Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20181019010044

Chapter IX

“Hey, Pabs, quit throwing dirt at the windows!” I yelled at the middle-aged woman in a brown shawl from across the courtyard. Pabs had raced towards the gardens immediately upon going outside and had been flinging mud at the windows for about five minutes straight, oblivious to the protests from myself and Joe, the other orderly present.

It was a bright June morning in 2013 at Lunar Skies Psychiatric Hospital. The sky was a crisp blue, and the flowers that were so tenderly cared for by the landscapers (now being destroyed by Pabs) were in full bloom in the courtyard.

I glanced at my watch and looked around to make sure Dr. Melville had gone back inside. She only stayed outside for about five minutes whenever we took the patients out every day. Sighing, I shot a nervous glance to my friend Joe and began making my way over to the table at the far end of the courtyard, trying to seem casual as I sat across from the anorexic 30-year-old woman chain-smoking in the shade.

“Hey, Jan,” I greeted with confidence. “You ready to do this thing?”

She shrugged, her eyes cast down as she stubbed out her cigarette and pulled out another one.

“I guess so.”

Jan lit the cigarette and took a brief drag before coughing in repulsion.

“Blech!”

She picked up the pack and threw it down in exasperation.

“You know, Clay knows that I smoke Virginia Slim menthols. I fucking hate this Camel Reds crap. Whatever. I guess it’ll have to do.”

“Well,” I said coyly, “you shouldn’t even be smoking out here in the first place.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then why do you guys let me? And don’t give me that crap, you go out for smoke breaks all the time.”

I laughed and glanced over my shoulder, making sure that nothing was amiss. Jan must have noticed, because she looked around, too.

“I couldn’t get in trouble for this, too, could I?”

“Nah,” I said. “Just me.”

“Well, can they see you from here?”

“No, it’s the only good blind spot. Cameras can’t pick us up, and you can’t see us from the windows.”

“Well, that’s good. God, people are gonna think we’re having some kind of romance going on,” she said with a soft chuckle. I gulped and tried not to think about that.

Janice Bakker had been a patient at Lunar Skies for nine years when I came, having been admitted in the spring of 2004. She’d apparently been in a frenzied state of confusion and paranoia at the time and was subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, besides this, nobody knew much about her backstory, besides what had been gathered from friends. For nine years, Jan had absolutely refused to directly talk about what led up to her hospitalization.

And it was for this reason that when I had come to Lunar Skies the year prior I was immediately intrigued by her. Because despite her diagnosis, she seemed the sanest out of anybody there, despite her struggle with anorexia and insomnia. That was, until she had an episode in March. She had woken up screaming, and when the orderlies came, myself being one of them, she tried to attack us and was babbling on about how we weren’t real and that something was after her.

The whole event had taken us by surprise, given her history of being quiet and withdrawn. So much so that I told my friend Kurt Alfonsi about the incident. Kurt and I had shared an apartment while we were working on our bachelor’s college. And though I left school after getting my bachelor’s, he stayed behind to finish up his master’s in psychology. Luckily for me—or so I thought—Kurt just so happened to be wanting to do a case study on schizophrenia, and I had apparently infected him with a shared intrigue in Janice Bakker.

“I need her for this case study,” he’d said over the phone the morning after the incident. “It’s gotta be her. She’s hiding something, I just know it.”

“Yeah, I get that same feeling too,” I replied.

“Listen, can you ask your boss or whoever about letting me do this study?”

“Well,” I sighed, “I’m pretty sure they only let licensed faculty do that kind of thing. Not sure they’d take you, part of our policy. Besides, good luck getting her to talk.”

“Are you sure?” Kurt had urged. “I mean, I’m in school. I can make sure not to cause her distress or anything.”

“Uh, hold on. Let me find my copy of the policies. Yup. Says right here: ‘No psychological studies, testing, experiments, etc. shall be conducted using patients of Lunar Skies Psychiatric Hospital unless the conductor or conductors of the tests are officially employed under Lunar Skies Psychiatric Hospital and are a licensed practitioner. Violation of this policy can result in immediate termination of employment.’ I mean, it is a private institution.”

“Shit,” he sighed. “Well, can you do it?”

I laughed.

“Ha! What, and lose my job? I’m just an orderly, making sure they don’t swallow their forks and shit.”

“How much do you make a year, Daniel?”

I paused.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just tell me.”

Huffing, I told him, “I’ve made about twenty-eight grand so far, and I started a year ago next month.”

“Not very much, is it?” he asked, his voice low.

“Gets my rent paid and gas in the tank.”

“Well, what if I told you that it’s not just me doing these case studies, but ten others, and that we landed an… interestingly large research grant for it?”

“What are you trying to say, Kurt?”

“We’re overbudgeted, Daniel. But we’re gonna write off the extra and keep it for ourselves. Listen, I’ll be doing other case studies, too, but… I don’t know. You know me, I can’t resist a challenge.”

“Yeah, like when you butt-chugged that keg and nearly died?”

“I’m being serious, Daniel. We are way overbudgeted. I don’t know who’s pulling the strings here, but if you do this, I’ll give you a third of my share.”

I scoffed.

“You want me to risk my job for a third of your share? Get out of here, man. You’re crazy.”

“It’d be three-and-a-half grand you’re getting, Daniel.”

“You’re getting ten thousand?” I exclaimed, quickly doing the math in my head. “Just to talk to some people?”

“Like I said, Daniel. Somebody’s pulling some strings here hard.”

“Well, the offer is nice, but three thousand just isn’t worth my job.”

“Fine. I’ll give you half my share: five thousand.”

“Make it two thirds.”

I could hear him hesitating on the other end. I’d known Kurt for a long time, and if there was anything he couldn’t resist, it was a chance to do what others couldn’t do. He was in life for the glory, not the money.

“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll give you two-thirds. Seven and a half grand just for you. All I want you to do is record her basically talking about what led up to her hospitalization, and then after that, I’ll give you a series of questions to ask her.”

“When do you need it done?”

“Within six months.”

“Shit,” I chuckled, “might take that long to get her to talk.”

“Yeah, well, get on it. You’re not seeing that money until I have what I want.”

From the distance, I heard a soft voice.

“Why’re you doing this?”

I blinked my eyes and realized that I’d been staring at Jan.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Did you say something?”

“Yeah, I asked why you’re interviewing me.”

The question struck me odd.

“Well, why did you already agree to it if you didn’t know why? I mean, I thought I told you.”

She turned her eyes towards Pabs, the dark circles under her eyes somehow looking darker.

“I dunno,” she said. “I never thought about it.”

“Well,” I said. “I want to write a novel, and I can’t think of anything. So, I figured you must have something, keeping it all secret for nine years.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Yeah. I guess I do have quite a lot to tell.”

“Plus,” I added, shooting her a toothy grin, “this’ll be a chance to let it all off your chest and have it be completely anonymous. I’ll change the names and everything.”

She smiled back at me, and I almost felt guilty for lying to her.

“It would be nice,” she said, her thin blonde hair blowing gently in the breeze. She said nothing for a few moments, the silence growing heavy.

“I hate this place,” she murmured.

“What?”

“I said I fucking hate this place. It’s… it’s nothing but a morgue. A graveyard for the living.”

There was another pause. Finally, Jan leaned forward with a pained expression her face.

“I miss the world, Daniel. I used to be afraid of it, but now it's all I want. I want out of this cage. But I’m stuck here. Dr. Sherman says that nothing’s out there to get me, but I know there is. But I can’t tell him. Because I’m afraid to. And that's what hurts the most: knowing that nobody would believe me.” She leaned back in her seat and stared at her knees.

“But who could believe me?” she whispered to herself.

“You know, word around the place is that it's been suggested that you be released into somebody's care. You’ve never seemed to be a threat to yourself or anybody else since you’ve been here, save that night in March,” I told her gently.

“That’s not true.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s not the only incident. A lot of you guys weren’t around here, but when I first came here, things were rough. No rest. Dreams were my reality. And I’ve already been released on three occasions. But every time, I have to come back. He always comes for me if I leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jan squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers wringing themselves in a frenzy.

“I can’t leave. I just can’t. It comes.”

“What comes? Why can’t you leave?”

She opened her eyes, wide and hollow.

“I’ll end up like Mike, Daniel. I’ll end up like Larry. I’ll end up like Ben.”

“Who… who are they?”

She leaned back, stuffing her cigarette into her mouth and scrambling to relight it.

“Mike…” she began with an exhalation of smoke, “was a friend of mine. Though I doubt I could bear to see him again. And Larry was Mike’s cousin. So was Ben.”

She looked at me, and I could see something dark lurking behind her wide, blue eyes.

“Ben was just a kid, Daniel. He was only eleven. And… and that bastard…. Jesus….”

“I don’t understand, Jan,” I urged. “What happened to them? What’s not letting you leave this place?”

Her eyes grew dim, and for a moment Daniel thought he was looking at a corpse.

“The Nameless.” 