A Night at the Asylum Read online

  Tommy had gone to see a woman at a psychic gathering in Kansas City. She went by the name of Evening Star. I remembered his face when he came home that night, how bright his eyes were. He’d steered me into his room and shut the door behind us, as always careful not to wake Mom and Dad. Then he’d relayed the whole incredible story: the psychic had told him he was a gifted clairvoyant, that he’d been chosen to do something very important with his talents, and that he had a spirit guide who would help him communicate with the other side until he was fluent on his own. Of course I was skeptical, and usually pointed this out as gently as possible, but this day I could not keep my cynicism contained. “She told me my spirit guide’s name, Sara, his name.” Tommy was raving. “And whenever I want to, I can just talk to him. He’s like my interpreter. And I can find out anything I need to know. I can train myself to listen.”

  I rolled my eyes the way only an unenlightened fourteen year-old girl can. If he couldn’t believe in the stuff they blathered about at church, why was Tommy buying into this crap? “What’s his name then?” I asked scornfully, calling his bluff.

  Tommy reached out and grasped my shoulders, apparently bracing me for the impending awesomeness. “His name…is Joey,” he answered triumphantly.

  For a moment I could only stare at him. Then before I could stop myself, my face cracked in two and peals of laughter poured out. Was he serious? He had to be joking! Finally I pulled myself together, seeing his expression, how offended he was. My mouth clapped shut. “I’m s-s-sorry,” I coughed, suppressing more giggles, “but…come on! A real life supposed psychic tells you that you have a spirit guide…which, by the way…what the hell is that—”

  “A being that chooses to help humans and serves as an intermediate between this world and the astral world,” Tommy recited begrudgingly.

  “Yeah, that – and you can ask him anything at any time…and his name is…Joey?” Laughter tumbled out of me again.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I’m sorry. It just doesn’t sound very…omnipotent.” Yeah. I was a precocious one. That was the end of Tommy sharing his psychic adventures with me.

  There was no maniacal laughter that time as his door slammed in my face.

  The sound in my ears and the memory of it was like a lightning strike into the present.

  Joey.

  It echoed through me as I remembered the caller ID display from my dream. I shivered. It had been buried deep in my subconscious, that’s all. It meant nothing. Right?

  In the margin of the entry in the notebook, as if on cue, I noticed these words: “There is no such thing as chance; and what to us seems merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny. -Friedrich Schiller.”

  Like I said before...my brother…what a kidder. A shiver moved through me.

  Screw this, I thought defiantly, picking up the digital recorder that lay innocently on the carpet. Tommy used this little device to supposedly capture the sounds of spirits. He’d taken it to the asylum many times. I considered listening to some of his old stuff for a moment but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t handle hearing his voice, his silly excursion through our local house of horrors, so blissfully unaware of his own impending doom. I was already nightmarishly over-emotional.

  And how could Tommy have considered anything recorded at the asylum evidence? It was such a huge place with so many shadowy corners, so many opportunities for contamination. I turned the device over in my hands, loaded one of the blank tapes, and pressed record. I put the microphone up to my mouth half-heartedly and spoke. “I wish I knew where you are…what you want from me…” For a second I just sat there, lost in my own grief. Then the feeling of foolishness I could always count on overwhelmed me and I turned the recorder off.

  The low battery light flashed. I tucked the recorder into my messenger bag.

  I turned to the next page in the notebook. There was a quote from the Great American Ghost Hunter’s Handbook. “Spirits use batteries and electronics as a means of communication. It takes an enormous amount of energy for a spiritual being to manifest and be seen by the human eye. Therefore bring extra batteries when you go on your hunts. They will use the energy!”

  Of course.

  An explanation for everything.

  On the next page there was an unusual-looking entry. In fact, I realized, it was the very last entry in the book. There was no date. There were no questions accompanying it, but clearly it was a session with the spirit board. Only the answers were written down, and they seemed cryptic and disorganized. I read them over and over, daring them to make sense.

  thisisjennya

  necklasincar

  eadonthehiway

  hiddeninasylum

  Murderd – I stared at this last word and, flipping back through a few of the earlier entries, a sickening understanding began to form in my mind. It was abundantly clear Tommy believed he was communicating with Jenny Allison, not long after she had been reported missing, her car left abandoned on the highway.

  How much time had gone by before he’d tried to reach her this way? Had these “messages” convinced him she was not simply missing, but dead? Certainly he hadn’t told her parents, who went to my church. Had he told Jon about this? I shuddered at my last thought. No. Jon was Tommy’s best friend and he was desperate to find out what had happened to Jenny, but he wouldn’t have accepted any of this. Tommy would have been completely on his own.

  I went down the short list individually, staring at each word until it blurred before my eyes.

  necklasincar

  The first words stumped me. I had no idea what they meant. I moved on to the next.

  eadonthehiway

  Maybe a letter was missing in this one? Could it mean “dead on the hi-way?” I wasn’t sure. It was hard to tell the context of the answers when there were no questions. Why had Tommy not recorded those, as he’d done so meticulously every other time? His writing was sloppy, as if hurried.

  hiddeninasylum

  This message was unmistakable. But it also did not elaborate. What was hidden in the asylum? On which of the three floors, in which of the scores of rooms?

  murderd

  I felt sick to my stomach. I closed the book.

  On the back cover was an inspirational passage, surrounded in elaborate, flowery ink pen sketches. I recognized Jenny’s loopy cursive. I could almost see her leaning over my brother’s desk during study hall or a shared detention, doodling like she always used to do.

  A small envelope was taped just below the passage. I opened the envelope and reached inside. There was only a tiny gold chain with a cross. I turned the necklace over in my hand; it looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure why. Without thinking, I tucked it into my pocket.

  Footsteps advanced down the thick carpet of the hallway and I suddenly remembered where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I shoved the board and notebook into my bag and the tin box back under the bed, hurriedly replacing the drawer just as my dad peeked his head into the room.

  “Sara?” There was concern in his voice at finding me here. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “I am.”

  “I come here sometimes too,” he murmured wistfully, looking around. “I don’t know why, though.”

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t want to abandon him, but for some reason I was eager to get to the restaurant now. Maybe so I could pull out the notebook and try deciphering it once again.

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like he’s here anymore.”

  My skin tingled at his words, like icy fingertips on the back of my neck. “N-no,” I stammered, “he isn’t. He’s not anywhere in this house anymore.” I didn’t mean just spiritually. Tommy’s artwork, his belongings, every picture of him – in the living room, in the kitchen, throughout the entire house – had been closeted, like we’d tried to write him out of our lives. When yours is a family torn apart by death, a smiling face can be too painful a reminder. I realized then that I wasn’t the only one for w
hich time was standing still.

  My father laughed suddenly. “You were a baby so you probably don’t remember this,” he began, “but…Tommy stood up at the breakfast table once and announced that he didn’t believe in God.” His eyes were moist with the memory. “I thought your mother was going to come unglued.” My father sat on the bed, its squeak welcoming him, and smiled. “To add insult to injury, he shouted, ‘And Santa can go to hell too!’”

  “Wow,” I said softly, grinning. Tommy had been searching for answers from the time he was old enough to speak the questions.

  “But you know…” Dad stared at the tie on his threadbare gray robe. “For someone who claimed for so long to not believe in anything, he really had a lot of faith.”

  “Faith in what, Dad? Ghosts? The afterlife? He was a thorn in Mom’s side with all that,” I replied dryly.

  He looked up at me, his eyes solid, serious. “You know your mother and I don’t believe the same things. Well, Tommy had his own ideas too. I mean, the only reason I agreed to raise you two Catholic is because you’re mother’s meaner than I am.”

  I laughed. “She beat you down, did she?” I said lightly.

  “She’s terrifying. All her stories about fire and brimstone…” he teased. “Anyway…on the reservation, I was taught…we honor our dead. Because they’re still here with us, just…transformed.” He stood up now, slowly. “I was taught to pay attention to the spirit world. To acknowledge it.”

  I was trembling now, looking at the door longingly. “Dad…I should really go.” I did not want to talk about this. I needed it in small doses, and I’d maxed my dosage out. Maybe the notebook would stay closed. Maybe I’d leave it in my bag, hide it under my own bed, and never open it again.

  “But your mother,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard me, “…her religion is different. And for her, putting a death away is what helped her move on.” He shrugged. “I don’t know who’s right. But I think about it a lot. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”

  He sounded strange. I wondered if I should be worried about him. His voice was mournful, much more than usual. Eerie that he was talking about this now, out of the blue. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I guess I think if there was life after death, Tommy would have found a way to tell us, you know? That if anyone could get a line out, it would be him. And…it hasn’t happened. So I can’t say I really believe in it.” Sadness overcame me again as I spoke the words.

  “Who’s to say what a “line” really is?” My father was thoughtful. “Maybe your kind of line and theirs isn’t the same thing. Maybe they just do what they can, and we hear and see what we can.”

  All those things I explained away each and every day…the phone calls with no one on the other end…things mysteriously disappearing, only to reappear where I’d already looked for them…I forced myself to revisit them with a shudder. Lights flickering…Tommy’s bedroom door, always opening on its own, beckoning me…they were pranks, absentmindedness, an old house, a draft…I continually found excuses to ignore these things that could be little signs, ineffectual signals.

  Not to mention the dreams...

  I shook my head. I felt like a mental patient running amok in the asylum. I felt like I was becoming one of the insane.

  I needed a slap back into reality. So did my father, who was staring off into the distance now, his face sorrowful. “Dad.” I dug into my messenger bag and pulled out the pack of cigarettes that had become the official badge of my failure tonight. They were slightly kinked from the abuse they’d withstood crammed in my jeans pocket. I jammed one into his mouth, trying the lighter again. It worked like a champ now, of course. “Go smoke a cigarette and calm the fuck down,” I ordered, smacking him on the back. “But only one. Those things will kill you.”

  I waited for the scolding, my father’s eyes round with shock. Instead he reached around and hugged me, for too long, his arms too heavy with the weight of the world. “I love you, Sara,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face.

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  He turned to go out the door, but turned back. “Bonita Taylor called while you were out yesterday, I forgot to tell you.”

  My heart froze. “What?” I choked out. “For me? W-why would she call for me?” Seriously, what was up with this bitch?

  “She didn’t. It was on the answering machine…actually she said she needed to talk to all of us. She asked if she could come over.”

  “What? Why?” Why did I feel like my lungs were folding in on themselves? What could Bonita possibly want with my family? Suspicion and fear burned through me. “Did you call her back?”

  “No…I forgot.” Dad sighed. “I’ve been doing that lately.” He took a long, lusty drag off the cigarette… my father, who didn’t even smoke. “I wonder how she’s been…haven’t seen her since your brother…” he stopped. “She took it very hard when he died.”

  “She did?” My voice cracked. Hadn’t he really just been a notch in her bedpost?

  I had known they were dating. She was not his typical blonde, perky choice, with her long dark hair and surly personality. Friends all their lives, he’d finally joined the ranks of a hundred other guys obsessed with her, but had chased her relentlessly until she finally gave in. She was always getting him into trouble. In fact, he’d gotten that stupid motorcycle because of her. It was nearly impossible to believe she could have feelings for him that matched his for her.

  “Oh, it’s true,” My dad said, as if he’d heard what I was thinking. “She and Tom were pretty deeply in love with each other. He told me he wanted to marry her. Can you believe that? Marriage...and I told him he was too young. God forbid he mention it to your mother.” My father took another long drag on the cigarette, his voice grave. “I had no idea that was as old as he was ever gonna get.”

  “In love?” I gasped. This was wrong, just wrong. “I don’t think he was even her only boyfriend. How did I not know about this?”

  My father seemed amused that I was struggling to keep from coughing my heart up on the carpet. “You were fourteen. And Tommy didn’t tell you everything. It wasn’t really brother-sister type information. It was dad-son type information. I mean you probably would’ve found out eventually. Except…”

  Except Tommy had died. And Bonita had been so broken up about it she couldn’t even come to his funeral.

  “She might not have been an angel, Sara, but Tom loved her, and that meant something. A little rebellious, maybe. But she wasn’t what everyone said she was.” Dad looked at me. “Settle down. It’s all under the bridge now.”

  “Right,” I choked.

  He walked over and poked the cigarette in my mouth. “Now. Go smoke this cigarette and calm the fuck down,” he repeated my words. “But only one. And I’d better not catch you with them again.” He left the room, calling back to me. “Get that outside before the boss smells it. I’ll see you at the restaurant in an hour.”

  “Yeah,” I breathed.

  I stood in the center of the room for what seemed like an eternity. I had no time to do anything but go straight to work. But I couldn’t think about work. All I could think of was how irony obviously wasn’t finished screwing me over tonight.

  When the mental cement melted from my legs, I shook myself. I still had the pack of cigarettes in my hand, and I shoved them back into my pocket. Putting the lit cigarette out on the bottom of my shoe, I started toward the door. What happened next was bizarre; maybe the heater kicked on and upset the room’s airflow, maybe I bumped something…just as I touched the knob of the bedroom door, it was jerked from my hands and slammed right in my face. The sound was incredibly loud; it reverberated through the tiny bedroom as if off the walls of a tomb.

  It was time to go. An absolutely excruciating moment passed where I was afraid to open the door. When I finally worked up the courage, I scurried out as fast as possible, snatching my mother’s car keys off the table. I peeled out of the driveway just as the first signs of dayligh
t were bleeding into the sky.

  I took my phone out of my bag and hooked it into my mom’s car charger, trying to keep myself occupied and devoid of thought for at least the four block ride to the restaurant. Just to have a break from the unreality of the last six hours would be like a miracle.

  The light indicating I had a message was blinking at me manically in the half-dark of the car. As soon as I pulled up to the restaurant I unhooked the phone and dialed my voicemail. Jamie had called six times in the last hour. There was just enough battery power to listen to the one message she’d left.

  “Sara.” She sounded breathless, her words coming so fast I could barely understand her. “Listen to me. Jon was the one in the car with Bonita. He’s been here at the hospital. He says Ead attacked him! There are cops everywhere, from out of town even, and Ead is getting questioned…even Brad is here, of course. Bonita sicked her father on him…it’s a madhouse!” I gasped as I stepped out of the car, the phone clasped precariously between my shoulder and my ear. I jammed the key into the lock of the restaurant door. “You know what that means. Ead is the one who chased us. And Sara…” I listened, aghast, as she sucked in her breath. “This you’re not going to believe. We were all standing here in the waiting area, and a few rooms down was Emmett. Raymond happened to be in the hallway near his room…he said Emmett woke up out of a sound sleep, ripped the IV completely out of his arm, and walked straight out of the hospital.”

  I froze. My blood ran cold. It was not completely light out yet; there were still dark blue shadows lingering in every corner, the sky the color of murky water. A frigid breeze blew across the sidewalk, and behind it I heard the crunching of loose cement. The hand that closed around my mouth then was almost expected, but it still took all I had not to scream.