I decided to make the first two installments a prolog to the story. This is chapter 1
St. Hobbin’s Institution for the Criminally Insane 2 years later
Patrick Harbin sighed as the minutes slowly drifted by. He hated working the night shift, especially in the isolation ward of the hospital. The inmates never slept, were always murmuring to themselves in the darkness of the cells. Nothing ever really happened, but these psychos, most of them suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and hallucinations, just freaked him out. At least twice a night, one of them needed to be sedated and strapped back in bed while screaming about some mysterious thing trying to get into their cell. Patrick looked at the clock again; another five minutes had dragged by, almost time for rounds. He glanced at the monitors uninterestedly, seeing that most of the "crazies" were pacing in their rooms, undoubtedly talking to whatever voices spoke to them in the dark. His lazy perusal stopped as he passed a screen that only held a bed shadowed in darkness
"Now what the hell is this?" Patrick studied the monitor closely, seeing no sign of the inmate, and a faint flicker of panic started to rise up in him. Jessymyn was one of their problem patients, having been kept in isolation for the majority of the eighteen months she’d been confined. Each time her isolated confinement period had ended, she attacked another inmate or guard and was returned to the isolation tank. She allowed no one near her, went into complete hysteria if anyone appeared before her in black, insisting that they were all one of them. No one was exactly sure who they were.
"Damn it," Patrick muttered under his breath. The lights were malfunctioning in her room. He was going to have to go in there. He hated going into Jessymyn’s cell, there was no telling what the girl would do to him. Rubbing his eyes, Patrick rose from his chair and walked down the corridor to the last room on the left. There were twelve isolation tanks, six on either side of the hall with the guard station positioned at one end near the iron gate. His footsteps echoed lightly as he walked the short distance, stopping only briefly at the medical closet to arm himself with a hypodermic of Thorazine. He stopped outside the door, peering into the window to see if Jessymyn had reappeared. With a shaky hand, he slipped the plastic key-card through the electric lock and entered the room.
"Jessymyn? Come on out honey, it’s okay." Shining his flashlight into the room, Patrick listened for any sounds, trying to locate the girl before she could attack him. A litany of whispers was coming from the corner, causing the hairs on his neck to stand up on end. He groped the wall, trying to find the emergency call button he knew should be to his left. The wall felt cold and smooth below his hand, adding to the chill that was already coursing down his arms. Where was the switch?
The whispers ceased, leaving an ominous silence in its wake. Patrick stilled, trying to discern if Jessymyn was still in her corner or moving about the room. He thought he heard the faint shuffle of feet on the linoleum, but the sound was gone almost as soon as it started. "Jessymyn? Where are you?" No reply. His hand connected with the switch and he pressed the button.
A piercing scream rang through Patrick’s ears and he turned towards the noise. He only had time to suck in a gasp of air before a small figure with limp, dark hair lunged at him and pinned him to the wall. Jessymyn’s fingers clutched at his throat, closing his windpipe and shutting off his air supply. He dropped the flashlight with a loud thud that resounded in the cell. "Jesus. Jesus Christ!!" was all that was running through Patrick’s head as he groped in his pocket for the hypodermic. His vision was starting to go black, lack of oxygen making him dizzy, but he could see Jessymyn’s eyes through the haze. The ice-blue irises didn’t even seem human to him.
Jessymyn pressed harder on his throat, grunting with the effort. Patrick fell to his knees, still clutching for the Thorazine that would end this torture. She followed, using his momentum to get him on his back. Tears flowed freely from her cold, blue eyes and dripped on his face, scorching his skin. At last, his fingers closed around the syringe and he popped the cap off. Pulling it frantically from his pocket, he drove the needle into Jessymyn’s thigh, quickly dispensing the sedative into her blood stream.
Though it took but a few seconds for the medicine to take effect, it seemed hours before she released her grip on his throat, allowing precious oxygen to flow back into Patrick’s lungs. Jessymyn lay limply on the floor, still whispering. Still crying.
"Please," she breathed, "they’re here, they found me."
Patrick all but spat on the floor. He looked around the room, lit by the beam of his flashlight, and saw nothing but her toilet and her cot. Glass was scattered on the floor. "So she busted the lights out," he thought. The restraints used to keep her in the bed had been tossed on the floor. Odd, but he had thought that Jessymyn had been strapped to the bed during the previous shift. He snorted. The other guard must not have tightened them enough. He glanced down at the tiny girl sprawled on the floor, dark tresses tossed across her face. She was barely able to move now.
"There’s nothing in here, Jessymyn. Nothing at all." Patrick sat up and moved to her side, resisting the urge to kick the stupid little bitch in her face. She’d almost killed him! If not for the Thorazine, he’d be a corpse on the floor right now. Shaking his head, he lifted Jessymyn into his arms and carried her to the cot where he dropped her. With a good deal of satisfaction, he pulled the restraints across her chest and fastened them at her wrists. The metal clasps jingled a bit as he positioned them, detracting only slightly from the intense silence in the room. He could hear her even breathing, an indication that she had finally succumbed to the tranquilizer and fallen asleep.
Patrick stood and looked down on her after he finished strapping her down. She really was pretty, even if she was nuts. He was sure that dark hair would shine if she’d allow one of the nurses to wash it more than once a month and her lips formed a full pout as she slept. Perfect oval face and high cheekbones, she could have been a porcelain doll. The only thing detracting from Jessymyn’s face was her eyes; the cold blue depths held no soul. No spark of life.
"What the hell am I doing?" Patrick asked himself shaking head. He turned to leave the cell, to start his rounds, when security came pounding down the hall. It took but a moment to relay the episode to the other guards and they walked back down the hall to the security station to write up a report. Patrick took one more look at Jessymyn and was leaving when a soft voice called from the cot.
"They are here," she whispered. "You’ll see. Someday you’ll all see." Patrick waited a moment to see if she would say any more, but the silence once again settled over the room. He drew a deep breath and closed the door behind him as he left the cell to call maintenance to replace the broken lights and cleanup the glass.
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Reviewed by Alex Greene
4/29/2005
Yikes. Creepy. Well done.
Reviewed by Robert Fullerton
3/7/2005
Danielle...I want more...this is great writing..Thanks..Bob
Intriguing and it really is like what they see. I know this because I worked wards where people like the character resided. They can no longer be called patients because the reside their. It is a politically correct statement. Very realistice and powerful.
My word, what a story! Danielle you have me holding my breath.
You really know how to build suspense! This is fantastic!
I'm staying up a bit late tonight, have to get this out of
my mind hahaha LOL. See you for Chapter 2!;-)
Assistant County Attorney Ken Anderson spends his weekends drinking and running around. After waking up with another hangover, Ken decides not to drink so much anymore. Ken and his buddy, Tony, go out to eat and see Mia Correa and Faye Kincaid at the
