The Window

Thursday, November 8, 11:34 pm

That damned Carter was raising hell again tonight. Just when we thought we had him under control, now he’s flying off the handle even worse than before. He’s frustrated the hell out of everyone in the ward, since he’d actually made enough progress that we were able to lower his dosage last week. Now he needs twice as much juice just to keep calm.

It’s really a pity; the guy’s reasonably bright when he’s stable. Loves to shoot the shit about ancient history and horror stories. The doctors say he could have gone Ivy League if he hadn’t wound up in here after high school. I’d write a bit more on his condition, but Fenster is pretty strict about divulging patient info. I’d probably get reprimanded for writing even as little as I have.

I know I’m usually kind of crude when I write in here, but I honestly take my job very seriously – when I’m there. In the journal world, I leave all that behind and turn back into regular ol’ Charlie again. It’s a little piece of advice the head orderly gave me back when I first got on at Fenster; if you don’t distance yourself from the hospital when you’re gone, you’ll wind up there permanently. I think he was all too right.

Dr. Wallace is going to retire next week, after ten years at the helm of our ward. The old guy’s been in asylums and mental wards like Fenster through most of his life, and it’s a wonder he isn’t a little more nuts than he is. Maybe he’s hiding it or something. In any case, we’re all gonna miss the tough old bastard when he retires. He wasn’t like the other doctors, clutching his clipboard and hiding in the corner when a patient flips. He was more like an orderly; usually the first one to try and get the loons under control when they start swinging and biting. Hell, in Carter’s wilder days, hardly a week went by when he didn’t give the old Doc a good wallop on some part of his body. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that they were like best buddies when they managed to just sit and talk. A more bipolar friendship, you couldn’t find.

Anyway, Doc Wallace is going to stay on long enough to get his replacement acquainted with the position, then it’s Caribbean cruises and Vegas casinos for the old man. I think I’ll have a drink to his health, then call it a night.

PS: What the hell am I thinking? Doc’s retirement is probably going to involve a stark contrast of memoir-writing one week and cage fighting the next. Make that two drinks and a shot.

Sunday, November 11, 11:45 pm

I suppose mentioning Doc Wallace’s replacement would have fit into my last entry, but that would have been an insult to the Doc because the guy’s a prick.

Don’t get me wrong, Dr. Simon is certainly going to be up to the task. I think he’s been ready for it since the day he first set foot in Fenster. He’s got the brains, certainly, and he’s got a temperament and chilliness that makes even the most nutso patients think twice about throwing a fit.

That’s a small part of the problem, I guess. I’ve never met someone so power-hungry and domineering in my life. Subordinates tremble at the thought of doing wrong, because the man has a tongue like the tail of a scorpion. When he’s angry, you can see in his eyes that he’s right at home.

I have no doubt that patients will behave themselves and staff will have things running smoothly under Simon’s direction of the ward. But that’s about the only good point I can think about at the moment.

Wallace had a heart-to-heart with Carter today, and now we’re all convinced he hadn’t been doing as well as we thought.

Carter apparently told Wallace that he freaked on Thursday night because the walls in his cell were turning “staticky.” It’s pretty odd, considering he doesn’t have a history of such hallucinations. Simon thinks he made it up, but I don’t see any reason for Carter to just fake some outburst right as he’s making his best progress since arriving here. If anything, patients hide symptoms when they realize they’re close to getting out. For that I can’t blame them; who would enjoy being locked in a room and told that they can’t leave until they change their thoughts and emotions?

I see that frustration in Carter now, but it always kills me in every patient. They truly believe what they think they see and feel, but all the testimony they give is waved off as unsound and drowned in medication and therapy.

Carter in particular reminds me of a quote by Poe; I don’t remember it word for word, but it was something about madness being the highest form of intelligence. Despite how wacko he is, the man still has that gleaming wakefulness in his eyes that lets you know there is a deep, thoughtful consciousness within. I don’t doubt that, if I hadn’t worked in a mental ward as long as I have, I might have an inkling to believe him myself.

Jesus, if the guys at Fenster saw this, they might personally have me evaluated for commitment.

Friday, November 15, 11:41 pm

What a week. Tonight was it for Doc Wallace, but I don’t think even he’s entirely happy with the shape he’s leaving the ward in.

Simon has been unusually agreeable this week. He walks around looking like the cat that swallowed the goddamn canary, suppressing the urge to jump up and down with glee. We all take that to mean next week is going to be hell.

The patients, of course, don’t like Simon. The less stable ones are frightened when he walks in the room, although in all fairness I think it’s because they don’t know him that well. Poor old Mrs. Olsen in room 15 nearly burst into tears when he came instead of Wallace…her voice was shaking as she called out “Doct’allace?”

When he stopped by Carter next door in 17, Simon actually asked if he was “getting good reception” today. Wallace used to joke around with the less composed patients, but not Carter; despite his recent regression, he’s not an empty-eyed loon like some of his neighbors. I thought he was going to get up and slug Simon for his little remark. In his typical, introverted fashion, however, he just glared.

Joking about work is pretty out of character for Simon, at that. Biting sarcasm to the staff, sure, but he takes his work very seriously. My predicton? He’s trying to act like Doc Wallace to get brownie points with the patients, but he hasn’t trained his wit to do anything but sting. He’s just going to piss everyone off, then he’s going to get pissed off, and it’ll be right back to Führer Simon.

I’ve had quite enough of thinking about that guy. I wonder what the Doc and his wife are doing down in the Bahamas right now…

Sunday, November 17, 12:52 am

Yeah, I could have done without tonight.

It was no more than 5 minutes from the end of my shift when Carter went over the fucking edge. Screaming at the top of his lungs, kicking and banging on the door, he had every loon on the whole floor freaking out. It took four of us to get him strapped down and sedated, and then we had to go around each room seeing to every patient. Some of them were every bit as hysterical as Carter was. I’m utterly wiped out.

Before he passed out, Carter said his walls were snowy again tonight – actually he insists it’s just this one corner of his room, and that it’s always been that way (even though he didn’t specify this to Doc Wallace). He also claims he was being attacked by some inky black “presence” that came in through the window. I checked the window, a small pane of glass about two feet square near the ceiling, just to humor him. No ink, my friend, not even a squid to spray it.

I guess Simon passed his first big test with flying colors. He looked irritated beyond rationality, but he kept a cool head and his calculating leadership was essential in getting the situation under control as quickly as possible. We expected him to explode afterwards, but, like us, he was just too tired to be angry.

Tomorrow is not going to be fun. At all.

PS: I guess I should make that “today.” Ugh.

Sunday, November 17, 11:56 pm

A kind of weird tension hung over the ward this morning. Although Simon had a long discussion with Carter (for better or worse, I wasn’t present for it), it seemed as if no one wanted to talk about what happened. I’m pretty certain the staff was just trying not to tick off Dr. Simon, but then again, last night sucked. I’d like to forget it happened too.

Mrs. Olsen was extremely worried today; all the screaming and noise coming from the next room had shaken her up good. One of the nurses, Rebecca, is a trained singer, so she came into the old woman’s quarters and practiced her art for a while, which really seemed to calm her down. Hell, I think it calmed everyone down.

Normalcy returned for the rest of the day, until the last hour or so of my shift. Then tension set in again, everyone casting sideways glances at Carter’s door. Simon gave a malicious glare to anyone that dared speak to him. Mrs. Olsen was sitting on the side of her room opposite the wall she shared with Carter. Rebecca’s voice was tired and didn’t help the old woman find peace of mind.

And in the end, the night shift showed up right on time, and we all went home. No incidents. I don’t think there was anyone who entirely left their thoughts at the ward, though.

Wednesday, November 20, 12:01 am

Well, we knew it was going to happen, and it didn’t take long. Dr. Simon’s already letting the power go to his head. Everyone subordinate to him is being treated like a second-class citizen. Orderlies, nurses, other doctors… I even saw him yelling at our custodian yesterday.

Another orderly and I were holding down a patient who gets wild around needles, and Simon was giving the injection in the man’s buttock. As soon as the poor guy saw the syringe, he started bucking. I was trying to hold onto both his legs by myself, and told Simon to wait while I yelled for another orderly. He just gave me this stone cold look, grabbed the patient around the waist, and delivered the injection with a force that could only be described as stabbing. The patient froze and tensed up BAD, and of course now he’s complaining that he’s in all kinds of pain. I don’t doubt it; there are some talented lawyers out there who could easily make a case for abuse of a patient.

After the whole thing was over, Dr. Simon looked back and forth from the other orderly and I with this disgusted look on his face.

“Clods,” he called us, and then just walked off! If this continues, we’re going to talk to the owner of Fenster about having him replaced. This is unacceptable behavior from a man who has supposedly taken a Hippocratic Oath.

I guess I should balance this with something good that’s happened this week. Today Mrs. Olsen’s children came to visit with her, as they often do, and brightened her up immensely. Really, her spirits are probably as high as they were before Dr. Simon took over. They also brought homemade cookies for the staff… and while I appreciate the gesture, I hope Mrs. Olsen can get out of here soon. You know you’ve been committed way too long when your family knows the ward staff well enough to bring them food.

Friday, November 22, 8:21 pm

I’m writing this entry early compared to my usual time, because basically everyone in Fenster told me to go home and blow off some steam. I’m glad they did it now, because I was pretty far down the road towards slugging Dr. Simon.

We’ve got a new nurse on staff who’s still making a few newbie mistakes, mostly stuff that’s no big deal. Yesterday she was sitting in on a group therapy session, when Simon barged in and declared, in a voice we could hear on the other side of the ward, that she had calculated a patient’s dosage incorrectly (another nurse caught the mistake before the patient was medicated, so no harm was in fact done), and she was an “absolute fucking idiot.” Of course this angry outburst caused the more unstable patients to go bonkers, and the orderlies and nurses had to take them all back to their rooms. Session over.

And today… my blood boils just thinking about it. I was with Dr. Simon while he was evaluating a very nervous young man in room 12, and the (ahem) good doctor told me to “go and fetch a Rorschach, Charles.” I wasn’t gone for more than five minutes getting the inkblots, and I come back just in time to see Simon stand up and give the patient a vicious backhand slap!

I saw red, I really did. I threw down the test, flung open the door, and dragged Simon out of the room by his collar. Three orderlies stood between me and the doctor while I yelled at him. I’ll tell you though, I saw this look on his face that made me smile later on – fear. So the good doctor isn’t just some grim machine!

Rebecca also saw him slap the patient, and says that she’s going to call the young man’s family and report the incident to them. Hopefully Dr. Simon will not be practicing at Fenster ward much longer – or anywhere else.

Saturday, November 23, 11:58 pm

I was strategically kept as far away from Dr. Simon as possible today. Fine with me, I didn’t want any more of that ugly business from yesterday again. I did tell Rebecca, though, to keep me informed about her correspondence with the patient’s family. If they sue, I’d be one of the primary witnesses.

Not only do I have bad blood with Simon now, but Carter is of course acting up again. Mrs. Olsen, a nurse told me today, said that she heard Carter talking to someone in his room last night. The nurse looked, but by the time she had talked to the old woman about it, the voices had stopped. Mrs. Olsen said the voice wasn’t familiar, but the nurse found out later that Dr. Simon had paid Carter a visit that day.

This is exactly why the old woman worries everyone. Her mind is a deteriorating jumble; for months she has shown no signs of progress, and we all knew that eventually she would start coming apart. Looks like that time might be now. Such a pity, she’s a sweet old soul. I wish there was something we could do for her, but we’ve tried everything. She just doesn’t respond.

I’m glad I’m not the guy who has to tell stuff like this to the family.

Monday, November 25, 11:40 pm

Dr. Simon was gone today; the lawyer for the patient he struck called him at the office yesterday and he left in a hurry. I hope they sue him for all he’s worth. I realize I sound pretty damn malicious when I talk about this, but you have to understand where I’m coming from as an orderly. The health of these patients is in the hands of the staff; whether they’re competent enough to realize this or trust us is irrelevant. They are our responsibility, and just because we are in a position of dominance over them does NOT give us the right to take out our frustrations upon them, or abuse our power. To watch Simon do what he did made me sick.

Jesus, hitting patients. If only Doc Wallace could see how quickly things have changed in this ward.

Friday, November 29, 12:01 am

Mrs. Olsen had everyone staying later than usual, begging them to listen for Carter talking in the next room: of course, nothing happened. Carter has been quiet lately (in general, not just during the night). Whatever he’s going through appears to have subsided for the moment. Today when we delivered his meds, he actually asked me if I liked the Twilight Zone. I said I thought it was pretty cool; I usually catch the marathons around New Year’s. He said the stories are better than the TV episodes, and that “Escape Clause” was his favorite because he really liked the ending. I said I couldn’t remember which one that is, and he scoffed and replied “Shows how much you know.” Carter is the type of guy who is really smart, but turns into a jerk if you don’t know exactly what he’s talking about. A mental ward can’t treat high-and-mightiness.

So word around camp is that Dr. Simon is going to settle out of court with the family. The patient will be transferred to another ward, and the good doctor is going to pay them a buttload of money and stay on at Fenster, where he can abuse more helpless people. He’ll probably also be ten times the asshole he was when he left. Fantastic.

I’m too tired for this shit. I love Mrs. Olsen, but the woman doesn’t belong with us anymore, she belongs in a nursing home. Let the evening shift there worry about late night voices. They’ll probably be happy they have a problem for once that’s cleaner than incontinence.

God that was bitter. You see how I’ve changed since Doc Wallace left? I really hope Simon gets canned…

Sunday, December 1, 11:33 pm

Dr. Simon came back today, and brought winter with him; the first snow of the season blanketed the ground early this morning. Usually it raises my spirits, since I grew up farther north and have been right at home in the cold all my life. Simon managed to kill that little bit of nostalgia, however. His mood was icier than the December winds. When he wasn’t moving mechanically through his rounds, he was in his office pushing paper or stalking the halls, muttering under his breath every time he passed someone. The guy probably has some deep-rooted issues of his own. It seems like something deeper than anger, I really don’t know how else to describe it.

He settled with the family alright, but it cost him. Now it seems that me, Rebecca and the patient he hit all occupy special places on his shit-list. That’s fine, he’s earned himself a place on mine as well. If he so much as raises a hand to another person on this ward, he’d better hope someone else gets to him before I do. I’m getting pretty fired up just thinking about all this.

Maybe I need some help, myself. I haven’t had anger problems since junior high school. I should forgive him, I think, but I sure as hell won’t forget.

Mrs. Olsen actually lost control of her faculties tonight, she got so scared. I don’t know what it is about Carter that bothers her so much, nor do I have the slightest clue where all this “talking” nonsense came from. If she actually sees him, she tries her damndest to get as far away from him as she can. He never threatens her, never so much as casts a hateful glance in her direction. During the brief period where he was improving before all this started, he actually talked quite amicably with her. Yet another facet of her story, growing sadder by the day.

Tuesday, December 3, 1:15 pm

I chose the medical profession because I wanted to help people; I wanted to make memories of all those whose lives I had helped to make better, or even to save, if possible. I thought that I could take more pride in that than anything else I had ever done in my life, and that the final images to fill my head while I lay on my deathbed would be the smiling faces of the people who would have been a lot worse off without me.

Right now, I seriously doubt that’s going to be the case.

Mrs. Olsen passed away at St. Anne’s Hospital in Aurelia last night. She was Dr. Simon’s last examination of the evening, and he was the only one in the room with her at a little after 8:30 pm. The ward was silent.

I was talking to Sean, another orderly, when a scream filled the halls that sent a chill down my spine. We bolted towards the source of the sound, and found the staff clustering around the open door of Mrs. Olsen’s room. I pushed my way through, my first thought being that Simon had struck again and the gloves were off. What I saw froze me.

Simon stood with his back against the wall, his eyes wide open and focused on the old woman across from him. His folder and pen had dropped to the floor. He said and did nothing, just kept staring.

Mrs. Olsen was writhing about on her bed, one hand clawing at her shoulder and the other grasping the air wildly. Saliva dripped from her quivering jaw.

“She’s having a heart attack!” a nurse called out. I could hear Rebecca on the horn to St. Anne’s, pleading for an ambulance. The nurses tried to do what they could to help her, but that was little enough. The old woman screamed again.

“Devil!” she shrieked, and her grasping hand formed into a gnarled, accusing point, the sort of convictive finger that might have condemned a victim of the Salem Witch Hunt.

She pointed at Dr. Simon.

“Devil! Devil devil devil devil!” It was a mantra of the damned; the poor, mad woman’s swansong that rings in my mind and causes my hands to shake as I write. I fear, dear journal, that it shall plague my soul until the day I die.

Dr. Simon rode with her to the hospital, but I think even the EMTs knew it was hopeless. Simon called the ward around midnight to tell everyone the news.

The snow isn’t falling now, just a miserable freezing rain. It’s not helping my mood, and things will be even worse when I go in to Fenster today. The staff is going to be deep in melancholy, and the patients will likely still be freaked. Hell, I’m freaked, and I’m supposedly sane.

Wednesday, December 4, 11:48 pm

This makes two days that Simon hasn’t shown up at Fenster. Yesterday was understandable, given that the guy probably didn’t get a wink of sleep the previous night, but, well - this is fishy. I think Simon’s got to be hiding something. I feel it in my bones. St. Anne’s says Mrs. Olsen had no apparent physical wounds, but the way she pointed and screamed at him... she called him the freaking Devil, for crying out loud. He gave her that heart attack, somehow, and now he’s either coming up with a bullshit story or he’s on the run. Any normal doctor would be tending to the patients he already has.

I talked to Carter about it, to see if he heard anything that Simon might have said or done to the old woman, but in keeping with his latest trend in behavior, he’s pretty much a clam. He just says he didn’t hear anything that was going on outside his room until Mrs. Olsen started screaming. The patient in room 19, on the other side of Mrs. Olsen, gave basically the same answer.

So, what’s Simon hiding?

Saturday, December 7, 12:02 am

I think I liked him better when he was missing.

I’m not quite a doctor myself, but I like to think that as an employee in a mental ward, I recognize the signs of madness. Dr. Simon, in my orderly opinion, is unhinged. He neglects patient rounds, locks himself in his office for hours on end, and when he does leave it seems he is almost sneaking around. He refuses to go anywhere near room 17, often going the long way around the entire ward to avoid it. If you try and talk to him, he either glares at you like he doesn’t give a shit what you’re saying, or he starts this staring into space deal, as though he’s waiting or listening for something just outside his senses.

He’s still condescending and mean when he wants to be; one of the nurses who was on food detail said she nearly ran into him as he whirled around a corner in the hallway. When she tried to apologize, he simply gave her a hard stare, struck the food tray from her hands, and continued on his way. I looked around for him after that, but no luck. He’d better have a damn good explanation if I find him.

Monday, December 9, 11:33 pm

This ward just keeps getting weirder. In a total reverse of his recent behavior, several nurses have seen Dr. Simon entering or exiting the unoccupied room 13 quite frequently after nightfall, trying to be inconspicuous about it. He’s also been spending a lot of time visiting Carter. A few patients haven’t received necessary examinations because of this distraction. I honestly don’t know how this guy is getting away with it.

Oh, right. He’s the head honcho.

I went into room 13 last night, just out of curiosity, and I must say I have no idea what he’s doing in there. Everything is as it should be in a vacant room; the bed is made, the drawer in the nightstand is empty, the sink and toilet… I guess I can’t make it any clearer.

The circumstances surrounding Mrs. Olsen’s death still have yet to be explained, and the family is making noise about a lawsuit. Simon and a few of the nurses have talked to the police, but everyone is being so tight-lipped lately. I think I prefer the days when patients and doctors alike had weekly scream-fests in this place. At least there was a feeling of life, like maybe Fenster was inhabited by thinking, feeling human beings. What are we now? Suspicious minds and distrustful eyes locked inside caging bodies, struggling to make it through each day without killing each other? One person has already died. Have we learned nothing? Can we not talk, and find out what the hell is happening here?

Tomorrow, everyone will start talking. I don’t care if I have to back them all into a corner one by one and make them talk. Whatever is going on at this ward, I’m going to know about it.

I believe I’ll start with Simon and Carter.

Tuesday, December 10, 11:50 pm

It has been an enlightening day… I just didn’t anticipate what I would find.

Simon was mysteriously absent again, so I stopped by Carter’s room around 8 pm, first chance I had. I thought I was about to wake him up since his lights were off, but the son of a bitch had been sitting in the dark. Apparently he keeps his lights off at night all the time now.

“Since when?” I asked him

“That night. When Mrs. Olsen was killed.”

That stopped me cold. Killed? She didn’t “pass away” or “die,” she was killed. Carter was too bright to not have picked the word that he absolutely meant. He said so few words lately, he wouldn’t be careless with them.

“What do you mean, ‘killed?’?” I asked him.

He gave me the look of a man on a mountain of intellect, speaking to the congregated idiots below.

“’Killed’ Charlie. The word only has one meaning. Do you need me to define it?”

Despite this strong façade, I could see he was shaking. His eyes were bloodshot, his complexion white as snow. Something was very wrong with him, something he was hiding.

“Well excuse me if I’m getting into semantics, Carter, but to me, when you say Mrs. Olsen was killed, you mean that someone – not just the heart attack – murdered her?”

A look flashed over his face, one that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. The mentally disturbed have all sorts of fleeting expressions; I didn’t dwell on it.

“And since this took place after visiting hours, when the whole building is sealed up and all the patients are locked in their rooms, you’re suggesting that someone on the staff is her murderer?

He rolled his eyes. “Your logic is solid, Professor.”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. I wasn’t really sure if I even wanted to hear it. “Then maybe you’d like to tell me, in your infinite wisdom, who that is?”

“How should I know?” he leaned back against the wall, sneering. “I don’t know who was in there when she died. Like I told you already, I didn’t hear a thing from that room until she started screaming.”

The tension died; I’d had enough of this nut and his lies.

“Carter, how are you going to sit there and tell me she was murdered, when you didn’t even know what the hell was going on?”

“I never said she was murdered. I said she was killed,” he said this without a hint of sarcasm on his face, “you said she was murdered. Is that what you want to believe?”

“I should have known better than to talk to you, Carter.” I started to leave.

He leapt up. “Simon did it!”

“What?” I stopped, my hand on the doorknob.

“Simon killed her; that’s what you think, isn’t it? I’ll corroborate the story!” he was frantic, pleading; it was amazing how quickly he fell from his pedestal. “Tell the police he did it, accuse him; I’ll testify that I heard him kill her, I swear!”

“What the hell are you talking about, Carter?”

He moved in close, his foul, heaving breath in my face. “Get me out of here,” he whispered, “move me to another hospital, if that’s all you can do, just get me the hell out of here.”

“Why? What’s going on here?”

“He’s going to kill me, Charlie. I made him mad, and next time he comes in here he’s going to kill me.”

“Who? Dr. Simon?”

He hesitated, looked down at the floor. He took a deep breath, and said, “Yes.” I think it was the first direct answer I’d ever gotten from him.

“Carter, Simon isn’t going to kill you. And I’m not going to frame a man for murder just because I don’t like him. That’s evil, man. Probably as evil as the murder itself.”

“How do you know he won’t kill me?” he snapped. “You think he killed Mrs. Olsen, admit it. Why shouldn’t he kill the guy who might’ve heard it?”

“Goodbye, Carter.”

I left, but my thoughts are still planted in that conversation. Maybe, after all that, he was right. Maybe I have wanted to believe that Simon killed her, all along. I’ve got so much bad blood with that guy, I would have found something to blame on him eventually. Surely I’m being irrational.

I don’t know. I hope no one finds this thing. I should destroy this entry, but if something that terrible really is going on at Fenster…

I’ve had enough of this shit. I hope for his sake that Simon can save his own ass from my suspicions tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 11, 10:27 pm

Another abominable piece to this puzzle has just been found, and I couldn’t bring myself to wait until I got home to record it.

Rebecca was cleaning in 13 today, and found something that didn’t belong: secured on the underside of the sink was a small tape recording device, the kind used to record interviews with patients. A tiny microphone was wired into a hole in the wall…the wall that 13 shares with Carter’s room, 15. There is no question that Simon’s frequent visits revolved around this device. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been here to answer for himself tonight. That’s not the worst part, however.

We gathered together in the therapy room, all the staff and I, and played back the tape; to the best of our abilities, we guessed it had recorded the previous night. There wasn’t a jaw in the room that didn’t drop.

Carter was, indeed, conversing in the night, had probably been doing it all this time. The first voice on the tape is very clearly his, while the second… well, how does the old saying go? The first sign of madness is talking to yourself, the second is answering back. The second voice he used was ghastly. I don’t know how he did it, but people do strange things with their voices, particularly the “false” vocal chords.

I’ve included a transcription of the tape. Note that at some points the second voice isn’t on record because it became extremely difficult to understand. It didn’t always abide by the rules of English.

CARTER: Not tonight, please. Just leave me alone.

VOICE 2: I warned you. Told you what to do. You failed.

CARTER: You don’t understand, it’s out of my hands. I can’t leave this room.

VOICE 2: We had the agreement, deeper than blood. Failure insults!

CARTER: No, no! I never went back on you! The guy I had…he just wouldn’t do it! He wouldn’t help me, he said it was evil! Please, you’ve got to realize –

VOICE2: (garbled, unrecognizable language. Only clear word is “evil.”)

CARTER: Evil, it means bad, malign. The forces working against you. But I know better, I know you don’t care about that. Please, if you can get me out of here I can finish the job! I just need to leave this place as soon as possible, before he gets back!

VOICE2: No time, none others cross without window open. It was the job you had. You failed.

CARTER: No, he wouldn’t help me! If you can just get me out of here –

VOICE2: (unintelligible) from your side only. Find another! You have one day. After that, if window closes, you will be with US!

CARTER: Don’t do this, please, it’s out of my hands!!

VOICE2: (unintelligible, very angry and demanding.) Open the window, Carter. Last chance. (Unknown snapping noise occurs, and the voice is gone. The rest of the tape seems to be Carter crying.)

We’ve been sitting here trying to decide what all this means, and what to do about it. Did Simon know about this, somehow? Why didn’t he say anything, for Christ’s sake, and where is he now? I get the sinking feeling that he was appealing to me for some kind of help against this…other side of his, especially with the line “he said it was evil.” I got chills when I heard that, I really did. But what did he mean “before he gets back?” What did he think I was going to do to him? Carter is far more deranged than we thought, and in need of help that we sure as hell haven’t been providing.

I need to call up old Doc Wallace and ask if Carter ever had any potential for dissociative identity disorder. We definitely haven’t spotted it before, but Wallace knows Carter better than anyone, certainly better than his disowning, backstabbing parents.

The only remaining piece of the puzzle is Simon. And from the way it looks, we won’t be seeing him anytime soon.

Dec 14

Oh dear God, what sort of hell claws at this fragile world?

Friday, December 20, unknown time

I have to get this out of my head; I’ve tried to tell them, but I can’t. The words catch in my throat, and I see it all happening again. I see his eyes. We are forsaken, I know it, every one of us! I need to write it, but I shall have no peace. Never again.

After we listened to the tape, I told the rest that I would go up to Carter, and talk to him – tell him we know about this split personality of his. I was the one he tried to approach, so he trusts me, right? Another orderly came with me, I think it was Sean.

Being past the patients’ bed call, the ward hallway was dark and disturbingly silent. We got to Carter’s door and were about to unlock it, but we heard something that made our blood run cold: the voice from the tape. The fearsome, growling voice that was filtered through the mouth of a serpent. Carter was talking to himself, right then!

We listened for a moment. Carter was pleading, begging for another chance, just a little more time, saying that he could do what they wanted if they just helped him get out. His other voice was having none of it.

The empty hallway resounded with a loud click. We turned toward the sound, and there was the final piece we had wanted.

Dr. Simon stood in his white coat, buttoned up perfectly as if it were another day on the job. His face told a very different story: his hair disheveled, his eyes red and rimmed with circles, his jaw quivering. Random muscles twitched on his face, as though some creature beneath the skin struggled to break free. In his shaking hand he held a revolver, aimed at me.

“Move back from the fucking door, Charlie. I mean it.” His words dripped with venom.

I took a step back, held up my hands. “Simon, what the hell are you doing with that thing?!”

“You shut your miserable goddamn trap and just stay out of the way,” even in his madness, he was methodical and focused. He stepped slowly over to Carter’s door, his aim never leaving my chest. I backed away, but not too far. I could take him, I just needed the right moment.

“What, you’re going to kill the poor son of a bitch just because he talks to himself?”

“Listen to that,” Simon hissed, letting the wicked voice of Carter fill the air. “That isn’t madness, Charlie; that’s evil. I told him as much, but he refused to believe me.”

My mind flashed back to the tape, and Carter’s pleading voice: “He wouldn’t do it! He said it was evil!”

“My God,” I whispered. “What is this?”

“He actually asked me to help him unleash that…that…diabolical thing. He wanted me to help him open the window, and let them pour into our world!”

Back to November; Carter talked to something that came in through…the window?

“Simon, will you please just explain to me what the fuck is going on here?!”

“Clods! I knew you were such the moment I met you! The old woman could see it; that night when I was in her room, the night I heard it for the first time with my own ears. She knew Devilry when she heard it, and so do I!”

The memory of Mrs. Olsen pointing and screaming “Devil!” rushed back to me. I thought she had been pointing at Dr. Simon, but…he had been standing against the wall of Carter’s room. They had heard him together, and whatever he said was enough to send Simon over the edge and give the old woman a heart attack. No one had believed her…

“Mrs. Olsen was killed,” Carter had said. It ran through my head again and again, until I could swear I was repeating it myself. “Mrs. Olsen was killed.”

“Don’t you hear that?” Simon yelled. “Do you have any idea what he’s unleashing in there? What it’s capable of? I do, and by God, I’m not going to let it happen!”

Sean leapt for Simon as he turned toward the door, but the good doctor was too fast for him. He swung his gun around and put a bullet through the orderly’s head, nearly point blank. The shot left a dizzying ring in my ears. The big man’s body collapsed on the floor, his blood spattered against the pristine white walls and tile. From downstairs, I heard nurses screaming. Feet running. Would they get here in time?

Another quick memory, my talk with Carter:

“And since this took place after visiting hours, when the whole building is sealed up and all the patients are locked in their rooms, you’re suggesting that someone on the staff is her murderer?”

Dr. Simon looked at me, saw the blank look on my face, and turned the handle on Carter’s door.

In my mind, Carter rolled his eyes again. “Your logic is solid, Professor.”

I had sound logic. But I was very, very wrong.

Carter’s door exploded outwards into the hallway, knocking the gun from Simon’s hand. With it came a blur of flashing steel, a great demon blade that lashed out from the darkened room and plunged itself deep into Simon’s chest. The doctor’s face stretched with mindless horror, appearing to rip apart under its own hideous contortions. I realized as I looked that the blood was not in fact from beneath his face, but from the spray of his chest as he slid down the scalloped weapon to rest on the floor.

The bloodied hand that held the blade was followed out of the room by a figure I still cannot believe. No Hell imagined by man could hold such things, for even Hell is Christian, and this was an abomination from far outside our puerile faith.

The hides of men and serpents clothed his blood-soaked flesh, his insipid gray skin the shade of thunderclouds and rotting corpses. A mass of obsidian hair hung over his features and down to his belt, where were assembled an array of blades as ghastly as the one that had slain Simon.

And he turned his gaze to me…dear God, those eyes! I looked into my own soul through those swirling mirrors that gave him sight, watching as I lost my mind. I dropped to the floor, scrambling back until my hands would carry me no more. My breath abandoned me. I could do nothing but watch as he spilled my blood.

But he did not. He knew very well who he had come for. Sheathing the scalloped blade at his back, he bent down to the floor, and took Simon by the calves. With a file-toothed sneer and the shocking flick of a serpentine tongue, the warrior lifted his victim’s legs and began walking backwards. The doctor was amazingly still alive, screaming his throat raw, as he was dragged into Carter’s room, and, with a loud snapping noise, into another reality.

The window was closed.

***

My family tells me that they’ll only consider letting me out when I give a true account of what happened. “They don’t believe you, but we do!” they say, over and over. Sure they do. But I know better than anyone else how valued your input is when the “crazy” label is stamped onto your forehead.

I want to get out, if only because psych wards constantly remind me of what happened…one man shot dead, two more vanished…Simon’s blood was everywhere, but no Simon. Not even a trace of Carter left behind. Do they think I did it?

Maybe I shouldn’t get out. I probably am crazy after all, but for other reasons. Other realities…other windows? In the outside world, where people can actually OPEN them? I don’t want to think about it. I can’t.

I can’t let them find this journal; they’ll take it away, and then I won’t have any proof. Not to prove to them, but to myself. They won’t believe me no matter what…but will I believe me if I don’t have the memories written down here, on something I can touch? Will I forget what really happened, and believe whatever they spoon-feed me?

I don’t think I care…let them use me, let them convict me of the murders and lock me up. Just please, God, if you are up there and have control of this frail world…don’t let them open the window.