by Amy Cross
“It's a private hospital, Jonah.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that a group of like-minded men got together and decided to set up a facility that can operate free of the state's restraints.” He paused for a moment, seeing the look of slow realization creeping into Jonah's features, along with a hint of panic. “Bondalen is the perfect place to have such a facility. Sleepy, quiet, populated by people who mind their own business and mostly undisturbed by the outside world... We're able to operate the way science tells us we should operate, rather than having to worry about other opinions. As such, we have arrangements with the local police and judiciary, so that certain interesting prisoners get redirected here, rather than being sent to languish in the state jail.”
“But...” Looking around at the bare-walled room, Jonah seemed shocked for a moment. “I'm supposed to go to a psychiatric hospital,” he said finally. “The judge said -”
“The judge said what we paid him to say.”
“But the court -”
“There was no court.”
“I was in a courtroom!”
“You were in our courtroom,” Steiner continued, “and the judge is a friend of the facility. As are the local police, the local political figures, and everyone else in a position of importance. Smart men, every one. They all recognize that scientific endeavor will proceed much faster if good men are unencumbered by the limits of intellectual pygmies. We're working on solving some of mankind's biggest problems, and I fully believe that right here in this sleepy little part of Norway, we'll soon develop techniques that will help the entire world.” He paused, allowing himself a faint, proud smile. “Madness is one of our focus areas.”
“I'm not mad,” Jonah said firmly.
“That little boy would probably argue otherwise. If you hadn't strangled him, that is. What was his name again? You know, the one whose bruised body you left in a creek about twenty kilometers north of Oslo.”
“I couldn't...” Pausing, Jonah closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was trying to shut out something painful. “I didn't mean to hurt him, he just wouldn't stop screaming.”
“You removed his heart while he was still alive.”
“I just wanted to feel it beating in my hands,” Jonah said firmly, with his eyes still closed as if he was reliving the moment. “I was going to put it back and let him go home! Then he started to -”
“I know,” Steiner replied, interrupting him. “I examined the corpse after it had been recovered. You -”
“I didn't mean to kill him!”
“Nevertheless, you're a murderer.”
“It was like there was this other voice in my head,” Jonah continued, a little breathlessly, “telling me what to do, and it wouldn't stop going on and on, not until I...” His voice trailed off for a few seconds, before finally he opened his eyes again, this time revealing the first hint of tears. “I didn't want to do any of that stuff,” he whimpered, “but the voice told me it was the only way I'd ever feel good again. The voice promised me, it told me it had secrets that I'd learn if I was good.”
“And was the voice right? Did you feel good after you killed that boy?”
“For a while. The voice left me alone for a few days and I thought maybe I was going to be normal again, but then it just came back.”
“Which is when you attacked the woman on the road just south of here?”
“Not right away,” Jonah continued. “I spent three days trying to find another way to make the voice stop. I swear, you have to believe me, I kept telling it that none of this was right, but it just grew and grew in my head. I could feel the pressure just constantly getting worse, filling my skull. I'm not a bad person!”
“You just happen to have killed two innocent people.”
“It was the voice!” he shouted, pulling on the chains again.
“Calm down, Jonah.”
“It was all the voice!” he continued, becoming increasingly agitated. “You don't know what it's like, but it gets into my head and it tells me what to do! It makes me imagine all these dark things, and it makes me see them in my mind. It makes me dream about them, and think about them every second I'm awake, and then...” He paused, staring across the darkened room. “What do you think,” he added finally, “when you see a little girl playing? What's the first thing that pops into your head?”
“I think how sweet she is.”
“You're lucky,” Jonah continued. “My first thought is always how she'd scream if I put a hook in her gut, or what she'd look like if I stuck her head on a pole, or how her parents would react if I mailed her scalp to them.”
“That's really what you think about?”
“It's what the voice makes me think. It likes filling my mind with those images.”
“That...” Steiner paused for a moment. “That must be difficult.”
“It used to just be thoughts,” Jonah continued, “but eventually... It hurts. It throbs in the back of my head, and the only way to make it go away, even for a little while, is to do the things it's making me imagine. I resisted for years and years, but it got stronger.”
“You feel as if you don't have any control over your own actions?”
“It kept making me see things. It kept making me imagine what it would be like to do those things to those people, and then it told me that if I wanted to stop imagining it, I had to actually do it. I didn't want to, I swear. I fought back, I tried to find any other way. My God, I drank, I drank all the alcohol I could afford and then I stole more, but it didn't work, not for long. Eventually I realized that I just had to do what it told me to do.” He paused, his bottom lip trembling as he thought back to that moment. “So one day, I happened to pass that little boy on a road. He was by himself. I talked to him and I persuaded him to follow me into the forest and I...”
“I know what you did to him. Everyone knows. I also had the unfortunate task of performing the autopsy, so I saw first-hand what had happened to his body.”
“And that woman...”
“I performed her autopsy too. Did you know she was pregnant when you chose her?”
“I didn't want to hurt them,” he whimpered. “I didn't want to hurt anyone. I just wanted -”
“You wanted the voice to stop. You'd have done anything to get it to stop.”
“I'm so sorry,” he sobbed.
“I understand,” Doctor Steiner replied, “and that's why I wanted to have you brought here, so that we can help you. You see, we have one thing in common, Jonah. We both want that voice to stop talking to you. The big difference is that, as a man of medicine and of science, and as a man with colleagues who specialize in this sort of thing, I am in a position to actually help you. Not by giving in to the voice or by doing what it says, but by getting rid of it entirely. So you see, bringing you here to the hospital is an act of great kindness on our part. We ask for no money for our troubles, no fame, no glory. We just want to be able to work.”
“You can't help me,” Jonah said,with tears running down his cheeks. “It's a part of me. It's a sickness.”
“That doesn't mean it has to be permanent. Some of the experimental treatments we've been developing here have the potential to rid you of this voice, Jonah. Wouldn't you like that?”
“How?”
“The voice is like any malignancy. It simply needs to be cut out before it can spread.”
“Cut out?” Jonah paused. “What do you mean, cut out? It's not a thing, it's a thought, it's a voice! Where the hell do you think you can cut it out from?”
“I think I know where to find it,” he replied, as the cell door opened and another orderly entered, carrying a small box. Behind him there was a nurse, a beautiful nurse, but she held back, as if she was only there in case of an emergency.
“Do you want me to come back another time?” the orderly asked.
“No, get it done now.”
“Get what done now?” Jonah asked, starting to pull on the chains again. “What the
hell are you going to do to me?”
“Calm down,” Steiner replied, as the man headed across the room and knelt next to the bed. “This is just a brief procedure that we carry out to identify all our patients. It's possible that your appearance will change significantly during your time with us, so we need a simple mark that will make it easy to pick you out.”
Jonah watched as the orderly opened his box and took out a long metal needle, along with a black pot.
“It will hurt,” Steiner continued, “but that doesn't matter, not in the long run. What matters is that we get that nasty voice out of your head. You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd like to be like other people, to have your own thoughts rather than these horrible ideas that keep getting pushed into your mind?”
“What are you doing?” Jonah asked as the orderly wiped a swab on his manacled hand. “I don't want a tattoo!”
“It's purely for identification purposes.”
“No!” he shouted, trying to pull away but unable to get his hand clear. “Stop! You can't do this to me!”
“One, seven, zero, one, nine,” Steiner told the orderly. “That's his patient number.”
“No!” Jonah yelled, before crying out in pain as the smiling orderly started to tattoo the number onto his hand. On the man's neck, there was a small butterfly tattoo, just below the ear.
“You need to master your pain,” Steiner continued, stepping closer to the bed as Jonah desperately tried to break free. “Pain is just your body telling you that something's wrong, but your mind can override that warning. You're a rational man, Jonah, so all you need to do is look at your hand, see that there's no need to worry, and force the pain to go away.”
He waited for a moment, but as the orderly continued to apply the tattoo, Jonah was screaming more and more, and trying to get free from his chains.
“I must go and speak to my colleagues,” the doctor said finally, turning and heading to the door. “Don't worry, Jonah. We work fast here, so we'll carry out the operation tomorrow. You won't have to deal with that voice in your head for very long now. We're going to cut it out and make everything better.”
As he headed out into the hallway, he stopped for a moment to straighten his suit, and then he began to walk toward the stairs at the far end. He could still hear Jonah Lund screaming in his cell, but he'd learned long ago to not pay too much attention to such things. After all, the only thing that mattered was the science, and he was certain that the operation would be a huge success. Reaching the top of the stairs, he stopped for a moment, listening to Jonah's screams, before pushing the metal door shut, drowning out the sound completely.
Chapter Thirty
1950
“You're so lucky,” the woman whispered as she slipped the tip of the needle into his neck. “You're going to feel so much better after all of this is over.”
Staring up at her, Jonah couldn't help but notice the dimples on her cheek as she smiled. And she smiled a lot. In fact, she smiled every time she looked at him, as if something about her brought an involuntary leap to her soul. Glancing at the badge on her uniform, he had to squint to read her name as she injected something into his body, but finally he made it out:
“Alesund,” he whispered. “T. Alesund. What's your first name?”
She looked down at her badge for a moment, before glancing at him and smiling again.
“Trine.”
“Trine.” He paused, feeling a rush of nausea in the pit of his belly. The drugs were starting to take effect. “That's a beautiful name.”
“Thank you, Jonah, it's very sweet of you to say so.”
“What's going to happen to me next?”
“You're going to fall into a deep, long sleep.”
“Will I wake up again?”
“When the procedure is over.” She set the used needle down and then placed one of her soft hands against his forehead, checking his temperature. “You're lucky you're here, and not at one of the state institutions. They'd just lock you away and lose the key. Here, you have people who are genuinely trying to help you, people who have ideas and who care about your wellbeing.”
“They think they can cure me?”
“They do.”
“Then they're the insane ones.”
“You'll see.”
“Will I?” Staring at her, he suddenly founding himself imagining her naked, imagining his hands all over her body, imagining her leaning back and opening her legs for him. He knew the thoughts were wrong, but he lacked the willpower to force them from his mind. “And then what?” he asked. “Will I be able to walk out of here and live a normal life?”
“That's the goal,” she told him, packing up her equipment and turning to go to the door. “Soon, two other -”
“Wait!” he called out, panicking at the idea of her leaving. “Can't you stay?”
“You're about to go to sleep.”
“Then stay until I nod off,” he continued. “Please. Just until I'm asleep.”
“I'm not supposed to be -” Pausing, she finally made her way back to the bed, although she kept glancing at the door as if she was worried about being seen. “This is against protocol,” she told him. “I have a lot to be doing. You're not the only patient here, you know.”
“Trine,” he replied, staring up at her as he fought the sense of nausea and tiredness that was sweeping like a black cloud through his body. After a moment, his attention was caught by a small silver cross that dangled from her necklace. “What do you like doing with your time, Trine? If a guy was going to take you on a date, where would you want him to take you? Hypothetically, I mean.”
She smiled again, and this time she blushed too. “I've never been on a date.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know. I suppose no-one's ever asked me.”
“You're kidding me.”
Her smile broadened. She glanced at the door again, still nervous.
Watching her, Jonah felt his mind filling with images again. He saw her slipping open the front of her uniform to expose a breast, and then he saw his hand on that breast, caressing her hard nipple. Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth and began to imagine the taste of her skin, and the smell of her body as he moved down between her legs, and -
Suddenly opening his eyes, he saw her peering at him, and her smile was gone for a moment before returning.
“It's okay,” she whispered, “don't fight it. Just sleep.”
“But then you'll...” His voice trailed off for a moment, and he felt as if a thousand heavy weights were being tied to his soul, pulling him down into the darkness. “But then you'll leave...”
“I have other patients to see, and you have an operation to get to.”
He blinked a couple of times, still trying to stay awake.
“Imagine,” he heard his own voice saying suddenly, in the back of his mind, “what you could do to a woman like her, once you really got started. You could make her scream so loud, she'd drown out the church bells.”
“Don't go,” he whispered, unable to keep his eyes open any longer. “Promise you won't go until I'm asleep...”
“I promise,” she told him.
“You could cut her open,” his voice continued, “and find a hundred ways to fuck her. You could take her body apart and then put it back together however you wanted. You could keep her alive for a while, too, and you could take glass to her. Imagine those sharp edges, tearing into her tenderest flesh, making her beg for mercy.”
“No,” he whispered, trying to imagine something softer, more sensual.
“You could really rip into her.”
“No.” He tried to bring an image of her smile back to his mind, but after a moment he began to imagine her screaming again, with blood pouring from her body as she tried to pull away from him. He saw blood flowing down her face, over her dimples and down onto her bare chest.
“You know what I want you to do,” the voice whispered in his head. “You know there's only one thing that makes me hap
py.”
Suddenly he heard the door creaking.
Forcing his eyes open, he saw the nurse slipping out of the room.
“No!” he called out. “Come back! I'm still awake...”
Ignoring him, she pushed the door shut as she left.
“Bitch,” the voice whispered, sounding louder now in the back of his mind. “She doesn't care. If you want her, you're just going to have to take her the old-fashioned way. Don't worry, though. I'll still be here when these barbarians have finished butchering your brain. They can cut your head up all they want, but they can't get rid of me. Let them do their worst.”
“No,” he replied, as his eyes closed again. He tried to focus on the nurse's smile, on her dimples, on the imagined feel of her kiss, but darker thoughts quickly began to fill his mind. As he slipped into unconsciousness, the last thing he saw was a knife ripping into her flesh, and the last thing he heard was her a gurgled scream rising up through her blood-filled throat.
***
“Jonah, can you hear me? Jonah, open your eyes. That's not a request, it's an order. Open them right now.”
He tried to do what he was told, but he couldn't quite remember how to move his any part of body. He'd been asleep, he knew that much, but he didn't know how long he'd been under, and now he had no idea how to make his body obey his brain. It was as if all the connections had suddenly been pulled loose and his mind was just floating helplessly.
Suddenly he felt something against his eyelid, which was forced open a moment later by two fingers, letting light flood his field of vision with such startling, painful force that he immediately felt a shooting pain in his head.
“Pupils are enlarged,” said the voice, which belonged to the blurry figure that was examining him. “Response to light is minimal, but it's definitely there. That's something, at least.”
“Jonah,” said another voice, “we know you're in there. You need to give us some indication that you understand what we're saying to you. I want you to open your mouth. Even if you can't get any words out, I want you to open it. Can you do that for me?”