The Cabin II: Asylum

by Matt Shaw

  Escape.

  Just keep running.

  To where I’m not sure.

  More screaming from one of the doors on my right. I’m scared to look but can’t stop myself. I pushed the door open unsure what to expect. The room was just as empty as the previous rooms.

  A female was screaming. I recognised the doctor’s voice barking orders at her - not in a stern fashion. A panicked fashion.

  “Get it away from his neck! Get it away!”

  “He isn’t breathing!” the female voice screamed.

  The sound of someone trying to resuscitate someone.

  “Anthony! Anthony! Hold on!”

  I backed out of the room. He killed himself? I don’t need to hear that. Why am I hearing these things? Why am I seeing them? There’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing.

  “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I screamed down the empty corridor.

  Empty.

  This place.

  It’s always been empty.

  I remember now.

  I remember.

  8.

  I had broken the doors down. They were boarded up to stop people, such as myself, from getting in. But I didn’t care. I had to get in here. I remember coming here, straight from the cabin. There was nowhere else to go. I remember running from the cabin. Running from what I had done. Running from their bodies.

  Ava.

  Jamie.

  Susan.

  I’m sorry.

  Why am I being punished by Anthony though? I didn’t have a choice about what happened to him. It was out of my hands. I never knew about him. I never knew. No one told me.

  I remember walking to the abandoned reception desk, the same one I’ve reached now, and asking to check myself in. There was no one there. Yet, in my mind...I remember having the whole conversation. I remember signing that I understood what I was asking of them...To assess me. In my mind I was shakingly clutching a pen and scribbling my signature on a piece of paper. In reality - there was nothing in my hand and nothing in front of me.

  My mind playing tricks on me. Making me believe they were there...

  The doctor putting the pins under my nails?

  I remember doing it to myself.

  Torturing myself because I believed it was what I deserved.

  A broken mind.

  I remember crashing out in the nearest padded room I could find. The asylum’s ghosts teaching me the truth whilst I was here? Are there even any ghosts? Was it Anthony showing me? Wanting me to know he was my brother...Wanting me to know I need to be punished just as my father had been punished...But why was my babysitter here? My mind desperately trying to offer me some comfort in my hour of need?

  I need to get out of here.

  I need to leave before I lose my mind completely.

  “The door’s open, sir. Will you be making a follow-up appointment?”

  A nurse was standing behind the reception desk. The first person to smile at me for as long as I can remember.

  “No. I don’t think that will be entirely necessary,” I said to no one.

  There was no nurse there.

  Broken mind.

  Need to leave.

  I turned and hurried towards the broken door. I could feel a breeze from beyond. My heart was racing as I pulled it open.

  A scream filled my head. Anthony was standing directly behind me. I spun on the spot to see him. His mouth was wide open.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry...For whatever happened...For everything...I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t! No one told me! I wish they had before it was too late. I wish they had! Everything could have been different!”

  With no warning his scream intensified as he suddenly charged towards me.

  I shut my eyes and braced myself for impact but nothing happened.

  I opened my eyes slowly - thinking it was a trick.

  I was in the cabin’s bedroom. A gun in my hand.

  Anthony was standing in front of me, by the bed. His eyes weren’t cloudy. His skin looked a healthy pink colour. He smiled at me and disappeared.

  I looked at the gun in my hand.

  What the hell?

  Footsteps outside, coming towards the front of the cabin.

  We’ve been here before.

  I ran through to the other room - close to the front door - and aimed the gun at the door. Whoever is out there...

  The door opened fast and Ava came running in. I didn’t pull the trigger. I raised the barrel of the gun into the air as quickly as I could so as not to frighten her.

  “What the hell are you doing with that?” asked Susan when she walked in.

  “You wouldn’t believe the night I’ve had!” I said. I wanted to give them a hug. I wanted to give them both a hug but they’d wonder what I was up to.

  “Night? We haven’t been gone that long! Anyway, can you give Jamie a hand with the shopping...”

  “Shopping?” I asked.

  “The bits you asked us to get.”

  “Sure,” I said. I thought I sent them to her parents? I thought...After the accident...After the store clerk got...

  “Did you know the store clerk knew your father? They aren’t happy with him!”

  “They aren’t?” I asked - still dumbstruck as to what was going on.

  “Apparently he made a ghost story up about the old asylum...The store clerk was saying they’re continually getting ghost hunters running around here, asking questions, trying to find out more.” Susan laughed, “He was saying he enjoyed the extra business at first but, apparently, each year the tourists were getting freakier and freakier...One of the doctors was so upset by the story he’s rumored to have jumped from the top of the tower you said the patients helped build...”

  The grandfather, no doubt.

  Jamie came in with the bags of shopping, “Where do you want the cleaning stuff?” she asked in her own grumpy way.

  “Let’s go and stay in a hotel instead,” I suggested.

  “What?” Susan said, “I thought you wanted to stay here to get your writing done?”

  “It’s not important. I was thinking...Hotel tonight...More driving tomorrow...Let’s find a beach. It’s only a few more hours of driving!”

  Ava cheered.

  “What about the cabin?” asked Susan.

  I looked around the room. Still vandalised. Still a mess.

  “Let it rot.”

  * * * * *

  As we drove away from the cabin, I gave it a final look in the rear-view mirror. I could see Anthony standing in the doorway, looking at the floor. I’m not sure why he wanted me to know what had happened but part of me is glad I do know. Another part of me wishes I could forget everything.

  All those years ago I remember my father telling me the story of the screaming ghost. The story he invented, not the locals. The woods weren’t haunted by the ex-patients of the asylum. The locals weren’t living in fear as to whether they heard a scream or not...

  Only my dad was.

  As I pressed my foot harder on the accelerator I just wanted to get away as fast as possible.

  Get away from this nightmare.

  Bury dad’s secret with any remaining love I once had for him.

  I hoped he burned in Hell for what he had done - not just to Anthony but the other lives his lies affected too.

  I won’t forget.

  I won’t forgive.

  I won’t allow myself.

  I’ll just treasure my own family more.

  Don’t let go.

  THE END

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