Rookwood Asylum

by David Longhorn

  Paul got up slowly, hoping that Palmer had withdrawn, having humiliated his latest opponent. He reached down, offering O’Malley his hand. He reasoned that he could hardly believe what Palmer had said through the old man’s mouth. It was such an easy accusation to make.

  “Please, Father,” Paul said, breathing heavily. “Let me help you out of here. You can’t do any good.”

  The priest looked confused, tried to raise his right hand, yelped with pain. Paul helped him upright, noted that the old man was keeping his weight off of one foot as well. Paul’s tackle had evidently twisted a knee or ankle.

  “You need to get to a hospital,” Paul added. “You can lean on me.”

  Kate appeared in the doorway, still wide-eyed with concern. Paul asked her to call an ambulance. She nodded, took out her phone. The old man, faced with only one prospective helper, let Paul half-carry him to the elevator. Neve and Ella were nowhere to be seen. Kate completed her 999 call and offered to help with O’Malley. The old man looked at her, showing no sign of recognition.

  “I never harmed any of them,” he said hoarsely. “I – I had wicked thoughts, put there by Satan. But I never touched – never did anything –”

  He clawed at the woman’s sleeve, his voice pleading.

  “You must believe me!”

  “Of course,” said Kate, helping him into the elevator. She exchanged a look with Paul, and he could see that she was skeptical.

  The elevator door panels rumbled shut, but there was no feeling of movement. Kate jabbed at the button again. The lights flickered, and the elevator cab jolted. Startled, Kate almost fell, letting go of O’Malley. Paul grabbed the old man under the arms to keep him upright.

  “Bloody thing,” Kate said, still jabbing the button.

  We should have taken the stairs, even with an injured old man, thought Paul. Now we’re stuck in a metal box.

  There was a drop in illumination, and Paul thought the lights were failing again. But it was far more disturbing than that.

  “Oh God!” exclaimed Kate.

  Paul looked around, trying to control his growing panic. Reflected in the dull metal walls were a dozen or more figures, most of them dressed in pale clothing. Kate retreated from the nearest wall, cowering in the middle of the cab. Paul felt O’Malley slump in his arms and saw that the old man’s head was lolling to one side. The priest had fainted.

  “What are they?” Kate whispered.

  “Palmer’s patients, his staff, all those who died in the fire I’m guessing,” Paul replied.

  As they huddled together the many reflections shimmered, seemed to flow and merge. In a couple of seconds, only one figure could be seen. It was Palmer, masked and gloved. The long-dead doctor stepped out of the wall, moving slowly toward them. Kate screamed and flung herself against the opposite wall. The lights failed completely. Nausea flowed over him, making him retch. It was like a bout of seasickness only worse, more intense and immediate. At the same time, he heard Palmer’s snide voice in his head.

  ‘You set yourself against me, you pathetic individual! But you will serve my needs, like the others. Even after all these years, the world will acknowledge my genius!’

  In that moment, Paul felt all the intense frustration and rage of Miles Rugeley Palmer. He was bombarded with memories not his own, images of Britain between the world wars seen through the eyes of a clever, ambitious, utterly callous young man. Paul experienced, in a fragmented, jerky fashion, Palmer’s cultivation of wealthy clients, pandering to the neuroses of the powerful.

  The next memories were of experiments at Rookwood Asylum, each patient seen as a number, each successful test a stepping stone to the glory Palmer hungered for. The images began to cascade through Paul’s mind, the elevator receding, his mental world flooded with Palmer’s thoughts and emotions. He understood now what had possessed the priest, Imelda Troubridge, and many others. It was the essence of one man’s egotism amplified by a retinue of other enslaved souls, the staff and patients who had perished with Palmer.

  ‘Yes, I am one and many. I am alpha and omega. I am all there is.’

  Paul had another revelation. Palmer was insane. And the deranged doctor was rapidly, inexorably, taking control of Paul’s mind. He struggled against Palmer, but it was an unequal battle. Paul was not merely fighting one being, but a compound entity. Palmer’s vast, crazed egotism had swamped and absorbed all the others trapped in Rookwood.

  No, Paul thought, all except one.

  Chapter 10

  “It was that girl again. The one who attacked Imelda.”

  Paul heard Kate voice as if he were lying at the bottom of a deep, dark well. Above him, as his eyes flickered open, he made out an inverted human face. It was Declan.

  “Don’t try to get up,” the caretaker warned. “You had a bad shock. They’re calling another ambulance.”

  Paul tried to sit up, regardless, then fell back. He was on a couch in the foyer, his head throbbing. Fragments of what had happened in the elevator came back to him, but he could make little sense of them. He recalled dread, the sense of his personality being overwhelmed, then nothing.

  “What happened?” he managed to say, struggling to form words.

  “They just took the priest away,” Declan said. “You’re next in line, apparently.”

  “Palmer was there,” Paul said. “He wanted to – to erase me, take my body.”

  He reached up and gripped Declan’s arm. The Irishman looked embarrassed, tried to pull away, but then gave up.

  “Declan,” Paul went on, speaking rapidly, desperate to tell someone what he thought. “Palmer is insane. That’s the irony. The man who ran the place was crazier than any of his patients. And down the years his spirit, ghost, call it what you like, has absorbed all the others. Except for the one I know as Liz. Somehow, she resisted, she still has some kind of free will. She was the strongest, maybe. Also, she was – still is – the one who hated him the most. And maybe there’s something else –”

  A stabbing pain behind his eyes silenced Paul, and he winced, clutching his head. Kate gently pushed him back down on to the couch. He noted that she had put her jacket under his head.

  “Don’t try to talk,” Kate said.

  “You need to know!” Paul insisted. “It’s why Palmer behaves the way he does, trying to terrorize people, kill them, possess them. The idea is to get attention, bring more people under his influence. Build up his empire. He’s using psychology.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Declan asked dubiously. “According to you, he’s trapped here.”

  Paul thought about that. Eventually, he shook his head, admitting that he could not see what Palmer’s endgame might be. All he knew was the dead doctor’s monstrous ego longed to be free from the cold limbo of the old asylum. So far, Palmer had failed to escape by possessing individuals. That thought, in turn, brought him back to what Kate had said as he regained consciousness.

  “Did you say Liz was there?” he asked her.

  Kate nodded.

  “I saw that – that man’s face somehow overlaid on yours. But then the girl appeared, the one from the video. She just flickered into existence for a second, and you froze. You said something I didn’t understand in a voice – well, it was like a young girl’s. Then the lift started working again, and you collapsed.”

  Paul could not remember anything Kate described. The pain in his head was growing worse. He closed his eyes against the light from the still-overcast day.

  “What did I say?” he managed to ask.

  “Take me out, let me out,” Kate said, hesitantly. “Something like that.”

  ***

  “You look like you’ve been in the wars, as my dad used to say,” said Mike. “Still, from what you said, you’re better off than old Father Whatshisname.”

  They were sitting in the waiting room of the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Tynecastle’s main hospital. Paul’s headache had eased, and he felt a bit guilty about being whisked to the ER in an ambulance.
He had also had a moment of panic about the cost, until he remembered he was in England. The very efficient paramedics had been amused by this.

  “I keep reminding myself, I don’t need to give my credit card details to anybody,” he explained to Mike.

  “Downside of socialist medicine,” Mike observed, “is long waiting times for non-vital cases. But when a doctor does see you, what are you going to tell him? Because I don’t think spirit possession is covered at medical school these days.”

  Paul pondered for a moment, struggling to recall details of what had happened in the Cotters’ apartment and then in the lift. Eventually, he gave up.

  “I’ll tell them I’ve been overworking, got stressed out, fainted,” he said. “Sounds a bit feeble, but at least it’s not completely inaccurate.”

  Mike made a noncommittal noise and looked seriously at his friend.

  “Joking apart,” said the Englishman, “you need to back off, mate. Whatever’s going on there is far too dangerous for an amateur ghost hunter, or ghost helper, whatever you want to call it.”

  Paul shook his head. He knew Mike had his best interests at heart, but he felt somehow responsible for helping Liz escape. When he tried to explain this conviction, Mike showed signs of genuine impatience for the first time.

  “What if you can’t help?” Mike demanded. “What if Liz is as crazy as Palmer and just playing her own sick game with you? You look washed out, underweight, exhausted. But at least, if you walk away now, you won’t end up trapped at Rookwood with the rest of them.”

  The idea had never occurred to Paul. He gawped at Mike, the full horror of the suggestion sinking in. It was possible that he would end up as part of Palmer’s grotesque collective consciousness, dominated by the deranged psychiatrist for all time. But even that thought could not banish the pity he felt for Liz, and the feeling that he would be a coward if he simply ran away.

  “Besides,” he said, after trying to explain how he felt, “maybe telling Annie’s story will do the trick. Has Rodria posted anything online?”

  Mike took out his phone.

  “Yeah, I forgot amid all the fuss tonight,” he said. “The guy has uploaded some clips from the film, and written his usual pompous precis of our research. Without mentioning us, of course. I mean, we didn’t want him to, but it’s still very galling to know that he wouldn’t have, even if we had. If you see what I mean.”

  Paul had to smile at that. He took the phone and scrolled through Rodria’s blog entry. As Mike had said, it was self-aggrandizing stuff, implying – without ever stating as much – that Rodria was the main investigator at Rookwood. The scientist described Annie Semple as a ‘hapless working-class girl of limited intelligence,’ and gave a reasonable account of the experiments.

  The item also stressed Rodria’s own view that what remained in the asylum was a kind of electromagnetic residue of past emotions. Rookwood, he claimed, ‘seems a perfect example of a place memory manifestation, with more receptive minds severely affected by lingering biophysical energy.’

  “He had to get his pet theory in again,” Paul remarked sourly as he handed the phone back. “And I love the way he condemns Palmer as an egomaniac. Self-awareness is not Rodria’s thing.”

  Mike resumed his efforts to persuade Paul to leave Rookwood and simply forget the haunting. Paul began to explain about his mother, his own fear of suffering her fate, his need to put things right for Annie Semple. They were still engaged in a low-key argument when Paul’s name was called.

  The young Indian doctor who saw Paul conducted a thorough examination. Paul wondered if previous victims of Rookwood had passed through the infirmary. If so, he reasoned, the staff might be on the lookout for something unusual. After mulling it over, he put this point to the doctor.

  “Ah, yes, the old haunted asylum story – the place has got a bit of a reputation,” the young man said. “Some people do seem to be getting rather excited about it online. But I’m not superstitious. I’m just careful. Now, tell me, how did you hurt your wrists?”

  “What?”

  Not understanding the question, Paul looked down at his hands, held them out in front of him. He saw red marks around his wrists, each roughly an inch thick, where he felt sure none had been earlier. Seeing his puzzlement, the doctor looked more closely.

  “If it wasn’t crazy, I’d say you’d been strapped down in the ambulance,” he concluded. “But you’re not in any discomfort?”

  Paul shook his head, gazing at the marks. They were not even. Both showed a pattern that suggested some kind of strap had been buckled tight.

  “No,” he said. “I – I’m fine. I think I’ve used up enough of your time, really.”

  ***

  Half an hour later Paul stood in his apartment, lights off, gazing out at the glow of the city. He felt nothing out of the ordinary, sensed no abnormal cold, no strange presence. He had just checked Rodria’s blog, seen that the scientist’s online following were eagerly discussing Annie Semple’s story. A lot of commenters were, as usual, morons, but amid the garbage there was also plenty of compassion and outrage on behalf of the girl.

  It was, Paul suspected, only a matter of time before the media picked up on the tale. Much newspaper content these days was simply taken off the internet, after all. This would be an ideal space filler.

  “Liz?” he said. “Liz, are you there? Do you know her story is being told, the story of the girl you were? People are learning about her. Some people care.”

  There was no response. He almost called out for Annie, but thought better of it. He would not deliberately go against the girl’s wishes. Besides, her concern that Palmer would hear him use the name was not to be taken lightly.

  It made a kind of sense, he reflected, for the ghost girl to use a different name. Annie Semple had been scared, vulnerable, a victim who ultimately defeated her tormentor, only to perish herself in the Rookwood fire. Liz, on the other hand, was powerful enough to defy Palmer.

  Paul frowned. Again, he almost grasped something about Palmer’s relationship to Liz. It was just on the edge of his consciousness, hovering out of reach.

  “Damn it.”

  He went back to his desk, clicked on the lamp, opened his laptop again. Rodria’s blog entry on Annie Semple had garnered more attention. Annie’s story was being told on paranormal research sites, and less serious ones concerned with ‘Haunted England’ and suchlike.

  “Is this what you wanted?” he asked the darkness around him. “People know your old name, the name of the girl who died. They’re talking about you. They can even see you in that old movie footage.”

  “No, it’s not enough.”

  As before, she appeared from nowhere. One moment he was alone, the next Liz was leaning over the back of his chair. He sat very still, not breathing, while she reached out and laid small fingers on his shoulder. A chill sensation spread from the point of contact, and he flinched. Liz withdrew her hand, smiling wanly.

  “Love,” she said. “That was all I wanted. I was a silly kid, I suppose. Still am, in some ways. Instead of love I got – what sent me to this place. You know the story now. You know that I want to escape, just like all the rest. Be free. Can’t you help me?”

  “I’ll do anything I can to help,” Paul said, trying to keep his voice level.

  “You’re so scared of me now,” she murmured. “Much more than before. Is that because you think I’m crazy too?”

  Paul gasped, shook his head, tried to stammer out a denial.

  But it is what I think, he realized. Or, at least, what I’m afraid I’ll find out.

  With that revelation came another. Paul suddenly knew why Palmer had not been able to absorb Liz, enslave her mind, the way he had done with all the others.

  “He’s scared of you!” he blurted out. “God, it’s so obvious. He’s afraid of you. That’s why you drove him out of me. It wasn’t just your power, but the fact that he didn’t want to confront you.”

  He got up and looked down at
Liz, who smiled up at him.

  “Sometimes you can be a bit slow on the uptake,” she said. “I killed him. That leaves quite an impression, even on a nutcase like Palmer. So, yes, I’m the only one he can’t put down, hold onto. He made me so strong he couldn’t control me, in life or death. But it’s hard to keep fighting. And I’m sure – I’m sure the answer is nearby, that you can help me find it.”

  The girl in gray shimmered, seemed to flicker out of existence, reappeared at the window. She had abandoned all pretense of moving like a living person. Paul could see some of the lights of Tynecastle faintly shining through her. He wondered if it was difficult for her to maintain an appearance of solidity, but decided not to ask.

  “I’ll do anything I can to help you,” he said, surprising himself with how firm his voice was. “Just give me a clue.”

  “Anything at all?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. “Do you mean that?”

  “I do,” he said, firmly. “I won’t walk away. I’ll see this through.”

  Liz turned and seemed to grow even less substantial, so that it became impossible to make out her expression in the glow of the laptop screen. She shimmered again, moved closer, and he stumbled back, holding up his hands as if they could ward her off. Her outline became blurred, and a cloud of grayness rolled over him, bringing a wave of intense cold. Then it was gone. He heard her voice, faint as if calling from a vast distance.

  “Save me, Paul.”

  A tingling sensation ran around his wrists, his ankles, and pricked at his temples. A dreadful suspicion sprang up, and he rushed into the bathroom, flicked on the light above the mirror. As he had feared, the red marks around his wrists were deeper, raw indentations in the flesh. There was a shaving mirror mounted on a swivel stand next to the main mirror. He turned it until he could see the side of his head. A patch of red had appeared just above and behind his eyes. There was one on the other side.

  Stigmata, he thought. Marks of restraints, and where the electrodes were attached.