A Night at the Asylum (6 page)

I snickered. “Yeah, well, what you call
science is what I call theatrics. And how has that changed since
1984?”

“You are so cynical,” Jamie murmured, her
eyes narrowed at me. “I can’t believe it. At twenty. It’s really a
shame.”

I ignored her. “Look, I’ve told you before, I
just don’t get into that stuff. Tommy…Tommy was
totally
into
it. He and his friends would go on ghost hunts together. He was
always taking pictures…he tried to catch their voices on that
little tape recorder thingy he had…”

“So…what, it scares you?” Jamie asked. “Don’t
tell me you’re like my grandmother and you subscribe to all that
religious stuff that says it’s wrong to peer behind the
curtain.”

“No…” I shrugged. “It’s not that. It’s that I
don’t really believe in
anything
anymore. Not God…not…
organized religion…especially not the ‘spirit world’.” The words
were a bit of a revelation, and a strange sadness enveloped me. I
hadn’t fully understood my feelings until speaking them aloud.

“Maybe that’s why he has to come to you in a
dream. Because you don’t believe in it.”

My exhausted brain was not capable of
analytical thought
or
arguing with Jamie. “Okay, can we
just…change the subject please?”

For a few minutes we drove, randomly
conversing. We were nearing my street now, and she deliberately
interrupted a rant I was on about Ead to ask if she could stay at
my house. It was strange – Jamie’s reaction to talk of the
Perverted Patrolman was similar to mine when she brought up the
topic of the paranormal. How could I blame her? We all have our
threshold of fear. Ghosts she could talk about all night, but that
guy…that guy was
really
scary.

“They’re tearing it down in the morning you
know. The asylum,” Jamie said suddenly, and it took me a second to
realize that she’d abruptly changed the subject again.

The asylum…it was one thing about this town
unlike most others. On the outskirts of the city, where the
streetlights are few and far between, stood a huge, decaying,
vacated hospital. Before the 1980s it had been used as a mental
institution; the decades thereafter a partying ground for unruly,
curious teenagers. There’d been a debate about having it destroyed
for quite a while, and when the decision was made by the city
council only two days ago they’d wasted no time scheduling the
building’s demise. A group of protesters was trying to stop the
demolition – some sort of historical society thing. Raymond had
told me he might join the cause. Remembering Raymond made me feel
sad and dumped again, and thinking of the asylum being torn down
reminded me of losing my brother.

What a suck-fest this night was turning out
to be.

So I’m not sure why I decided to make it
harder on myself. “Drive past Raymond’s house, will you?” I
asked.

Jamie groaned. “Why? He called you back…why
don’t you just call him?”

My overtired mind didn’t care how she knew
he’d called me back when neither of us had brought it up yet. My
current mission held all of my attention. “I just want to see
something. Please.”

With a grimace, she turned down Raymond’s
dimly lit street.

And there it was, this time parked in the
back alleyway. I had to crane my neck like a stalker to see it, but
it was there – a black Mustang, the same car I’d seen the night
after Raymond had kicked me unceremoniously to the curb.

She hadn’t even bothered to pull it into the
garage.

“That…bitch!” I swore.

As if by invocation, the Mustang’s lights
popped on and it careened backward into the street, so abruptly
that Jamie had to stomp on the brakes to avoid broadsiding it. My
knees smashed into the dashboard and we were showered with an
explosion of trash from the landfill in the backseat. Without a
thought, I reached over and snapped my seatbelt across my waist.
“Follow her,” I barked.

“Have you lost it? No!” Jamie cried, but my
face was so hostile she strapped her own belt on.

“Come on!” I shouted. “I want to see where
she’s going with my boyfriend.”

Jamie exhaled loudly in irritation, but made
a squealing U-turn in the middle of the street. “Let’s do this,”
she growled.

Whether it was the ferocity of my voice or
the lure of impending drama or just plain curiosity that compelled
Jamie to drive, she made art of it. She backed away on the dark
streets, lingered on corners, drifting and weaving like a
professional creeper. “You’ve definitely done
this
before,”
I murmured, but she didn’t answer. Her mouth was set in a grim
line, her small features tensed, concentrating on the black vehicle
with narrowed eyes. She made a sharp right turn and we were backing
off again, trailing the tiny points of taillights up a hill and out
into the country.

The inside of the little car was still too
warm as we crept smoothly up the road, yet I couldn’t help but
shiver as we left the lights of town and the safety of suburbia.
The land was a mass of dark shapes and sprawling trees, the city
far away in the distance. I gazed out the window, wondering what it
would be like to be lost out in those fields alone in the dark. It
made me think of Jenny Allison.

I didn’t have much time to contemplate. Jamie
backed off the Mustang suddenly, her eyes on the rearview mirror,
swearing under her breath. “What is it?” As I turned I saw the gray
police car bearing down upon us, heard the siren bleat a warning
for us to pull over. I uttered some expletives of my own.

“What should I do?” Jamie asked, her hair
wild about her face.

“What do you mean? You should pull over,” I
said. The last thing we needed was to get arrested. Again.

She seemed to be deliberating. I wasn’t sure
what there was to deliberate. “I have a bad feeling about this…”
she murmured.

As she moved the car onto the shoulder, the
gray sedan veered around us, the sirens and lights going crazy.
Both of us gasped with relief, but our gratitude went cold as we
realized who the police car was after.

“Oh my God, he’s pulling Bonita over,” Jamie
whispered.

“Stop the car,” I ordered. “Turn off the
lights.”

Jamie crammed on the brakes and pulled to the
shoulder, clicking the headlights off. “What is going on?” she
cried, straining to see past the dust that clouded around us. The
chalky smell of disturbed gravel invaded the car. Everything was
eerily quiet.

For a moment I thought we might see a chase.
The Mustang’s driver seemed to hesitate as Jamie had. Then nearly ¼
of a mile ahead of us, they finally turned onto a gravel road and
eased to the shoulder. The police car made a wide left turn behind
them and straddled the road, effectively blocking them from
escaping back to the highway.

Something about that just seemed…
off
.
Without a word Jamie and I both reached out and pushed down the
locks on our doors.

It was so dark, almost impossible to see.
There was the sound of a door slamming, the crunching of gravel
under heavy boots.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose.

Loud shouts emanated from the Mustang. Dark
legs scissored in front of the headlights of the police car. There
was a brief struggle there, the participants no more than bobbing
shadows. A hulk of a figure hit the ground and was dragged into the
dark out of view of the headlights. As we watched, entranced, Jamie
leaned over the steering wheel to get a better look. Of course her
elbow slipped and the horn bleated. She jerked her arm back as if
she’d touched a hot stove. “Crap!” she hissed. I could have slapped
her. We’d just given ourselves away for sure.

Apparently, it was all the distraction the
driver of the Mustang needed to get away. A few seconds later the
black car peeled out on the gravel, delving completely into the
ditch to get around the police car. The back end of the vehicle
fishtailed as its tires spun onto the road again.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jamie
whispered, terrified.

“You think?” I spat. As the Mustang whizzed
past us back toward town, I tried to get a look at the driver, but
all I saw was the dark tint of the windows.

Of course, the police car was turning around
too.

“Get down,” Jamie hissed, pushing her small
body under the steering wheel and into the floorboard, pulling me
down with her. This would do us no good I knew, but I stayed there
anyway, praying the farfetched prayer that the cover of the deep
rural darkness would be enough. We waited for what seemed like
hours, only the sound of our tense breathing echoing in the
stillness. Then gravel crunched under creeping tires, the hum of an
engine ominously close. My heart thudded in my temples and I panted
in terror. What had we seen that we obviously shouldn’t have?

Jamie clamped a hand over her mouth and
closed her eyes, as if to make herself disappear. Boots crackled in
the rocks. Somewhere very near my head, a door slammed, metal on
metal.

“What should we do?” Jamie mouthed at me, her
eyes like saucers. I’d never seen her so frightened. I was shaking
myself, nearly paralyzed with fear. Maybe the Mustang’s driver had
started the fight and the cop was defending himself. Or maybe he
was a crazed psychopath. I knew we were screwed either way.

Jamie blew her breath out, seeming to come to
a decision. She moved so fast, I had no time to put in my two
cents. All in one motion, she leapt into the driver’s seat and
cranked the wheel to the left, slamming her foot on the gas. I
don’t know how we avoided hitting anything or anyone. The little
blue car whipped out into the road blindly and skidded into its own
reversal back toward town. I was thrown against the side of the
dash mercilessly, unable to climb out of the floorboard thanks to
the g-forces. With a loud grunt I finally heaved myself back into
the passenger seat, buckling my seatbelt again. The vehicle spewed
gravel and dust, shimmying toward the ditch and then back out onto
the road. “Careful!” I screamed. “Turn on your lights!” Jamie did
as she was told. She worked the wheel and the brakes until the car
straightened itself out, both of us squealing and cursing as she
fought to find traction on the highway.

Jamie frantically searched the mirrors. “Is
he following us?” I turned around and saw nothing but a cloud of
dust.

I exhaled. “Not yet. Jamie, why…what…”

“I don’t know, it just seemed like the right
thing to do!” she shouted in answer.

I had to agree when the gray Crown Victoria
appeared again behind us, and unbelievably and horrifically, began
pummeling the back of the PT Cruiser with its front bumper. We were
thrown forward, and Jamie struggled to keep control of the
wheel.

“He’s going to kill us!” she screamed. I
braced my hand against the dash.
This is not happening,
I
told myself over and over.
There is no way in hell this can be
happening.

The gray car lurched forward again, this time
barely grazing our back end. My muscles tensed as I waited for the
impact. It was impossible to see who was driving. We were
approaching town now, though, and the streetlights could help. This
cop wasn’t using the cherries or loudspeaker or trying to maintain
any semblance whatsoever that he was on the right side of the law.
Whoever this was had gone completely off the deep end.

We entered city limits. I gripped the seat
with one hand, the dash with the other, and prepared for another
hit. But instead the Crown Vic backed off unexpectedly. There was a
squeal of tires and the police car turned, disappearing down a side
street in a cloud of burnt rubber.

“What the hell?!” I shouted. “Jamie – he’s
gone! He turned down that road!”

“What should I do?”

“Just keep going! Keep going!” I ordered.

A minute passed and he didn’t come back. In
fact, the streets were empty, as they usually were this time of
night. There was no sign of anyone around.

The streetlights brightened the interior of
the car and we began to breathe – loud, rasping, giggling breaths
of relief. What was going on in this town? Was everyone insane? And
then I remembered the Mustang…and the assault on whoever had been
driving it.

“Oh my God…Raymond,” I whispered, looking at
Jamie. She stared at me, her eyes wide.

“Call him,” she said.

I pulled out my phone and stared at it. “No.
I can’t.”

“Do it, Sara. If that was him back
there…”

I shook my head. “No…no…”

“Oh, come on.” Jamie snatched the phone from
me and dialed Raymond’s number. He actually answered. Somewhere in
the back of my mind that sparked hope. It made me feel a little
foolish. “Raymond? It’s Jamie. Hey – where are you?”

I glanced out the back window of the car,
keeping an eye out for the cop, trying to distract myself from the
conversation going on next to me. I wasn’t ready to talk to
Raymond. I wasn’t ready to see him or hear him. But I did need to
know that he was okay.

“Sara? She’s right here.” My head swiveled
toward Jamie.
So now he’s asking about me. Great.
“Yeah.
Okay, I will.”

Jamie snapped the phone shut. “It wasn’t
him,” she said.

I took the phone back confusedly, shoving it
in my pocket. “What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t him. He said he’s on his way to
the asylum right now.”

“Well then who –”

“I don’t know. Maybe Bonita was alone.”

“You think that was her that—”

“I don’t know!” Jamie repeated. “But we have
to tell someone. She could be hurt. She could be…”

“What are we gonna do, call the cops?” I
sneered.

“Crap.” Jamie tucked her hair behind her ears
with the fervor of a madwoman. Her aversion to hardcore cursing –
one of her many annoying quirks – seemed even more ridiculous in
this situation. “Crap! What do we do?” The car swerved as she
flailed her arms.