Asylum Page 17

  "You want to say a few words?" the workman asks. He doesn't seem to care much either way; I guess he just thinks it's polite to give me the opportunity.

  I shake my head. There's nothing to say about Julia. She came to Lakehurst so she could be healed, but no-one really bothered to try helping her. She just sat around until someone decided they could use her for an experiment. It's hard to imagine what her final moments were like: with her brain suspended above her body, hearing discussions taking place about her impending death, and with various neurological problems developing, she must have been terrified... if she was even capable of feeling emotions. Maybe she at least understood me when I told her that her son is named Jeremiah, but even that's a long shot. She was probably too far gone by then. Her brain removed from her body, her neurons firing in their death throes, she probably didn't even realize I was talking to her.

  The workman carries her body over to the hole and eases her down into the ground. There's nothing graceful about this, nothing holy or meaningful. With no further ceremony or concern, the workman starts shoveling soil back into the hole. I know there's no point to me being here, but I still feel that someone should pay their respects to Julia as she disappears into the darkness beneath the ground. I doubt it's even her entire body that's in that grave; I'm sure that Dr. Langheim will have demanded that her brain be kept back so it can be dissected. The experiments will undoubtedly continue, and I'm sure that sooner or later they'll all convince themselves that it's time to pick a new subject for a follow-up. As far as they're concerned, the experiment with Julia's brain was probably a complete success. I'm sure they raised a glass of wine last night to toast their own brilliance.

  Hearing a sound behind me, I turn to see a young boy stepping into the garden. I feel a sense of panic as I realize I have to get him away from here. He, of all people, should be kept as far as possible from things like this.

  "Hey," I say, stepping toward him, grabbing his arm and leading him away. "What are you doing here?"

  "What happened?" he asks, craning his neck to try and see.

  "Nothing," I reply, successfully marching him out of the garden. "What are you doing out here, Jeremiah?"

  "Jerry," he says, sounding annoyed with me. "I don't like being called Jeremiah."

  "Whatever," I continue, "you shouldn't be out here. You should be with Dr. Douglas."

  "Whose body was that?" he asks. Jeremiah knows nothing about his mother, but I can't help wondering whether he senses that Julia is dead. As far as he's concerned, he was born at Lakehurst twelve years ago and his mother simply hasn't been mentioned. But is there some way he could have found out more than any of us realized? Did he sneak down to the records room one night, or did he overhear some staff-members talking about the horror of a woman being separated from her child? How much does Jeremiah know about his own past?

  "It was a patient," I say. "No-one you know. Really." I sigh. "Do you want me to walk you back to Dr. Douglas?" I ask. "I'm sure he's wondering where you are. You can't just run out of your lessons like this."

  "What was her name?" he asks, still trying to go back to the grave.

  "I don't know," I say, determined not to mention Julia's name in case it sparks some kind of recognition.

  Jeremiah doesn't put up any resistance as I lead him back toward the main building. There's a part of me that wants to drag him over to a car and get us both out of here. Lakehurst certainly isn't the kind of place where a young boy should be growing up, and I can't imagine the incalculable harm that this place will be causing him. I don't even understand why he wasn't allowed to leave Lakehurst long ago, and the decision by Dr. Campbell to keep him around makes me worry that he'll soon be folded into the nightmare. Although I went along with the operation on Julia, I'd like to believe that I might make a stand to protect Jeremiah if I felt that they were going to do something similar to him; I'd like to believe that, despite everything that has happened to me since I arrived at Lakehurst, I'm still a good person at heart. This place hasn't claimed my soul yet.

  In fact, as I watch Jeremiah heading back in to see Dr. Douglas and resume his classes for the day, I promise myself one thing: I'll protect Jeremiah for as long as he's at Lakehurst. I won't let the evil of this place consume either of us.

  Detective Thompson

  Today

  Standing naked in the doorway, I keep my gun raised and pointed at the old man. His eyes are open and he's staring at me, but he looks so old and decrepit, I don't know if he even can speak any more. Maybe he just sits up here all day staring at his swastika.

  "Who are you?" I ask, not really expecting a reply. "Give me your name." I wait for an answer. "Give me your name!" I shout.

  The old man's eyes narrow a little, as if he's angry at me for daring to make such a demand. There's a sense of arrogance about him, as if he sits in this attic and considers himself to be a god. How else do you explain the swastika that stands so proudly on display? Judging by this guy's age, I'd say there's a fair chance he might have been alive during the Second World War.

  "Who is he?" I ask, turning to Nurse Winter. I wait for her to answer. "Who is he?" I shout.

  "His name is Rudolf Langheim," she says, as if it's all the explanation I need. "Surely you've heard of him?"

  "My history's a little rusty," I say, keeping the gun firmly trained on the old man.

  She smiles. "Dr. Rudolf Langheim was one of the finest minds of his generation. Among German scientists of the thirties and forties, he was considered a genius. But like all geniuses, he sometimes strayed into territory that others never dared enter. He accepted risks that others thought to be too great. His colleagues were happy to share in the spoils of his great work, while making sure they didn't get their hands dirty."

  "What is he?" I ask. "Is he some kind of war criminal?"

  "That's something you'd better ask him yourself," she says, fixing me with a curious stare. It's hard to avoid looking at her naked body. Five minutes ago, I was making love to her; now it seems like she's toying with me.

  "Why don't you tell me about him?" I ask.

  "It's not my place," she replies.

  I turn the gun on her. "Still," I say firmly, "you could give me some clues."

  "Don't point that thing at me," she says, her voices filled with disgust and loathing. "I thought you were better than that."

  "Tell me!" I say, raising my voice.

  "Dr. Langheim is a martyr," she continues. "He's the kind of man that every society needs, but no society can tolerate. He does the things that horrify the rest of us, but without his work, we'd never get anywhere. Sometimes we need people who can carry out such work. The tragedy is that eventually we turn on them, ignoring the benefits we've enjoyed from their successes and instead rejecting them in order to make ourselves seem more pious."

  As I turn back toward the old man, I see that he's got something in his hand. It takes me a moment to realize that it's a syringe, but before I can do anything, he slides the needle into his neck and pushes the plunger.

  "What was that?" I ask. "Some kind of suicide drug?" I pause. Everything's starting to make sense now; all the bizarre pieces of this puzzle are fitting together. "He's some kind of escaped war criminal from the Second World War, isn't he?" I train my gun on the old man's face, even though it hardly seems necessary any more. "Those bodies in the basement are something to do with his experiments, aren't they?" I wait for an answer. "Aren't they?" I shout.

  "They're something to do with his experiments, perhaps," Nurse Winter replies. "But you're wrong about one thing. That needle wasn't a suicide bid."

  "Yeah?" I say, stepping towards the old man. "Then what was it?"

  "Look closer," Nurse Winter says.

  I step forward. The old man looks to be in almost as bad a state as the husks in the basement. I don't think I've ever seen someone look so old. If I had to guess, I'd say he's easily over a hundred. Hunched in his wheelchair, he just stares at me with milky, glassy eyes.

/>   "Is he even conscious?" I ask, turning back to Nurse Winter.

  "Very much so," she replies.

  "What was in that syringe?" I say.

  She pauses. "Adrenalin," she tells me eventually. "Lots and lots of adrenalin."

  "Why?" I ask, but as the word leaves my lips, I hear a creaking sound from the wheelchair. I spin around just in time to see the old man stepping towards me, but he reaches out and knocks the gun from my hand before I can do anything.

  "Careful, Dr. Langheim," Nurse Winter says. "Don't strain yourself."

  As I back away, Dr. Langheim lurches toward me. Every movement causes a horrific creaking sound from his old bones, but he seems determined to reach me.

  "Dr. Langheim doesn't speak much English," Nurse Winter says as the old man continues to lumber toward me. "Trust me, though. He's a genius. The things that man can do. He considers... possibilities... that others would deem too horrible to contemplate. He sees the world very differently. He doesn't mind killing in order to achieve his aims. When the war ended, even his fellow Nazis were shocked by his ideas, but he survived."

  "What the hell's he doing here?" I ask, stepping back toward the door.

  "He came because we offered certain opportunities," Nurse Winter says, "and then he stayed because he has nowhere else to go. There aren't many places in the world that would be so accommodating."

  "So he just sits up here?" I ask. "This old fucking Nazi just sits up here and waits for what? Death?"

  "Don't be so insolent," Nurse Winter replies. "This man deserves a certain degree of respect. Don't dismiss him, just because he dared to do the dirty work that the rest of us preferred to ignore."

  As I back away further, I find myself against the wall, with nowhere else to go. The old man is getting closer and closer, and I know it sounds crazy but I swear he looks pretty hungry.

  "Give me the gun," I shout at Nurse Winter. "Give me the fucking gun!"

  "Why?" she asks, affecting a kind of false innocence. "You want to shoot Dr. Langheim?"

  "Give me the gun!" I shout as the old man reaches me. I turn to duck out of the way, but he lunges toward me and clamps his teeth around my shoulder, biting down so hard that I let out a scream of pain. I manage to push him off as I stumble towards Nurse Winter, but she just steps aside and lets me fall to the ground.

  "What do you want, Detective Thompson?" she asks blankly.

  I roll onto my back and look up at her. "You're insane," I say, trying to work out how the hell I'm going to get out of here.

  "Maybe," she replies. "One thing's for sure. I'm going to have to take a little pill in the morning. You didn't use a condom when we fucked, did you? And I thought you were a gentleman..."

  I reach out for the gun, but the old man kicks it away. He's standing right over me now, staring down with a kind of mad anger. It's pretty obvious that he sees me as some kind of plaything, and it's equally obvious that Nurse Winter isn't going to do anything to help me. I get to my feet, determined to run and get help, but I feel the old man grab my shoulders and pull me down. He falls on top of me and bites my arm.

  "The world is a fucked-up place," Nurse Winter says as I continue to struggle. "Fucked-up things happen. You annoy me, Detective Thompson, and when people annoy me, I tend to look for ways to deal with them."

  Epilogue

  The following morning, at precisely 9am, Nurse Kirsten Winter arrives in her office. She checks her email, reads a few notes left by the night staff, and then goes out to check on the ward. Everything is running smoothly, like clockwork, and she's quietly satisfied. Since she took over, a new level of order and calm has come to Lakehurst, and every day she feels as if more and more of her influence is being felt throughout the building. Meanwhile, Detective Scott Thompson is upstairs, getting dressed after a very bad night's sleep. He heads downstairs and, instead of seeking out Nurse Winter, he goes straight out the door, gets into his car and drives away. As he goes, he phones his colleagues and tells them to cancel the back-up he'd ordered the previous day. He says he doesn't need it any more.

  As the morning progresses, Nurse Winter sits in her office and deals with a mountain of paperwork. Now that she's in charge of Lakehurst, she finds herself able to spend less and less time with the patients. Her job is changing, but she feels that she's getting on top of it. Finally, as lunchtime approaches, she leaves her office and goes down to the basement, where she finds Jeremiah working on the machines. While she talks to him, Detective Scott Thompson is many miles away, driving back toward his own office. He feels strange, as if he's not quite himself, and he's struggling to reconcile his dreams with the reality of the world around him. Something's definitely not right, but he can't explain what's bothering him.

  After lunch, Nurse Winter returns to the ward and spends her afternoon talking to the patients. This is her way of keeping in touch, of making sure that she knows what's going on in her own hospital. She likes talking to the people for whom she's responsible, and she's also aware that her presence makes the other members of staff up their game a little. She even talks to Annie Radford, the girl who is causing particular problems at the moment. Encouraged by signs of progress in Annie, Nurse Winter is buoyed by the idea that her work is paying off. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Detective Scott Thompson has arrived at his office and is immediately called in to speak to his boss, who demands to know what's going on at Lakehurst. Scott explains that a body was found, but that it appears to have been a vagrant who wondered into the building. When asked about his call for back-up last night, Scott says that there was a misunderstanding. He insists that there were no other bodies, and that his report will indicate that the husk found at Lakehurst was an unfortunate tragedy that could not have been avoided. He then goes through to his desk, to write the report.

  For Nurse Winter, the afternoon passes slowly until finally it's time for the patients to have dinner. Having spent the past few weeks working hard to improve the quality of meals, Nurse Winter is pleased to watch the patients tucking in and enjoying the food that's served. Eventually slipping away and going back to her office, she double-checks her paperwork for the final time today and decides it's time to end her shift. She transfers authority over to Nurse Perry, who's on night duty, and then she retires to her room. A few minutes after she arrives, there's a knock at the door and she smiles as she goes to answer. Her lover has arrived for the night. Meanwhile, far away, Detective Scott Thompson finishes his report, signs it, submits it, heads out the front door of his office and then pauses, feeling a sudden pain in his head. He tries to steady himself against the wall, but he finally collapses, his body tumbling down the steps. Onlookers rush to help him, but there's little they can do. He's already dead, and five days later an autopsy rules that he died from an unavoidable and completely random brain haemorrhage, and the coroner notes with some surprise that the base of Detective Thompson's brain seemed to have spontaneously sheared off from the stem.

  Part 4:

  A Case of Crows

  Prologue

  Lakehurst Psychiatric Hospital. Today.

  At exactly 5am, Morris opens his eyes. It's still dark outside, but his body clock is timed to perfection. He stares into the darkness, waiting... waiting... waiting... and then it happens: his phone alarm starts ringing, and he reaches out to switch it off. The same thing happens every morning. He always sets the alarm, just to be sure that he won't be late, but he never fails to wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off. He's regular, like clockwork.

  Hauling himself out of bed, Morris takes a quick shower, gets dressed and heads down to the ward. As Lakehurst's janitor, it's his job to make sure that the general areas are clean and tidy. He's not responsible for medical areas; those have to be kept absolutely germ-free, and there are special medical technicians who do that kind of work. Morris's job is about sweeping the corridors, picking up any trash that might have been dropped, maintaining the grounds and responding to any unexpected spillages. During the average day, h
e cleans up blood and fecal matter at least a couple of times. It's just how his job goes. He accepted it long ago.

  This morning is trash day, so he has an extra job. He heads out to the back of the building, where the huge metal trash can is waiting for him in the early morning gloom. It's the size of a car and it's perched on a small set of wheels. Fortunately, Morris has been doing this job so long, he's become much strong than his bulky frame would seem to suggest, so it's not too much hassle for him to drag the can around to the front of the hospital and along the driveway. It takes him half an hour to get the can down to the roadside, which is where the trash guys will pick it up. They used to come all the way up to the hospital, but not any more. They refused, saying there were too many weird things around. So Morris will have to come back down to the road later and collect the trash can once it's been emptied.

  As he wanders toward the main building, he spots something next to the front door. He pauses, convinced that it wasn't there when he left almost an hour ago. He walks over, hurries up the steps and finds that there's a large wooden crate waiting to be taken inside. He checks the label printed on the side, and sees that it's addressed to Nurse Kirsten Winter. Pausing for a moment, he looks across the garden, wondering who delivered the damn thing. Figuring they must be long gone, whoever 'they' are, Morris goes and gets a trolley from the storage room, and then he wheels the crate around to the back entrance and brings it inside.

  A few hours later, after he's cleaned the entire ward, Morris spots Nurse Winter walking into her office. Heading back to the janitorial closet, he fetches the crate and wheels it to Nurse Winter's door, knocking for a moment before taking it inside.