For a long while, the only noise that Danny heard was the sound of his own breathing. As his heartrate began to normalize, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to cough. He brought a hand to his mouth and pressed his lips together as hard as he could in an attempt to stifle it.
Given the tightness in his chest and lungs, Danny did a fairly good job of holding back; only spit sprayed from his lips.
The problem was, even during his stifled spurts, he continued to hear the same rhythmic breathing.
Only now he was sure it wasn’t his.
Danny, eyes wide, desperately seeking something, anything, in the utter blackness, whipped around, his back pressing up against the door.
Then he smelled it again: the unmistakable odor of rot.
“Welcome to the Seventh Ward, Danny. I’ve been waiting for you.”
PART I - Another Letter, Another Job
Chapter 1
Robert Watts leaned back from his computer and rubbed his eyes. Despite spending more than a decade looking at numbers on a computer screen, he just didn’t have the stamina for it anymore.
Something had happened to him after he’d left Audex; he had slowly lost his patience with cellphones and other electronic devices. In fact, the Harlop Estate didn’t even have a TV, much to Cal’s chagrin.
Shelly, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care either way.
The only thing that Robert couldn’t do without was Wi-Fi, which was why fitting the place with a solid Internet connection was one of the first things he had done since moving in.
Robert blinked long and slow, forcing his eyes to water a bit, trying to alleviate the visual fatigue. When his focus returned, he found himself staring at the simple photograph of Amy in the frame on his desk. Although he couldn’t remember getting it taken—maybe Wendy had had done it—it must have been an extra passport photograph. Amy wasn’t smiling in it, as any form of expression in these photos was not permitted, but nothing could take the smile and joy that filled her eyes.
A pang of sadness hit him somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, but before it could worm itself into full blown depression, he gritted his teeth and shook the feeling away. Eager to distract himself now, Robert leaned forward in his chair and went back to what he found himself doing most days now: browsing the Internet for information on the Marrow.
Despite being flooded with more useless information than he thought possible, information on the Marrow was exceedingly sparse. He had amassed more information than Cal and Shelly had come up with, but not much else. One thing that had remained consistent, however, was Shelly’s initial claim that no one had actually been there and returned to speak about it, which would explain the paucity of information.
Except for him, of course, which was something that Robert continued to keep to himself, and would do so until he was completely satisfied that revealing this wouldn’t put Cal or Shelly in any danger.
About a week ago, Robert had come across something interesting, something surprisingly credible. A couple of hidden back links on a site about the afterlife had led him to an obscure fishing bulletin board. One of the first things that Robert had figured out while searching the Internet was that it wasn’t so much what you looked for but where. He had found information about the Marrow hiding out in an online walkthrough guide for Doom the videogame and even in the comments on a random wedding photo album. So while others might have logged out of the fishing bulletin board, he didn’t.
And he was glad that he had stayed, because it was here that he had first discovered a mysterious cyber identity that went by the handle ‘LBlack’. As he read through the man’s posts, it became clear that he knew what he was talking about.
The devil was in the details, so they said, and nothing could have been more true in this instance. The way LBlack described the foamy Marrow sea, the way it broke over the soft, pillowy sand, the sound of the rolling waves…it was exactly the way Robert remembered it. While others reported something similar, the detail that LBlack went into was such that Robert was convinced that the man had been there.
And it was also that he had mentioned the thunder in the sky, the impending storm. Robert could still remember how that felt, how, peering upward, the serenity that had so engulfed his very quiddity had suddenly fallen away. How the lightning that split the clouds seemed to leave a fissure behind, and in that fissure, he could hear the most horrible…
A scream from somewhere below caused him to bolt upright in his chair.
“Cal? Shelly?” he hollered.
All he could hear was Shelly’s rock music playing, and for a moment he thought that maybe he had just imagined the cry, that it was part of his reverie of the Marrow.
“Cal?” he asked, raising his voice a few octaves. When the only response was the sound of crashing cymbals and bass riffs, Robert rose from his chair and made his way to the office entrance. He peered out, hoping to see Cal and Shelly laughing over a few drinks.
But no one was standing outside the room, nor was there anybody in the hallway.
Robert couldn’t remember whose idea it had been to all move into the Harlop Estate, but at the time it had made sense. After all, Robert had no place to live, Cal was a roaming nomad, and Shelly, who was ironically from Montreal, of all places, was in the process of moving and her house already up on the market. They had used the proceeds from the sale of her place to pay off what remained of Robert’s bills—Wendy’s bills—and then they had all moved in.
A temporary solution, they had agreed, but over the past few months they had become one strange, blended family.
Robert had set up his office on the second floor, hoping to do some freelance accounting work on the side until he got something more permanent in Hainsey County. After all, even with no mortgage or debt, they still needed money to live. For starters, they had to keep the lights on and the Internet working, lest they forget food and entertainment. And whoever had been paying the electric company before they had arrived—he had a sneaking suspicion that it was a man with short blond hair and a black suit—had stopped ever since the deed was transferred over.
Problem was, there wasn’t much accounting work out there, and over the past few months, Robert found himself spending more time researching the Marrow more than posting on freelance accounting sites. As for Cal and Shelly…well, they spent most of their time talking about conspiracy theories and drinking. Which was fine by him…for now. But soon they would need a steady form of income. If they were going to make this work at the Harlop Estate, they had to become cashflow positive—and soon.
Another scream bounced off the high ceilings and Robert flicked back into the moment, his heart racing. He leaned over the railing and peered down, trying to locate his housemates. He was suddenly reminded of the scream that little Patricia had made when she had been shoved from the roof.
“Cal! What the—?”
But then he saw Shelly step out from the sitting room to the base of the massive staircase.
“Shelly, what’s wrong?”
But Shelly didn’t turn to look up at him. Instead, she just continued to back up slowly, her finger outstretched, her other hand cupping her mouth. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes wide.
“Shelly!” he shouted. He turned, intent on running down the stairs and going to her, when she pulled her hand away from her mouth and held it up to him, staying his forward advance.
Robert swallowed hard.
“What—what is it?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper now. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that the music had stopped.
Shelly took another few steps backward, still pointing at something that Robert couldn’t see.
“It’s—it’s—” she stammered.
Robert heard a new sound: the rusty, creaking sound of worn metal.
“—it’s Ruth, she’s back!” Shelly finished in a gasp.
Robert felt his legs go numb. Even if he’d wanted to, if Shelly had lowered her hand and waved him down to
her, he wouldn’t have been able to.
He was frozen with fear.
And when the rusted wheel of Ruth Harlop’s wheelchair came into view with her gnarled, leathery hand gripping the worn rubber, a scream rose in his throat.
Chapter 2
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO
“Doctor, your newest patient has arrived,” the portly nurse informed him in a soft voice.
Dr. George Mansfield pulled the glasses off his nose and let them fall to his neck where they rested from the cord. He gave the nurse a quick onceover, his dark eyes darting first to her nametag, which read Justine Sinclair, before observing the rest of her. She was a doughy woman, pasty and thick throughout, especially her lower half. The doctor didn’t recognize her, which meant she was one of the new nurses that had been sent to him on rotation following his written complaints of chronic understaffing.
Just another virgin cutting her teeth in the Pinedale Psych Ward, or as it was more commonly referred to, the Seventh Ward. He hoped that, unlike the others, she would last longer than a week.
“Doctor?” Justine asked slowly, averting her eyes as embarrassment from his overt observation took hold.
She was a wholly unattractive woman—upturned nose, thin lips, hair that was cut to shoulder length and dry to the point of being frizzy.
“Nurse, if me staring at you is going to make you embarrassed, you should probably look for another job.”
“Oh, I’m…I’m sorry, Doctor, I just—”
“Seriously.”
Justine’s eyes darted up again. Although her cheeks were still red, her eyes became clear, focused.
“Yes, sir.”
Dr. Mansfield took the file from her outstretched hand and flipped it open.
“This isn’t medieval times, Justine. Don’t call me ‘sir.’ Call me ‘Doctor.’”
This time, the nurse didn’t respond, and Dr. Mansfield put his glasses back on and quickly scanned the file.
Twenty-four-year-old medical student experienced a mental breakdown. Potential past psych issues, suspected bipolar. Spent two weeks in the hospital following most recent episode, diagnosed with fatigue and general malaise. During recovery, started to express two separate personalities: one, the doting medical student, quiet, shy, obedient to a fault. Personality two: angry, irate, irrational. Vengeful. Arrogant.
Dr. Mansfield reread the first page of the report, his interest piqued.
A medical student with a split personality? That’s a new one.
He flipped over to the next page, aware, but not caring, that Justine was still staring at him.
A photograph was affixed to the top of this page, a headshot of a young man with shaggy brown hair and small eyes beset in dark circles. His nose was slightly crooked, his ears just a little too large. But on the whole, he was average-looking.
Dr. Mansfield supposed with another few hours of sleep a night, and maybe a career change, he might be boosted to above average.
Beneath the photograph was a list of specific incidents—a step-by-step account of the events that had led the internist to send the patient to the Seventh Ward. Dr. Mansfield glossed over these details; in his many years of working with psych patients, he often found that not only were these reports not helpful, but they often proved detrimental to his analysis. They either biased him, or they were just simply inaccurate to the point of being distracting. The most blatant case in recent memory was of a forty-year-old broker who’d just woken up one night screaming, one of those obnoxious, high-pitched screams, every few minutes for no discernible reason. The emergency department had referred the man to the Seventh Ward after a routine exam revealed nothing physically wrong with him. Their official diagnosis had been ‘classic mental breakdown, likely owing to stress.’
You know, high pressure job and all that.
But Dr. Mansfield thought differently. And, sure enough, a more thorough examination revealed an inch-long millipede burrowed deep in the man’s ear canal. Filling the ear with a little alcohol, and applying a little gentle coaxing with a pair of tweezers, and the offending insect had fallen right out.
The screaming had stopped immediately, and the man had returned to normal—his incredible gratitude notwithstanding.
Dr. Mansfield snapped the folder closed and handed it back to Justine.
“You don’t want to read any more?” she asked.
He sighed, removed his glasses again, and stared at her. As the seconds ticked by, the nurse became increasingly uncomfortable, shifting her considerable weight from one foot to another.
Eventually, Dr. Mansfield broke the silence.
“Justine—you need to remain firm, confident. Did the other nurses give you a tour already?”
The woman nodded, the thick skin beneath her chin waddling.
“And did they tell you how dangerous some of our patients can be?”
Again she nodded, but with less certainty this time.
Dr. Mansfield sighed again.
“I’m going to be honest with you, Justine, because skirting the truth is not only dishonest, but in this place—” He waved his arms, indicating the pale gray walls of the Seventh Ward. “—in this place, you let your guard down for one second, just one, and not only can you be severely injured or even killed, but your brain can become infected.”
Justine stared at him, her eyes widening. He couldn’t tell if it was fear or incredulity in those dark pits, but for her sake, Dr. Mansfield hoped the former.
“Look, I’ve spent seventeen years dealing with psych patients of all different types, ranging from the demure and docile to the hyper-violent. Most outsiders think that these patients are stupid, that their mental proclivities make them idiotic. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. These people…what’s the best way of putting this? These psychiatric patients are in a way unburdened by the constraints of society. Because of this, they lock on to an idea, any idea, and it becomes them. They are obsessed in the truest sense of the word—completely intractable.” He paused, still staring into Justine’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
Justine started to nod again, but Dr. Mansfield stopped her by holding up his hand.
“Nodding won’t cut it this time,” he informed her. “You need to say it.”
Justine swallowed hard.
“Yes, I understand, Doctor.”
“Good. Because these ideas that the patients of the Seventh Ward cherish are very powerful. If you let your guard down even for a moment, you too can become infected. I’ve seen it happen before, Justine. You need to take this seriously.”
Dr. Mansfield saw the woman’s thin lips move, making the word ‘infected.’
There is no way that she makes it through the week.
Still, they were short-staffed, and he had no choice but to use her as much as he could while she was still around.
“Do you understand?” he repeated.
“Yes,” Justine replied, more strongly this time. “I understand, Dr. Mansfield.”
“Good, now please, take me to my newest patient.”
Justine nodded, and then turned awkwardly, leading the way down the hall to the room with the large ADMITTING sign above. She pushed through the swinging doors wide, flashing the ID card that hung around her neck to the tall black security guard who stood off to one side, his arms crossed over his chest. The man nodded and waved them through.
“Here he is,” Justine informed him, gesturing with a chubby hand to the man strapped to the gurney.
Dr. Mansfield slowly moved up next to the man, making a mental note that the four straps, one on each limb, were tightly affixed.
Good. At least the nurse got that part right.
A med student with a split personality didn’t immediately ring alarm bells in his head, but he had learned that these patients could be wildly unpredictable.
Better safe than sorry.
Dr. Mansfield stared at the man’s face, which was so eerily similar to the photograph in the folder that it looked as if i
t could have been taken just moments ago.
“Hi there,” he said softly.
The man opened his eyes and a thin smile crossed his pale face.
“Hello—” Dr. Mansfield reached over and grabbed the folder from Nurse Justine and read the cover quickly. “—hello Andrew Shaw. Welcome to the Seventh Ward.”
Chapter 3
“You are a fucking asshole, you know that?”
Cal tried to stop laughing, but he couldn’t. He pressed his lips together, which stifled the sound for a few seconds, but then he exploded in a spray of spit and tears. His hands went to his belly and he keeled over.
Robert, on the other hand, was far from amused.
“What’s wrong with you?” He walked over to the wheelchair and picked up the rubber hand and threw it at Cal. It hit him in the shoulder, but instead of angering him, this only served to make him laugh even harder.
Shelly, who was standing by the entrance to the sitting room, suddenly started giggling too, and Robert whipped around to face her. The reason why she had been able to pull this ruse off was in part because she had covered her face in some sort of white paint, or powder, or something.
“And you? You think this is funny too?”
Shelly averted her eyes and managed to control herself—she was still smiling, but at least she wasn’t laughing anymore.
“It’s Halloween, Rob, and it was just a joke. Lighten up a bit.”
The fact that it was Halloween came as a surprise to Robert. Out here in Hainsey County, at the Harlop Estate, time moved more slowly. It wasn’t like it had been in the basement, but instead of seconds and minutes, the days all seemed to meld together, trickling like molasses through a bendy straw.
October 31st? We’ve been living here for nearly three months?
It hadn’t felt half that long.
Robert scowled and shook his head.
It didn’t matter if it was Halloween, or Christmas, or Yom Kippur.
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