Psych Ward Zombies (3 page)

Usually the admission paperwork would just be a bunch of faxed copies held together with a paper clip. This, however, was a sealed manila envelope embossed with the insignia of the state police. The envelope was covered with various warning stickers about confidentiality, threatening huge fines and lengthy jail sentences for any misuse of the information contained within. Dave opened the envelope carefully, trying not to rip the paper any more than absolutely necessary. He knew the envelope would probably be discarded anyway, but the envelope had such an air of authority that he dared not damage it. He imagined himself carelessly ripping the envelope open, followed by the crash of a SWAT team bursting through the windows. He would be frozen in the chair, with papers scattered around him and his jaw hanging slack. A red laser dot would shimmer on his forehead.

Shaking the thought from his head, he pulled a stack of papers from the envelope and sat them on the counter in front of him. He began flipping through the papers, hoping to get some idea what to expect from this new patient. The patient’s name was Luther Crowley. The documents indicated he had starred in some kind of vampire movie and he was famous.

Dave had not seen the movie and he had never heard of this guy.
He was apparently a huge star however.

Dave turned to Janet. “Hey, Janet, do you know anything about some guy named Luther Crowley?”

Janet did not look up from her paperwork, but her voice expressed a significant amount of enthusiasm. “Oh, you bet I do! He’s that hottie on all the magazine covers. Tall, dark, and very handsome. He was in that vampire romance film last year. I think the name of the movie was
Moonlight’s Last Kiss
, or something like that.”

“
Moonlight’s Last Kiss
? Really?” Dave said, curling his lip in exaggerated disgust.

“Why are you asking about him? Did you finally come out of the closet?”
Janet asked nonchalantly.

“No,” Dave grunted reflexively. As soon as he said it, he realized the trap Janet had laid for him. “I mean, no, I am not gay. I happen to like women, as you already know.” He realized that being single in his mid-30’s did not help his argument. “I’m asking about this guy because he’s our new admission.”

Janet paused but still didn’t look up. “Ha ha. You’re too funny.”

“No, seriously,” Dave said. “It says here a meter reader for the power company found a bunch of bodies in this guy’s back yard. The police arrested him and he’s been locked up in the state’s most secure facility for the past 3 months. Apparently the whole thing has been hush-hush. I’m not sure how he’s kept this out of the media so far, but I’m guessing he knows people in high places. The paperwork says he was declared incompetent to stand trial, so they’re sending him here to restore him to competency.”

“Oh wow. This should be interesting.” Janet was not quite so enamored with the movie star, now that she knew he was a suspected serial killer. “Why are they sending him to this hospital, all the way across the state? Hubert Psychiatric Hospital is much closer.”

Dave had no answer for Janet’s question, but he wondered if Devlin had something to do with it. He spent a moment contemplating the statements Devlin had made after the staff meeting
.

He switched his attention to the pager he wore on his belt. If any staff members needed his assistance tonight, they would call his pager. Dave pressed the test button and the pager emitted a shrill beep. The sound caused Dave to feel a pang of negative emotion.

Years ago when Dave had gotten his first pager, it was a wonderful novelty. In those days the pager would go off and Dave would feel like someone important. He was in demand. He was a pimp! Now he viewed the pager like a convict might view a ball and chain. He was never free while wearing that pager, because someone could reach out and summon him at any time. The sound of the pager had become like someone screaming, “I don’t care what you’re doing right now! I need you to come and deal with somebody else’s stupid crap!”

Shoving the pager back down onto his belt, Dave
heaved a sigh and walked out onto the ward to make his rounds.

Eldemere was a long-term involuntary care facility, meaning the patients were not staying there by their own free will. The patients were usually hospitalized at other facilities first. If the patient had spent weeks or months at another facility without significant improvement, he or she would then be transferred to Eldemere on a court order. The court order would stipulate that the patient had to stay at Eldemere until the doctors decided he or she was well enough to return to the community. Unfortunately, this sort of system selected for patients whose mental illness was rather severe and difficult to treat. Often those severely ill patients took months or years to get better, if they even got better at all. Therefore Eldemere had become the long-term home for many of its patients. A large number had been there for years, or even decades. Those long-term patients tended to become highly dependent on the intensely structured environment of the hospital, which made it even harder for them to be successfully discharged.

Most of the short-term stays were generally by the patients who had been sent there from jail. In those situations, the patients often had become mentally ill just prior to committing the alleged crime, and most had never been in treatment before. The court system needed these patients to be returned to a rational mental state so they could participate in their legal process. The hospital’s
goal was
not
to get these patients well enough to function in society or to make sure they had a stable living situation. Instead, the hospital’s job was to get them sane enough to participate in their trial. After that, the legal system and community mental health system would be responsible for the patient. This simplified goal meant the success rate for discharging these forensic patients quickly was fairly high.

Right now B Ward was mostly full of the long-timers. Of the ten beds on the ward, eight were filled with chronically ill patients, and one was filled with someone being restored to competency. The remaining bed would be filled with Luther Crowley tonight. Dave hoped to get Luther back to jail as soon as possible.

Because the majority of the patients were not here for acute issues, Dave did not need to see every patient on a daily basis. He tried to see as many as he could, but on these night shifts he usually only had time to see the ones with pressing needs. Right now, a patient with pressing needs was named Jason.

Jason was a 40 year old man who had a severe case of schizophrenia. He had been in and out of hospitals over the years, and had even tried living in group homes. Unfortunately he could not manage to stay to out of trouble without intense supervision. Eventually he had been transferred to Eldemere and had been here for about 8 years. Despite treatment, he had not improved much. None of the community agencies would give him another chance in their group homes, which meant he was stuck at Eldemere for the foreseeable future
.

Tonight Jason was upset and agitated. He believed his father was coming to pick him up and take him home. Unfortunately, this was a delusion. He had already packed his clothes and belongings into paper bags, piling them haphazardly beside the door to his room. Jason was convinced that his father would arrive any moment, and he was becoming more anxious and angry as time went on. He was thoroughly determined to leave the ho
spital, and he had to leave
now
.

Dave tried to calm Jason. He led Jason off to the side so they could have more privacy. This would also hopefully prevent Jason’s agitation from transferring to the other patients. Dave faced this type of situation frequently on B Ward, and he had gotten fairly good at it over the years. He realized the utter impossibility of trying to persuade someone that their perception of reality is wrong.

Dave would not be able to change Jason’s mind, and therefore he did not try to do so. Instead, he focused on making sure everyone stayed safe, ensuring the agitated person felt respected and heard, and putting up firm but gentle limits. Dave calmly reminded Jason that Jason’s father had passed away five years ago and that there were no plans for discharge tonight. His goal was simply to orient Jason to reality, but not to convince him of it. Some psychiatrists would have medicated Jason, perhaps involuntarily. However Dave did not believe a shot of Haldol would make a man who had been psychotic for 20 years suddenly become sane and rational. Instead, it would just make him needlessly lethargic and drugged.

After about 20 minutes of chatting, Dave left Jason sitting in a day room. Jason was still convinced his father was coming, but he was no longer agitated. As Dave walked back toward the Nursing Station, he heard someone shouting behind him.

“What a doofus! I wanna go home! WAAH! I’m such a baby!” came a mocking voice.

Dave instantly recognized the source of the nasally sarcasm. It was Amber
.

Amber was the one single patient who caused Dave more headaches than all the other patients combined. Amber was not psychotic like many of the other residents of B Ward. Instead, she had grown up in a chaotic environment and had endured some of the most horrible abuse anyone could imagine.
People who face such traumatic childhoods will often develop dysfunctional ways of coping with life, and these can persist as emotional problems as an adult. Amber was a classic example. As unspeakably bad as her childhood and teenage years were, her young adulthood was not turning out much better. Everything in her life was pure drama, and even the smallest amount of frustration would trigger violent temper tantrums. Her judgment in relationships was invariably disastrous, which provided a limitless number of sparks for her powder keg temper.

Her tantrums alone might have landed her in jail (and they had done so numerous times) but she had arrived at Eldemere due to a long history of self-harm behaviors. This had included at least a dozen suicide attempts and hundreds of episodes of cutting herself badly enough to require stitches. Her self-cutting was not intended to kill herself. Paradoxically, it was meant to make her feel better. Amber’s terrible abuse at an early age had caused her to seek out and find ways to cope with her trauma before her more mature coping skills could develop. Thus, cutting became a way of feeling physical pain to block out the emotional pain. In a way it worked, but it had left her arms covered in so many linear scars that they resembled an elaborate cross-hatch pattern
.

Her outbursts and her tendency to be a magnet for all sorts of crises meant that if there were a problem on B Ward, Amber was probably involved. Despite this, she was actually likable in some strange way. Beneath all the scars and tattoos on the outside, she had a good heart. She was not “bad” or “evil”. She was a real human being, and she deserved a chance to create as good a life for herself as possible. Dave frequently reminded himself that Amber had not chosen her childhood. Given a choice, she most certainly would have picked the Brady Bunch version if that had been available, rather than the horrible abuse that had shaped her personality. Although she did not get to choose her childhood, she now had choices as a young adult. She continued to make bad choices, but Dave thought she was trying to do the right thing most of the time. Sometimes though, like now, it seemed like she was having too much fun doing the wrong thing.

“Amber, please show Jason some respect.” Dave tried to be authoritarian without giving Amber an easy target for her ridicule.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize ghosts of dead daddies were allowed to come pick up their poopy-pants sons.” The mockery was still there, but this time she made sure her voice was even louder so Jason would hear.

Jason took the bait and gave Amber the response she had hoped for. “Shut up! Just shut up!” he screamed, putting his hands over his ears.

Amber grinned with satisfaction and began to strut around the periphery of the day room, far enough away that Jason would not be able to physically retaliate. Dave and several other staff members knew the situation could escalate rapidly, so they maneuvered to get between Amber and Jason. Amber sensed that she had pushed things as far as she could without some sort of consequence for her, so she started walking back to her room. Her steps had an obvious and intentional slowness, clearly meant to convey that her departure was by her own choice
.

Dave was about to check on Jason again, but at that moment Janet stepped in and grabbed his sleeve
.

“Hey
Doc, the new admission just arrived,” she said. “I think you’d better come see this.”

Luther had been escorted onto the ward in leg irons and handcuffs. He wore a bright orange jumpsuit and prison-issue slippers. This fashion ensemble was accessorized with an official Hannibal Lecter-style face mask, complete with the little bars over the mouth area.

“Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me,” Dave whispered to Janet. He did not dare speak the words too loudly, lest he offend one of the eight very large and very well-armed police officers surrounding Luther. Each of the officers wore reflective sunglasses, bullet-proof vests, flat-brimmed hats, and matching scowls. They stood around their prisoner in perfect formation, each man remaining as motionless and expressionless as a statue.

Dave waited for one of the officers to speak, but they all stared ahead in stony silence.

“Um, well, I guess this is Mr. Crowley?”

Dave’s voice triggered the officer in front to speak, although his posture and facial expression both remained rigid. “That is correct, sir. The prisoner will now be placed into your custody and under your supervision. You will be responsible for the prisoner from the moment the restraints are removed. Are you agreeing to accept the prisoner?” The officer’s words flowed forth in a forceful monotone, as if being read from a legal document.

“Well, actually
... no. You can take him back.”

Dave’s attempt at humor would have been met with the sound of crickets, if the crickets had not been too intimidated to chirp. Dave tried to peer through the lead officer’s mirrored lenses for some glimmer of personal connection, but all he saw was the reflection of himself looking like an idiot. Clearing his throat, he tried to recover some of his dignity.

“Of course we will accept him, officer. You’re leaving him in good hands.”

The officer simply stared at Dave, perhaps considering whether or not to shoot him. Dave could imagine tiny daggers shooting from behind the officer’s sunglasses, embedding themselves in Dave’s skull. Little rivers of sweat ran down Dave’s torso from his armpits
.

Finally, the officer spoke. “You have accepted the prisoner and he will now be released to your custody.” The officer nodded to his companions and in unison they began a well-orchestrated maneuver of removing the cuffs, leg shackles, and face mask. The lead officer turned back toward Dave. “What is your name,
sir, which I may report back to the court?”

Dave did not want to take responsibility for this guy and he did not want his own name on any court records associated with the case. However, his urge to say “Puddin Tame” was quickly overpowered by his desire not to be tasered and beaten with a billy club
.

“Hexer. Doctor David Hexer.”

The lead officer said, “Thank you Doctor Hexer. He’s all yours.” Those words served as a cue, with all eight officers turning sharply and streaming out the door in single file. They were gone before Dave could realize he was now standing next to a suspected serial killer. By now, Luther had been released from his bindings and was standing just a few feet from Dave. The man rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been, but kept his eyes focused on Dave. The dark glimmer in Luther’s eyes was almost as creepy as his smirking grin.

Dave hesitated for a moment, briefly taken aback by the situation. He now had the opportunity to take a good look at Luther without the mask. Luther was immensely muscular and about six and a half feet tall, towering over Dave like a giant. He had a dark complexion and deep blue eyes. His thick mane of black hair draped down to his shoulders. His most imposing feature, however, was his aura of power and self-confidence. He had been at Eldemere for less than ten minutes, and most of that time was in shackles. Yet now he projected an unspoken sense of authority, like he was in charge
.

“Can I get some regular clothes?” Luther asked rhetorically, knowing his request would be granted. “Orange isn’t my color.
”

Janet volunteered to gather him some clothes from the hospital stockpile. The hospital had a room full of clothes that had been donated for exactly this kind of situation. Janet excused herself and headed for the storage room. She returned moments later with some size XXL athletic sweats. “It’s all they had in your size,” she apologized
.

Dave allowed Luther to go to his room to change. While Luther was dressing, Janet fetched a sack lunch from a small refrigerator in the nursing station. Now that it was past dinner time, Luther had missed his chance for a normal dinner tray from the hospital cafeteria. Janet pointed out that Devlin had personally brought the sack lunch to the ward for Luther earlier in the day. Dave had never seen Devlin do something like that for any other patient, so he considered this further evidence that Devlin was taking a special interest in this particular patient
.

When Luther had returned, Dave took him to a day room to interview him. Dave allowed Luther to eat the sack lunch while they talked. Dave’s goals were to get some background information on Luther and to get a feel for just how crazy this guy was. Two orderlies stood by the door in case the new patient became violent. Luther had been quite calm so far. While he munched on an apple and a tuna sandwich, he answered Dave’s questions. The interview proceeded smoothly, and Luther actually seemed to be fairly rational. He denied any major symptoms of psychosis. Other than his attitude of entitlement, he seemed surprisingly normal
while interacting with the doctor.

“This is going to be much easier than I thought,” Dave thought to himself, feeling a sense of relief that things were going so well. Luther had finished eating and Dave had finished asking questions, so Dave stood up and thanked Luther for his time. He turned and gave the two orderlies at the door a nod and a smile, signifying they were no longer needed. The two men were happy to return to whatever they had been doing previously, which probably involved napping, eating, or playing games on their smartphones.

Dave stood at the desk of the nursing station, writing the admission orders. Luther approached him from behind and hovered there quietly without saying a word. He stood silently for several minutes, staring at the back of Dave’s head. Dave was unaware of Luther’s presence. He thought Luther was still sitting in the day room where he had left him. Finishing his paperwork, Dave turned and found himself looking directly at Luther’s chest.

“Oh!” Dave yelped. “Hello, Mr. Crowley. You startled me!
”

“I was wondering if I could have a cigarette now,” Luther stated. His tone suggested this was more of a demand than a request.

Dave always dreaded this topic. Despite the well-known health effects of smoking, the use of tobacco was still relatively common in this state - especially among those with mental illness. When you are hearing the voices of aliens and seeing Satan dancing on your bedpost every night, a little lung cancer might not be first on your list of worries. The hospital, however, thought that it should be promoting health for some reason. All smoking had been prohibited on the premises, even for employees. The employees were able to sneak out to the parking lot and smoke in their cars while on break, but the patients did not have that luxury.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Crowley. The hospital no longer allows smoking. I’d be happy to order you a nicotine pa-aaAAAH!”

Without warning, Luther wrapped both of his large hands around Dave’s neck and began to squeeze. Dave fell backward and hit the floor, with Luther crouching over him. He tried to yell for help, but all he could muster were a few gurgling sounds. No breath moved in or out. Dave’s head felt like it was about to explode, and he could sense that his eyes were bulging out of their sockets. His life flashed before his eyes, although the flash was disappointingly quick. (His life had apparently not been very exciting up to this point.) He lay on the floor looking upward into the face of the man who was in the process of murdering him. Luther hovered over Dave, leering at him with an expression of pure evil.

Dave’s vision dimmed, fading into a rapidly shrinking tunnel. From the faint corner of his peripheral vision, he glimpsed the image of a dark figure. The shadow swept toward him, but in this near-death state Dave perceived everything in slow motion. The image grew larger and larger as it approached. It soon loomed over him like an immense storm cloud. Dave relaxed and released his grip on life, as he assumed the Angel of Death had arrived to claim
his soul. He shut his eyes and slipped into the darkness.

By the time Dave regained conscious awareness, he was sitting upright with his back propped against the nursing station desk. He looked around him and just saw a few of his usual patients gawking at him like rubber-neckers at a car accident. He did not immediately see Luther, but it did not take long to figure out where the maniac was located. Dave could hear clamorous shouting from down the hall, in the direction of the restraint room. He staggered to his feet and walked down the corridor toward the source of the commotion.

The restraint room was a small cell with thick rubberized walls. A heavy metal bed sat in the middle of the room, adorned with several thick leather straps. Dave could barely see the bed because there were almost a dozen people crammed into the tiny room. They were attempting to hold Luther onto the bed so the leather straps could be placed around his ankles and wrists. Luther was spitting and trying to bite his captors. One of the staff members produced a disposable fabric hood that went over Luther’s head.

When many people think of psychiatric ho
spitals, they think of straitjackets. However, in recent years straitjackets had been almost completely replaced by safer methods of patient restraint. The use of restraint, in general, had also been highly scrutinized. Now the only reason any patient would ever be restrained was to protect health and safety during an acute crisis. Restraining a patient required a staff member to have eyes directly on the patient at all times, and there were literally piles of paperwork to be done. As soon as the patient was no longer felt to be an imminent risk of harming himself or someone else, he or she would be released.

Luther was nowhere near the point of being released. He was continuing to gnash his teeth, scream threats, and flail around on the bed. Despite the mask, he blindly attempted to head-butt anyone who might stray within his range. The leather straps groaned as he tried to pull his hands free. At one point he managed to tug his left arm from the bindings, but the staff members simply sprang forth to quickly re-secure the limb. He jerked at the leather straps until they began to excoriate his skin. Small droplets of blood began to emerge at the edges of the leather. Luther appeared to be in serious danger of harming himself due to his attempts to escape
.

Dave had joined the effort to subdue Luther, and he held tightly to a thrashing arm. He called out for a nurse to bring him an injectable medication, hoping the medication would calm the agitated patient. He knew it would take several minutes to draw up the drug into a syringe. He therefore continued to try to verbally assuage Luther in the interim. A few moments later he felt a hand touch his shoulder and a syringe appeared to his left. He grabbed it
.

“That was fast! Thanks!” he said.

Dave released the cap on the syringe and inserted the needle into one of the large muscles of Luther’s thigh. As he focused his attention on the injection, he noticed the syringe was covered in faint streaks of orange dust. It seemed odd, but he did not have time to give it much thought. Within a couple minutes, Luther’s agitation started to subside and he began to relax. Within five more minutes, the giant man was asleep.

Once the acute crisis was over, Dave headed back to the nursing station to start the paperwork. He spied Janet and asked her what had happened.

“I was in the chart room, so I didn’t witness the whole thing,” she began. “But I did hear a thud, like someone hitting the floor. So I turned around to look, and I didn’t see anything.”

“That’s because I was on the floor on the other side of the nursing station desk,” Dave interjected
.

“Yes, thank you so much, Captain Obvious,” Janet said, giving a small scowl. “Are you telling this story, or am I?
”

Dave shrugged and held up both palms to signal his acquiescence
.

“So, I walked around the counter area to see what was going on,” Janet continued. “All the sudden Chester came running by me and he went flying through the air. He hit Luther like a dump truck. Wham!” She slapped her hands together for effect and then drew her fingers apart to imitate a small explosion.

Dave interrupted again. “Wait, wait! Who is Chester?”

Janet turned her head and gestured with her eyes to an orderly who was standing nearby. “Chester Wilkes,” she said. Dave’s eyes widened, astounded that he had not noticed the man earlier. Chester was a remarkably tall African-American man whose height was more than matched by his weight. Dave estimated Chester to be close to 400 pounds. While Luther had the physique of a body builder, Chester was shaped more like a rotund grizzly bear. His size was further exaggerated by a large afro and bushy beard that encircled his head like a lion’s mane. Chester noticed the pair looking in his direction and responded with a broad, gap-toothed smile.

“Oh, man, thanks Chester! I definitely owe you a big one!” Dave gushed.

“No biggie, doc. Just doing my job. Besides, I’ve been looking for an excuse to try out the ‘Super Cheetah Pounce’. It’s my patented take-down move!” Chester’s nickname happened to be “The Cheetah”. Surprisingly, this nickname was derived from his affinity for cheese flavored puffs, and not from his physical prowess. His fingers were usually stained bright orange from his habitual snacking on cheese puffs. Dave recalled the orange fingerprints on the syringe earlier and realized that Chester must have been the one who had handed it to him
.