by J. Thorn
Starlene folded her arms. The evening was growing cold. Or maybe the chill originated from the challenge in Kracowski’s voice.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll be your guinea pig. You’d probably love to have a case involving an adult subject, anyway, to make your research more credible.”
“Tomorrow morning, then?”
“I’m scheduled to rotate off duty tonight.”
“I can have the schedule changed. Things will soon be very interesting around here. The state board is going to visit in a few days, and our directors are excited about what’s happening here.”
“More likely, they’re excited about basking in the reflected glory of your genius,” Starlene said.
Down by the lake, Vicky and Freeman had stopped talking and were looking out across the water. Starlene followed their gazes, and that’s when she saw the old man.
She was about to blurt out to Kracowski, to show him that the man with the wet footprints was real, that she wasn’t prone to temporary insanity or hallucinations. But she saw the old man walking on water, four steps, five steps, and she was trying to deny the evidence of her own eyes when he disappeared.
Maybe she did need an SST treatment.
Or maybe she just needed to have her brain fried to a crisp.
Because, in recorded history, only one person had ever walked on water, and Jesus Christ was safely resurrected and borne aloft to Heaven.
Unless Jesus had made his promised return right here in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, on the grounds of Wendover, then a different kind of spirit was on the loose.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The conference room was quiet, the lights low. Francis Bondurant fidgeted with the glass in his hand. He longed for another drink, but he didn’t dare let Dr. Kracowski learn of his vice. At least on duty and in public, he was a ginger ale man.
Across the polished table from him, Kracowski and Swenson sat side by side. This room was where the Board of Directors held its quarterly meetings, and was several doors down from where Bondurant had imagined seeing the old woman the previous night.
No, not imagined—she was REAL, she stared at me with that grinning forehead scar and—
Bondurant tossed down a couple of fingers of the ginger ale. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his suit, realized he was sweating, and loosened his tie. More oxygen to the brain never hurt, though surely his heart was thundering enough to send plenty of air to his skull.
“You’re melting,” Kracowski said. “What’s going on?”
“It’s like this, sir—”
Paula Swenson smiled at Bondurant’s term of subjugation and moved closer to Kracowski. She had selected the alpha male and her eyes said she had nailed him until death or a hefty divorce settlement, whichever came first. She cared not one bit for the children, for the home, or for Wendover’s good standing. She made her reputation on her back, not on her feet.
Bondurant clenched one fist beneath the table, imitating the grip of “The Cheek Turner,” picturing Swenson bent over his desk and squeaking, softly at first and then in real pain, as he brought the paddle down again and again and again—
“Now you’re evaporating as well,” Kracowski said.
Bondurant wiped the sweat from his eyebrows. “Too many things going on at once. Those two directors showing up on short notice, your experiments increasing in frequency, the staff changing over, and state inspectors coming by in a few days. This McDonald guy lurking around all the time. And these new supporters, I know they’re a godsend, but it’s hard to get a handle on them.”
“Pressure is internal, not external,” Kracowski said.
“That’s a good one,” Swenson said. “You’ll have to write that down.”
“I already have.”
“It’s just”—Bondurant paused to finish his glass—“the staff has become a little unsettled.”
“Unsettled?”
“Well, it’s about the . . . you know . . .”
“If I knew, your calling this meeting would have been unnecessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And my time is quite valuable. Should you ever need a private consultant, you’ll find that you couldn’t afford me.”
“Lucky for Wendover that you’re willing to work for free,” Swenson said, as if hardly happy about it.
“I’m not working, I’m playing. I’m playing the biggest game of all, isn’t that right, Bondurant?”
“Game?” Bondurant’s hands trembled.
“The God game. Healing little souls, that’s what we do here, isn’t it? Redeeming the sins of society. Fixing God’s mistakes.”
Bondurant wished he had a little something in his glass. He’d even risk some whiskey. The knot in his throat tightened. Nothing to do but say it plain. “It’s about the ghosts.”
Kracowski had been leaning back in his chair, casual, perhaps with a hand on Swenson’s thigh under the table. Now he sat forward and stared as if trying to decide to what species Bondurant belonged.
After a long pause in which the room’s air grew more dense, Kracowski smiled. “Ghosts.”
Swenson giggled. “Spooky-boo. So that’s what’s been coming to me in the night? I thought it was you, Richard.”
She squeezed the doctor’s arm but he pushed her away. “Not now, Paula. The man’s serious.”
Bondurant wished that he, like the mad woman he’d seen, could disappear into the wall. Kracowski despised weakness, and belief in anything that couldn’t be proven was a weakness. “We’ve had three staff members make reports. One even quit over it.”
“And what did these reports consist of? The same old campfire story about the old man in the gown? Because I’ve heard that one myself. Ever since I was four. Do you know what an urban legend is, Bondurant?”
He nodded in response.
“Well, Wendover seems to have its very own urban legend, the one about the dreary little hunchback they call ‘Look-Out Larry.’ I’m quite sure the so-called ‘ghost’ predates the existence of Wendover Home, and local townsfolk will be more than happy to share the legends their grandparents whispered about this place. Every town has a ghost, and every old building has one.”
“Wendover’s only a dozen years old, but the building’s been here for more than seventy years.”
Swenson said, “Does that mean lots of people have died here?”
Kracowski laughed. “Nobody ever dies at Wendover. Do they, Bondurant?”
“Only for a little while,” he said under his breath.
“What’s that?”
“I said, ‘Not like Enlo.’”
“Ah, the home where the little girl died from a restraint hold.”
“Alleged restraint hold,” Bondurant said. “That technique is approved by Social Services. The girl most likely had an undetected heart condition. But it should serve as a warning. Enlo was put on six months’ probation.”
“Too bad. You’d think the authorities would let the girl’s ghost return from the grave and dispense justice.”
Swenson touched the doctor’s shoulder. “You’re funny, Richard. No wonder I like you.”
Kracowski frowned at her. “Not in front of the staff. How many times do I have to tell you?”
Bondurant wondered if Kracowski really believed the staff didn’t know about their little affair. But Kracowski wasn’t common, he didn’t deal in gossip, and, to him, casual conversation about personal matters was poison. He lacked humanity even though he professed to work in human services. Even though Wendover and its clients were sport to Kracowski, he took the game seriously.
“There’s still the problem of the reports, whether you believe them or not,” Bondurant said. “The staff members talk among themselves. Things get whispered.”
“I’ll take care of that.” Kracowski’s eyes grew even darker.
“Three people saw the man in the robe. I don’t think all three are crazy.”
“But maybe two of them?” Swenson said.
; “By the descriptions, I think I know who the man might be.”
“Ah,” Kracowski said. “Here it comes. One of your long-lost prophets, no doubt. I hope it’s Ezekiel, who saw the chariot of fire. Or Elijah and the burning bush. All the Old Testament’s best lunatics were pyromaniacs.”
Bondurant fingered the rim of the glass. He bowed his head and prayed for strength. Confession was good for the soul, but the opening line was always a tough one. “You know that when the home was finished in the 1930’s, it became a state psychiatric hospital?”
Kracowski waved a hand. “Of course. Mary G. Mitchell Hospital. It was a training ground for some of North Carolina’s finest doctors, and brought forth some solid clinical and theoretical research.”
“Yes. But we all can agree that the treatments of the era weren’t necessarily . . . humane.”
“Science is built more on mistakes than on successes,” Kracowski said. “And so, I might add, is religion.”
“Maybe. But frontal lobotomy, coma therapy, forced sterilization, electroshock—”
“I don’t perform electroshock.”
“Certainly not. And then came the advent of the new class of drugs. The late 1940’s and 1950’s were a wondrous time for pills. It was more wonderful for the doctors than the patients. Instead of having to spend hours listening to troubled souls, you could scribble something on a note pad and send them off to the nearest pharmacy.”
“Neither of us approves of drugs,” Kracowski said. “You, on religious grounds, and I oppose them because they distort the brain’s harmonics.”
“But then you get to fix them,” Swenson said. “You can realign their energy fields.”
“You’re pretty smart for a doctor,” Kracowski said to her, with an edge of sarcasm she didn’t grasp. “But I’d rather the patient be healed in the first place and not have to submit to treatments. Harmony is the brain’s natural state. We can blame civilization, socialization, and, yes, religion, for the pressures and stresses that have thrown the modern brain out of balance.”
“I’ve read your theories, Doctor.” Bondurant literally ached for that whiskey now. If only God would grant him eight ounces of ninety-proof bourbon. “But there are mysteries that science will never be able to solve. Like the ghost.”
“You and your damned ghost. I still say it’s nothing but wishful thinking mixed with the power of suggestion.”
Bondurant’s stomach tensed. This was going to be difficult. “I saw one myself.”
The room grew so quiet that Bondurant could hear his heartbeat in his ears. Dr. Swenson stopped picking lint from her blouse.
Kracowski narrowed his eyes. “Your hunchback, I presume? Thanks to the power of suggestion?”
Bondurant shook his head, ashamed, scared. “No. This was a woman. Last night. I heard a noise in the hall and followed her. When I cornered her and asked her what she was doing, she turned and disappeared into the wall.”
Bondurant wiped his eyes, hoping to erase the memory of her face. But that long scar grinned at him still.
“She had a scar across her forehead,” Bondurant said, the words large in the hushed room. “A lobotomy scar. Done from the top, not up through her nose.”
“And her clothes? I suppose she was dressed in hospital garments.” Kracowski smiled and spoke as if he were narrating a B-grade horror movie. “Naturally, since she must have been the ghost of a patient who died here long ago. Evil lives in the walls, doesn’t it, Bondurant? Evil evil EVIL.”
Swenson slapped at him. “Quit it, you’re creeping me out.”
Kracowski laughed. “I’m afraid our dear Francis has been working too many late nights.”
To Bondurant, he said, “Reading the Bible in the wee hours? Or is it the whiskey that fulfills your spiritual needs these days?”
Kracowski had commented on his drinking, Bondurant’s well-kept secret of which neither the Lord nor Wendover’s directors would approve. But he couldn’t answer in his defense because, through the small square of glass set in the conference room door, the crazy old woman was looking in, wearing her double grin.
Kracowski, his back to the door, couldn’t see. If indeed there was anything to see.
“I don’t want to hear any more foolishness about ghosts,” Kracowski said. “The breakthrough won’t take much longer, so keep your head until then. All that matters is that I continue my treatments. For the good of the children.”
“For the good of the children,” Swenson said.
“For the good of the children,” Bondurant echoed, smiling weakly back at the woman at the window. But she had already gone, into the wall or back through the mists of time. Or maybe into the arms of the dead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vicky slipped out of the shadows and crossed the hall. Sneaking out of the Green Room at night was too easy. She loved challenges, and Wendover hadn’t provided many so far, at least when it came to security. Though the back doors were bolted and locked, some of the entrances had to be left accessible in the event of fire.
No, they weren’t entrances. Because doors swung both ways. They could also be exits.
About once a week she sneaked outside, usually to lie in the grass and look at stars or count blue splotches on the moon. She had never been tempted to go over the wall and make a serious break for freedom, because she could think of no destination that would allow her to escape her own grotesque body. She was so damned fat she should be easy to spot, like a Goodyear blimp in a circus tent.
The home had an overnight security guard whose main duties were to quell fights among the boys or to make sure nobody was getting high on smuggled contraband. Watching out for runaways wasn’t in the job description. He was probably watching TV in the rec room, eating greasy burritos and slamming Diet Coke. With a Snickers bar in his pocket for later, all sweet and gooey and peanutty, the kind that would make lumpy brown vomit and scratch your throat as it came back up. He had never caught her even though her footsteps were like an elephant stampede in the halls.
Vicky wondered what Freeman would think of her sneaking around. She reached out to read him, or “triptrap” as he called it, but her mind was clouded. The effects of the last treatment had faded. She caught the dim hubbub of distant thoughts, but couldn’t be sure where they came from. Or if she was imagining them.
Maybe it was all wishful thinking. Or the babble of angels. Or schizophrenia.
She went past Bondurant’s offices. Light showed in the crack beneath the door. The old bastard was probably in there right now, fantasizing about paddling girls. Damned if she’d ever be bent over his desk. She’d feed him his glasses first, or die trying.
She heard voices inside the conference room and saw someone outside the door. She ducked back around the corner, then stooped low and waited. The old pipes in the walls thrummed as someone flushed a toilet on the second floor. Vicky leaned forward and peeked, but the hall was empty.
Bondurant, Dr. Kracowski, and the ditzy bimbo Swenson had been having a powwow. Vicky moved past the conference room, ducking under the window, her belly tight from being folded. From there, she had an easy jaunt to the front door. Though it was well-lighted, the main entrance was the best place for an escape. The electronic key pad blinked red. They didn’t expect anybody to dare sneak out that way, especially a four-hundred-pound water balloon with legs. She punched in the code, sixty-five star, then pushed open the door, and the sweet night air rushed over her.
Autumn had a taste, at least here in the Appalachian Mountains. Tonight it was dark orange, like pumpkin, invisible food that didn’t make you stuffed to the eyeballs. The grass was moist with dew, and the lawn sparkled under the security lights. The mountains were unseen but they had a presence all the same, of a great weight looming on the horizon. She ran barefoot around the side of the building.
She was in the back of the home, passing by a row of shrubs, when she heard a noise in the shadows. A couple of times she had spooked a rabbit on her dark walks. But this sounde
d bigger than a rabbit. Lots bigger.
She turned as a chunk of shadow separated itself from the larger night.
Just her luck. The guard, surprised while taking a leak in the laurels. Or knocking down a satisfying Snickers.
“Okay, you got me,” she said. A shame, too. The night was glorious.
“Not yet, but soon enough.” It wasn’t the guard.
“Deke?”
“Yeah, Vomit Queen.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Fairy-hunting. Didn’t find no fairies, though.”
She looked around. The back entrance was locked for the night. The lake was too far, and though she might lose him in the pines, he would probably take her down as she ran across the open lawn. She could always yell and hope someone inside the building heard her. But all the windows to the rear were dark, and the walls were thick stone.
Deke came several steps closer and the moonlight caught his face. His eyes were pools of used motor oil. She didn’t like the way he was smiling. She wondered if any of his buddies were crouched in the bushes, waiting for him to draw first blood before jumping the prey themselves. As fat as she was, there was plenty of meat to go around.
She edged away, trying not to look scared. Her nightgown was soaked around the hem. Deke stared at her as if he could see right through the flimsy cotton. Creep bastard rotten scumbag. Her hideous, bloated belly was nobody’s business.
“Said I couldn’t do it to you, huh?” Deke said. “That’s not what Slim Jim says. Want to meet Slim? He’s been wanting so bad to say hello. And he ain’t got no eda-whatever complex this time.”
Deke tugged at his zipper as Vicky turned and fled blindly toward the back of the building. A row of old concrete steps ran beneath the back landing. She’d seen utility crews go down there during the summer, electricians and other guys with lots of tools in their belts. Last month, workers had unloaded a truck carrying something that looked like overgrown hot water heaters.