“I want you to fuck me!”
Robert pressed his back against the door, thoughts of his friends momentarily forgotten. He couldn’t be sure if there was one woman in the room with him now, or three.
Robert finally managed to turn on the light. The beam was initially so bright that it momentarily blinded him, and he only heard someone—or someones—scrambling to get out of the way. When his eyes finally adjusted, he saw a crouched form by the corner of the room, opposite the chair. Relief washed over him when he realized that it was only one person, and not three, but the way she was crouched and huddled, her skin thin and leathery, her spinal cord jutting out, made him think of Ruth Harlop.
“Ruth?” he croaked.
There was no response.
He took a small step forward, but the elderly woman’s back started to hitch, and he realized that she was sobbing.
He halted his forward advance.
This wasn’t Ruth Harlop, a suspicion that was confirmed by her next sentence.
“Please,” she whimpered, “don’t let Daddy hurt me.”
Robert shook his head, trying to think clearly.
Unlike with Justine, he was positive that this was an apparition, a quiddity—it had to be. There had been no one in the room with him moments ago.
But she had…what? A split personality?
Shelly’s words in the car on the drive to Pinedale echoed in his mind.
Dr. Mansfield was kidnapped by someone with a split personality disorder.
His grip tightened on the heavy flashlight.
Could this be her? Could this old woman be the one that killed Dr. Mansfield?
“Who—who are you?” he managed at last.
The woman stopped sobbing and she slowly started to raise her head. Her eyes were dark, black pits, and her neck was split in an ear-to-ear gash.
Robert tried to force himself through the door behind him, to no avail.
She brought a finger to her lips.
“Shh, he’s coming now. The doctor is in.”
Robert’s entire body stiffened.
“Wha—?”
But then a bang on the door jarred him out of his stupor, and despite the imminent danger that this woman posed, he spun around. His first thought was that it was going to be Justine, or worse, that thing, staring into the room, but it was neither.
Instead, he was greeted by the face of a young-looking man, probably in his mid to late twenties, with shaggy brown hair and dark circles ringing his eyes. His lips were pressed into a thin line.
Robert leapt backward.
“Dr. Shaw is here,” he heard the old croon whisper as she faded away. “He’s here…he’s here…he’s here…”
Chapter 22
NINE YEARS AGO
“That’s it,” Dr. Shaw clapped his hands together. “That’s it! Put most of your weight on your…your good leg. Yes, yes, that’s it! That’s it!”
He couldn’t believe his eyes. George managed to slide to the edge of the gurney, and by placing his arm over Nurse Justine’s broad shoulders, he was partially standing. Shaw could see that the man’s leg had shifted around the wound, the top half sliding a little from the bottom half—his brother’s leg—but it appeared to be holding.
Dr. Shaw clapped again.
“Yes! This is…”
But he couldn’t come up with an appropriate adjective to describe what he was seeing. Instead, he just reveled in watching his creation.
Justine grunted as she shouldered the brunt of the massive man’s weight, her round face taking on an unnatural shade of crimson, but together they took their first step.
He’s even tougher than I thought—than I could have ever hoped.
A waft of rot suddenly hit him, and Dr. Shaw grimaced. The smell was bad today, the worst ever, perhaps, but the leg wound appeared to be clear.
“Dr. Shaw? What next?” Justine asked in a strained voice.
Dr. Shaw mulled this over for a moment. The simple fact was that he had only half expected this to work…he had steeled himself for the distinct possibility that George would just topple, the transplanted leg tearing off, leaving him to bleed out. Even with Justine as a donor, the man had been through so much that the prospect of survival was next to nil. In his mind, Dr. Shaw had gone so far as to picture having to put George in the freezer with the others, a long line of unsuspecting donors that had contributed their lives to this project.
But now that it had actually worked, he raced to figure out how he would finally prove his theory.
“I, uhh, I want to see if you can guide him around the gurney. Maybe—” He looked around, his gaze eventually falling on the wall about ten feet from where George and Justine presently stood. “Maybe take him for a walk to the wall. See if he can touch it, then come back.”
Justine grunted an affirmative, and then they swiveled together. Dr. Shaw’s eyes were locked on George’s transplanted leg as they started to move. Again, the two halves seemed to slide out of sync, which was to be expected as the bone couldn’t have fully healed so quickly.
But it held. It fucking held.
A smile crept onto the doctor’s face.
The odd couple took another shuffling step forward, then another, George’s transplanted leg sliding more than actively walking.
Eyes wide, Dr. Shaw watched as the duo made it to the wall. Both of them were breathing heavily from the effort, strained, exhausted, but they had actually made it.
Dr. Mansfield had claimed that it wasn’t possible, that even if they managed to attached the body parts and the patient survived, there was no evidence to suggest that the person would acquire the split personalities of the donors.
Foolish, Dr. Mansfield had told him. You have read too many science fiction books, Andrew. And this idea? The idea that multiple personality disorders are a result of two people trapped in one body? Well, that’s foolish, too. It’s a mental issue, a disability from fragmented minds. A disease that can be treated, if not cured. In your case, however—
What about cell memory? Organ memory—
—unproven, pseudoscience bullshit, Andrew. Get your—
The image faded when Justine and George started to turn and something happened.
At first, Dr. Shaw wasn’t sure if the man’s leg had given way, or if Justine had simply crumpled under George’s weight. Either way, they both went down in a heap, Justine and George letting out hauntingly similar cries.
To Dr. Shaw’s dismay, Justine was pulled on top of George, and not vice versa. Her elbow struck a metal tray during her fall, sending a kidney shaped plastic dish filled with surgical tools into the air like metallic confetti.
“No!” Dr. Shaw shouted, hoping that the man’s leg hadn’t been injured—or worse, torn off—in the fall. “No! Justine, get off him!”
The nurse was startled, and paused before trying to roll onto her back and stand.
She was too slow.
George, despite his obvious disabilities, was faster. The man somehow managed to shift into a sitting position in one fluid motion and his massive hand, the one that was his own, and not the smaller, withered transplant, reached out and grabbed nurse Justine’s pale blue scrubs. She yelled and tried to scramble away on all fours, but George’s grip was strong, and when he yanked, she fell back into him. Justine’s knee landed on George’s transplanted leg and Dr. Shaw heard a distinct tearing sound.
“No!” he yelled. He was within a foot of the two of them before the struggle promptly ended. During their scramble, George had grabbed a scalpel, and he held it the soft white skin below Justine’s chin.
“I’ll kill her,” George hissed. The sound whistled through the hole in the side of his face where the stitches had torn again.
Dr. Shaw surveyed the situation closely before acting. George’s good arm was snaked around Justine’s chest, holding her firm, while the one holding the knife had once belonged to the bus driver. It was gray and weak-looking compared to his other, but George’s grip on the scalpel looked
strong enough—at least strong enough to jab the blade into Justine’s neck.
Dr. Mansfield’s words suddenly echoed in his head.
Even if transplants work, there is no evidence that the patient would adopt the personalities of the donors. That’s foolish.
Andrew felt the smile on his face start to grow.
Oh, really?
His eyes flicked to the expression of pure hatred on George’s mangled, stitch-riddled face. The man and his brother had been high school guidance counselors, of all things, before Justine and he had lured them to the Seventh Ward.
Good, law-abiding individuals who’d had illustrious college football careers. Men that looked out for others, that tried to guide them to the right path in life.
The right profession, personal enlightenment.
Dr. Shaw started to beam.
“Yes,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Yes, George, kill her…kill her…kill her…”
Chapter 23
Robert heard a muted beep from somewhere outside the door, and he instinctively took another step backward. He swung the flashlight around, making sure that the old, demented woman was gone, and after confirming that she indeed was, he moved even further from the man with the shaggy hair.
His back bumped up against the gurney just as the door opened.
The man was shorter than Robert had thought, making it only to about his chin. And instead of some sort of weapon as he had partly expected, the doctor was holding a folder in his hands. Robert sized him up quickly, and then peered around him. To his dismay, he could no longer see Cal or Shelly, but the beast was gone as well.
He was torn over whether this was a good or bad thing.
Justine, however, was standing behind Dr. Shaw, the creepy smile still plastered on her pale face.
I can shove him—I can get by him and make a run for it.
Robert’s eyes flashed to the keycard that hung on his hip.
But I won’t get anywhere without one of those…
He realized then that the reason why Shelly and Cal had been forced back this way, why they hadn’t sprinted back up to the first floor and left the way that they had come in, was that it was locked.
And they didn’t have the key.
How fucking stupid are we to follow Justine in here? How absolutely retarded are we?
But at the time, they had been so surprised to actually see anyone in the abandoned hospital that their rational faculties had shut down.
Do you find yourself behaving strangely? Getting angry more than usual?
“Robert Watts?” the doctor asked, raising his gaze.
Robert noticed that the man had red streaks and dark bruises that nearly encircled his entire neck and throat.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” Robert spat. “Where are my friends?”
The doctor, sporting a white lab coat over scrubs that looked identical to Justine’s, frowned and looked down at his file for a moment before snapping it closed.
“Robert Watts, my name is Dr. Andrew Shaw. I’m the psychiatrist-in-chief here in the Seventh Ward.”
Robert blinked, his grip tightening on the flashlight.
“What? What the fuck are you talking about? The place has been closed for—”
“Tsk, tsk, Robert. I can assure you that this ward is, and has been, fully functioning for a good while now. Don’t let”—he raised his eyes to the dark lights above—“the lack of power fool you. You know, the rising cost to keep the water running ‘n’ all that.”
He snickered, and Justine joined in.
What the fuck?
Dr. Shaw stopped laughing.
“Please, Robert, sit up on the bed.”
Robert looked behind him quickly, a grimace forming on his lips at the sight of the dark brown sheet that covered the bed.
“Robert?” He turned back to see Dr. Shaw staring at him with an eyebrow raised. “The gurney, please.”
“No way,” Robert replied bluntly. “I’m not getting up there. I want to see Cal and Shelly.”
Dr. Shaw sighed.
“Your friends are fine, I assure you. I will see them after you…you are a—how can I say this—a priority. You have friends in high—” He laughed again. “—or low places, Mr. Watts.”
What is he talking about? Is he talking about Sean? Does he know Sean?
When Robert still didn’t move, Dr. Shaw’s expression changed, his eyebrows lowering, his lips pulling downward at the corners.
“Get the fuck up on the gurney, Robert. Get up there or I’ll call George,” he hissed. “If you want to see your friends again, you better get the fuck onto that bed.”
Robert quickly mulled his options, the vision of the freak with the stitches—George—flashing in his mind.
Fuck.
He backed up and slid his rear onto the end of the gurney, careful not to move too high and come in contact with the soiled top half of the sheet.
Is that the old woman’s blood? Did she die in this room? Slit her own throat, maybe?
He leveled his gaze at Dr. Shaw, who cautiously approached, Nurse Justine in tow.
Or was it the good doctor? Justine, maybe? Is that why a clump of hair is missing from the back of her head? Because of a struggle with an old, demented woman?
“Good.” Dr. Shaw turned to Justine. “Justine, bind his legs, please.”
“Wha—what?” Robert stammered. But before he could fully comprehend what was going on, Justine had pushed by the doctor and was on him, both of her meaty hands pushing down on his right thigh.
The flashlight slipped from his hand and he seized.
After how careful he had been in the hall—making sure that Justine was just far enough away that if she felt so inclined to touch him, he would have been able to move away—it came down to this.
Predictable, expected, but wholly unavoidable.
Robert sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, expecting to be instantly transported to the Marrow. He was prepared to see the waves, the rolling waves crashing on the shore, and the fissure in the sky…the dark, foreboding sky filled with screams…
But none of this happened.
Robert’s eyes flicked open, and he realized that Justine had already strapped his left ankle to the gurney.
“No,” he moaned, but when she went to his other leg, he remained limp.
Confusion washed over him.
Why haven’t I gone to the Marrow? What does this mean? Does it mean…does it mean that Justine is real?
Is any of this real?
“That’s a good patient. I wish all of my patients were as obedient as you, Mr. Watts. It would make my life one hell of a lot easier.”
Chapter 24
NINE YEARS AGO
“I know you’re in there, Dr. Mansfield. Kill this woman, kill her now. Then you will know, there’s someone inside you.”
George’s eyes went wide, and the hand holding the knife started to tremble.
“I’m not Dr. Mansfield,” he said, his voice, like his hand, shaking. “I don’t know…I don’t know who that is.”
Dr. Shaw made a clucking sound with his tongue, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Of course you are. As you are Frank the bus driver, Julia the junkie whore, and Vincent the hobo. You’re also your brother. And, last but not least, you are Dr. George Mansfield. You are all of these.”
“What…what did you do to me? You turned me into some sort of freak. A rotting, disgusting freak!”
Dr. Shaw shook his head violently.
“No, no, no, not a freak. You are a medical experiment. Truth and witness to the fact that split personalities are not the result of something in the mind, but a transplant of organs. Do you think that it is a coincidence that you are using Dr. Mansfield’s arm to hold the scalpel? Hmm?”
George chanced a glance down at the arm that held the blade, and his face drooped as if seeing it for the same time.
“What’s happened to me?” he whispe
red, spit now dripping from his mouth and the hole in his cheek. “I think…I think I’m going insane…or maybe this is a dream and the only way to wake up is—”
Andrew’s smile faded, as he anticipated what was going to happen next.
“No!” he roared and started toward the man, who still had Justine held tightly in his lap. The hand holding the scalpel moved away from Justine’s throat, and it immediately went to his own. George released Justine, and, eyes wide, she scrambled to her feet.
“Out of the way!” Dr. Shaw screamed as she ran toward him. She was so thick that he had to step around her, and by then it was too late.
“This is just a dream,” George whispered, and then he drove the scalpel deep into his neck just below the ear. His eyes bulged, and Andrew lunged at him. He grabbed the man’s hand, trying desperately not to allow any further damage. Thankfully, it was George’s weak hand, the transplanted one, and Andrew managed to pull it from the man’s neck. Tossing the blade to the floor, he placed both hands over the wound, which had already sprayed his face and neck with hot blood.
He turned back to Justine.
“Get the gauze! Get the gauze and the sutures!” he shouted at her. For a second, her doughy face just stared at him. “Now! Get the—”
But a hand suddenly shot up and gripped his throat, and this time it wasn’t George’s weak hand.
It was his strong one.
Gasping, Andrew turned back to the man, staring into his stitch-filled face. His eyes were blazing, his hatred palpable.
In that moment, he was struck with two options: take his hands away from the man’s wound and allow him to bleed out and tear at George’s hand that was crushing his esophagus, or keep it as it was and fulfill his dream.
George would never kill. This had to be something else—someone else.
Vincent maybe? Or Julia? Julia got plain mean when she didn’t have her fix.
As his vision started to narrow, a smile crept onto Dr. Andrew Shaw’s face.
There’s someone inside me.
Chapter 25
“Have you ever heard thoughts that weren’t your own? Have you ever thought that there was someone else inside your head?”
The Seventh Ward (The Haunted Book 2) Page 11