Candy sighed and made a mental inventory of things she may need whilst inside. She had no real clothes, and didn't fancy walking around in a hospital gown for the rest of her days. The woman she had met in the bar had told her to smoke, and as crazy as the bitch had seemed Candy kinda figured she could use all the help she could get. And if she was going to be stuck in this place for however long then she would need entertainment. She had noticed the television all the patients were huddled around and thought fuck that. She also wanted some books to read, some pens and paper to write and some felt tips to draw with, maybe even some paints. Candy planned on keeping as much of herself to herself as possible in this place.
She turned to Nowes. "I'll let the matter drop if you can provide me with a few basic luxuries yeah, nothing too fancy or expensive; just a few things that I think you'll agree to be fair."
"Okay," said the professor, "Name your price so to speak."
"Well I want a television with computer consuls, the latest by Sega and Nintendo, and all the latest games. You may want to include some fighting games in the mix," Candy winked at the professor, "I have some unchecked aggression I need to get rid of. Secondly, I need some books. I've spent the last two years studying to be a doctor and I think It's time I started reading some fiction. I've got a lot of catching up to do, so, I'll have a think and write you a list of books I'd like. I'd like four new books a month, as I plan to read one a week. Also I'd like some paper, pens, and envelopes with stamps. I haven't even spoken to my parents since this whole thing kicked off and I'd like to try and explain as best I can and tell them not to worry, and I don't think I'd be able to keep my voice from cracking and breaking down if I did it over the phone or face to face. And finally a brand new 56 pack of felt tip pens and some drawing pads, with proper artists pencils to boot. I may as well spend the time here productively and believe all these items will aid me in my recovery. What do you say Rudolph?"
"It's Randolph. But, yes that sounds splendid. I think we can have all of that arranged to be here by tomorrow at the latest. Now let me take you to your room.”
The sight that greeted Candy en-route to her room was one of gloom. Open doorways gave view to single rooms and dormitories, some inhabited, some empty. A walk down the corridor showed a glassed nurses station, beside which was a small cupboard sized room, normally guarded by a heavy oak door. This was at the moment occupied by a smallish nurse who was pouring a thick reddish liquid into a small plastic medicine cup.
Drugs, thought Candy. Wonder what the fuck the stuff here is like?
Candy was closer now to the gaggle of patients who were conversing in a hysterical manner, lounging across a variety of chairs that all sat pointed towards the ancient television set, the apparent centre piece of the ensemble.
Behind and slightly to the right of the television was a closed door with the letters S OK NG O M painted on it. The paint had chipped and faded, however despite the missing lettering, from its smoky interior Candy figured it was easy enough to fill in the blanks. SMOKING ROOM.
Randolph clasped a sweaty hand on Candy’s shoulder. "So this is to be your home from now on. As you can see it’s very relaxed here. There are activities to keep you occupied, as well as a variety of therapies to engage in. There are no chores or the like to perform. Cuckoo’s nest this is not," Randolph permitted himself a chuckle at his joke, raising polite smiles from the orderlies.
“Nurse Jones. Could I see you for a moment?" Randolph bellowed.
From the nurses’ station emerged the elderly nurse Candy had met upon her arrival. The nurse made a beeline for the professor.
"Tell me Candy, as our meeting was so unfortunately cut short, I have not had the opportunity to make a fair summary of you condition. However, I believe, from what the police have told me you have been hearing things. Would this be accurate?" the professor asked.
"I hear many things Randolph," the nurse blushed at Candy’s use of the professor’s name, "however; mostly it’s just bullshit from your mouth. Why don’t you run along and get me those pain killers you promised me like a good little piggy, and just so you know, I don’t think aspirin is going to cut it. After that you can show me to my room. And Randolph, It don't have to be the Hilton, but I'd better like it."
Randolph managed to maintain his smile at this onslaught, although there was a perceivable narrowing of his eyes. "Well now, it’s your first day and what with all you’ve been through I suppose we can overlook a bit of rude play," Randolph turned to the nurse. "What say we give Miss Stevens a Pethidine injection?” the professor leaned in, yet Candy could still hear his whisperings - “The usual dose for ECT punishments,”- Then his voice resumed its usual loud jovial volume. “And also 120 milligrams of Dihydrocodeine with aspirin. Miss Candy may not realize but a few tablets of the drug she dismissed will serve to keep any temperature down. Also five hundred milligrams of Chlopromazine suspension and four milligrams of Lorazapam and ten milligrams of Valium. I’m sure the good lady here will appreciate a bit of relief."
Even at these words, Candy realized that it was true. She felt her heart was on a roller coaster, a mass of feeling from the mentally unstable inhabitants of the institution, as it picked up their emotions and tried to block out their trauma. Moments later she was handed the pills and led through to her bedroom where the Pethidine injection was administered.
Presently in a state of sedation and pain free feeling she settled into her bed and dreamed again of the Native American and the rolling sky and clouds. Later, after waking, she took some time to settle into her single room, a pleasantly spaced affair, considering, consisting of a comfortable single bed, sink, wardrobe, a large leather chair which Candy found to her liking and also a twist lock which Candy could manoeuvre from the inside, safely shutting out the other inhabitants of the ward.
Wanting now to familiarise herself with her surroundings, Candy had ventured outside and now sat on one of the seats that took its place in the television area. Her own television and games console was yet to be installed, as were the books to be delivered.
Although many of the inmates of the ward were dressed in identical hospital gowns, Candy had opted for a woollen pullover and faded denims, both second hand from the jumble in the patient wardrobe. This was to make do for the time being, another part of the deal being that Candy be brought in new clothes which she had selected from a magazine.
Most of the patients were sleeping, and for this Candy was grateful, experiencing mass disturbances from the thoughts and feelings of the others on the ward. She took this lull in psychic activity as a well needed break, and had just imbibed a new round of Lorazapam, tiny blue oblong tablets that Candy had come to think of as a chemical treat.
In the background of her mind, what she had come to think of as her "thought-voice" spoke intermittently to her. It knew things, things that had happened, things that were just about to happen, and things that were happening, and Candy listened and watched, amazed by her new perceptiveness.
It occurred to her that she had been given this, like she had been given the vague recollection of the future, for a reason, and that it was supposed to be beneficial. Yet, for all this, she understood that here was the curse aspect Jack had spoken of.
She wasn't strictly speaking, telepathic, however she thought that this may be the closet she could come to sum up the other way her mind now worked: a torturous ability to pick up on the thoughts and feelings of those around her. When Jenny, the three time killer and certified schizophrenic heard her late mother calling to her, begging for her life, Candy would hear it also. And when the images of the carnage that would follow would flare up in Jenny's mind, Candy would get her own personal viewing. A gaping mush of blood and pulp where her mother’s face once was. Her two daughters, their fearful sobs, silenced by the crack of the pistol. Flat marble eyes unable to focus. Too much blood for bodies so little, who knew they could hold so much?
And Candy would be struck with a crushing guilt that did not belon
g, yet fitted her all the same.
Hence, as Jenny cried, Candy would want to stick a knife in Jenny’s temporal lobe, just for the silence that such an action would allow.
It was not a matter of the hatred she felt for Jenny.
She merely craved peace. And more than this, she wanted the sanity of her own making, untarnished by the disturbance of the others around her. But the tiny little pills, the oblong blue chemical compounds they were feeding her, gave her some respite. It dulled the feelings and blunted the thoughts and relaxed her enough, so that she could just sit and listen to herself and her new ability to not only think, but think in perceptive predictions.
Candy did not have a nicotine habit. Yet, she remembered her promise to the woman in the bar, that she would smoke until… until what? That, she did not know. Yet, oddly, she felt a cigarette would be nice, would complement the sedative in her blood, and so she stood and made her way towards the entrance of the smoking room, was about to enter, when she remembered that they had taken her cigarettes upon entering the facility.
A nurse was leaving the station, closing the thick wooden door. Something about the scene struck Candy as being odd, suggested to Candy that the nurse was really a jailer, a jailer guarding the sane.
You can leave when you want, but while you’re here you’re locked away too. Only difference is that you’ve got the keys. Those motherfuking keys that you all like to twirl, just to remind us all who's in charge, thought Candy, and she shouted out and motioned for the nurse to come over.
"When I arrived here, I had cigarettes. Do you think you could return them to me?" asked Candy, allowing a modicum of politeness to enter her voice.
"I’m not sure about the cigarettes you had when you arrived, but we always keep a few spare packs for new admissions. If you wait here I’ll go and get you a pack, although please don’t be offended if it’s not your regular brand," the nurse cooed back, genuinely pleased to help.
Then... (the lucky’s ask for lucky’s, it’s what she likes, she smokes) the thought voice came through, a bare whisper above silence. Candy was still unsure where exactly she was hearing it. Her brain? Her mind? It was not like normal thoughts, although Candy was unsure about those too. What used to constitute as normal, had long since revealed itself a foolish notion to be replaced by a new understanding of the word. Normal equalled fucked up, at least in Candy’s book, although that too had become more of a collection of volumes.
"I’d prefer some lucky’s if you’ve got any. Call me a sentimentalist but you just can’t beat those American brands," said Candy to the nurse.
"I know what you mean. I smoke Lucky Strike myself," replied the nurse with the slightest of winks, and she turned back into the nurses’ station, leaving the door slightly ajar.
For a moment, Candy had the fleeting urge to storm the station, kill its inhabitants and make for the outside, and back to the covenant. However, before any definite decision could be made the nurse returned with a packet of Lucky Strikes.
"There weren’t any, so you can have this one of mine. I have loads at home. My brother’s a pilot and he picks them up cheap abroad. There’s some matches too," said the nurse, and she handed the packet of smokes to Candy who accepted with a smile and a nod.
"Thanks so much," said Candy. "I didn’t catch your name?"
"Belinda," came the reply. "I’m going to be your key worker, so we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. If you ever need anything, then just ask. We all really just want you to get well here. Anyway, I must dash. Errands to run, but I’ll be back soon if you want to chat."
"Thanks again Belinda. Well, speak to you later."
A friend on the inside, thought Candy.
She didn’t trust Belinda an inch....
...L.A DOCUMENT #80
… In the beginning it was hard to get a fix. The visions, seemed blurry, but in meditative retrospect I could remember all about Candy and her time in the institution. I keep this journal, not just as a document to record the facts as I know them to be, but also to share, like a friend, and an ally, in the journey Candy has undertaken. I remember her fondly, as if I too were with her at all moments. It has been, and will continue to be my privilege, my private law, to be amongst those who witness the greatness of this story as it unfolds before my very eyes…
...She was awoken from her slumber by shouts from outside in the ward. She checked the clock that hung on the wall above her door and made it out to be 6.47 in the A.M. She decided to investigate. Outside in the area near the nurses station a woman was swinging the remnants of a broken chair. Candy could make out a leg and another connecting wooden part. Three nurses were trying to calm her down.
"I didn't kill ANYBODY! This is BULLSHIT! If any of you fuckers come near me however then that's all going to change."
Candy stared at the woman. She was by far one of the most beautiful young women Candy had ever witnessed. Her hair although apparently greasy and bedraggled was also a beautiful shade of whitey blonde and her eyes in contrast were a deep brown. She had a thin emaciated face and a body to match, as if she hadn't had a decent meal in months. She noticed Candy staring and fixed her gaze on her.
"And what the hell you looking at, bitch? I haven't done anything! They drugged me and brought me here. Where the hell is Michael? He'll tell you. I'm innocent. I'm Innocent.... I'm INN... O... CENT!" the last came out in sobs as the woman slowly relinquished her weapon.
Candy noticed that the lady talked with a well spoken accent.
The nurses firstly disarmed the woman then they led her to a chair. In the station Candy noticed a needle was already being prepared. Candy figured it would be at least a couple of days before she would see this woman again. But already, at least in her mind, the idea of friendship had been formed.
Candy carried in her hands the cigarettes that the nurse Belinda had given her and made her way into the smoking room. It was empty. The air conditioning was thankfully on, yet the air purifier was not, and would not be until the following day when the mechanics were scheduled to fix it.
She lit a Lucky Strike and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke into the air with relief as the first nicotine in a while entered her blood stream. The room was still full of smoke and Candy slowly lowered her gaze from the foggy atmosphere of the ceiling down to the still foggy atmosphere in the lower quadrants of the room.
Behind the stale cigarette smoke she thought she could see the outline of an object. She raised her right hand and tried to fan the smoke from her eyes to get a better look, yet within moments she found the action unnecessary, for it was now obvious to see that standing against the back corner of the room was a mirror. It was oval in shape and was the full length kind one might imagine in a dress shop or tailors. The mist like smoke curled around the curved corners of its frame in which was set the clearest glass Candy had ever seen.
Outside in the ward, the nurses were doing their rounds and Candy stole a glance towards them, hoping to catch an available eye to beckon its owner over. She had not seen the mirror in the smoking room before and wondered why now of all times such an odd object should be placed in there.
However the nurses were still dealing with the new arrival and despite her attempts to draw attention to herself she knew these endeavours where pointless. She turned her head towards the mirror and studied it carefully.
What is it? It's a looking glass. Be careful. You don't want to slip through the other side like Alice.
She looked again at the mirror, and there was something very odd happening within the reflective substance. She looked in it and saw her reflection, but in her reflective self she seemed to be older, and ageing by the minute. Candy watched in horror as her youth flew by in the mirror world and looked on aghast as her skin peeled from her body and her bones disintegrated through shards to dust. Her brain began to vibrate, lost without a skull to hold it in place and as her organs began to leak blood the grey matter above started to pulsate. Candy watched in an agony she did not feel physic
ally but psychologically as her organs ruptured and burst open, spraying blood from out the mirror, the red spray splashed across the white tiled floor, resembling the angry splatter from an artists brush. Still her brain pulsated and vibrated, and then it too burst in an eruption of grey-red pulp, leaving behind the sight of something she thought never possible to see. And yet there was no doubt in her mind what she was seeing.
What she was seeing was her mind. How? She did not know.
Yet, it belonged to her, and she recognised it the same way she intrinsically knew her mother, or her breasts. It was inherently hers. This mixing of celestial neons, electric blue waves writhing amidst piercing green swirls, peppered with faded red, it resembled the pictures of a nebula she'd seen in Science and space magazine. And contained at the centre, an ultra-violet intelligence resonating in the high pitched frequencies of silent screams, creating outward spreading ripples across the surface of the mirror. It reminded Candy of a rock thrown into still waters allowing brief glimpses of the constantly shifting sand beneath. A substance both grain and glass.
The mirrored image, non-identical, yet still representative of it's terror stricken subject toppled forward, outwards from the mirror. Dead. No. Not just dead. Decimated.
Candy opened her mouth to scream but nothing would come out and then the goat goddess stepped forth from the mirror. It was the one she had seen on the television all that time ago, had seen also in the court room, the star witness for the defence or had it been the prosecution? She could not in her delirium remember which.
The goat stalked towards Candy and she tried to remember its' name, her name, IT was a SHE and it came to Candy in a flash – Shub Niggurath. The goat was called Shub Niggurath.
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