The Shuttered Ward

by Jennifer Rose McMahon

  “Do you believe he had no memory of it?” Braden asked. “Or do you think he was faking?”

  “I guess we’ll never know,” Tom replied. “The effects of psychological trauma can cause the brain to react in different ways. Memories can lapse in the mind, causing someone to wonder if they were real or only a dream.” He moved down the corridor while telling his story. “His therapist thought he’d made a breakthrough when the boy started speaking of a past life. He claimed he was abused and neglected in his prior lifetime and that in his new one, he had a clean slate.” He shook his head. “The therapist believed he was perhaps trying to shift blame of his criminal actions onto someone else. Taking responsibility was too much for his mind to handle.”

  I listened to his story as best I could, while trying to make sense of what I had experienced outside by the hanging tree. It was too much information, and I desperately needed to process with Kaitlin. I slowed my pace so she and I could drop back slightly.

  Tom’s voice continued to bounce through the empty corridor, telling more of the boy from Ward B. Something about hidden tunnels beneath the wards and cavorting with the female patients. As the guys moved farther along the length of the hallway, their movement caused swirls of dust to waft through beams of light that broke through the open doors on either side.

  “Did they ever let him out?” Braden asked.

  “No one’s entirely sure,” Tom said. “Some say he killed himself for lost love. But most stories say he was used for psychological studies on brain function. They say he claimed his mind had been opened by the treatments, allowing experiences from the past to come through. Like events from before he was even born.”

  “His past life?” Nick blurted out.

  “Actually, yes.” Tom led them to the end of the corridor. “The clinical trials were to blame for his delusions. But the kid always claimed his soul carried prior life experiences, like he was reincarnated. His experimental treatments were never marked as illegal, but in hindsight, you have to wonder what they ultimately did to him. It was brain damage, really.”

  Braden and Nick soaked in every word and asked more questions, but I stopped in my tracks, hearing my own version of Tom’s story.

  My head injury wasn’t so different from what that boy might have experienced. My doctors called it acquired savant syndrome—a rewiring of the brain that would allow for new abilities—my new sixth sense. Kaitlin’s, too. It was like a window had been opened into the past, allowing information through, like flashbacks or deja vu. Just like that boy had said. But of course, he was a psychotic mess. Probably a murderer. I still couldn’t help but see similarities in his thinking, though.

  I stared through the crack in one of the doors along the side, lost in my own train of thought. I hadn’t even registered what my eyes were seeing within the closed off room, when Nick’s voice blasted through my skull.

  “Holy shit! Is that where they did the lobotomies?” he called out.

  Nick’s voice caused my eyes to focus in on what I was actually seeing. The door inside the research lab was cracked open just enough for the natural light to come through into hall, and I gazed into an examination room of horrors.

  A silver-slab table was screwed to the floor in the middle of the room. Shredded straps hung from the sides. Rusted buckles stained the tiled floor, and old-fashioned machines sat on metal tables at the edges of the room. Round glass dials and gauges covered the antiquated meters, and red and black wires entangled the machines like cobwebs.

  I stepped back and bumped into Kaitlin. She was leaning in for a better look as well when Tom’s voice stole our attention.

  “They would use pick-like probes in the orbital socket and scrape away at the brain,” he explained. “This was all done well before ultrasound, so they had no guidance or accuracy at all. The patients would complain of headache afterward and were recommended to wear sunglasses as their remedy.” He looked back down the hall at us. “They were moved to the Quiet Ward soon after.”

  I glanced back into the room, imagining what it would be like to be restrained to the cold metal table watching a probe coming straight at you. Terrifying. Violating.

  I grabbed hold of Kaitlin and leaned on her. My mind swam with disturbing thoughts, and I recalled Braden’s words from earlier. He said his research had disclosed ‘deeply disturbing’ information. His words barely touched the truth.

  Tom hovered at the end of the echoing corridor while explaining hydrotherapy and a woman who died after being forgotten in the water. Some say she was boiled to death while others claim she died of hypothermia. Either way, I’d heard enough.

  “Kaitlin, I can’t stand being in here.” I held her arm for support. “It has a horrible negative energy. Not like the ward. It has its own terrible feeling.”

  “I agree,” she said. “This place is a house of horrors and we’re walking straight through it.” She gazed up the walls at the peeling paint and brown water stain streaks. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I nodded, cutting my gaze to the end of the hall. The guys were gone. All of them.

  “Braden,” I called. “Nick. Tom?”

  There was no answer.

  “Shit. Braden!” I yelled louder. “Maybe they took the stairs.”

  We hurried to the end of the corridor and looked into the stairwell. It went down into pitch darkness and up into a narrow space of anti-suicide cages. Even in this place, patients would make a break for it. ‘Acts of volition,’ Tom had called them earlier. He said it was when a patient suddenly behaved in an unexpected manner, like throwing themselves down a stairwell, several stories high. Orderlies were instructed to always keep the patients in front of them—to never let them out of their sight.

  Death was better than enduring violating treatments without consent, though. I didn’t judge the choice, even for a second.

  I hollered up the shaft. “Braden! Nick!” No answer.

  “What the fuck?” Kaitlin said.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, listening with every ounce of my being. “I can’t hear them. And there’s no way I’m going up there. And definitely not down there.”

  “Same,” Kaitlin agreed. “Let’s just get out of here. I need the freedom of the outdoors right now. Like, right now.”

  Without hesitation, we turned and hurried along the corridor toward the door where we’d entered. Passing the room with the metal table, I kept my eyes forward, avoiding looking into its horrors again.

  Turning back, with my hand on the door to our exit, I called one more time. “Braden!” And then burst out onto the cement stairs that crunched with loose gravel beneath my feet.

  “Where the hell did they go?” Kaitlin panted, sucking in fresh air.

  “They’re just following their noses, lost in the intrigue of lobotomies,” I said with a snide tone.

  I was beyond pissed off. They should never have lost sight of us. I thought back to our first visit when Kaitlin and I snuck out of the dining hall, causing them to panic. Hadn’t they learned their lesson then?

  My eyes trailed up the brick exterior of the chapel in front of us and landed on the clock face. Its faded, peeling facade yearned for the days when it proudly displayed the time.

  Then my attention turned behind us, toward the women’s wards. I stared at the Excited Ward, narrowed my eyes to see more clearly.

  A gasp escaped my lips as I grabbed onto Kaitlin. I stared at the front of the ward at a shadow that ran along the edge of the board at the entryway door.

  It appeared to be slightly open.

  Chapter 19

  I squeezed Kaitlin’s arm for a reality check as I stared at the front of the Excited Ward. An ominous shadow ran along the boarded-up entryway, making it look like it was open a small bit.

  “Do you see that?” I pointed to the ward. “Is the door open?”

  Kaitlin’s body stiffened. “Maybe,” she whispered, peering across the way.

  I pulled on her as my feet carried me in a direct lin
e toward the luring ward. My breath increased in speed as my pace accelerated. Nearly panting, my panic rose with every sharp inhale.

  We crossed the crumbled road between the chapel and the women’s wards, then stopped right in front of the Excited Ward. Staring at the entryway door, our shoulders slumped as heavy weight pushed down on us. Pressure grew in my neck, and I struggled to draw a full breath. Before we hit the familiar frozen state of shock, I grabbed onto Kaitlin and pulled her along the walkway up to the broken concrete stairs.

  We jumped to the top stoop and inspected the boarding around the door. The edge rattled loosely when I pushed on it and I wrapped my fingers behind it. With little effort, I pulled the board away from the entryway, exposing the massive wooden door behind it. I turned to Kaitlin with wide eyes, and she nodded for me to continue.

  I held my breath, certain the board had been screwed on tight last time I tugged on it. Braden had to practically pry my fingers off it when he carried me away from the ward the day before. But now, the board fell away, exposing the original door to the Excited Ward. The one used when patients were first admitted, sending a false sense of regal welcome to the families who were abandoning them there.

  I reached for the tarnished brass knob on the solid door and turned it. The bolt within clunked and squeaked against its metal housing. Keeping the knob in my hand, I pushed my body weight against the door, and it moved an inch. The wood seemed to have swelled and was wedged into place firmly. With another heavier shove, I heard the wood creak. The door finally burst open.

  The sound of its rusted hinges squealed through the dark foyer, and we turned back to be sure no one saw us entering. Golden light of the setting sun shot vivid beams through tree branches, creating an over-charged feel to the grounds of the asylum. Still seeing no sign of the guys, we stepped into the ward and pushed the door shut behind us, leaving as little evidence as possible that we had entered the condemned building.

  Thick must choked me at first, and I rubbed its itch from my eyes. Kaitlin cleared her throat, the sound reverberating through the halls.

  “They make it look like a comfortable home from this perspective,” Kaitlin commented. “The true horrors are hidden at the far side so no visitors would ever know the truth.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. The false disguise would put families at ease or helped to get the new arrivals to enter farther within before understanding their grave mistake. And then, it would be too late to turn back.

  “Where should we go?” Kaitlin stepped around the rubble piles and rotting, broken furniture.

  “Up,” I said, glancing toward the decorative stairway at the back of the entryway. “To the patient rooms. Where we saw Emma.”

  “Shit. I knew you were going to say that.” Kaitlin stepped behind me, ready to follow.

  “She contacted my father in some way, Kaitlin,” I began, as we headed up the creaky stairs. “Like, she was in his head, too. But I think she was ultimately trying to reach me.” I thought of Tom’s recollection of my dad and all the parts of the story added up.

  I whispered the details of what Tom told me by the hanging tree—the part where my dad repeated Emma’s name by the same tree he hung himself by, and Kaitlin’s pace slowed behind me.

  “I don’t want to go any farther,” she whispered, barely making a sound. “I’m scared, Grace.”

  We’d already reached the top of the stairs and moved down a decrepit hallway, leading to the cold, institutional section of the ward. Kaitlin stopped moving and turned back.

  “Come on, Grace. I want to get out of here. Please.” Her voice shook, sending fear through my veins.

  “Don’t get freaked out, Kaitlin.” I fought the fear that threatened to make me follow her. “We just need to see a little more of this place. This one last time.”

  She glanced down a long corridor similar to the ones we’d been in the day before.

  “No.” She turned and moved back in the direction we’d come from. “I have to get out of here.” Her tone left no room for negotiating, and her firm steps turned into a jog.

  I jumped and caught up to her, glancing back over my shoulder at the lost opportunity for exploration, and maybe even answers.

  “Damn it, Kaitlin,” I said through clenched teeth.

  Then she stopped. Looking left, then right, she hesitated on which way to go.

  “How do we get out of here?” she barked.

  Ignoring her bulging eyes and shallow breathing, I stepped past her to move toward the stairs that led us up here. But the area only opened up into another long corridor. I turned in the opposite direction only to find another endless hallway of debris and peeling paint.

  “We must have got turned around somehow.” I glanced behind us for any evidence of the wooden railing or archway that led to the stairs to the foyer. But nothing.

  “There!’ Kaitlin pointed to an opening lined with elaborate wooden molding. “That must be it!” She grabbed my arm, and we hurried toward the passage.

  As soon as we reached it, we saw inner boards that sealed the access, and a chipped sign nailed to the blockade.

  It read:

  Not an Exit

  “Shit!” I annunciated every letter of the word.

  We turned and jogged through the decaying corridor toward the other end of the ward.

  “The caged stairwell with the spray paint must be at this side.” Kaitlin bent over, breathing hard. “We can get to the first floor that way.”

  Our running steps echoed through the hall as we dashed for the way out. Passing door after door, we kept our focus on reaching the stairwell. As we approached, I saw the edge of the anti-suicide caging that filled the stairwell, and relief at its familiarity calmed my rising panic.

  Just as we approached the stairwell, we were blocked by more solid boards covering the entire passageway. And another rusted, bent sign filled the middle of the boards and read:

  Not an Exit

  Kaitlin spun around and grabbed my shoulders. She shook me as if it were my fault we were trapped. Her eyes were wild with terror, and I pushed her arms off me.

  “Kaitlin! Stop,” I shouted into her face. “Collect yourself and breathe!” I held her eyes with mine until she released her held breath and her shoulders dropped from her ears. “That’s better. It won’t help us to panic right now. We just need to retrace our steps or find a familiar wing in this place.”

  Kaitlin focused on inhaling and exhaling as I looked back in the direction we came from. The other end of the long hallway was our only chance.

  “Let’s move,” I commanded, and she followed.

  We trekked past the moldy walls and over the piles of trash. Damp, rotting books sat on mounds of squashed brown boxes and bits of old metal shelving. Broken lights hung from unraveling cords in the ceiling, and it felt like the building could collapse on us at any moment.

  “I see another stairwell.” My voice lifted rejoicefully.

  We slowed as we approached the stairs, anxious on what we might find, and my air whooshed from me as I gazed at more boards across the stairs leading down. But a board had fallen away from the stairs leading up, giving us an unexpected opportunity at escape.

  “I don’t want to go deeper into the ward,” Kaitlin whined. “I just want to get out.”

  “I know, but this looks like our only way out of this part of the building,” I said. “We can find another stairway or exit from the upper floor.”

  We pushed past the fallen boards to enter the caged stairwell. Each step upward created tighter anxiety in my throat and chest. I didn’t want to go any farther anymore either. But we had no choice.

  We climbed to the next floor, then inspected the metal door that led to the new wing. A faded-yellow window allowed us to see a long stretch of narrow doors inside, along the hallway. They had small cross-shaped windows on them. It looked like the corridor where we’d seen Emma’s image.

  “I think that’s where we were yesterday,” I whispered. “Where we saw Emm
a.” I put my hand on the door and tried to open it.

  Kaitlin swiped at my arm to stop me. “No! I don’t want to go in there.” She looked up the stairs behind us. “I want to go higher.”

  I thought about the exterior of the building. It didn’t have that many floors.

  “I don’t think it goes higher,” I said.

  “Well, it does.” She pointed to the stairs leading up to a confined space with a dark, simple door.

  “That must be the attic,” I murmured. “There’ll be no way out of there.”

  But that didn’t stop her. She was on the stairs and climbing before I could convince her otherwise. After she raced to the top, she pushed on the door with all her weight. It flew open without resistance and she fell inside.

  “Slow down, Kaitlin,” I yelled, twisting to see behind me to be sure there was no one, or nothing, following us. “You’re moving too fast.” And I caught up in three jumps, taking two stairs at a time.

  The ceiling angled down on both sides, making it impossible to stand anywhere except in the middle of the area. Streams of light crossed each other in every direction, dizzying the effects of the antiques in the space. An old Singer sewing machine and a creepy rocking chair with a shredded seat cushion reigned proudly over the other objects.

  Kaitlin stumbled through the junk as if she were lost, struggling to find something she knew. She went straight for a large pile of clothing and fell onto it. Pulling at each garment, she inspected them, all the same, and dug through the pile like there might be something hidden within it.

  “What are you doing?” I called to her. “There’s no other way out of here.” I scoured every corner with my eyes for another exit.

  “They’re frocks,” she said. “The frocks the girls had to wear. They’re just like the one Emma had on.” Tears filled her eyes as she continued to pull the simple dresses out of the abandoned pile, as if each one was an old friend.

  She took one in particular and shook it out. Standing up, she held it against her body and looked down at it. “See, this one with an ‘M’ embroidered on it, a perfect match. For the girl who’s lost her mind.”