Psycho Therapy (18 page)

“Swallow this for me, baby,” Katie teased. Her eyes glowed with a demented fervor, tears running down her eyes, so gripped by hateful emotions, her grin boasted of sadistic pleasures created and fulfilled. He suddenly wanted her as far away from him as possible. Her touch wasn’t Katie’s. Nobody in this room was who they were supposed to be.

“Drink it down,” she sniggered, her hair suddenly lit up by flames, burning bright and burning fast. “You’ll feel so good!”

This isn’t Katie!

Craig summoned the courage to fight back, and knowing this wasn’t his wife, he head-butted her. Her nose popped. The flames on her head carried down to the rest of her body, and every inch of her was animated with fire. The entire room was engulfed. Bodies lay in blackened piles, still shifting, trying to survive. Joey stole shots from bottles from the bar as he too was turning into a blackened crisp. Willis towered above him, covered in red, and orange, and yellow arches. His cashmere shirt melted into his liquid flesh and tangles of his black hair were embedded into the mudslide of his face. He was about to seize Craig by the throat when his legs buckled beneath him, and he landed in a burning pile at Craig’s feet.

He wasn’t out of harm’s way, though, as the fires raged. Now Craig’s legs burned. The rope loosened under the flames, and using his strength, he pulled and snapped the binds free. The legs of the chair broke when he pivoted. He worked to his feet, not giving up on escaping the inferno. The room was curtain upon curtain of flame. Skeletons were twisted and mangled along the floor, and the room was becoming an oven. Craig struggled to walk a straight line, so drunk. Vomit lurched up his throat.

Just run.

Keep moving.

Craig lost it. There was no relief afterwards. The alcohol was still absorbing into his system, and it would stay with him. Wherever he escaped, he would surely be at a disadvantage, and that was one thing he didn’t need against Dr. Krone.

He stormed the exit of the bar, throwing himself through the doors, awaiting the blink, the next moment of horror.

Nothing could prepare him for what he stepped into next.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

The blink happened without him realizing it. He was too drunk to notice. Craig clutched the wall for balance. He lost it again, retching and buckling to his knees. Booze and stomach acids burned his throat and corrupted his mouth. First-degree burns played down his legs up to the knees. His khakis were blackened and parts of his shirt were singed. He curled into a ball and attempted to sober up. The amount of alcohol he’d ingested, he would be under the effects for hours.

Willis, and Joey, and Katie were villains in familiar masks. They wanted him dead. The torture wouldn’t have stopped at alcohol poisoning. He would’ve been a charred corpse. Then what would happen to him? Would he die sitting against the machine? Was he covered in burns and throwing up on himself in the room for real?

“They wouldn’t hurt me,” he whispered, shaking his head, the dooming thoughts intensified by his condition. “Not for real.”

The hall was pitch-black. The kind of darkness where there were no windows to let in the moonlight or the sun. Soft mewls played throughout the hallways in varying levels of echoes. Complaints. Fear. Roused suspicion. The tripwires of this place were set off. Bedsprings groaned. Bare feet pattered the floor and paced back and forth—
clop, clop, clop, clop
. Steel doors were shook, pounded, and kicked. Toilets were flushed repeatedly. Arms reached through the square set of bars in each door for attention. Monkey jeers blasted through the chorus of noises—

“The doctor’s in! The doctor’s in! The doctor’s in!” “Baaah! Baaah! Baaah!” “No more therapy.” “It’s
my
brain.
You
can’t have it!” “Check my pulse, Doctor. Do I have a pulse? Do I have a heart? How can it beat if I don’t have a heart?” “Don’t take my brain.
It’s mine! Mine!
”

“Silence!”

The thick guttural command down the hallway did the trick.

The hall went silent.

“I’ll take all of you with me if you’re not quiet.”

The speaker was distinguished. Professional. The man could make serious things happen, and the patients in this asylum—that’s what it had to be—understood his capabilities. Craig followed the echo of the voices up the hall and made two turns. The event worked to sober him up enough to walk a straight line. A beam of light panned from one iron door to the next. Faces shirked from the light, frightened.

“You can’t hide from me,” the man boasted, hidden in shadow. “I know who each and every one of you are. Some of you have visitors weekly, sometimes monthly, and some of you,” he cackled, “
don’t have visitors at all.
You don’t exist. I can shred your documents and have my way with you. Most of you are so far gone you wouldn’t even know anything’s different, dead or alive.”

The speaker was familiar. He wore winter garb:—a black stocking cap, thick wool overcoat, and black leather boots. But there was another person with him. He was a teenager dressed in a blue polyester and cotton overcoat, clothing for a winter hiking expedition. The boy was glued to the older man’s side.

That’s Dr. Krone and his father.

Jesus, I’m in his head again.

The last memory reoccurred to him. The man wrenching the brains out of straightjacketed individuals with an oversized corkscrew, it had to be Dr. Krone’s father doing the messy work. Now, they were exploring the sanitarium after hours for the best pickings. And it made sense what Dr. Krone’s father said moments ago. There were many people who’d given up on the criminally insane. How many people had been blasted with shock treatment and narcotics to the point they resembled nothing of their former selves? Nobody cared what happened to these people, he thought. How did they break into the sanitarium, Craig wondered, and why wasn’t security here?

Craig poised himself, ready to hide if they walked too close to him. The two were slow and precise about their choices, and he listened and waited.

“Danny,” Dr. Krone’s father whispered to the boy. “Here’s Jamie Henderson. She’s a looker. And only nineteen, and wow, she’s a knockout. She’s an orphan too. Strangled four people on the streets for their money. She was already experiencing the early signs of dementia when the police booked her. Smeared her shit on the holding cell walls. She’s calmed down with the help of Thorazine and Deranal. We can clean her up and use her. You can do it this time, son. I’ll let you complete the process from start to finish. Would you like that?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that, Dad,” a soft and hesitant voice replied. “Jamie’s the perfect choice. I like her. I like her a lot. She’s pretty.”

Dr. Krone’s father fished out an oversized pair of jailor’s keys and unlocked the door. He loaded a syringe and entered the room. “She’s staring at the walls again. I’m surprised the world doesn’t care about what these people are thinking. They are curable. Drugs aren’t the answer. Drugs numb the beast, but the brain harbors it. Nurtures it. If I can find that beast and snuff it out, I can save these people from permanent isolation. Padded walls and institutionalized food would drive any disturbed individual further into the abyss.”

Is that how you validate butchering the infirm? Looks like your son has taken the next step by kidnapping innocent people from the streets and removing their so-called “beasts”.

A woman in a straightjacket with greasy black hair was dragged from the room. She was unconscious, but her eyes were wide open. The way the flashlight beam struck them, they shined like a goldfish’s scales. Permanently affixed to nothing, she was gone. Perhaps the notion itself of combing the mind for the malady rang of scientific purpose, but taking out the brain completely was a different science altogether.

“Wouldn’t you ask the girl on a date if she went to your school, Danny?”

The young Dr. Krone looked her up and down. “Yes. Because she’s pretty.”

“She has potential, but it’s wasted here.” An expression of self-loathing warped the man’s face. “I own six clinics, boy. I’m the root of the problem. I support this grand failure. But not forever, son. I’ll end this once and for all. All I have to do is conquer the mind. If I could get in there, then that’d be a credible feat. I could cure the insane.”

His son approached him, leaving the dazed woman sprawled on the floor. A conviction unknown to such a young face played out on his features. “I see the point of your work. I understand why your colleagues wouldn’t because they’re cowards. It’s revolutionary. Nobody else had the guts to try it, but you do. It’s not pretty. It’s messy. Humanitarians would burn you at the stake, but so what? Nuclear war and nuclear capabilities caused cancer and Down’s Syndrome and gene deficiencies and nobody goes on a witch hunt on the White House lawn. Improvements don’t come without a cost. You’re looking for a cure, not a place to shove the infirm into a room and throw away the key. Some of these people have been buried under the facility. The families don’t care about them. This is the only way to make improvements, Dad.”

The man was astounded at his son’s prolific speech. “You’re right. You’re starting to sound like a scholar. I’m proud of you, boy. So young and so articulate.” He focused on the girl. “Okay, the night’s burning fast. Let’s move out.”

Together, father and son carried the patient by the arms and legs. The patient didn’t budge or resist, being drugged. Craig pursued them from a distance, keeping low. He caught the faces of those within the rooms peek out. Dozens of wide-eyed whites drove shudders through Craig. How often did they suffer this fear of being chosen?

The fire exit was opened farther down the hall. A wash of light chased away the dark, and Craig raced forward so the door wouldn’t close before he could cross. He accomplished his goal, and the door closed behind him. He watched them turn at the bend of the stairs below.

He tiptoed down the staircase. Another door opened below, and he launched down after he caught the young Dr. Krone pass through another door’s threshold. Catching up, out of breath, a burst of wintry air shot across him and irritated his burn wounds. Gritting his teeth, moaning under his breath, he fought the pain and was distracted when he heard the door close.

Shit.

It wasn’t the door. The patient had been dropped. The door struck her head and was wedged in place. Her eyes leered up at him. The whites were the same as those in the hall. Wide. Glowing. Burning with a secret and begging for help. Terror was a thought process even the infirm could understand. Snowflakes dusted her face. If she was kept there long enough, she’d be buried in white.

I can’t help you.

Forgive me.

What were the two doing now? They left their stolen prize. Five minutes, and she was left on the ground. The girl watched the walls, the stairs, and then she studied him again. She didn’t panic or speak. She enjoyed the fresh air and being free of the padded cell.

Take her and run. Save her from these psychos. You’re in Dr. Krone’s mind. Maybe he can hurt you here. But maybe you can hurt him too.

The notion brought so much pleasure that he smiled. Craig kicked open the door and lifted the woman out of its way, softly placing her on the side of the steps. Dr. Krone’s father had lifted up the hood of a Bronco truck—a model from the seventies—and was inspecting the engine. The teenager was throwing rocks at the barbed perimeter. This was a prison. The darkness turned the proximity into a concentration camp. He couldn’t carry the woman without knowing where he was going first.

“Hey—who are you? What the hell are you doing with that woman?”

Dr. Krone’s father raced toward him, a shambling effort in the snow. Craig rushed toward the doctor in retaliation. The man wasn’t accustomed to anybody fighting back, and he cowered at the last moment. Craig swung a good punch to his jaw, and the doctor was sent backwards onto the pavement.

Whump.

A metallic ring jarred his back. Craig landed on all fours, and he turned to fight back, but the shadows disguised the next blow.

Whump.

The back of his neck radiated with agony. He looked up at the teen. He was thin, maybe one hundred and thirty pounds. He wasn’t anything like the man he’d become later on. There was no recognition on the teen’s face. Craig had simply traipsed into the man’s mind without him knowing it, and this was what he found.

The teen raised the crowbar again, but Craig retreated along the perimeter of the building, crawling at first, and then working up to his feet and sprinting. He kept running and sucking in the below-freezing air. Craig shivered. His skin was attacked by gooseflesh, splitting his skin. He wasn’t dressed for the elements. Soon, his retreat was a feeble walk. He tripped over the dips in the grass. The snowstorm was building momentum. The snow was already ankle-deep. The darkness was so thick, he wasn’t sure if he was running to or from them.

“I can hear him.”

“He’s not getting far—you beat him good, Danny. Good boy! I’d like to get my licks in next.”

He slipped on ice and was pitched forward, scuffing his palms and knees. He curled up against the concrete wall, needing a break, hunkering into himself for warmth. The winds pounded him head-on. The snow collected over him in a shroud, and soon, he’d be buried.

He closed his eyes tight, squeezing himself harder. “I won’t die like this. I won’t…d-die…”