The Redwood Asylum: A Paranormal Horror

by L. A. Detwiler

  ***

  “Oh dear, I don’t like to think about him. He was always odd. I told everyone there was something wrong. Coming and going at weird hours. And that look in his eyes. He wasn’t like the other young men in town. He was different. Of course, he was always different, even before he went off to war.”

  Emily Landing chattered on over her cup of tea, wheeling back and forth in her room as I sat in the stiff chair. I’d been afraid she would be wary of me, but she had been the opposite. Welcoming and open, she’d been more than happy to talk to me—after telling me about her three grandchildren, her late husband, and her roommate at the nursing home who was a bit weird.

  We sat in room 312, and I waited patiently for Emily to continue on.

  “He lived in Oakwood with his parents. Moved here when he was twelve. They lived on the humbler side of town. His parents died while he was deployed. I think that messed with him. But as I said, he was always an odd one. Very socially awkward, and just creepy, you know? That look in his eyes was simply uncanny. Anyway, when he came back after deployment, he didn’t want to stay in that house. Supposedly he claimed his parents were talking to him through the walls. He moved into the rental beside my house. Rarely talked to him, but I kept a wary eye out. I didn’t trust him. I’ve always had a sense for that.”

  I nodded. “So what did he do when he came back from Iraq?”

  She continued on. “Well, he worked for a while for the Ambridge Farm. You know that one? It’s about ten miles past the edges of Oakwood in a town called Littleton. He worked long hours there. He was rarely home. I used to have trouble sleeping, and many nights, I’d watch out the window and see him coming home late. Very odd, I thought. He worked at the farm for a good while, up until the night he went crazy.”

  “And did he ever get in any trouble? With the law, I mean?” I prodded, thankful to be getting a fuller picture of 5B.

  “Not that I know of. I mean, he was questioned for the Anthony Ambridge murder, of course. But so was most of the town. That boy disappeared without a trace, like he vanished.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, ears perked up. “When was that?”

  “Oh, about fifteen years ago now. Yeah, he was only eleven when he disappeared. Poor family. They’ve never been right since then.”

  “But the police cleared Essic?”

  “Oh yes. They cleared most of the town. But other than that, no, I don’t think he ever had any run-ins that I saw. Until that night, what, fourteen years ago now? I think that’s how long it’s been. Anyway, it was a scary night. He was out on the front lawn talking to someone. Little Red, Little Blue, he was shouting. A few others, too. It was bizarre. I was so scared. I woke my husband up, and we called the police. I thought he was on drugs or something. But apparently it was even worse because now he’s at Redwood. And you don’t go to Redwood for just a few drugs, as you know.”

  I settled back into my chair, my mind racing over the information as Emily Landing proceeded to tell me about her cat that she used to have and talk about the weather. I smiled and nodded, but I was absorbed. Anthony Ambridge. Could 5B have had something to do with him after all?

  I still didn’t have a lot of information, but I had something to go off of. Feeling a bit like a detective from one of those thriller movies, I eventually thanked Emily for her time.

  “Don’t be a stranger. Come back now,” she instructed, and I promised I would.

  But first, I had another place to visit. The sun was already setting by the time I left Oakwood Nursing Home. I thought about trying to track down the farm, but I knew it was too late. It would have to wait. I stood outside of the pristine building a moment longer, looking into the horizon. I didn’t want to go home, shuddering at the thought of the kids showing back up. I dug at my ear, remembering the worm.

  Still, I felt hopeful thanks to Emily. I had a start on the case. I had to keep going.

  When I got home, I headed to my desk to jot down notes. Then, I turned, and, into the emptiness of the apartment, I whispered, “I’ll find you. I will.”

  There wasn’t an answer, but something told me that maybe it was enough. Maybe I could make it be enough. Maybe it would all soon be over.

  The Pig’s Blood

  Over the decades, there have been the staff with ill-wishes for the residents at Redwood. There have been a few kind-hearted souls who have graced the halls and made things slightly better for some of the vulnerable. And then there have been the staff who have their heart perhaps in the correct place but have misguided ideas of treatment and helping. Such is the case when the staff you hire are not always the most qualified for the position. Furthermore, the higher powers of the asylum do not look kindly on interference of any kind in their business. For make no mistake; Redwood may have started with supposedly good intentions to help those with mental unrest, but it was and always will be a profitable institution. Money, after all, guides so many human decisions, does it not? Redwood Psychiatric Hospital is no exception, as you have likely discerned by now.

  Thus, last year, when Jack Worthers, a janitor hired despite his less-than-stellar record and his wobbly hands, decided to meddle, the powers that be did not take kindly to his interference with the residents.

  Jack started out strong at Redwood. He was quiet, backwards even. He met all of the golden requirements of the institution: no family to speak of, little opportunity, and a socially awkward demeanor that meant he would have few to spread gossip to about the halls of Redwood. Discretion is valued, of course, by the owners and by the families. No one wants to appear in a television special about the horrific families who lock up their families in the stone walls, and the higher powers certainly do not need an investigation on their funding. There are layers of protection in place, and the careful selection of staff is crucial.

  Jack spent six months in the quiet peace of conducting his job, of turning a blind eye to the various procedure rooms and the screams. He did not ask questions. He did not snoop where he was not wanted. He mopped the floors, including the puddles from the Drowning Girl, without so much as a raised eyebrow.

  Until he came across a teenage boy on floor two. The son of a prominent celebrity who was stowed away in Redwood after arsonist tendencies and volatile hallucinations, this boy became a figure of interest to Jack. Some say it is because Jack at one time played father to a boy who looked like this resident. Some say that the boy’s hallucinations simply got to Jack. Others claim Jack was never quite right in the first place.

  Whatever the case, around midnight six months into his job at Redwood, Jack was caught in the boy’s room on floor two forcing blood down a resident’s throat. Pig’s blood, to be exact, which was extracted from a slaughtered sow at The Edgar’s Farm, twenty miles from Redwood.

  Jack was convinced that pig’s blood was a cure for the ailment the boy encountered. The staff member who found him, a long-time nurse from floor five, claimed that Jack thought the antibodies in the pig’s blood would eliminate the wicked, demonic possession in the boy. He was hoping to cure him so he could escape from the walls of the asylum.

  Investigations occurred. Charges were filed. But as do many things in the town of Oakwood, the paperwork disappeared in favor of a stay at the asylum for Jack himself.

  Jack, the janitor on floor two, spent the first few weeks banging on the door wildly, accusing the asylum of keeping him hostage. Luckily, after a visit from Anna and an assurance by a few doctors that their shock therapy would rid him of his newly developed mental instability, Jack quieted. As many of us know, despair is a wonderous cure for the spirit to survive.

  Jack melted into himself, a fixture on floor two. Perhaps worst of all, though, was the fact that Jack, in his limited time in the asylum, had uncovered a few dark secrets that should have been a warning. He had not heeded them, nevertheless, wrapped up in the romanticized notion that Redwood needed him and that he could not leave it.

  Now, it is far too late for Jack, like so many of us in Redwood. Tra
pped by the stone walls, powerless and alone, he spends his time on floor two trying to convince the world he isn’t crazy; nonetheless, the world does not want to listen.

  The world never listens to madness, as history and time prove. It shuts it out instead, haughtily believing they are above it and that modern medicine seeks to cure and not to profit.

  They say the world changes a lot—but since the founding of Redwood, I have determined that such a notion is, resolutely, false. For at Redwood, extraordinarily little has changed. The hunger for power and money has simply passed down from hand to generational hand.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Coffees in hand, I approached the desk on floor five resolutely. I needed to smooth things over with Anna. I’d been behaving unpredictably; no wonder she was leery of me. I’d let the craziness with 5B and my past get in the way of our working relationship.

  Ready to extend the peace offering to her, she turned and studied me. Her face wore a weak smile, one that said she pitied me but was also suspicious.

  “I’m so sorry about yesterday. I brought you a coffee,” I said like a sad child extending some picked weeds from the flower garden after misbehaving.

  “Thank you, Jessica,” she replied. The formality in her voice resonated between us. I’d worked in the medical field long enough to know something serious was coming my way.

  “We have decided to move you. Congratulations, you’re headed to the easier floor. Floor two.” She proclaimed it with a lightness that I knew didn’t exist. I blinked, staring at her.

  “Why?”

  She turned and busied her hands with paperwork. “We often move the newbies to another floor after a period of time. And with all of 5B’s obsessions, we thought it would be best for you to get some distance.”

  Shock and dismay bubbled within me. It felt like a demotion, like I’d failed. I didn’t like failing. I put the coffees down on the desk and steadied myself by leaning on the decrepit wooden ledge. It felt like last time. I breathed in and out to calm myself, choosing my words wisely.

  “But I like working up here.”

  “Well, it isn’t always about what we like in this field, is it? It’s about what’s best. And we feel it’s best for you to get some space, and it’s perhaps best for the residents of floor five.”

  She turned to face me again, this time wiping her hands together as if she were wiping her hands of me. In some ways, she was.

  I stared and studied her for a long moment. I wanted to argue, to fight for my spot on the fifth floor. I knew I should be ecstatic, but besides the fact that it felt like I’d failed, I knew it would be harder to interact with 5B now. Next to impossible. But the look on Anna’s face said it was over. To fight would be to stir more suspicion. I nodded gently as she gave me some instructions. Roxy would be my go-to tonight until I figured it out, although she assured me the patients on floor two were much simpler to handle.

  I walked away slowly, trying to keep my shoulders straight and my head high in a feeble attempt to hold it together. I willed myself not to turn and look down the hallway toward his room, to think about what drawings he might be creating.

  Ambling down the staircase, I knew it would be harder now. But I couldn’t give up, not like last time. I’d bowed out last time because I didn’t have a choice. Now, I did have a decision to make. I wouldn’t be the one who crawled away, tail between her legs and fear suffocating her heart and mind. I’d be the strong one to crack the case. And then they’d see. I’d be the one deciding on shifts and floors. I’d be the one Redwood turned to for leadership.

  As I beeped my badge to enter floor two, a thought struck me.

  We. Anna had said We.

  Who were the powers of we? And even though Anna had been in the asylum as a nurse for a long while, why was she one of the deciding factors? It felt sometimes like Anna saw the asylum as her own sanctuary, as her own place. She touted an air of ownership as she walked about, I realized. It was peculiar, her attachment. Apparently, Redwood had its claws deep in her as well, perhaps deeper than she’d ever admit.

  I sighed, looking for Roxy. I found her at the center desk, a smile and red lips welcoming me. I handed her what used to be Anna’s coffee, and she exclaimed how excited she was.

  Maybe this will be for the best, I thought as she animatedly chatted and led me to the first patient’s room, automatically maneuvering me around the puddles that were yet to be cleaned up. Despite Roxy’s distracting story about what happened the night before, I couldn’t help but notice the puddle was tinged with a hint of red.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Itold myself to calm down as my hands shakily reached for the handle of the door. My heart pounded audibly, and a knot held tight in my chest. I peeked back once more. Brett was still down the A wing, cleaning 4A. Another resident had apparently flew the coop. Two in less than a week. Eerie. But I didn’t have time to ponder over it.

  I’d come to my shift half hour early. I needed to see him. Red and brown had lurked in the shadows the night before, although they didn’t make their presence known. I could feel them, though, as if they were residents in my apartment, in my mind, in my nightmares. I could feel them twisting my dreams into sinister sights of horror, my gasping and sweating when I awoke signs that all was not well.

  Anna would be arriving any moment. She could be at the asylum already, so often did she report for work at odd times as if to keep an eye on the place. If she caught me, it was game over once more. I pushed forward, driven by the knowledge that I needed to see him to get answers.

  He was at his desk drawing when I went in. Not having much time, I jumped to the chase.

  “Tell me about the Ambridge Farm,” I murmured.

  He looked up, pausing with his pink crayon. A new color to add to my collection. I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified.

  “Little Blue, all the cats. Little Blue, all the cats.” His eyes were bloodshot as his gaze pierced into me. I stood tall.

  “Please, I don’t have much time. Tell me about the farm. Did you kill the boy there?” I didn’t know what I expected, but I was desperate for it to end. “Please, I want to help.”

  I stepped closer to him, and he actually backed away as if he were afraid of me. As if the tables had turned.

  “I want to find them, to give them peace. Help me help you.” My words were pleading, shaky.

  His body quaked now as tears fell from his eyes. He stared at his pink drawings despondently. “It won’t end well, Jessica. They told me.”

  He turned and looked at me then, suddenly, and the pitiful stare he gave me sent shockwaves of guilt and fear through me. He gawked calmly, and for the first time, I thought I could see a glimpse of the man he was not all that long ago.

  I reached toward him, stopping myself before touching him. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I want to help.”

  We stared for a moment, and then I realized I was out of time.

  “Can I have those?” I asked, reaching for the drawing. I felt like a masochist, offering myself as a lamb to the slaughter but needing answers.

  “He’s a fighter,” he said before turning back to the blank sheet before him.

  I folded the single sheet. I’d caught him in the middle of drawing.

  “How many are there?” I asked.

  “Four.” It was a simple answer. I couldn’t possibly know if it was true, but I had to believe him for now.

  Red, Brown, Pink, and Blue.

  I turned my back on 5B, who was still drawing with a calmer demeanor now. He was quiet, sunken back into himself. In another life, with other opportunities, what could he have been? And in another life, in another scenario, could we have been in opposite places? I realized that the difference between sanity and insanity was hair thin, subjective, and easy to misinterpret.

  I slowly opened the door, peeking down the hallway. The coast appeared to be clear. Hurriedly, I locked up and dashed toward the stairwell, the drawing shoved into my pocket as
I headed to my new floor. As I was opening the door to the second floor, though, I screamed at the sight before me.

  “Jessica, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just coming to see how you were doing on the second floor.”

  Anna stared calmly at me from inside the second-floor door. Did she know what I’d done? Where I had been?

  I smoothed my ponytail and nodded. “Fine thanks.”

  “Good. I’m glad. Have a good night down here,” she said, passing me as she headed up the stairs. I turned to wave at her, my heart pounding. She didn’t say a word or let on that she knew anything, instead prancing up the stairs to her domain.

  I exhaled as I headed to the desk, the picture burning in my pocket as I got to work.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Life on floor two seemed simpler, easier, in many ways. Still, my mind raced as I pondered over what I was missing on floor five. I felt sick being away, the pull of the patients strong despite their proclivity to violence and uncontrollable irrationality. In my bones, I knew I didn’t belong on floor two. Which was crazy to complain about. The floor was like a cruise compared to the top floor. Most residents had activity time in a common area. They had the right to visitors. They were easy and calm, soft elevator music even playing during the day. At night, they were decidedly quiet and peaceful. Occasional screams rocked the floor, but I’d been at Redwood long enough to be used to that. And other than the puddles here and there, things were manageable.

  But halfway through my shift, there was a knocking on the door inside 1A. I shuddered, remembering my encounter with him early on when I’d been sent to floor two. His words echoed in my soul, and I realized that I hadn’t thought about him because of everything going on.