Tales of Sin and Madness (14 page)

So this is my religious story, coupled with my other favourite topic – zombies

THE COFFIN

Doug could feel the cigarette lighter clamped in his sweaty hand. He knew he should flick it on, but something kept stopping him. Nerves? His trembling hand? Or finding out that he was stuck in this tomb with no possible way out?

Just flick the lighter on
, he told himself.
You might be inches away from an opening and not even know it.

But he couldn’t see any hint of light in front. Just blackness.

If only he could pluck up enough courage to simply press his thumb on the flint. Why couldn’t he? Was he
that
terrified of what he may or may not find?

He blinked warm tears from his eyes. The ache in his neck was beginning to turn into real pain. If he didn’t rest his head soon, he might not be able to move it at all. But there was a sumptuous puddle of terror-induced vomit waiting for him just inches from his nose.

As a diversion, Doug again tried to see if he could worm his way backwards. Clenching his teeth and using the bottoms of his hands, he pushed down against the cold, adamantine floor. Strained his arms until every muscle howled with pain. But his body didn’t move an ant’s dick. He relaxed, blew out a long hot breath and cursed.

Couldn’t go back. He had clearly established that fact. And he couldn’t go forward. He knew it was just as narrow ahead as it was at this section. Because during his panic-stricken period when he first realized that he was stuck, he had tried moving forward, only to find he had forced himself into an even tighter wedge.

He felt like a cork in a champagne bottle. Only no one was going to come and pop him free.

A sharp pain coursed through Doug’s neck. He winced. Keeping his head up was taking its toll.

I have to
, he thought.

With a moan, Doug let his head drop to the metal floor. The right side of his face landed in the hot watery mess. The texture alone was enough to make him gag – but then there was the smell. Rancid and immediate. He suppressed another upchuck, and to avoid thinking about the vomit, he concentrated on how good it felt to be resting his head. The severe ache that had been nagging at his neck was beginning to subside, and he felt mildly drowsy, despite the pillow of puke.

Now if I could only muster up the courage to flick on the lighter
.

A crazed laugh escaped from Doug’s lips. Why could he lay his head in a pool of vomit, but not flick on a stupid lighter?

He closed his heavy eyes.

Tiredness washed over him.

He fell asleep...

...and dreamed of men chasing him – big, dark men, like the ones who really had chased after him. Only in this dream he had the money to pay them. But for some reason they chased him anyway. He dreamed of ugly old abandoned motels and scummy bathrooms where the only place to escape from these dark men was not through a window, but up into an air duct. And in his dream the walls and ceiling of the air duct suddenly began to close in. Only he could see all around him like it was daytime, and the duct was slowly pressing in on him and he couldn’t do anything about it. Closer and closer until each side of the duct was touching his body. He screamed…

And kept on screaming until he realised that he was awake and that the duct wasn’t closing in like a garbage compactor.

He was just stuck. Like he had been for the past forty minutes.

Or longer? How long was I out for
? he wondered, and felt the silver-plated lighter still in his hand. Hadn’t dropped it while he was asleep.

I have to, he thought. There’s no other way.

But what if the duct seems to go on forever? What if there’s absolutely no way out except forwards or backwards?

Then again, what if he found a trapdoor or something?

He was determined not to die trapped in this air duct that smelled of stale piss. And if lighting up this metal coffin might help in that cause, then he had to do it.

He raised his arm off the floor. Like his head, it felt heavy and he could feel bits of puke stuck to his skin. He set his thumb on the flint, paused while he savoured the darkness one last time, then clicked down. Sparks flew but no flame ignited. He tried a few more times.

“Damn,” he muttered, feeling his valiancy slipping with each unrequited click of the flint.

The lighter caught on the fifth try.

A small flame danced, but it wasn’t enough light to see what was around him or up ahead. So he slid the tiny switch that allowed for more lighter fluid across, and the flame grew.

Now he could see every wall and the ceiling of the air duct. Grey metal covered in dust and mould. Then he settled the flame in front of him, to see, finally, what lay beyond.

Doug wailed and pissed his pants.

The skeleton was no more than a metre in front of him. Its outstretched arms were reaching out to him, like some demented attempt at a hug. Doug could see its broken fingernails - chipped in places, completely smashed in others. He looked at its face. Even though he knew that this person would’ve died a most awful death, the way the light bounced off its skull, it looked like it was laughing at him.

Doug didn’t laugh back.

Because fate was no laughing matter.  

NOTES:

This story is all about fear. Well, my own personal fear.

One of my worst nightmares is being stuck in a tight place with no way to move. Just the thought of not even being able to move my arms gives me chills. What would make it worse would be knowing there’s a way out, being able to see the light, or a door, but unable to get there. You’re just stuck, unable to move, unable to do anything except stare at freedom and wait…

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME

Dr. Eric Stelig had never seen anything like it in all his time as administrator at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He stood just inside the recreation room of what was affectionately known as the ‘psycho ward’ – Ward C – and gaped in revulsion. He had seen some pretty damn repugnant stuff in his time, but this was the worst. Not because it was any more disgusting than the other things, because it wasn’t. No, this was bad because of what it represented.

“How the fuck could this have happened?” Stelig muttered.

“I don’t know,” Adams said with a long sigh.

Stelig turned and looked down at the Senior Doctor. The short, balding man was sweating and he looked pained. “Why wasn’t it stopped? Jesus Christ, what’s next, a friggin’ breakout?”

“It all happened so fast, Sir. We couldn’t stop it.”

“That’s not a good enough answer,” Stelig growled. “What the hell were you idiots doing while all this was happening?”

Adams stuttered.

“Probably balling the nurses, or dreaming of balling the nurses.” Stelig shook his head and looked back at the carnage. “How the hell are we going to cover this up?”

They could cover up the deaths of one, maybe two people – he’d done it numerous times in the past – but fourteen? How the hell were they going to cover up the deaths of eleven mental patients and three nurses?

Stelig gazed around the large room, awash with blood and shit, at the fourteen dead, each and every one with their tongue either bitten off or ripped completely out of their mouth, and shuddered.

How could one man have done all this?
he wondered.

“Where’s Warren now?” Stelig asked Adams.

“In the infirmary.”

“What? Why isn’t he in confinement?”

“We found him in the corner.” Adams pointed over at the far left-hand corner of the room. “He was lying in a fetal position, crying, mumbling, speaking nothing but gibberish.”

Stelig huffed. “So the psycho has gone completely nuts. They’re all nuts. Why the fuck is he in the infirmary?”

“Because both his eardrums were pierced.”

Stelig moaned. “Christ. He did that to himself?”

Adams shrugged. “Looks like it. We found a plastic bread knife next to him. Shit, you know how hard he would’ve had to…”

“So Warren’s deaf?” Stelig cut him off.

“Ah, yeah. Apparently.”

“He can still talk, can’t he?”

“If you call the nonsense coming out of his mouth talking, then yeah, he can still talk.”

Stelig turned away from the massacre. His eyes welcomed the change of scenery. “Let’s go. Maybe I can get some answers out of him. Shit, I wanna know why he did this. Why he may have single-handedly fucked up my career.”

Before…

The man sits in the corner, not looking at anything in particular, softly humming. He does nothing else all day except sit in the corner and hum.

He doesn’t speak with the others, not because he hates them, but because that would mean disrupting his glorious hymn.

Even now, as the black man glides the funny looking hairy thing around him, he doesn’t stop humming. Like a humming-bird, which is what the black man calls him.

“Hey there, humming-bird. How you going today?”

The man smiles quickly, never ceasing his song, never missing a beat. He can’t miss a beat, or else he’ll lose his stillness.

The black man, who wears the same blue uniform every day, continues pushing the funny hairy thing back and forth, around and around. “And how am I doing, you ask? Well, I can’t complain. The ticker’s still beating and the paychecks keep on coming. And I have wonderful friends like you to keep me company.” The black man chuckles.

The man stares at nothing and keeps on humming. He likes the black man. The black man likes his humming. Unlike certain other people. But that, like other things, he keeps to himself. He never tells his secrets to anyone.

“I say, you ever going to change your song, humming-bird?” The black man says. “Doesn’t matter. Me, I don’t mind. Shit, I don’t mind at all. It’s comfort, isn’t it, humming-bird? Familiarity. Me, I like comfort as I get older an’ older. With my wife gone and the kids all grown up and living their lives, comfort’s all I have. Ain’t that right, humming-bird?”

The man smiles. The black man always talks about his wife gone and his kids living their lives. Every day he talks about the same thing. And every day he stops pushing that funny hairy thing while he talks. But the man doesn’t care. He just looks at nothing and keeps on humming.

And hopes the bad man hears him.

He hasn’t heard a peep out of the bad man for awhile. They might still be punishing him – or he could be sleeping. But even in sleep, he knows the bad man can hear him. And that makes him smile. His secret.

“Yeah, my life ain’t too bad, humming-bird. I got this job. Hell, it don’t pay too well and you’d be disgusted at some of the things I have to clean up. ‘Specially in the bad wards. Psycho ward’s the worst. I’d give up half my paycheck if I was allowed to only clean this ward. ‘Cause this here ward’s the best. It’s clean, quiet and I have people like you to talk to.”

The man knows what’s coming up next. He’s heard it a million times. But he likes hearing this part. It makes him the most happy.

“Unlike that psycho ward. Shit. It gives me the creeps every time I go inta that ward. All those eyes watching me, all those devil minds wondering how they’re gonna get me. They piss and shit and spew and leave their spunk all over the floor, just to spite me they do. I’m convinced of it. Just to make my life hell. I’m almost seventy, humming-bird. I don’t got no time to be worrying about some nutter coming at me with god-knows-what and killing me.”

The black man stops to take a breath. He’s almost seventy, and he hasn’t got the wind in him like he used to. Not like back when the man first arrived here and the black man was young. Well, younger than he is now. But he’s always liked the man’s humming. Never told him to stop it like those men in white.

“But, I need the money. That’s a fact, humming-bird.”

The black man sighs, grips the funny hairy thing and begins to push it along the floor. “Still gets me that you people up here are put in the same place as those crazy nutters down there. Shit, you’re no more dangerous than my old Grandma used to be, God rest her soul. And she was the nicest lady in the world.” The black man shakes his head and makes a funny clacking sound with his mouth. “See ya humming-bird. Thanks for listening.”

The black man walks away.

The humming-bird continues to hum.

The man’s aware of things going on around him. They think he’s simple or something, but they don’t know. He knows about the large man in white doing the business with one of the women in white, the women who wear those funny hats. He also knows the large man in white has a ring on his finger, just like the ring the man used to have, only now it’s gone – taken from him by the men in white when he first arrived at this place. He knows about the small man in white that does the business with the drooling woman who lies in bed all day. He does the business when it’s dark and there are no other men in white around. He also knows that the bad man hates his humming. Always has. But these things he keeps as secrets. He’s a humming-bird, and humming-birds never talk, just hum.