Enter If You Dare

by Alyson Larrabee

  Behind me the doorknob rattles. “He’s here.”

  “Did you expect any different? This is where you found him. Where you saw him for the first time.”

  “I know.” I inhale deeply, as if the musty air were loaded with courage. “I’m ready.”

  Wyatt gives me a one-armed hug and asks again. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “Yes. Let’s do it.” I survey the small, dismal room. “Where should we start?”

  “Where could you hide something? There’s no closet, no furniture, only the beds.”

  “You think he hid something?”

  “Why else would he insist that you come back? There has to be something here—something that’ll help us find out how he died.”

  “Okay, you take that bed over there and I’ll take this one.” I drop to my knees, on the floor next to the twin bed on the left and peer underneath. “Nothing under the bed.”

  I straighten up and look at Wyatt. He’s lying full out on his front, scrutinizing the underside of the ratty mattress on the other bed. I decide to do the same and lift the mattress. It’s thin and doesn’t weigh much. Puffs of dust cloud my view. I sneeze a couple of times.

  “God bless you.” Wyatt’s automatic response.

  If God did bless me right now, it would be the first time he visited this room and blessed anyone. No one should ever have been forced to live like this.

  There’s no box spring underneath the mattress, just a criss-cross pattern of flat metal strips, each attached to the rusty iron bed frame by a squeaky metal coil. Poor Daniel, no wonder he had insomnia. These beds weren’t built for comfort or pleasant dreams.

  Through the dust motes, I squint up at the bottom of the mattress, near its center, and find a ragged tear, just big enough to reach my hand inside. Fearing that I’ll encounter a family of mice or worse, rats, I feel around carefully until my fingers touch something hard. A book. I pull it out and peer at the cover in the gloom. It’s a filthy old copy of Robinson Crusoe. I reach into the depths of the yucky mattress again: Gulliver’s Travels. I keep digging out books: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn. All of my favorite books. Stuff I’ve read and reread countless times since I was a little kid. As I touch each grimy volume, I feel closer to Daniel.

  He hid books under his bed, which means he could read. It doesn’t fit in with what he said about himself at the séance: He not only said that he couldn’t speak, he specifically said he didn’t have words; that he didn’t understand language.

  One more grope into the nasty old hidey-hole brings forth the last book, a journal. I drag myself out from under the bed, sit down cross-legged on the bare, wooden floor and open it. Glancing over to see what Wyatt thinks about my discovery, I can see that he’s flat out on his front, turned away from me. He appears to be feeling around, under the other bed to see if one of the floorboards might be loose. While he continues to concentrate on his search, oblivious to my amazing discovery, I begin to read.

  It is January 20th in the year 1986 and I’ve been here, locked in this room with the raging boy for exactly one week now. My name is Daniel Warren and I’m a patient here at Wild Wood Psychiatric Hospital.

  The boy frightens me, but I pity him at the same time. His wordless screaming is beyond his control, but the staff here don’t seem to think so. They speak harshly to him and place him in restraints with no sign of gentleness; as if they think he deserves to be punished. They haul him away and hours later bring him back. He’s usually subdued and quiet for at least twenty-four hours after one of these absences and sleeps most of the time, not even waking up to eat.

  I’ve been in this hospital since I was very young, because of the seizures, which didn’t start until right before my eighth birthday. After the third seizure, my parents packed me into the car and dropped me off here, at Wild Wood. I’ve been locked up ever since. My mother and father evidently felt repulsed by me, plus they didn’t have enough money for my medical care. Most likely they were also afraid that my seizures might frighten my two younger siblings, or worse, I’d get so crazy that I’d harm one of them. They didn’t want their deranged, epileptic son to damage one of their normal children.

  My medical doctor referred me to a psychiatrist because after the seizures started I stopped talking for days at a time. Our family pediatrician couldn’t find a physical reason for my silence, so he told my parents I was insane. The psychiatrist, Dr. Peterson, recommended an experimental program for epileptics.

  Hospitals such as this one receive grant money for programs like the one I’m part of now. The doctors here study me as they try different medications and treatments. Their research is funded by the government and by a well-known pharmaceutical company. Basically, the doctors make more money because of me and other patients like me. And my parents don’t have to pay. I receive free treatment and medication, plus a place to live. My family got rid of me at no cost. And I became part of a very profitable medical experiment. It’s a win/win situation for everyone but me.

  As you can tell, Dear Diary, I listen and I learn. I just never speak. Here, in this hospital, only my psychiatrist, Dr. Peterson, knows that I had a voice and once used it to express myself when I was younger. He seems not to have shared this information with the rest of the staff and patients. He encourages me to talk again, like I used to, but I’ve refused, letting my silence and blank facial expression communicate how I feel. My parents have never visited, nor do I expect them to. I was eight years old when they locked me away. I am 13 now.

  January 25th, 1986

  My usually furious and frantic roommate is sleeping. They must have given him a powerful sedative. No one else is around, so I can write. I need to record the events that led up to my relocation into room 209. It is important that my diary not get into the wrong hands. I may be in danger because of recent events. I can talk but I choose not to. I express my thoughts by writing in this journal and only in secret. Also, I steal books from the Wild Wood library and hide them. It’s better that no one knows I’m literate. I’ll be safer if I can keep my secrets and everyone underestimates my intelligence. Only Dr. Peterson has any understanding about my ability to communicate, but thankfully even he doesn’t know the extent of my intellectual aptitude. And he has no idea what I saw.

  Up until about a week ago, I was free to wander the corridors and fenced-in grounds of this institution. During one of these excursions I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. I witnessed a crime.

  I was walking down the hallway that leads to the locked medication room. There’s always a nurse in there, at the desk, to make sure drugs are dispensed correctly by authorized employees only. At 5:00 PM, though, she goes off duty. She locks the door and leaves. Her shift is over and the medication room is unstaffed until the night nurse comes on duty at 9:00 PM. She stays until 6:00 AM. The room stays locked and empty again until 7:00 AM, when the next nurse comes on duty. During the few hours when the drug room isn’t staffed, it’s always locked.

  Evidently, one employee, a man called Mike, knew where to find the keys. I squatted behind one of those wheelchairs with the restraints and watched him unlock and enter the room, carrying a canvas duffle bag. It was about 8:30 at night. Most of the patients are in bed and asleep before 8:00. No one was around but me. Because I’m one of the older pediatric patients and I’m cooperative and quiet (understatement!) I have a little more freedom. As I hid and watched silently, Mike moved fast. About five minutes later he emerged, still carrying the bag.

  Careful to stay far enough behind him so I wouldn’t be seen or heard, I followed. He must have been anticipating a speedy return, because he didn’t lock the exit door behind him. So I was able to leave the building. I trailed him all the way out to the fence, where I watched Mike take a key out of his pocket and insert it into the padlock that secures the gate to the employee’s parking lot. As soon as he turned his back to me, I did something crazy. (After all, I am a patient in a psychiatric hospital.) I tiptoed over
to a distant section of fence. In absolute silence and with remarkable agility, I climbed over. The metal did not clink even once as I scaled the chain links like a four-legged spider.

  In a silent crawl, I passed between a row of cars and crouched down behind a nearby vehicle to spy on Mike. He opened the trunk of what I assumed to be his own car, but it wasn’t. After he placed the duffle bag into the trunk of the car, another man emerged from behind some cars that were parked one row away. He walked over to Mike who handed him the car keys. The man gave Mike a large roll of paper money, which he quickly stashed in his pants pocket. Mike walked over to the gate that leads to the road and unlocked it. After the man got into the car and drove away Mike relocked the gate and headed over toward the other gate: the one that opens onto the hospital grounds.

  While this was happening, I stayed carefully hidden behind one of the cars, but as I began to worry about how I’d get back into the hospital after Mike locked the door behind him, my medical condition betrayed me. I should’ve known. Whenever I’m really anxious, I have a seizure, especially lately. I think I need my medication dosage increased because I’ve grown. Anyway, as I was squatting in the parking lot, scared and worried, my jaw began to twitch and I started grinding my teeth, like I always do right before a seizure. That’s the last thing I remember.

  When I regained consciousness, Mike was leaning over me, along with another orderly who heard me go down. I think I probably yelled or cried out in some way, right before I fell. Thankfully, the other orderly had just entered the parking lot. If I had been alone with Mike, he probably would have harmed me. He might have made me disappear right then and there.

  The next day they moved me into room 209, with my new roommate, the screaming boy. They locked the door, forever probably. Dr. Summers explained that I was getting too old to stay in the pediatric wing. My nighttime wanderings were agitating the patients and inconveniencing the staff. I had climbed the fence; a huge breach of trust and then I had a seizure in the parking lot. When Dr. Peterson found out they’d moved me and I didn’t like my new accommodations, he tried to make a deal with me. He promised that if I decided to talk I would get a limited version of my former freedom back. He gave me this book and a pen and told me to write down the words I couldn’t say; he thinks it will help. I’ve hidden the book because I don’t trust anyone, not even him. If anything happens to me at least one written account of the events leading up to my death exists, even if no one ever finds it.

  Dumfounded, sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor, with the open journal in my lap I stare at Daniel’s lost words and in my mind I hear his voice. Someone believed they’d silenced him forever. But they were wrong. After a few seconds, I shake off Daniel’s world and the present settles around me like snow. I’m freezing. The room has grown colder and dusk is falling fast. The last few pages were difficult to read without a flashlight. Wyatt and I should go downstairs so I can tell Oliver and Jackson about the diary.

  I yell over to him.

  “You won’t believe what I found!”

  Wyatt rises to a kneeling position and looks at the books piled on the floor all around me. “You found some books?”

  “Not just any books. I found a diary.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No. I’m not. This bed must have been Daniel’s. He hid all these books in his mattress because he loved to read but he didn’t want anyone to know. He was afraid. The last book I found in there was his journal.” I hold it up.

  “Daniel’s journal?” Wyatt drags himself up off the dusty floor and starts brushing his knees off. He’s frowning.

  “Yes. And it’s beautifully written. His style is formal and old-fashioned like the books he loved. The journal entries don’t seem like the writing style of a teenager from the eighties. It was like reading a classic novel from another century.”

  Wyatt blinks at me, from where he’s standing near the other bed. He takes one step toward me. Then pauses. “Annabelle, our ghost never talked.”

  “I know.”

  “He told us that he’d never used words until I channeled him.”

  “It just doesn’t fit, does it?”

  “He didn’t even know his own name.”

  “So how could he read the classics?”

  “How could he write in a journal?”

  “Maybe our ghost isn’t Daniel.” As I utter these words I realize what they mean. I jump up to warn Wyatt.

  “He’s the violent roommate!”

  Wyatt and I stand frozen in place, staring at each other. He takes one step toward me, but then falters.

  A high-pitched sound, like steam escaping from a kettle, whistles through the dark room. But nobody’s making tea. We both turn toward the source of the eerie noise.

  A weak stream of unearthly light seeps through the window near the corner of the room and pours onto the floor. Its consistency seems to lie somewhere between a liquid and a solid, like mercury, only blue. Out of the gleaming, wobbly puddle, a phosphorescent vapor rises up. The ghost we thought was Daniel materializes and looms over us for two seconds before he lunges and wraps his hands around Wyatt’s neck. My boyfriend’s face flashes white then blue and finally a corpse-like shade of gray. His eyes roll up so only the whites are showing.

  I’m watching the boy I love fight a losing battle for his life. The arms that used to be Wyatt’s reach out and his body lurches toward me as he screams my name.

  I spin around and bolt out the door.

  Fighting the urge to turn and look behind me, I aim my body forward in a full-out sprint. Through the hallway. Down the stairs. I can’t lose this race.

  Because I’m running for my life; in a race against death.

  It’s pitch dark on the first floor. After slamming into a closed door, I fling it open and tumble outside. I’ve never seen this part of the meadow before, but I race through it as if my feet know every step by heart. Tears spring to my eyes, but I speed on, terrified of the boy who had no voice. So he stole Wyatt’s.

  Finally the fence looms ahead and I can’t slow down. In mid-stride I leap. The toe of my sneaker slams through a hole in the chain links. Reaching high, I clutch a fistful of cold metal and hoist my weight up. Grabbing again and again; hand over hand. Frantic. Higher and higher, I scramble like a hyperactive gymnast. Finally, gripping the top with one hand, I vault over and pivot in mid air. Crashing into the other side, I cling fast to the clanking metal. Scale down two toe-holds. And jump from eight feet up. At the last second, I remember to bend my knees, right before I hit the ground and roll. Then I spring to my feet and speed away.

  Before me lies my element as a cross-country runner: the forest. I don’t have time to search for the cemetery and the old dirt road where Nathaniel’s parked. So once again I race full tilt, aimed straight ahead.

  My footing holds true as I plunge down an overgrown trail. Briars tear at my jeans. After wrenching one pant leg free from their thorny grasp, I scoot along the narrow path, made slippery by layers of pine needles. Sprinting toward my goal: anyplace far away from the nameless, raging boy.

  The quickly-darkening forest is my only route to safety.

  The Lonesome Boy already killed once. As I run, I imagine poor, helpless Daniel’s death. Fear fuels my frenzied pace. And I start to feel weightless. Speeding over the ground, my sneakers barely touch down on the path.

  “Noooo, Annabelle!” A horrible howl rises up from the boy’s miserable soul. Then he sobs just once before his voice fades to a whimper. He won’t quit until he catches me and he’s closing in fast.

  Even I can’t keep up this pace for long and I begin to weaken. My soles start slapping crazily against the earth. I can feel the impact in my knees and hip joints now. My breathing grows ragged and choked. As I try to estimate how far I can go, my strength begins to fade. I already ran one 5K this morning. What if my legs give way and I collapse?

  I begin to slip and slide as the path grows slick with mud. My sneakers make suctioning sounds
as the muck becomes thicker. Sinking a little with each step, I strive to maintain a fast pace as I speed through a puddle. Nothing looks familiar. But I can’t hesitate. The path forks and I head left. I can hear the dead boy’s sobs heaving up out of Wyatt’s lungs. The sound of his voice grows closer and closer.

  I know I’m doomed but I can’t give up. Down the slippery trail. Panting. Gasping. I have to slow down soon. Finally the path grows drier then widens. The hoards of trees begin to thin out as I whiz by them.

  Where are my mother and Nathaniel? I need to find the road. The van. My feet fly down the now hard-packed lane. Toward a bend. Hope lends much-needed speed to my pace. But still I hear his quickening whimpers. No time to stop and catch my breath.

  His wails echo through the darkness once again and suddenly he bumps into me, almost knocking me over.

  Grabbing a fistful my shirt, he yanks hard. I flail my fists and pound them against his iron chest.

  Staring up into his wild eyes, I swing one fist, as hard as I can, straight toward his nose. He lets go of my shirt and leaps back. A huge red-brown blur flies out of a nearby thicket, leaps over the brambles at the edge of the path and skids to a stop between us.

  Jeff! Barking and howling like a wild beast, he snaps his jaws at my attacker. Then bares his teeth and growls as if he’s standing guard at the gates of hell. Because he is.

  Wyatt’s body towers over us both for one second before he flops down onto one knee in the dirt. His head bows low. When he raises his face to stare at me, I’m looking into my boyfriend’s familiar, clear blue eyes. They’re not crazed with fury anymore.

  Jeff calms down and grows quiet. I take one wobbly step toward Wyatt. His face grows hazy and my hand shakes when I reach out. A small, bright circle of golden light frames him but there’s dark all around it. As I struggle to bring him into focus, the glowing circle shrinks to a tiny, bright hole. A pinpoint of light. Then the world turns black.