Asylum (17 page)

            Jen
started and jumped to her feet.

            “Oh
wow, good timing!” she said, “You won’t believe what I found!”

            Chloe
glanced at the paper in Jen’s hand while unlocking the door.  The only words
she could read were “Birch Harbor Gazette”.  Though uninvited, Jen traipsed
into the room behind her.  She took a seat at Sam’s desk.

            “When
does Sam get back?” Jen asked.

            “I
don’t know.  She might come back after her physics lab or she might go right to
her next one.  Why, what’s up?”

            “Mel
was at the library and she found these binders that have, like, every issue of
the Birch Harbor Gazette, and it goes all the way back to the 1870’s, and she
was just looking through them, and guess what she found?”

            Chloe
shrugged, though she had a sneaking suspicion she knew exactly what Mel had
found.  Jen thrust the piece of paper under her nose.  Chloe read the
photo-copied title and flinched.

FIRE
DESTROYS NEW ASYLUM

Several
Injured, One Presumed Dead!

Birch
Harbor Volunteer Fire Company Display Skill and Bravery!

Late
last night, fire broke out at the construction site for the new Birch Harbor
Asylum.  The smoke was first seen  by Mr. C.A. Richards, 41, at his home on
Thornton Ave.  Mr. Richards promptly gathered his neighbors, and together, with
the Birch Harbor Volunteer Fire Company, they raced to the site and began
efforts to extinguish the blaze.  They arrived at 11.30 o’clock and noted that
the lower two floors of the west wing were already engulfed in flames.  Over
the next quarter hour, the fire spread to all four floors of the west wing,
despite the heroic efforts of our firefighters.  At 11.50 o’clock, many members
of the team saw what appeared to be a male person, still inside the building,
moving past windows which poured smoke.  Fire Chief Franz Hermen, 39, and two
members of his crew, John Armies, 24, and Ernest Belcher, 29, entered the
building, and were injured by the collapse of the floor above.  The three men
escaped from the building only moments before the collapse of the greater part
of the west wing.  The fire was controlled after the building’s fall.

The
injured men were taken to the nearby home of Mr. Peter Whitlock, 67, with the
exception of Mr. Belcher, who, suffering a crushed arm, was brought with haste,
to the new Marquette City Hospital. 

The
cause of the fire has not yet been determined though many suspect it to be an
act of arson committed by Mr. George Townsend of Toledo, Ohio, whose body was
discovered in the debris early this morning.  Mr. Townsend was known to have
been a patient at the recently opened Newberry State Asylum, in nearby
Newberry.

The
buildings owner, Mr. Robert Weissmill has confirmed that the new asylum was not
insured and has estimated the damages to be around $40000.  He also stated that
he wished to convey his thanks and gratitude to the citizens of Birch Harbor
and especially the fire department for their quick response and brave actions.

            “What
we found out was that this building…this dormitory is the asylum they’re
talking about.  Mel’s boyfriend knows the R.A. over on three West and he says
you can still see some of the fire damage down in the basement!  So…do you
think the ghost could be-” Jen stopped abruptly, leaving her sentence hanging.

            “No,”
Chloe said quickly, “No.  I don’t think there’s a ghost at all.  I think
someone was trying to scare us.”

            She
folded the paper and tossed it on to her desk.  Jen looked skeptical.

            “Well,
Sam thinks there is,” Jen argued, “Just show it to her, okay?  I want to know
what she thinks.  Maybe we can go down in the basement and try-”

            “No,
no, no, no” Chloe cut in, “I can assure you, neither Sam or I want anything
more to do with the whole Ouija thing.  We freaked ourselves out enough for the
whole school year, I think.”

            Jen’s
expression was mutinous.  She glared at Chloe, and then abruptly, her whole
demeanor changed.  With a deceptively benign smile, she studied Chloe as if
curious.

            “By
the way,” she said in her most innocent tone, “who’s that girl Seth’s been
walking around with all day?  I saw them this morning, coming out of his
room…is she a friend of his?”

            Chloe’s
heart skipped a beat.  She felt sick.  Millions of questions hung on her
tongue, fighting to burst through her lips. 
What did she look like? Did
they say anything to each other?  How early?  What do you mean all day?
 
She struggled to make her face a perfect blank.  Jen was watching her avidly.

            “I
don’t know.  Whatever Sam may have told you, he’s not my boyfriend or
anything.  I don’t know any of his friends,” Chloe said, careful to keep her
voice level.

            Jen
shrugged.

            “Just
thought you’d want to know, I guess.  Men are such jerks,” Jen bounced to her
feet.  “Tell Sam I stopped by, tell her to call me tonight, okay?”

            Chloe
nodded and busied herself with unloading her backpack, she didn’t hear Jen
leave.

            So
that was it?  She really had blown it.  He asked her out, she said no, so he
moved along to the next girl.  She should have explained it better.  She should
have set it up for another day.  She should have called him.  Hadn’t he asked
if she was even interested in him?  From his own lips he had said that he
couldn’t tell if she was interested or not, and she had made him think she
definitely wasn’t.  Chloe snatched up a bottle of lotion from her desk and
flung it as hard as she could at the wall.  It made a tiny spatter mark where
the handpump broke off and then thumped to the floor.

            She
cursed and rubbed her hands over her forehead.  Homework…she should do homework
to take her mind off of it.  There was that paper for her social sciences class
that still needed to be finished.  She could do that.

            A
few minutes later she was typing away on Sam’s computer, ruminating on the
effects of the industrial revolution on British society.  It took fifteen
minutes for her to wind-up the almost completed paper, glance it over, and hit
print.  She shut down Sam’s computer and snatched the still warm paper off the
top of the printer, looking it over once more before committing it to her
folder.

            “Oh,
of course!” she muttered.

            The
paper was almost perfect, just one extra comma where it shouldn’t be!  Well,
she could take care of that at least.

            Chloe
yanked opened her desk drawer and rooted around until she found a brand new
bottle of white-out.  Carefully, she used the brush to paint out the tiny
comma, and then set the brush down and blew gently across the spot to dry it. 
Almost invisible, she decided.

           
Just
like you
, the voice hissed.

            “Left
myself wide open for that one,” she whispered.  The voice laughed.  Chloe
squeezed her eyes shut, readying herself to build a wall, but the voice didn’t
come again.  She heard nothing.  Chloe opened her eyes and let her body relax. 
Am I getting better
? She wondered.  Her eyes fell on the open bottle of
white-out.  The brush still lay on its side next to it.  It would dry out if-

            Chloe
blinked.

            The
bottle looked as if it were moving.  She stared harder.  It was moving!  Slowly
sliding towards the edge of the desk.

            “Stop,”
she whispered.  The bottle took no heed.  It continued its deliberate progress
towards the edge of the desk.

            “Stop,
stop, stop, stop, It’s not real.  It’s not really moving, so stop it.  You’re
doing it!” she covered her eyes to hide the sight, but she could still hear it.
There was a faint noise, sounding like a long slow scratch as it moved.

            “No,
No, NO!” she said louder, to cover the sound.

            It
stopped.  Chloe opened her eyes.  The bottle was laying on its side on the
floor.  It had fallen off the desk.  A small circle of white liquid was
gradually becoming larger as the paint-like substance seeped out of the bottle.

            “It
fell off the desk,” she told herself.  “It just fell off the desk is all, so
clean it up and be done.”

            Chloe
approached the bottle cautiously.  She bent down on her knees and reached out
to touch the bottle with one finger, as if to test if it would burn her or roll
away.  It was just a normal bottle of white-out.  She tipped the bottle upright
and moved to set it back on the desk.  She had almost put it back when it
occurred to her that it might move again, and with one quick flick of her
wrist, she sent it flying into the trash.

            The
pool of white liquid had formed a perfect circle.  It looked entirely strange
there on the tile floor.  It would have been a perfectly rounded dome, if not
for a dimple in the center of it.  It sort of looked as if something was
pushing it down at that point, like a-

            As
Chloe sat transfixed and horrified, the dimple deepened to become a
fingerprint.  Quickly, an unseen finger spelled out the letters A…M… in the
fluid, streaking the white outside the circular border at the tip of the A and
the last stroke of the M.

            Chloe
swallowed a scream and leapt to her feet.  Still staring wildly at the letters
on the floor, she paced back and forth a few times and then doubled over,
clutching her stomach.

            “It’s
not real.  It’s not real.  It’s not real,” she moaned, “Stop it, stop it, stop
it, it’s
me
! 
I’m
doing this!”

            Chloe
got to her feet and grabbed her bath towel off the hook in her closet.  She
dove towards the letters and with one determined swipe, wiped them completely
away.  Her hands were sweating, and she noticed that she was breathing in short
panicky gasps. 
Just like before!
  She tried to think calmly, but
couldn’t. 
You see?  Exactly like before.

            Still
dragging her towel she crawled across the floor and sat with her back against
her bed.  She concentrated on trying to breathe normally. 
I will not let
this happen again
, she told herself
, I’m better now.  I know this isn’t
real.  I don’t have to believe it.  It’s not real.

            As
if in response, the bottle of lotion she had thrown earlier, skidded across the
floor, narrowly missing her feet and crashed against the opposite wall.  A wide
pool of watery lotion had seeped out from the crack in the bottle while it had
lain there.  As Chloe watched, the invisible finger again traced the letters A,
M… larger this time, sloppily.

            “Not
real!” Chloe asserted.

            The
finger, looped around from the down stroke of the M and spelled “R…E…A…L”

            “No!”
Chloe yelled.

            Real…
Real… Real… HELP… AM… each time it drew a word, the watery lotion would slowly
seep back over it, and the writing would begin again.

            “STOP
IT!” Chloe screamed.

            She
lunged towards the spill and scrubbed the words furiously with her towel.

            She
raced across the room and snatched up the lotion bottle, hurling it with the
force of a javelin towards the garbage can.  The room felt like it was 100
degrees.  Chloe gasped for air, the world was spinning around her.  She
staggered towards the door, and burst into the hallway.  She didn’t stop to
think, just ran.

           
Seth!
she told herself,
He’s in his room, right now.  He’s here, he’s between
classes.  He’ll make it stop.  He’ll make it better.

            Chloe
ran all the way to his door and hammered on it madly.  To her relief, Seth
opened it immediately, but only partway.  He looked her quickly up and down.

            “Wha-”
he began.

            “I’m
sorry! I only said no because I didn’t want to leave Sam by herself this
weekend, but I really wanted to go, and I’m really sorry I couldn’t and I was
thinking, I was thinking that we could maybe, that we could…” Chloe paused to
take a breath.  What the hell did people do on dates?  The Eat?  That was where
people went with their friends to hang out, wasn’t it?  Where the hell else was
there in Birch Harbor to go?  Outside!  Seth liked being outside!  “I thought
we could go for a walk or something,” she panted.

            “Slow
down a minute,” he said, looking confused, “What’s going on here, what’s this
about?  You’re all upset and out of breath.  Are you okay?”

            “F-Fine. 
I’m sorry,” she added trying to breathe normally.  “I just got to thinking
th-that you might think I was blowing you off or something and I wasn’t and I
didn’t want you to think that, I…”