Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (22 page)

The spirit. She coughed into her hand, thinking for a moment she was going to be sick. The spirit that had followed them home from a lunatic asylum. Her tears were hot where they splashed on her hand. It was cruel. A cruel sort of irony.

There is as yet no cure for schizophrenia.

He couldn’t have it then. It was impossible. It had to be something else. But despite herself, she clicked on the link, and a whole new world opened up in front of her.

Symptoms. A long list of them.

Delusions, hallucinations, illusions, thought disturbances, emotional and behavioural changes.

She didn’t know anything about schizophrenia. She’d never even met anyone with it. And this was the Internet. Everyone knew you weren’t supposed to use it to diagnose yourself. Or your brother who had been acting weird for the last week or two. Tully closed the lid on her laptop and got up. Nothing felt real anymore. Did that mean she had a mental illness too? No. Of course not. It was just shock.

Toby was still lying in bed where she’d put him. And the room was way too bright. She bent down and switched off the power point and three of the megawatt bulbs went out.

‘No!’ Toby screeched, sitting up and clawing at the blankets. ‘You can’t, you can’t!’

‘Can’t what?’ she asked, looking at him as he left the blankets alone and clawed at the air instead.

‘Can’t leave me in the shadows. Don’t let them look at me. They stand there and look at me, that’s why it has to be bright.’

Tully sobbed. ‘Oh Toby,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She squeezed her eyes shut but the tears leaked through anyway. Then she switched the lights back on.

‘Oaky Toby? Is that better? I won’t turn them off again.’

Her brother subsided against his pillow, not lying down, but squishing up against the headboard.
‘They want to hurt me,’ he said.

‘I won’t let them.’

‘You can’t stop them. They have the sheets, they have the needles. They’re in charge.’

She couldn’t make any sense of what he was talking about. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get you some help, you hear me, Toby? I’m going to find someone who can help.’

He shook his head. ‘Isn’t anyone who can help. They come at night when I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I never sleep. No one ever sleeps here.’

Tully blinked. ‘Where?’

Toby opened his mouth to answer, then snapped it closed again. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘They just come at night and they take me away. There are bright lights, but they never shine them on themselves, I can never see them properly.’

Biting her lip, Tully wanted to rush over and hug him. When they’d been little and he’d fallen over, she’d play mummy and give him a hug and it would make everything better. But they weren’t three anymore, and hugs helped, but they didn’t make anything better. Toby needed specialist help. His delusions were getting more detailed all the time.

‘I’m going to get you help,’ she said, but he didn’t answer, wasn’t looking at her, was lost inside his head. She escaped and stood in the middle of the living room, wondering what she should do. In a moment, she went back to her laptop, and got out her phone.

She felt like a traitor. No matter how she tried to put it to herself, she felt like she was a traitor. She’d made the phone call. She’d opened the door to them, invited them inside, asked if they wanted coffee, for Christ’s sake.

The woman, Bernice, patted her on the shoulder. ‘Okay?’ she asked.

Tully shook her head. ‘No.’

‘I know it’s hard.’

‘Did I do the right thing? I thought he’d just taken something. Drugs. I thought he’d taken something new.’

‘Does
he do a lot of drugs?’

She hugged herself, starin
g at the door to Toby’s room. She was cold. It was the middle of summer, but she was freezing.

‘Tully?’ the woman touched her forearm and she flinched.

‘He smoked a bit. Pot. Marijuana. And he smokes cigarettes. Drinks a bit, but no more than the rest of us.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Not that I know of. And I’d probably know. We’re close.’ The tears were close again. ‘We’re twins. I’m older than Toby by twelve minutes.’

‘And I bet he never lets you forget it.’ The woman – Bernice’s – voice was warm. Caring. Tully turned away, mortified at her sudden desire to collapse in the woman’s arm
s, rest her head against those sturdy shoulders and sob her heart out.

‘Is there anyone you can call?’ she asked. ‘Family? Mum and Dad?’

Tully was forced to shake her head. ‘No. Our Mum died when we were babies.’

‘What about
your Dad?’

‘We don’t get on with him.’ She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and Bernice handed her a tissue like it was a magic trick. ‘He kicked us out of the house on Sunday.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Bernice said, and paused. ‘We should probably still call him though, eh? He should know.’

‘Why? What are you going to do? What’s going to happen to Toby?’ The tears started again. She didn’t think she’d cried this much – ever. ‘We
’re supposed to go flat-hunting tomorrow. We have to be out of here by Friday.’ A despairing look around at the cabin. ‘We don’t have anywhere to go.’

Bernice patted her on the shoulder. ‘Everything will be all right.’

The door to Toby’s room opened, and the man came out. He was a doctor, apparently. A psychiatrist, and Tully guessed he looked like one. Pointed face, one of those little goatee beards. Not that she’d ever thought about what a psychiatrist looked like. She was rambling.

‘Is he going to be okay?’ she asked.

He gave her a fatherly smile, or what she guessed passed for fatherly. Her father had mostly ignored or glared.

‘Let’s sit
down for a moment, shall we?’ He lowered himself into one of the armchairs, and feeling in a daze, Tully let Bernice lead her to the couch. She perched on the edge of it, arms still wrapped around her middle.

‘Is he going to be okay?’ she asked again.

Another smile. ‘He’s going to be fine.’

Tully sucked a deep breath in, relief making her light-headed.

‘But he’s going to need a proper assessment, and probably some quite intensive treatment.’

‘Does he have schizophrenia?’ Tully hated the way the word sounded tripping off her tongue. She could have done with a lifetime of never having cause to say that one word.

‘It’s too early to tell, at this stage, but it’s a possibility, yes. He’s showing classic signs of psychosis. Whether its cause is schizophrenia, or some other organic brain disorder is yet to be seen. It could be manic depression, for instance.

‘Or a tumor?’ Tully said, thinking that would be better. They could operate, take it out, and Toby could go back to normal.

The doctor winced, and Bernice patted her again. ‘It’s a possibility, and will be looked into, but I’m afraid your brother is showing classic signs of mental illness, like I said. Acute mental illness.’

Tully looked at Bernice, then back at the psychiatrist. ‘What does acute mean?’

‘It means his symptoms are extreme at the moment. He’s showing signs of hallucination, delusion, and his speech is severely impeded. His thoughts are disjointed, and he’s making what we call word salad.’ He smiled as though this was supposed to make her laugh. ‘Which is basically stringing a lot of words together with no apparent meaning behind them.’

‘He was rhyming before, but just words. They didn’t make any sense.’ The doctor nodded. Tully licked her lips. ‘And the other night – Saturday – he
was like this then too. Saying all this stuff that was just nonsense. Making up words. I couldn’t follow anything he said.’ She hung her head. ‘I thought he’d just smoked some bad weed.’

‘The marijuana probably didn’t help, but it had nothing to do with what is happening to your brother.’

Tully nodded, drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay, so what do we do now?’

Bernice spoke up. ‘Jerry, they’re estranged from their father, mother is deceased. They have to be out of this house by the end of the week, and they haven’t found a new flat yet.’

‘A university flat isn’t the right environment anyway,’ the doctor said. He turned back to Tully. ‘You’re estranged from your father?’

She didn’t know what estranged meant, but nodded anyway. ‘He kicked us out. He has a new family.’

Both Bernice and the doctor nodded as though they’d heard it all before. Probably had, for all Tully knew. The psychiatrist scooted forward on his seat. ‘I want to admit your brother to the hospital for assessment and treatment. I think it’s his best chance.’

A glance at Bernice, who was a social worker, or nurse or something, and Tully saw she was nodding too. ‘He needs to be somewhere safe while he gets the help he needs. Ordinarily we try to do this as much as possible at the client’s home, but in your case…’

‘We don’t have a home.’ She looked towards Toby’s bedroom door. ‘When?’ she asked.

The doctor stood up.
‘Tonight would be best. Now.’

‘Now?’
She hadn’t expected that. Somehow it was too soon. The feeling of betrayal came back.

Bernice rubbed her arm, her voice soothing. ‘It’s for the best, Tully. Your brother needs help, and the earlier in the illness he gets it, the better his chances of recovery.’

Tully didn’t know what to say. Was there anything she could say? ‘What do I do?’

The psychiatrist cleared his throat. ‘It would probably be best if you called your father and let him know what has happened.’

‘But…’

‘You might be surprised. Sometimes a crisis like this ca
n bring a family back together.’

Unconvinced, Tully shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’ She sniffed and Bernice handed her another tissue. It seemed to be a major part of the woman’s function.
A walking tissue box. Tully took it anyway, feeling pathetically grateful. ‘Will I be able to come see him?’

‘Yes, of course you will. There will be a couple days where Toby will be getting assessed, but after that, you will be free to visit him every day, if you like.
In fact, your visits and support will be an important part of Toby’s recovery.’ Bernice was wearing a professionally calm smile, and it did its job.

‘All right,’ Tully said.
‘Okay. So you’re going to take him now?’

The two from the Emergency Mental Health Crisis Team exchanged glances. ‘Yes, I think that’s the best idea,’ Bernice said. ‘Since neither of you have any support, there’s no sense in waiting. Coping with a loved one with a mental health issue can be scary. As you’ve discovered. It will be best for both of you, if we take Toby to the hospital now.’

‘But it’s the middle of the night.’

‘Health care doesn’t keep office hours.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Okay. I guess we’ll do this then.’

The doctor had already disappeared back into Toby’s room, and Tully wondered how he was going to get Toby to go with him, but they appeared at the door, her brother looking surprisingly docile.

‘I’ve explained what’s happening to Toby,’ he said. ‘He’s going to come with us to get some help, aren’t you Toby?’ His voice was calm, soothing.

Tully swallowed and tried to smile. ‘They’re going to help you, Toby,’ she said and wished none of this was happening. Toby’s eyes slid past her without focusing then he seemed to see the man’s hand latched onto his arm.

‘What’s going on?’ he cried. ‘Who are you? Leave me alone! You’re one of them!’

Tully stuck her knuckles between her teeth and sank down on the couch, ashamed to be hiding from the sight of her brother struggling to get away from the doctor.

Toby was raving, swatting at the psychiatrist’s hand. ‘Leave me alone,’ he sobbed. ‘I’ve seen you before, even though you hide from me. You drag me from my bed, telling me I’ll be safe, but I’ve never been safe, never never never.’ Suddenly, he turned and found Tully’s face. ‘They did things. Worse things than I ever did,’ he said.

Bernice passed something to the doctor, and it turned into a syringe. A moment later, he
handed it back, having emptied its contents into the fleshy part of Toby’s arm. He rubbed the spot.

‘You’ll feel better in a moment, Toby. Just something to calm you down.’ He shuffled Toby along the floor to the door. Toby opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. His gaze dropped from Tully’s face, fell to the floor as he shambled after the doctor.

‘What did you give him?’ she asked, panic fluttering around the edges of her vision.

‘A mild tranquiliser. It will help him stop worrying for a while. He’s very agitated.’
Bernice smiled down on her. ‘He will be fine, I promise. You should call your dad.’

Tully nodded, dull and shocked. Bernice gave her a last pat on the arm and followed the doctor and
Toby out the door. Tully heard the car doors open, a whisper of conversation, then doors closed, and the car started up. In another moment, it was gone. Toby was gone. She’d handed him over to people she didn’t even know. Drawing her legs up, she huddled on the couch, not seeing anything, not knowing what to think. She forgot about calling her father.