Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (139 page)

Chapter Five

When I wake up the next morning, there's light streaming into the room through a window at the far end of the room, and I immediately see Nurse Perry standing behind the glass window, talking to Dr. Campbell. They seem to be having an urgent, animated discussion, as if something's wrong, but I decide it's too early to worry just yet. Nothing seems to have happened during the night, and I feel better than ever. They're probably discussing another patient. I don't know how big this hospital is, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other nut-jobs floating about, people who can cause real problems.

Glancing in my direction, Nurse Perry sees that I'm awake. Smiling, she holds up a finger, which I guess means she'll be with me in a moment. I check to see if I'm still tied down, and I find that I am, so I decide to just wait it out. A couple more minutes like this won't hurt. I take a deep breath and, for the first time since I arrived here, there's not even a hint of nausea. I guess those drugs are finally out of my system, though I'm sure the sedatives and relaxants they're giving me are also at work. Still, it's the first time I've felt even vaguely normal since I arrived.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," Nurse Perry says as she enters the room, with Dr. Campbell right behind her. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Better," I say. I look up at the bag of nutrients and see that it's empty. "I feel much better."

Dr. Campbell leans down and looks closely at my eyes. "There's no sign of disturbance," he says. "In fact, I'd say she looks completely normal." He peers a little closer. "Annie, do you feel alright in your head? Do you have pain of any kind?"

"No," I say.

This seems to bother Dr. Campbell, who turns away and grabs a chart from a nearby table. He reads some figures on a print-out. "What time was the disturbance?"

"Just before 5am," Nurse Perry says, glancing at me with an uneasy look in her eyes. "It was all over within five minutes."

"It doesn't matter how quickly it was over," says Dr. Campbell, clearly lost in thought. "What matters is that it happened at all." He leans over and tugs at the restraints around my wrists; it's as if he's checking that they're strong enough. "I'll need to speak to some colleagues before I make a decision. I also want to find out what Nurse Winter thinks."

"Are you sure?" Nurse Perry asks. She glances around for a moment, as if she's worried about being overheard. "Is it wise to involve Nurse Winter at this stage?"

"I have no choice," Dr. Campbell says with a shrug. "Imagine the consequences if there's a more serious incident further down the line and it comes out that I didn't raise any concerns."

"I feel fine," I say, butting in. "I mean, I feel good. I think you can let me get up now."

Dr. Campbell stares at me for a moment, clearly not convinced. "I'm not sure about that, Annie," he says. "From everything Nurse Kelly tells me, you had quite a troubled night."

I frown. "I slept fine," I say.

"Most of the night, yes," Dr. Campbell continues. "But this incident around 5am worries me a little."

"What incident?" I ask.

Dr. Campbell and Nurse Perry exchange a worried glance. "Don't you remember, Annie?" Dr. Campbell asks, stepping towards me again. He pulls out a small torch from his pocket and shines it into my eyes. "Don't you remember what happened?"

"I woke up and talked to Nurse Perry for a few minutes," I say, squinting as the torchlight seems to burn into my retina. "Then I went back to sleep. That's not an incident, is it? I didn't do anything wrong."

"No," says Dr. Campbell. "Not at that point. But a few hours later, you started screaming." He switches off the torch and turns back to Nurse Perry. "She looks fine."

"I didn't scream," I say. "I slept through."

Dr. Campbell sighs. "You don't remember, do you?" he asks.

"Remember what?" I reply, testing the restraints again. I want to get up off this table, but I'm starting to think that they're considering leaving me here a bit longer. "I just slept."

Nurse Perry steps towards me. "Annie," she says, "just after 5am, you woke up again. You started screaming, and when I calmed you down, you said that -" She pauses and looks over at Dr. Campbell, who shakes his head. "Well," she says, turning back to me and smiling, "you were disturbed, that's all."

"What did I say?" I ask, starting to panic.

Nurse Perry looks at Dr. Campbell again. This time, he shrugs, and Nurse Perry turns back to me. "You said there was someone standing over you. Someone standing by the trolley, watching you. You said you woke up and there was a kind of burned man standing there, and he vanished when you screamed and I ran through."

"Watching me?" I ask. "I don't remember any of that."

"Interesting," says Dr. Campbell. "You don't remember waking up at all between the time you spoke casually to Nurse Perry, and the time you woke up just now?"

I shake my head.

"She said there was a man standing over her," says Nurse Perry, still staring at me. "It sounded like -"

"Let's stop this nonsense," says Dr. Campbell, interrupting her. "Let's just get on with the day, huh? It's a bright new morning and there's no need to dwell on things that may or may not have happened during the night. I'll confer with Nurse Winter before we decide what to do, but hopefully, Annie, we can have you up and about after lunch. How does that sound?"

I stare at him. "I didn't scream in the night," I say, but it's pointless. I can tell that they both think I've just forgotten, and frankly, I suspect they're right. I just wish I could remember what scared me so much.

"Nurse Perry," says Dr. Campbell, picking up some papers from a nearby table, "I'll be back in an hour or so. Perhaps you could clean Annie up and get her ready to go back onto the ward."

"Yes, Doctor," says Nurse Perry.

Once Dr. Campbell has left, Nurse Perry wheels my trolley through to another room, where she turns on a set of taps in a large metal bath. "Okay, Annie," she says, turning to me. "I'm going to bath you. If you cooperate, this can be over and done with pretty fast. If you struggle, I'll have to get the guards to come in, and it'll just be a horrible mess. Do you understand?"

I look over at the bath, seeing steam rising up as it fills with water. "I guess," I say.

Carefully, Nurse Perry switches my wrist shackles around so that instead of being tied to the trolley, I'm now handcuffed. Then she does the same to my ankles before sliding my legs over the edge.

"You can stand up," she says.

I slowly get to my feet. With my wrists and ankles bound tightly together, I feel like some kind of prisoner. As I stand there, Nurse Perry steps behind me and starts unbuttoning my night-dress, which has special openings on the sleeves so that it can be removed even while I'm handcuffed. Eventually she pulls the night-dress away, leaving me standing completely naked while the bath fills up.

"You can get in now," says Nurse Kelly as she turns off the tap.

I climb into the bath, finding that the water is almost too hot. Lowering myself down slowly, I sit as Nurse Kelly fetches some soap and drips some kind of gel onto a sponge.

"Did I really scream in the night?" I ask.

"Yes," she says, running the coarse, wet sponge over my back. "You sounded terrified."

"What did I say?" I ask.

She gets me to lift my arms up, and she runs the sponge under my armpits and then along to my elbows. "You said there was a man standing over you, staring at you. You said he was bleeding."

I try to remember, but I can't. It's as if it didn't happen, but I guess there's no reason for anyone to lie. "What else did I say?"

"Not a lot," she replies as she washes my hands. "I gave you a shot to sedate you, and you were knocked out pretty fast." She wets the sponge again, and applies more gel.

"Are you sure there wasn't anyone there?" I ask, as she starts washing my neck and shoulders, eventually bringing the sponge down to wash my breasts. I wait for her to finish, but she seems to be taking her time. I feel a little uncomfortable with the way she's touching my body. Eventually she wipes the soap from my breasts and goes to load more gel onto the sponge. "Maybe there really was someone there," I say.

"Maybe," she replies. "I definitely didn't see anyone, but..." She pauses. "Stand up," she says.

I take a deep breath and, realizing there's no point arguing, I get to my feet. "These drugs they've got me on," I say as she starts washing my legs. "Are they known to cause hallucinations?"

"No," she replies. She washes my knees in silence for a moment. "You're not the first person to have seen something in that room though," she says, moving behind me and starting to wash my buttocks.

"Other people have seen the same thing?" I ask.

"More or less," she says.

"Let me guess," I reply. "Always on the third night?"

"Sometimes," she says, sliding the sponge between my legs and washing my crotch. She pushes it up over my pubic hair for a moment, and she seems to take an extra moment to scrub me clean as her wrist touches the lips of my vagina. "It's probably just superstition," she says, continuing to clean me.

I stand and wait for her to be finished. She's definitely taking longer with certain parts of my body than with others, but eventually she goes over to the sink and wrings the sponge out. "I'm done," she says, not looking at me.

I stand there, naked and wet, not sure what I'm supposed to do next. "Do you think I hallucinated?" I ask. "Or do you think -"

"Don't talk about it," she says suddenly, still not looking at me. "That's my advice. Just don't talk about it. It probably won't happen again. Just keep quiet." She looks over at me. "Just don't do anything to attract Nurse Winter's attention," she says. "That's the most important lesson you can learn while you're here."

She comes over and grabs a shower nozzle from the wall, turning it on and spraying my head. She briefly rubs in some shampoo, before spraying me again and then ushering me out of the bath. She grabs a towel and puts it in my hands, and I dry myself while she cleans up the sink. It's not easy, with my hands still handcuffed, but I just about manage the job.

"Who's Nurse Winter?" I ask.

"Haven't you met her yet?" she replies.

I shake my head. "I've heard her mentioned a lot. People seem scared of her."

"That might very well be the case," Nurse Perry says. "Are you dry?"

I nod, and she comes over to slip a fresh night-dress over my body.

"Is Nurse Winter really so bad?" I ask. "I mean, she's not the boss -"

"Please stop it!" Nurse Perry semi-shouts at me. She catches herself, seemingly a little shocked by her outburst. "I'm sorry," she says, "this is an inappropriate conversation. I should never have said anything, I just..." She pauses. "I just think it would be good for you to avoid antagonizing Nurse Winter as much as possible. That means not asking questions, and it means doing what you're told and moving through this place and out the other end as quickly as possible. Okay?"

"I guess," I say as she leads me back through to the other room.

"Get back on the trolley, please," she says.

I look at the restraints. "Do I have to?" I ask.

She nods. "I'm sure you'll be allowed up in a few hours, but for now, you have to be restrained, just in case there are any more incidents. I don't have the necessary authority to set you free just yet." She waits for me to comply. "Trust me," she adds. "I promise, you'll be free soon."

Figuring that I don't have much choice, I climb onto the trolley and wait while she reattaches the restraints. When she's done, she pauses as if she wants to say something. I wait, and finally she looks at me. "Last night. When I..." She pauses again. "Did you like it? And... the bath?"

I stare up at her. "Not really," I say.

She nods. "Okay," she says, turning and hurrying away across the room. I watch as she goes back behind the glass window. She starts writing in some kind of book, and although I keep staring at her, she doesn't look up at me, not once. It's as if she's offended that I said I didn't like being kissed by her, or maybe just disappointed, or embarrassed. Either way, I'll be glad to get off this trolley as soon as possible. I want to get back to the ward and ask Kirsten a few questions.

Chapter Six

"So you killed your own brother?" Kirsten asks later that day, as we're standing in the recreation room waiting for our pills to be handed out.

"It's not how it sounds," I reply. "Just leave it."

Several hours ago, I was let out of the restraints after Dr. Campbell returned from speaking to Nurse Winter. He said that I'd have to be tied up again if there was any hint of another 'incident', but he said that both he and Nurse Winter had come to the conclusion that there was nothing to worry about. I wasn't sorry to get out of there, and to see the back - for now, at least - of Nurse Perry, but it took me a few more hours to find Kirsten. It turns out she'd been at some kind of day session where she was supposed to be talking about her feelings.

"Everything here is bullshit," she says as she takes her pills from the orderly.

"That's the impression I've got," I say, taking my own pills and staring at them in the palm of my hand. There are three: two purple capsules, and a round white tablet.

"Swallow," says the orderly.

I swallow the pills, washing them down with a cup of water. As I do so, another patient walks past and spits straight in my face.

"Nice," says Kirsten, watching as the guy shuffles away.

"Do you think that was on purpose?" I ask, wondering whether I was targeted because of who I am and what I did, or whether some people in this place just like spitting on others.

"You're gonna have to talk about it sooner or later," says Kirsten. "It might help to practice on me before you go to your first group therapy session." Although she seems to be about the same age as me, perhaps a year or two older at most, there's a kind of calm, natural authority about Kirsten, and - rightly or wrongly - I'm starting to trust her.

"Maybe," I say, "but I just..." I pause. "I don't want to," I say finally. It's really as simple as that. I'm starting to feel calm again after such a long period of chaos, and the last thing I want to do is destabilize myself again by talking about things that should stay in the past. I want a little holiday from myself. I'm sure it won't last forever, but even just a day or two like this would be good.

"Okay," says Kirsten, stopping me and giving me a stern look. "There's something you have to know about this place." She takes a deep breath. "What you do or don't want to do... doesn't really matter very much around here. All that matters is what the rules say, and the rules say you have to attend a group therapy session in the next couple of days, where you'll be forced to spill the beans about where you come from." She stares at me, as if she's determined to make sure that I understand the weight of her words. "You have no choice. No fucking choice whatsoever. So you need to get your story straight. You need to work out how you're going to put the best spin on your deepest, darkest secrets." She pauses. "Tell me, then. Tell me your absolutely worst secret."

I stare at her, feeling a little as if I'm a deer caught in the headlights. "I killed my brother," I say. There. That's it. Simple, huh?

"Why?" she asks.

"Because he deserves to die," I say. "Because he needed to die."

"How old was he?"

I pause. "Seven."

"Seven?" she repeats, shocked.

"Seven," I say.

"Seven years old?"

I nod.

"Well... fuck me," she says. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

"How'd you do it?"

"I shot him."

"In the head?"

I nod again.

She stares at me for a moment. "You shot your seven-year-old brother in the head?" She stares a little longer. "There has
got
to be a good story about that. Why'd you shoot your own fucking brother?"

"I had a good reason," I say.

"Go on."

"Just a reason," I continue. "I had a reason. A good reason. It's... complicated. It's very complicated."

"No kidding," she says. It's almost as if she's excited about the fact that I killed my brother. "Come on!" she says. "You have to tell me all the details!"

"I don't," I say. "I really don't."

"But you must have had a reason."

"I must have," I say, "but I don't want to talk about it."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll think I'm insane!" I say firmly, raising my voice a little too much. I look around and see that several other patients have started listening to our conversation. Grabbing Kirsten by the shoulder, I pull her into the corner of the room, away from all the prying ears. "I don't want to talk about it," I say, "because I haven't got it all worked out in my head yet."

She stares at me. I can tell that she's recalibrating her impression of me. She's trying to decide whether I'm (a) a misunderstood girl who had a good reason to do something horrific, or (b) a psycho bitch who gunned down her seven-year-old brother. I wouldn't blame her if she assumed the latter. In fact, I'd find it pretty weird if she just accepted my claim that there was a reason I had to do what I did. But eventually, she smiles and seems to come around to me way of thinking. "Cool," she says. "Whatever you say. I like you. I believe you. So it's cool."

I take a deep breath, glad that the situation seems to be defused. For now, at least. I know that sooner or later (probably sooner), I'll have to open up about what happened. After all, when you tell people that you shot your little brother, it's not surprising that they have a few questions. It's just that I know I can't explain everything easily, not in a few soundbites. To understand what I did, and why I did it, and why it was necessary, you'd need to have walked a while in my shoes, to have seen the things I've seen. I don't know how to put it into words. Not yet, anyway. I need to talk to someone, but it has to be the right person.

"You're pretty cool, Annie," Kirsten says eventually, a small smile on her lips. "Annie what, anyway? What's your surname?"

"Radford," I say.

"Annie Radford," she says, nodding. "Yeah. I like that. I'll take that. Annie Radford's a cool name."

"Thanks. What's -" I start to say, but I shut up as I see the guard from earlier walking past us. I don't want to draw attention to us; I don't want him to even notice me. For a moment, I'm reminded of the nausea I felt when he was manhandling me earlier. The thought of being in that position again fills me with dread. I just want to keep to the sides of all the rooms, to pass unnoticed by the assholes who work here; I just want to get out as fast as possible, even if that takes years and years and years.

"I wish I could help," Kirsten says.

"It's fine," I reply.

"It's not fine," she says. "This place does things to you. It messes with your head." She pauses, as if she's trying to work out how to phrase something important. "How was your third night?"

"Interesting," I say cautiously, not sure about where she's planning to take this conversation.

"Interesting?" she says, seeming amused by my answer. "Is that all? Jesus fucking Christ, I wish my third night here was just 'interesting' instead of..." She pauses. "Look around this room."

I do what she says. There are a dozen people scattered about, each of them seemingly engaged in their own private little world. They're all wearing white robes, and it's pretty obvious that they all have serious mental problems.

"Every single one of these fuckers is certifiably insane," Kirsten says. "They're all on drugs that are supposed to keep them subdued. And every single one of them, on their third night here, saw something that none of us are supposed to see."

"What?" I ask.

"You tell me," she says. "What did
you
see?"

I turn to her. "Nothing," I say, "but apparently I started shouting in the night."

"Go on," Kirsten says, apparently fascinated by my story.

"Apparently I woke up and thought there was a man standing over my bed. Some kind of bloodied man. I don't know, it sounds crazy. I don't remember it, but Nurse Perry swears it happened."

Kirsten nods slowly. "Typical," she says. "That's a typical third night encounter. There are things that live here, in the shadows. I don't know what they are. Ghosts or whatever. But they seem to live by certain rules. They leave new patients alone until the third night, and then the burned guy shows up and just kind of lightly freaks everyone out. That's the first manifestation. The second usually comes a night or two later, that's the sleep paralysis. And then there are the other incidents. That's when it gets serious. That's when people start really flipping out." She leans in close and whispers into my ear. "That's when the meds get hitched up a little, to compensate for the madness."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," I say. "I really don't believe in ghosts."

Kirsten laughs. "Then I guess they'll leave you alone," she says. She pats me on the shoulder. "I have to go take a dump. I'll see you in a bit. We can go look at the gardens if you like." She turns to walk away, and then she pauses and looks back to me. "Remember to keep quiet. Nurse Winter isn't very friendly. Don't attract her attention."

"I still haven't seen her," I say.

"Good," Kirsten says, looking worried for a moment. "Just stay off her radar and you'll be considerably better off than the rest of us."

"You make her sound like a monster," I say.

"I know," she replies. "That's on purpose." She turns and walks away across the recreation room, leaving me standing by the window. It's strange, but during the day things seems a lot less scary. I dread nightfall, when even the strongest mind can start to worry that there are unknown spirits stalking the rooms. Somehow, I have to survive this place and get out the other side. I still have so much to do when I'm free again, so many apologies to make, as well as a few scores to settle. I don't want any drama while I'm here; I just want to get through the days, weeks, months, and years until I'm allowed back out into the civilized world.

I have to make people understand why I killed my brother.