Psycho Candy

by Steven Hunter

  Candy gasped, "Wow. We have more fire-power."

  Faith nodded, "Yes. It was my mothers'."

  Candy turned and placed a key in the lock.

  The door opened.

  Suffering ends with suffering the same as it begins, all that differs is the intent, Candy mused as she turned the knife, unaware she has caught a temporal thought from Faith and Jan's past, she does not know the green-eyed girl's mother and Jan's lover once felt like Buddha, yet for a moment she feels the air around her thicken as time distorts.

  The first orderly gasped as the axe penetrated the top of his head, splitting it like a coconut. Membrane spewed onto the tiled floor and the other orderly gasped as Jan smashed him in the nose with the butt of the gun.

  Candy ran back from the corridor up ahead, "The key works up here."

  John reached for the orderlies' keys. "Got another set too."

  Candy wiped her blade absentmindedly on her jeans. The orderly at the corridor where she had come from slumped further in his seat. Blood dripped on the white linoleum tiled flooring, like spilt syrup on Formica.

  "My ward is another few doors away. Locked tight as a nun’s cunt though. Thankfully we have the necessary metal to open the doors," said Candy as the others joined her.

  She opened the door and they entered another corridor. Steel mesh covered plastic burn proof windows. Somewhere in the grounds a bird hooted. The riders strode along the corridor. Faith and Marcus kept to the back of the parade. Jan walked at the front with Candy. They came to another orderly at a locked door. This time Candy kicked him in the chin and a fountain of blood erupted from his mouth. Jan put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Somewhere in the building an alarm began to sound. The door opened. The riders broke into a run. The next corridor held the entry to Candy's ward. The door was unguarded. It was made of thick steel though. Candy set the key in place and took a deep breath.

  She turned to her assembled team. "When we go in, you guys keep me covered while I find Brekin. After that it’s back out the door. With a little added distraction," she fingered the container she carried in her back pack.

  The nurse behind the door almost smiled. There was after all no way anyone but a key holder could walk through the door. It seemed her scream was dragged inward as Candy stuck her with her knife. One of the female patients recognized her, then another. Soon the ward was alerted to the sight of her.

  "It's Candy!"

  "Candy!"

  Faces came towards her like the memory of a recurrent dream last envisioned some time ago. They cried out with open mouths for recognition and screamed in delight as nurses gave up their posts on the ward and made for their station. One of the uniformed women inside picked up the phone. Faith shot at her through the toughened plastic and the bullet pierced the nurse’s forehead. More screaming ensued. The three men who were also working that shift and had been in conversation ducked as a round of bullets punched holes around them. Jan followed up with her gun, her shot more even than Faiths and finding purchase each time, watched as people cried in pain, and felt alive, nearly at home. Amongst it all Candy ignored the chaos and death which occurred every passing second.

  "Brekin? Brekin!" Candy shouted.

  Then she saw him, sitting in the smoking room.

  He grinned. The door to the room opened and the Rastafarian stepped out. Another couple of men had also been admitted to the ward and they had spotted the open door and made a run for it. Two women picked up the thread.

  The phone was lifted again, this time by unseen hands and three digits were pressed. John kicked in the door and chopped the arm of the woman holding the phone. More and more patients were heading for the doorway.

  Candy stood in the middle of the ward. "Time to go old friend."

  "Seems like it."

  Candy reached into her back pack and withdrew a can of Kerosene. She began spreading it across the floors and walls. The others, taking this as a sign made for the door. Brekin walked through, followed by Candy who sloshed another wave of the flammable juice on the floor. Finally she reached into her backpack and took out what on first glance appeared to be a belt made of dice. Possibly by Gucci.

  She was about to toss the explosives to the other side of the room when Jan grabbed her by the hand. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” the Dizorian shouted.

  “Probably... I was thinking that I... never mind. Why are you so concerned about my mental state now?”

  She's lost it, thought Jan. It's obvious what I'm saying, or saying by not saying or- “I mean the explosives. This is meant to be a rescue mission, not a suicide one,” explained Jan, then realising that she wasn't being one hundred percent clear again, added, “If you add that to the flames then we'll be dead before we reach the door.”

  Candy nodded, all the while looking at Jan as if she might have been losing it.

  A terrible possibility occurred to her. Is it this place? Now she's seen me here does she think I'm some kind of retard? Candy thought, before voicing her opinion.

  “Yeah, I got you the first time. No dice,” she said placing them back in her knapsack before turning to Brekin, "Do you have a light good buddy?"

  Brekin flicked the wheel of his silver Zippo lighter which burst into a small flame and handed it to Candy. Lighter in hand she stood and stared towards the single room she had stayed in when first admitted to the ward. Its door stood slightly ajar. She passed her gaze from here, to the nurses’ station, where the sound of screaming had replaced the normal calming music churned out daily by the staff. That had at times nearly driven her mad. This however was music to her ears.

  From there she continued her last look around the small area which had contained her for so many years, through the television area and it's now over turned chairs and shot up television, right through to the smoking room. Where she had first met the man who had made all this possible. Reversing her head, she ran her gaze backwards and this time it seemed that every object would elicit an image of the past and each part of the ward a memory. She looked, back and forth, back and forth, like a tennis match. Now the memories were rising from her unconscious mind, stretching into her awareness which began to expand in order to accommodate it all. Like a tidal wave they rose up and crashed down upon her mind so hard she literally staggered backwards as her brain began the struggle of soaking up the memories once again. She saw Wanda, sitting offering her chocolates. The mirror in the smoking room, when she thought she was a goner. And she saw Cassie, torn apart by a creature whose only reason was a different reasoning.

  Like a well needed slap, Candy felt movement break her trance. Glancing down at her arm was Brekin, pulling her towards the door. Only then did she realise that she had thrown the lighter into the flammable mix, and that she had intended to follow it. To pull the fucking place apart. Piece by piece by piece.

  Turning she saw that everyone else was now outside the ward, and only herself and Brekin were anywhere near the fire. She pushed Brekin though and followed after him, closing the door behind her. Even now, in the early stages of the blaze the metal of the keys base had heated, so it was with a quickness that she locked the door behind her. Letting go for the briefest of seconds she smashed her hand against the left side of the key, snapping the locking device, and making as sure as possible that that door would never be opened again

  The riders moved swiftly along the corridors. People ran in every direction now. The word FIRE had spread through the minds of the inhabitants of the institution like a new disease.

  As they reached their entrance, Candy slowed back from the others. She was very much in the gambling mood, and reached once again for the dice.

  Feet away, Marcus held the door as the others moved through. Mon due, he thought. He had not killed a soul. The dewy grass was like a blanket of coolness to the feet that sought purchase amongst its blades. John stopped the others as they ran, "Might as well walk. What we just did, you walk away from not run. What we're moving towards you approach slowly.
Walk without caution."

  Everyone slowed, although there was some grumbling from Marcus on the matter, whilst mother and daughter made sure the other was okay. It occurred then that Candy was missing.

  “She's over there. What the hell is she hanging on the handle?” asked Faith.

  She had watched as Candy had strung what looked like little square beads over the inner door handle, before slamming the door shut. Candy came bounding down the grass towards them.

  “Why the hell are we walking?” Candy asked.

  Everybody remained silent as the first sounds of police sirens rang out like a bad memory. Yet they passed through the gates and as the first car went past, the group merely faded into the surrounding trees and bushes. Four cars drove past in total.

  "Where to now?" said Marcus.

  He looked slightly flushed. The previous hour had disturbed him. John pointed down to the approaching blackness.

  "There. Somewhere out there is the way back."

  There is no way back for me, thought Marcus, looking at Candy bitterly. He would have been surprised to know Candy was thinking the exact same thing. They stopped at the bottom and watched from their hiding place as more police cars were followed by fire engines and ambulances, up the driveway to the hospital entrance. Spread out across the vast acres of garden, ran both patients and members of staff alike. Those who had gotten out, Candy realised.

  In the faint distance she watched a number of figures walk towards the entrance. As they the riders turned away and continued their journey onwards the building exploded. Only Candy watched, and when she had turned back the rest were at the road, except all eyes were on her.

  The building had been destroyed. What remained would have to be taken down. The death toll was as of yet unknown but was thought to be near the thousand mark. It had been a big place. Of the staff and patients that were rounded up alive afterwards, none of the employees had known Candy had been the cause of the fire and the only two patients who had made it out alive had been women Candy's ward. Both were old, and hadn't really given the youngster much thought since her disappearance. As it turned out, neither were any use whatsoever to the resulting investigation.

  The only thing the two women could agree on actually, was that Candy had looked happy for a change.

  Back at the flat, John went to get his bottle. Faith and her mother looked at photographs of Faith senior. Marcus excused himself and went out again. Faith gave him a second glance as he walked out the room towards the front door. He had been going out more and more lately. Nobody seemed to want to discuss the horror that they had just created. None except Candy. She was glad to see her friend again. And for the first time in a long time she felt she could put her incarceration behind her.

  "It is good to see you Candy. I have dreamed of the day of my release," said Brekin.

  Candy just lay in his arms, her eyes closed, thinking nothing and seeing only black. She liked it, this state. Here nothing was real, not in the way her open eyes made it. Her world view was sedated. The killing had placated a need and now she could rest, whatever or whoever she was, the her that was the driving part of her being. In this lull she felt no urge to feel anything, merely felt without effort all that was inside her.

  Whatever had been left of her morality, she supposed in terms of good as she understood it, had all but disappeared. Yet, she knew this was her body adapting. Adapting for her survival.

  She reached out with her thought-voice and felt the minds of the others. They were also changed yet they would heal. Only John felt the same. Candy turned this sense off, instinctively it seemed. Before this had proved difficult. As sleep came she wondered why this was. As the dreams took hold it hit her with astounding clarity.

  For the first in a long, long time, she felt safe.

  When darkness fell it fell heavy. Her first sleep in years, without sedation, she began to dream... First she dreamed of a good thing. The good thing was a pool of water. If you had faith you could walk right through, under the cliff and come out the other side, which was heavenly. If not, you drowned. Candy didn’t know what the faith was meant to be in though. Was it as simple as coming out the other side or was it really necessary to believe in the good thing?

  Then she dreamed of a prison, a place where the stone had memory and everything bad was recorded. She felt the cold rock she had to sleep on. She felt the numbness of isolation. She felt fear.

  Then she dreamed about a tooth. The tooth was the only perfect one in the mouth yet it was the only one that was getting taken out. Candy did not want to lose the tooth, yet the pliers kept pulling and she screamed and turned to get away when –

  "Candy? Are you okay? You were having a nightmare." It was Brekin. She squeezed this massive dread locked man, the jovial Rastafarian with the kindest heart she’d known.

  "Yeah. Just a some weird dreams. This is the first sleep I've had without the hell of psychiatric sedation. Guess my mind still isn't used to the idea of not having nightmares.”

  They smiled at each other, and Candy now awake did not feel like returning to sleep.

  "Are you hungry?" asked Brekin, “I've got a massive appetite and great idea for a meal,” and Candy realised that she was.

  In fact she could not remember the last time she had eaten anything that didn't come in hospital tube form.

  "Yes. Starving. What did you have in mind?" she asked the smiling Brekin who she thought looked a little odd. What the hell? Is he hiding something behind his back?

  “Brekin, call me paranoid, but what exactly do you want to eat?” asked Candy, wondering for the first time if freeing this man from the mental home had been such a good idea. Brekin's smile widened and now she felt like screaming and so she did, “BREKIN WHAT THE FUCK IS IT YOU WANT TO EAT?” and the question seemed a strange thing to scream, then whatever he had been hiding swung round in an arc and he answered her question. "I want to eat your fucking brains, you cunt, all the way to what's left of your soul!" and Candy struggled as something heavy yet unseen punched through the top of her head. She tried to scream but whatever had entered through her skull had passed though into her brain and her ability to vocalise had gone. The last thing she saw was Brekin shoving grey matter into his mouth, when she awoke.

  She knew that she was awake for real this time, however she could not close her jaws, and for the longest time her sat mouth agape. She searched for Brekin in the darkness and laid her hand on his chest. Then he shifted in his sleep and muttered something before turning over. Despite the slowing of her breathing it still came thicker and faster than his. And still with her mouth ajar, unable to make any sound other than that of her laboured breathing, her mind continued to scream.

  Jan knew Candy had been crying. The real Brekin lay upstairs stretched out on the pillowed floor. Candy had pinched herself several times, to make sure she wasn't dreaming, and then slapped herself in the face for good measure. Now she sat alone on the downstairs sofa, her head resting firmly in her hands, slouched like a woman depressed. Sudden warmth filled firstly her head, and then spread to her heart, before filling her entire body.

  She looked up and saw her new friend, the Dizorian, standing over her.

  “What did you just do?” asked Candy.

  "I touched your soul. It's not all there. I always wondered what it... how it-" started Jan.

  “Felt?” interrupted Candy.

  “Yes,” admitted Jan, “I wanted to. Before. I wanted to see how it felt.”

  “And?” asked Candy, her eyebrows like two bridges extending over a river of sweat.

  “You feel... deadish.”

  “Deadish?”

  “As in, kind of dead. Where it counts.”

  “How. How can you see that?”

  “Your soul. I can trace it. Along the deathlines.”

  “You're scaring me.”

  “With good reason perhaps.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It is something I have been doing for a long t
ime. It is an occult art in my world, in yours I think they call it necromancy, or at least it belongs to that-” Jan trailed off. Candy was staring at her, with eyes that were quite firmly telling her to get to the point.”I've been trying to find Faith's soul, the soul of my dead lover. I could not find it back home and so I've been trying to find it here. But the more I study, the more I see the interconnections, the vastness of the death realms. All worlds are spiritual, be it solidified or-”

  “Spare me the fucking lecture, for fucks sake. I'm not taking classes in the paranormal. You said I'm part dead. What does that mean?”

  Jan hesitated a moment before answering. “I don't know. I guess only you can know yourself. Maybe, it means you should know yourself. Now, I mean. I think this is one that you have to answer. And the only way is to stop trying to remember who you were as that part of you is gone.”

  Candy was about to tell Jan she'd had all the pop psychology she could handle for one day, yet something she said stuck.

  Know yourself. Jan's words had made sense.

  “Do you believe death is evil, Jan?”

  “No. But maybe...” her words trailed off.

  “What? Maybe what?” Candy snarled, and the perceivably dangerous nature of the woman sitting before her gave conviction to her words.

  “But maybe because part of your soul is in the hands of evil and further more split apart. And each of the pieces is at the end of lines. Deathlines. And deathlines are like dream roads, ethereal highways which would take me to each one. Each would differ, but would share the similarity of travelling through a nightmare from which one could not awake. Except the reason one could not awaken is because they are very real. Real and... horrific. Therefore, no, I don't think death itself is evil. I think however that... you... very much are,” Jan finished her speech softly.