A Night at the Asylum (22 page)

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I just thought…I thought I heard a cat
meowing.” He had the strangest look on his face.

I shivered, thinking of the story about his
pet kitten, how his father had just wanted to kill something he
loved. I half-turned and forced my upper-body through the window,
my hands braced against the sill to push myself the rest of the way
out. Strong hands grabbed me then, pulling me back down.

“What the –?” What was Emmett doing?

I was suddenly knocked to the floor so hard I
didn’t even see what hit me. “You killed my son, you little bitch!”
an angry voice shouted. My eyes lolled about in my head like
marbles in a maze as I tried to reset my equilibrium. I wasn’t
quick enough. A sharp, piercing pain shot through the side of my
head and I realized I had been hit again, with something flat and
hard. My left ear went silent.

As I lay on the floor, I could barely make
out the muffled and distorted sounds of a struggle nearby. I could
see nothing but darkness and spinning bricks above me. I didn’t
have the presence of mind to be scared. I only knew I had to try to
get up, or the rotating floor would be the last thing I would ever
see.

Finally the room stopped its tilt-a-whirl.
Yet my head felt so incredibly heavy that when I tried to lift it,
my stomach heaved and I went back down to the floor. I was in
trouble. This was bad. Instead of trying to carry my 500 pound
head, I decided to drag it. My arms and legs were still
cooperating. Though it was painful to do so, I concentrated on
making them move in sync with each other, right then left. The pain
in my head subsided enough to try to stand again, but then my body
suddenly wouldn't follow my brain's commands. There were weird
voices in my head. It was as if I was hearing conversations from
the night being played over and over again, all at the same time,
and somewhere in the middle of it was Emmett's voice calling out to
me.

“Emmett?” I called back. “Emmett! Help me!
Please!” I could only see a couple of feet in front of me;
everything was such a blur. Blood was pouring down into my eyes
from the wound on the side of my head. I looked at the floor and
saw that I had been hit with the business end of a shovel. It was
now lying beside me, abandoned.

I reached over to pick it up but my arm only
flailed at the filthy cement. I was so dizzy. All I could hear was
Emmett's voice and now Brad's, and two hulking shapes in the corner
close to the ground seemed to confirm that they were struggling. I
attempted to drag myself closer to them, closer to the door that
led into the corridor. I was going to try to stand up again. I had
to. Otherwise I would lie here and bleed to death…and I had to help
Emmett.

Gritting my teeth against the pain and
nausea, the spinning walls and floor, I focused my energy on my
arms. They moved to pull me into a sitting position. Little by
little, my legs began to cooperate as well. I thought I could claw
my way along the wall till I could stand. I made it to the
framework of the old drawers, gripping the sturdy wood.

A strange thing occurred then; perhaps it was
someone jumping the gun, being impatient, perhaps it was fate, who
knows? All I heard was a noise like a bomb going off in my good
ear, and I was thrown once again, this time under the unyielding
framework of the morgue freezers. A loud squeaking noise filled the
air along with a cloud of dust. Bricks and stones from the walls
and ceiling came down like rain, bruising me all over my body. The
rubble barricaded the door to the corridor, but the rest of the
room was gone. The framework braced the walls from collapsing on
top of me and kept me from being crushed, but there was no way I
was getting out any time soon. Because of the staggered design of
the building, the three floors above us stayed still, but they were
probably dangerously precarious now.

After the dust had settled, I could barely
breathe. I felt like my skeleton had caved in on itself. I coughed
lightly and tried to open my eyes. Was I alive? It surprised me,
but I was.

“Stop!” I heard someone scream. It sounded
like Raymond’s voice. At that moment I ceased hearing things and
began to fade in and out of a dream-like state. It was nice; there
were people I loved here. That’s all dreams are, I thought lazily,
a place to go to see everyone you can’t see otherwise. I heard
music playing as if from a great distance away and suddenly I was
there. I no longer had a body. I’d stepped out. I was only wind,
drifting away into the air without being seen.

I was the breeze on my front porch at home,
swirling the fragrance of lilacs about the yard, tickling the
feathers of the birds as they twittered in the trees above. Then I
was myself, on the porch swing, a fan of red-backed Bicycle cards
in my hand. The game was poker, and I had a royal flush, and this
time I was going to take my brother down.

“So?” came Tommy’s voice, and there he was,
sitting on the swing beside me. His face was especially vivid, his
eyes glowing like two golden rocks. There was no question this time
that this was absolutely real, the same as being in my body, wide
awake. But I knew I had left my broken body far behind. It was an
amazing feeling. “What are you going to do?” he asked, and I had to
distract myself from how free I was to focus on what he was
saying.

I looked down at my cards. “Well, I’ve got a
pretty good hand,” I answered. I smiled at him, because he was
smiling at me. “Do you know what it is?”

“Of course I know what it is,” he replied.
“But that’s not how you play the game.”

“What do you mean?” I eyed him
suspiciously.

“I mean it isn’t about the part where you
win. It’s about playing. I know your hand, but it’s your choice
what cards to lay down.”

“Tommy,” I said suddenly, folding my cards. I
didn’t want to talk in metaphors anymore, and made a conscious
decision not to. “Why did you come to me in the dreams? Didn’t you
think I’d believe what you were telling me?”

“Of course not. Did you believe it when I
would open or shut the door to my room? Or when I’d flick the
lights on and off? Or when I would call you? What about the magic
marker on your red shirt?”

I gasped. “That was you?” He'd totally let
Jamie take the fall for that one.

He went on like I hadn't spoken, going off
into one of his signature rants. “Did you acknowledge for one
moment that maybe that was all I could do? That I was there with
you the whole time?” he asked. “No.” But he was smiling. “You had
an explanation for every single thing that happened.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I was. How foolish
I’d been.

“It’s okay. The whole thing with the tape
recorder made up for it. Did you like that?” he laughed. “I sounded
like a real ghost, right? Liiiiiisttttteeennnn…” he drew out an
overdramatic whisper. “Spooky, huh?”

“I did listen. Finally.”

He grinned wider. “That’s all I ever wanted
you to do.”

The simplicity of this world was
overwhelming. I smiled. For once, I understood.

“I was really hopeful when Jamie moved next
door because she's been communicating with spirit guides since she
was a kid,” Tommy went on, sounding almost impressed. “And let me
tell you…that is a mind you don’t want to be caught up in.” He
laughed. “But she did get to Emmett somehow. Even though she was so
stuck on the belief that talking to me would somehow offend you,
she still passed the information on to Emmett. Yeah.” He sat back,
clearly satisfied with himself. “It was all part of my big plan.
But what a bunch of dense people I had to put up with. And Mom and
Dad…forget about it. I didn’t even try.”

“You should have.” I looked down at my hands,
remembering my conversation with my father. “What about Bonita? She
must have been easy. She must have been trying to communicate with
you, right? Or Jon?” I asked.

“Jon? No, not really. And believe it or not,
Bonita was the hardest of all to get through to,” he answered
thoughtfully. “She closed her mind off completely when I…well, you
know. The one time I did reach her, I used it to put my two cents
in on something some might not consider a practical utilization of
my abilities.”

“What?” I asked.

“Ahh, you’ll find out,” he said, with a
dismissive wave of his hand.

I made a face. “Okay, but it had better not
be gross.”

There was mock hurt in his eyes. “Gross? Me?
No. Not this time. This was too important.” He grinned. “I got to
go in on a name.”

I had no idea what he meant, so as was
typical of our relationship, I ignored him. “Are you going to be
okay?” I asked him. “I mean, here, in this place? Alone?”

He grinned again. “Yeah. Of course. Besides,
I’m not alone. I’ve seen Grandma and Grandpa…Jenny…” he was
wistful. “Out there isn’t real. What’s here is what’s real. This is
where you come back to when you’re done with all that.
This
is home.” He made a sweeping gesture toward our house, and I
realized he was right.

“I want to stay here with you,” I
whispered.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? Wow, you
really have to keep working on that listening thing. It’s not about
winning, Sara. It’s about getting to play the game.”

“Please, Tommy. I don’t want to play
anymore.” I placed my cards down on the slats of the swing.

“You’re forfeiting?” he asked, one eyebrow
raised.

“Yes.” How could I leave this beautiful
place?

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Quit being a
baby.” He reached across the swing and hugged me unexpectedly, and
even without a body he had such warmth and energy.

I didn’t want to let go. “I can’t. It hurts
too much.”

He pulled back, smiling at me. “Sure it hurts
now, and it's not going to get better any time soon.” His voice was
matter-of-fact, his tone inarguable. “But trust me, Sara,” he said.
“You're gonna live.”

****

I woke up feeling a cold breeze against my
neck. My eyes were stuck shut, my eyelashes caked in the glue of my
own blood. A blanket was being wrapped around me. There were so
many voices. Every time they touched me it was like they were
breaking more bones. I couldn’t cry out. I couldn’t move. I felt my
back against something soft and unsteady. My head was on a pillow.
My damaged hearing picked up the muffled sounds of what seemed to
be a bed being placed in a box. “No, I don’t want to go in the
casket,” I finally managed to croak out. “Please don’t lock me in
the casket.”

“You’re not going in a casket, you’re going
to the hospital,” answered a voice. It was calm, a relieved and
familiar voice, and I was so glad to hear it. Jamie’s voice. I felt
her warm grip on my hand. “The wrecking ball crashed into the room
you were in. It just went by itself…it was a freak accident. They’d
already called the demolition off because they were trying to find
you.”

“Emmett!” I gasped, and my ribs screamed.
“Where’s Emmett? Jamie, you have to find him!”

“It’s okay, he’s okay,” she replied
soothingly. “He didn’t get hurt. He was thrown clear. He’s fine.
Raymond and Cole are bringing him along to the hospital.”

“No, he's still sick,” I insisted, even as my
lungs protested the air escaping my throat. “He needs help
too.”

“Shhh. He’s fine.” She squeezed my hand
again. Her voice dipped low and grave. “They found Brad in the
rubble. And Ead.” She knew it was better to tell me this now than
keep it from me; that it would reassure me, not upset me. “They
weren’t so lucky.”

Luck had nothing to do with it, I knew. I
thought of Tommy’s notebook and spirit board, his voice on the
recorder, his helmet…probably lost forever in the collapsed walls.
There are no coincidences.

“Oh my God,” I moaned. “Ead…Brad…he tried to
kill me.”

“I know,” Jamie whispered. “Bonita’s father
is having a field day with what he’s uncovering. And…they found
Jenny.” Jamie sounded sad. “They found her before they found you.
When the wrecking ball hit, it destroyed the wall. And she was
there.”

I heard the beeping of machines, felt a cold
plastic mask being placed over my face. Someone else was in the
ambulance with us, poking my skin with needles and prodding my body
parts. Compared with the pain I already felt that was beginning now
to numb slightly, it was nothing. I heard Raymond’s voice again,
somewhere not far away. Everyone sounded frantic. “Tommy told you,
didn’t he? Tommy told you to go to Emmett,” I murmured, my words
muffled by the mask. It was the dreams that had started the domino
effect these bizarre twelve hours had cascaded into, the dreams
that were all too real.

She heard the desperation in my voice, the
acceptance. “Now you know the truth,” she whispered. “You don’t
need me to tell you.”

“Are we okay here?” I asked. “Will you stay
with me? Did you tell them it was police brutality?” I asked,
hearing my voice crack, tears stinging my glued-shut eyes. “Am I
going to be okay?”

I felt Jamie squeeze my hand again, heard the
rumble of her quiet laugh. “Of course. Doug’s here. Remember? My
EMT friend I told you about?”

“Hey,” said a man who was adjusting tubing
very near my head.

I tried not to laugh. It hurt. “Hey,” I
answered. Life was so stupid, so ridiculous. And it was so good to
be alive.

“You’re not going to believe this, but your
mother is already on her way here,” Jamie told me, over the noise
of the machines.

“How…what? Did you tell her what happened?”
It would be so wonderful to see my mother, I thought.

“She called me, hysterical, about five
minutes before they found you,” Jamie explained. “She demanded to
know where you were, knew something bad had happened to you.”

“How did she know?” I rasped.

“She said she looked out the window and saw
you and Tommy playing cards together on the porch swing.”