by Brian Kirk
“I’m sure you won’t. I have your guarantee, after all. I’ll expect to see progress at next week’s board meeting.”
Mr. Bearman ended the call. Alex looked at the receiver as though he’d never seen one before. He was being handed everything he’d ever wanted. He should be tap dancing on his desk. But there was something about the offer that didn’t sit right with him.
It was the way Eli was being treated. It felt like an insult after all the good he’d accomplished for the hospital and its patients.
His career has run its course, Alex thought. Hell, even I was undermining his trust. Conducting the test trials behind his back. A confrontation like this was simply a matter of time. This was the only real conclusion, no matter what.
In fact, Alex thought, this is even better. Let Mr. Bearman and the board shoulder the blame. I was just following orders. And, it’s not like Eli hadn’t screwed up, either. It’s not like he shouldn’t have seen this coming. I’m just being sensitive, is all. Just being a good friend.
There was no way his father could call him a failure anymore. Not once he became the Chief Medical Director at one of the nation’s oldest and most respected state hospitals. Not once news got out about his miracle cure.
If only he’d had a chance to show how it had saved Jerry.
Chapter Thirty
It wasn’t fear that Angela felt. Sure, she was nervous. But in an excitable way. It was more like the feeling you get before jumping from a high dive or speaking in public or unzipping the pants of some stranger you’ve decided to fuck.
Crosby had taken his best shot at her and come up short. She had to show him that she wasn’t defeated. That she wasn’t afraid. Danger came with the territory. It was likely what attracted her most to the job. And, despite his attack, Angela was still committed to helping Crosby recover. He hadn’t attacked her because he was evil. He’d done it because he was sick. And it was her job to help him get well.
They were trying to remove him from her care, but she wouldn’t let them. They owed her as much.
She reached into the medicine cabinet, bypassing the Tylenol and grabbing the bottle of high-strength Percocet instead. Her face still hurt from where Crosby had kicked her. Her pussy was sore from a recent one-night stand. Battered or not, she’d still found time to party. Angela shook her head, thinking about the snippets of fuzzy memory from the last few nights that still caused residual shame.
She popped open the top to the pill bottle and scooped one out, then another. Fuck it, she thought and took out two more. She put them in her mouth and swallowed. She closed the door and left the medical-supply room, turning and making her way to meet Alex, where he stood waiting for her outside Crosby’s isolated cell.
Chapter Thirty-One
The forensics wing of the hospital was separated by a series of electronically locked doors that were under constant video surveillance. The main reception area was monitored by armed guards. This was the part of the hospital devoted to Sugar Hill’s most violent mentally ill patients, home to the criminally insane.
Angela passed her keycard through the final scanner and showed her ID badge to the guard manning the reception desk. He handed her a sign-in form, which she filled out.
“You the one he got to, huh?” the guard said. His blond hair was spiked in the back, as though he’d just awoken from a nap. He was chewing gum. It crackled in the small confines of the reception space. Despite its minty freshness, his breath smelled stale.
Angela signed her name. “Which way?” she said.
The guard sighed and raised his eyebrows. The gum switched sides. “Come on, now. A little thing like you, they’ll eat you alive. Let me be your escort.” His eyes scanned down the length of her body, settling on her legs. “You may need someone to watch your back.”
“That’s okay.” She licked her thumb before grabbing a sheet of paper. “Besides, you look busy.”
“Nah, I can—”
Angela began ripping sheets of paper from the registration form and letting them flutter to the floor.
“Aw hell. He’s back down there in solitary. Room 13C. Now, stop that already.”
“Thanks.” She dropped the clipboard that held the rest of the sign-in forms and started walking towards solitary row.
The forensics wing was like an underground barracks. Lacking windows, it was filled with harsh artificial light. Beastly screams echoed down from distant chambers. When the bellows faded the fluorescent bulbs buzzed like electric insect traps. Angela’s shoes created a hollow clomping in the cavernous acoustics of the concrete tunnels. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed.
For at least thirty years, people had reported seeing ghosts in this section of the hospital. Two in particular. One was claimed to be the spirit of a serial killer who had been convicted of raping then killing over thirty young men and keeping their mummified corpses arranged throughout his house like mannequins. He was known to have taunted the male guards while he was alive, revealing himself in obscene ways, fondling guards whenever he could get his hands free.
He was found beaten to death in his locked cell. His penis and testicles had been smashed to an unrecognizable pulp. So had his face. No one had ever been charged with the attack.
He was said to taunt the male guards still, locking them in empty cells, violating them from beyond the grave. It had been a decade since anyone had claimed to have heard the story firsthand, but once every few years a young male guard would wind up getting locked in an empty cell, traumatized and panicked, and would inexplicably quit.
The other ghost was supposed to be the spirit of a young mother of six children, ages ranging from infant to eight years. Police were called in when neighbors began to worry that they had gone missing. They were gone, but not missing. The mother had killed each one and eaten them. She was caught wearing their bones, which had been bleached clean.
People claimed to see her walking the hallways holding her stomach as though hungry, and to hear the macabre clacking of her skeletal jewelry.
Casting aside the historical lore, Crosby was one of Sugar Hill’s more notorious patients from a media point of view. The salacious nature of his crimes—and sinister moniker assigned to him by a local journalist—had captured national attention, although the story had achieved greater coverage down here in the Southlands. It had provoked a public debate on the treatment of mental illness and whether or not the insane should answer for their crimes.
And, for a brief period, it had drawn people from neighboring Bible-belt counties, who came to protest Crosby’s sentence, or lack thereof. Angela had found it sad. These people, who claimed to have such deep religious faith, seemed to have forgotten the teachings of their Scripture, reverting back to a more archaic gospel. Tooth for a tooth. Eye for an eye. Soul for a soul.
Angela knew that she may be a sinner, but at least she wasn’t a hypocrite. Hell, Christ himself had hung out with plenty of drunks and loose women in his day. And who had ever performed a better party trick than turning water into wine. Jesus was okay, as far as Angela was concerned, although she didn’t think too many of his followers would like to hear her reasons why.
She turned down the hallway leading from general housing to the row of solitary cells. She had to pass through another locked doorway to get there. When the door closed behind her it felt as though she had entered an abandoned bomb shelter. The overhead lighting was dim, as though the hospital was unwilling to expend undue energy on this wing. The hallway was narrow and long. The cell doors were all lined up against one wall, separated by several feet of stone preventing noise traveling from one patient to the next.
The thick metallic doors had sliding panels to look through, but they were all closed, sealing the patients inside. She wondered how each patient was passing the time in their small, solitary cells, and shivered. It got cold all of a sudden, and she found herself listening
for the sound of clacking bones.
Alex was waiting at the far end of the hallway, standing before the last cell. He turned towards the sound of her clomping shoes and held up his hand.
Angela hadn’t seen him since Jerry’s death and her assault. She didn’t know whether to hug him or shake his hand. Who was supposed to console whom? She walked forward with outstretched arms just as he looked down and began fishing in his pocket for a key. He noticed her gesture and looked up just as she dropped her arms and retreated, crossing her arms awkwardly across her chest. Her face began to burn.
Alex arched an eyebrow. He managed to smirk. “Come here often?” he said, parroting a cheesy pickup line.
“On occasion. They’ve got decent happy-hour specials most Friday nights.”
Alex looked around as though inspecting the scene. “Seems pretty dead tonight.”
“It caters to an exclusive clientele.”
“An eclectic bunch, from what I hear.”
“Yeah, it can get pretty rowdy.”
“Just my kind of place.”
If you only knew, Angela thought, and her smile fell away.
Alex stepped forward, observing the bruises on Angela’s face. He used a finger to lift her chin and inspected the purple thumbprints on her neck. “Not too bad,” he said. “I expected worse.”
“It wasn’t nearly as bad as people are making it out to be.”
Alex scrutinized her through unbelieving eyes. “Right,” he said.
“I’m serious. There was no reason to have him removed from my care. I’m more than capable—”
Alex raised his hand to stop her. “No need to beat a dead horse. You’ve made your case. That’s why we’re here.”
Her heartbeat had quickened when she felt the need to defend herself. She wanted to appear calm when she met Crosby, however. Then she remembered Jerry’s death. She reached her hand out and caressed his arm. “How about you? You doing okay?”
Alex’s sardonic laugh sounded like a sneeze. “Peachy,” he said.
She offered a sympathetic expression. “Hey, wait,” she said, growing more excited. “I heard some good news about you through the grapevine.”
Alex held a finger to his lips.
Angela looked around. The hallway was empty. The soundproof rooms were occupied by the state’s least trustworthy witnesses. Still, she lowered her voice.
“Well?” she said.
“We’ll talk later.” He pulled a set of keys from his coat pocket, palming them. Then his face became serious. “You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“I want to do this. I’m not giving up on him.”
Alex sighed. “No one would see it that way.”
Angela crossed her arms. “Do I need to beat the horse some more?”
Alex nodded. He lowered his head, thinking. Angela noticed that his hair had sprouted several new strands of grey. “Okay, okay,” he said, nodding again. He took a step closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I need you to know that the board has taken a special interest in this particular patient.”
“Okay?” she said, her eyebrows coming together.
“They are wanting to use him as a…” he mentally rejected several politically insensitive phrases before saying, “…demonstration for the positive new direction that we’re heading in.”
Angela offered a knowing smile and nudged his arm with her elbow.
Alex’s responding smile hardly lasted a second. “They have authorized…no, they have instructed us to administer a new therapeutic medicine that is in the exploratory stage of development. This is highly confidential. No one else can know about it. Especially Eli. Is that understood?”
“Sure. My only goal is to get him the best care possible. If this new treatment plan will help him get well, I’m all for it. I have no problem keeping it quiet.”
“I mean it. No one can know.”
“That’s fine. For how long?”
“I don’t know. That depends.”
“On what?”
“Look, I don’t know. I think it’s more complicated than the board realizes. For now, let’s just focus on what we need to do to prepare Crosby for the new treatment plan.” He flipped through the keys until he found the right one. “And getting you out of here without another black eye.”
“Ha. Ha,” Angela said dryly, but it made her smile. She’d rather make light of what happened than turn it into some serious catastrophe. Violence occurred every day in the sane streets of every city. What did they expect from a mental asylum? All she knew was that she preferred this job with its potential for danger to working behind a desk.
“Okay. Let’s see how our good friend’s doing.” Alex inserted the key and unlocked the door. The bolt slamming back sounded like the crash of a hammer, it echoed down the hall. And then there was just the static buzzing of the overhead lights as the door before them eased open.
They entered.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Crosby was in a fetal position on his bunk, facing the concrete wall. His hands were clasped under his chin, his knees tucked to his chest. He looked like an exhausted toddler napping during day care. But Angela knew better than to trust his innocent appearance. Just like Crosby believed, appearances could be deceiving.
“They’ve kept him loaded up on sedatives since the incident,” Alex whispered. “I had them halve the dosage two days ago. He should be a bit more responsive by now.”
She nodded.
“Mr. Nelson,” Alex said in a jovial voice that crashed against the walls of this claustrophobic room. “How are we today?”
Angela thought that “we” was an unfortunate way to address a schizophrenic, but kept it to herself.
Crosby stirred on the cot. He began to straighten his legs and stretch his arms overhead. He opened his mouth in a yawn that seemed to last a year, then blinked his eyes against the dimness of the room in order to focus on his visitors.
He sat up and swung his legs around. He scanned their faces, then their feet. Angela looked down and saw that she was standing in a beam of light flowing through a small square window positioned near the ceiling. It cast a shadow beside her. She quickly stepped away from the shaft of light, and the shadow disappeared.
“Whaddya want?” Crosby’s voice was heavy and hoarse. The words seemed to form deep in the back of his throat with little assistance from his lips and tongue.
“We’re here to check up on you,” Alex said. “See how you’re doing. You remember Ms. Drake, I’m sure.”
Crosby’s eyes were half-lidded; he had to angle his head upward to see her. There was no spark of recognition. He methodically nodded his head. “So?”
“So how are you feeling?” Alex said. He clasped his hands before him and rolled forward onto the balls of his feet.
“Like you don’t know,” Crosby said in his sluggish tone.
“Only you know how you feel.”
Crosby’s chuckle was more like a dry cough. “I feel like shit,” he said. “Nobody’s feeding me. I haven’t showered in a dozen years. Haven’t eaten a thing. Where is this?”
“You tell me?” Alex said.
“I don’t wanna tell you a goddamn thing. You’re prolly the one behind all this.”
Angela spoke up, using the silky voice that so effectively cast a spell on most men. “Crosby? What’s the last thing you remember before being moved to this room?”
Crosby put the first two fingers of his left hand to his forehead as though channeling the memory. His cuticles were raw and crusted with blood. “I…uh… There was a battle. An uprising against the demons. We almost won.” He leaned back against the bed and crossed his ankles. The soles of his feet were chapped and chalky white. “Yep, we almost got ’em, but they overtook me. Then they locked me up in here. I don’t know where it is though. Doubt I’ll ever g
et out.”
“That depends on you,” Alex said. “This lady, here? You attacked her. So we’ve had to confine you for your own safety and ours.”
Crosby forced his lids to open wider. He looked more closely at Angela’s face. “Oh yeah,” he said. “You’re the one with the hands.”
Angela held her hands up. “Yep, I’ve got two of them.”
“Those are devil hands. They’re just like my mama’s.”
Alex interjected, “Mr. Nelson, you are presently residing in an isolated cell in the forensics section of Sugar Hill Mental Hospital.”
“This ain’t no hospital. This is goddamn death row.”
Alex continued. “Our goal is to return you to general residence where you can enjoy some more interaction with others. But, in order to do so, we need to be sure that you no longer exhibit behavior that could result in another violent outburst. Do you understand?”
“Nah, that ain’t it. Your goal is to turn me into a mindless sheep and fatten me up for the slaughter. You can tell your lies, but I don’t have to listen.”
“Regardless of your attitudes towards us or our intentions, I promise you that we only have your best interest at heart,” Angela said in her sweet, sincere voice. “Our job is to get you feeling good again.”
“That’s right,” Alex said. “To start, we’ll be taking you off your present medication, which is causing the drowsiness you’re currently experiencing, and prescribing a new medicine that will make you feel…” Like yourself? Who the hell is this man? “…much better.”
“Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Just make sure they tell that damn chatterhead out by the window to shut the hell up already. Can’t hardly sleep with all that bullshit.”
Angela and Alex exchanged a glance. “Certainly,” Alex said. “We’ll tell him to keep it down.”
“We’ll check back in on you soon,” Angela said. She winked at him. “It’s good to see you again. You feel better, now.”