Asylum - 13 Tales of Terror

by Matt Drabble

  “Nooo,” she moaned.

  “Oh. I’m afraid so,” he laughed, “Out of the darkness and into the light, you shouldn’t have wasted so much time when you had the advantage,” he boasted as he held the knife in his right hand and touched the tip with his left. “I’m afraid that you are in my world now little girl,” he circled away from the gun as she swung her arm around uselessly in the bright light.

  “You’re right,” she whispered, “You do have the advantage now - that is if I was actually blind.”

  Too late to escape, Dietz saw her raise the gun and aim it expertly at him. Her eyes met his and the gaze locked as he realised her deception.

  The gunshot punched him hard in the right shoulder and he sank to the floor; the wound ablaze with a roaring pain that sucked the breath from his body.

  She stepped around him and bent down to scoop up the dropped knife. She held the glinting blade with a sour interest.

  “I know what you are,” she spat, “I’ve seen your camera setup, how you spy on the residents that catch your eye. I’ve watched you as you’ve been watching me, all the while seeing your putrid face dripping with desire. I saw you drug the staff and then lock all of the bedrooms apart from mine and I knew that this was your night. So many times I just wanted to end your life, but I’m not quite the monster that you are, and I had to be sure. I had to wait until you came after me.”

  Dietz trembled on the floor before her; his strength and power sapped away from the woman that he had once loved so desperately.

  “So you’re going to kill me now?” He asked in a terrified murmur.

  “That was the original plan, but studying you over the last couple of months I have come to realise one thing; your fear of the dark. Despite the guest list here you keep the lights burning 24-7. Quite an unnecessary expense I’d wager.”

  “What are you going to do to me?” He trembled.

  She knelt down to him. She took the sharp knife and placed the icy cold metal point above his left eye.

  “I am going to send you to your own personal hell; death is too good for what you did to my sister,” she snarled.

  The last thing that Dietz ever saw again was the point of his own knife striking downwards as it pierced first his left eye and then his right, as his world became a permanent screaming black void.

  7.

  BLACKWATER HEIGHTS

  “Ouch,” Martin said wincing at the thought of having his own eyes stabbed into oblivion.

  “Ouch indeed,” Jimmy agreed.

  “So was Dr Dietz in there ever found guilty of Annie’s murder?”

  “There was no evidence to tie him to the case. Annie was originally ruled a suicide and no-one involved in that ruling was willing to undermine their own mistakes.”

  “Especially if there were payoffs floating around I’d wager,” Martin said half to himself. “What ever happened to the sister, to Sarah?”

  “Disappeared. Apparently she was always into travelling which is why she wasn’t present at the hearing into Annie’s death. I think that no-one even told her that her sister was dead. After the staff discovered Dr Dietz the next morning, he was stabilized and the chopper was called to evacuate him to the nearest hospital. By the time everything calmed down at the institute, Sarah was long gone.”

  “And nobody looked for her?” Martin asked incredulously.

  “Between you and me I don’t think that the authorities were all that keen, once they discovered Dr Dietz’s little recording setup Maybe they figured that the good doctor had gotten just what he deserved,” Jimmy chuckled without much humor.

  Martin stared at the elderly janitor. Jimmy seemed to be enjoying all of this greatly, and Martin wondered if it was a little bit too much. His brain was racing with all of the night’s dark tales that he had heard so far. He desperately wanted to run home and begin shaping his book within the safe confines of his apartment. He wanted to remove himself from this physical reality and retreat back behind the walls of writing. A place where the names and faces would no longer be real and he wouldn’t have to stare into their black eyes.

  “How many more?” he asked Jimmy with a tired tone.

  “Oh Martin, we’ve got as many as you can handle,” Jimmy smiled as he opened the next door.

  8.

  IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

  Janet Marlowe sat in the darkened room waiting. She was thirty seven, slim and attractive, with eyes that were such a deep brown that they bordered on black. Her hair was a strawberry blonde short bob and she had a tight small face that could look pinched whenever she concentrated. She was short at around five feet two, and her figure was rather more boyish and flat than she would have liked.

  She was currently wearing her work uniform; a heavily padded outfit that bordered on the comical and wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Hence the need for the gloom. She wore a long floral purple paisley skirt that billowed out around her and her stuffed blouse was encased under a large red knitted cardigan. She topped the look with a black headscarf tied around her head and dangling hoop earrings. It was an outfit that was as uncomfortable as it was necessary. In her line of work the punters seemed to expect a certain stereotype, and they were suspicious of anyone that didn’t conform. She was a medium, a fortune-teller, a séance holder and a fraud. The public always seemed to expect a Gypsy Rose Lee lookalike. Over the years Janet had refined her act to the point that Madam Gamboulie was now more than a suit that she put on. Madam Gamboulie was a fully fleshed out character; she was from a small village in Romania, complete with broken English accent and tales of woe. She was older than Janet and a lot rounder. The Madam walked with a stooped gate and a stick. She was eccentric and a little strange as would befit a woman who could communicate with the dead. Janet had taken her act from the seaside boardwalk in Blackpool, North England, where she had rented a small booth on the pier, to a private more secluded enterprise. Her days were long gone of desperately seeking out the attention of passer-bys, with their sunny daytime dispositions and healthy skepticism. She now worked exclusively in darkened rooms and with the vulnerable and recently bereaved. She was now able to set and control the scene and the mood. Weeping children and spouses, who were all seeking answers and forgiveness of one kind or another, were a much easier and more profitable mark.

  Her lounge was an average size; the thick heavy blood red curtains were drawn tightly against the outside night. The room’s furniture was sparse; a large round oak table sat proudly in the centre of the room with six matching chairs spread around it. The table was covered with a long crimson cloth and the edges almost reached the floor, providing adequate concealment. The lighting was always important, as what the eye could not see the mind could imagine. There were six small hidden speakers, all secreted around the room. She had installed an expensive wireless Goodman’s surround sound system. The amp was hidden beneath the table and the low rumble beneath the punters feet was always useful.

  She heard the front door bell ring and used the modified electronic garage door opener to swing the front door open and allow tonight’s guests to enter. It was simple trick, but an effective one. The séance attendees were always in a ready state of nervousness, and she had found that they were always susceptible, always willing to be convinced. She had learned over time to request that her clients came alone. At the beginning she had found that there would always be a suspicious friend or relative looking to accompany the defenseless. It was always a pain to have to compete with those who wanted to look behind the wizard’s curtain, as opposed to those who simply wanted to believe.

  “Zis way dear,” she called out softly in her fake accent.

  She heard the old woman enter the house and Janet was pleased to hear only one set of footprints; she had come alone as requested. She always explained to those who felt in need of her services that the more people attended the séance, the more scrambled the signals could become.

  The client tonight was Marigold Milton; she was seventy nine and recentl
y widowed; her husband Reginald passing away after a short illness.

  Janet had, over time developed several relationships with useful contacts around the town. She had an on and off boyfriend of sorts who was a nurse at the local hospital, and Donny was always able to give the dirt on the recently deceased. She had taught him to look for those with a limited amount of visitors; just a spouse was perfect. He also had to keep an eye out for expensive looking watches or jeweler and for luxury cars in the car park. Once Donny had caught her attention with a prospect, she had a friend at the town hall, Mary, who was great for finding out details of recently registered death certificates. Mary was able to give her the names and addresses of the bereaved, as well as a usually reliable picture of the prospect; did they seem a little lost, a little distant, vulnerable? Mary was a people person but she was also very fat and very lonely, and Janet had moved in swiftly with the skill and grace of a natural predator. She had fast become Mary’s one and only friend in the world and she worked hard to make sure that Mary stayed isolated. Janet’s ideal candidate would be an elderly woman, one who had just lost a wealthy husband; a woman that had never worked and always been taken care of. These women were hopeless on their own; they would have no idea as to how the real world actually worked and they would be ripe for the picking. But her window was small. Soon the lawyers would swoop and friends would circle and the window would close.

  Marigold was a grand prize; her husband had been an industrialist, a knighted man with seemingly deep and endless pockets. They’d had no children and Marigold was the sole beneficiary sitting on a fortune of around two hundred million pounds, with more interestingly several million in available liquid funds. Janet had positively salivated at the thought of all that money; the low hanging fruit was just waiting to be picked. She had done her research more thoroughly than ever before; this was the one mark that could set her up for life and she wasn’t about to miss the boat. She had spent hour after hour pouring through ever piece of public knowledge on both of the Miltons. Research was always the key, but it had to be done quickly. Her window was always closing and she had to reel the fish in.

  Janet looked up as Marigold entered the spider’s parlor. The old woman had once been proud and dignified, and there were endless photos of her standing beside her husband looking regal. Now, however, she shuffled in. Her outfit was a green two piece suit that looked in need of a clean. Her black shoes were a poor match, and her accessories screamed a lack of attention. Janet’s eyes lit up at the sight; the woman was in worse shape than she could have hoped for.

  “Madam Gamboulie?” Marigold asked falteringly.

  “Sit, sit my dear.” Janet motioned to the chair opposite her.

  “I…, I’m not sure that I should have come,” Marigold said. Her accent was pure upper class and she stank of breeding.

  Janet ran her eyes greedily over the older woman; the glinting gold and sparkling stones were worth more than her car and she felt a cold stab of eagerness.

  “Please dear, Reginald wanted you to come. He’s spoken to me often and he was most insistent,” she said reassuringly.

  Marigold looked up with hope in her eyes as Janet had known she would. She could read the preening peacock with ease. Marigold was obviously a woman who was lost without her husband. It wasn’t difficult to ascertain that it was he who had worn the trousers. Marigold was ripe for plucking; at least until her ears were filled with common sense and her bank account was protected.

  “But how can I be sure?” Marigold said attempting to maintain a casual façade.

  “Ah of course, zee minds of zee modern children,” Janet garbled.

  “Oh I hardly think that I am a child,” Marigold blustered.

  “In zee eyes of Madam Gamboulie you are all children. So much hurry, so much rushing, no eyes with which to see what cannot be seen.”

  “Maybe this is a mistake,” Marigold started to rise nervously, her eyes darting around the gloomy room.

  Janet felt the posh cow’s condescending attitude as her home was evaluated and dismissed despite the darkened room. She launched into her act. “You have a need for other people to like and admire you I think, but you are critical of yourself. You have some personality weaknesses, yet you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside,” she recited. It was part of what was known as a Barnum statement. It was a profile that Marigold and about 90% of everyone else would accept as an accurate description of themselves. Janet’s hands were under the table and she pressed the first button on the hidden remote control. The large amp under the table rumbled with the testing function of the surround sound system. Marigold immediately gasped and looked terrified.

  “He is not happy, your husband, he is very angry,” Janet warned ominously.

  Janet smiled to herself contentedly as Marigold sat down quickly as though slapped. Her research had led her to know with reasonable certainty that Marigold would be almost pathologically scared of her husband. Their home would have been a dictatorship - not a democracy - and good old Reggie would have run a rod of iron over his kingdom.

  Janet had begun pushing Marigold’s buttons as quickly as she could manage. One of the most common emotions associated with death was guilt. She had left scrawled messages at Marigold’s various activity locations; the hair salon, the fitness centre, and her regular lunch wine bars. All of the messages had simply said “I know”. It was an ambiguous statement that could mean anything, and Janet relied on Marigold’s fragile state of mind to push her further down the line. After a week she had left her business card under Marigold’s car windscreen wiper, she had left another poked through the gap into Marigolds health club locker and so on. Eventually she got the call. As usual she played down her interest, even explaining to Marigold that she couldn’t possibly take on any more clients at the minute and hanging up. It was a patient waiting game that had to be played; the more desperate that Marigold became, the more Janet could get away with. She had upped the messages, and because Marigold Milton was such a big fish, she had taken more risks than she would have normally. She had snuck into the Milton’s rear garden and spelled out the same message in weed killer, and then she had scratched the message into one of Marigold’s cars. Eventually she had agreed to meet with Marigold, begrudgingly of course. By this time the rich woman had sounded positively desperate.

  Marigold sat down again with trembling hands clasped in front of her. Janet could see that her fingernails were buffed and polished, but bitten down to the quick. The woman held herself with vanity and derision, but Janet could see through the act. Marigold Milton was frightened and that smelled like money.

  “Do we need to hold hands?” Marigold whispered.

  “That is the tale of the films I think,” Janet said, chuckling in a deep dark voice for effect. “We must have quiet; it is very difficult for me you understand.”

  Janet punched the second button on the remote under the table and an eerie hissing noise filled the room. The large round table that they sat around had one leg that was fitted with a hinged section on the leg by Janet’s foot. She was able to ease the hinged section aside and slip her foot under the gap. From there she was able to wobble the table by moving her foot. It was a simple but effective trick, especially under the heightened emotional conditions of a séance. She watched as Marigold’s face became drawn and haunted, her eyes darting nervously around the room.

  “Is he…, is he coming? Is he here?” Marigold asked, her head whipping around from side to side.

  “The spirits are wild tonight, they are so restless,” Janet said straining, her face twisted into a mask of effort and stress. She let the table drop heavily, “It is no good,” she panted, “No good tonight, they are too much for me. It is too much, you must go now I think.”

  “No, please,” Marigold pleaded, fumbling at her handbag and rea
ching for the only answer to life’s problems that she had ever known. “I have money, I can pay you, whatever it takes, I must speak to him,” she said as she pulled out her checkbook.

  “Not tonight, I don’t think so Mrs. Milton, no good tonight.”

  “I can give you a thousand, ten, twenty, please.”

  Janet strove to keep the smugness from her face; if Marigold was willing to offer so much for her first visit, then she would keep on the line for much more.

  “It is not zee money Mrs. Milton. It is so very dangerous for me when they are so restless,” Janet protested.

  “Fifty, fifty thousand, here I’m writing it out now,” Marigold said as she scribbled.

  “I will try,” Janet relented reluctantly, “I can only try.”

  Marigold thrust the check forward and Janet made it disappear quickly. She put on her best face and began to feel for the spirit world. Her act was mainly derived from her endless studies of the past, tweaked with modern technology.

  “There are so many tonight,” she strained, “So many faces of pain and suffering.”

  “Please find him, I must talk to him.”

  Janet registered the terrified panic in Marigold’s voice and had a brief and rare flash of empathy. Usually she was able to ignore the morality of what she did for a living; she’d always figured that if people were so stupid then they deserved to have their pockets lightened. A smaller part justified her career choice by thinking that perhaps she did indeed offer a crumb of comfort to the bereaved.

  “There is a special name that you had for him, yes?”

  “Buster, I used to call him Buster,” Marigold said excitedly.

  “Buster, yes he is coming now. His face is distant and unclear. You must concentrate Mrs. Milton, concentrate hard, or we will lose him,” Janet struggled and swayed at the table, I’m earning every penny of this, she thought. “They are so sad, their wails are so loud,” she pressed the volume control on the remote and the room was filled with static hissing. On the centre of the table there was a large glass dome that covered an antique brass bell. There was a hole in the table underneath and a piece of fishing line that was hooked around the bell. The loop hung down under the table and Janet slipped a toe through the loop and tugged, the bell under the glass case jumped and rang. Marigold jumped as the bell did. Her face was pained and desperately unhappy.