Authors: Sean Fletcher
“But
I do know Jill,” I said, trying to calm him down. The man looked confused.
“Jack and Jill, you know…the nursery rhyme…” I added weakly. Screw it. “Just
leave him alone.”
I
heard pounding feet as Cody and—wow—even Matt ran up behind me.
“More?”
Another guy said. “Let’s get out of here, before they call the cops.”
The
broad shouldered guy swore. “You couldn’t stay out of it, could you?” He leapt
at me, iron raised above his head way too slow. I blocked his arm and twisted
the tire iron from his grip. He tried to punch my stomach but I shoved him
away.
I
spun out of instinct more than anything else and heard the sound of the iron
pass right by me. He was in perfect position for me to—
I
grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him closer to me. He let out a
startled, “Wha—” before I gripped his wrist, popped my elbow into his
throat and tossed him over my shoulder.
The
irony of the situation didn’t escape me. Not an hour after coming from a class
about fighting, street fighting, no less, and I was street fighting. If that
didn’t prove fate had a sense of humor I didn’t know what did.
I
had forgotten the other three guys. I turned in time for one of them to punch
me in the chin. Hard. I stumbled out of range and rubbed it. I had faced more
than one opponent in scenarios at the monastery. But those had been primarily
for technique, not for actual combat. I would need to readjust my strategy. I
couldn’t be content with finishing a pretty set of moves if it only took one
guy down and left me exposed. I would need to adjust, use the training I had
just learned. Trial by fire.
Two
guys charged me. I picked one and tackled him. We hit the ground hard and I
drove the back of my head into his face with a CRACK and kicked out with both
legs at the other guy. They connected and he fell back and gave me enough time
to get up.
I
checked where Cody and Matt were. Matt had picked up a fallen tire iron and
held it hesitantly in his hands. Cody—
The
other thug punched Cody in the face so hard I heard it from where I was
standing. He toppled over, blood streaming from his nose and chin. The thug
went to follow with his tire iron.
I
moved, filled with a rage the likes of which I had never felt. For that instant
all my learning with the monks about patience vaporized, replaced by an intense
hunger to hurt those who had hurt my friends very, very badly.
I
saw every movement, frame by frame, every detail as though time slowed for me
alone. The man’s curled lip, spittle flying from his mouth, the streetlight
glinting off his tire iron, how many steps it would take to execute a kick to
his stomach.
I
flowed like I had the hundreds of times in the monastery courtyard. Under the
other guy’s arm, cupping his wrist in my hand and hurling him like he weighed
nothing into the other man.
With
the man who had punched Cody, everything just kind of happened. I blinked and
the guy was a bloody, groaning mess on the pavement, his arm bent the wrong
way.
The
reality of what I had done hit me then. I had just pummeled another human
being. What would Sonam have thought of that?
“Sorry!
Sorry!” I said to the men’s crumpled forms. “Oh man! Are you—oh man! I’m
so, so sorry!” Cody was sitting up and looking at me like I was crazy.
“Come
on, Drabe. That was fine.” Then to the woman still cowering near the car. “He’s
a little bit sheltered is all.” I went over and helped Matt get Cody to his
feet.
“I’b
fine! I’b fine!” Cody said, fighting a very bloody nose as Matt shelled out
fistfuls of tissues from his pocket. “Dickwad got a lucky shot.” He flipped a
bloody finger at the thugs’ groaning forms.
“We
need to get out of here,” I said. “Matt, grab his arm.”
“I
can walg,” Cody protested. “Let’s just geb back to the dormb.” He got up and I
ran ahead to check on the couple we had just saved. The woman was helping the
man in to their car. I ducked under one of his arms and helped her ease him
into the passenger’s seat.
“Thank
you! Thank you!” she said, gulping back more tears. “If you hadn’t come
along—”
“Is
he going to be okay?” I asked. The man’s chest rose and fell, but he looked in
bad shape.
The
woman wiped her eyes. “I’m going to the hospital right now.” She leapt in the
car and drove off.
“Drake…”
I looked back at Cody and Matt, Cody still holding tissues to his face. I
glanced at the prone figures nearby. “We’d better go.”
I
nodded.
The
adrenaline wore off just as we got into Cody’s dorm room. My chest tightened.
Breathing was so hard now I could barely stand, but instead leaned heavily on a
chair.
“Drabe?
What wrob, man?”
The
pain was catching up to my hand. The feeling of skin giving way under my fist,
the gristly crunch of the bone as it snapped, the intense pain on the man’s
face. “What—what did I just do?”
“Drabe,
calm down. You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re all here and you did nothing wrong.”
Cody looked uncertain, glancing at Matt for help. “Panic attack?”
“This
isn’t me,” I managed. The air came easier now. “that—that wasn’t supposed
to happen. I just lost it. That’s not what I was taught.”
“You
reacted,” Matt said. “A perfectly reasonable defense response.”
“There
was nothing
reasonable
about that,
Matt.” I pushed myself up and paced the room. Cody and Matt watched me, unsure
of what to do. Cody had stopped bleeding. I was grateful for that. My insides
screamed that I had done something wrong. Hadn’t I?
“Can’t
be right,” I muttered, face in my hands. “I can’t just hurt people like that.”
Cody
stopped my pacing. His face was horribly swollen and purple, tinged with red
under the eyes. “Except when they hib you. You want to blambe someone? Blambe
them. They attacked. You protected. It’s not bad to defend something. Don’t
feelb bad for doing the right thing.”
Was
that the same thing? “I hurt someone, Cody. Really bad.”
“But
he deserved it. And you were protecting sombeone. You were protecting us.
There’s a big difference. You don’t punch everybody you see.” His eyes crinkled
as he tried to smile. A horrible, cracked, smile. “You’re good.”
“You
look like crap,” I said.
“Welb
at least I’m not whining like a baby after saving someone.”
“So…I
guess I did do some good, right?”
Cody
snapped his fingers and pointed at me.
“Bingo. Crap, there it goes again. Matt, you have any more tissues?”
Of
Monsters and Me
A
month passed a lot faster than I thought it would. Nights I didn’t spend
hanging out with Cody, Matt and, surprisingly enough, Melanie (apparently she
wasn’t totally thrown off by Matt’s demeanor), or sparring with Liz I spent
free running through Queensbury. There were plenty of high places to climb and
leap off of buildings when people weren’t looking, and the maze of piping, fire
escapes and ledges made for a jungle gym free running paradise.
As
I grew more used to the ebb and flow of city life, I started to look forward to
my outings. There were places to avoid, sure. Places with shady characters,
where I barely saw any police. But what was blocked off for others was a
challenge for me. Balanced above the dank streets like a hawk, I had full view
of everything. I was separate yet more connected to what was going on below
than I had ever felt to one place.
With
everything putting right along I had nearly forgotten about the letter and
L.S.. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know where I had gotten my abilities
from, but here they were still hidden, and here I was accepted. I was liked,
not feared. I would look for the author of the letter later.
Until
my Psychology professor announced a surprise field trip. Surprise as in,
‘surprise, more work’.
“We
have been given permission by both the president of Queensbury University and
Dr. Cadel of the Monstaff State Mental Health Institute to tour their
facility,” he announced in class. “This will be a rare opportunity for us to
see how a facility runs. Now,” he said hurriedly as whispering erupted among
the rows of students. “We will not see any patients there. Monstaff takes the
privacy of their patients’ recovery with the upmost seriousness. We are simply
there to tour the facility and get a feel for one aspect of the Psychology
field. The patients have their own part of the ward and their treatment is a
very private affair.”
Everybody
had stopped listening by now, including me. Honestly, I really hoped to see a
crazy person.
“Sounds
interesting,” Cody mused, watching a pair of guys a few seats down reenact
their favorite scene from a horror movie. I assumed a mentally unstable person
was involved.
“People!”
Our professor yelled, raising his hands. “Calm down or I will rethink about
accepting the offer!” That eventually shut everybody up.
The
rest of the class the professor showed us a slideshow of the facility we were
going to tour, which didn’t have much of a point since we were going to tour
it.
Blah,
blah, state of the art facility with high tech security and electronic
lockdown, blah, blah, best care available. Seriously, this guy sounded like he
was selling real estate:
Monstaff State Mental
Health Institute. Located on 90 beautiful acres with your own private view.
Just don’t mind the neighbors.
When
the class ended I nudged Cody awake and we walked across the windy campus to
the Lab. “At least we’re finally doing something in the class,” Cody said,
swiping his card and letting us into the building. We crossed the spacious,
cold-tiled lobby, past the manned front desk and to the elevator set off to the
side. Cody pressed the button for up.
“All
the theories and all the th-th-thinking.” He failed to stifle a huge yawn. “I
commend you for working in it.”
Matt
wasn’t in the lab but a giant sticky note was posted on the water materializer:
DON’T
TOUCH
-MATT
Cody
ripped the note off and spun the materializer around. “I don’t know what he
thinks I’m supposed to be working on. I need the credit too.”
I
glanced up as the door slid open and Melanie came in. She had stopped worrying
about me being in the Lab since most of the staff thought I belonged anyway.
She lurched over to one of the chairs and slumped into it.
“Rough
day?” I asked.
“For
a Lab that only accepts the smartest of the smart, there sure are a lot of dumb
kids here. For example, a gas leak in one of the lab rooms is not a ‘small
hindrance’ to your work. Especially if your project is making a less
combustible form of fuel.”
I
raised my eyebrows. “Somebody was doing that?”
She
gave me a look that said,
can you believe
it?
“Was. Thankfully I sniffed it out before he could light the match. And
I thought they were all brilliant.”
“Book
smart, not street smart,” Cody said from the other side of the materializer.
Melanie
looked at what he was doing. “Didn’t Matt say not to touch that?” She said.
Cody waved a dismissive hand.
“I’m
not going to do anything major to it without him here. I just need to get the
credit.”
“Whatever
you want to do,” Melanie said, turning to me. “And anything exciting happen to
you?”
“Class
field trip on Friday in Psychology,” I said. “We’re touring Monstaff State
Mental Health Institute.”
“Wait,
you don’t mean the one I heard about on the news?”
Cody
glanced up from behind the materializer. “Why would a mental health institute
be on the news?”
Melanie
tapped her temple, trying to remember. “I think they recently caught a famous
serial killer. Sykes something. Larry Sykes or
…Lucius Sykes! That’s it.”
The
room felt as if it had just dropped fifty degrees. My legs grew weak. I turned
to Melanie. “Lucius Sykes?” No, it couldn’t be L.S.. There was no way whoever
had sent me the note could be the same person.
“Yeah,
I think that’s who it was.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “I heard he
killed a lot of people. He’s been on the run forever but they just caught him
and stuck him in Monstaff until his trial.”
“Hold
up,” I said. “What has this guy done, again?”
Cody
put down his tool, wiped his hands on a towel and typed something into his
computer. After a moment he said, “Destruction of property, murder, lots of
murder and then more murder—”
My
mouth went dry.
“Weapons
assembly and distribution—”
“Thanks,
Cody—”
“First,
second and third degree murder and, oh look, more murde—Holy cow this
guy’s killed a lot of peo—”
“So
he’s bad,” I said loudly. I was starting to grow sick again. This was the man
who claimed to be like me?
“Melanie’s
right, they caught him pretty recently,” Cody said. “It said he only came back
to the U.S. a year ago. You’d think a guy as wanted as he is would be a bit
more careful.”
Melanie
was looking concernedly at me. “Do you need to sit down, Drake? You don’t look
so good.”
“I’m…fine.”
I was definitely not fine. The chances of Lucius Sykes, a serial killer of all
people, being the same as me had to be a bad joke.
Cody
snapped his computer shut. “Great. So we’re going to be in the same facility
that’s housing a madman. Doesn’t that just tickle your fancy, Drake?”
It
took me a moment to answer. “Sure does,” I said. It did, actually. There was no
way L.S. was Lucius Sykes, and I would find out for sure when we went to
Monstaff. If I was careful, it wouldn’t take long to sneak into the back, find
Sykes, easily figure out that he wasn’t the one who sent me the note, and then
I could forget all about him. No problem.
“Melanie’s
right, Drake, you don’t look too good.”
“I’m
fine,” I repeated. And I was.
The
entrance to Monstaff…did not look the part of the creepy, drab building Cody
and I had thought it would be. The cheery sign was framed by neat bushes and ornamental
flowers. It looked downright cheerful.
Then
we hit the actual facility.
Now
that
looked like what we’d imagined.
Gloom seemed to radiate from the complex itself. Paled white and grey brick
held barred windows that looked like narrowed eyes. A forest of dead trees
collapsed in on the road and squeezed against the building. I honestly thought
it looked nicer than some of the dorms at Queensbury, but I could be biased.
The
bus pulled into the semi-circle and we got out and were greeted by a doctor in
a freshly pressed suit and a clipboard hanging at his side.
“Greetings,
everybody!” He said, grinning broadly and opening his arms. “Yes, yes, come
closer! My name is Dr. Cadel and I’ll be your guide today.”
Cody
nudged me. “You think this guy went a little loopy working here?”
Dr.
Cadel was saying something about staying together in our groups and asked if
there were any questions. When there were none he continued.
“Lastly,
your professor has told me some of you have expressed concerns about the
patients. Let me assure you that you are perfectly safe. We take our job very
seriously at Monstaff to maintain the upmost safety for visitors and patients.
Okay?” He stood there, staring at all of us until he decided nobody was going
to speak up. “Right, let’s get a move on then.”
“He
shouldn’t have said that,” I said as we passed through the front doors into a
sterile white waiting room. “Now I know something bad is going to happen.”
“Yeah,
we’d better watch our backs,” Cody said, chuckling. But I saw him glance behind
us when he thought I wasn’t looking.
We
walked down a hallway lined with offices and filled with the sound of clicking
keyboards and people talking on phones. It looked extremely professional but
the neatness and formality of it all made my skin crawl. Despite this, most of
the doctors smiled or waved. Some shut their doors when we walked by. I kept my
eyes peeled for any opening I could use to sneak away. I of course hadn’t told
Cody about my plan to get into the back. Surely, with all these kids around,
there would be a quick chance.
One
doctor in the hallway ahead of us caught sight of Dr. Cadel and walked
purposefully towards him. He didn’t even ask to speak to him, but interrupted
Dr. Cadel’s talk on patient treatment to whisper in his ear. As he spoke, Dr.
Cadel’s smile stayed but grew more forced.
“Excuse
me, ladies and gentlemen.” He shot another wide smile to distract us then
turned and muttered something into a radio from his pocket.
“Wonder
if those are some of the patients.” I nodded out one of the office windows to a
green, open courtyard enclosed by the high walls of the facility. A few men
shambled back and forth, every now and then glancing up at the grey stone
around them.
“They
look normal,” Cody said. “Maybe they’re gardeners. One of them has clipping
shears.”
“Sorry
about that, everybody,” Dr. Cadel said, returning to us. He looked disgruntled
and a little annoyed now. “Just a little problem. Nothing to worry about.”
“
Sykes
,” Cody mouthed.
I
couldn’t manage to say anything back.
“Though
we treat convicted criminals here at Monstaff,” Dr. Cadel said as we stepped
into another hallway with no windows and blank white walls, “we don’t see them
as all bad, but as sick. They are people that need our help but committed
serious crimes as a result of their sickness.”
“Do
you have anybody really dangerous here?” A student in the front asked. Dr.
Cadel’s neck swiveled until his eyes locked on the guy who had asked the
question.
“I’m
not entirely sure what you mean, young man. There are some patients who, yes,
require more…preventative measures than others. I suppose to a certain extent
they are all dangerous, but more to themselves than to anyone else.”
“But
is there anybody here we may have heard of?” The guy pressed.
“I
believe I answered your question,” Dr. Cadel said coldly. “And I ask that you
keep future questions related to serious matters, instead of treating our
patients like some sort of celebrities. Now, we’re moving into the basic
treatment area—”
The
lights wavered and died.
Somebody
screamed and Dr. Cadel yelled, “Don’t panic! I was told we were having issues
with the main generator. The backup generator is—ah, here it is.”
The
lights flickered on again. I saw wide eyes and a couple of girls clutching each
other. I guess there aren’t many worse places to have a scare than a mental
health institute with a mentally deranged killer somewhere inside.
I
glanced through the double doors to the treatment area where a few doctors
hurried back and forth, speaking into radios. They didn’t look calm. Most
carried flashlights like they were expecting the generator to die again.
Dr.
Cadel was trying to speak over the throng of uneasy muttering, but it looked
like a lost cause.
“Can
we go now?” One guy yelled and a few people agreed.
“Move
back towards the front, please,” Dr. Cadel yelled. “Please move—”