Asylum (33 page)

            “Are
there a lot of people that came from the asylum around here?” she asked.

            Steve
scratched his stubbly jaw.

            “I
don’t think so,” he ventured.  “Not so much anymore.  Seems like there were a
lot of them years ago, but people move on, and the hospital closed a long time
ago.  More people come from the factories closing, shops shutting down.  Old
Will’s the only one I know for sure that come from the hospital.  I don’t know,
might be more I guess, you’d want to ask Will though, he’d know.”

            They
had walked so far into the woods that Chloe was starting to wonder if their
guide really remembered where he was going or if he was just enjoying the
walk.  She was working up the nerve to ask him, when she stumbled again.  This
time over a carefully-placed…tripwire?  Steve held out an arm to steady her.

            The
string was tied to a stick from which hung an odd assortment of empty tin cans
and glass bottles.  It jangled strangely.  Chloe whipped her head around,
searching for the person who had set the trap.

            “That’s
just Will’s doorbell,” Steve explained.  “He moves it around a bit, never keeps
it in the same place.  He’ll be along anytime now. We’ll wait here, it’d be
rude to go right on up.”

            Steve
whistled once, a long low note, and then stood still, watching the trees. 
Seth, who hadn’t said a word since entering the woods, crossed his arms and
moved closer to her.

            Will
Gannon seemed to materialize from nowhere.  She never heard the crunching of
leaves or the snapping of twigs to signal his approach.  Chloe glanced away and
suddenly he stepped out from behind a tree directly in front of them.

            He
was dirty.  Grime settled in the creases around his eyes and across his
forehead making it look as though the lines were drawn onto his face.  He had a
short, ragged, white beard, stained yellow around the mouth, and his hair was a
mess of white fluff that stuck out in every direction.  His overly large nose
was sharp…hooked and red.  With his huge dark eyes, which seemed yellowed where
they should be white, he made Chloe think of an owl.  She half-expected him to
twist his head around and stare at her from upside down.

            “Mr.
Gannon?” she asked.

            He
grunted through a mouth missing most of its teeth, and continued to watch them.

            “Will,
these kids were looking for you,” Steve began, “they’re doing research on the
hospital and they heard about you, said they want to buy some letters.”

            Chloe
was about to speak, when Seth stepped in front of her and held a hand out to
the old man.

            “I’m
Seth Maird, we’re from Birch Harbor and he’s right, we’re doing some research
on the hospital.  We were hoping we could ask you some questions,” he said in
businesslike tones.

            Will
Gannon stared at him and blinked his huge owl eyes.  He didn’t reach out to
take Seth’s hand.  With a disdainful look, he turned his back on them and began
walking away.

            “Sir?”
Seth called after him.

            “I
ain’t talking to no stupid kids bout that old place.  You all thinkin’ you know
so much.  Smug little bastards is what you is,” Will grumbled without turning
around.

            Chloe
felt panic rise up in her, Sam gave her a push.  It meant
say something!
 
He was their only chance to figure out what the ghost wanted.

            “George
Townsend!” Chloe called out at Will’s retreating back.  “George Townsend sent
us a message.  Help…trapped…the letters A and M.  Does that mean anything to
you?”

            Will
Gannon stopped.  Still, he didn’t turn around.

            “George
Townsend, Elizabeth Mathers,” Chloe called out searching desperately in her
memory for more, “Wiley Williams, Margaret Ford, Will Gannon-”

            “Hush
your mouth!” Will hissed, spinning around.  “Ain’t you got no sense in your head? 
Yelling so loud, anybody could hear ya!”

            He
fixed Chloe with an angry glare and took a step towards them.

            “I
done what I was supposed to!” he declared, “I done more than any of ‘em.  I’m
done, I don’t owe them nothing, already gave ‘em most my life.”

            “Will
you tell us?  Tell us what they want?  That’s all we’re asking,” Chloe pleaded.

            “For
your
research
?” Will laughed and it turned into a hacking cough. 
“Research my ass,” he declared catching his breath.  “They’re still recruiting,
that’s what.  I know what you all are.  Think they can still stop him, but they
can’t.  I know that.”

            “Tell
us,” Chloe asked quietly, beside her Sam nodded.

            Will
Gannon continued to stare at them, and then ventured a few steps nearer.

            “Steve!”
he barked, “Get yourself gone boy.”

            Steve
gave Chloe an embarrassed smile and a shrug before beating a hasty retreat. 
Seth turned around and glanced at her and Sam.  It seemed he was trying to
decide if the situation was dangerous enough to drag them both out of there. 
Chloe tried to look reassuring.

            “Come
with me,” Will ordered.

            “Why
can’t we talk here?” Seth asked.

            Without
answering, Will Gannon turned his back on them again and began shuffling away. 
With an apologetic look at Seth, Chloe raced after Will, with Sam hot on her
feet.  Seth gave an agitated sigh, but fell in behind them anyway.

            They
followed Will over a slight rise.  At the top, they looked down to see a
mildewed, orange tent pitched near a mucky, leaf-clogged basin.  Small black
pools of water formed between the roots of several trees.  There were random
sticks driven into the ground all over the hill.

            “So
I know where I puts stuff,” Will said gruffly, following Chloe’s gaze.  “I pull
‘em out when I leave, but until then I leave them in so I can memorize where
stuff is.  Don’t think about coming back here though, I got my traps.”

            Chloe
shook her head quickly, trying to assure him that she would never think of it.

            Will
clambered slowly down the descent.  Near the tent, he rolled an old log away
from a pile, set it on its end and sat down.  Following his lead, Chloe and Sam
did the same.  Seth remained standing.

            “Let’s
get one thing straight,” Will began.  “I ain’t helping with nothing.  I did my
bit, and I’m not in it no more.”

            “What
is A.M.?” Chloe pushed.

            “Abraham’s
Men,” Will said casually.  Chloe felt a shiver go up her back.  It was like he
was telling her something that deep down, she already knew.

            Will
kicked aside some leaves, exposing the black earth beneath.  Then, with a stick
he drew a star, digging deeper across the lines that formed the A.

            “We’ve
seen that sign,” Sam breathed.

            “That’s
the sign for us…for them,” Will corrected. “For Abraham’s Men.  It meant that
they were there, that they were keeping a watch at a place, at a hospital or
asylum mostly.

            “And
they were watching…?” Sam prompted.

            “The
bad ones,” Will replied.  “And don’t ask who they is exactly cause I never
knew.  But I do know that they were responsible for those places, for building
them.  They built em up, all the same.  Great big traps for poor, sick people,
so they could never leave. 
Never
, mind you.  I been in ‘em since I was
young.  Sometimes I get to drinking and I can’t keep the thoughts in my head
out of my mouth, so off to the asylum and then it’s months and sometimes years
before I can get out again.  I was in Elsie, then Kalamazoo, and the third time
here in Traverse City, and that’s where I met The Men.  My roommate was one of
‘em.  One night I kept hearing them, the dead ones, the ones trapped there, and
I couldn’t sleep, got to yelling at them, and that’s how he knew, my roommate,
I mean.  He took me to meet the Men, and they told me all about the bad ones,
and I ate it up.  You do when you’re young.  When you’re young you think you
can fight back.  You want to fight back, then you get old…”

            “What
did they tell you about the bad ones?” Sam asked.

            “They
had a reason for trapping them, those poor souls.  An experiment.  They knew
how to trap them, but didn’t know how to use them, they were still working it
out,” Will mumbled.

            “What
were they going to use them for?” Sam asked intently.

            “Something
bad.  Life and death experiments, they had a purpose,” Will mused.

            “But
you don’t know what that was, right?” Seth smirked.

            “I
never said I knew everything!” Will snapped.  “I knew they was trapped there! 
I heard ‘em say it myself.  Couldn’t get out, couldn’t see anything, they were
in hell, I knew that much!  They were still there, after the place closed,
still waiting to be used for something, I know that too!  I figured it out,
without anybody’s help, I was the last of Abraham’s Men and I let them out.”

            “How?”
Chloe whispered.

            “They
was digging things up around there, getting ready to renovate the place.  They
were working on the foundation, and I go up there one night-” Will lowered his
voice and leaned in towards Chloe a little.  “I found the cornerstone, the
first block they laid on that place, all marked up with their devil symbols.  I
smashed it to dust.  That’s how I did it.  It made a hole, a place they could get
out from, and now they’re all gone, all free, and the bad ones can’t use them
for their purposes no more.”

            “It’s
the building itself that traps them?” Chloe asked.

            “Sure
it is.  S’why they built them all the same.  It was Kirkbride that thought of
it.  He must have been one of the first bad ones, but the Men figured it out
almost as soon as they started building those traps.  Wiley was one of ‘em.  He
escaped, then he got a gun and he hid in a tree and he waited for that no good
doctor, waited all day, and when he finally sees him, he shot that sonofabitch
right in the head.  But the devil knows his own, wouldn’t take him to hell. 
That bastard lived.  Shot in the head and he was up walking around the next
day.  The papers said his hat stopped the bullet.  Don’t know what kind of hat
stops a bullet!” Will said angrily.

            “Do
you know anything about George Townsend?” Chloe pressed.

            “I
know a lot of names.  We was always trying to figure out ways to stop them. 
George Townsend was one of the early ones, long before my time.  We’d tried
fire before, but they always stopped us, or they just rebuilt.  George Townsend
burned down a place up north while they were still having it built.  It never
became an asylum, because of him.”

            “And
yet he’s still trapped there,” Chloe said.

            “If
he died inside it, he’s still there, sure.  Lots of the Men are still in those
places.  I damn near cheer every time I hear another one of ‘em’s been
bulldozed.”

            “We
heard that you had a letter or something that mentioned him,” Chloe said.

            “From
his doctor at Traverse City to another doctor at Newberry, when they
transferred him.  We used to try to find these things. That was another part of
being one of the Men.  We found any type of document or paper that might
suggest that we existed and got rid of it.  The bad ones knew we existed, knew
it the same as we knew about them, but they never knew how many of us there was
or just who we was.  We kept our secrets a long time, sometimes under torture,”
Will said darkly.

            “Yet
you were trying to sell this piece of evidence to an antique shop?” Seth
observed.

            “I
gotta eat!” Will hollered.  “I gotta live!  I give them my whole life and I got
nothing to show for it!  They can feed me, I done enough for them!”

            “Will,”
Chloe said quietly, trying to calm him.  “The bad ones…are they still around,
do they still exist?”

            Will
looked around, checking to see if someone had somehow crept up while they were
speaking.  He leaned in again towards Chloe and Sam, ignoring Seth completely.

            “Of
course they do!” he hissed.  “Of course!  And I’ll tell you something else,
they’re winning!  This is just another step in their plan!  The old asylums all
closed up because
they
wanted them to.  They’ve got enough dead ones
now, and they’ve got…privacy, and time.  There’s none of the Men left to stop
them either.  I’m the only one I know.  They waited for that too.”

            “What
are they planning?” Chloe whispered.  In the silence of the woods, it seemed to
carry far.

            Will
shook his head.

            “I
dunno, and I’m not going to help anyone find out either.  I told you, I’m done
with all that.  You can’t even kill ‘em, look at old Kirkbride,” Will said.