Asylum (14 page)

            It
had happened before, in high school.  Strange and unexplained voices, whispers,
things out of place…the more she had withdrawn to think about these things, the
more she had lost touch with what was real and important.  She was living in a
world she had created for herself, and a psychologist had to come in and find
her.  It had been hard to let go and admit the things she had heard and seen
weren’t real, that she had created them.  There were times when those awful,
sneaking inner thoughts would suggest to her that they were real, that they had
been real, and it was the psychologist that had been wrong after all.  She had
taught herself to shut them down when they suggested it, when they tried to
tempt her back.  She would shut them out by focusing on trying to find shapes
or patterns in the world around her, or by counting.  Little tricks she had developed
to stop the voices.  She could teach those to Sam now. 

            She
glanced back to see Sam ripping through the bushes, her mouth set firmly, her
eyes still looking bright and wild.  Sam was her, a few years ago.  When it
started she was sure it was the supernatural, sure
something
was trying
to communicate to her, Chloe Adams.  She was eager to define it, pin it down,
to try and understand its message.  But what her therapist had said made more
sense.  Of course it asked for help.  It was a vague request, it would keep the
sickness progressing.  Right now, Sam believed it was something external.  She
thought it was something outside of them both, something that she could stop,
by doing something.  She had jumped at Jen’s suggestion that the board was the
cause.  Chloe would have done the same a year earlier.  The real question was,
could she have made Sam this way?  Was it her fault?  Mental sickness wasn’t
like a cold, a virus that you could catch, but it seemed-

            Her
memory quickly handed her the comparison she was looking for.  A book…a
play…Arthur Miller’s classic work,
the Crucible.
  The story of the Salem
witch trials, and how the citizens used it for their own ends.  The girls
fainting, screaming, seeing things no one else could.  When one of them had
confessed that it was all a lie, the judge had asked her to faint or act as she
had in court, and she couldn’t.  She couldn’t because she had said it wasn’t
the same, it wasn’t as easy to do as when they were all together, egging one
another on.  Chloe was the ringleader.  She couldn’t make Sam sick, she
couldn’t make Sam see things, but Sam already had some problems of her own,
didn’t she?  And Chloe was the catalyst for making them worse.

            Chloe
sighed and rubbed her face.  The smart thing to do would be to separate.  Go to
someone in the dormitory and say that she and Sam couldn’t get along and needed
to switch rooms.  That sort of thing probably happened a lot.  They could both
get new roommates, start over.  That would be the right thing to do, but Chloe
was not going to do that.  She already knew as much.  Some part of her still
thought she could deal with it.  The important thing was to get a handle on it
quickly, before it got any worse.  Right now, she might still be able to
convince Sam to let it drop, but if other people got involved-- 

            She
looked over at Jen walking slowly along the far wall, kicking at the long grass
that grew against the side of the building.  If she didn’t nip this thing in
the bud, then pretty soon either half the dormitory would be in hysterics, or
she and Sam would be the butt of every joke.  Just like high school, all over
again. 

            And
then there was Seth.  He seemed to think that someone was trying to scare
them.  It was definitely to his credit that he didn’t think that either she or
Sam had written on the walls themselves.  Chloe wasn’t so sure.  In her own
bedroom, in a little two-story farmhouse seven hours away, you could still see
the marks through the paint where the word “help” had been written so hard, the
pen had dug into the drywall.  The marks that apparently she had made.  Though
try as she might, she honestly couldn’t remember doing it.

            A
spot of white in the grass called her attention back.  It was the planchette. 
Chloe bent to grab it.  The sidewalk wasn’t far, and beyond that, there was
nothing but grass, no Ouija board.

            “I
found the pointer,” Chloe yelled, waving it above her head.

            Sam
was at the end of the hedgerow.  She gave the bush one last angry jab with her
hand and jogged over to where Chloe stood.  Jen, having finished her inspection
of the far wall, walked over as well.

            “I
can’t find the board,” Sam huffed, “You’d think it’d be somewhere around here,
they fell off together.”

            They
all glanced around at the ground, as though the board would suddenly appear.

            “Someone
must have picked it up and taken it,” Chloe decided.

            “Yeah,
I guess that-” Sam stopped mid-sentence, her eyes lit up with an idea, “wait a
minute.”

            She
took off, heading towards the cafeteria.  Jen and Chloe followed.  Sam stopped
in front of the large trash bins next to the door, and reaching in, shifted
something out of the way.

            “Here
it is!” she called, pulling it out of the trash and shaking it to get rid of a
clingy piece of cellophane paper from a cigarette pack. 

            “We’ve
got the box in our room,” Sam said, as Chloe and Jen followed her into the
cafeteria.  “Just let us put it away, and you can have it back.”

            “Something
did happen, didn’t it?” Jen asked again.  “You guys can tell me, I’m not going
to tell anyone else.  Not even Mel, I promise.”

            Chloe
wished there was a way to warn Sam not to say anything.  Sam was climbing the
steps ahead of them.  Chloe stared at the back of her head, willing the thought
into Sam’s head.

            “Yeah,”
Sam agreed at last, “Something did happen.  At first it didn’t work, but then
it spelled out “help” and “trapped”, and we think it means that there’s like a
spirit or something, trapped here, in this building.  Then our light burned out
this morning, and when I came back to the room, just a little bit ago, and the
word “help” was written all over our walls.”

            “That
is
really
scary,” Jen decided excitedly, “so what are you going to do?”

            “Nothing,”
Chloe cut in, “We’re going to put the Ouija board away and never mess with this
kind of stuff again.”

            “You
guys!  We should have a séance in your room,” Jen insisted, ignoring Chloe
completely, “we can get a bunch of the girls together and, like, light some
candles and stuff.  I’ll go Google séance and see how it’s supposed to work
and-”

            “No!”
snapped Chloe, “Absolutely not!  And you just told us that you weren’t going to
tell anyone.”

            Jen
shrugged guiltily.  “Okay, I won’t tell, but I still think it would be a pretty
cool idea.  Can I at least see your room?  You know, look at the walls and
stuff?”

            “Seth
told us to wait in his room, I don’t think we should go back in there until he
comes back,” Chloe said.

            “We’ll
show you later,” Sam said, “Stop by before the floor meeting and we’ll give you
your board back too.”

            “Can
Mel know too, because she’ll want to see,” Jen wheedled.

            “Fine,
fine,” Sam agreed.

            “Alright,
we’ll be there at like…quarter to eight,” Jen said, passing Sam and walking
quickly down the hall.  “And don’t forget, you’re buying all our drinks at the
Eat this Friday,” she called over her shoulder.

            “I
did forget,” Sam pouted.

            “Why
did you tell her?” Chloe hissed.

            “Who
cares?  So what if she knows?  Maybe she’ll use the Ouija and it’ll go bother
her instead of us.”

            Chloe
snorted ungraciously, but didn’t argue.  It wasn’t the time or place to explain
to Sam just what could happen.

            The
girls glanced at their door as they passed it.  Neither suggested that they go
in.  They gave it a wide berth, staying as close to the far wall as they could
and walking just a bit faster as they passed by.

            Back
in Seth’s room, Sam threw herself into his old chair with a sigh of
frustration. She flipped the board open and closed a few times and then tossed
it off to the side.

            “Where
do you think he went anyways?” she demanded.

            “I
dunno, it’s been awhile though, hasn’t it?” Chloe asked, walking around the
room to examine it closer.  The books on his desk were mostly school
textbooks.  They all had titles like,
principles of agronomy
,
wood
technology,
or
forestry law
.  They looked very boring to Chloe.  His
shelf was more promising.  There he kept a stash of well-worn paperbacks that
Chloe was able to recognize.  A lot of Steinbeck and Hemmingway, but also-

            “Jane
Eyre?” Chloe wondered out loud.

            “What
are you talking about?” Sam demanded in a bored tone of voice.

            “Nothing,
I just…I was looking at his books,” Chloe explained.

            “What’s
Jane Ear?” Sam asked politely, pulling the handle on the recliner to pop out
the foot rest.

            “Just
a book, never mind,” Chloe soothed, still examining titles.  Many of them she had
never heard of, but the collection was such a mishmash of genres, authors, and
periods, that it didn’t seem like he had any kind of literary preference.  She
looked at the framed newspaper clipping.  It had a black and white photo of
Seth scoring a goal at the top, and an article that mentioned him by name as
the leading scorer for the Birch Harbor Bears.  At the bottom of the frame, a
post-it note was attached that read: “Couldn’t help it!  I saw it in the paper
this morning and had to get it framed!  So proud!!! Love, Mom”

            Chloe
smiled…Seth’s mom.  She imagined a June Cleaver-esque woman with Seth’s dark
hair, carrying a turkey on a platter with a big smile.

            The
frame rested on a photo album.  Chloe reached for it, and then hesitated.  She
glanced at the door.  It would probably be rude to pick up someone’s photo
album, and if he happened to walk in…but it wasn’t like it was a diary or
anything.  She glanced again at the door. 
Just a peek
, she reasoned, 
just
open it up and look at the first page, it’ll just be for a second
.

            Silently
moving the picture frame, so Sam wouldn’t turn around, Chloe lifted the thick
album off the shelf and opened it to the first page.  The picture showed Seth
standing on a trail in the woods carrying a girl with long, dark hair
piggyback.  They were both wearing identical grins.  The caption underneath
read “Don’t forget to come home once in awhile, I’ll miss you a ton,
Squirrelfarts! I love you!!! -Rachel”

            “What’s
that?” Sam asked, craning her neck.

            “N-nothing,
just-” Chloe slapped the cover shut and tried to shove the album back on the
shelf, but Sam was faster.  She leapt out of her seat and snatched the book
from Chloe with a mischievous grin.

            “Oooohhhh,
lemme see…what’s this?” Sam held the book out of Chloe’s reach, and turned her
back to her, opening the photo album to the first page.

            “Sam,
put it back!” Chloe pleaded, “He’ll be back any second!”

            “What’s
this? 
Squirrelfarts
?” Sam laughed.  “I wonder who Rachel is
though…she’s cute.”

            “My
sister.”

            Seth
stood in the doorway holding a bucket and a jug of cleaner.  He set his
equipment down and reached out to take the photo album from Sam.  Chloe noticed
that his fingers were stained red.

            “Rachel’s
my little sister, she made me a scrapbook when I first left for college,” he
explained, setting the photo album back on his shelf, “and you guys are pretty
nosy.”

            Chloe’s
face burned.  She couldn’t think of any excuse to justify looking through his
personal things.  She twisted her hands together and stared at the floor.  Sam
appeared completely undaunted.

            “Sorry
about that…
Squirrelfarts
,” Sam giggled.

            Chloe
looked up to see Seth grin and roll his eyes.

            “That’s
an inside joke,” he explained.  “When I first told my family I was going to
study forestry, they had no idea what it was, and when my Dad asked what
exactly I was going to learn, Rachel, being a real smart ass, told everyone
that it was very deep stuff.  That I was off to ask the unanswerable questions,
like if a squirrel farted in the woods, and no one was around to hear it, does
it actually make a noise?  From then on…well, let’s just say ‘squirrelfarts’
kind of stuck, much to my dismay.”

            “Where’d
you go anyways?” Sam asked.

            “I
was getting that crap off your walls,” Seth explained, holding up his hands. 
“I had them come in and change the light bulb too.  I know…I know you’re both
pretty freaked out about all this, but I want you to try and think about this
logically.  What makes more sense to you, that some evil invisible ghost is
tormenting you by writing all over your walls, or that your light bulb burned
out and you left your door unlocked and someone came in and tried to scare you
by writing on the walls?”