Bedlam Stories

by Christine Converse

  "Only a vampire would stay in the shadows," the woman murmured, her head tilting awkwardly to one side. "Needs to have his head cut off … cut off … cut-cut-cut-cut off-off-off-off-off …." The whispered words trailed off until they morphed into off-key humming.

  Dr. Ward's chair slid backward an inch, away from the woman, while Dr. Raymond scribbled on his clipboard. The woman jerked her head to stare at Dr. Ward, her pallid face abruptly breaking into a maniacal grin. His chair slid back another inch when she tilted her head, a long silvery strand of saliva rolling out of the corner of her mouth and stretching to the floor.

  "Yes dear. And my palms are covered in hair, and my ears are pointed," Dr. Carandini said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. "Can you please quit this charade, girl, so we can attend to the truly needy?"

  The woman, whose gaze had, since the word "pointed" been fixed upon Dr. Carandini's right ear, did not respond.

  "Miss … erm … Bly, was it?" Dr. Ward snatched the clipboard and fountain pen from Dr. Raymond and scribbled his signature across the admittance papers. "I am certain you will benefit from Dr. Braun's therapies. You have my approval." He briskly stood, tugged his lab coat into place, and with a click of heels and a nod to his contemporaries, promptly exited without a backward glance.

  Dr. Raymond added his signature to the second line of physician recommendations and pushed the wire rim glasses up the bridge of his nose. He held the clipboard out to the nurse standing quietly behind the woman's chair.

  "There you are, Miss Pretorious. The matter now rests with Dr. Carandini. Should he decline to concur, please file the papers with the court for the review of Judge Ostrow." He stood and glanced nervously toward the woman, following her still unbroken gaze to Dr. Carandini's head.

  "Yes, sir," the nurse nodded, taking the clipboard. "Shall I call for the orderlies?”

  "Cut-cut-cut-cut … " the woman whispered.

  Dr. Raymond pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed lightly at his forehead. "Yes, I think that would be best."

  Dr. Carandini pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat and flipped it open.

  "Shall we to tea, then, Chadswor —"

  The seemingly frail woman in the tattered dress lunged from her chair and sprang, with doglike frenzy and a banshee screech, at Dr. Carandini, her outstretched fingers talons that locked, deathly tight, around his throat. He did not have time to react before flailing backward across a table filled with glasses, which collapsed under the force and weight of the assault, the glass shattering beneath them as they crashed to the floor.

  Dr. Carandini's yelp of surprise precipitously became a howl of pain as the woman sank her teeth into his right earlobe, clenching her jaw with all the strength she could muster.

  "EZEKIEL! FRANK!" the nurse threw open the door to scream down the hall. The sound of running feet, breaking furniture, and crunching glass could barely be discerned over the doctor’s howls as the two tussled, rolling between scattered chairs and the overturned table.

  Orderlies in white coats and thick, black, rubber-soled shoes sprinted to the rolling pair and pulled at any body part upon which they could gain purchase, but the woman clung tenaciously to Dr. Carandini with an iron grip. Frank dug his fingertips deeply into the meat of the woman's right bicep, sending shooting pain up her arm and causing her to involuntarily loosen her grip. He used the opportunity to yank the woman upward, away from the doctor, affording him a view of the blood flowing from the ragged flesh that now dangled from the doctor's ear. Still, the woman clung to the doctor with her free hand, kicking and scrabbling, growling incessantly.

  Dr. Carandini clutched at a vase rolling next to his head, and, grabbing it by the neck, swung it squarely into the woman's temple. Her body immediately went slack and both orderlies pulled her backward from the doctor who, in turn, scuttled crablike backward from the fray, clutching at the remnants of his right ear, trying to staunch the flow of blood. He panted, wide-eyed, trying to reconcile what had just happened with the limp woman who now hung by her elbows between the two orderlies.

  "Nellie … Nellie Bly! Wake up!" The nurse soundly slapped the woman's face.

  The woman shuddered and blinked, blood flowing steadily over her eye, cheek, and closed lips from the fresh laceration on her forehead. The wide-eyed doctor cowered before her on the floor, his back against the wall.

  "Time to go!" Nurse Pretorious waved a hand in front of her toward the orderlies. The woman smiled and shook her head, holding up one finger and pointing to the nurse's hand. The nurse raised an eyebrow and cautiously held her hand out. The woman spit into the nurse’s hand, and the remnants of the doctor's bloody earlobe landed with a soft, wet plop in her palm.

  Nurse Pretorious screamed and dropped the flesh to the floor as the orderlies dragged a still smiling Nellie Bly through the door.

  Dr. Carandini crawled to pick up the chewed scrap of his ear and glanced up at Nellie. Her eyes twinkled. She gave him a playful, bloody grin and a wink.

  Dr. Carandini gasped and looked to see if anyone else had noticed, but he was the only witness. As she was dragged away, and the sounds of her giggling echoed in the halls, the doctor scrambled to retrieve the clipboard and fountain pen from amidst the chaos of the office floor.

  Approval by Practicing Psychiatric Physician for Admittance to Bedlam Asylum:

  He pressed his shaking hand to the page and signed "Carandini" below the other two signatures on the admittance page, leaving behind his bloody palm print for the record keeper's files.

  CHAPTER 2

  The bleak, gray sky stretched outward without end, so dense that not a single ray of light could penetrate the dull layers of cold and gloom. Where the clouds ended and the fog began was indiscernible. Nellie Bly sat on the wooden bench with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She would have liked to be able to rub her upper arms briskly to bring a scant bit of warmth to her chilled skin, but the handcuffs and trailing metal chain that secured her to the bench would not allow her hands to be farther than six inches apart.

  Her editor at the Tribune had instructed her thusly:

  "We do not ask you to go there for the purpose of making sensational revelations. Write up things as you find them, good or bad; give praise or blame as you think best, and as always, the truth all the time.”

  Before she left her desk at the Tribune, she had begun her exposé thusly.

  It hadn’t been an easy choice to make. Nellie Bly did not go undercover for every sensational story that an editor could dream up. In fact, I had initially had my reservations about embedding myself in such a place. But once I began to dig into the reasons behind the average admittance into Bedlam, the reason, quite often, did not have anything to do with a woman found to have mental instability. In fact, more often than not, Bedlam Asylum certainly seemed to be a dumping ground for women who were aged or homeless…their worst offense was being without means. Other offending admittances included upper-crust scoundrels who no longer wished to be married yet found divorce to be too messy and generally unaccepted by society at large. Once admitted to these so-called hospitals, the patients were often never to be seen or heard from again. Were they properly fed and clothed? Were they given a proper evaluation and treatment? Not only did I want to find the answers to these questions, I needed to know. Everyone needed to know. We are still looked down upon in the workforce. Our hard-earned wages have always been significantly lower than that of our male counterparts, regardless of our experience or knowledge. Women are expected to be satisfied in the realm of the home maker and nothing more. It sickens me that, to this day, men will not look beyond those meager boundaries. We have only just gained the right to vote and by God, there are many more battles ahead. This is why I must do this. Knowledge that is sought and kept selfishly but not shared eventually becomes nothing more than lost words and ideas. I seek to share all that I find in order to enlighten and thereby change the world. So that we, as women, will stand by each other. This exposé will r
eveal the truth, no matter how horrid, for I am in pursuit of only one result. Revolution.

  Nellie made a mental note to begin her future and inevitable Pulitzer-prize winning editorial with the fact that, while one of the doctors had given her three quick stitches to staunch the flow of blood from her forehead, the orderlies who had escorted her away did not bother to cover her blood-stained dress with even a meager wrap to keep her from catching her death. Or perhaps, she might let that detail pass, as, with a smile, she surmised that they might not have wanted to remain within her proximity any longer than absolutely necessary. She listened to the rhythmic sloshing of the water against the creaking pier beneath her feet and shivered involuntarily, the damp chill air penetrating the thin, worn cloth of her dress. Nellie closed her eyes and began to compose a fresh sentence regarding her successful infiltration into the infamous Bedlam Asylum.

  It surprised me how easy it was to convince the doctors and authorities that I was fit for the insane asylum that I was to be shipped off to.

  Her concentration was broken by the sound of the orderlies placing another person on the end of the bench. Glancing over, Nellie discovered that she would not be the only young patient to pass through the asylum doors today. There, on the opposite end of the bench, sat a frail, doe-eyed girl. The orderly attached her handcuffs to the bench and, with a solid tug on the chain, assured that her tethering was sound.

  Nellie scowled. The inmates on the bench opposite her made sense. One wore an unusually large bonnet and muttered to herself, her weathered hands worrying at her tattered skirts. To that woman’s side, and out of her reach, sat an older, thicker woman with a dress fashioned from bed ticking. Her silver hair stood on end and her continuous rocking back and forth was punctuated by occasional twitching. But the girl to Nellie’s right did not at all fit into the story. She sat quietly, in a simple blue and white checked dress, with her hands resting in her lap. Someone had combed and parted her hair into two perfect braids and tied them with two perfect bows. From her rosy cheeks and pink full lips, down to her spotless, white ankle socks, this girl no more belonged in a mental institution than a mouse belonged in an alley full of cats. How could her parents do this to her? They must be monsters of some sort. Or perhaps insane themselves.

  The waif struggled to smile at Nellie, but her red-rimmed, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks only served to make Nellie’s heart even heavier. Nellie knew straightaway that she had another assignment: she must protect this vulnerable girl against the horrors they would both face very soon. Filled with furious resolve, Nellie would not abandon this girl the way the world clearly had. Nellie turned just enough to ensure that the orderlies and the head nurse would, upon looking over to the patients, see only the back of her head.

  “Hello!” she whispered. The girl looked up at Nellie, her head tilted. “Can you hear me?” She nodded. “I’m Nellie. Nellie Bly.”

  The girl glanced over her shoulder. Nellie followed her gaze to the armed policemen who were deep in conversation with a woman in a black dress, white apron and cap. Her form was imposing, due not only to her unusual height and larger than average physique, but also to the thick, brown, leather belt slung about her waist. It was adorned with large, metallic, hypodermic syringes undoubtedly filled with sedatives designed to render unruly inmates immediately unconscious. Even armed with this formidable arsenal of chemicals, Nellie noted, this woman could most likely hold any offending patient in an arm-bar on her own, if needed, sedated or not.

  “My uncle said we should all behave. And then we can get well,” the girl murmured, still watching the nurse.

  “What did they send you for?”

  “I can see things. Things that — that hurt.” She looked down into her lap again. A tear splashed onto her folded hands.

  A powerful horn blast resonated throughout the dock, causing each person, standing or sitting, to jump. All except the head nurse, who motioned the policemen toward the patients anchored to their benches. The thick fog on the water formed tendrils that twisted and curled as though something monstrous was pushing through to make its way onto the pier to consume them all in its infinite cloak of gray.

  It was not long after the echoes of the horn were lost to the sea that the shape of a dilapidated ferry became visible through the wall of thick, gray fog that lay along the outer harbor. The portly policeman with the bushy, brown mustache unlocked the girl’s tethering chain and took her by the elbow.

  “Get a move on, gussie. We ain’t got all day.” He yanked the youth from the bench, twisting her elbow sharply.

  “Oh!” she cried out, wincing.

  Nellie attempted to stand but instead was brought up short by her retaining chain and handcuffs. “Stop it! She’s just a child! Can’t you see you’re hurting her?”

  He caught the brunt of Nellie’s fierce glare and his grip on the girl’s arm loosened.

  The other policemen appeared at Nellie’s side and roughly secured her arms.

  “Hey!” she yanked her arm out of the grip of the officer. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  The head nurse caught Nellie’s attention, as she appeared behind the policemen, holding aloft a syringe. She held Nellie’s glare with steely, gray eyes and simply raised an eyebrow.

  Nellie swallowed her fury, let her arms go slack in the grip of the policemen, and sat back down to stare silently out into nothingness. With a satisfied “humph,” the head nurse returned the syringe to her belt.

  Each patient walked, single-file, onto the banged-up, old ferry and into the dim cabin which stank of sweat and sick. A creaky, hard, wooden, bench lined the room, offering its patrons little more comfort than they would feel standing. The view out the dirty windows could hardly be described as such, with nothing but the dismal fog ahead.

  The girl sat next to the mustachioed officer, and Nellie, next to her. Nellie and the girl looked out the open doorway to the dock and the swirling, dark water below. As the ferry began to move, and the pier slipped slowly away, the fog crept in on all sides to swallow the last glimpses of land.

  Nellie suddenly had the oddest sensation of needing to flee before the dock disappeared completely. If she could quit these restraints, she would dash to the ferry’s edge and leap, feet first, into the icy, dark water and then … then what? Sink into the depths of this River Styx, struggling helplessly, as the water’s surface closed over her head, the strength to fight sapped from her arms and legs, and watch the darkness above her fade to black.

  No, there was no turning back now. The journey to Bedlam Asylum had begun.

  Nellie watched the fog swallow the dock whole.

  CHAPTER 3

  The only sound to compete with the low hum of the engine was the whispering rush of water against the sides of the decrepit ferry. Nellie inwardly composed the next paragraph of her exposé.

  We were to be shipped off to Bedlam Asylum — some say the most infamous, highly-guarded asylum of our time. With a dismissal record of rehabilitation, most of Bedlam’s patients never returned to society. Bedlam became known as a place not only where souls go to rest. But instead, where spirits go to die.

  Nellie was pulled abruptly from her thoughts by the sound of retching. On the seat next to her, her acquaintance in braids hunched over a bucket, loud and miserable from the motion. “Never been on a boat before?” Nellie whispered. The girl, now pale, looked sadly up to Nellie.

  “Not really. We don’t have a lot of them in Kansas.”

  Nellie placed her hand warmly on the girl’s back. “Kansas? You’re a long way from home.”

  Next to her, the mustachioed officer slumped against the wall with his arms folded. He breathed deeply, emitting the occasional soft snore. Across the cabin and next to the other new inmates sat the head nurse. She licked her thumb and turned the page of her newspaper.

  “Not supposed to be here. They won’t listen to me,” the bonneted woman muttered, plucking unendingly at her skirt. The other woman continued, on th
e other side of the nurse, with her rocking and twitching, seemingly oblivious to her change of venue.

  “What’s your name, dear?” Nellie continued.

  “Folks call me Dorothy.” The queasy girl sat up and leaned on Nellie’s shoulder. An officer leaned across the snoring policeman next to Dorothy to hand them a tin cup with fresh, cold water. Nellie took the cup and held it out for Dorothy, but with one look into the cup, Dorothy lurched forward to return to the inner confines of the bucket.

  Nellie dipped her fingers into the water and splashed it soothingly on Dorothy’s neck and face. Dorothy turned to express her thanks, but her eye fell instead on the odd, dark-red spots that trailed down the front of Nellie’s threadbare dress. She sat up weakly and leaned on one arm to point at Nellie’s dress. “Nellie, is that — is that blood?”

  Nellie nodded. She studied the girl’s pale face and large brown eyes.

  “You — you didn’t hurt someone, did you?” she blinked to clear her long, wet eyelashes.

  “Mostly myself.” Nellie brought her handcuffs up as close to her head as her restraints would allow and pointed to the stiches above her eyebrow. “I had a bit of an accident.”

  “Oh,” Dorothy nodded. “Is that why you’re … well, here?”

  Nellie nodded. “Sometimes I don’t know where I am or how I got there. It comes and goes.”

  “I see.” Dorothy looked down into her lap. “Uncle Henry was really angry at me when the barn caught fire.”

  “A fire? Was everyone alright?”

  “Yes. I told him it wasn’t me. The Scarecrow did it. But he wouldn’t listen. Nobody ever does.” Dorothy stared at the floor.

  “The Scarecrow did it?” Nellie followed Dorothy’s intent gaze down to her shoes. Dorothy wore dazzling silver slippers, like nothing Nellie had ever seen before. In some places, the shoes were dull and streaked with red, while in other places they sparkled defiantly.