Ashes (7 page)

It was like the man didn't hear a thing. “You're not listening to me. I don't feel brave at all.”

“But you are. Perhaps I need to remind you of it more often.” Dr. Carraway smiled, his teeth glistening like ceramic.

“Forget it. If these memories are real, what do they mean? Why can't I remember other things, like what I'm doing in here?”

“Give it time. We've been at this for months, as I've told you, but today is a breakthrough.”

“Great. Cue the infomercial.”

“Take it easy,” Carraway said. “It
will
come together. Your mind is in startling disarray, searching for all of its lost pieces. On this journey, I can help, but I can't make it for you.”

Arson's mind was swimming. Drowning. Maybe that would've been better. He fidgeted in his chair, his skin begging to crawl off. “This isn't right. None of it fits. I don't belong here. I'm a good kid, right?” Arson crunched his eyebrows together. “I don't steal. Don't do drugs. I'm not
crazy
!”

“Calm down. I don't think you'll gain anything from my divulging everything to you. I've already given too much, I fear. You're brave, Stephen, but that doesn't mean you're invincible.”

Arson rubbed his forehead. His breathing became normal, but he was blinking fast, swallowing often.
Still thirsty.
He took another sip of water.

“You're in here for doing a very bad thing,
Stephen
,” the doctor said. “But what happened isn't your fault,
Stephen
. You are here to get well,
Stephen
, mentally, physically, and…emotionally.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“But Stephen is your name.”

“And what, what are you talking about?” Arson said. “Mentally well, what? I still don't see what's wrong with me. You keep speaking in riddles. You stupid doctors are all the same. No answers. Just questions. Forget you!”

“It will return. For now, let's continue with what we left off with last time. Perhaps you recall that I am helping you with not only your mental state but also your completion of high school requirements,” Carraway continued. “We'll work on all your basic studies. There's no reason why you can't gain an education during this process.”

What was all this?
Rehabilitation and mental guidance?
High school requirements?
It was too much to soak in all at once. Arson wanted to fight it so badly, but for the moment, he decided to keep quiet, to go along with whatever sick joke this happened to be.
 

The doctor walked to the back of the room, where only a chalkboard hung, and began writing out a quadratic equation. “This is quite basic. I want you to come up here and solve this.”

The last thing Arson wanted to do was solve an equation. His entire mind was an equation. “That seems complicated. Don't think I was good at math. I would've remembered.”

“Very funny. But that's nonsense. You might surprise yourself.” Dr. Carraway held the piece of chalk out, waiting for Arson to meet him.

Reluctantly, Arson got up and started by scribbling fractions and equal signs, hoping for some spark of genius to hit. But it wasn't happening.

“Get all of the variables on one side first. Then check to see if it is in proper form. Once it is, factor out the greatest common factor and deal with the remaining numbers.” The doctor dragged his fingers across the slate board, one hand still in his pants pocket. “Once you solve for
x
, plug in the answer and check your work. This is junior-year stuff, Stephen. As I am aware, you passed algebra II with flying colors.”

It sounded so simple coming out of somebody else's mouth. But there didn't seem to be any answers at all, only questions and equations with no values.
Primes and confusion.
No absolutes. Another twenty minutes were spent toying with diagrams and complicated theorems that Dr. Carraway assured him had been covered in previous sessions.

“Have you completed the written assignment for today's session, Stephen?” the doctor asked once they switched to English.

“Written assignment?”

“Yes, it was a writing prompt. I asked you to write about your dreams. What you recall specifically. Your grandmother, for instance, or your high school prom.”

Arson shrugged. “I didn't go to prom.”

“So you remember? Good. That's
very
good.”

Wait, how did he remember that? He thought back to that night, tried to remember what he did instead, but it was all hazy. Was he working? Hanging out with friends?

No, I don't have any…except her
.
 

“You look slightly nonplussed. That means confused, in case you didn't know. Should be one of the vocabulary words I had you look into. But I'm guessing you didn't complete that assignment, either.” Dr. Carraway sighed, making notes. “Stephen, how do you expect to heal if you aren't doing your part? There's no reason your education should stop simply because you're in here getting better.”

“Wait, stop this crap. Since when are you a teacher anyway, Doc? Just who are you!”

“Calm down, Stephen. I told you, I am your psychologist. I am also quite qualified to guide you through your basic studies. In addition to counseling you, I am your teacher, for the time being.”

“And how long is that going to be?”

“Well, I suppose that's up to you. The overseers of this institution pay a lot of money to invest in the minds of those who need it. Play ball and they might let you go early. Your eighteenth birthday is approaching.”

“Wait. What month is it?”

“December. It'll be Christmas in a few weeks.”

“How is that possible?”

“It begins here, Stephen.” The doctor nudged his index finger up against his forehead. “Once you realize this, the rest is cake.”

A short pause walked between them.

“Speaking of cake, why don't we call it an afternoon?
But
I want those assignments, along with the
reading,
completed by the next time we meet. So keep busy.” The doctor signaled his guard to bring in a slice of cake. “I snuck one in for you. It was mine, but we'll keep this our little secret.”

Arson's face changed slightly. He nodded, slicing the fork through the moist triangle. “Your grandmother used to make carrot cake, didn't she?”

Arson remembered the taste of something similar. His brain flashed pictures of one of his birthdays, when he was much younger. The bitter face Grandpa made when Grandma forced him to eat it, even though he didn't want to. There weren't kids around to celebrate, no party to speak of. He must've been four or something, but the image was so hazy, he couldn't be sure. The taste of this cake helped recreate the static images briefly.

“I think so,” Arson finally answered.

“Well, I wouldn't dare compare your grandmother's baking to this.” A grin climbed up the side of Carraway's mouth, as he stood up. “But try to enjoy it. I'm not much of a cake person.”

Neither was Grandpa
, Arson thought. He shoved another bite down his throat and took a sip of water. “Please tell me what happened to my grandmother, Dr. Carraway. I need to know,” he said sternly, eyes peeled and narrowed with anticipation. “How did she die?”

“I don't think that's something you're ready to hear yet.”

“Please! Tell me.”

Dr. Carraway looked at the guard, an air of uncertainty mixed with deliberate pause. He placed his hands on his waist, locking eyes with Arson. “It was a fire. She was asleep, the police believe, when the house went up in smoke. I'll spare you the details, but I'm afraid your grandmother didn't make it out alive. In fact, there was nothing left of your home.”

Arson put his fork down. He suddenly felt very sick. A thick cloud hovered over his mind. He stared at the guard then back at the doctor. None of this was right. What kind of man would lie like that? Make up some kind of twisted story? Was he toying with Arson's emotions for the thrill of it? He couldn't take this charade any longer. Enraged, Arson got up and grabbed Dr. Carraway by the throat. “Get me outta here!” he shouted. “I wanna see for myself.”

“Stephen, you're choking me. I'm here to help you. Remember?” the doctor said calmly,
face blistering
red. “Let go of me!”

“No more lies! None of this makes any sense,” Arson said, his hands swelling hot around the doctor's neck.

“It will,” the doctor struggled. “Your mind continues to remain unwilling…to accept…truth.”

“Liar!” Arson screamed, before everything suddenly went black.

Arson's body thudded hard against the floor, unconscious.

“Thank you,” the doctor said, looking at the guard who had knocked his patient out. Gasping for air, he reached up to touch his throat. It stung. The skin was burned.
 
  

“No way,” the guard pointed out with big eyes. “Look at your neck. That little runt burned you.”

Carraway rubbed his throat one last time. It stung. “I think this afternoon's session went slightly better than expected.” He grinned, torn between concern and unbelief. These sessions had no end in sight. He wondered how long the boy's mind could take it all, if he could take it all.

The doctor reached down on the floor to grab his pen and notepad, staring one last time at the boy on the floor. “It seems the arson is back after all.”

10

 

THE SHADOW APPEARED AND then disappeared again. For a split second, it gave Emery the feeling that someone was there, watching over her, but it left so quickly that the only thing she could surmise was that the shadow didn't come to save her. Desperate for some hope, she put her face to the wall and yelled; the loneliness began to clothe her bones.
 

“Come back. Please, just talk to me. Tell me your name. Who are you? Why am I here?”

But never was there an answer. Emery lay there on the cold floor, kneeling and scratching in the dark. There was a stitch of light hoping to be noticed beneath the door, where the shadow toyed with her. She lay still and quiet awhile, counted all the lines in this room—this winter coffin—the ones she could see, at least.

Her vision fought to adjust to the black. Every now and then the lights flickered, like smoke from a candle, but the dark was messing with her logical mind. Sometimes she imagined shapes and colors crawling up the walls, things that weren't there. They had claws and fangs and yellow stares, but upon the next blink, the haunting apparitions disintegrated back into nothingness.
 

She screamed, bashing her trembling fist into a divot in the wall. “You psychos! Where am I! Let me go. I'm not the freak. You are. You have to let me go!”

They didn't have to do anything. They were already doing it. Whatever plan, whatever scheme this was, she was stuck here. Screaming and yelling orders didn't change her situation. It was
all useless
. She wasn't getting out. No one was coming to save her. No hero in a cape. No weird alien boy coming to light this cell on fire.
That's just not normal
, she reminded herself.
That's not how things happen in boring, real life.

She was beginning to doubt if she had ever even really seen what she believed took place that night on the beach. She felt like old Ebenezer, trying to find fault with his senses. No Jacob Marley, no spirits, just doubt and loneliness to warm her and fear to reminisce with the cold.

“Arson. I need you.” Emery rubbed her face. It was still ruined. This place created a need to somehow create a mask once more, to hide from the dark, from the weaknesses that still craved a way out of her.
 

Just then, the shadow slipped by a second time, its colorless, formless shape crawling underneath the
door frame
.

“Hello?” she called, leaning on her ribs and nudging her eye against the bottom slit. “Hello, please just answer. I need to know somebody's there.” She started tearing up. “Please.”

“Keep your voice down,” the shadow said finally. “I can't stay long. I'm not supposed to be here.”

“What?” Emery said. “Who are you!
”

The shadow pressed a hand up against the door. “You have to whisper.”

* * *

Arson pulled his lips apart, letting his mouth hang open. He wanted to scream, but this place put too much fear in him. No words found escape. Only the empty breath now exiled.
 

He was in a hallway. Stuck. Part of him recognized where he was. It was cloudy, though, like fog had somehow slipped into the old building he remembered as middle school. He tried moving faster, to get out, but the doors were locked.
 

Hello?
he
wanted to scream.
What am I doing in here?

No answer came to settle his thoughts, just the open silence and the faces jetting past him. Smoke. Smoke and pictures of memories, drones he used to know. He recognized some, others trapped far too deeply in the past. He'd forgotten the year or the day, didn't even know what time it was, because for the life of him he couldn't find a clock. Not one that ticked anyway.

His heart was a gavel.
Boom! Crash! Boom!
He could feel it in his ears. And then a piercing sensation started to stir the fluid at the center of his skull, as if something were drilling there.
Vizzz,
it hissed.
Snip. Buzz. Crash! Boom!
Vizzz!

Arson thought about stepping into one of the classrooms, sitting in on a discussion of
The Outsiders
or maybe stopping in to see an old social studies teacher. But something blocked him at all the doorways. Other students were allowed in but not him. An invisible force kept him out. The echoed laughs of children chilled and haunted Arson at the core. The children could see him now. All of them—the boys and girls he wasn't sure even knew his name. But they remembered him, even if he didn't remember them.

“I am the outsider,” he mouthed.

Arson blinked, hoping that might shut them out, but their eyes found him, studied him. Kids with long hair like his, but with grins stitched into their vile mouths, smiles he wasn't sure how to create. They pointed, stared, pointed. “Look at the freak!” they taunted. “Look what he did. Monster! Killer!” The teacher couldn't hear them. Maybe he didn't want to. Why did they hate him so much?

Arson looked down to scrutinize himself. To his confusion, he was covered in ashes. His hands were crusted over and black, drops of blood staining the bent tips of his fingers. His skin glowed red and then turned pale. Raising his hands to his face, Arson lightly touched the disintegrating flesh. Bits of his skin floated to the floor, charred. He watched the ashes disappear all around him as he stopped up his ears, begging for the madness to end.

I want to be free
, he begged silently.
Get me out!

Arson fled down the hallway, the piercing eyes
of
an old teacher and countless vile children creeping toward him as he drifted by. He swore he even saw Danny, lost among the voices, the faces,
the
condemnation. Another layer of skin tore off from his arm and floated to the floor. He could see bone.

He needed a way out of here, and fast. Past lockers and administrators' offices he stormed, eyes peeled and wide with anxiety. Posters of the evening's basketball game surrounded him. He was there, wasn't he? It was all so unclear. Was this real? Was he? Had he been in the bleachers when one of the shooting guards sank that three-pointer? Was he there to watch Mandy, with her skirt hiked up, float in the air with a rowdy cheer the whole gym clapped to?

Yes, you were. This is real. You're remembering
.
You must be.
But Arson couldn't be sure of anything—not this place, not his conscience; or was that Dr. Carraway's invading now?

Why did only some memories return?

The rumor was that Mandy lost her virginity on the night of the big game. He'd wished so many times that it had been him. Before he met Emery and everything changed.
She gave me a new purpose.

A strange stillness consumed the hallway. Everything went numb. A cold quiet dropped from the ceiling, spilling into him and all around him. Empty cold. Lifeless cold.
Soundless footsteps and words that remained deep inside of him.
Locker doors swinging back and forth to no clamor.
Papers floating in the dead air.

Arson stumbled down the hall. Where was the exit? His body was getting sore, tired. He raced through a set of double doors.
The only doors that would welcome him.
Arson was sure this led to the cafeteria, which led to the parking lot where kids used to make bets on how long he could last without sweating like a Popsicle.

He flew down the stairs, not even feeling his feet anymore but knowing they were there to carry him, at least for now. The cafeteria hall was empty too. Except for a janitor who was mopping the floor at the end of the room. Arson couldn't see him clearly, but the man was working with a slow and calm disposition, like he was eerily anticipating Arson's next move as he soaked the mop's filthy dreads into water before splashing them across the checkered tiles. “They're waiting for you in there,” the janitor spoke in a deep voice.

Creepy.

“Who is?” Arson asked. As his feet edged closer he tore awake with a terrified scream.
 

Furious curses exploded within the dim room. He was on a cold table again, removed from that prison with the checkered floor. He couldn't swallow. Breathing was a chore, and his lungs were fatigued and lazy. Arson swore he heard the crash of a machine, broken pieces scattering on the floor to compound the panic. His lips mouthed a silent, spiteful prayer that whatever it was would burn. That
this whole place would be swallowed by flames and smoke
. Frightened blurs stammered over his shaking body.
 
“Lemme go,” he begged, coming to. “Not…real…. Get me…out…” His words eventually trailed off.

A sharp sting crept inside. Whatever sedative these sick people were pumping into him was growing more potent with each gasp. The dosage was strong and relentless, and he was weak to its charm. The needles spearing into his brain were quelled for now at the shores of a dizzy consciousness. Waves of pink flesh and blinding white light. He'd come back to the real world.

The heat reversed. He felt chills; then weakness; then nothing.

* * *

Emery focused all of herself on the words the shadow was saying. She felt a sinking in her gut, a skip in her chest. But the voice was young and soft.
 

“Emery?” He was hushed but anxious.

“What? Yeah. I mean, how the—how do you know my name?”

“Doesn't matter,” the shadow replied, its black shape sliding in and out of sight. The voice came from a person possibly her age. The boy's presence was like Arson's. For some strange reason, she felt peace with him on the other side.
 

“Oh—okay. Do you…work in this place?”

“There isn't time. Emery, I'm not what you think I am.”

“Where am I? What are they doing to me? Why am I here?”

“You're in a place called Salvation. It's an asylum. At least, the top floors are. But down here, nobody knows you even exist. This is the invisible level, part of the Sanctuary.”

“The Sanctuary?”

 
He seemed to measure each breath, almost as if it were his last. “You're a special girl. That's why they want you.”

“No, I'm not. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. What are they after? When my dad finds out, he'll—” Emery broke down, wondering where her father was, if he were even alive. Would he ever find her?
The shadow pressed his hand upon the cold surface again. “Place your hand against the door.”

She unfolded her fist and placed her palm against the cracks and metallic splinters. “All right,” she breathed out slowly. “I want to get outta here. Can you help me?”

 
“I don't know,” he said. “The eyes of God are everywhere. But I had to meet you. I
had
to be sure.”

“Of what?”

“That you were real. They've been talking. They're planning something, Emery. I can't let you be involved in what is to come. We have to leave. Soon. It will
increase
,
get worse
. I can't let that happen.”

“Who are you?” she asked, panic creeping up her throat. “Are you going to hurt me?”

“No. I—” he cursed under his breath. “Someone's coming. I have to move fast before the cameras rotate again. I will find you again.”

Emery prayed that his voice would stay, even if he didn't. She imagined it was Arson, imagined that voice could save her completely. In seconds, the sound of his bare feet running down the corridor seemed to cause vibrations in her hand.

“What is your name?”

But she was too late; the shadow couldn't hear her.