Asylum (16 page)

Rummaging through his desk drawer, Dan unearthed the first note. He held the two of them side by side. He looked at the spidery handwriting, the paper, the ink—everything matched up perfectly. Other than that, he couldn’t tell much. He couldn’t even say for sure whether the notes had been written by a man or woman.

So, to sum up everything he knew— a nameless, genderless stalker with a fondness for Ray Bradbury was out to terrorize him.

He thought about calling Abby or Jordan but decided not to. The notes were for him, not Abby or Jordan. Someone was trying to get at
him
.

Dan ate microwave popcorn from his care package for dinner and then huddled under his blanket. He couldn’t stop shivering. His mind was going around in little circles.

He pulled out his phone and thumbed through his contacts, finally hovering over Dr. Oberst’s phone number. If anyone could hear him out without judging him, it would be her. And she had told him to call her
any time
this summer if things got bad.

But what would he even be calling to tell her? If he told her about how he’d imagined
real
rooms before he’d seen them, she’d probably ask for a therapy session—but the notes? How could those be his fault?

Dan had never doubted himself as much as he did in that second. What if he was the “twisted root” at the heart of everything that was going wrong?

He threw his covers off, jumped out of bed, and took the two notes from his desk. He ripped them in half, and then in half again. He refused to let someone else string him along like this. He refused to let someone else keep him caged in his room, in his mind.

He was going to go with his gut on this one. And his gut was telling him he would find answers in the basement.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER

N
o
 20 

D
an knew it was not his best idea, sneaking into the basement by himself. To start with, the door would be locked. One of the hall monitors might be standing guard. But he wasn’t going to overthink this. Thinking hadn’t gotten him anywhere.

Out in the hall, the lights were too bright. He longed for the cover of total darkness. At least nobody was around. They were probably all at dinner or out doing their own thing like Felix.

Still, Dan didn’t want to get careless. He sneaked over to where the vending machines were and was about to turn the corner to the warden’s office when he saw a dark silhouette appear at the end of the hall. Footsteps. Voices. For a terrifying instant, thoughts of the Sculptor or another of Brookline’s killers returning to stalk the halls made his body tighten up all over. He pressed himself against the wall, hoping he would blend into the shadows.

“They should just trade him and do everyone a favor,” said a male voice. Dan let out his breath, not even aware he’d been holding it. It wasn’t a ghost; it was Joe.

“Whatever, man.”

Dan didn’t recognize the second voice. Probably another hall monitor. Were they patrolling the halls, making sure no one went down to the basement? Dan stood there for what felt like forever, until finally, he saw Joe and his buddy go out the front door. He waited a minute or two more just to be safe, and then he turned the corner to the old wing. Luck was on his side—the heavy door was not only unguarded, it was unlocked. Probably Joe hadn’t snapped the padlock shut all the way the other night, Dan convinced himself. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the door was ready and waiting for him.

Dan slipped inside and the stale air wrapped itself around him like a welcome. He had forgotten how dark it was down here. He clicked on his flashlight, but without anyone to break the silence, the darkness was exponentially scarier.

Dan plunged through the reception room and into the outer office, the one with the scratched-off letters on the glass. He retraced their steps from last time, pausing to check that the photos were still stacked neatly on the desk. From its frame on the wall, the photo of the struggling patient seemed to be taunting him.
The Sculptor, patient 361.

Dan crouched behind the file cabinet and climbed through the secret passage. Without hesitating, he pointed his flashlight at the stairwell and hurried down, knowing that if he waited he might lose his courage and turn back. The lower hall was still a mess. He cautiously navigated the chairs and gurneys. The last thing he needed was to break his neck tripping over a piece of furniture. It’d be a while before anyone found his body.

Dan moved past the empty cells. It felt like something might jump out of every one.

He moved quickly now, anxious to get to the pristine inner office. Apart from his thumping heartbeat and quick breaths, the hallway was eerily silent.

Steps away from the rotunda room and the office beyond, his foot collided with something small but heavy. It rolled noisily away into the darkness, and Dan focused his light on the floor, following the little trail whatever it was had left through the dust, across the floor, and into one of the open cells.

In the middle of the room, Dan reached up and risked pulling the old string attached to the ceiling light. A single, naked bulb clicked on, buzzing and flickering for a moment before bathing the cell in a faint, yellow glow. It was barely enough to see by, but it was better than his flashlight.

Dan looked around. This was one of the many cells he and Abby hadn’t explored. There was a table and a bed, but nothing else. He squinted, turning in a complete circle. What had he kicked and where had it gone?

Then a soft, high-pitched chime started up from under the bed. Dan stumbled toward the sound, as whatever it was crackled faintly and then began to sing.

No, not sing—play music … Dan crouched, the hairs on his forearms standing up as the broken, off-key tune of a music box filled the room. He didn’t recognize the melody. It sounded so old he wasn’t sure anyone alive would. Dan fished under the bed until his fingers ran over the ridged metal surface of the box. He nudged it out carefully, then picked it up to examine. There were two broken springs sticking out on either side. Standing on top was a little porcelain figurine, a ballerina. She was in a dancer’s pose, her arms curved gracefully above her head. Half of her face was missing, but it was hard to make out details beyond that. The paint had long since chipped away.

Dan listened to the painful crawl of the song as the notes wound down, the mechanical tune dying a lingering death. Finally, it stopped, and the room fell silent once more.

He tipped the box over and found an inscription etched into the bottom.

To Lucy: On your birthday with love.

Dan stared at the words for a long time, hoping maybe if he just waited they’d change or disappear. This couldn’t be the same Lucy, could it? Abby’s Lucy? If Abby’s story had been true, it didn’t seem like Lucy’s parents would have been the type to send a birthday present. Maybe it was a gift from the warden himself. Either way, what was it doing down here? Did it mean that Lucy had … died … or just left it behind?

Dan kept worrying the question like a sore tooth. One thing he knew for sure: he would not be sharing this discovery with Abby. She would go out of her mind worrying about what it meant.

He set the box back down the floor and turned to leave the cell behind him. But suddenly, the disjointed song started up again, getting louder and clearer and faster as it played. Dan thought about smashing the box to stop it, but he chose to flee instead. That box had meant something to someone, once.

Dan continued down the hall, coming to the rotunda off which he and Abby had found the inner office. This time he took full stock of the space, shining his flashlight all along the wall and finding a small doorway across from the office. He took hold of the knob and turned. The door wasn’t locked, but it didn’t budge either. It had swollen shut in the dampness and gloom. Putting all his weight behind it, Dan turned and pushed as hard as he could. The door shrieked a protest, but open it did, and Dan only just caught himself from a nasty fall. Lowering before him was another set of stairs.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER

N
o
 21 

D
an was looking into a yawning void. How far under the earth did this place go, anyway?

The cold rushing up from the space below was shocking. His sweatshirt wasn’t close to being warm enough; he should have brought a damn
parka
. And couldn’t they have built the stairs a little wider? A safety inspector would have a heart attack—these stairs were steep, narrow, and had a sheer drop on both sides, with only a tiny pole of a railing to hold on to.

Clutching the rail in one hand and his flashlight in the other, Dan took the first step. Three stairs, four, ten. At fifteen steps, he reached a small landing, but he still couldn’t see the floor with his flashlight. Just more and more stairs, pitched at a nightmarish incline, leading into the bowels of the basement.

One more landing, twelve more steps, and at last he reached the bottom. He shined his cell up and around, watching as the meager light failed to find the top or even sides of … What, a cave? A vault? He couldn’t be sure, but he could tell it was enormous. Coughing, he listened to the sound bounce and echo for a solid minute before finally fading away.

He slowly walked forward into the huge space. There were wooden posts that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Otherwise, the hall he was in seemed completely empty.

Finally, he reached a square arch leading into yet another space beyond. Dan suddenly felt like laughing—he’d been creeped out by the expansiveness of the cell level and the warden’s secret office, but this was something else, something he could hardly fathom, even as his eyes fed him the information. It was like a palace down here. What could it have been used for?

But this was the last room; it had to be. Shining his light all around, he found a rusted metal box screwed into the wall beside him, and he carefully nudged open the front panel. The rusty hinges squealed, and the echoes in the chamber reverberated endlessly.

He’d hit the jackpot. There were switches in the box, and lots of them. Dan flicked the biggest one and was rewarded with a low hum, then a buzz, and finally a quiet pop as the lights came up. Only a few worked, and one exploded overhead in a shower of glass and sparks. Dan ducked instinctively, and then gasped.

He was looking down into an operating amphitheater.

In the very middle of the room was a raised wooden platform, and standing dead center was an operating table. It was covered with a smooth sheet, originally white, now gray with dust. There was a padded pillow at the top. Leather straps, buckled, trisected the bed. Around the main table stood a few smaller tables on wheels. They had surgical instruments on them.

Encircling the platform were stepped rows of chairs, like in a sports arena.
The stands
. As if watching someone’s surgery was some kind of amusement …

With a sickening lurch, Dan realized he’d seen this room before, too, in another nightmare. In his dream, he’d started out
on
that table.

He moved slowly down the stands, drawn to the platform. He walked a complete circle around it, his eyes never leaving the padded headrest. How many killers had been treated here? Had little Lucy been strapped down for surgery while people
watched
? Dan thought of the scar on her forehead that suggested a lobotomy. If it had been that, and she had survived, poor little Lucy wouldn’t have had much of a life.