Messages, a Psychological Thriller

by Chris Dougherty

  Burned over 80% of his body. Fingers gone, feet gone, covered in scar tissue, but in his imaginings, James’ face stays defiantly the same, untouched by the flames, triumphantly unpunished. Smirking.

  He knows from the papers and cops that it had been touch and go for James for four months. He’d been in the intensive care burn unit for a total of six and then moved to the crazy person facility out in the Barrens after being declared incompetent.

  Everyone has told Arch that James will never leave Pine Hollows, but for Arch, that isn’t good enough.

  He sits and pulls his laptop over. The cursor hovers over the Firefox icon, and deciding, he clicks. His home page comes up, and he clicks in the address bar and types p-i-n–and the Pine Hollows URL fills in automatically from history. Arch hesitates again, longer this time, then hits enter.

  The Pine Hollows home page comes up. The directions are on the left hand side of the page with a little GoogleMaps icon next to it. Under that are the visiting hours. Arch clicks on the GoogleMaps icon, and a map fills his screen, a dot pinpointing Pine Hollows. Arch types his address in the directions from line and hits enter. One hour and thirty-six minutes, turnpike to the expressway.

  Arch hits print page, and as the printer hums to life, he grabs his jacket and keys.

  Chapter 38

  The Baby is here somewhere. She doesn’t know how she knows, she just knows. Did someone whisper it to her? Maybe. It’s hard to tell which voice is from outside and which is from within. She likes the within voice better. It says wonderful things. Mostly.

  She wants to see the Baby again. She doesn’t know how long it’s been–three days? three months? three years?–since she saw him. Her Baby. What if he is sick, who will make him better?

  She worries about the baby.

  The poor, sick baby.

  Chapter 39

  Lacey pulls into the long hospital driveway at ten minutes to six. She’d made good time because most Friday night traffic had been going the opposite direction–towards light and civilization, not away from it into the dark woods like her.

  The hospital is surrounded by acres and acres of its namesake trees. They look roughly the same now as they will through the spring, summer, and fall–lanky, rough-barked, and emaciated.

  There are signs every fifty feet admonishing her not to pick up hitchhikers.

  The lights that line the drive are an odd yellowy-orange. It turns the dark pines a muddy black and her skin jaundiced. She glances in her rearview mirror and catches her own eye. The green of her irises is gone, taken over by the black of her pupils; her eye-sockets are deep with shadow, haunted looking.

  She thinks of Henry, sitting at home, trusting that she is close by, and she feels ashamed. She lowers her eyes from the mirror.

  The drive opens out into a small circle at the main entrance to Pine Hollows. There is a discreet sign directing employees to the left, visitors to the right. Lacey pulls right and parks. The lot is dark and not even a quarter full. Nighttime visiting hours start at six, and it is just turning six now, but Lacey wonders if that is the only reason. The lot has an air of unkemptness and abandonment. On the far edges, weeds have forced their way through the crumbling blacktop. The cement blocks indicating parking spaces have fallen to pieces in most cases and are entirely gone in others, with only the rusted rebar poking disjointedly from the ground like burned, skeletal fingers reaching up from Hell itself.

  She shivers and pulls her coat tighter to her body. The wind pushes through the pines, and the needles make a soft susurration. Spooked, Lacey strains to listen, feeling as though it is words the trees speak, just loud enough for her to hear, but not enough so she can make out the words.

  But maybe they aren’t speaking her language, anyway.

  She laughs–a little uneasily–at her fancifulness and starts toward the entrance. Her shoes grit against the gravel that has worked its way through the cracks in the macadam, and she has to work not to twist an ankle; she can’t hurry. Without conscious thought, she breathes a sigh of relief when she reaches the well-lit entrance to the hospital.

  There is a visitors’ desk in the vestibule, and it is occupied by a small, elderly man. He looks up and smiles when she enters. He is wearing a cheerful, green polo shirt that gaps at his neck and a nametag that sags from his chest. The nametag is tilted over so far that she can’t read what’s written on it. When she tells him whom she is here to see, he pecks away at the terminal in front of him. When he cuts his eyes back to her, he’s not smiling anymore. He’s frowning.

  “He’s in the forensics ward,” he says, his tone bordering on a rebuke.

  “What does that mean?” Lacey asks, keeping the smile on her own face.

  “Well, he’s dangerous, isn’t he? It’s a locked ward!” The man’s voice squeaked indignantly on ‘dangerous’, and his hands fluttered near his chest, palms up.

  Lacey forces the smile to stay on her face.

  “Can I see him?’ she asks.

  The man’s mouth drops open. Then he ruffles, bouncing in his chair like a little bird disturbed at its roost.

  “Why’dya want to do that?” he asks.

  Lacey feels her patience straining and pulling like a dog trying to slip its collar.

  “Listen,” she says, “is there someone else I can ask about this?”

  The man stares at her a moment longer, then turns and taps three numbers on the phone. He is huddled away from her, his shirt tight over the knobs of bone in his spine. He speaks for a minute and then hangs the phone up and asks her to wait; someone will be out shortly.

  Lacey looks around the vestibule, which is about twelve feet wide and eight feet deep with the desk taking up one end. There are no chairs; the chairs are inside–past the next set of doors.

  “Can I wait in there?” Lacey asks.

  The man doesn’t look at her, merely shakes his head, his eyebrows raised and lips pursed out beakishly as he ignores her.

  Lacey sighs and crosses her arms, the smile finally dropping off her face.

  “Thanks,” she says, hoping the ‘for nothing’ is implied in her heavily sarcastic tone.

  “Can I help you?”

  Lacey turns, and a fiftyish woman in a trim suit is standing at the inside set of doors.

  “I hope so,” Lacey says, raising her chin. “I’m here to see James Smith.”

  “And you are?” the woman asks, matter-of-factly.

  “I’m Lacey Adams, I was his–”

  The woman puts her hand out. “I’m Nora Buchanan, I can take you to him.”

  Lacey shakes her hand, and then Nora holds the door open wider and gestures Lacey through. “Just give me one second, will you, Lacey?” Nora says and turns away before Lacey can even acknowledge her question.

  Nora goes to the visitors’ desk and leans over.

  “Robert, we’ve talked about this. Keep your opinions to yourself, understand? And yes, your attitude toward visitors–”

  The quiet scolding is cut off as the door closes, and Lacey turns her back, careful not to make eye contact with Robert. Irritation fades into embarrassment and then fades to nothing as she turns her mind to James.

  Nora taps her elbow lightly and then gestures to the nearest bank of elevators. She and Lacey step inside, and Nora pushes the 3. Top floor.

  Nora smiles at Lacey. “Sorry about that. He’s…old.” She shrugs, and her smile turns rueful.

  “That’s all right.” Lacey smiles back.

  “Not everyone has access to the allowed lists, so technically he was doing his job. But I could tell by his tone when he dialed me that he’d been giving you a hard time.”

  “The allowed lists?” Lacey asks.

  “You didn’t know you were allowed to see him? Officially allowed, I mean?”

  Lacey shakes her head, and Nora raises her eyebrows.

  “The police give us lists of who is allowed to see the people on the forensics ward. They used to call it ‘criminally insane’, but they stopped us
ing that term about five years ago or so. Whenever a term becomes too much of a running joke, somebody lobbies to get it changed for sensitivity reasons.” Nora smiles tiredly at Lacey.

  “How did my name get on the list, do you know?”

  “Not off-hand. It’s somewhat unusual, being that you weren’t married, but not completely without precedent. My guess would be one of the officers involved in the case put you on there on the off-chance you needed closure. So…do you?”

  Lacey shrugs, a quick lift-drop of her shoulders. “I guess so, yes.”

  “You’re the one that saved the man and the boy, right? At the orchard?”

  Lacey nods and, for some reason, finds herself blushing.

  “Well, if you want my opinion–”

  The elevator jars to a halt, and the doors slide open. Nora steps out and Lacey follows. They walk down a light green corridor.

  “If you want my opinion,” Nora continues, “you shouldn’t need reassurance. Sounds like you know how to take care of yourself. But if it helps to see how incapacitated he is, then it helps, right?”

  “Incapacitated?”

  Nora stops and puts a restraining hand on Lacey’s arm. “Has anyone explained it to you? His condition?”

  “I know he was burned and in intensive care for a long time.”

  “I’m going to prepare you, okay? Then you can decide if you still need to see him. It’s not…it’s very bad; he’s in very bad shape. Do you want me to tell you?”

  Lacey nods, faintly, and Nora squeezes her arm.

  “He has lost most of his right foot and all of his left foot. The skin on his legs was almost entirely burned off along with a good portion of the muscle. He cannot walk and never will. He lost most of the skin on his groin and torso. He has lost a portion of his lower intestine. His arms were burned–not badly enough to require skin grafts–but they are scarred. He has lost all his fingers on both hands with the exception of a portion of the thumb on his left. He has scarring on his chest that becomes lighter as it ascends his neck. His face is mostly intact. His earlobes were partially burned off. His eyelashes are gone. His eyebrows are gone. But he still has his lips.” She doesn’t tell Lacey that although some people refer to it as a ‘medical miracle’, to her it is a shame that James lived at all. Not so much because of his crime–Nora has heard much, much worse–it’s more because, to Nora, it is simply a waste of resources in her already underfunded and understaffed hospital.

  Lacey had put a hand to her mouth halfway through the recital, her eyes getting bigger and bigger. At the last sentence, about his lips, her stomach heaved.

  Nora steps past her and turns her into a door Lacey hadn’t noticed. Women’s Room. Lacey staggers to the first stall, but it is locked, a wheelchair visible under the wall. “Sorry!” she says, and she pushes into the next stall and leans over. She dry heaves once and then feels her stomach settle. She stands and puts her face in her hands.

  “Excuse me, Lacey, are you all right?” Nora calls from the corridor, holding the door open.

  Lacey leans back against the cool metal of the stall wall.

  “I am, it was just…a shock…I knew he’d been burned, but I never really…I just didn’t put it all together.”

  “Still need to see him?”

  Lacey stands silent and thinking. She doesn’t need to see him, she decides; she wants to. She’s not even sure why, exactly. She just wants to. She straightens her clothes and hair and exits the stall.

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  In Lacey’s car in the parking lot, forgotten in the center console cup holder, the screen of her cell phone glows to life.

  Lace call me

  Arch is here wants me to go with him to hosp ok w/u if I go?

  Call bonnie if u need a ride ok?

  Call me when u get this

  Luv u Lace

  Chapter 40

  “Thanks for coming with me. I know it was short notice…”

  “You think? Showing up at my door and saying ‘hey, come see the psycho with me’ out of the blue…yeah, it was short notice.” Henry gives Arch’s shoulder a quick shove. “Ya douche.”

  Arch smiles distractedly at Henry and then glances at his cell phone.

  “We should be there in about fifteen minutes,” Arch says, sitting straighter, his hands tightening on the wheel.

  Henry had known something was wrong as soon as he answered the door and found Arch standing there, looking tired and sick. The first thing Arch had wanted to know was if Lacey was home, and Henry wished she had been. She was better with Arch, although Henry was trying. Trying to make up for lost time.

  He’d ushered Arch in and asked him what was wrong. Arch had avoided his eyes and told him that he was on his way to Pine Hollows to see the psycho–and he wanted Lacey to come with him. Henry had felt the old anger start to seethe inside, but he’d controlled it, pushing down the feelings of jealousy and being inconvenienced, and he’d really looked at Arch: the dark circles under his eyes, the nervous way he rubbed his hands together, the new shadows on his face from lost weight, and Henry had felt his selfish concerns drain away completely.

  He’d called Bonnie and Mack’s house, telling Bonnie that he had to run a last-minute errand with his brother and could he tell Lacey to call her if she needed a ride. Bonnie had said that was fine, she and Mack had planned an evening in anyway. He felt better after talking to Bonnie; he didn’t want to leave Lacey stranded.

  And then he’d jumped into Arch’s beat-up old car, and now here they were, just about to pull into the hospital driveway.

  They hadn’t talked a whole lot on the ride, mostly just listened to WMMR on the radio. Arch was preoccupied, and Henry hadn’t wanted to hound him. Or so he told himself, but maybe he was just reticent about asking Arch about his troubles. Because what if it turned out that Henry himself was one of Arch’s troubles? What if Henry asked him what was wrong, and Arch turned to him and said, “You know what’s wrong? You’re what’s wrong! You fucked up my whole life by being such a dick to me!”

  Henry shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the thought. He was glad to see the hospital appear through the trees. As they pull into the circle, Arch says, “Where do I…?” his voice shivering with nervousness, surprising Henry with its undertone of panic.

  Henry puts a hand on Arch’s shoulder, points out the sign, and says, “Take a right here, Arch…the parking lot is over there, see it?” He keeps his voice calm and nods encouragement. He could do that, at least. Help Arch find the parking lot. Try and relieve some of his anxiety.

  The car bounces lightly over the beat-up blacktop, and Arch parks untidily in two spots. Henry glances around at the lack of cars and decides not to say anything. Fuck it. Kid can take up two spots if he needs to, he thinks. He doesn’t notice Lacey’s car parked two rows over; it is dark in the lot, and he is too preoccupied with Arch’s state of mind.

  “Want me to come in or wait out here?” Henry asks, and Arch’s head whips to look at him, his mouth dropping open.

  “I want you to come in!”

  Henry almost wants to laugh–Arch sounded so much like a little kid–but the underlying panic in his voice stops him. He merely nods and smiles.

  “No problem, man. I’m with you.”

  Arch relaxes a little, his shoulders coming down.

  “Thanks. I’m a little nervous I guess. I didn’t think I’d be this nervous, I just thought…” He trails off, staring over the steering wheel into the black woods surrounding the lot.

  “What did you think, Arch? Why did you want to come here?” His voice is gentle, but the question is still pointed.

  Arch is quiet for a long time. Henry quells his impatience, keeping his face neutral and his thoughts focused on Arch. Henry himself doesn’t let the incident bother him, even though, in his opinion, he got the worst of it, being shot and all. Partly, he thinks Lacey and Arch just think about it too damn much. But another part of him wonders sometimes if it has more to do with dura
tion. Lacey and Arch were exposed to a lot more than he was if you were to count it out in time. Henry isn’t sure which is worse.

  “I keep dreaming about it,” Arch says, finally, his voice a monotone. “About finding them and about James with the gun hitting Mom and being in the trunk, and I see it over and over and over again…you getting shot, and Lacey hugging him with the flames behind them, and him…dancing in that fire…dancing in it like some crazy…” Arch shakes his head. “And I just feel like I can’t let it go…or that it won’t let me go, or…something. And I just started to think if I could tell him, tell him how I feel, call him fucking names, see it in his eyes, you know? That he is afraid of me or ashamed or fucking something… then maybe…maybe I’d feel better. Maybe I’d be able to sleep again.”

  Arch sighs and runs his hands under his eyes, shaking his head. “I dunno, it might be stupid. The guy might just tell me to go fuck myself, give me the finger or–”

  “He can’t give you the finger…he doesn’t have any. So that’s good, at least.”

  Arch turns to stare at Henry in shock, and when Henry grins, Arch breaks out laughing.

  “Oh shit, that’s right,” Arch says, bent double with laughter. “The fucker’s got no fingers! He can’t even pick his nose and flick a booger at me.”

  Henry’s laughing, too. “Yeah, he’s fucked for sure. Fucking nurses will have to pick his fucking nose for him.” They are laughing uncontrollably, the tension draining away. Finally, they sober, both wiping the tears from their eyes, and Arch pushes open his car door.

  “Ready?” he says.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Henry replies, stepping out the passenger side. He checks his phone again. They hadn’t had service for most of the ride once they hit the Barrens, but now the bars struggle up to two. Still no missed calls or missed texts, though. Lacey must be having a good time. He types out ‘Luv u Lace’, smiles, and follows Arch into the hospital.