Nero lied on his bed like he was also frozen when two orderlies in black scrubs entered the room. They seemed to be the security for the asylum, saying very little, and escorting me from place to place when I wasn’t strapped to a gurney. Each one grabbed an arm, the humming stopped, allowing me to walk with them.
I was first taken to a communal shower room that seemed to accommodate everyone being held here. Starting in a small room with long stainless steel tables attached to the floor along either wall, I was given a grey towel, instructed to strip, and to leave my clothes on a table. A small plastic bag was supplied to me to put over my bandaged hand, secured by a thick rubber band.
There were several other patients—prisoners—in the room at different stages of undress with their own orderlies assigned to watch over them. Men and women were in the room together, as well as in the large tiled shower.
I pulled my towel around me, but the cold, musty fabric barely covered my shaking body. In the shower there were three other men and two women, ranging from their thirties to their sixties. Luckily, Desiree, Anna, nor Eli was there. In another place and time, I would have loved to have seen either girl naked, but not today—not here.
No one said a word. All eyes were pointed to the floor or a mildew-stained wall ahead. A metal cage was clasped to each right leg, making it next to impossible to clean the portion of leg underneath.
I scurried to an unused showerhead, hung my towel over the pipe above, and turned on the water. It was cold, as expected, which just motivated me to move faster. A hairy bar of soap hung from a rope around the handle. Disgusted, I scrubbed the soap clean before allowing any part of it to touch my body.
Other prisoners shuffled in and out of the shower room like zombies. The constant traffic caused my heart to pound harder, afraid I could run into someone I knew at any moment. I rinsed myself off more than scrubbed myself clean, still sickened by the soap. Turning off the water, I snatched my towel and threw it around my waist without bothering to dry myself off.
When I got back to the changing room, there were more people lined against the stainless steel tables, undressing. I hurried back to my pile of clothes, and dropped the towel and threw on my pants in one fluid movement.
“What’s your bright idea now, Grain!” I heard a guy yell from the other side of the room.
I spun around to see Eli as he secured his towel around his waist. He glared at me with murder in his eyes, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. An orderly to his side grabbed his arm to keep him back. He looked about ready to attack and shook his arm free of the orderly’s firm grip.
“Get your hand off me, you asshole,” Eli spat.
“Then get your ass in the shower, kid,” the orderly responded with about the same level of contempt.
“You got us into this and you sure as hell better get us out! I’m not gonna die in this place!”
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I could say. I felt responsible for everything that had happened, even for Desiree, though I still didn’t know what had happened to her—or where she was.
Eli broke away from his guards and shoved me against the stainless steel table. I pushed back to try and keep him at an arm’s length, feeling awkward pressing my hands against his bare chest.
“Lockdown in the shower changing room,” one of the orderlies shouted.
Above all the commotion I could still hear the hum of the floor. Everyone’s right leg was immediately locked in place, with those facing our direction staring at us with petrified expressions.
Eli stopped pushing me, letting his arms fall to his sides with a frustrated sigh. Not taking his livid eyes off mine, he readjusted his towel to keep it from falling.
“I should have never trusted you,” he said. “Look what you’ve gotten us into. Have you seen what they’ve done to Anna?”
I shook my head and dropped my eyes, guilt strangling all the air out of my body like Kafka’s ghost. It was then that I noticed Eli’s body was covered in purple, green, and yellow bruises. He hadn’t just been putting up a fight here.
“Are you boys going to behave, or are we going to have to push you over? Because you don’t want it to have to come to that,” one of Eli’s orderlies said, his head appearing over Eli’s shoulder, talking right into his ear.
“I’m good,” Eli said and threw his arms up in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. “Just keep this guy away from me.”
The orderlies pulled him away as soon as we were released from the electromagnets, and I was quickly escorted out of the room. I was walked to a multifunctional recreation room where there were a few simple activities set up, tables and chairs, books, and an old black-and-white television that looked straight out of the 1950s. With the fancy screens embedded into the walls in the rooms, this antique television set seemed incredibly out of place.
And then I saw Anna, sitting in a recliner at the far end of the room. She had the footrest extended to prop her right leg up, which was enclosed in a hard cast from her foot to just past her knee. The metal contraception was now on her left leg, so she must have had it switched over when she received the cast. The orderlies who had escorted me left the room. Several other orderlies in black scrubs stood against the walls, overseeing the prisoners like owls watching mice.
I rushed up to her with a burst of excitement, praying she wouldn’t have a similar reaction to seeing me as Eli. And she didn’t—in fact, she projected no reaction at all. She had a vacant stare that I couldn’t seem to break. It took me a few seconds of shaking her shoulder for her to acknowledge there was someone standing beside her at all.
“Is playtime over?” she asked softly.
I knelt down beside her. “Anna—Anna, it’s me, Oliver. What happened to you?”
“I fell down. They told me to be careful…and I was not careful. So I fell after they warned me I would fall.” She paused. “Is playtime over?”
Anna looked at me with the most innocent expression, like I was talking to a five-year-old girl who looked up to me for knowing all the answers in the world. The Anna I knew had to be somewhere in that drugged up, sedated consciousness. But the girl talking to me was not Anna. And as she continued to stare at me, waiting for me to answer her simple question, I lost it. Tears began streaming down my face and I wiped my cheeks with the heel of my left palm.
“Yes, Anna. Playtime is over.”
She tried to get up, but I pushed down on her arms to keep her seated. I didn’t have to push hard. She gave into the pressure without much fight. She seemed the total opposite of Eli, but it was probably just the drugs.
Someone began screaming incoherently.
I looked over and saw a man push another to the ground. The pushed man had been sitting in a wooden chair that toppled over with him. The crazed man causing the commotion made an erratic run for the door.
The orderlies kept their places against the walls. Just before the man reached the threshold, one of the orderlies said, “Lockdown on Rec. Room 3.”
The hum of the electromagnets in the floor sounded almost immediately, locking everyone in place, including the running man’s leg. He was propelled forward, with the bones in his leg shattering as they collided with the metal cage. The momentum of his run threw him to the ground, almost severing his leg completely, which was now contorted in a way so unnatural it didn’t seem real. But his screaming was real—way too real. And the blood pouring from the jagged fragments of bone where his leg was bent horrifically the wrong way was so real I gagged from the sight of it and quickly had to divert my eyes. I looked back at Anna and tried not to listen to the screaming. The humming from the floor ceased, and I heard the sound of metal hitting the floor.
“He fell down, too. They should have warned him,” Anna said with no emotion behind her words.
I cried harder, glanced down at her cast, and then placed my head on her chest like she was here to comfort me. She placed a hand on my neck and rubbed lightly just behind my ear.
“Where have you been, O
liver? I’ve missed you.”
I didn’t answer her, but just kept my head against her body and closed my eyes, trying desperately to stop the tears—trying desperately to forget where we were, trying to re-create a picture in my head of when we sat on the steps of my gazebo, when she had told me for the first and final time that she loved me.
A hand was laid on my shoulder, bringing me back to the hell we were locked within. Orderlies stood on either side of the recliner and forced me away from her. They helped her to her feet.
“Bye, Oliver,” Anna said with a sweet smile. “I’ll see you later.” She turned to one of the orderlies assisting her out of the room. “Can I come back tomorrow to visit with my friend?”
“If you’re a good girl,” the orderly answered.
“I’ll be good. I promise.” And she was gone—out of my life again.
I sank to the floor beside the recliner with a sudden blinding headache. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything and waited for my orderlies to come back and collect me. It felt like a chisel was being taken to my head. My eyes burned and ears rang. I’d never had a migraine before, but it’s the first thing that came to mind with what had overtaken me. The light in the room was too much. Noise from the people talking around me was amplified to a screaming crowd awaiting their favorite band to take the stage. As if everything else wasn’t overwhelming enough, now I was going to be plagued by the thunderstorm in my head, trying to rip my brain in two.
When I saw my two orderlies enter the room, I couldn’t take it anymore and pushed myself clumsily to my feet, anxious to get back to my room and slide under the bed covers. The only semi-safe place I had left.
We made our way through the maze of hallways to my room—and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. But then to my horror, I saw flashing lights pouring out from the tiny window in the door. No sound emanated from the room, just what looked like the shine of strobe lights bursting into the hallway.
I could feel the pain again and uncontrollably skidded to a stop.
“No! No! I can’t go back in there!” I cried, digging my heels into the floor. With my feet covered in slippers without tread, my protests did little to slow me down. I slid right along as they hauled me up to the door. The room seemed to be electrified, as bright as lightning flashing only a few feet away, and not like the muted lightning from the club in Provex City.
“No! You can’t…” I pushed against the door. I wouldn’t allow them to open it. I peered in for a split second and saw Nero huddled on his bed, covering his head and ears, and writhing from side to side in agony from the extreme overstimulation.
One orderly knocked on the door—and the flashing stopped. Nero disappeared in the darkness now enveloping the room. One orderly pulled me back and the other unlocked the door. I glimpsed Nero lying on his bed as the light from the hallway flooded into the room, his fair skin aglow. The orderly holding my arm pushed me past the door, which quickly slammed shut behind me. The darkness of the room quickly eased my pounding head and I didn’t have to worry about my eyes any longer. I maneuvered blindly in the blackness, successfully finding my way to my bed. The overwhelming reality of everything that was happening welled up and overflowed as I collapsed onto my bed and climbed under the covers. The needles that tugged at my leg and ankle were beginning to burn again. The migraine was subsiding, but the painkillers were wearing off once more for all my other ailments. I knew another injection was coming.
“Oliver, is that you?” Nero asked from somewhere across the room.
“Yeah,” I answered, sniffling loudly in the silence.
“Are you crying?”
“No; I’m fine,” I said, and wiped my eyes in the secrecy of my corner.
This is hopeless. The three beeps sounded.
23
Frolics & the Little Boy
I never kept a journal. It’s probably late to start one now, but I have a lot of free time on my hands. TJ has inspired me in more ways than one. But now he’s gone. I’m losing everyone in my life. Desiree’s gone. I’ve single-handedly destroyed the lives of Anna and Eli. My family and Mr. Gordon don’t know where I am, and even if they did, this isn’t a place they’d come to rescue me. I’m on my own, with Nero, but since we seem to be one in the same…I’m back to being on my own.
I wanted to find my father. I was told he was alive. But if he is, why hasn’t he tried to find me like I’ve been trying to find him? Does he even care about me, or about who I am, or even want to know me? What if he left to get away from us? What if it’s that simple? It wasn’t about some elaborate plot. He just didn’t want us around anymore and got rid of us with a fantastic excuse. So why am I trying to find someone who doesn’t want to know who I am? I’d love to hear it from him, but it isn’t worth risking my life. I should be home with the people who I know actually care about me, not chasing the ghost of a dead father who does nothing but haunt me. Mr. Gordon is more of a father figure than he will ever be. Things would be so much simpler if he just stayed dead.
If I hadn’t gone back to the city with Desiree, she may never have gone on her own and we’d all be sitting in our classes getting on with our lives, not abducted and imprisoned. I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant to put you in harm’s way. You’re stronger than I am, so if I’m still alive, then I know you are, too. Stay strong, wherever you are. I love you.
“What are you writing?” Nero asked, walking over from his bed.
“Nothing,” I said, not realizing he was awake, and ripped off the top sheet of the yellow pad of paper. I balled it up and looked for a trash can to toss it into. Oh yeah, we had no trash can. I turned in the chair and threw the wad of paper into the toilet.
“Nice shot. Couldn’t sleep?”
“When the lights come on, I wake up. It’s automatic. I don’t know how you do it.” I tried scooting the chair back to sit more comfortably, forgetting it was anchored to the concrete floor like everything else.
I looked back to the new top sheet of paper in the pad and noticed it wasn’t fully blank. In the bottom right-hand corner was another small broken anarchy sign—the symbol of Commodore Chaos. I flipped the page and found another in the same spot, and another, and another…I continued flipping the pages; the symbol morphed into different letters and a stick-figured cartoon man appeared and came to life. A diagonal line shot down like a laser beam. The stick-figured man ran across the page to where it stopped. Another man ran from behind and jumped onto the first man’s shoulders, raising his arms like a gymnast sticking a perfect landing. And the last few pages were blank.
“What is it?” Nero asked, leaning over my shoulder.
“I’m not sure.” I started from the beginning so Nero could see the entire animation. It started with just the symbol for the first few pages, and then the man and laser beam appeared from opposite directions. When I reached the end of the pad, I looked up at Nero to get his assessment.
“Does it mean anything?” I asked. “Or was it made by someone else who was just as bored as us with little to no artistic ability?”
“Are you really ragging on someone else’s artistic ability now? What about the letters?”
I didn’t respond and flipped through the yellow pad again.
“And what’s the line shooting down?” Nero asked. “They’re running to it for a reason. Why?”
I watched it one more time and then looked around the room. Nero followed my lead, both of us thinking the cartoon was telling a story about the room—or at least something relevant. Each room would have two people in it. The two figures in the animation had to be referencing that.
Nero walked out into the center of the room, looking out at the door, down at the floor, and then up at the ceiling.
I wrote down the letter from each page and deciphered what they spelled.
“Do you remember the marking on the floor?” Nero asked.
I nodded.
“The light shining down to the floor onto the marki
ng.” Nero pointed directly overhead where he was standing, at a speaker in the ceiling. “I think he’s pointing to the speaker.”
“The letters spell out: Only in the storm.”
Nero clicked his teeth and walked back over to me to see the words for himself. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Got me.” I shrugged. “I just copied it down.”
Nero returned to the spot directly below the speaker in the ceiling and looked up, studying it intently.
There were at least twenty speakers in the ceiling, perfect for blasting us into the ground when all the screens ignited. But this one was directly above the Commodore Chaos symbol.
“Would you be able to reach the speaker if you got up on my shoulders?” Nero asked.
“That’s what the drawing showed,” I said. “Maybe—it looks too high—but we might be able to pull it off.”
I stood up on the chair to get some perspective. I was a few feet away from reaching the ceiling, but maybe I could on top of Nero’s shoulders.
“We would need something to pry the speaker out of the ceiling without breaking it,” Nero said.
“What about the pencil?”
“Perhaps.” Nero quickly scanned the room. “Is there anything else in the desk?”
I opened the top drawer and found a straight razor lying all alone in the great empty space.
“Don’t you find this a little strange?” I asked, holding it up.
Nero came over and took it from me, examining it in his open palm. “I guess they’re allowing you to check out if you want to.”
“What kind of a place does that?”
“What kind of a place does any of the weird crap this place does?” He passed the razor back to me. “I hope you’re not thinking of checking out.”
SUSY Asylum Page 27