Rookwood Asylum

by David Longhorn

“What is it with you and the cops, Dec?”

  The question came out of nowhere and left Declan floundering to respond. He started to say he had no problem with the police, and Kate was just stereotyping him as a shifty Irishman. But the manager, standing over him in his small office, cut him off with an impatient shake of her head.

  “Come on, Dec,” Kate said, leaning up against his desk. “We’ve known each other a while now. The police really put the wind up you, I can see it in your face. If there’s something that could bite me in the arse, I need to know.”

  “Oh, I might have known it was your precious career you were worried about,” he said, with sudden anger.

  “Hurt your feelings?” Kate asked, in a wheedling voice. “Come on, we’re both grownups. What is it? Seriously?”

  Declan sighed, found himself scratching the back of his right hand, then saw Kate watching him do it.

  “The tattoo you had removed,” she said. “Paramilitary, right? It can only be that, or something you regretted when you sobered up, like ‘I Love Gary Barlow.’”

  Declan had to laugh, despite the tension. He decided to tell Kate some of the story, just enough to satisfy her and stop her from digging further.

  “I was a stupid fourteen-year-old,” he said. “My big brother, my uncles, they were all in – call it the organization. The tattoo was bravado, showing that I didn’t care who knew what side I was on.”

  Kate nodded, face serious again. Declan resisted the temptation to look her in the eye for too long, knowing that was the mark of a liar, and suspecting she would know it too.

  Everyone watches true crime documentaries these days.

  “At first, it was just keeping a lookout for the cops on the street corner, that sort of thing,” he continued. “But then, when I left school, they got me hiding guns in the attic, lying to my mother about it. I know for a fact one of those rifles was used to kill a lad not much older than me. This was all a good few years ago, of course. Before the ceasefire, and the treaty.”

  “So you got out,” Kate said quietly.

  “Right,” he said. “I got out of Ireland when I could, kicked around Scotland, then England, places where your religion doesn’t matter, where politics isn’t life or death. I learned to fix things, I was always good with my hands. And I ended up here. Thing is, I don’t know if the police are looking for me or not. I was just raised to be scared of them, you know?”

  Kate looked at Declan for a few seconds, then stood up and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “You should have told me, Dec. I would never have held it against you. We all do stupid things when we’re young.”

  After she had gone, Declan felt sick. He rushed along the corridor to the washroom and threw up into a basin, then studied his pale, sweaty face in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, his beard unkempt, his not-quite-bald head in need of a razor.

  Something moved in one of the cubicles behind him, thumping against a wooden door. Declan froze, stared into the reflection of the row of doors. Three were open, one was closed, the one on the far left. Again, the noise came, a little louder this time, suggesting a weighty object tapping on the inside of the door.

  Then came a click. It was a familiar sound, one Declan hated. Whenever it happened in a movie or TV show, he switched off or changed the channel. It was the sound of a pistol being cocked. A gun being prepared to fire.

  “Declan.”

  He straightened up, still unable to turn, terror making his limbs feel heavy as lead. The voice had spoken in an intense whisper. Its accent was like his own, Northern Irish, but thicker, harsher. Declan knew, if he had the courage to look, he would see a figure in combats with a balaclava covering its face, except for the eyes and a slit for the mouth. The mouth would be open in a humorless grin, revealing yellowed, uneven teeth.

  “Declan, boy, there’s only one punishment for informers. You know what it is.”

  “No, please!” Declan cried, finally turning to face the masked figure. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, I just wanted out, and they offered me a chance to get away –”

  “Good men shot down like dogs, Declan. Because you told the fekkin’ British where they’d be.”

  The arm holding the pistol swung up, the blue-black muzzle aimed low. Declan put his hands together, praying for the first time in many years, whimpering for mercy. He called upon a God he had often doubted. The mouth of the stranger smiled its yellow smile, and a gloved finger squeezed the trigger.

  The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space, but Declan hardly noticed it. He was too busy clutching his knee, writhing on the avocado-colored tiles. Blood spurted through his fingers, and he could feel the kneecap in fragments, sharp edges of bone just under the taut skin.

  Declan howled in pain and fear, squeezed his eyes shut, and waited for the second bullet.

  ***

  “I’m surprised it took you so long, Mahan,” rumbled Max Rodria. “I’ve been following this little debacle with considerable interest. The place has a murky history, though the clowns in our local press seem largely ignorant of it.”

  The scientist stood up, extended a meaty hand that Paul shook, somewhat reluctantly. Rodria was in his mid-forties, Paul knew, but the man looked older, in part because the physicist was borderline obese. He cut an imposing figure, though, at a shade over six feet. Rodria carefully cultivated the image of an eccentric British professor, dressing in tweeds with elbow patches. His desk was covered in papers, journals, and dog-eared books, adding to the image of an academic in a movie rather than real life.

  “Do take a pew, old chap,” Rodria went on. “And unburden yourself. I’m sure you have an interesting tale to tell.”

  “Okay,” Paul said, uncomfortably, “you know there have been some weird happenings at Rookwood. What you don’t know is that – I think I’ve encountered some kind of presence. Well, at least two presences. By which I mean ghosts, I guess.”

  Rodria took out an ornate pipe, which he was not allowed to smoke on college premises. Instead, he sat sucking the stem and nodding as Paul gave his account of his encounter with Liz, then his vision of the doctor in the East Wing. Rodria interrupted a couple of times, asking for more detail. But he seemed oddly dismissive of some facts that Paul saw as significant. The graffiti on the wall did not impress him.

  “My dear chap,” Rodria scoffed, “any teenager might have scrawled something on wet plaster. And how exactly does it pertain to what has actually happened? Who is Annie? What is her story?”

  Paul had to admit that he did not know, and it rankled. He felt sure that there was more to the odd phrase than random vandalism. But rather than quibble, he moved on to the fact that Liz had been seen by both him and Ella Cotter.

  “That gives Liz some independent existence, right?” Paul demanded. “She can’t be a hallucination if two people see her, especially since I never mentioned her to the kid. And Ella as good as said she threw a fully-grown man out of a window – an illusion can’t do that.”

  Rodria sucked his pipe, smiled in a self-satisfied way. Paul felt a twinge of sympathy for the man’s students. He could guess what was coming. Rodria was, according to Mike, ‘terminally addicted to telling the world just how brilliant he is.’

  “I have been investigating so-called psychic phenomena for nearly twenty years now,” Rodria began. “And I have never encountered any so-called poltergeist activity that could not be explained as a hoax, or misidentification of a natural phenomenon. A man fell out of a window, police say it was the result of a struggle.”

  Paul began to protest. But Rodria, frowning, held up his pipe for silence.

  “Please, let me finish! You came to me for expert advice, after all. Now, the other unpleasant incident was apparently caused by some kind of attack by a young man who seems, if reports are to be believed, to have some mental health issues. He hears voices, according to press reports. In that case, I think we may have something like a parapsychological cause of the young man
’s behavior. The secret is not in so-called ghosts, but in the building itself.”

  Rodria heaved himself up out of his chair again and laid a hand on the wall behind his desk. He looked at Paul as if he expected the American to understand something significant. When it became apparent that his student was not going to get it, Rodria heaved a dramatic sigh.

  “The fabric of the structure, Paul! Why do you think we always talk about haunted houses, or other sites to which ghosts seem to be confined? Why should ghosts not be free to roam as freely as the living, if they are the spirits of the departed? This can be explained by the concept of place memory. You’ve not come across it?”

  Paul admitted that he had not, and again felt annoyance. He sensed that Rodria was simply rehearsing a talk he had given many times, rather than considering the specific case of Rookwood.

  “I’ve not delved into the paranormal, at least not in real life,” Paul said. “I’ve seen a bunch of horror movies down the years, but I’m guessing they’re all wrong?”

  Rodria snorted, flopped his corpulent form back into his chair.”

  “As I said,” the scientist rumbled complacently, “popular ideas of ghosts are unscientific. What people call a haunting has rightly been described as a ‘stone tape.’ It is some kind of residual electromagnetic energy, past events recorded in the fabric of the building, replaying themselves in the minds of the susceptible.”

  “That doesn’t cover what I actually experienced,” Paul objected, only for Rodria to give another dismissive wave.

  “My dear chap,” said the scientist, “what you imagine you experienced – a conversation with a ghost – was simply your brain making sense of this replay I mentioned.”

  Rodria rose to his feet, indicating that the interview was at an end.

  “One thing is certain,” he said. “Whatever is manifesting itself at Rookwood is not in any sense alive. It cannot learn, or think, or feel.”

  ***

  “Dec, what the hell happened?”

  Declan opened his eyes to see Kate’s kitten-heeled shoes. Then her face appeared as she knelt by him on the washroom floor.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, eyes wide with concern. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  “No!” he said instinctively, then realized how absurd the response was. He could still feel the warmth of blood, oozing through the knee of his overall. He did not dare look at the damage. He remembered his boyhood in Belfast, seeing men on crutches, being told they had been ‘kneecapped’ for being informers. He imagined himself a cripple, unable to work, and moaned in despair.

  “Dec, is it your leg?” Kate asked, sounding puzzled now.

  He stared at the woman, wondering if she had gone mad. How could she not see the horrific wound, the impact point of a cross-cut nine-millimeter round? Then he felt Kate’s hand on his, gently unclasping his fingers. He looked down to see his overall unstained, not a trace of blood anywhere. The pain that had been so real a moment before had vanished. Gasping in astonishment, he ran his fingertips over his kneecap, felt nothing but a familiar, intact disc of bone.

  But I was shot. I heard the gun, I felt the bullet, he thought. I can’t have just imagined it all.

  “This is getting out of hand,” said Kate, helping him to his feet. “You’re clearly more than a bit jumpy, Dec. You need to tell me what’s going on with you. And how it relates to this place. We can’t have you coming unspooled, can we?”

  Declan began to stammer out a few words, but Kate shushed him and insisted they go to her office for ‘coffee and a bit of sanity.’ However, as they left the washroom, Sadie Prescott’s voice echoed down the hallway. Kate, sighing, whispered to Declan that they would ‘talk this over later, definitely.’ Then Mrs. Prescott was upon them, outlining her plans. When Declan made to walk off, the formidable woman insisted that her ‘spiritual cleansing’ concerned him, too.

  “People have seen things, heard things,” Mrs. Prescott continued. “Clearly there are disturbed spirits. This place was once a madhouse, after all. And it burned down, killing dozens of staff and patients. That’s hardly conducive to a good atmosphere.”

  Declan could tell that Kate was struggling to maintain her professional demeanor.

  “Sadie,” the manager said, “we’ve had some unfortunate accidents, and I don’t think a stunt involving some kind of stage performer –”

  Soon the two women were openly arguing, with Declan feeling he should intervene on his boss’ behalf. But he was still too shaken to do more than murmur a few words of support. Sadie Prescott brushed off all protests and continued to insist that the building needed to be cleansed.

  “It’s too late to change the arrangements, anyhow,” the woman added. “Imelda Troubridge is coming.”

  “Isn’t she that mad woman off the telly?” Declan blurted out.

  Sadie Prescott looked at him coldly and took a deep breath.

  ***

  “Imelda Troubridge?” erupted Rodria. “Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place?”

  Paul shrugged, secretly pleased that he had upset the man.

  “It didn’t seem important,” he admitted. “It’s an idea from the chair of the Tenants Association. She thinks a psychic might somehow reveal the nature of the problem. I take it that you don’t agree?”

  Rodria was becoming red in the face.

  “Psychics?” he bellowed. “They’re all bloody fakes, and Imelda Troubridge is one of the most ridiculous. She performs in theatres, telling gullible people she’s receiving messages from their deceased relatives and pets. She’s a tabloid celebrity!”

  Paul could not resist a smile.

  “Sounds like you two have some previous,” he remarked. “What happened?”

  “Never mind all that!” retorted Rodria. “If that woman is involved, I don’t want to be. Charlatans who claim to speak to the dead do not concern me. When the sideshow is over, by all means, get back in touch. In the meantime, I will bid you good day.”

  Jesus, thought Paul, as he left Rodria’s office, and he talks about other people putting on an act.

  His encounter with the paranormal researcher seemed to have been futile. Rodria’s explanation for the haunting of Rookwood made little sense. When Paul returned to his apartment that evening, he began to seriously consider simply moving out. He checked a few property websites, looking for cheap rentals in or around Tynecastle. It became obvious that his perception of cheap was out of step with economic reality. Financially, Rookwood was the only place he could afford that was not pretty near to being a slum.

  “Crap,” he moaned, closing various windows.

  “You seem upset,” said Liz, putting two slender hands on his shoulders.

  Paul jumped. Liz giggled, and again he was reminded of how immature she seemed. He moved away from her. Liz looked up at him, her smile fading, dark eyes inscrutable.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Aren’t you glad to see me? I thought we were friends, Paul.”

  “Sure,” he said, then reconsidered. “Well, kind of. Thing is, there’s – there’s a problem. A whole lot of problems, in fact.”

  Liz walked a couple of steps closer. Paul retreated, collided with his bookcase. A heavy volume fell to the floor. Instinctively, he bent down to retrieve it. But before he could pick up the book, Liz had moved swiftly to replace it on the shelf. He felt a slight disturbance of air as she moved by him.

  She’s as real as I am, he thought. She can’t be a ghost.

  And yet when Liz reached up to touch his cheek, he flinched from contact. She stood motionless, hand raised, then sighed.

  “You’re scared of me, now,” she said accusingly. “People have been telling you lies about me. Or you’ve been imagining things.”

  “What happened to Jeff Bowman?” he blurted out. “Did you kill him?”

  Liz looked disappointed, made a little pouting mouth.

  “Men who hurt little girls, who hurt women – I don’t like them,” she said simply. “A
nd sometimes I do get a bit carried away. I pushed him, and he fell. Sort of. I haven’t been so angry in – well, ages.”

  “Since you came to Rookwood, maybe?” Paul asked, wondering if she would reveal something more about herself. “When would that have been?”

  “Why are you trying to get me to talk about myself?” she asked. “You’re much more interesting, Paul. I want to know you better. You seem kind. But a little sad. Lonely.”

  “What are you?” he demanded. “Because no way are you a regular British teenager, or anything like one.”

  Liz shrugged, a deliberately cute gesture. But for Paul, it did not quite come off. There was now a distinct chill in the room. He thought ruefully of how Rodria would have to eat his pompous words if he had simply come back here, as Paul had wanted.

  “I’m just me,” she said finally. “Take me or leave me.”

  She took a step forward and again he retreated, scrambling clumsily alongside the bookcase until he reached the window. It suddenly occurred to Paul that he, too, might be hurled out into the summer air. Liz stood regarding him for a moment, and then seemed to shimmer and fade. There was a juddering noise, and the window rattled as a strong vibration ran through the walls and floor.

  Poltergeist, he thought. Is that what she is? Or part of it, at least?

  “You’re not being very nice, Paul,” Liz said plaintively. “If you don’t like me, then I won’t stay. But I’ll be back.”

  For a split second, he could see the door of the living room through Liz, then he was alone in the apartment. The vibration died, but Paul realized that he was quivering. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, half-fell onto his sofa. Thoughts whirled in his head as he tried to make sense of the encounter.

  Ghosts are real, I’m not hallucinating, he told himself. Now, what do I do about it? Run away? I’d despise myself for that.

  Paul thought about Rodria’s theory, of the fabric of the building being permeated with the thoughts and emotions of people who had lived and died there. He wondered if, like many clever ideas, there was a kernel of truth in it. Perhaps ghosts were bound to the same place, but not as simple recordings, as Rodria arrogantly believed.