Dark Passage

by Griffin Hayes

  And the words rolled onto him like a pile of heavy boulders. Tyson couldn’t breathe. His lungs began constricting violently. He reached into his pocket for his inhaler and found nothing but loose change and pocket lint.

  On the phone: “Mr. Barrett? Are you still there, Mr. Barrett?”

  Judy shot out of her seat.

  “Tyson, what’s wrong?”

  Tyson was fumbling through his pockets, gasping for air. His chest was expanding and contracting wildly, but he still felt like he was suffocating. Judy grabbed the phone.

  “I don’t know who this is or what you told him, but he’s having an asthma attack.” She set the phone down.

  Tyson was pointing off toward the bedroom. Judy rose to her feet, kicked off her pumps and ran. A minute later she returned with the inhaler. Tyson was on the floor, hands clamped around his throat, looking like his head was about to explode. Judy flipped off the cap and put the mouthpiece to his lips and pushed the inhaler with her thumb. Tyson heard it fire off, but nothing happened.

  “Tyson,” Judy said. “On the count of three, breathe in. One…two…three…” She squeezed again. Tyson breathed and the expression on his face immediately relaxed. He lay on the floor, Judy holding his head. She was rocking him back and forth singing softly to him. Tyson’s phone was still on the table and from far away he could hear the detective.

  Tyson sat up and took the phone. In his other hand was the inhaler and he reprimanded himself for not keeping it in his pocket.

  “Detective Anderson.”

  “It wasn’t my intention…”

  “No need to apologize. I’ve had this since I was a child and every once in a while it creeps up and gives me a scare. Listen, how was Dr. Stevens ki…how did it happen?”

  “I’m not at liberty. But I can tell you that in all my years I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The state of the body… You ever been in the country, Mr. Barrett?”

  “Sure I have.”

  “You know the way coniferous trees smell?”

  “You talking about pine trees?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. All I can say at this point is that the whole bloody place stunk of pine trees.”

  Tyson didn’t say a word.

  “That mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Tyson lied. “Should it?”

  “You take care of yourself, Mr. Barrett. We’ll be in touch.”

  The line went dead.

  Tyson’s face was the color of old linen. He looked at Judy, certain she was wondering what she had just got herself into. He half expected her to get up and head straight for the door. No doubt, she’d be perfectly justified in doing so. But much to his surprise and delight, she didn’t move a muscle.

  “What happened?” she asked somberly.

  It was a simple enough question without a simple enough answer. More than anything, he didn’t want to drag her into this mess, especially when he wasn’t sure himself what exactly was going on.

  “Have you ever had a dream,” he asked her, “that was so awful you woke up thanking God it wasn’t real?”

  “Sure. Who hasn’t?”

  “Lately, I’ve been living that nightmare and then you came along like a ray of warm sunshine washing away everything that’s bad about the world.”

  Judy was holding him again and Tyson felt the one thing he had been lacking for so long. The comfort only a woman can give you.

  But all the comfort in the world couldn’t remove this terrible new weight that had settled on top of him. Somehow, earlier today, his mother had gone and killed Stevens. Of course, crazy as it seemed, the very thought had crossed his mind the second Detective Anderson mentioned Stevens’ death. But it was that last thing the detective had said, about the cloying scent of pine needles, that left no room for doubt.

  His failure to stop his nightmares from spilling out into the real world was no longer about shielding the people he loved from his short temper. If his mother, or even a subconscious facsimile of her, had followed him back to the real world like some kind of esoteric stowaway, then emotional bruising was the least of his concerns.

  If she was real and had come through, the way that big trunk full of money had come through, then the first chance she got, she’d start killing everyone close to him and when she was done with them, he would be next.

  Chapter 21

  Sunnybrook Asylum came into view not long after Ruma turned off the interstate. The hour long drive had given her enough time to conjure ideas in her head about how she thought it would look, but seeing it now, over the crop of trees that lined the road, Ruma knew she had been wrong. Sunnybrook wasn’t new and sleek and covered with tempered glass windows. It looked far more like a set piece from a Rob Zombie movie than it did an actual asylum with patients. Gothic. That was the word that came most easily to mind. Judging by the way the weather had eaten away at the walls, the way they might have once been the color of polished Portland, but were now dark and layered with a hundred years of pollution, the place was in desperate need of a makeover.

  Kavi was beside her, looking up at the Tudor style battlements, his eyes wide, his thin lips slightly parted.

  This was nowhere for a kid to be. She knew that. She also knew that coming all this way would never leave her with enough time to pick Kavi up from preschool. And she would let hell itself freeze over before calling on Tyson for help.

  Can you pick Kavi up today? I need to head upstate and meet with a doctor to find out once and for all if you’re going looney like your mother.

  Skip had called her late last night and Ruma found the tone of their conversation extremely unsettling to say the least. Tyson’s cryptic phone calls from the cottage, accusing Skip of having planted things in order to mess with his mind. And then Tyson’s subsequent assertion that objects from his dreams were somehow showing up in his waking life, only seemed to confirm the worst.

  Ruma wasn’t completely clear on how this Dr. Bowes was going to help her or her son. She had spoken to him months ago over the phone and hadn’t learned a whole lot more than she already knew. But this time it was Kavi she was mostly worried about. Would he sit her son on an examining table, flash a light in his eyes and say “aha!”

  Course, he wouldn’t. Since Tyson’s slow dive off the deep end, however, she had become increasingly concerned that a genetic abnormality might be conspiring against her ex-husband and perhaps by default her son. There was also a second reason for heading to Sunnybrook. One that fit far more neatly into the morbid curiosity category than it did her concern over the possibility of genetic insanity. She wanted to lay her eyes on the woman that had single handedly destroyed her husband’s chances of having a normal life. The woman who had also managed to destroy their marriage. She wanted to see the monster for herself.

  Ruma pulled into a parking space near the entrance, took Kavi’s hand and made her way to the asylum’s heavy oak doors. Inside, a guard sat quietly at a large desk, dwarfed by the console of monitors and electronics around him.

  The guard glanced up at her. His nametag read Terrance.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Bowes,” she said assertively. Ruma was a woman with a slight build, but she’d never let that stop her before from getting what she wanted.

  He nodded, picked up the phone and spoke very quietly into the receiver.

  “He’ll be here in a moment,” Terrance said. “Please have a seat.” He motioned to the row of chairs against the wall. They were dated, the fabric ripped. The orange stuffing had been pecked out by nervous hands.

  Kavi sat beside his mother.

  “Honey, you okay?”

  He glanced up at her and nodded, but she knew by the way his eyes were darting around the shadow filled lobby that he was afraid.

  When Dr. Bowes finally appeared, the man was far shorter than Ruma had imagined him. For one reason or another, the deep pitch of his voice over the phone had made her think he was well over six feet tall.

  He stopped and peered down at Kavi.r />
  “Hello there, young man. And how old are you?”

  Kavi stood staring up at Dr. Bowes. Eyes wide. The expression on his face flat and tight. One tiny arm was clamped around his mother’s leg. Every mother in the world knew what that meant.

  To Dr. Bowes: “He’s a little frightened.” And then to Kavi: “Be polite. When an adult asks you a question, you answer them.”

  Kavi swallowed and help up all the fingers on his right hand.

  “I’m five.”

  Dr. Bowes smiled and shook Kavi’s hair. “No need to be afraid. If I’d known you were bringing your son, I’d have brought him a lollipop. Would you like a lollipop, Kavi?”

  Kavi nodded vigorously.

  “I can’t say I’ve ever known Brenda Barrett to have visitors.”

  “To be quite frank,” Ruma said, “I can’t say I’ve ever been to an insane asylum.”

  Dr. Bowes stiffened slightly. “Mental health facility is how we refer to them nowadays.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “No harm done,” Bowes replied and looked at his watch. “I have a staff meeting in less than an hour. What would you like to tackle first?”

  Ruma pretended to think it over, but of course, there wasn’t anything to contemplate. “I want to see Brenda.”

  • • •

  On the way up to the eighth floor, Ruma explained to Bowes the reason for her visit.

  “You must remember,” Dr. Bowes said almost apologetically, “there are names and labels we use to explain her psychosis. Terms like obsessive compulsive, sociopathic, psychotic and megalomaniacal. Each of them sheds some light on why she does some of the things she does, but when those terms are held up against the woman as a whole, well, we find they fall far short of providing any kind of complete picture.”

  “Are you saying that you’re not really sure what’s wrong with her?”

  Bowes smiled again and Ruma noticed the muscles around his mouth tense. The elevator doors groaned slowly apart. All three stepped out.

  “To put it in the simplest terms that I can,” he paused, “Brenda has something the old timers used to call a God complex.”

  Ruma’s face was half covered in shadow. “That doesn’t really sound all that bad to me.”

  “I suppose that might be true, considering the popular view of God nowadays. A protective being who loves us unconditionally. But that God isn’t who we’re talking about here. Have you read the Bible, Mrs. Barrett?”

  “I’m Hindu, so I can’t say I have more than a passing knowledge of it.”

  “There are two Gods in the bible.”

  “Are there? I always thought there was one.”

  “Are you familiar with God in the old testament?”

  Ruma paused. “Only that he’s rather grumpy.”

  Bowes laughed. “A man like Richard Dawkins would call that a grave understatement. He was a maniac who wiped out any man, woman and especially any child, who displeased him.”

  Dr. Bowes stopped before Brenda’s room. Ruma rose on her tip toes and peered through the curved glass porthole. There she saw a woman lying amidst a sea of machines.

  “Vengeful and bloodthirsty. That’s the kind of God Brenda Barrett would be.”

  The doctor led them into the room where Brenda’s heart monitor pinged steadily.

  “If you’re really asking me whether there’s such a thing as an insanity gene,” Bowes chuckled, “I’d have to say no. From a purely scientific point of view—an evolutionary point of view—I can’t see how there’d be any benefit.”

  Ruma couldn’t take her eyes off of Brenda’s contorted face. The heavy tube in her throat pried her lips into a queer, almost menacing smile.

  “Granted, Dr. Bowes, it’s been a while since my days at NYU, but aren’t abnormalities also part of evolution?”

  “To a degree, yes,” Bowes answered. “But with issues such as infanticide, it opens up a whole series of other problems. You see, Darwin’s initial theory…”

  Ruma was suddenly aware that Kavi’s tiny arms were no longer wrapped around her leg and a momentary panic seized her. Her eyes darted over Bowes’ shoulder and there she saw him standing stiffly beside Brenda’s bed. That wasn’t strange, in and of itself, but Kavi’s lips were moving as if he were speaking with someone.

  Call her crazy, but from here it looked like he was talking to Brenda. Her eyes found the dancing blip on Brenda’s heart monitor. When they had first entered the room she remembered that trailing dot had been moving along at a steady pace. Now it was bouncing up and down wildly. Ruma saw her son lift his hand in the air and spread out his fingers, saw his lips mouth the word five and knew that something was terribly wrong. The skin at the top of Ruma’s head seemed to suddenly shrink wrap around her skull.

  “Kavi, get over here right away. Kavi!”

  The boy turned and took an almost automatic step toward Ruma, then he stopped and looked back at Brenda, as though this new friend had one final thing she needed to tell him.

  “Kavi, now please, Mommy is speaking.”

  Dr. Bowes turned with a puzzled look on his face.

  Kavi came and wrapped his arms around Ruma’s legs and looked up at her sheepishly.

  “What were you doing?” Ruma asked him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell Mommy, I won’t be angry.”

  Bowes was over by the heart monitor now. His face turning a dark shade of purple. “Never play with any of this equipment, young man. It’s very important. Do you understand?”

  Kavi’s tiny face followed Bowes as he stormed across the room and pushed a button on the wall. A minute later a tall man with dark circles under his eyes came rushing in. He stopped before Bowes, breathing heavily.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure yet, Dr. Hunter. It’s Brenda’s heart monitor. The boy must have pressed a button.”

  “No,” Ruma piped in defensively. “I could see him quite clearly the whole time and I know he didn’t touch a thing.”

  The tall doctor’s glassy stare fell on Ruma and the strange look on his face made her feel uneasy.

  Bowes was fiddling with the heart monitor as he introduced them. “This is Brenda’s daughter-in-law and her grandson.”

  Ex-daughter-in-law Ruma almost said and stopped herself.

  A strange jumble of emotions washed over the doctor’s face. Was it recognition?

  Then Dr. Bowes broke the spell.

  “Dr. Hunter, go find a spare EKG unit.” No response. “Dr. Hunter!”

  Hunter tore his gaze from Ruma and left the room, his eyes dark sunken pits. For a moment, he looked to Ruma more like one of the patients than he did a doctor.

  The hour long drive back to New York felt like it would never end. Kavi was sitting quietly next to her, driving his Hot Wheels fire truck along the leg of his pants. He hadn’t said much since they’d left. Kavi’s habit of withdrawing into himself had become far more pronounced after Tyson had started ‘coming unglued.’ Ruma had even started to see hints of Kavi’s anger over his father’s absence. Calls home from kindergarten for hitting other children. Disruptive behavior. One day she’d left work to pick him up because he’d tried to put a plastic bag over another kid’s head.

  She knew that Tyson loved Kavi. Remembered how he had held her hand throughout the entire eighteen-hour delivery. The memory of it felt old and dusty. Tyson had been about as devoted to Kavi as any father should be. And then Tyson’s life had started coming apart. That bond that had held the entire family together began to weaken. Before long, Ruma started to wonder if it had ever been there at all.

  “Mommy, who’s tie-son,” Kavi’s speech was slow and careful as though he were going over a new word for the first time.

  Ruma glanced over at him. His soft brown eyes looked heavy and tired.

  “Do you mean Tyson?”

  “Yeah, tie-son. Is that Daddy?”

  “Yes, honey. That’s your daddy’s given name.”
<
br />   “It’s not my name, right?”

  Ruma laughed. “No, of course not. Why do you want to know?”

  “It’s just that lady in the bed…” Kavi trailed off the way children do when they assume adults know exactly what they’re talking about.

  Ruma’s pulse quickened. “The woman at the asyl… I mean hospital? Is that who you mean?”

  “Yeah, her.”

  “What about her, honey?”

  “She kept asking if I was tie-son. I kept telling her no, but she wouldn’t stop.”

  Icy fingers danced up Ruma’s spine.

  “Honey, that woman’s in a coma. That means she can’t speak or move her body. Those machines you saw around her; without them she wouldn’t be able to breath. That tube you saw going into her mouth; well, it goes all the way down her throat. She couldn’t possibly have spoken to you. Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”

  Kavi grew quiet. Slowly Ruma’s attention drew back to the road. The trees whipping by, lush with new leaves. The solid yellow line of a country road twisting and turning ever so slightly. Her inner thoughts were beginning to bubble up again when Kavi spoke.

  “She did it because she loves me.”

  Ruma glanced over at Kavi. “Beg your pardon?”

  “The woman in the hospital, she said she only put the bag over my head because she loves me so much.”

  The hairs on Ruma’s arms were standing on end. “Kavi, I don’t like this game you’re playing. I don’t like it one bit. That woman you saw lying in that bed can’t speak, honey. She can’t open her eyes or get up or walk around and she certainly can’t talk. Now tell me you’re lying.” There was a pleading quality in her voice.

  “But Mommy, she was asking me where we lived…said she wanted to come see me.”

  “Oh, no honey. What did you tell her? Kavi, what did you tell the woman?”

  “You told me to always answer adults when they ask me a question. You said that. Didn’t you always say that?” Tears were welling up in Kavi’s tiny eyes.

  Ruma’s stomach suddenly made a slow lazy roll and she pulled the car over so she could throw up.

  Chapter 22