Asylum Lake (19 page)
Brady watched in horror, a voiceless scream searing his throat. He was both angered and sickened by the confused images. As witnessed through Ellis’s memory, Brady felt an odd sympathy for the man he had singularly identified as a soulless, blood thirsty monster.
“That, Tanner is your first lesson on loss.” Ellis’s disembodied voice floated through the darkness. “Funny thing about loss,” Ellis continued, “is that once you truly embrace it – there is nothing you cannot achieve.” Brady’s eyes, although wide-open, remained sightless, his body shuddering beneath the burden of Ellis’s tragic memories. “Achieve? The shattered lives you’ve left in your unforgiving wake, the souls you’ve tormented and this is your grand achievement?”
Brady’s question was answered in silence. The darkness closed around him, squeezing the breath from his chest. His sightless eyes rolled back white as Ellis pulled him once again into his dark recollections.
The Packard’s thin tires came to a grinding halt, momentarily stirring Ellis from his sinister musings. The bundle of rags lay quietly in the corner. Always a man of thought over action, the timid boy who had grown into a taciturn man poised himself on the slick floor of the Packard and prepared for the doors to open.
His wait was brief. The doors swung outward on rusty hinges and Ellis leapt from the darkness into the sunshine beyond. Eyes closed to the painful rays of the sun, Ellis felt Bill’s thick hands close over his shoulders, wrestling him into a headlock.
“Dammit, boy,” Wyatt’s nasally voice intruded through the struggle, “why make things more difficult than they need to be?”
Ellis opened his eyes, casting his hate filled stare into the greasy man’s face. Bill’s beefy forearm was wedged beneath his chin, painfully squeezing the breath from his heaving chest. Ellis could feel the man’s erection stiffen into the small of his back. He was confident Wyatt was sporting similar lumber.
“Doctor wants you, but I’m sure we have time for a bit of fun, first.” Wyatt’s tongue danced behind a disgusting smile.
Ellis’s reaction was shocking in both its speed and brutality. The bulge in Wyatt’s white pants collapsed beneath Ellis’s perfectly placed kick, sending the small man to his knees with an agonized groan. With Bill’s grip around his neck momentarily distracted, Ellis buried his teeth into the orderly’s forearm, tearing free a mess of flesh.
Ellis ducked free from his captor, spinning the man to the ground. He glanced briefly at Wyatt, noting with satisfaction the man’s agony before turning his attention once again to the larger of the two goons. The sorry man clutched his bleeding arm and whimpered at Ellis’s approach.
“I never touched you,” he cried, “Never touched you, you fucking freak!”
Ellis hesitated, Bill’s blood running from the corners of his twisted smile. The switch flipped. The monster that everyone envisioned when first setting their sights on him had finally been unleashed. Spitting the flesh to the ground, Ellis savored the look of fear in the orderly’s teary eyes.
“William, William, William,” Ellis teased through bloodstained teeth. “No worries, there’s plenty of time for us to get acquainted.”
Ellis pounced. Although outweighed by more than one-hundred pounds, Ellis’s adrenaline-fueled attack overwhelmed the mountainous orderly. Blinded by fury, Ellis savagely pummeled the prone man; fists and fingers tearing into the man’s soft flesh. Quickly, Ellis’s arms were slick with fresh blood and his torn nails hung from tired fingers.
Elis was so caught in this frenzied state of cruelty that Ellis failed to notice the long shadow of Dr. Wesley Clovis fall across his shoulders. The last thing he heard before the shovel struck the back of his head was the whoosh of displaced air, and what he thought was the muffled cry of a baby.
The coppery taste of blood was heavy in Brady’s mouth as the nightmarish images slowly faded from his mind, leaving him once again in the pitch black of nothingness. He rolled his tongue along his teeth, convinced he would find bits of flesh clinging to his incisors. He was never so gladdened by disappointment.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Ellis’s ethereal voice taunted him through the darkness.
Brady’s patience, like his sanity, was wearing dangerously thin. Ellis’s loss, although brutal in its grizzly detail, was no less tragic than his own. Loss found its way into most people’s lives.
Karen’s untimely death with their unborn child, not to mention the passing of both parents, carved out deep chunks of the man, husband and father he had hoped to be; leaving a hollow void inside that nothing seemed able to fill.
Brady’s rambling thoughts stopped dead on that thought.
Father he had hoped to be.
Ellis’ loss wasn’t as deep as he believed.
“Your son, Ellis, the baby – he’s alive!”
Instantly, Ellis’s piercing red eyes flared to life in the darkness. Like a thunderclap Brady’s mind exploded into a torturous ache worse than he ever imagined possible. Brady could feel the specter’s boney fingers digging into his thoughts and searching for the truth within Brady’s clouded memories.
This unearthly connection with Ellis’s tormented soul provided Brady a window into the sinister depths of the monster’s thoughts, feelings and tragic recollections. Brady felt like a tourist in his own mind, watching over a skeletal shoulder as Ellis’s rotted fingers dug through Brady’s memories like the pages of a dust-covered scrapbook; the photographs in no specific order.
His ethereal companion probed deeper into Brady’s memory banks, uncovering the jumbled emotions about his grandfather’s suicide; a man he had never met yet seemingly shared so much with, the forgotten grief of a stillborn baby sister he knew only as Baby Kate, and then jumping forward to the last confusing conversation with Collins about the baby…and Lionel. Deeper still, Ellis lingered at the image of Brady resting at the bottom of Asylum Lake greeted by the ghostly specter of his lost love.
As the pain and shock ripped through Ellis and into Brady, the memory took a solid form, a sense of reality that Brady had for so long blocked from his fractured mind.
With the memories tumbling forth, Brady was crippled by Ellis’s agonizing revelation of the horrible birthright he has passed on to his only son; all in this twisted pursuit for vengeance. Brady could feel the searing rage within the tortured soul cool, icing over with horror at the wicked legacy he has left this world; the innocent lives he has stolen. It was the fate of his beloved Emily however, that finally extinguished the last spark of Ellis’s merciless wrath.
“There can be no more blood, Tanner, not from you. My vengeance is best placed elsewhere.” Ellis’s ghostly voice had softened in defeat. “He’s out there Tanner, Dr. Clovis, and he has my son.” Another long pause and then, “The veil will be parted. You must stop him. And you must free her, Tanner, my beloved and forgive…”
Brady’s precarious bond with the dark spirit shattered beneath Ellis’s final plea, shaking the morgue’s tile floors and walls, releasing the shackled skeletal remains from their iron bonds.
Oh shit, Brady worried, raising his aching body from the dirty floor. What have I done? Groping through the darkness for his lost flashlight, Brady’s eyes slowly adjusted to his grim surroundings. With a base drum of thunder booming ominously overhead, the shaken reporter, turned-archaeologist, turned medium stumbled from the morgue, fleeing through the darkness in search of his friends.
It took ten days to restore power to the area, with crews from across the state working night and day to set things right. Although comparable to the legendary storm of 1958, most agreed that Bedlam had definitely been spared from the worst.
Brady spent those days surrounded by his rag-tag group of adventurous in the refuge of Frank’s house licking his wounds; both of the physical and emotional variety. The Up North House had weathered the storm well, only suffering minor damage, but Brady was unenthusiastic about disturbing the scab that was just now forming over the secrets of his family. To dig through the yet undiscovered secrets of the home was a task waiting for him inside the log home.
The ladies, and Henry, had ridden out the storm quite nicely, tucked safely into the Griggs’s fortified basement. Abby’s emotional trauma, much like Brady’s, was healing with only an occasional nightmare as a reminder; her resiliency gave them all strength.
The good Reverend had simply disappeared. Brady was unsure what to make of the old man’s vanishing act, but instinctively knew that it somehow involved his continuing search for Lionel…and answers. He could not completely rule out one day crossing paths with Collins, but in no way was looking forward to the event.
Exactly two weeks from the night of their harried flight from the asylum, the Michigan State Police were dredging the bottom of Asylum Lake. Frank’s initial attempts to plead his case for their involvement in his tale of the supernatural were met with polite declinations. His reverent presentation of Bowling’s badge however, had changed their minds. Although many of the elder rank in file in Lansing remained convinced that Frank was just a dried-up old coot in search of attention, his service in locating a fallen brother earned him half a day of man power to put his delusional conspiracy theory to rest.
“Captain, we got something.” The voice crackled from the walkie-talkie in the trooper’s hand. Brady waited anxiously with Frank and April on the dock of the Up North House. Beside them stood Captain Graham Birdsong of the Michigan State Police, a serious-looking trooper leading the still unofficial investigation. The officer turned his attention from the dive team stationed in the lake to Frank. “Roger. What did you find?”
“Gallagher says it’s a graveyard down there.”
“A what?”
“A graveyard, sir. We’ve got at least twenty-five yards of scattered bones.”
Birdsong stared silently from behind his mirrored sunglasses into the lake’s glittering surface. After an eternity of silence, he again pushed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Affirmative.” he responded, staring suspiciously down at Frank’s grinning face, “Let’s get another diver down there. I’ll radio Lansing and get another boat.”
Brady retreated from the dock, holding April close as they made their way back to the strip of sand where Abby played. Gruff sat beside her, his paw encased in plaster. The dog’s limb would heal, although a limp was almost guaranteed.
“Who’s up for ice cream?” Brady asked through a partially forced smile. Abby rose to her feet, brushing the sand from her shorts as she helped Gruff navigate the terrain.
“Me,” she called, sliding her small hand into Brady’s. She silently noted the plastic bracelet that still clung to Brady’s bruised wrist.
Gruff, too, noted the bracelet, the intermingled scent of his longtime companion and young new friend sharp on the breeze. Warily, he glanced from their hands to the activity at the center of the lake. The voices of the slowly surfacing dead whispered softly through the air. Ever vigilant, Gruff guarded their steps.
Together they walked from the beach, past the dormant fire-pit along the worn path leading to the front of the Up North House. Jeff’s RV was parked in the grass, providing the log home with a certain sense of hillbilly class it had been lacking. Brady smiled as they walked by the rusted Winnebago, wondering what internet conspiracies his friend was currently hatching. His smile, once forced, spread genuine across his tired face. Pearl Jam’s Alive erupted from Jeff’s sonically-charged speakers.
I'm still alive
Hey I, but, I'm still alive
Hey I, boy, I'm still alive
Hey I, I, I'm still alive, yeah
Ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh
As the unremembered are raised from the murky depths of Asylum Lake, the search for answers intensifies. Who were these unfortunate souls and how did they come to rest beneath the dark waves. One man holds the answers and Brady Tanner, the former newspaper reporter, and his ragtag group of comrades set out to unearth the secrets of Dr. Wesley Clovis and his
Grave Undertakings
…
December 23, 1972
Eerie, Indiana
The methodical footsteps echoing down the tiled hallway of the Pleasant Grove Psychiatric Hospital were as precise as a metronome. Their thunder ended at the registration desk.
“May I help you,” the middle aged overweight receptionist asked without looking up from her nails.
The man’s baritone voice was formal beyond reproach and the woman flinched beneath its weight. “Indeed. I am here to finalize the transfer of care for one,” pausing as he produced a thin file from an oversized black case, “Collins, Lionel J.”
The receptionist looked up from her polished nails into the ageless face of Dr. Wesley Clovis. Silver hair flowed from beneath his puritan hat, while a starched white collar concealed his throat under a cloak the color of midnight. His hungry smile widened below cold blue eyes.
She accepted the file, paging nervously through the paperwork, before reaching for the phone.
“If you can wait one moment,” she replied, gesturing toward a small cluster of uncomfortable plastic chairs. The man nodded, his smile unflinching, and remained rooted to the floor.
A short while later a boy was led from behind the locked doors at the end of the hall by two white-clad orderlies. He was small and frail with a mess of auburn curls falling over his brow. He struggled beneath the weight of an oversized suitcase.
Clovis turned from the nervous receptionist with a nod and turned his stern gaze upon the boy. He waved the orderlies away with indifference, his eager eyes drinking in the Lionel’s fragile form.
“Son,” his cold greeting was accompanied by a calloused hand falling across the boy’s delicate shoulder, “are you prepared to shed the shackles of this prison?”
Lionel looked up into the man’s cold blue eyes and smiled warily. “Yes, sir,” he replied, his coppery eyes holding the man’s stare.
Dr. Wesley Clovis smiled down at the boy. He glanced briefly at the staring receptionist, slowly tipping his black hat, and escorted his new patient down the hallway and out the doors of the institution.
One week later, Karen Quinn’s name would be listed among the deceased, just one of dozens of victims claimed by a devastating fire of unknown origin. Her identification was only made possible by the distinct red polish of her charred nails.
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