West Park Asylum
“Wait up, Rich,” Ian says as he jogs after the older man. He catches up at the door to the small garden and they take a seat on a marble bench. “I’m sorry you were treated that way. If it means anything, I heard a voice last night. It spoke about normal not being fun.”
“Every patient here has heard that voice at some point,” Rich replies, his voice empty and defeated. He clicks his camera at a nearby butterfly, the noise scaring the insect off the purple flower. “The staff doubt its existence, but I’ve overheard the residents talking about weird events. Strange shadows, a voice at night, and a whole list of signs that there is something wrong at Raven’s Hold. None of them agree with me to my face because they don’t trust me. After all, I’m an outsider.”
“But they think you’re a patient too,” Ian points out, shying away from the glare. “I only mean that it’s obvious they consider you one of them. I don’t see any evidence that they treat you differently. Well, besides Jeremy laying into you, but I get the feeling that he does that to everybody.”
The bald man sighs and adjusts the lens on his camera. “The others pretend to go along with the staff to stay on the doctor’s good side. Think about it. If there is any threat of a leak then those in charge will do whatever it takes to remove the threat. For example, take a reporter who comes too close to the truth and turn them into a patient. That’s only what would happen to an outsider. Imagine if you’re already here and put Raven’s Hold in danger. Only place to go is away and never be heard from again. Maybe the ghosts are of those who uncovered the truth and were eliminated.”
Ian nods and rethinks his decision to befriend the strange man, who still sounds like a delusional patient. The voice from the night before could have been the remnant of a dream or even a conversation he overheard and accidentally interrupted. After all, he doubts a ghost would be thrown off by a simple statement. Seeing how Jeremy reacted to Rich, Ian can easily imagine a malicious patient using the story of strange voices to have some fun. The shadows and other odd happenings probably had even simpler explanations, which he decides not to suggest to his only friend.
“What do they think you’ll do if they agree with you?” Ian asks with a sigh. He pauses when Dawn wanders into the garden, but she immediately heads back inside when she sees the two men. “That was strange. Though I get the feeling that’s just her. Do you know anything about Dawn?”
“It’s best that you hear her story from her. Crossing Ms. Addison can be messy since she’s very unpredictable,” Rich replies while keeping his eye on the windows. He shivers when he thinks of the young woman watching him from wherever she is hiding. “As to the question I can answer, the patients are scared that I’ll go into the basement. I’m sure that’s where the truth behind Raven’s Hold is hidden. Maybe this whole place is an experiment to see what effects certain stimuli have on the mentally unstable. No offense.”
“Kind of hard to take offense when it’s true,” the blonde man replies with a half-hearted smirk. A flicker of movement draws his attention to a rabbit that is wondering through a nearby patch of ivy. “Dr. Rutherford told me that a few of the previous patients abused some of the wildlife here. I find it interesting that the animals stay so close to the building after that happened.”
“They’re only dumb animals. Probably don’t know any better.”
“I was attacked by squirrels on my first day.”
“That’s more common than people think.”
Ian scratches his head and goes back to watching the rabbit, the animal hopping within a few feet of him. For the first time, Rich takes notice of the rodent and stomps his foot in an attempt to scare it away. Instead, the black-furred rabbit stares at him and twitches its ears in irritation at the loud noise. It scampers along the walkway and ducks into the open door, startling a female patient who rushes out of the building. The woman keeps running until she disappears around the far corner.
“Thank you for trying to make me feel better,” Rich says while awkwardly patting Ian on the shoulder. The man forces a weak smile and runs his thumb along the dial that focuses his camera. “It’s more kindness than I’ve been shown since I got here. Genuine kindness and not the humoring I get from everyone else. For what it’s worth, I hope this place isn’t a supernatural pit of ghosts and you recover. You seem like a really nice guy, Ian, and it sucks that you’ve had to suffer so much. My best friend took her life in high school and I still occasionally wonder if there was anything I could have done.”
“Do you ever come up with an answer?” Ian asks, his breathing becoming rapid and labored. Rubbing the side of his head, the young man subtly grabs and twists his ear to give himself a jolt of pain. “I usually just run the entire thing through my head until I have a panic attack. Then I wake up feeling like I should be the one who died. It’s a nightmarish cycle that I can’t break myself out of.”
“The only answer I have is that hindsight is a useless skill,” his friend replies with a bitter chuckle. “Look on the bright side. You understand that you have a problem and need to get better. Most people remain in denial about their situation. Sure you’ll break out of the cycle at some point. Sorry if I upset you. Do you need me to get you a paper bag or something? You’re going to hyperventilate.”
“I’ll be fine,” the younger man claims while putting his head between his knees. A few gulps for air nearly make him vomit, but he manages to pull himself together. “To be honest, I’m rather easy to set off, so I don’t hold it against anyone who does it by accident. Besides, you were trying to help. Beats my older sister and her husband trying the tough love approach or treating me like a helpless child. They don’t really understand what my wife or I am going through. I probably never explained it very well and they took it as whining or a childish attempt to hide from people.”
“If you could explain it clearly then you’d probably be better now.”
“Good point.”
A blood-curdling scream causes both men to leap to their feet and hurry back into the building. Orderlies cut them off before they can get more than a few steps, each staff member ready with a sedative. Rich and Ian put up their hands and calmly back toward the wall while watching some of the rowdier patients get contained by force. A whistling janitor is hurrying with a mop and bucket, but he is stopped by a woman pushing a gurney. She waits for her coworkers to get everything under control and quietly moves the wheeled bed toward a groaning form that is covered by a sheet.
Another cry of agony rings out and the red-haired man from the morning’s group session throws his covering away. Blood is spread across the floor, which riles a few of the more sensitive patients. The red liquid seeps from a wound on his heel that has neatly severed his Achilles tendon. It is a very precise and clean cut that reminds many of the orderlies of a surgical incision. Whimpering and reaching down to his leg, the red-haired man tries to roll over and cries in pain. He shivers and clenches his teeth as his body begins to go into shock. It takes several orderlies to left the heavy patient onto the gurney and they quickly try to wrap the wound with gauze.
“I swear I didn’t do it,” Jeremy says from where he has been cornered. “I was at the other end of the hallway when he went down. Where would I get something to make a wound like that anyway? I don’t even have any blood on me.”
“Hand from the floor,” the injured man mutters as he is carted away. He stares wide-eyed at Rich and Ian, but they get the feeling he does not really see them. “Saw it in the window. It rose out of the floor with a razor. One swipe and I fell. Something is living in the basement. It put its hand through the floor. Like a ghost.”
A sedative stops his rant before he gets too excited and he gradually falls asleep, the gauze already dripping onto the white sheet. The janitor hurries to clean the pool of blood and stops to shoo away the rabbit. With a twitch of its nose, the rodent ignores the bearded man and goes back to licking at the puddle. An orderly eventually grabs the rabbit and takes the thrashing animal outside, its teeth puncturing her hands several times.
“I didn’t think rabbits drink blood,” Ian whispers, watching the rodent disappear into the bushes. “Am I alone in thinking that was strange?”
“You’re not alone on that one,” Rich replies, clicking a few pictures of the blood pool before it is gone. He jumps when Dawn steps out from behind him and bends down to touch the crimson rabbit prints. “I wish I had an explanation for this, but it’s nothing like any of the visions and voices I’ve heard. Maybe the guy made the ghosts mad, so they decided to punish him. Not sure what he could have done to anger them though.”
“He scared the bunny,” Dawn says while sniffing at the blood on her fingers. She wrinkles her nose and wipes the liquid on the back of the janitor’s pants. “You should never scare a sleeping bunny.”
