What the Moon Sees

Her blood red eyes are all that are visible through the viscous fog billowing about me like a living thing, her gaze penetrating through flesh and bone to the very depths of my soul. I feel my will drain away as my sense of self drowns in a whirling pool of crimson, the voice that exists only in my mind nevertheless impossible to resist: Give yourself to me. Obey.

I wake with a start, trading the recurring nightmare of my dreams for that of my reality. The December moon shines bright through the barred exterior of my window, its beams breaking through the steadily falling snow outside and washing the undecorated walls of my room in pale light. I don’t have a watch, but based on the moon’s position I judge it must be around two; a long way until morning. I know from past experience I won’t be getting back to sleep tonight, not with her waiting for me in my subconscious. The insulation of the old building is inadequate, the cold seeping through the poorly fitted window frame enough to be uncomfortable if not life threatening. Pulling my thin blanket more snugly about myself, I wrap my arms about my legs and wait. Sitting in her light, not for the first time I wonder what the moon thinks of all those hidden things that creep and crawl under her shifting gaze, hunting and hiding. Does she know? Does she care?

When day finally breaks, I’m more than ready to get out of these four narrow walls. Impatiently I sit fidgeting on my bed for the orderly to come by and conduct the headcount, signaling theapproach of my relative freedom.

Today is different. Rather than the almost robotic pattern of steps as the lone guard makes his way down the wing, silently checking each room in turn, there are two sets of quick footfalls accompanied by low but strained voices.

“… what I fucking said.”

“How’d … through the window?”

“…hell should I know…”

“Director’s gonna … pissed.”

One of the orderlies stops briefly to ensure I’m posted on my bed where I’m supposed to be before rapidly continuing down the hall, further conversation lost to my ears. I close my eyes and concentrate, trying to see if I can pick up any stray thoughts from the pair, only managing to get a whiff of frustration, barely masking a sense of very real fear. Something is wrong.

Rather than the five or ten minutes that typically separates the room check from the doors being unlocked, today I’m left waiting for a solid hour before my liberation. Eager to see what I can discover about the nature of the disturbance, I immediately push into the hall past the orderly and join a steady stream of my fellow patients.

Entering the large common room where we spend most of our day, I scan the room looking for Joe. I like Joe Sandoval. He’s been a guest here at the Fallen Leaves Psychiatric Hospital even longer than I have, killed his wife in some kind of a psychotic break when he found out she was cheating on him. Rumor is they tried to rehabilitate him at first, but after he strangled his second therapist in as many months decided it would just be best to keep him in a waking coma.

He’s easy to talk to since the nurses keep him stoned up to his eyeballs,  enough that I’m sure he wouldn’t recognize me if they took him off the meds. Even better, the drugs keep his thoughts quiet, unlike most of the residents whose minds are comprised almost solely of waking nightmares. The horrors from their brains disgust me, perhaps only second to some of the thoughts I pick up from the male orderlies.

Today, though, I don’t see him. His normal spot at the table near the far wall where I’d expect him to be sitting slack-jawed and empty-eyed is vacant. Odd. I wonder if Joe’s absence could possibly have anything to do with the disturbance that caused us to be trapped in our rooms this morning. Even now, I can still pick up the sweet stink of mental fear from where an orderly guards the door. Questions beget questions. I settle into a seat next to Joe’s empty one and focus on trying to screen out the thoughts of the lunatics surrounding me.

Every day at ten o’ clock after breakfast, residents are allowed thirty minutes of outdoor recreation on the hospital’s rather sizeable grounds. Considering everything that has happenedtoday, I expect this morning’s excursion will be interrupted. I’m surprised when the nurses start bringing in winter jackets at the normal time, assisting the less able patients in bundling up.

The December air is frigid on my exposed skin as I move to the outdoors, my breath taking shape as I exhale. Looking back at the dormitory wing, I’m surprised by what I see. Each room’s exterior is virtually identical, a single small window situated on the south side of the building and protected by a set of steel bars strong enough to frustrate even the most energetic assailant. I know this from personal experience, as I have repeatedly tested the resiliency of my own room’s security. Today though, the uniformity is marred, one of the windows on the second floor its tough, thick glass somehow shattered, the protective fencing twisted violently outward. My mind returns to the snatch of conversation I overheard during the room check. Could someone have broken out of the hospital? Could it have been Joe?

Surreptitiously glancing about to ensure I am unobserved by any of our chaperones, I move closer to the base of the building tofurther investigate. To my astonishment, there is no glass marring the virgin snow resting under the broken window, its untouched whiteness blemished only by my footprints. A shiver runs down my spine, a feeling owing nothing to the brisk winter weather; the window must have been shattered inward.

I doubt most of the patients would have the mental wherewithal to even notice this detail. Similarly, I’m sure that any sane observers would likely arrive at another more mentally acceptable explanation for the discrepency. But not I, no. I know what lurks in the shadows, have seen how very narrow our vision of what ‘real’ truly is, how our world is the barest tip of ice poking out of the water. There are things that dwell beneath it, in the dark and cold. I’ve met some of those things, lost my little sister and best friend to them, was labeled insane when I tried to spread the warning of their existence. God I only wish I was.

I close my eyes and extend my senses to see if I can discern anything from the broken window. The barest hint of oily darkness clings to the opening like a cobweb, its nature unlike the normal astral muck I routinely swim through from the run-of-the-mill psychotics and deviants interred here; not confirmation of some kind of otherworldly entity, certainly, but far from any kind of reassurance I could have hoped for. I pick up a mental whiff of suspicion and turn to see an orderly frowning at me from where he keeps watch. I move from the spot before he decides to chase me away; there’s nothing more I’d be able to tell from down here anyway.

Before I let my unfortunately all too sane mind run off,gibbering away on thoughts of spooks and goblins, ghostly children and demonic women in white, I decide to take one more chance at finding a clue to Joe’s whereabouts. There is a small stand of ash trees near the eastern wall of the property, a low bench nestled protectively beneath their spreading branches. Many days I’ve spent sitting on that bench with Joe’s comatose form settled next to me, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face as I imagine the life that exists just out of reach on the other side of the high stone wall. If Joe did escape, if he maintained anything resembling his memory, maybe he would have gone there. Maybe there will be a sign. I sigh. Ifs. Maybes. All questions and no answers. Riddles in the dark.

I reach the trees and am disappointed to note the utter lack of footprints other than my own, the snow as unmarked as the bank beneath the shattered window. I brush off the stone bench and sit down to think, hoping for some flash of inspiration. Final check is at midnight and I was awake from two o’clock on. That leaves a relatively small window of opportunity for something to have happened. Did I hear anything as I shivered on my bunk last night?

As I hunch on the bench wondering, my gaze meanders over the snow. Suddenly, my eye catches on something that causes my attention to snap into focus. It’s a small thing, really, one thatI’d never have noticed if I hadn’t taken the time to sit on the bench and stare at the ground. But it’s there, clear as day, two small drops of red marring the snow that my first glance had told me was unbroken. Instinctively I know those two pinpricks of crimson are blood, and a pit forms in my stomach as worry settles inside me like a stone.

I extend my senses again, this time towards the red snow. Immediately I can tell the blood is from Joe, it tastes like him, the image of rose petals falling gently to the floor that I’ve come to associate with him unmistakable in its simple beauty. Running through that almost idyllic image is a spike of pain and fear that I haven’t ever felt from him, his psyche typically too dulled by medications to elicit such potent emotions. And there’s something else too, the same darkness I felt scraps of clinging to the broken window, now undiluted and wrapped up here in Joe’s essence, cloying and awful.

Abruptly my psyche is forcefully tugged forward, the potency of the strange darkness dragging me in as readily as a fish on the line. Reality shifts, and instead of the blank pale whiteness of new fallen snow, the landscape has transformed into one entirely of red, the sun and sky turned burgundy, the trees a dark cherry. The shock of the connection causes me to fall to my knees and my arms plunge into frigid pools of crimson to the elbows. I free my hands and hold them in front of me trembling, my hands stained deep red. Blood. The entire world has been transformed into blood. The bite of its coppery stench stings the back of my throat and I feel the oatmeal mush I ate in the common room start to work its way back up as I hurriedly try to detach the mental connection. I manage, barely, trying to catch my breathas the world snaps back into normalcy, my hands unmarked, thelingering remains of darkness flitting like bursts of staticthrough my consciousness as it dissipates. What happened to you, Joe?

“Where’s your boyfriend, Fontaine?”

Still woozy from my astral trip, I feel a rush of fear spike through me. I recognize the voice. It belongs to Calvin Sturgis, a new orderly in the hospital, and a sadistic son of a bitch. I first encountered him maybe two weeks ago, my mental reconnaissance of his psyche returning an image of a young girl, bruised and sobbing, a dark form standing over her. The associated emotion was not anger or drunken rage as I would have expected, but rather sexual excitement. Even without my abilities it would have been too easy to read his intent as he ran his gaze across my body. Since then, I’ve ensured that I’m never alone with him, used my abilities to avoid him as much as possible, but I was too distracted by the reading from Joe’s blood to sense his approach.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, Sturgis.”

“That’s Mr. Sturgis, you uppity bitch,” he moves a step closer, putting himself in arms reach, “And you know exactly who I’m talking about. The freakshow, Sandoval. He went missing last night, managed to squeeze through his window somehow. Say…”

He reaches down, grabbing my arm and pulling me roughly to my feet.

“You’re gonna be awfully lonely without your comatose buddy. Not sure what a doll like you saw in a brain dead guy like him anyway.”

I try to pull away.

“Shh, shh, hey it’s ok, don’t worry. I get it, fucking a corpse can be fun. Tried it myself a time or two,” he chuckles leaning close to whisper in my ear, “I’ve seen the way you look at me, darlin’. And I’ve got good news for you … I’m on guard tonight.”

He smirks as I struggle to pull my arm away from his grasp.

“Ah, ah, don’t go making a scene. Who’re they gonna believe, anyway? You, a fucking lunatic, or me, the model fucking citizen? Say something, see what happens to me. I’ll tell you what: nothing. But I’ll make sure you spent a month in solitary, maybe see that they forget to feed you a time or two. Hunger does amazing things to break liars of their nasty, nasty habit.”

He licks his lips.

“By the time you get outta there you’ll be begging me for it. So think about that if you decide to get…fiesty.”

He reaches around and squeezes my ass, hard.

“See you tonight.”

Sturgis walks back towards the asylum, stopping to talk to another orderly on his way. The pair laugh at a shared joke. Goddammit. As if it isn’t bad enough Joe’s been abducted by some otherworldly entity, I’ve got human monsters to deal with too. My thoughts turn to the ash trees spreading above me. The supernatural, at least, I may be able to protect myself against. The rest, I’ll just have to improvise.

It’s not the first time I’ve partially clouded someone’s mind with my abilities, but it’s still a bit of a surprise that I manage to smuggle a pair of foot long ash branches back into the asylum, the orderlies convinced they’ve thoroughly searched me. I’d done some research on the occult prior to being committed and know that religious objects, when coupled with appropriate belief, have protective capabilities against things that go bump in the night. And if Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee taught me any lessons at all, it’s that a cross can be made out of two straight pieces of pretty much anything. The fact that I’ve managed to get actual ash wood, commonly heralded for its spook stopping potential, is pure gravy.

I manage to sneak off to my room and stash the sticks under my mattress unobserved. I have a feeling I’ll need them tonight. I can’t know for sure, but something tells me that whatever the hell abducted Joe will have felt that probe that sucked me into the strange blood world earlier. And if it can do that, it’ll have my scent. Who knows, even if Cal Sturgis is the only monster I have to fend off tonight, the branches may come in handy.

I spend the rest of the day sitting next to Joe’s vacant spot. The time passes uneventfully, though the stench of mental unease stays constant from the orderlies watching over us. It’s all I can do to keep from smiling. They’re scared because they think a multiple murderer has somehow fallen off his meds and might be hiding somewhere in the hospital. They’d crap themselves if they knew there’s a genuine boogeyman responsible.

Gradually the sun starts its slow descent towards the horizon and the orderlies dish out the evening meal. Sturgis slops a bowl down in front of me.

“Eat up, Fontaine. Gonna need your energy tonight.”

I toss him a saccharine sweet smile and raise the bowl to my lips, downing the stew inside in a few gulps. The thrill of excitement from him as he mentally runs through his planned activities for the evening is easy to pick up. He’s right that I’ll need the strength, just not for what he’s got planned. Sturgissmirks, and continues his rounds, leaving me to my thoughts. If the monster doesn’t come for me tonight, it’d be a tactical misstep to reveal I’ve got the ash branches hidden in my room, but dammit if I have the opportunity to shove one of them down his cretinous throat, I’ll be sorely tempted to take it.

It’s maybe five minutes later that I realize something is wrong. The world has taken on a strange, spinning motion, my head whirling like it’s hopped on a carnival ride. Sonuvabitch…

I lurch to my feet and stumble to the trash can on the far wall, shoving my fingers as far down my throat as I can. I manage to spew a thin stream of vomit into the can before everything upends completely and I find myself face down on the floor, the tile cool where it presses against my cheek.

“The hell, Fontaine?” I recognize the voice, Clem Shepherd, another of the orderlies, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Don’t worry about it, Clem, I got her.”  Sturgis’s voice seems to come from a very long way off. “Just a little upset her boyfriend skipped out without her. I’ll get her back to her room.”

He pulls my arm across his shoulder and hauls me to my feet. At this point I’m too out of it to see if anyone else is even paying attention. Sturgis half drags me back down the hall and roughly dumps me on my bed.

“Sorry, darlin’. After our earlier conversation I just wasn’t left with the confidence you were gonna keep that feistiness in check, so I decided to take the edge off m’self. Sleep tight. Don’t you go missing me too much, I’ll be back later once I’m sure we can have a little more privacy. I know you lady-folk have your modesty to think of. See you soon.”  I can hear the grin in his voice as he shuts my door, the clicking of the lock carrying the weight of chilling finality. As my vision narrows to a thin tunnel, the world dimming to black, the last thought I have is to wonder which of the monsters will manage get me first.

Unlike the previous night, the drug induced sleep I’m forced into is of the deep and dreamless variety. When I manage to wake up, I’m momentarily confused, my thoughts sluggish, before the memory of my situation sends a shot of adrenaline racing through me, jarring my brain into full consciousness. I try to move, I find that my limbs are unresponsive a sick knot appearing in my stomach. The drug must have a paralytic affect, I can only pray it wears off in time.

Panicked, my eyes flit to the window. The moon again shines through with its pale light watching the world below, tonight unimpeded by falling snow. There, from the far side, staring at me as if ripped from my nightmares, a pair of glowing red eyes regards me coldly from outside the steel bars. I don’t even need to extend my senses feel the same mental stench of darkness emanating from the shadowy figure that I picked up from Joe’s blood. With ease, the dark shape takes hold of the bars and almost casually bends them back, away from the window. A long nail scratches down the length of the thick tempered pane, cutting through as easily as fangs through flesh, and with a gentle push the glass falls to the floor of my room, the rubber floor muting the impact. The dark shape glides inward through the opening, floating on the freezing winter air. I struggle to regain any movement, desperate to try and reach the ash branches hidden beneath me.

“Hello, my dear.”  His voice is harsh and cold, like nails on a chalkboard, but all the same there is something beneath it that affects me on a primal level, almost sexually. Part of me is drawn to this thing, wants him to take me, to devour me, body and soul.

“I felt you, earlier. A remarkable talent you have. I knew at once I must have you. How lucky for us that visitors are encouraged to call upon patients in hospitals, or our meeting would have been so much more tedious to affect. But, ah, here we are.”  My eyes pick up the barest hint of fangs reflected by the moonlight as he smiles. “Please don’t be frightened. Truly, the pleasure is only heightened by the pain.”

He bends over me, jaw yawning open wide, and in that moment I close my eyes and wait for the prick of his fangs upon my throat, knowing my life has come to an end.

That’s when the lock to my room clicks and Cal Sturgis pushes his way into the room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, darlin’, you wouldn’t believe the evenin’ I had. Your boy Cal has some serious aggression you’re gonna help me work out and … what the fuck?”

With a roar of anger, the monster leaps at Cal who falls back with a cry, the thing’s claws ripping into his chest and causing blood to fly across the room, spattering across the room. The force of its attack throws Cal backwards into the hall and I hear him slam into the far wall with a dull thud. The thing rushes after him, but somehow he must avoid the killing blow because his screams continue down the hallway as he picks himself up and runs, the creature howling in frustration as it chases after him.

Where I lie on my bunk, at last, the paralytic effects of the drug seem to be wearing off. My upper body at least is responding marginally, my hand agonizingly stretching towards where my ash stakes are shoved under the mattress. I hear Cal let loose a shriek of unintelligible anguish from down near the common room as at last I feel the rough bark of the wood against my palm.

The screams have stopped, replaced now by a few quiet moans and a soft slurping sound. I manage to pull myself to a sitting position on my bed, the wood branches held crossed and clutched protectively to my chest. I haven’t been a very active Christian the last couple years, and my faith has surely been tested in light of discovering all the terrible things in the world, demons and humans alike. Will it be enough? God, will it be enough?

Even the moans have ceased, now, and I know it’s only a matter of time before I find out. The moon continues to pour herself through my broken window, the whisper of a winter breeze accompanying her and ruffling my dark hair. I turn my gaze to her waning pale face with a small smile. She is, perhaps, the only one who will ever know.

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