The Chrysalis

by Deneen, Brendan

  “We need to go back downstairs,” he said to Jenny. “There’s an issue on the third floor, and I can’t leave you here alone.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she responded forcefully, taking a step back from the elevator. He looked at her, seeming surprised by what was happening, and the doors shut, leaving Jenny alone in the fourteenth-floor hallway.

  She turned around. Where the first floor had been brightly lit, this one was much darker, the fluorescent light barely reaching the floor. There were rows of closed doors on either side of the hall until the end, where the hallway turned to the right.

  Jenny’s pulse quickened. She clenched her jaw, feeling her teeth grind against each other painfully, then started down the hall, determined to find Abigail.

  The first door had a small, square window. She stood on her toes to peer in. Against the far wall, a man with a shaved head stood with his arms at his sides, face pressed against the padding. She stared for a long moment, waiting for him to move, even the tremble of a finger, but the man seemed to be completely immobile. Jenny knew she shouldn’t, but she tapped on the small window with a fingernail. Almost instantly, the man’s head swiveled 180 degrees, an impossible angle, and a bloody smile crossed his face; his eyes were black dots.

  Jenny stepped back, terror seizing her, and fought not to scream, fought against the almost overwhelming urge to run to the elevator and pound the call button. Instead, she slowly moved back to the window. The man was exactly where he had been, face pressed up against the wall, arms loose at his sides. Another hallucination.

  Jenny moved on.

  She looked into each of the rooms as she passed, her stomach starting to hurt. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had anything to eat or drink.

  Most of the padded rooms were empty. In the occupied ones, the patients were either sleeping or passed out. None were Abigail Gilchrist.

  Jenny reached the end of the hallway and was confronted with the turn, which led into darkness. She squinted into the shadows and determined she was looking into a small area with an emergency exit at the end, a bright-red fire alarm bar across its front. Jenny’s forehead wrinkled in frustration. Where the hell was Abigail?

  She felt a sudden stab of pain in her groin and was unable to catch her breath as she bent over slightly. Was that a contraction? she wondered.

  “Hello?”

  The high-pitched voice made Jenny jump, and she quickly turned around, her fingers balling into fists. Back by the elevator stood a bald man in a lab coat, his eyes hidden behind a pair of round-rimmed glasses. He had a clipboard tucked under one arm.

  Where the hell had he come from?

  “I’m sorry I was delayed,” he called down the hallway, “but I’m surprised that Security left you up here all by yourself!”

  “Am I on the wrong floor?” Jenny asked, walking toward him.

  She was gripped by unreasonable terror as she neared the man, presumably Abigail’s doctor. She still couldn’t see his eyes through the glare on his glasses, though there didn’t seem to be enough light in the hallway to cause such an effect. She felt as if her feet were sinking into the floor as she walked, as if the concrete were melting, the hallway stretching, keeping the man continually out of reach. The smell of blood and shit filled her nose, and she fought back a jolt of nausea.

  With a sense of time snapping back into place, she found herself standing right in front of him. He was short, and there was a big, warm smile on his face. She could see his eyes now. They were brown, and kind. Jenny relaxed. She was exhausted and letting her imagination run away with her. After she finished visiting Abigail, she promised herself, before she made any more rash decisions, she would go back to Victoria’s, eat a big healthy meal, run a hot bath, and get a good night’s sleep. Then she could figure out what to do next.

  “No, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Phillips. You must be—” He glanced down at his clipboard. “—Ms. Decker.”

  Jenny looked down at her hand and realized she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. It was sitting on the dresser in her room at Victoria’s. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten it. She shook her head and looked at Dr. Phillips.

  “Mrs. Decker. Jenny. Yes, that’s me.”

  “Great. I’m so sorry again about the delay. Honestly, I didn’t think Mrs. Gilchrist would respond at all. When she first arrived here, there were a number of visitor requests, but they were all from members of the media. She never responded to any of those at all, not even with the blink of an eye, and we prefer not to dignify those requests anyway. And in the months since then, we’ve heard nothing. No one’s interested in her anymore.

  “Tonight, when I told her about your first message, I was surprised because she actually made eye contact with me. But she didn’t say anything. I’ve been working with her since she arrived after … well, after what happened. Such a tragedy. I’ve worked with similar patients during the last couple of decades, but Mrs. Gilchrist is one of the most shut-down people I’ve ever treated.

  “So, I was thoroughly surprised when I delivered the second message, the one about the basement, and she spoke! She immediately asked to see you. Don’t you think that’s amazing?”

  “Yes…,” Jenny agreed, trying to take the man in. He was talking almost faster than she could process.

  “I’ve never even heard her voice before today!” he nearly shouted. “She didn’t talk during the trial evaluations, or when the lawyers had her sign all kinds of paperwork after the trial, and hasn’t spoken a word since the day she was brought here. I had practically given up on her, the psychosis seemed so deep. Anyway, we had to make some preparations to ensure that your visit was safe, even though I don’t suspect she would ever harm you. She actually seems like a very gentle woman.

  “I think she and her husband must have had a very serious argument that escalated to a most terrible degree. However, even though I don’t believe she would ever harm you, or me, we did take the precaution of fitting her with a straitjacket. She didn’t seem to mind, and I felt bad about having it placed on her, but … you know … rules are rules. Mr. Gerritsen … the guard who escorted you up … had to run downstairs to attend to another matter, but he’ll be right back up and then we can go to the visitation room and see Mrs. Gilchrist.”

  Jenny felt her jaw clenching again, her momentary sense of peace instantly vanishing. She couldn’t wait another fucking second to see Abigail and get some answers. Who knew how long it would take that walking steroid shot to get back up here, especially on this place’s nineteenth-century elevator?

  She pasted her most charming smile across her face and leaned in a little closer, locking eyes with the short doctor. “Is there any way we can go into her room first? I promise this won’t take long. I just have a simple question for Mrs. Gilchrist.” She leaned in even closer and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. “Please?”

  She could feel the sexuality oozing from her pores, and the sense of power it engendered caught her by surprise. She had never felt this way before. It must have been the pheromones from the pregnancy or something. She’d couldn’t remember ever getting this kind of reaction from a man before, not from Tom, not even from Chad.

  Behind the glasses, Dr. Phillips’s eyes seemed to glaze over, much like the receptionist’s downstairs, and beads of sweat broke out across his forehead. His breathing became ragged as he stared at her mouth. He wiped at the sweat on his bald head, causing it to gleam slightly in the dull light.

  “Of … of course,” he said. “I don’t see why not. The guard will join us shortly. What harm could come of it?”

  Jenny leaned back, feeling sick about what she had just done, but she told herself that she had to see Abigail as soon as possible. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Dr. Phillips pulled a large key chain from an inside pocket of his lab coat and stared at the dozens of keys on it before selecting one with the precision of a surgeon. He smiled nervously at her, looking like a smitten sc
hoolboy, then turned and jammed the key into the lock of the nearest door.

  Jenny’s forehead wrinkled. Abigail was on this floor? In that room? It didn’t make any sense. She had looked into every single window and hadn’t seen her—or anyone in a straitjacket. Unless the woman had been clinging to the ceiling like some kind of giant insect …

  The door creaked open and Dr. Phillips stepped aside. “Ladies first,” he murmured.

  Jenny felt rooted to the spot. This was what she wanted, so why was she so terrified? Under the gaze of Dr. Phillips, whose eyes had vanished again behind the glare of his glasses, Jenny forced herself into Abigail Gilchrist’s room.

  When she stepped across the threshold, the temperature seemed to drop several degrees and the air felt unnatural, as if there weren’t enough oxygen, or too much. A woman with a rat’s nest of gray hair stood against the far wall, arms hidden in a dirty straitjacket. The smile of a twentieth-century homemaker or talk show host was splayed across her face, and her brown eyes twinkled as if she’d been waiting for this encounter for her entire life.

  Jenny stopped a few steps inside and felt Dr. Phillips push up against her as he closed the door behind them. She wondered if he really needed to get so close in order to be clear of the door or if he was hungry for contact because of her pheromone attack. She guessed the latter when he walked around her, his shoulder gently brushing against hers.

  “Mrs. Gilchrist,” he said, his voice as gentle as if he were talking to a toddler, “I’m back. And I’m sorry about the straitjacket.”

  Abigail said nothing, her gaze locked on Jenny. Her eerie smile didn’t waver. Jenny swallowed, steeling herself. This is what you wanted, she told herself. This is what has to happen.

  “I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Decker,” Dr. Phillips said. “She lives in the house you used to occupy. She’s eager to talk to you, but there is no pressure, from either of us, for you to say anything. If you feel like talking, that’s great. But if you don’t, that’s fine, too.” He matched Abigail’s smile and nodded, then glanced at Jenny, as if to say, Your turn.

  She stepped forward and the doctor moved slightly to the left, clearing the space between the two women. The patient in the straitjacket didn’t move, didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  “Abigail,” Jenny said after a long pause, “thank you for agreeing to see me. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m not a reporter … I’m not trying to exploit you or make you say anything you don’t want to.”

  The older woman didn’t even blink. Jenny looked at Dr. Phillips, who shrugged. Yep, this is what I go through every time.

  Jenny smiled and stepped a little closer to Abigail. “I live in your old house on Waldrop Street. It’s a beautiful house, even with that big bloodstain on the kitchen floor.”

  The woman’s eyes flickered, and Jenny heard Dr. Phillips draw a breath. “Please … be careful what you say to her,” he whispered.

  Jenny nodded, though she had no intention of being at all careful. She had to keep pushing.

  “We tried over and over again to get that stain out, but even though it fades and fades … it’s still there. There was just so much blood. But you already know that, don’t you, Abigail?”

  Slowly, the woman nodded her head. Jenny could feel Dr. Phillips tensing next to her.

  “Maybe we should step outside and wait for the guard…?” he suggested, but Jenny barely even heard him.

  “But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

  The older woman’s eyes went wide, anticipating.

  “I’m here to talk about the basement.”

  A wheezy, croaking sound emerged from the back of the woman’s throat.

  Jenny knew she shouldn’t, but she moved even closer. “I can’t hear you, Abigail,” she whispered.

  The woman blinked bloodshot eyes and said, “Miiiiiiiiiine.”

  Dr. Phillips took a step forward, but Jenny blocked his path. She was too far along to let this little man fuck things up.

  “What’s yours, Abigail? The basement? Or is there something down there?”

  “Mrs. Decker,” Dr. Phillips interrupted, “please. I really think it’s best if we—”

  “It’s mine,” Abigail growled. “I found it. All by myself. In the desert on the other side of the world. It was so small, so beautiful. I was going to show everyone, show the students … I knew they would get a kick out of it … a strange artifact that their doddering old chaperone had dug up …

  “If they even noticed before they went back to their drinking and their fucking. They were all fucking, even the other adults. Did they think I didn’t know what they were doing? Did they?”

  Dr. Phillips touched Jenny on the shoulder, but she shrugged him off.

  “What did you find? Why didn’t you show it to anyone else?” Jenny asked, staring directly into the woman’s eyes.

  “The more I touched it…,” the woman said, her eyes rolling back into her head, her expression practically orgasmic, “the more it opened up things in me I had never known were there, showed me things I didn’t know were possible. No one else deserved it. Not then. Not now. It’s mine.”

  The woman’s head cocked as if she had smelled or heard something strange. She leaned forward slightly. Jenny’s gut told her to run, but she forced herself to remain motionless. She could see Dr. Phillips fidgeting out of the corner of her eye.

  Abigail sniffed near Jenny’s face, and then her eyes went wide. A look of absolute clarity filled her eyes as she looked down at Jenny’s stomach.

  “It’s … inside you?”

  Goose bumps exploded across Jenny’s flesh. “I—”

  “Mine!” Abigail shouted, lunging forward and trying to bite Jenny in the face. Jumping away, the pregnant woman fell hard into Phillips and they both collapsed in a heap, the clipboard falling out of the doctor’s hands and clattering to the floor. The old woman leaped onto them, attempting to get to Jenny. Phillips, flailing, was in the way; Abigail fastened her teeth on the doctor’s nose and bit down, chanting “Mine” over and over again.

  Blood spurted out as the woman ground her jaws together. A horrible cracking sound filled the space, accompanied by a piercing shriek. Jenny and the doctor were still tangled together, leaving Phillips unable to stop his attacker. Abigail tore his nose clear off his face and spat it into a dark corner, still saying “minemineminemine” and beginning to laugh in a horrible way Jenny had never heard before. Blood ran down the crazy woman’s chin and shot out of the ragged hole in the man’s face; screaming, he clapped his hands over the wound, but the liquid continued to seep between his fingers.

  Dr. Phillips rolled away and Abigail stared at Jenny, a sick smile spreading across her spattered face, her eyes sparkling. Jenny felt paralyzed. As Abigail tensed, preparing to leap to her next victim, the security guard burst into the room and tackled the old woman. He pushed her face against the floor until something cracked and blood gushed out of her nose.

  The guard called for backup on his walkie-talkie, then shouted something at Jenny, but she couldn’t make sense of it and stared at him dumbly. The guard shouted again, and this time she understood.

  “Lady, are you okay?”

  She didn’t answer, just watched the two rivers of blood meet and mingle, becoming indistinguishable from one another. Images filled Jenny’s head: an ancient stretch of sand, fusing into fire, into stars, her body rising up and shooting through the sky, then falling and landing near her house, being pulled against her will through the front door, through the kitchen, down the stairs, and into the darkness of the basement.

  She returned to herself when two more guards raced into the room, along with a medical doctor, who started to bandage Dr. Phillips’s face, shouting that they needed to get him out of there and into surgery, asking where the man’s nose was. Abigail Gilchrist was pinned to the floor by the original guard’s giant knee. Though that had to be painful, she was laughing hysterically. And crying at the same time, with blood, tears,
and snot smeared across her face.

  “Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine,” the older woman repeated steadily despite the chaos.

  Jenny stared at her, then slowly and carefully got to her feet and straightened her clothing, absentmindedly stroking her nine-months-pregnant belly. Her scarred leg hurt slightly from the fall, but other than that, she was unharmed. For the first time in weeks, if not longer, her mind felt clear. Abigail’s words rang in her ears. She knew exactly what she had to do. As soon as they let her out of this place.

  She had to go home, find Tom.

  And visit the basement.

  * * *

  It was the middle of the night by the time Jenny was done answering questions.

  The local police had been called in, but Jenny’s story checked out, backed up by what little they could get out of a drugged-up Dr. Phillips. It was clear that the doctor had broken protocol by allowing Jenny into a patient’s room, especially without security present. After he recovered, if he continued working at the institution, he would face significant repercussions for his actions.

  The young woman at the front desk glared at Jenny as she left. Jenny ignored her, hoping she would never have to enter this building again for the rest of her life.

  The rental car didn’t start at first, nearly giving Jenny a heart attack—she’d left one of the interior lights on—but after several tries and a few violent bangs on the steering wheel, it roared to life. She tore out of the parking lot as if the building behind her were on fire.

  The highway was empty, making Jenny feel as though she were completely alone on the planet. She tried to ignore the sinking feeling that she was hurtling toward the end of everything that mattered to her.

  For some reason, during the drive, her mind went back to her honeymoon with Tom. They hadn’t had a lot of money, so they’d rented a house on a lake in Pennsylvania, not far from where Tom grew up. He had been irrationally fearful that he would run into someone he knew, but she talked him into it. Not only was it a beautiful lake, but a part of her thought it would also be good for Tom to confront his past a little bit, to say goodbye to the things that seemed to be holding him hostage. They were starting their new life together, and what better way for him to unburden himself from his own past?