as I realized her screaming would attract all sorts of unwanted attention. I grabbed her with both arms, pulling her back behind the trailer.

  She writhed in my arms, screaming at me, calling me an asshole, a prick, and a ton of other creative insults. All the time she kept demanding to know why I brought her back here. “WHY? WHY?” she finally settled on, repeating it over and over. I tightened my hold on her, forcing my hand over her mouth to quiet her. I hated doing this, using force against her, but I felt it needed to be done. She screamed against my hand, the muffled sound thankfully much quieter. I held her tight and whispered, “Shhhh! Shhhh! Calm down. If you calm down, I’ll let go of you. Just no screaming. We may be in danger.”

  It took a few moments, but eventually she stopped screaming and stopped fighting me.

  “If I let you go, will you be quiet?”

  She nodded.

  I let her go and she jumped out of my arms, immediately taking a few steps away from me, wrapping her arms around herself. I almost expected her to start screaming again. Instead, she just complained. “Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you!”

  “I needed you to stop screaming – ” I started.

  “Why the fuck did you bring me back here?” she demanded, interrupting me. “Here of all places. Oh my god. Oh shit, this is so fucked up. Not here. Just not here.” She gripped herself tighter.

  “Katie?”

  “Jesus Christ, this is really fucked up,” she said, not even paying attention to me.

  I took a moment to peek around the trailer. As far as I could tell, no one was coming this way. I don’t know how they didn’t hear the screaming. Maybe they took the time to go get their guns.

  I turned back to her. “Katie?”

  “Just so fucked up,” she mumbled.

  “Katie?” I said louder and more insistently.

  “What?” she practically shouted, finally paying attention to me. She looked annoyed.

  “Do you know how you got here?”

  “Do I know how I got here? Of course I know how I… fucking… got… here…” her voice slowed down and trailed off. She looked confused.

  I gave her room and she took a long minute, deep in thought and confusion.

  “No, I don’t,” she finally said softly.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “Yes. No. I don’t…” She furrowed her brow, breaking eye contact with me. “It was like… It was like a four year old came into your house and took over, banishing you to a tiny room in the attic. You can look out a small window, but you can’t see much. She comes up to tell you everything that’s happening, but she tells it in four-year-old talk. It's worse when you know the four year old is you… or used to be you. Actually,” she said, meeting my gaze again, “it’s more accurate that I used to be her.”

  Now it was my turn to be at a loss for a response. I decided to bulldoze past the particulars of her mental landscape and back to the stuff I thought mattered. “My name is John Keats. Your record company hired me to find you and bring you back.”

  “Are you some kind of bounty hunter?” Those mesmerizing green eyes narrowed, ready to be judgmental.

  “Detective, actually.”

  “Private?” she asked. Why does everyone ask that way?

  “If I’m going to hate my boss, it might as well be me,” I responded.

  She nodded a few times, her eyes flitting around as she nodded, as if confirming everything made sense and was consistent. “John Keats, that’s the name of someone famous, isn’t it?”

  “A poet, actually.”

  “A poet? Seriously?” she asked.

  “I hope you won’t hold it against me,” I said with a smile.

  This seemed to soften her expression. “Nah, a poet’s cool. It’s not like we get to pick our names. We have to rely on other people for them.” She nodded more, as if things were making more sense. “So I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think you’re going to get paid.”

  My smile disappeared from my lips, but I tried not to show any other reaction. “Why is that?”

  “Cause I don’t have a record company.”

  “You do, actually. Intersperse Records.”

  “Intersperse, eh?” she said, trying it out. “How did that happen?”

  “According to the story,” I responded, “it was Robbie. He got y
our video onto MTV, it played well, and from there the record companies were falling over themselves to get your band.”

  “Fucking Robbie,” she said, “I knew there was a plus side of him banging that MTV ho. At least we have an album now. A couple of people have heard of us now.”

  “It’s a little more than a couple,” I said, recalling the pictures of her plastered all over record stores. “Your album is gold or platinum, or whatever the best of the best is.”

  “No shit?” she said, surprised, leaning back on the trailer and folding her arms. “I’m not sure if I even believe all this.”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. What I care is what Intersperse believes. As long as their check is real, the reality or unreality of your career doesn’t matter to me.”

  “That’s a rather pragmatic way to go about things,” she said.

  “In my line of work, I have to work with what I’m given. My task here is ‘find the girl’. As long as you’re Katie Vanders, it doesn’t matter whether you rock or not.”

  “That makes sense.” She paused for a moment, an impish smile appearing on her lips. “And for the record, I do rock.”

  She pushed herself off from the trailer and began pacing, walking in a circle. “It’s good to be back in control,” she confided, stretching her arms. Her pacing took her to the edge of the trailer, where she could turn and see the pyramid. I saw her head start to turn, then flinch as she forced herself not to look. Then she paced back into the more “safe” area in the shadow of the trailer.

  “So how’d we get here, Mr. Detective?” she finally asked, her arms swinging idly.

  “That’s a long and strange story,” I said reluctantly.

  “Come on, it can’t be that long. Once you start, you’ll be surprised how quickly you finish. So you found me in the hospital, we left the hospital, you drove me back here for some reason…”