Testament (Dark Season VII) Read online

  “Mom,” I say. “What happened on Monday? How did I end up here?”

  She nods, seemingly unsure of how to answer the question. “You don't remember?”

  “No,” I say. “Pretty obviously not”. The truth is: I don't remember anything since I left Gothos with Patrick. We'd escape from the old mansion of the vampires, just after Patrick and I made love. Well, we didn't so much 'make love' as he climbed on top of me and... well, it was still good.

  “Things just got too much for you,” my mother says. “And you... acted out. The doctor thinks it's grief from your father's death. All this talk about vampires”.

  “What's that got to do with Dad dying?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. There are tears welling up in her eyes, but I don't really feel much sympathy for her. Years and years of us barely communicating can't be undone in a few minutes.

  “Get me out of here,” I say. “You know I'm not crazy. I'll shut up about vampires, but get me out of here”.

  “It's not about shutting up,” she says. “You can talk about them if you want. You just have to admit that it's all made up. It's all stories”.

  I shake my head. “I'm not going to lie,” I say.

  “Then you're going to have to stay here a little longer,” she replies. “They think they can cure you, honey. And it'll all seem better when it's over and done with”.

  I put my head in my hands. No-one is listening to me.

  “Sophie,” says my mother, reaching over and putting a hand on my shoulder. “We were terrified when you went missing. We thought... You could have been killed, honey”.

  I look at her. “Missing?” I ask. “I never went missing!”

  “Honey, you vanished for nearly a year!”

  I stare at her. What's she talking about? I was at home this time last week, then I went to Gothos with Patrick, and then... well, then things get a bit fuzzy, but there's no way I was missing for a year. No way at all.

  “And then with what happened on Monday -”

  “What happened on Monday?” I ask. “Come on, Mom. You're scaring me. What happened? What are you talking about? I wasn't missing for a year! Just because you were too busy watching General fucking Hospital to notice me, doesn't mean I was missing!”

  “Everyone was out looking for you, honey,” she says. “Even that trampy friend of yours was worried!”

  Trampy friend? What the hell is she talking about? Oh, okay, she means Shelley. But... I saw Shelley last week. And everyone. I saw everyone. There's no way anyone could think I was missing. Hell, I don't think I've gone more than a couple of days without seeing Shelley since I was in fourth grade.

  “I wasn't missing,” I say. “I was at home. I didn't go anywhere”.

  “That's what we want to work out,” she says. “Where you really were”.

  I stand up. “I want to go back to my room,” I say. “Do you mind if I go?”

  She looks at me with a mix of desperation and sadness. She clearly doesn't know what to do. I kind of understand. After all, anyone would be worried if their daughter went missing for a year. Even my useless mother would have to spring into action. But the fact is: I didn't go missing for a year. I was away at Gothos for – at most – a couple of days. There's simply no way someone could go missing for an entire year and not remember it.

  The door opens. I turn to see that the orderly has opened it up to let me out.

  “Bye Mom,” I say, heading out of the room. I don't wait for her to say anything in return. I just want to go to my room, to try to work out what's going on. More than anything, I need to find a way to contact Patrick.

  4.

  There's a knock at my door and Dr. Lucas pops his head into the room. “Got a minute?” he asks, in his usual happy and energetic manner. I swear, I can't deal with Dr. Lucas before I've had five or six cups of coffee in the morning. He reminds me of myself forty years ago when I first started out in this job: hopelessly enthusiastic and determined to help people. Part of me can't wait to see him in ten years' time, worn down by the job and unable to do much more than shuffle pieces of paper around. He'll have bags under his eyes, he'll be exhausted all the time, his marriage will be shot to pieces, his kids won't talk to him, he'll be teetering on the edge of a drinking problem... He'll be like me.

  “What is it?” I ask, looking back down at my papers. Hopefully he'll see that I'm busy. This had better not be another attempt to get me to authorise the purchase of a pool table for the games room. If he thinks I want a group of mentally ill people wandering around with pool cues and balls, he must be insane himself.

  “It's about John Tarmey,” he says.

  Great. This tired old conversation. I'm more than aware that the other doctors here think I'm taking the wrong approach with John, but they haven't been here as long as I have. If they'd seen what we tried in the 70s and 80s, they'd understand that John is a very special patient who can't just be electro-shocked back to normality. He's a special case, and I'm the only one who really understands him. The slow approach is the only way to deal with him.

  “I know you don't want to talk about it,” Lucas continues, “but the fact is, while we're debating what to do with him, he's cooped up in that little room with no windows and no company. It's inhumane”.

  “It would be inhumane to release him prematurely,” I say, taking my glasses off and setting them down on the desk in front of me. “It would be inhumane to inflict his behaviour on the other patients or on the general public”.

  “It would be inhumane to stop trying to rehabilitate him,” Lucas says. He's so sure of himself, so cocky... so wrong.

  “Some people can't be helped,” I say. “John Tarmey is a case in point. He's perfectly happy so long as we leave him in the lead room. I genuinely think he would prefer to spend the rest of his days in there, rather than being dragged out and forced to interact with the rest of the world. Damn it, sometimes I think I'd like to live in a lead room. He's fine down there for now”.

  “I know, but -”

  “Have you heard the way he screams?” I ask. “Every time we try to get him out of that room, he screams like some kind of wild animal. Have you heard that?”

  “Yes, of course -”

  “Do you really want to inflict that much pain on a man?” I ask. There's silence for a moment. “If he really wants to spend his life in a small lead room, and if we genuinely believe that to be the best solution for him right now, is there really a problem?”

  “You can't just leave him in there and forget about him,” says Lucas. I admire his passion, but I do wish he'd grow out of it. He's supposed to be a doctor, not a social worker.

  “I'm running out of orderlies,” I insist. “I send them in to haul him out, and he damn near kills them. Rumours are getting out, it's almost impossible to hire any new staff around here”.

  “So your solution is to just leave him in his room?”

  I'm tired of talking about this every few days. “If you want to get him out of that room,” I say firmly, “you may go down there right now and attempt to get him out yourself. Haul him out, or die trying. Otherwise, please leave me to make the key decisions because ultimately I'm the one who has to answer if something goes wrong”.

  I can tell he's not convinced, but he shuts up and drops a bunch of files on my desk. “Moving on,” he says, sounding annoyed and clearly planning to return to the topic of John Tarmey at a later date, “I have Sophie Hart's medical exam reports. She's healthy, and there was no sign of drugs or alcohol in her system”.

  I open the folder to take a look. “No sign at all?”

  “Nothing,” says Lucas. “You were wrong. She's not on anything. Whatever's wrong with her is psychological, not pharmaceutical”.

  I take a deep breath. I really expected to find that she'd been using something. Then again, it's possible to disguise your habit, if you know what you're doing. From my contact with her so far, I'd say she's more than smart enough to slip something past us. “This doe
sn't confirm anything,” I say. “Young girls don't just start behaving like that with no inciting incident”.

  “I'm just telling you what the tests told us,” Lucas replies, somewhat coldly. He's clearly annoyed with me. “The tests show no kind of substance. From what I can tell, she doesn't even take painkillers when she gets a headache”.

  “She drinks?” I ask.

  “Not heavily. Her liver's healthy enough”.

  I leaf through the pages of the report.

  “And she's not pregnant,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “No”. There's a pause. “But she has been”.

  I look up. “What do you mean?”

  “She's not pregnant now,” he says. “But according to the medical exam we did when she was admitted, she has been. She's carried a baby to term. She gave birth some time in the past month. And... I don't think she remembers”.

  5.

  “Two people are sitting in a room,” says Alex, who seems to have attached himself to me and now follows me around the recreation room whenever I decide to be social. “Do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” I say, walking over to the window and looking out at the depressing little garden. It's early morning. I spent all of last night staring at the ceiling, trying to work out what's going on. I didn't get very far.

  “Okay. Two people are sitting in a room, and one of them says to the other one: You're crazy. And the other one replies: No, you're crazy. And the first one replies, No, you're crazy. Do you see where this is going? It's a cycle of negativity and attempts to use subjective viewpoints as facts. Do you see how fucked up this whole place is?”

  I nod. “It is,” I say, staring at the trees in the distance.

  “It's seriously wrong. It's... bureaucratic and it's vicious. They put power in the hands of these assholes who get off on labelling other people as crazy. Then they wonder why nothing improves and why everything just turns to shit. Do you understand?”

  “Why are you in here?” I ask.

  “I stabbed my best friend seventeen times,” he says, matter-of-factly. “During a three-legged race at school”.

  I turn and stare at him. “Was... No, I don't want to know. Did your friend survive?”

  Alex shrugs. “I don't know. It's all propaganda, anyway. Like those pills they make us take. Do you take yours?”

  “I do,” I say.

  “I put them in my mouth,” he says. “But I get rid of them so they don't work”.

  “How do you do that?” I ask.

  “I swallow them”. He looks at me, clearly expecting to be called a genius. “That way, they don't stay in my mouth and start affecting my brain”.

  “That's brilliant,” I say quietly.

  “The only one here who's got it all sorted out is John Tarmey,” Alex says. “He makes them do what he wants them to do. He has them all under control. They'll never tell John Tarmey what to do. Do you understand?”

  I look around the room. Half a dozen fellow patients are scattered about, all looking as if their souls have been ripped from them and burnt. “Which one's John Tarmey?” I ask. “The guy in the wheelchair? The guy on the sofa? The guy hiding behind the plant who thinks the rest of us can't see him?” I wave at that last guy; he kneels down behind the plant.

  “Tarmey's underground,” says Alex.

  “Explains why I haven't met him,” I say.

  “He's in the box. He never comes up. And they're scared of him. He's broken all their noses, and that's just the lucky ones. Some of them end up in hospital because of what he does to them. But it's their own fault, because they shouldn't keep trying to make John Tarmey come out of his box. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Alex, I understand,” I say. “I understand everything you say, you don't need to keep asking”.

  “Okay,” he says.

  I hear my name called by the woman at the nurses' station. Without really saying anything, I head off across the room. I'm fully aware that Alex is following me, but I have no intention of stopping or acknowledging him. I figure I'll just wait it out, and eventually he'll get bored of me.

  “Pills,” says the nurse, handing me a small plastic cup containing there pills. They're little green-and-turquoise capsules. I don't even remember what they're called, but I swallow them anyway. “You want some water with those?” the nurse asks, after they've gone down the hatch.

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “You have to go and see Dr. Penfold,” she says. “He's waiting for you in his office”.

  “I'm not seeing him until tomorrow,” I say, turning to leave.

  “You have to go now,” says the nurse. “He has someone with him to see you”.

  I turn back to her. “I'm tired. I just took my pills”.

  “Orders are orders,” she says, then she looks at something that's just behind me. “And Alex, you can't go with her. Go and sit down”.

  I hear Alex shuffling away. “Thanks,” I say. “He was kind of getting on my nerves”.

  As soon as I'm led into Dr. Penfold's room, I realise this is going to be uncomfortable. My mother is there, with her usual concerned face on, but sitting in the corner is an entirely unexpected person: Shelley, my best friend, the one person who has actually met Patrick and knows that my story is completely true.

  “So you're here to apologise and let me out?” I ask, kind of knowing that this is unlikely.

  “Sit down, Sophie,” says Dr. Penfold.

  I take a seat, glancing over at Shelley. She smiles at me but looks away. She seems tense.

  “Are you okay, honey?” my mother asks.

  I nod. There's no point trying to explain anything to her.

  “We thought you'd like another visitor,” says Dr. Penfold. “Your friend Shelley was kind enough to come up today with your mother”.

  I look at them. “You two shared a car?”

  Shelley smiles, my mother looks annoyed.

  “Sophie, you said in one of our sessions that your friend Shelley experienced some of these... unusual happenings while she was with you. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” I say. “That's what happened”. I look at Shelley. She doesn't seem to want to make eye contact with me. Somehow, I don't think she's going to corroborate my story so we can get out of here.

  “You said...” Dr. Penfold looks down at his papers. “You said that she went down to the vampire's lair with you and helped you defeat a man named Martin Keller who was trying to kill the vampire. Is that right?”

  I nod. “That's what happened,” I say.

  “A modern day Van Helsing,” says Dr. Penfold, smiling. “And you believe your friend here actually met the vampire and saw him in action”.

  “She did,” I say. I don't bother to look at Shelley. I can tell she's avoiding looking at me, so I don't want to exacerbate an already uncomfortable situation.

  Dr. Penfold turns to Shelley. “Did any of this happen?” he asks her.

  Shelley shifts awkwardly in her seat. “Well...” she says. “I mean... We are friends and all. I don't want to call anyone a liar...” She drifts off, clearly not sure what to say.

  I turn to her. “Did it happen, Shelley?” I ask.

  She looks at me, her eyes filled with... what is that look? Sadness? Concern? No, it's pity. “I just want you to get well,” she says eventually.

  “Are you saying none of it happened?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. “None of it happened,” she says. “I'm sorry, Sophie. I want to believe you. I really do. But all this stuff you're saying I saw, I didn't see any of it. None of it happened at all. It's just...”

  “In my head,” I say flatly, with no emotion in my voice.

  “It's stuff you need to get over,” she says. “I just want you to get better and get out of here. I've missed you”.

  “I've only been here a few days,” I say.

  “Yeah,” she says, “but you were missing nearly a year”.

  “I didn't go missing!” I say, starting to get an
noyed. Why do they all keep saying this?

  “I was worried about you,” she says. And the thing is, looking at her now, I believe her. She seems genuine. But then there's the stuff she's saying about having never met Patrick, and I know for a fact that's not true. So how have they got her to lie?

  Dr. Penfold looks at my mother, then back at me. “I would like a moment alone with Sophie, if that's okay with everyone?”

  I don't look at them, but I hear the chairs move as my mother and Shelley get up and head to the door. Once they're gone, I try not to look at Dr. Penfold. There's something deeply strange going on here, and I can't work out what it is. But people are saying things that I know aren't true. I know Patrick is real, and I know I wasn't gone for a year. I remember everything that's happened to me over the course of these crazy few months.

  “I have to discuss something delicate with you, Sophie,” says Dr. Penfold. “I asked your mother and your friend to leave the room because this is a medical matter and it's entirely up to you whether you want to tell them the nature of what I'm about to discuss with you. There's no right or wrong answer, you just have to decide for yourself. Do you understand?”

  I look at him. “Yeah,” I say. I'm starting to get worried. This sounds serious.

  “We performed a pregnancy test on you,” he says.

  I swallow hard. “Am I?”

  “No,” he says. “You're not pregnant. We double-checked to confirm”.

  I relax a little. After what happened with Patrick last week at Gothos, I was convinced I would turn out to be carrying his child.

  “But Sophie...” Dr. Penfold continues, “we did find some other indications. I went back over the results of the medical exam you had when you were first brought here, and it's absolutely clear that at some point in the past month you have in fact given birth to a child”.

  I stare at him. “I've what?”

  “You've carried a child through a full pregnancy, and you've given birth. Do you remember any of this?”

  I shake my head. “I haven't had a baby,” I say. “There's no way. I'd remember having a baby!”