A Night at the Asylum (21 page)

I felt another sharp pain as the boot smashed
its pointed end into my face. My left eye wouldn't open. I was
turned onto my back but I couldn't see in front of me now. I
flailed my arms knowing that after a few seconds I would never see
again.

The branch came down on me, and again I tried
to scream. Pain erupted across my head, like a lightning bolt
splitting it in half.

Wait it out,
I told myself. I wanted
to be aware the moment it was over. I wanted to be conscious when I
went, so I would know where I was going next.

The end was abrupt.

Expected, but still a shock.

I saw the blurred image of the branch rising
over my head. There was an odd sourceless light glancing off it as
it came down against my face.

But it wasn't
my
face, of course.

This time it was my brother's.

I physically jerked myself out of the
flashback, seeing the death followed by the dark. I felt the void
sucking at my mind, the door between my world and theirs swinging
wide, and with it came an instant, indiscriminate perception of
every soul lost in this horrid place. These beings now forever on
the astral plane, the victims of medical murder, cried and clawed
toward the entrance, begging me to hear their stories as well.
Sickness, loneliness, intolerable agony, reached for me all in the
course of a short, muffled scream. The door slammed shut and I was
left with only the vacuum of my own life. My stomach heaved and I
tossed myself away from the desk, throwing up on the floor. Sobs
tore from my throat, plaster and mud sticking to my face as I tried
to pull myself back to my feet. I knew I should stop, should quiet
myself, but I couldn't. I could only scream.

The only thing strong enough to overcome my
fear was anger. Tommy had been counting on that.

“Come on out here you son of a bitch!” I was
shouting now. There would be no more waiting. I scraped my sleeve
against my mouth and raised the pipe over my head. I didn't
recognize my own voice, ravaged by pain and horrors that couldn’t
be manufactured by my imagination; they had to be shown to me. It
was suicide to call out to Ead like this, but I couldn't stop. I
couldn't keep quiet anymore.

Fountains of tears blurred my vision, mixing
with the water from overhead. I tore off my jacket, thinking of
Tommy, how even in all his preparation his most vulnerable moment
had been taken advantage of. I stalked down the hall out of the
range of the water, trying to find some solid ground and guess
which direction Ead would be coming from.

My body was wracked with horrified tremors. I
would never recover from knowing what really happened to Tommy. So
many times I’d wished I knew, wondered what he’d thought of in his
last moments, hoped and prayed he had gone quickly and without
pain. Now the truth was like a scar on my brain that would never
heal.

At least not until I found Ead and killed
that motherfucker.

I was in a rage, flying through the building
like a demon just loosed from hell. I was almost afraid that he had
heeded the all-clear and stole away, doing God-knew-what to Emmett
before he went. Then, just before I reached the stairs, the double
doors opened. Could it really be him? Apparently, he’d been hiding
from all his little cop friends.

He sneered as he stepped in front of me. It
seemed much too easy.

But he was an arrogant prick, and arrogant
pricks come when they’re called.

He pointed the gun at me. Guess his buddy
hadn’t found him and taken it away. I really expected him to shoot
immediately. He didn’t. Instead he walked slowly toward me. I heard
the click of the steel toes of his boots, stirring a memory that
had been handpicked for me to watch and was now irrevocably
imprinted on my psyche. Slowly I turned to confront him head-on. I
hoped the hate in my eyes was apparent.

Seeing him there in front of me, looking thin
and insolent, should have caused me to melt into a puddle of fear.
Since last laying eyes on him, my own anxiety and Jenny’s visions
had transformed his scrawny frame into a superhuman monster. Being
faced with the reality of him in the flesh was a welcome contrast
to what my imagination could make out of him in the dark. However,
I now had intimate knowledge of the fury that would explode behind
his eyes, and the gun he held in his hand offered me no resolution
but to stay where I was. In short, I was being stupid if I thought
I could take him. He was looking quite smug in his police uniform,
black and gray, with handcuffs hanging on his belt.

“Nobody knows how to keep their mouth shut,
do they?” he sneered.

It was such an anticlimactic thing to say
after such a buildup. I couldn't help it; a short bark of a laugh
escaped my throat.

“I guess you’re laughing about what I did to
that whore, Jenny? Or…” he smiled. “Maybe about me bashing your
brother’s brains in? Did that do it? I know you know, Sara. I tried
to keep Emmett from telling you. But like I said, he can’t keep his
mouth shut.” He snickered. Slowly he was moving closer to me, and I
was backing away. “Personally I think it’s hilarious that you left
a loaded gun on the floor and now I’m going to blow your head off
with it. What do you call that?” He snapped his fingers.
“Irony.”

A tremor went through me at his disgusting
words. He hadn’t mentioned hurting Emmett, so maybe he hadn’t found
him yet. I couldn’t bear to think otherwise. Wet strands of hair
hung in my face and my arms ached from holding the pipe in the air.
“Actually I was just laughing about how psychos always talk about
their crimes for ten minutes right before the hero takes them out,”
I spat.

“There’s no hero here, Sara. There’s only you
and me. And I don’t think I want to talk anymore. There’s been too
much of that already. In fact, if my brother hadn’t opened his big
mouth, I wouldn’t be about to shut you up right now.” He looked
dull and sleepy-eyed, almost bored with what he was about to do.
“But he was insistent. He just couldn’t stop himself.”

We were pacing around each other, me with my
pipe, and him with that stupid gun. I never should have taken it
from Emmett in the first place.

“What I don’t get is how he even figured it
out. He came here and found that helmet like it was on a goddamn
GPS. I’m surprised he didn’t find Jenny. She’s part of the
sheetrock now.” He seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then
shrugged. “Not that it matters. He’s always got some reason to fuck
me over. He was born spineless…” he sneered. “It makes me
sick.”

“I know how he found out,” I growled. “The
spirit world. And they’re coming for you next, big guy.” I couldn’t
believe I was laughing. My last stitch of sanity had finally
unraveled.

Ead chuckled, and I saw the bright flash of
his straight teeth – his singular resemblance to Emmett. “You’re a
crazy bitch, you know that?”

“Yeah, it’s too bad your daddy couldn’t clean
this one up for you,” I added. “Too bad you had to come back and
take her away before they found her tearing this place down. You
useless piece of shit.”

I guess that did it for him. With incredible
speed, Ead came toward me, his face suddenly contorting in rage. I
swung the pipe but he knocked it away with his forearm like a piece
of straw. He caught my jaw in one hand and with the other shoved
the gun hard into my cheek, pinning me against the wall. “You could
have lived if you’d just let it go.” His breath was hot and rancid.
Lightning danced across his face. “What I’m going to do to you is
going to make what I did to that
whore
look like a mercy
killing,” he promised, breathing raggedly in my ear. My stomach
roiled in disgust. His body vibrated with deep, menacing laughter.
“I’m going to cut out your eyes and fuck your empty skull.”

I stayed as still as I could. Ead grinned
triumphantly, and while taking final stock of the horror in my
eyes, he tilted the gun away from my face.

It was only for an instant, but it was for as
long as it needed to be.

Quick as a flash, Emmett stepped up behind
him with a length of electrical cord, squeezing it around his neck.
In one swift movement he pounced on Ead, twisting the cord and
pulling him to the ground. Ead tried to point the gun but instead
it hit the floor with a clatter. He seemed so surprised by the
attack that I realized he thought Emmett had left the asylum
without me, fled like a coward. Emmett’s fist connected with Ead’s
face, and all the while he was struggling to untangle himself from
the cord.

Ead wasn’t much taller or larger than Emmett,
but he had police training and was insanely fast. And in the grand
tradition of all maniacal killers, a superhuman strength did seem
to suddenly manifest. He kicked his legs in the air and flipped
himself around, taking Emmett to the ground, even as the cord
stayed tight around his throat, choking the life out of him. Veins
in his face were protruding and his eyes were turning red as blood
vessels in them burst. It was horrifying to watch, and I was frozen
to the spot. Once again my body would not move even as I pled with
it, urged it, with all the mental strength I had. Ead finally
wrenched the cord from around his neck, where a deep red welt began
to form. Then he sank his fist into Emmett's cheek and pressed his
thumbs into his eyes. Emmett cried out in pain, and Ead's
frustrated growls echoed off the crumbling plaster walls.

It seemed as if I were coming back into my
body from a faraway place, where I'd been watching in detachment,
completely overwhelmed with fear. When I realized I could move, I
picked up the section of pipe and walked straight over to them.
Emmett was on the ground and Ead was sitting on top of him,
pummeling him with his fists. The pipe clutched tightly in my hands
again, where it belonged, I swung without another thought. It was
smooth, easy, and abrupt. I couldn’t believe he didn’t even try to
dodge it. He had forgotten all about me, the girl who wasn’t the
hero. The pipe echoed a loud crack as it connected with his skull.
He fell in a heap to the floor.

Emmett stared at me. I stared back. Neither
of us said anything for what seemed like a long time. He was
bleeding down one side of his face, but he was okay. I offered him
my arm to help him off the floor, and he took it.

The room was quiet except for the sounds of
our ragged breathing. I didn’t dare put the pipe down. Like any
archetypal horror movie psycho, Ead was sure to pop back up. The
end of the pipe was smeared with his blood.

I'd never seen Emmett raise a hand to harm
anyone. I'd never seen the fury that had taken over his angelic
face as he'd wrestled Ead to the ground, strangling him. So many
hours ago I had wondered if a killer lurked inside him, beneath his
gentle surface. Now I knew it was there, an inkling of a
resemblance with his father and brother. It was the truth of his
tormented soul. And I loved him for it.

And then his face was calm again. His eyes
searched mine, round and green and devastatingly bright. I used the
sleeve of my sweater to wipe the blood from his face. We didn't
speak, but our eyes locked in understanding. I was with him all the
way, no matter what. The thing that swelled in my chest was more
than love, more than desire. It was everything I'd ever waited for
my whole life. And it was reflected in the emerald hue of his
eyes.

With a weary sigh I reached for him, buried
my face in his shoulder. He put his arm around me and we stood
there for another moment, just gazing down at Ead. He was on his
back with his glassy eyes open, staring at nothing, his arms limp
at his sides. Emmett reached down and picked up his gun.

“Do you think he’s dead?” I asked, sick.

Emmett pulled me closer to him. Turning my
head toward his chest to shield my eyes, he cocked the gun and
pulled the trigger. “Yes,” he answered solemnly.

****

Twelve O’Clock

The storm had calmed a bit. I didn’t know at
the time, but Raymond had convinced the construction crew and the
cops that I was still inside. I could sense the flurry of activity
out on the sprawling lawn, the anxious waiting after hearing
another gunshot break the still mid-morning air.

Emmett and I started back downstairs in an
exhausted trudge. In his “secret room” I grabbed my messenger bag.
My phone remained silent, and so did we.

We found the flashlight on the floor and
picked it up. Emmett said he’d shoved the helmet out the morgue
window before running back to find me. He seemed to have mostly
overcome his shakiness. But for me, the ground was tilting. I knew
we had to leave this place, but I didn’t want to forget about
Jenny. She’d asked me and I was going to oblige.

“Can we at least look?” I asked Emmett. His
face blank, he nodded.

In the laundry room, we decided the only
place Jenny could be “part of the sheetrock” was behind the
lockers, in the wall. That was where the helmet had been. Working
together, we tried to push the lockers out of the way, but they
didn’t want to budge.

“Who can we trust with this?” I asked Emmett.
“If we leave here right now, who can we trust to make sure she’s
found?”

“Roy Conroy,” Emmett answered, surprising me.
“He’s about the only guy…who isn’t in my father’s pocket.”

I nodded. Good ol’ Roy. “Okay. It’s a plan.”
I grasped his hand and squeezed it. “Come on. Let’s go out that
window. It’s the easiest way.”

We hurried down the hallway and pushed open
the double doors. A post-rain bluish hue bled through the broken
glass, and on the left I could just make out the wooden frame where
the freezers used to be.

“Are you ready?” I asked him. I searched
Emmett’s face. “Can you help me up?”

His stare was glazed, far away. Both of his
hands grasped my waist and he lifted me toward the window. His arms
were shaking. He set me down on the ledge.