Asylum

by Amy Cross

  I check the next page in my notebook and, sure enough, there's an individual named Jeremiah Lavelli listed in the tech department.

  "I fix the shit-boxes," Jerry says. "That's what I do."

  I smile. I've never heard of a computer being referred to as a shit-box before. "Busy work?" I ask.

  "Run off my fucking feet," he says. "I also do tech support for the intranet and all the computers. This place is fucking falling apart, there's a new fuck-up every day."

  "So you're focused solely on the tech side of things?"

  "That's me," he says. "Jerry the tech guy."

  "And yet you're wearing a medical coat, as if you're a doctor."

  He pauses, looking a little uncomfortable. "It's just a coat," he says. "I needed a coat. It's cold down here. They've got tons of these things sitting around."

  "Makes sense," I say. "So I guess you spend a lot of time down here?"

  "A fair bit," he says, and it's clear that his attitude has changed a little. He seems more cautious and withdrawn than before. "Basically just these three rooms."

  "You don't go into the other parts of the basement?" I ask.

  "Fuck no," he says. "You never know what's in there. Most of the rooms haven't got any lights. I mean, I never really seriously thought there were dead bodies down here, but I wondered about stuff like asbestos, you know? And big fuck-off giant rats with plague and stuff like that. Rusty nails. It's not the kind of place you want to go wandering about in." He pauses. "I'll tell you something else. It's like a labyrinth in there. With the lights off, a guy could totally get lost in there and never find his way out. There's probably a fucking minotaur somewhere down here."

  I look over at the dark doorway that leads off into the next room. "Do you think that could have happened?" I ask.

  "What?" he asks.

  "Maybe someone got lost," I say. "Maybe they just couldn't find their way out and died."

  "Gotta be possible," Jerry says. "Gotta be." He flicks a few switches on a machine next to the computers. "This is working now," he says. "Fucking piece of junk." He turns to me. "You got any more questions? It's just that I need to go and fix more of these things all through the building."

  "That's fine," I say. "I might need to talk to you later, but we can catch up whenever you get a chance."

  "Cool," says Jerry, turning and heading toward the elevator.

  "Just let me get one thing straight," I say. "You don't work on the patients at all, is that right?"

  "Like I said before," he says, turning back to me, "my patients are of the mechanical variety. Machines. Computers. The doctors and nurses upstairs, they work on the flesh patients. The people." He pauses. "I don't consider myself to be any less important or useful than them."

  "That's an interesting way of looking at it," I say.

  "Yeah," he continues. "I mean, the way a computer's made isn't that different to the way a human's made. You've got your wires in a computer, and your veins and arteries in a person. We make computers in our image. The CPU's the brain. Stuff like that. I'm not being weird, but a human's just a computer made out of flesh and blood, and a computer's just a human made out of wires." He pauses. "You think I'm nuts, right?"

  "No," I say, which is a lie. Well, maybe a part-lie. Jerry's certainly eccentric, but I guess that doesn't necessarily make him nuts.

  "I promise I'm a member of staff," he says, smiling. "I'm not some patient who found a white coat and wandered down here to play with the wires."

  I look down at the wires that Jerry's working with. "I guess the only difference is that your patients don't scream when you make a mistake," I say.

  "You think?" Jerry replies, staring at me.

  "Whatever," I say. "I'll see you around."

  "Cheers," he says, heading out of the room.

  I wander over and take a closer look at the chair. It's an old wooden contraption, fitted out with lots of wires and sensors, and there are plenty of leather straps that are presumably used to tie patients down. The wires run to the computers, which in turn are hooked up to some older-looking equipment. My medical knowledge is pretty much zero, so I've got no idea what's actually going on down here. Despite my curiosity, I guess this is highly unlikely to be anything to do with the dead body, so I'd better put my curiosity on the backburner while I go and check out the parts of the basement that might actually be relevant.

  The next room is bare and empty, as is the next. Checking the map, I decide to head over to the room where the dead body was found. It takes me a while to get there, partly because some of the rooms don't have lights and I have to use the torch function on my phone. It seems like there's loads of junk down here, just left scattered about the rooms, and finally I get to the room far off at one corner of the building where the engineer discovered the body. The actual corpse was removed hours ago, but a chalk outline has been left to show where it was found.

  I check the room thoroughly, but there's nothing here. Maybe Jerry was right when he was that a person could become lost and disoriented down here. I've heard of people getting lost in sewers and tunnels, and their bodies being found many years later. The Odessa Catacombs in Ukraine, for example, claim scores of lives every year as people become lost and can't be found in time. The basement of a psychiatric hospital isn't on quite the same scale, of course, but isn't it possible that some poor soul wandered down into this basement, got lost, and eventually just died of dehydration? There doesn't have to be a sinister explanation for what happened. With so many of the rooms having no lights, I can see how a person could become confused, especially if they had a pre-existing mental or emotional problem. It's like a maze down here.

  The mystery, though, is why no-one noticed that someone had vanished.

  Fortunately I've got a map, so I can quickly check the best route back to the elevator. I decide to take a detour to check out the area directly below Annie Radford's room. It takes a while to find the right spot, and the lights aren't working in this part of the basement so I have to move carefully and slowly until I finally find the right room. I shine my phone up to the ceiling and immediately see that there's some kind of mark in the wood. Looking closer, I see that it appears to be a set of scratch marks. Annie said earlier that it sounded like insects were trying to scratch their way through the floor, though I'm not sure how big an insect would have to be to cause this kind of damage. Checking the rest of the ceiling, I find more and more of these marks. I shine my phone all over the ceiling and realize that whatever's caused the marks, it's been pretty persistent. Stepping back to get a better look, I suddenly feel something against my foot and I shine my phone down to see -

  I stare in shocked silence.

  Another body. I shine my phone straight in the face and see that, like the first body, this one is husk-like, as if it's been mummified. Just as I'm reminding myself not to freak out, I happen to spot something else next to the body, and I shine my phone across and see another corpse. With a feeling of dread starting to spread throughout my body, I turn and shine the phone's light around the room. There are half a dozen of these mummified bodies in here, propped up against the walls. Stepping back towards the door, I trip on one of the bodies and fall to the ground, dropping my phone.

  The light goes off.

  Nurse Winter

  1999

  "Can I see him?" Julia asks as I scrub her down ready for the operation.

  "Who?" I ask, deliberately pretending that I don't know exactly what she's talking about. Julia asks to see her child every single day, and every single day we're forced to turn down her request.

  "Why can't I see him?" she asks, looking up at me. She looks so strange now that her head has been shaved. "I just want to see him. I don't even have to touch him. Just see him. I'm his mother, you know. Please, I just want to see him."

  "Sorry," I say, running the sponge over her back. "That's not possible today."

  "How is he?" she asks. "Is he okay? Does he drink the milk I give him? Does he cry?"


  "I'm sure he's fine," I reply. These are the standard responses we've been told to give her. Under no circumstances is Julia allowed to know anything about her son. Hospital policy.

  "What's his name?" she asks. "Why won't you ever tell me his name?"

  "I'm not sure," I reply. It's a lie. We all know his name, but a decision has been made to withhold it from Julia in order to ensure that she doesn't create an emotional bond with the child. "I'll ask for you."

  "You always say that," she replies, looking at me with venom in her eyes. "You never ask."

  "I'll do my best," I say, grabbing the shower-head and rinsing Julia down.

  "The water's too cold," she mutters.

  "We're done now," I say, turning off the water and grabbing a towel. "Come on, let's get you ready."

  She stands up and lets me dry her naked body. "Ready for what?" she asks.

  I pause. I can't possibly tell her the truth about what's going to happen to her. To be honest, although Dr. Campbell and the others insist that the procedure is likely to be safe, I can't help thinking that the chances of Julia still being alive tomorrow are slim. My job is to get her ready as best I can, and hope that she survives. I just have to remember that this isn't murder; it's science.

  "Ready for what?" she asks again.

  "You're going to have a small operation," I say. "Just a small one. Just -"

  The door opens and two male guards enter, pulling a trolley. Julia immediately puts her hands over her crotch and breasts.

  "Do you mind?" I ask, annoyed at the way the men just barged in. "We're not ready yet."

  "Dr. Campbell's orders," says one of the guards, Eddie. "He says it's time."

  "We're not ready," I insist.

  "Shouldn't have taken so long, then," Eddie replies, turning to Julia. "Clothes on, sweetheart."

  I grab Julia's hospital gown and help her into it, trying to shield her naked body from the guards as best I can. Eventually she's ready and I help her onto the trolley. It's hard not to notice the panicked, terrified look in her eyes, but Julia has been here long enough to know that fighting never works. Fighting just gets you hurt. The only thing to do is to hope and pray that whatever's going to happen, it won't be too awful.

  "This is different," she says, staring up at me as Eddie fastens the leather straps to keep her tied down.

  "What is?" I ask.

  "This isn't like normal," she continues. "What are you going to do to me?"

  "It's just a small operation," I say, trying to hide the fact that I think this is all wrong. "Nothing to be worried about."

  Eddie chuckles.

  "Okay," she says. "Thank you."

  The guards turn the trolley and wheel her out of the room. I follow, and when we get to the operating theater I head into a side-room to get ready. The others are already in there, and I scrub up quickly. As I step through into the sterile room, Julia is being positioned under the lights.

  "This should take about three hours," Dr. Campbell says to the rest of us. "Before we start, I want to make sure that everyone in this room understands the nature of the procedure. Anyone who doesn't want to take part, is free to leave."

  There's silence for a moment. I look down at Julia; her eyes are darting about the room as she tries to understand what's happening.

  "Okay," Dr. Campbell says. "Let's begin."

  The anesthesiologist injects Julia with a serum designed to prevent her from registering pain. Unfortunately, the nature of the operation means that she must remain awake and alert for the duration, but at least she won't feel too much. I grab an adhesive patch from the trolley and remove the back, before turning to Julia. I want to tell her that everything will be okay, but I don't think I'm a good enough liar. Instead, I lean in and place the patch over her mouth, so that she can't speak and interrupt. I can see from the look in her eyes that she's terrified.

  "It's going to be okay," I whisper.

  She stares wide-eyed at me.

  "Saw," Dr. Campbell says, and I grab the electric saw and pass it to him.

  "Maybe we could block her ears?" I suggest.

  "No need," Dr. Campbell replies.

  Carefully avoiding making eye contact with Julia, I watch as the saw is switched on and starts slicing through the skin and bone of her skull. The noise of the blade against bone is penetrating and piercing, and eventually I make the mistake of glancing down at Julia's face. She's staring straight ahead. It's quite obvious that she understands what we're doing to her, but there's nothing she can do to stop it. She can't feel pain, but she'll be able to feel the sensation of the saw as it grinds against her skull.

  "Okay," Dr. Campbell says, switching the saw off and handing it to me. I watch as he slowly puts his hands around Julia's head and, with great care, lifts the top of her skull up to expose her brain. "Beautiful," he says, passing the section of skull to another surgeon, who places it in a tray. After a moment, I realize that the tray is in Julia's line of sight, and I quickly move it, but it's too late. Looking down at her face, I can see that she recognizes what's happening; she saw the top of her own head, and her eyes are filled with terror.

  "Bring the cortex extender over," Dr. Campbell says, and Dr. Sospiri fetches a long tube. It's this tube that is the focus of the experiment. "Okay," Dr. Campbell continues, "now I need to impress upon everybody the importance of timing here. We have a limited window in which to get this procedure completed. No mistakes. No fuck-ups. Swift. Efficient. Effective. Is that clear?"

  I look down at Julia's face. The fear in her eyes is indescribable, but still she doesn't struggle.

  "On three," Dr. Campbell says. "One. Two. Three."

  Everything happens in a blur. Dr. Campbell lifts Julia's brain up and Dr. Sospiri reaches in, severing the brain stem. Julia's eyes stare straight ahead as her brain is held up and the cortex extender is quickly lowered into her skull. Dr. Sospiri spends a few seconds attaching it before he pulls up the hose attachment from the tube. By this point, Dr. Campbell has placed the brain in a special canopy, about a meter above Julia's exposed head. Finally, Dr. Sospiri attached the other end of the cortex extender to the underside of the brain, and there's a moment of stillness as everyone waits to see whether the procedure has worked.

  "Let's see," Dr. Campbell says, walking around so that he can face Julia directly. "Julia, can you hear me?"

  Julia stares straight ahead. By rights, she should be dead, but the cortex extender - at least in theory - allows her brain to remain attached to her body despite having been removed.

  "Lose the tape," Dr. Campbell says. I step forward and carefully pull the patch from over her mouth. "Julia," Dr. Campbell continues, "can you hear me? If you can hear me, I want you to say something. Anything."

  Nothing. She just stares ahead.

  "Vital signs are stable," Dr. Sospiri says as he checks the monitor.

  "Julia," Dr. Campbell continues. "It's very important that you give me some sign that you can hear me." His voice betrays a little impatience. The experiment is starting to slip away from him. If Julia doesn't respond, all this work will have been in vain.

  "She should be able to speak," Dr. Sospiri says, his eyes glued to the monitor. There's clear frustration in his voice. "There's no reason she shouldn't be responding to you."

  "Julia," Dr. Campbell says again, his voice firm and authoritative. "I want you to say your name. Say it now."

  Nothing.

  "Fuck," he says, walking over to Dr. Sospiri. "What's gone wrong?"

  As they study the screen, I notice a flicker in Julia's eyes. I smile, and she looks directly at me.

  "Are you okay?" I ask quietly.

  "I don't know," she replies.

  Everyone looks over.

  "Does it hurt?" I ask, realizing that for some reason Julia is only willing to speak to me.

  "No," she says. "It's uncomfortable, but it doesn't hurt. It's cold."

  I look up and see the look of incredulity, mixed with delight, on the faces of
the doctors. The experiment seems to be working.

  "That's good," I say. "That's really good."

  "What are you going to do now?" she asks.

  "I think we're done," I say, glancing up at Julia's brain, which remains suspended high above her body. Nearby, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Sospiri are engaged in conversation, and I can see the look of worry on their faces.

  "What?" Julia asks.

  "Nothing," I say. "Just wait a moment." I hurry over to see what's happening, and it's immediately clear that Julia's vital signs are dropping. "We need to put her brain back in," I whisper.

  "We can't do it fast enough," Dr. Campbell hisses back at me. "The cortex extender doesn't detach easily."

  "We designed it so it could be attached quickly," Dr. Sospiri adds. "To be honest, this was kind of a one-way trip. It's not reversible at the moment. That's the part of it we're still trying to resolve."

  I stare at him for a moment, almost unable to believe what he's telling me. "You didn't bother to create a removal mechanism?" I ask.

  "It would have slowed us down," Dr. Campbell says.

  "Something's wrong," Julia says. I rush back over to her and immediately see that the pupils of her eyes are huge. "I can't see," she says. She's also dribbling from one corner of her mouth, and a bead of blood is slowly rolling out from her left nostril.

  "She's having a massive stroke," Dr. Campbell says.

  "Pull the plug," Dr. Sospiri calls out to me, not bothering to keep his voice down. Julia must have heard that. I watch as Dr. Campbell changes some settings.

  "You're killing me, aren't you?" Julia says, her voice starting to slur.

  "Nurse Winter," Dr. Sospiri continues, "pull the plug!"

  I stare at Julia, not sure what to say. It's probably better to just let her slip away.

  "Admit it," she continues. "You're killing me."

  I pause for a moment. "Jeremiah," I say finally.

  "What?" she asks.

  "You asked about your son," I reply. "His name is Jeremiah." I wait for her to reply, but there's just a flicker of recognition before her face falls still. Moments later, I look up and see that the readings on the machine have all flat-lined. She's gone.