Castle on the Edge (10 page)

How am I going to get to the stairwell? How am I going to walk down the stairs? How am I going to take the right direction to get to the recreation room where surely everybody is? I thought I should scream at the top of my lungs. Since the silence was so overwhelming, no doubt they would all hear me, or some would hear, or someone…maybe? However, not likely, because all their talking and laughing would be a sound-proof barrier, one my loudest shouts wouldn’t be able to penetrate.

If that were the case, I would be able to hear them myself, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hear a thing, not a thing. Nonetheless, I knew they were all down there. They had to be. Where else could they be? Yes, everyone in the Castle is down there in the recreation room, including my Mary, everyone. Except me.

I’m the only one that’s not there. I’m here, all by myself, all alone by myself. I’m the missing one now. They must be missing me. Why aren’t they looking for me? Why should I go to them? They should come to me. Oh yes, the escapade, the silly Halloween caper they’re all playing on me; I forgot about that. Naturally those pranksters are deliberately being quiet so I won’t hear anything. That explains the profound silence. That’s why I can’t hear anything at all. I mean, if they were all talking and laughing, like people do at parties, my ears would be able to catch the waves of joyous voices as they filled up the stairwell to the third floor.

I’m going to get the last laugh, yes siree, they’ll see, yes I will. Because I’m from Oklahoma doesn’t mean I’m a country-bumpkin rube. I’m a highly educated psychiatrist. I know how the human mind works. I was educated at Zurich. I’ll get them all though…yes I will. I know what I’ll do. I’m going to sneak down those stairs, ever so quietly. Then I’ll tiptoe down the hall to the recreation room door. I won’t go in. I’ll just stand behind it and wait. That’s right, I’ll just wait. I won’t go in. I’ll just wait outside…in the dark stillness. They’ll wonder why I didn’t go in there…so they could all scare me. They don’t understand that I figured out their cute little scheme…they don’t even suspect it. Yes, their little game will backfire because I’m going to boomerang it back on them. I’ll wait as long as it takes, until
they
open the door…to come looking for me, of course. I’ll wait until the cows come home, if I have to. Then I’ll get them.

Then I wondered how I was going to get myself down there in all the darkness without bumping in to things, they’d hear me for sure. I didn’t want them to hear me at all. I realized that I still had my small medical flashlight in my pocket. I pulled it out, turned it on only to notice that the light had grown quite dim due to the weakening battery. However, it should still be enough, I thought, to guide me down the stairwell to the first floor and direct me through the hall and right to the door of the rec. room. No doubt they’re all in there and the door would be closed, so no one would see me approaching with my small light.

The Vortex

I stealthily made my way to the stairwell and slowly descended, step by step, until I landed on the first floor. The all-around silence shouted its presence there too.

The only audible sound was the beats of my heart, they sounded like the drumming of a Salvation Army evangelist standing on a street corner, clamoring for the repent of lost souls. I slowly ambled down ever so quietly, to the closed door of the recreation room. As I put my head against the door, I listened with great concentration, not a sound on the other side, absolute silence—nothing.

I waited by the door. I must have been there for a good half hour because my watch said five to twelve, almost midnight and still no noise or movement that I could discern from behind the door. How long is this going to take? You know what, Ramsey? You’re not going to go in there. They’ll have to come out here…and that’s when I’ll ‘boo’ them. I’m going to get the last laugh, not them.

Then I had an epiphany. I dialoged to myself in a soft spooky whisper.

“I have it. I know what I’ll do. The trap panel. Yes, the trap panel at the second-floor nurses’ station. It opens to the center of the recreation room ceiling; it opens on to it from the second floor nurses’ station. Yes, that’s it. Of course that’s it. And that’s what I’ll do.”

My whole being became charged with devilish energy. A trap-sliding floor panel was installed when the building was converted into the sanitarium so that there could be both full view and sound of patients’ activities to back up the floor personnel in the rec. room during various events. My little flashlight was growing ever so dim. There wouldn’t be much time left before the battery would die and the light gone out completely…maybe ten minutes at the most, if I’m lucky. So with what little light remained, I sprinted down the hall to the stairwell. The effect of the sedative had worn off. I ascended by skipping up every other step until I got to the second floor, then quickly headed straight to the nurses’ station; it was centered in the middle of the second floor. The six by eight-foot panel was positioned right in the middle of the station itself and it was surrounded by three concentric levels of iron bars, like a bull’s-eye. It correlated exactly to the center of the first-floor recreation room directly underneath.

I looked at my watch; it was now exactly twelve midnight. The panel was only an inch thick so I lay down on it with my ear tightly pressed against the wood…listening, for an inkling of movement, not a sound.

They’re not going to win by scaring me; I’m going to win by scaring them. I’m going to win this cat and mouse game because, I’m the cat and they’re the mouse, or should I say mice...hah-hah—the rats. I know what I’ll do. I’ll go to the linen closet and get some bed sheets, tie them together…let’s see, three should be enough, no, four…because I need at least forty feet to climb down.

There’s a forty-six foot drop from the ceiling to the floor in the rec. room. I knew that because I’d measured it before. Yes, four should do it, I thought, that would give me forty feet, because each sheet is ten feet long, and I would have a couple of free feet to land myself on the floor from the end of the last sheet, if that. I would be able to anchor the end of the top sheet by tying it around a corner of the lowest bar of the circular railing around the panel; it’s less than one foot high off the floor.

I’ll wait for a couple of minutes then I’ll gently slide open the panel, lower the knotted sheets and climb half way down. Then I’ll start swinging back and forth like Tarzan…yes, screaming like a goddamn monkey…hah-hah…that ‘ll fix ‘em. The joke will be on them…not me, not me. Hah-hah-hah.

Everything was ready to go…four bed sheets tied together, one end securely fastened on to a corner of the lowest cross rail encircling the floor panel. The light from my flashlight was all but dead but I had enough to see the lever on the trap door. I made sure I had my
home-made
rope in my hand so I wouldn’t have to grope for it in the dark. Then I lifted the latch, turned off the all-but-extinct light so it couldn’t be seen by all the jokesters from down below, and put it aside.

I commenced, slowly, ever so slowly, and ever so quietly, sliding the panel back. I was in complete darkness now and had to stage my movements very skillfully, and carefully, in order to not accidentally fall through the gaping hole into the black abyss below. Foot by foot I lowered my knotted sheets until there was no more slack.

I was ready to descend and give them all the surprise of their lives. I thought to myself excitedly about the revenge I was going to exact upon those devils for what they’d done to me. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

My adrenalin was spilling over as I took hold of the line. Down I went…hand under hand, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. Then I stopped.

There I was, hanging in space with a twenty-six-foot drop to the floor. I’d passed the point of no return now. I couldn’t see the floor or anything else below me, not to mention above me…or beside me. It was like my eyes were closed tightly, even though they were wide open. The perspiration on my hands was causing my grip to falter. With what strength I had left, I began swinging…back and forth, building a horizontal momentum of about ten feet, I think. Then I went into my Johnny Weissmuller routine. “Ah-eh-ah-eh-ah-eh-ah-eh-ah…I gotcha.” I shouted, “I gotcha. You all didn’t get me. I got you. The joke’s on you…hah-hah.” I went into such a frenzy I forgot where I was and what I was doing. I lost my grip on the sheets and free fell twenty-six feet, straight down to the hardwood floor below. As I lay there in the middle of the rec. room, in the blackest of blackness, I must have lost consciousness for a few seconds because I was completely disoriented from the hard fall. My legs had taken the brunt of it, I know, because when I tried to get up, I couldn’t move them. In fact, my lower body was completely paralyzed. Then an ominous tingling sensation started going through both legs simultaneously which quickly transformed into pain. The pain grew stronger and stronger until I was writhing with it.

“All right, the joke’s over, I’m hurt, I think I broke both my legs, I can’t move and I’m in terrific pain, help me.” I screamed, franticly…pleadingly. I was answered back with silence. “Please, help me. I’m badly hurt. Where is everybody? Oh my dearest Mary, where are you? Are you all right? I need you. You need me. We need each other, dearest. I love you.” Mary didn’t come. Nobody came. I was all alone. This is impossible, I thought. They have to be here. Mary has to be here.

“Where are you, Mary? Mary-Mary-Mary.” I begged. No Mary, no one, no sound, no nothing. I lay on my back staring up into the darkness, seeing only the darkness, on the floor of the recreation room, where everybody was and now nobody is. I might as well have been in a grave. Strangely enough the pain was subsiding. I felt as though I was being anesthetized…yes, anesthetized. As I gazed up, I noticed something hovering, floating, above me, on my left side. I discerned two objects that appeared to be like marbles, yes, two marbles with the same design and color. They weren’t round like regular marbles but more almond-shaped. The spheres were a glowing opaque white with round black centers inside.

The black ones seemed to be more or less translucent. Then I saw another pair moving into me from the right. They moved closer to the first pair, but the inner spheres were blue in that pair. Then both pairs were directly over my head and came closer and closer to me until they were about six inches directly above my eyes; and then, all of a sudden, each set suddenly jetted away from each other; one set moved to my right side, and one set moved to my left side.

What is this? Is it a dream…a nightmare? Wait a minute. I know what they are now, I know what they are. They’re eyes…like Dudley said he saw in the stairwell. Now they’re watching me, but whose eyes?

The horrific pain in my legs was virtually gone and replaced with numbness. Then numbness was filling my whole body. I couldn’t move my legs at all and could barely move my arms; it was like I had heavy weights attached to them…anchors. Then total numbness captured my entire body and I couldn’t move anything at all, except my lips. When I tried to speak, however, I couldn’t make an audible sound. All I could do was mouth, “Help me. Help me.”

The eyes were over my head again; then they moved closer to me. They were dropping…closer, closer, and closer. My racing mind was
trapped
in my inert body. Even my feeble mouthing was rapidly waning until I couldn’t mouth anything at all. Now, it was getting harder to hold my own eyes open; they wanted to close. I managed to keep them open with all the strength I could generate; but it was getting harder, and harder, and harder.

Although I couldn’t make out the dimensions of my environment, I felt the sensation of motion, a steady progressive whirling motion, in a clockwise direction, I think. All I could actually see were the eyes, those two pairs of eyes. Then another pair appeared but I couldn’t tell what color they were because I was fighting to keep my own open. I was losing the battle though. Then the new pair of eyes moved in and locked on to my own struggling-to-keep-opened eyes. Are they green?

They rested no more than one inch above me. They weren’t detached like the other ones. They gazed on me, giving off a cold draft, with an aura of vengeance. The spinning excelled while the other eyes moved closer and closer to my face; then they moved farther away. Now, all the eyes themselves commenced to spin as my own eyes were locking up. The last thing I saw were those six eyes…spinning, spinning, spinning…faster, faster, faster. Then they all transformed into concentric circles…whirling, whirling, whirling…into a layered spiral. How did I get back up to the second floor? Then they merged into one circle; it moved higher and higher, wider and wider, while I felt as though I were falling, free falling down…deeper and deeper…faster, faster, faster, deeper and deeper…d-e-e-p-e-r…a-n-d…d-e-e-p. I lost consciousness.

The Other Side of Bedlam

Doctor Calloway: “The pupils are starting to contract. He will return to his catatonic state soon, it always happens that way and I don’t expect the outcome to change this time either.

Nurse Holden: “Shall I inject him now, Doctor Calloway”?

Doctor Calloway: “Yes, Nurse Holden.”

Nurse Holden: “There. Cyrus Ramsey will soon come alive. I’ll be at the Nurse’s station until then.”

Doctor Calloway: “I wonder what she meant by that strange comment?”

Doctor Lederer: “I thought it a curious thing to say as well, however, let’s put that aside. So this deep-rooted psychosis of Mister Ramsey is repetitive?”