Asylum (52 page)

            So
peaceful, a good place to rest.  In the absence of the light she had no desire
to move, she barely even thought.  She wasn’t at all sure how to get back, but
it didn’t seem to matter.  Perhaps it would never matter.  She sat and watched
the tiny variations in the gentle waves that slid over the rocks, a dreamy
smile on her face.  If time passed, she wasn’t aware of it.

            And
it was the wind that called her, or at least she thought it was the wind. 
Listening, remembering what was real, she thought it sounded more like a
voice.  One she knew.  Chloe closed her eyes and touched her own hand to her
cheek.  If she thought about it, very hard, she could almost feel another hand
there, larger and warm.  She smiled.  It was a voice after all.  What was it
saying?

            “You
and me, Kiddo.  You and me, I’m right here next to you.  I have been right
along…I always will be.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

            Chloe
opened her eyes.  She didn’t bother moving, she didn’t wonder at the
strangeness of the scene before her eyes.  Sam was nearby.  A grey-haired,
kindly-faced man was helping her to sit up.  Seth hung over her, but because he
was watching Sam, she saw him before he saw her.  When he turned back, she
smiled.

            “I’ve
had such a strange dream,” she whispered.

            “Me
too,” he whispered back.

            “And
you were there, and you, and you…now where’s Toto?” Sam said from the floor.

            Chloe
smiled and closed her eyes again.  She felt drained, she could have laid
uncaring on that couch for days.  Except…except, it was cold in the room,
wasn’t it?

            Looking
past Seth, she could see the curtains blowing faintly on a snow-laced breeze. 
The window had been busted out, tiny pieces of glass covered the carpet.  There
were a lot of questions she could have asked, but there was one important thing
she had to do first.  Something she‘d put off too long.

            She
lifted her hand, and laid it against Seth’s cheek.

            “I
love you,” she said.

            “I
know,” he answered, wrapping his hand around hers.

            “No…you
don’t.  I couldn’t say it.  I thought I was protecting myself or something.  I
thought if I admitted it, it was just going to make it hurt more when you went
away.  I can’t…I still can’t figure out what you see, but it doesn’t matter.  I
love you, and I’m sorry…about all this,” she looked around the ransacked living
room, wincing, as she again noticed the man.

            “Beats
a normal Friday night at the Eat,” he smiled.

            “Oh
you guys and your mush,” Sam complained, as the man helped her to her feet.

            “Well
then don’t look a minute,” Seth said.  He leaned in, rubbed his lips against
Chloe’s and kissed her gently.

            Behind
his back, the old man disappeared.  Sam brushed a few shimmering pieces of
glass off herself, and surveyed the mess of the room with a frown.  A lamp lay
on its side, the bookcase looked as though it had exploded.  Snow had blown in
and was melting on the carpet in front of the window.

            The
man returned, carrying a large square of cardboard and a roll of duct tape.  He
proceeded to block up the window while the others watched.  When he finished,
he turned and cleared his throat nervously.

            “I…well,
I’m pretty sure I can get permission for an exorcism,” he offered.

            “Well
then, what the heck was that that just happened?” Sam asked, righting the
fallen floor lamp.

            “A
prayer to St. Michael, asking for his protection, his assistance.”

            “Well,
that was some pretty good praying there, Father.  Kudos on that,” Sam said. 
“But are you saying that they’re not gone, or that they can come back?”

            “I
don’t…I don’t know,” the priest admitted, spreading his hands.  “I can find
someone who does though.  For now, why don’t we just start at the beginning. 
Start by telling me when you first noticed that something wasn’t right.”

            The
priest was about to settle into the arm chair next to the couch, when he
stopped and held out his hand to Chloe.

            “Father
Andrew, by the way,” he introduced himself.

            “Chloe
Adams,” Chloe mumbled, shaking his hand.  “Thank-you.  I’m not sure what you
did, but I was losing an argument, I didn’t think I could ever get back, and
then there was light.  Just so much light.”

            “What
did happen?” Sam asked.  “I just remember my head hurt so bad, and it felt like
the room was going to collapse on me and then…and then everything just went
black.  Was it George?  Did George do all this?”

            “No!”
Chloe said, sitting up abruptly.  “No, it wasn’t George at all.  George was
against them, George was trying to tell me about them, about…how we have to
stop them…the bad ones.  So much stuff, there was this plot, it had to do with
the asylums, and trying to bring people back.  Experiments with bodies, keeping
souls earthbound.  We have to find Abraham’s Men, because the bad ones are
getting close to figuring it out.  They might have already figured it out.”

            “Figured
what out?” Seth asked.

            “How
to live forever, how not to die.”

            “Please,
let’s start at the beginning, I seem to have come in a bit late,” Father Andrew
reminded her.

            So,
for more than an hour, Chloe, with a few interruptions from Sam, related all
the strange occurrences that made up their first semester at college.  Even
Seth was surprised at times.  When she caught the priest up to the events of
the night, she stopped.  For once, Sam didn’t offer any help, just stared at
the carpet morosely.  Chloe coughed and shrugged.

            “So
earlier, I was in my room, and I was drinking a little, and I guess I kind
of…invited George to possess me, if he was able,” she admitted.

            Seth
rubbed his forehead slowly, but he didn’t say anything.  Sam continued to stare
fixedly at the carpet.

            “That
was incredibly foolish,” Father Andrew reprimanded her.  “Why?  Why would you
do such a thing?”

            “I
don’t know…I don’t know!” Chloe waved the question away impatiently.  “I just
did.”

            If
Father Andrew noticed that none of the three met his eyes, he didn’t remark on
it.  Chloe hurriedly continued her narrative.

            “Well
at first, I was in a dark place, and I was scared, but then George came and he
talked to me.  He said I was inside myself.  He told me about the bad ones.  
Their history, they go back a couple of hundred years.  They started
experimenting with bodies back in the 1700’s, using electricity to restart hearts,
and move limbs and stuff.  They started learning about the human brain even,
about how you could bring someone back, but they might just be a breathing
body, because they were still brain dead.  And then, he says, they started
trying to learn about souls.  Whether or not they could trap them, use them,
put them back in bodies.  He said you can find traces of it in history.  Some
kind of religious movement back in the 1800’s, all about talking to ghosts-”

            “Spiritualism,”
Father Andrew offered.

            “Yah,
that.  They were using the asylums for experiments, and George said that the
reason the asylums are all closed, is because they don’t need them anymore. 
They’ve figured out what they needed to.  He says that’s why it’s important
that we stop them.  They found some kind of answer, and it’s going to be bad.”

            “I
don’t understand,” Seth stopped her.  “That whole time you were out, you were
in your head having a peaceful conversation with someone?  Because from out
here, it looked like you were fighting something, like you were hurting.”

            “Oh,
I was.  George left.  I don’t know why, it was like…like he just got sucked
right out of my head.  And he told me, he warned me that there were bad ones
that could find me.  Bad ones that were dead, and still around.  He said they
were close, that they can latch onto living people, like parasites, and that
there was one near me.  He said that people that had addictions were the ones
they most…” Chloe trailed off.

            Sam
glanced up from where she sat picking at an invisible spot on the carpet to see
three sets of eyes upon her.

            “What?!”
she demanded.

            “It
was a woman-thing,” Chloe said, still studying Sam.  “It came after George left
and I was trying to…to get out of my head, to wake up.  It grabbed onto me,
made it all dark.  It talked to me too.  It tried to convince me…I don’t know
what it wanted me to think.  Maybe that there was no point to anything.  There
was no good or evil, no heaven, no God-”

            Father
Andrew snorted.

            “And
I started to believe it…but then oh…so much light.  Just so much light, and it
just blew the Thing away from me, and I saw…I thought I saw…” She trailed off,
her eyes widening as she remembered.

            “You
saw?” Father Andrew leaned forward in his chair.

            “A
sword. A sword and it was on fire, and it was more terrifying than any of the
dark things or ghosts, but I didn’t want to run away from it, or hide…I didn’t
even want it to go away.  I didn’t mind if it struck me down on the spot,
because it was also so beautiful…amazing…something, I don’t know that there’s a
word for it.  It did go away, and I was alone there, but I didn’t care.  I
don’t think I’ll ever be afraid of anything again.”

            “St.
Michael, the archangel,” Father Andrew whispered reverently.

            “How
did you come back to us?” Seth asked.

            “I
heard you.  I heard you calling me, and I closed my eyes and I wanted to be
where you were, and when I opened them…I was,” she smiled at him.

            He
took her hand and pressed his lips against the back of it.

            “No
more of this, right?” he asked.  “It’s all done now.  We’ll move out of
Kirkbride, we don’t even have to wait for a transfer.  We can get an
apartment.”

            Chloe
didn’t answer, she knew he wouldn’t like what she would eventually have to
say.  Instead she looked at Father Andrew.

            “And
what happened while I…while I was gone?” she asked him.

            “I
have to confess, when the young man showed up carrying you, talking about evil
spirits and the like…well, I assumed you’d all had a bit too much to drink,”
the priest smiled.

            All
of them shared a nervous laugh at that.

            “But
he convinced me that maybe I should try praying for you-”

            “He
ripped the phone cord out of the wall, yelled at him, and then begged God,” Sam
interrupted, with an evil grin.  Seth shrugged sheepishly at Chloe’s glance.

            “Like
I said, he
convinced
me,” Father Andrew smiled tolerantly at Sam, “and
once we began the chaplet of St. Michael, your friend Sam seemed to pass out
and then to suffer something.  She was flailing around and crying out, and
then, she got to her feet, and began railing against me.  Denouncing religion,
speaking of science and the strength of the human will…still, I don’t think I
was wholly convinced, and then-”

            “There
was wind, it seemed to come from everywhere, blowing the lamp over, books were
flying off the shelves, it was unbelievable,” Seth continued, “and knocking,
banging, all over the walls, and that’s when the window shattered and-”

            She
saw Seth and the priest look at one another.  They both seemed at a loss to
explain what had happened next.

            “A
demon,” Father Andrew at last said decisively, “The shape of a man, made up of
all the shattered glass.”

            Chloe
and Sam gasped.

            “It
took a few steps towards me and then…it just fell apart…and everything became
still,” Father Andrew finished.

            “I
was possessed?  I don’t remember anything!” Sam said.

            “They’re
not demons,” Chloe said thoughtfully.  “They’re human…or at least, they once
were.  That’s why…I don’t know how much good an exorcism…”

            Father
Andrew watched her as she struggled to explain what they had all experienced.

            “The
devil takes many forms.  The Devil is a liar.  The Devil will try to trick you,
to confuse you, this much we know,” Father Andrew reminded her.

            “Yeah,”
Chloe said slowly.  “Yeah, just give us some time to think about it all though,
okay?  Speaking of time…?”