Rookwood Asylum

by David Longhorn

  “Get out!”

  A slender figure had appeared in the doorway behind Imelda. There was a scream, gasps, some cursing from Declan. Paul recognized Liz just as she vanished. Imelda herself twisted around in an ungainly fashion, ended up facing an empty doorway.

  “Did you get that, Steve?” she asked her cameraman.

  The stocky man shook his head. Onlookers scrambled to describe what they had seen, giving a more or less accurate description of Liz. Paul felt an odd sense of relief. For the first time, multiple eyewitnesses had seen ‘his’ ghost.

  “Who are you?” Imelda asked, gesturing for quiet. “Why do you want me to leave?”

  There was a loud bang somewhere nearby. Then a scraping noise, and Paul thought of a desk or some other item of furniture being dragged along a hard floor. The spotlight on Steve’s camera flickered. His formerly impassive features looked puzzled and he seemed about to speak to Imelda. She waved a glittering hand at Steve, and he resumed filming.

  “What is your name, spirit?” the psychic demanded, raising her voice. “Can you tell us what your name was, here on the earthly plane?”

  Silence. Someone coughed. Then another pointed and yelled. Paul noticed it a second later. One of Imelda Troubridge’s flamboyant necklaces was being drawn up from behind, tightening around her neck. Steve spotted it at the same moment. Dropping the camera, the man lunged forward and grabbed at the necklaces, started to pull back against the invisible force. Troubridge herself, eyes popping, clutched impotently at her throat.

  There was a scrimmage as several people tried to help. Then Steve reeled backward, jerking the psychic off her feet and sending them sprawling to the floor. Whatever had held her necklace had let go. Some people pushed past Paul, heading for the exit. He heard someone else declare that it was ‘just part of the act,’ but not with any great conviction. Kate’s voice sounded above the confused hubbub.

  “Let’s get out of here now, people!” she pleaded. “No shoving, make it nice and orderly.”

  A couple of minutes later, Imelda was in Kate’s office, sipping on a cup of hot tea. Declan had offered to put a slug of whiskey into the beverage, but the psychic insisted that she ‘did not pollute her body with stimulants.’ ‘Pity,’ Declan had replied tersely, earning himself a hard stare from Steve.

  Most of the residents had dispersed, evidently believing the show was over, if it had been a show. From what Paul overheard, opinion was divided. But one thing was certain; Imelda Troubridge wanted to ‘have another try,’ as she put it. When Kate, Declan, and Paul all urged her to quit, she grew stubborn.

  “I have a duty to troubled souls!” she declared. “I must help them move on.”

  “Where to, madam, if I might ask?” queried Declan, in a skeptical tone. “Are you talking about heaven here?”

  Imelda nodded curtly, her disapproval of the caretaker evident.

  “So-called skeptics may mock,” she said, “but yes. What some call heaven is a higher plane of existence that we all move on to, eventually. It’s up to those who are gifted, like myself, to assist those having difficulty making that adjustment.”

  Declan snorted, and Paul guessed what the Irishman was going to say next.

  “You’ll excuse me,” Declan went on, “but from what we’ve seen lately, I’d say a more likely destination for these lost souls is the other place. Down below.”

  The psychic got unsteadily to her feet, handed her teacup to Kate with a polite ‘thank you,’ then jabbed a finger at Declan.

  “There is no Hell, other than the one we make for ourselves on earth, through ignorance and cruelty,” she insisted. “This place is, I feel sure, a kind of purgatory for the confused souls. I will return tomorrow morning, and in the light of day, I feel things will be a little – less fraught. For all concerned.”

  Imelda started to sweep out, but as she jingled past Paul, he laid a hand on her arm.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but would you mind checking what your assistant actually got on video? To satisfy our curiosity?”

  “Good idea,” said Kate quickly. “Don’t cameras sometimes pick up things people miss in these situations?”

  For a moment, the woman looked as if she would snub the request, but then Paul sensed her reading the room.

  “Of course,” she said. “Steve, can you connect your camera with Ms. Bewick’s computer?”

  The assistant extracted the SD card from his camera and slot it into the office’s laptop. They gathered round the small screen to watch what they had witnessed only a few minutes earlier. At first, it seemed to Paul as if they would glean nothing new. The camerawork was so jerky that he wondered if Steve was under orders to make it look like found footage horror. But when they entered the East Wing, things settled down a little.

  “Liz!” Paul breathed, when the girl in gray appeared.

  Kate and Declan turned to stare at Paul, as Steve paused the video.

  “You know the spirit that attacked me?” demanded the psychic.

  “Not that well,” insisted Paul, feeling that he was being accused of complicity in some form. “But I’ve had – call them encounters with a being that looked like her. And how do you know she attacked you and not another ghost?”

  After giving Paul one of his trademark stares, Steve restarted the film. Even though they were all expecting it, there were still gasps when the heavy, gold chain was pulled back by an invisible force. Screams and shouts followed, the camera spun, then the screen went blank.

  “Nothing,” said Kate. “This seems a bit futile.”

  “No,” put in Declan quietly. “I think there was something, just in the last few frames.”

  Without further prompting, Steve ran the film back a few seconds, then paused it. The frozen image showed Imelda Troubridge, mouth wide open, hands clutching at her throat. At first, Paul thought there was nothing else in the shot but shadows. Then he realized that there was no way the light could be casting more than one shadow behind the psychic.

  “Everyone was standing behind the camera,” he breathed. “Those aren’t shadows.”

  “Shades, perhaps,” murmured the psychic. “Spectral presences.”

  All but one of the vague, dark forms clumped behind the psychic were faceless figures. Only one of the nebulous figures showed a hint of detail; a short silhouette with two gleaming circles where its eyes might have been. However, one ghost was much better defined, its pale hands almost solid as it gripped the heavy, gold chain around Imelda Troubridge’s throat. Paul instantly recognized the immature, large-eyed face, the old-style bobbed haircut.

  “Liz,” said Paul. “Oh God, it really was her.”

  “It looks like she’s their leader,” murmured Declan. “So we can assume she’s killed two people and just had a go at a third.”

  The Irishman looked up from the screen, met Paul’s gaze.

  “I think you’ve got yourself a dead psycho girlfriend, mate.”

  Paul did not contradict him.

  Chapter 8

  Paul went back to his apartment and spoke to Mike Bryson about the evening’s events. Mike was slightly piqued that he had ‘missed the fun,’ but was also concerned for Paul’s wellbeing.

  “If you want to get out of there, crash here, you can,” Mike insisted. “I know you feel you have to do this. But look at it from my viewpoint – I’d have to read your eulogy, and frankly, I don’t have that many interesting anecdotes about you.”

  Paul laughed, as he was meant to, and insisted that he was going to stick with it. When Mike asked if he thought Liz was essentially an ‘evil spirit,’ Paul found himself rejecting the idea on gut instinct.

  “I always got the feeling of a lost soul,” he said. “Not evil, just sad, lonely – prone to outbursts of anger, like any teenager.”

  There was a pause while Mike considered that.

  “Most teenagers can’t hurl a grown man through a window,” he said finally. “Sleep tight, buddy.”

  In the event, Paul strug
gled to sleep at all. As he lay staring up at the ceiling, his mind whirled with possibilities. Every time he formulated an idea about what might be happening at Rookwood, a fact contradicted it. He kept coming back to Ella Cotter’s remark about Liz stopping the bad men.

  Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, he thought. Or something like that. Point is, I’m clinging to the words of a scared ten-year-old girl as proof that Liz is not a purely destructive force. Those, and my own instincts.

  He turned over on his side, one of his feet escaping from the light summer duvet. He tried to rearrange the covering, but no matter how he thrashed around, some part of him always seemed to be exposed to the cooling air. He checked his phone, saw it was after midnight. Tomorrow was Saturday, so he did not need to make an early start. But he wanted to be well-rested before Imelda Troubridge returned for what he thought of as Round Two.

  Again, he felt a sudden coldness around his feet. But this time it spread, moving up his legs, and as it did so, he felt the duvet being lifted. A small, cold hand touched him, making him flinch. This prompted a familiar giggle. He froze, heart pounding, as the presence wrapped chilly arms around him from behind.

  “I said I’d be back,” whispered Liz.

  Paul was grateful he could not see her, only feel her cold embrace. He tried to speak, to ask her to let him go, but no words would come. Instead, Liz wriggled closer so he felt a chill from his ankles to his shoulders.

  “You think I’m bad because of what I did to that daft woman,” Liz went on. “But I had to try. If she’d stayed, he might have taken her. Taken all of them. Including you.”

  “Who?” Paul managed to say. “Who would have taken them?”

  “I – I can’t say his name,” she whispered. “If I do, he’ll know.”

  A name occurred to Paul, as he recalled the conversation in the Grey Horse.

  “You mean Doctor Rugeley Palmer?” he blurted out.

  The grip of the slender, cold limbs grew tighter, so strong Paul gasped in pain. He was suddenly afraid his ribs would crack.

  “Don’t say his name!” she rebuked him. “Naming him can summon him. Don’t ask me why. Names are important, that’s all I know.”

  The idea struck Paul as superstitious claptrap, but he had more sense than to say it. He kept silent until the spectral limbs holding him relaxed a little, and he could breathe more freely.

  “Is Liz your real name?” he asked.

  “Shhh!” she responded. “Don’t ask questions. I came to see you, even though you weren’t nice to me last time.”

  “Let me go, please,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “You’re very – cold.”

  There was a pause, and he braced himself for some kind of attack. But instead, the arms and legs that had wrapped around him withdrew, slowly. He felt Liz’s weight move gradually across the bed, then heard feet fall lightly onto the floor.

  “You don’t really like me, do you?” she said. “I thought a lonely man, a kind man, you might – be nice to me.”

  Paul turned over, wondering what he would see. Streetlights from the avenue cast a faint glow, and in it, he could make out Liz. She was looking down at him, her face in shadow, so he could not read any expression.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up. “But you scare me. Is that so hard to grasp?”

  She shook her head.

  “I thought, because we’re both lonely people, we might – I dunno.”

  Then her mood changed, and he felt a familiar, frightening vibration. Shelves rattled, and the shadowy form of Liz paced up and down the room.

  “It’s not fair!” she cried, and the television spun around on its stand, struck the wall. “I’m so alone! I just want somebody to love me, someone I can love.”

  A chair floated up, rotating in mid-air, then flung itself against the wall and shattered with a splintering of wood.

  “Liz!” Paul shouted. “Do you want to hurt me?”

  The outburst ended as suddenly as it had begun. The shadowy figure moved back to his bedside, leaned over Paul.

  “I want to be free,” Liz said. “Free from this place, free from them. Will you help me?”

  “Of course I will!” Paul said, relieved that the poltergeist activity was over for now. “I’ll do anything I can. But first, I’ve got to understand what’s going on. And who you are.”

  Instead of replying, Liz climbed onto the bed again, advancing toward Paul on all fours. He recoiled from the imminent contact, but she reached out and grabbed the sides of his head. He could see her face more clearly now, as she moved into a patch of diffuse light. Her dark eyes were huge, like pools of endless night. He could not close his eyes, could not look away. Instead, he felt himself falling into the black pools.

  And then he was in Hell.

  ***

  The stench of excrement was not quite masked by the odor of powerful disinfectant. Paul uncurled himself from the corner of his padded cell. He looked down at his skinny arms, fine-boned fingers. He reached up and touched his face, felt its delicate features.

  Liz, he thought in horror, I’m Liz.

  He tried to stand but was jerked back against the wall by chains around his wrists and ankles. The pain from the restraints was sharp, but now he was aware of a throbbing discomfort beneath it. A pain grew behind his eyes and, with it, came terror. Now he knew not only who but where he was.

  A scream echoed in the distance. It was followed by frantic sobbing, the clang of a heavy door slamming. Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, more than one person was approaching. Paul struggled to focus, his memories not merely alien, but also chaotic. He knew that if the door opened he would be taken somewhere, a place of bright lights, masked figures, strange machines. He knew that if he was taken, he would suffer pain.

  The footsteps came closer and his panic grew. Paul felt a trickle of urine run down his leg, dampening the scratchy, filthy garment he wore. Again, he tried to stand, a struggle because he was physically weak, clumsy. The pain in his head blurred his vision. He was crouching in his corner like a frightened child when the door opened. Two small, round lenses reflected the light.

  “There’s my star subject,” said a precise, upper-class British voice. “Such remarkable abilities in one so young.”

  Paul screamed, cowered. When the male nurses entered he tried to lash out, kick, bite, but they were too well-practiced. He was strapped onto a gurney and wheeled off with Doctor Miles Rugeley Palmer striding along beside his victim. Even in his panicked fear, Paul could see that the experimenter was a short, unimpressive man. His pebble glasses and straggly mustache made him look like a bit-player in an old-fashioned comedy. But when Palmer spoke, there was no hint of warmth or self-doubt.

  A fanatic, Paul thought. Totally without empathy.

  The gurney slammed through a pair of swing doors, and Paul began to scream. He could not stop even if he had wanted to. He realized that this was a mental replay, an event that had happened and would continue to re-occur indefinitely. This was the world Liz wanted to escape; a purgatory of eternally recurring torment.

  Palmer frowned, picked up a hypodermic.

  “Now, now,” he said sternly. “No need for all this drama. Another dose of scopolamine and you’ll be feeling nice and relaxed.”

  As Paul’s frail body arched and jerked against the restraints, Palmer leaned over the gurney.

  “Soon be over, Annie,” the doctor said.

  ***

  Paul awoke from his nightmare, feeling his pain recede, and his panic subside. The window was a grayish rectangle, heralding the summer dawn. For a moment, he thought he was alone again. Then he saw a faint outline, a transparent figure standing by the bed.

  “Don’t say my old name, not here,” said Liz. “He will hear. Besides, I’ve changed, I’m not that girl anymore. Find that girl somewhere else. Tell her story.”

  “Why?” Paul asked. “Why do I need to tell your story?”

  “To set me free,” she whispered. �
��I know it will set me free. But I don’t know why. We’re only allowed to know so much.”

  Paul began to ask another question, but she was already gone.

  “Where do I even begin to look?” he asked the empty bedroom.

  He checked the time, decided he would never get to sleep again, that he should prepare for Imelda Troubridge’s second foray into the East Wing. He was sweaty from his nightmare, if that was the right word for it, and took a long shower before a light breakfast. By the time he was dressed, it was seven, and he called Mike Bryson, bringing him up to speed on what had happened the evening before. He omitted to mention Liz’s true name, merely stating that she had given him a clue to her identity.

  As always, the Englishman summed things up in a few words.

  “Your phantom girlfriend tried to strangle a fake psychic, shared her worst memories with you, then told you to make her famous?”

  “I guess that’s the gist of it,” Paul admitted. “But she believes the truth will make her free.”

  “Very old-fashioned of her in these days of flat-earthers and such,” Mike said. “But, hey, anything I can do to help.”

  “I’d appreciate a bit of moral support when Imelda arrives,” Paul admitted. “At the moment I’m viewed with – well, maybe not suspicion, but I don’t think I’m trusted by anyone here.”

  “Okay,” Mike said brightly. “I’ll finish off last night’s pizza, and I’ll be over there at the speed of light ale. Over and out!”

  Next, Paul faced the less pleasant task of checking his email. He found a reply from Max Rodria. While the scientist was still clearly in a huff over the involvement of ‘that spiritualist woman,’ Rodria admitted to having some background material on Rookwood. He would share it, he stated bluntly, so long as Paul agreed not to write any subsequent book on the subject, or any spinoff media productions that might result.