The Asylum

Author's note;
This isn't as good as I intended - I'm pedantic, okay? - but that's because of the process it went through in it's creation.
Step one: Started story.
Step two: Got a page done and then discovered that there's a section on horror in English - decided to use it.
Step three: Created depressingly watered down version with less gore and sexual references so my teacher didn't throw a fit.
Step four: Made it short enough to fit on three pages - like the criteria. Failed miserably. Put it in teenie tiny font - salvation.
Step five: Celebrated the success of a 19/20 result, even though the version was terrible.
Step six: Fixed it! I read through this so many times, reworded, added stuff, created new plotlines, it's still not good enough for me, but I couldn't do anything else with the story.

Voila, my first horror story.

The Asylum

         A deathly scream erupted from the McCaliber Wing. This of course, was normal procedure for this time of night. It wasn’t as if Amaranth didn’t wake up every morning at three AM screaming like a banshee, swearing that the demons are stealing her thoughts or something to that effect. To be honest Emerson didn’t really care. Whatever was in that girl’s mind was her – and her shrink’s – problem. He was just an orderly. Reluctantly he slid his feet off the desk and swivelled on his chair. He skolled his coffee, which was a little hotter than he’d anticipated and felt it scald his tongue and throat to a minor degree before he pulled himself up, well, it’s either make the pointless journey down to that room or get fired because I didn’t. This was why he hated night shift. He was just so sick of getting up to tell a schizoid sixteen-year-old that he’d have to up her meds if she didn’t pipe down and go to sleep.

         Emerson Barlow did not like his job at the moment. Hah! At the moment? Try “had never liked his job”, that would be more accurate. He was stuck on night shift most nights, drug rehab clinics are not nearly as fun as Ginger Snaps makes them out to be and he didn’t like dealing with split personality self-harmers. However it was either this or the hospice down the road, and he didn’t particularly like the idea of that either. Borderline personality disorder was better than terminal illnesses. At least these types of patients could move.

         He made his way down the hall of the McCaliber Wing. He was pretty sure that the McCalibers paid for this wing shortly after their daughter was shoved in here for her “chemical dependency”. In other words, they could deal with it when she was blowing a couple hundred a week on heroin but when she swallowed half a bottle of daddy dearest’s pain killers they had to get her “help”. So of course, offloading her here and never coming back looked a lot better to the public eye when he left a fat cheque with the hospital’s name on it.
         He reached the regulation white door marked with a removable plaque that read in bold letters “Amaranth Drow”, the only name her troubled mind would give them. He didn’t believe for a second that it was actually a real name, who calls their kid Amaranth? Honestly. It sounds like something that’s come out of some symphonic metal singer’s head.

         The moment he opened the door a painfully thin, frightened brunette flew at him and grabbed him by the collar. She shook him even more violently than she was shaking herself, crying, screaming for him to help. After struggling against her for a few moments he finally threw her off, propelling her back by a metre before she staggered back against the wall and clutched her head, whimpering.
         “What happened, Amaranth?” he said, trying to make his voice seem sympathetic, as if he could actually give two shits.
         “They have Saskia! Saskia, they’ve got her. Saskia…” she continued like this for some time, her eyes wide with psychotic fear as she rocked backward and forward.
         “Amaranth, you have to calm down.” He tried to make her stop rocking; she clawed at his face, “AMY! I’ll have to sedate you if you don’t stop!”
         And then she was still. “It’s done.” She said dully, as if she’d lost interest.          He was taken aback, as she stretched out her legs and leaned placidly against the white wall.
         “Amaranth, you must remember that this is all in your mind. There’s nothing after Saskia.”
         “You’re lying!” she screeched, tearing gouges from his cheek with her regulation short fingernails in blind rage. With this he ignored her struggling and carried her off to her bed, tying her restraints as she fought tooth and nail to remain free. The cuts she made in his cheek were deep regardless of the fact that a nurse clipped them for her twice a week to avoid her hurting herself or others. Emerson had had quite enough of this, out of his pouch he pulled a syringe filled with an entirely transparent liquid, held her arm still and pushed the sterile needle into her pale flesh. Within moments she stopped struggling as enough sedative to keep her under for the next twelve hours coursed through her veins along with the blood they pumped to her previously racing heart. The heart which now drummed a gentle beat against her ribcage in a drugged and sleepy fashion, then she closed her eyes and the drug took her over fully.

         Satisfied that she was unconscious and no longer a danger to herself – and more importantly no longer a pain in the ass – he wrote a note on the register on her door to say that she was under chemical restraint and made his way back to the surveillance desk, stopping for more coffee on the way.

         At the hour of nine forty five, a senior nurse found Saskia McCaliber expired on the floor next to her bed, a shard of her broken bathroom mirror clutched in her bloodstained hand. Even with twenty years of nursing under her belt she was not prepared to find the chemically dependent heiress butchered on the regulation white floor. After sending the poor woman home the doctors came to the conclusion that the wounds on her face, arms and legs were self-inflicted. During autopsy this would be further proved with the slivers of glass that would be found in the cuts, which were of course, concurrent with the piece in her hand.
The news irked Emerson Barlow for a split second, before he covered the first shock with layers of self-reassurance.
                   She was raving!
                   The wounds were self-inflicted.
                   She was saying that her imaginary friends killed the girl in the room next to her!
                   There’s blood in the sink. That proves Saskia smashed the mirror.
         These tiny rationalisations smothered the other side of the argument, their meek voices pointing out what his overbearing logic, that there were no demons, was adamant on leaving out of the equation.
                   Saskia wasn’t at all suicidally capable. She was a drug addict, but the only thing she was cutting was rows of heroin.
         Saskia had been a cute one…in a jittery, stretched and sallow skinned, thinner than garden stakes kind of way. He wasn’t being entirely truthful to himself when he said that there was nothing good about his job. He’d occasionally slip into Saskia’s room in the dead of night, at least he’d found some way to pass the time before his shift ended. It didn’t really mean anything to him, and when she was alive it probably didn’t mean much to her either, but it was better than him being bored shitless and her sitting in her room all night with nothing to do. With the heroin came paranoia, and with the paranoia, insomnia, so it wasn’t like he was depriving her of any sleep. Neither was he making her do anything she didn’t want to do.
         She’d come onto him in the blind spot of the camera in the patient lounge of the hospital where all the patients congregated after meals until lockup. She’d approached him, taken his hand in hers, with her other unzipped her hoodie, which she was wearing without a shirt underneath it, and slid his hand into her bra. She’d rubbed his crotch through his jeans and, pressing close against him, whispered in his ear to come see her after lockup. Later that night they’d had mind-blowing sex in a regulation white mental institution bed. No deep feelings, just something to pass the time until both of them could leave this damned place. And now she was dead.
         He put his paperwork aside, shaken nonetheless no matter how hard he tried to suppress the feeling of nausea.
         Maybe I should be in one of those rubber rooms…
         He shook his head in mild amusement and took a long sip of his lukewarm coffee before it went completely cold. When he resurfaced from the mug he was faced with a pale, petite sixteen-year-old, peering out from behind strands of lank hair with her troubled eyes. The girl vaulted onto the desk, sitting cross-legged upon the counter. Momentarily her hair had flicked around in all directions and her pixie-like face was fully visible, her chapped, reddened lips, poised in what may have been distinguished as a smirk, but Emerson couldn’t be sure, because within barely a second her hair had slid back over her visage, and only her razor nose could be seen clearly. She started with disdain in her voice,
         “Saskia was a nice girl.” She said, “Murmur and Lilith didn’t seem to like her though.” And then she giggled. It took a few moments for Emerson to register that fact, and when he finally did he wasn’t sure what to make of it. This girl had a few more screws loose than your average screw up – that was for sure. There was a dead girl, a dead girl who was widely believed to be her friend – or at least she actually spoke to her, which was a far sight more than how she dealt with the other patients – and she was giggling. Of course, there was the point that it could have been one of the voices in her head laughing, but he didn’t think of that at the moment.
         “So is there anything that you want? Or is this just a social visit?”
         “You know why I’m here.” She narrowed her eyes at him, “It’s your fault she’s dead, you know that? If you’d listened to me you could have gone for help. They wouldn’t have got her.” She began to mutter to herself, he caught snatches of words like “shut up, Lilith” and “can’t get rid of us”.
         “ ‘They’ didn’t get her, Amaranth. She got herself.”
         Amaranth leaned closer. Close enough to whisper in his ear, and that she did, “Oh no she didn’t. I saw the body. Saskia couldn’t do that.” She giggled again, “Murmur went into her mirror and scared her, so she tried to hit him. Silly girl, what kind of idiot puts their hand through a mirror? Anyway, the mirror broke, and that’s where the blood in the sink came from. You should tell someone that. Then they used the bits of glass to cut her up. She didn’t scream much, they must have covered her mouth, they gagged me and tied me up when they went to her, so they probably did the same to her. She did thrash around a bit to start with, I could hear it but soon she gave up I think. You can’t struggle with Lilith and Murmur for long, it doesn’t work like that. They know how to make you be good. ” She grinned maniacally as she drew away. And then she stopped. Meek and mild, she slid off the desk, stared out from behind her greasy ropes of hair, muttered a “bye” and left, like a completely different person. Meds. They just doped her up before she came around. Ugh. The sooner my year here is done the better.
         Emerson was only here because he had to do a year of compassionate, thankless work or he’d be disinherited. After that he’d be set for life, and the first thing he’d do was get as far from this place as possible. Meantime, looking for another room to sneak into might be a good idea, there had to be another raging nymphomaniac in this place somewhere. If not he might end up bored to death…or insanity with the influence here.
         He was beginning to regret not taking the hospice.

         Twelve thirty PM, lunch is served in the asylum. A slow trickle of people heading for the cafeteria turns into a flood, then within half an hour a trickle again. Emerson watches them all. Their conditions may have different names but they’re all the same to him. Each of them, from the psychotic to the addicted to the suicidally capable – a phrase that is bizarre in itself, if they’re here it means that they were in fact, suicidally incapable, because clearly, they failed –they’re all the same to him. And each day he hated them more. They were parasites to him, nothing but parasites. Sucking food, medication and his precious time out of society. Society had locked them away but they were still affecting the outside world. Oh well, five months to go. Five months and twelve days. Then I’ll leave, dad’s weekly injection of money into my bank account will start up again, and I’ll be on my way. All will be as it should be.
         He refused to acknowledge that he was dependant on that money from his father like the patients were dependant on the medication from the nurses, doctors and orderlies here. That would put him at their level. It would in fact, make him need to see them as actual people. People who bleed when they are cut, people who suffer if mistreated, people who talk, breath and feel, just like him.
         It would make them human.
         And humanity was just something he could not afford them. God forbid he’d actually start caring about them.

         Carter White, thirty-four, found with precise cuts to the arms, legs and face – none of which fatal, or in any way serious for that matter, in fact, some were even post mortem according to a few orderlies, but that was widely dismissed as gossip. After all, these wounds looked self-inflicted, and you can’t cut yourself after you’re dead, can you? It didn’t take a doctor to work out how the doctor died, the gashed carotid artery was hard to miss. As anyone could expect word spread fast throughout the staff of the hospital, who did, at least try to keep the gossip from reaching the ears of their disturbed patients, but of course, gossip is gossip – it always travels.
         Emerson handed Amaranth a little paper cup filled with a multitude of colourful pills, she took them grudgingly as she said, “The shard of glass missing from Saskia’s mirror was found in Carter’s hand. He took it from the scene; he was one of the first to go into Saskia’s room. I heard a nurse saying so at breakfast.” The flippancy in her voice frustrated Emerson, all he could think of was that in a few minutes she’d barely speak a word. She’d pull out a book and sit in an armchair in the lounge and spend hours there with the battered copy of whatever she’d found on the shelf. This was the time when Amaranth was tolerable. Any other time she made Emerson’s blood boil, the way she made it so obvious that she couldn’t give two shits about the people dying around her. After he’d spent the past hour with Veronique Davies, one of the nurses, crying on his shoulder, her indifference to Carter’s death was sickening.
         “Go away.” She said softly, then began muttering, “leave me alone!” she said a little louder, before yelling “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” at the new wave of mutterings. Emerson left, knowing they’d subside as soon as the pills kicked in. He felt he might attack her if he remained in a room with her any longer.

                    “We’re not going to stop, Amy.”

                   Get out.

                   “You know that doesn’t work with us.”

                   I don’t care, I just won’t listen, then.

                   “Oh, you’ve tried that before, haven’t you? You can’t get rid of us.”

                   I can try.

                   “Good luck.”

         Amaranth walked down the corridor to the lounge, hoping that maybe there’d be a new book on that old shelf. It was empty hope, but she clinged to it like a shy three-year-old to his mother’s dress. She was of course disappointed when she reached the bookshelf, there hadn’t been a new book for eleven years, according to Garret Turner from six rooms down. So, she picked up a torn copy of Gone With The Wind and made for an armchair. These books seemed to be the only way to overpower the voices of the murderous demons in her head.
         Across the room the wall was mostly taken up by a window, through it Amaranth could see Veronique crying into Emerson’s shirt. He had a look on his face that displayed mild disgust, boredom and annoyance. All in all it clearly read “Can’t she cry on someone else’s shoulder? Why mine?” Amaranth smirked and buried her nose in the thick volume. What she wouldn’t give for something a little more interesting. Like Stephen King. Or Shakespeare. It was either this or a shitload of Jane Austin drivel. Something with a little excitement in it.

         “What on earth are you doing out here? … Oh well, come on. … Are you alright? … Why are you looking at me like that. ... Ow, that hurts. … Let go of me. … Now!”

         It was too late to scream…

         “Why are you doing this?”
         Silence, then a covered mouth and another cut. This time under the eye to match a previously inflicted one. Curved, almost artistic in it’s symmetry. Then, at a forty-five degree angle to the line of the nose, from the corner of the curved cuts, a line was drawn swiftly with a blade which Veronique could not identify. Whatever it was, it was drawing patterns like tribal paint on her face. Her attacker smiled maliciously at the mixture of blood and foundation running in rivers down the nurse’s face. Revelling in the gore and pain like something not at all human, slicing zigzagging lines under two well-defined, jutting collarbones from shoulder to shoulder. All through Veronique made not a sound – she had been given fair warning not to scream. With a sneer as the only warning her head was pushed violently to the side so she could see a series of cuts pepper her arms, criss-crossing each other all the way down. Her head was snapped the other way to see the exact same gruesome procedure. It was one thing to feel this torture, but to see it too brought a dry retch, then another, before bile spilled over the assailant’s hand on the third retch, and that was what finished her. Before she knew what had happened her arm seemed to have an extra joint, and it bent at an angle that it certainly shouldn’t have. In a fit of anger at the insult of being vomited on, her arm was broken and the blade was drawn across the throat of Veronique Davies, and she expired on the cheap shag carpeting of the lounge, which had once been white.

         Emerson was just about to leave for a good night’s sleep – twenty-four hour shifts were always metaphorical murder, but now it was literal it was even worse – when three orderlies rushed past him. He took no heed and continued, until he saw where the orderlies were headed. Veronique Davies eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, her skin was paler than usual, but that was because the liquid that colours it was colouring the lounge carpet instead. It was in the blind spot of the camera.
         “Keep moving, Barlow. It’s a mess in here.” Dr. Martin, head of the institution, said as he closed her eyes with his fingers. Emerson lingered for a moment, letting the words sink in. Then he turned, and kept on his way, through the wings to the exit, and into the cold, dark night.

         There was an unquestionable feeling of dread in the hospital when Emerson returned the next morning. There were fewer gossiping staff members; also the patients were still in their rooms. He discovered why when he saw a janitor walking past him with a large rug, headed for the lounge as he walked over to his workstation. They couldn’t have disturbed patients in a room with a bloodstained carpet.
         “Hold it. You can’t bring anything in there, it’s a crime scene.”
         “It may be a crime scene, but it’s also a building filled with ill minds! We can’t have them walking past a huge puddle of blood!” Dr. Martin, who was standing close by hissed at the newcomer, who produced a police shield.
         “I’m afraid that’s not our concern, Doctor. Detective Simmons, Grody Downs Police Department - our concern is why this is happening. We’re opening investigation, and we need the files on everyone who has been on duty in the past thirty-six hours.”

         With the detectives here, the air was dense with tension. All patients were kept in their rooms that day, despite their protests. It was quiet throughout once everyone had accepted his or her somewhat unfair, yet necessary incarceration. Almost complete silence until someone screamed bloody murder.
         By the time Detective Simmons reached the door of Amaranth’s room her attacker was gone, the door wide open and her in the corner. It seemed that she’d managed to do what no one else had – cry for help.
         Within minutes of her scream the detective found his prime suspect…

         “These people have been targeted by someone inside the hospital. It quite clearly isn’t a patient – they were all locked up in their rooms when the murders have happened. Do you know anyone with a grudge here?” Emerson scrutinized the detective, knowing where he was going with this, but choosing to play dumb. At least this way they wouldn’t accuse him of having a guilty conscience.
         “I thought they were suicides, weren’t they? Carter was found with the shard of glass that was missing from Saskia’s mirror. He took it from her room.”
         “How do you explain Ms. Davies?”
         “Veronique and Carter had been together for two years. From what I heard he’d just proposed. She was shattered when they found the body.”
         “I see. Where did you hear that there was a piece of mirror missing?”
         “A patient told me. She heard a nurse telling someone.”
         “I think you’re lying, Mr. Barlow. The fact that there was a missing shard was never released. It never left autopsy. You killed Saskia McCaliber! Then Carter White and Veronique Davies. And then you made an attempt on the life of Amaranth Drow. I want to know why.”
         “I didn’t kill anyone! Why would I?”
         “Mr. Barlow, you know as well as I do how obvious you make you’re distaste for this job. My guess would be you’re targeting the patients and those in charge. Only your lust for blood became too much so you killed Ms. Davies as well. But you’re main agenda was to cut off your misery at it’s source – the ones you take care of and the ones who you answer to.”
         “But that’s ridiculous! Why wouldn’t I just quit instead?” Emerson demanded, getting angry now.
         “Because then you wouldn’t get that nice big wad of cash in store for you, would you? Yes I know all about that, Mr. Barlow. You’re father doesn’t believe you have any compassion, he thinks you’re a heartless, hate-filled –“
          “DON’T SAY ANOTHER WORD ABOUT MY FATHER! That’s private. It’s family business, you have no right to know that!”
         “And yet I do, Mr. Barlow. And I’d say you have a motive, and no alibi.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
         “Veronique Davies’ arm was broken! She couldn’t have inflicted that herself any more than Dr. White could inflict wounds upon himself after he expired.” Emerson made to interrupt, but he was cut off, “I’m sure you’re about to say that we can’t link you through that, but we can link you easily to Saskia McCaliber. At one AM you were caught on camera entering Saskia McCaliber’s room. You left an hour later, what were you doing?”
         “I was taking her a sedative we just decided to start giving her. To help with her insomnia.”
          “What were you doing, Barlow?”
          “I was FUCKING SASKIA, okay? Go through the other surveillance tapes! I went there at least three times a week before this! Why the hell would I kill her?”
         “That may stay a mystery, we will go through those tapes, though. However, this is enough evidence to keep you in custody tonight.”
         “What? I DIDN’T KILL ANYONE!”
         The detective turned around as the door opened, “Simmons.” The newcomer said, jerking his head backwards indicating for him to follow. After a few minutes the detective returned, throwing down an evidence bag on the table.
         “Care to pull the other one?” Emerson surveyed the evidence bag, which held a shard of glass, “it was found in your desk draw. Now, are you gonna be straight with us and tell us where the last piece of the mirror is?”
         “The last piece?” He looked at him in utter disbelief, Detective Simmons took it for realisation that there was no way out of this. He was caught.
         “Give it up, Barlow. A very large piece was missing. This is only a quarter. We have another two quarters, but one is missing. Where’s the one you used to attack Amaranth?”
         “I didn’t attack anyone! Ask her! She’ll tell you I didn’t hurt her!”
”I would, but she won’t say a word. You scared her something terrible, Barlow, She hasn’t left her room since you attacked her. Hell, she barely moves at all. The evidence against you is overwhelming. Emerson Barlow, you’re under arrest for the murder of Saskia McCaliber, Carter White, Veronique Davies and the attempted murder of Amaranth Drow…”

~*~

         Amaranth sat, foetal position, on the floor, her right hand clutching a shard of glass – if inspected properly one would assume it was the piece missing from Saskia McCaliber’s bathroom mirror. Emerson was long gone, she wasn’t sorry, he wasn’t very nice anyway. She wasn’t lying when she said that if he’d listened to her, Saskia would still be alive. Saskia wasn’t supposed to die. Saskia was nice; Amaranth just needed her out of the room - a way out at night. She glanced down at the vent – if you could call it that – beside her. In truth, it was a simple hole in the wall, covered by an iron grate on either side. With a decent amount of pressure at the right angle on her side, the grate would lift free with as much ease as turning a page in a magazine. The other could be kicked out of its socket. For an asylum, security sure was scarce…