As soon as he had finished, a distinct siren stole its way through the window. The lights in his room began to flicker.
“Oh…my… she’s here!” he mumbled, stared open-mouthed at the lights and then quickly tucking the letter deep inside his coat, picked up his stethoscope and hung it around his neck.
After decades, he would finally be able to prove his theories to his eccentric peers that telepathy and telekinesis were not mere phenomena on paper.
His dream… his wife’s dream… Helen’s dream was about to fulfilled.
Mingled feeling of sadness and happiness welled in his chest as he leant against his desk, stroking his hair flat.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Come in!”
A plump nurse walked in, carrying a clipboard, looking shaky as she hurried forward towards the desk.
“Sir… we’ve shifted her to Ward C. Shall I inform the staff that you’ll be doing the round in a short while?” she asked in a hurried voice. “Here, you’ve to sign the transfer order,” she added and handed the clipboard, with trembling hands.
“Yes, thank you, Ruth. And please tell the warden that I want strong men to accompany me. Five to six would suffice.”
“Y-you won’t need me, sir?” her voice quivered.
“What will I do without the head nurse, huh?” said Dr. Gerald, raising his eyebrows as he gave her a short, encouraging smile.
She nodded frantically and turned to leave.
“Ruth?”
“Yes, doctor?”
She looked at Dr. Gerald who was now peering out of the window, buried deep in thought.
“I need you to prepare every sedative that we have in this facility,” he said absentmindedly, “and that includes Phenobarbital. Inform the anesthetist that I want him to be present during our interview—in case a need for intubation arises.” After an uncomfortable pause, he added “I guess it’s about time....”
Chapter 10: Plight and Flight
Shuffling queasily with his tie, Dr. Gerald entered the room followed by five other men and his head nurse, Ruth, who was carrying a small basin like tray, shaking her head in disapproval. The sign outside the room read:
“High Risk! Do Not Enter without written permission from Dr. Gerald.”
It was a dimly lit cell, with padded walls and a circular metal table bolted to the concrete floor. A single light bulb hung from a rusty chain among the exposed pipes and joints on the ceiling above, bathing the whole room in its soft, yellow glow. A barred window was high above their heads, overlooking the woods behind the facility.
With silent steps, each of the men took their place around the table with Dr. Gerald and Ruth holding back. On the opposite end of the room there was a single folding chair on which a woman was seated, wearing off-white robes. There were large stains on the hem of her dress which seemed like dried blood. Dark but dull hair were sticking out of her thick, greasy braids that ran over her shoulders just like her doll which she held in her hands and was slowly picking at the toy’s grey skin as if removing invisible threads. Her feet were tied to the base of the metal chair with at least a dozen chains. Dr. Gerald looked uneasily at the incredibly long and yellow fingernails which had started to twist.
A soft humming noise filled their ears.
Dr. Gerald straightened abruptly, with his hands behind his back and his eyes holding her whole.
“Good Evening, Martha,” he said smiling generously, but his voice sounded ragged and unpleasantly loud.
She ignored him.
“May I have a word with you?” he asked in an appallingly polite tone, one that almost always worked with the new inmates.
It seemed as if the woman considered his offer for a minute; the humming stopped as she slowly raised her head and looked straight at him. Then, very slowly, she turned her head to glance all around the table, her eyes pausing only briefly in each man’s direction.
She lowered her gaze back to the doll and resumed her soft humming.
“I was—” Dr. Gerald began.
The woman broke in to a fit of giggles and all of a sudden the sickly pale light began to flicker.
The men exchanged nervous glances, shifting uneasily in their spots.
“What’s there to laugh about…well… this conceited manner, Miss Martha?” he asked calmly, still smiling broadly. He’d seen enough patients in his lifetime to comprehend what exactly they were up to. Martha wanted to leave her mark in this institute; an everlasting memory of the encounter. A behavior that unceasingly hinders the rehabilitation process and he could never allow that.
The humming stopped for the second time in the room.
“Not very brave of you to come here and talk to me with a guard of six men, is it?” she whispered. Her voice barely audible and her hand still working on the doll’s apparel.
“Protocol! Safety of the staff always comes first,” retorted Dr. Gerald at once.
The woman swung her head backwards, laughing hysterically as the lamp overhead began to sway. A few of the men on Dr. Gerald’s right side began to whisper which earned them a murderous stare from him.
Her cold laughter continued to ring inside the padded cell. Finally the woman brought her head down and looked at him. The sparks in her eyes flew like fireflies down a dark tunnel.
“Tell us about yourself?” Dr. Gerald urged, not tearing his eyes off her.
“I won’t be staying long enough to tell you my stories,” she spat, her face contorted with contempt as her eyes flashed dangerously in his direction.
“Miss Martha… I only want to hear the non-fiction ones. So, you’re leaving us already?” he added in the serenest of his tones.
“In a short while!”
“Oh, of course you are. I nearly forgot, you know, old age catching up after all,” said Dr. Gerald, not trying to hide the tinge of irony in his words. A few of his men on the right sniggered.
She gave him a “You’ll see” nod as he grabbed the corners of fastened table and leaned forward.
“Where’re your parents?”
“They’re dead.”
“Dead?”
“DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!” she sang, tilting her head sideways as if the neck was broken, her ponytails flitting across her face. The lights flickered again dangerously.
“How did they die, Martha?”
“I don’t know…urm… may be they were murdered,” she smiled at him. Her eyes blank.
“Who murdered them?” he urged.
There was an awkward pause.
“Sulorac,” she said in a foreign tongue. Something flashed across the wall behind her. Faster than lightning and darker than the thickest of shadows disappearing into nothingness.
Ruth gasped and a few of security personnel scurried backwards against the wall.
She’s speaking reverse Latin, thought Dr. Gerald, smiling to himself.
“Who is Charles?” he asked after a small pause, amidst the whispering and restless shuffling in the room.
The room became dreadfully quiet once again.
The woman looked at him and for a split second, he could swear that she smiled. But as she lifted her head her face was vacant as ever.
“He’s my friend.”
“Your imaginary friend, Martha?”
“Don’t call him that. He gets angry,” she snapped furiously.
“All right… all right… tell me about him?”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Did he tell you not to talk about him?”
“May be.”
He paused and sneaked a glance at Ruth, giving her the slightest of the nods. The nurse began to fumble with the contents inside the tray.
“Don’t even think about it!” she shook her head threateningly in her direction.
“You’re leaving me no choice, Martha,” he heaved a deep sigh and gave the slightest of the nods in the direction of Ruth.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO IT!” she bellowed and the tray escaped the trembling finge
rs of the head nurse and crashed against the opposite wall, spilling the syringes and vials all over the floor.
Dr. Gerald glimpsed at the yellowish contents spilling the floor. His eyes widened in surprise briefly before shifting his gaze back at her.
“I have other means too, Martha. Don’t force me. I’ll repeat –did Charles kill your parents?
She whispered something over her left shoulder which he couldn’t make out. Then she turned her eyes back at him and a wicked smile broke out on her face.
“What does he tell you?” he demanded.
“Well, he tells me that you’re a nosy creep who should’ve cared more for his dying wife rather than his good- for- nothing research.”
For the first time in the evening, Dr. Gerald flinched.
She is playing with you! He told himself.
Smiling broadly, Dr. Gerald corrected his stooped posture.
“Tell your friend if he’s strong enough to face me.”
The woman stared at him. She looked worried. Her hands twisted uneasily on the table.
It’s a good sign! She knows that Charles is a mere revenant. She knows!
“He doesn’t like you.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you think he doesn’t exist.”
“Does he?”
The floor beneath them shook violently as some of the men yelped, caught off guard.
“Do you still think the same about him?” the woman asked, raising her eyebrows and cracking an ironic smile.
“You’re a bloody murderer and he’s your imagination. That’s all he is,” he muttered coolly.
He waited for her reaction. For something to happen.
She gave her a brief smile but then all of a sudden her eyes began to bulge and blood spurt through the left nostril, slopping all over her front robes and the metal table. Her head expanded like a balloon as if it would explode and splatter the walls.
“Sir, her blood pressure?” said Ruth nervously as she scrambled forwards but Dr. Gerald raised his hand and she held back, looking flustered and angry.
The woman jerked backwards and forwards in her chair and with a final twist, she bowed down her head, her face directed towards her lap.
She was stock-still!
The room suddenly became frigid and the overhead bulb began to flit uncontrollably. Their breaths turned in to vapors in front of them.
“What the—” One of the man called out in fear, as a stream of mist appeared before him.
“Shhhh!” said Dr. Gerald furiously, his heart pounding in his chest. His hands suddenly felt cold and numb. The hair on his arms stood proudly, pressing against his overall. He could feel the stitch in his chest as the bitter air entered his old lungs; cutting like a knife.
Something rose behind the window.
A dense, dark cloud!
Darker than anything he’d seen. And then, he realized what it was. Bats! Hundreds of them. Their wings were beating non-stop; filling the room with a dreadful, fluttering chorus.
Then suddenly the room exhaled a smothering whiff of something fetid like a blocked septic tank. Angry noises of gags, coughs and vomiting ushered in.
Dr. Gerald waited. Pinching his nose, his eyes danced from the shadow of bats beating incessantly against the window to his chained patient.
His ears popped abruptly and the overhead bulb stopped flickering. He couldn’t discern any shadow behind the window which now revealed the clear sky outside.
The room was warm once again.
“Hello, Dr. Gerald.” A hoarse, grunting cry echoed throughout room, coming from where the motionless woman with her head still flexed towards her lap.
“Yes?” he asked, his eyes widened in surprise. He could hear the sharp intake of breath behind him.
“So,you still don’t believe that I exist?” the voice asked firmly.
His insides were screaming at him not to disagree, but he knew that the woman before him might have the skill to produce two sounds at the same time. This wasn’t something he hadn’t heard or seen in his lifelong struggle in the field of psychiatry.
“Why should I believe you?”
Angry hissing was followed by another furious shaking of the floor. And THEN:
“Help me…Gerald….help me…I don’t want to die!”
His wife’s voice fell on his ears and his heart began to throb painfully.
A cold draft hit him in the face and lifted his hair.
“Help me…please. Oh…God…this is so painful!”
“SHUT Up!” he roared, gripping the fastened table so hard as if he’d yank it off and throw it across the room at her.
The lights flickered once more.
“You asked for it,” The voice concluded with a high pitched laughter.
“I’ve seen enough frauds like you,” shouted Dr. Gerald, blood rushing to his ears, “You’re nothing…but…but—” He was searching for the right word to flaunt at her. Give her the same pain she’d given him by reproducing the last words of his dead wife.
There was that awful silence once again.
“Tell your men and that lousy nurse to leave. Let’s see if you can face me.”
Dr. Gerald was breathing heavily. His temples were pounding in anger, frustration and sadness.
She couldn’t harm me!
Reconsidering the proposal quickly in his mind, he bellowed at his men, “Off you go. Get out…I want to show this woman …come on...GET OUT!”
Some of the men looked at him in disbelief. They couldn’t abandon him with that thing inside. They waited, shuffling nervously and hoping against all odds that their boss would change his mind.
“LEAVE NOW!” Dr. Gerald hollered, nearly knocking himself off the floor. They could see that he was shaking with cold fury. His lower lip quivered and his eyes were wide and bloodshot. They had never seen him so angry. Quickly nodding at each other, Ruth and the security staff scrambled outside and the door banged shut behind them. Exchanging petrified glances, they heard the lock click back in its place.
Dr. Gerald had locked himself up with that monster alone!
Chapter 11: A Game of Monopoly
“W-what?” I stammered in disbelief, not taking my eyes off Barry.
The rain had stopped but the fire roared with the same intensity in its crate. The room was warm and I could feel my jumper sticking to my back.
“Yes… you heard me right, sir,” Barry answered calmly. “They had to break down the door to get inside…found him lying unconscious on the floor with little memory of the whole incident. But he was definitely not the same person afterwards. Some say— she marked him. Marked him with evil! ”
“But what happened to her?” I argued, my mind still not accepting the idiocrasy of the man who’d knowingly fall into a trap.
“She fled!”
“Fled? I thought that the cell was padded. ”
“Yes…but there was a window, sir,” Barry corrected me. “And when they came bursting in –they found the bars bolting it…alltwisted and burned. They couldn’t figure out what exactly she’d used to get them in this shape. The glass was broken and she’d possibly jumped through the window--all the way from the north tower into the woods. They couldn’t find her body. She had just…disappeared.”
I looked away from him, suddenly interested in my surroundings. Was this place really an asylum once? Was it the reason I’m experiencing some kind of paranormal activity in my room? The knot in my stomach tightened as the memory of my dream came rushing back to my senses. I felt sick.
It’s just an eccentric little tale, Alfred. Don’t let it get on your nerves!
But the uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. I knew Barry was watching me suspiciously out of the corner of his eye.
“Barry?” I asked. My voice was unusually casual.
“Yes, sir?”
“This place isn’t haunted, is it?” I asked it finally. The thing I’d been wanting to ask all evening, even before Barry had disclosed the siniste
r account of what really happened here. I looked at him earnestly as a slight frown build up on his face.
“May I ask the reason for your query… sir?”
I thought for a moment. Maybe, it still wasn’t the right time to tell him about the whispers in my room or the dream I had.
Perhaps I should wait!
“It’s just that—I’ve got some feeling about this place, you know. It’s just an awkward feeling that something’s not right…like something bad is about to happen. It’s not always there…just sometimes...I can’t explain… are you even getting me?” I knew I sounded a bit desperate.
Barry was smiling.
“Well, sir. If I were to be truthful…I’d say yes and no,” he said politely. “There have been times when my belongings turn up at all the wrong places. For instance, I’m very particular about my dinner plates…and sometimes I can’t seem to find one of the sets even though I’m sure I kept it in my cupboard and guess what? The very next morning, I wake up to find the dinner plates…the very same set… piled neatly near the foot end of my bed. Mysterious, right? But I tell you, sir… a few missing plates wouldn’t harm me. Will they? At least they turn up in the end. I’ve been here long enough to know that there’s nothing--absolutely nothing wrong with this place. Everything that happens must have a reason, sir. Maybe I was so lost in my own head that I just didn’t remember keeping them there. Maybe I sleepwalk at night. Who knows? Sometimes it’s better if you leave things as they are, sir.”
“Do you sleepwalk at night?”
“Of course not, sir,” snorted Barry. “It’s my way of rationalizing things.”
“And no ghosts?” I sounded stupid.
“Hmmm…ghosts—I don’t know, Mr. Alfred,” said Barry thoughtfully, “But I’m a very religious person, and I don’t believe in ghosts but yes…remember …whatever you do…good or bad…it echoes in eternity…that’s my belief. And whatever happened here, not all of it was good, sir. Not all of it. And perhaps what we feel is the very negative energy reaching back to us, telling us why things went wrong. That’s my definition of a ghost, sir.”
The Haunting At Barry's Lodge (Gripping Paranormal Private Investigator Suspense Novel): Unexplained Eerie Story of the Supernatural and A Dark Disturbing Psychological Thriller with a Killer Twist Page 9