Authors: Thomas Cater
*
I could see late shadows gliding down the basement
windows. I knew my chance of finding more documents regarding the wall were
slim. I was ready to withdraw. I was not planning on burning the midnight oil
in a lunatic asylum.
I had entered the Ryder mansion and made two
successful forays into labyrinthine halls. I survived where several of my
predecessors had met with untimely accidents. I knew I was destined to learn more
before anything critical befell me. It was not because I was such an inveterate
seeker, but because I, like Samuel, was not likely to walk away from an
investment.
I returned the records to the files. I left them in
better shape then I found them and retraced my steps to the corridor. Emerging
from a relatively well-lighted room, I received a
sudden
shock.
I did not realize how dark and empty those long
basement corridors were. I could not see an end; it looked as if it went on
forever. I could see darkened little doorways recessed into walls, but not a glimpse
of light. The only light in sight was a dim yellow bulb shining beside a
distant alarm and extinguisher. If I could get that far without a panic attack,
the worse, I suspected, would be over.
I started slowly, one foot in front of the other; the
way wisdom books say. The longest journey, I recall, begins with the first step.
The ancient wisdom, however, wasn’t working. I wasn’t getting anywhere, or
going very fast. I could have just as easily believed the light at the end of
the hall was receding.
Eventually I reached the fire alarm and breathed a
sigh of relief, but that was before I saw the hall opening off to the right and
descending down into an even darker labyrinth. I began to wonder if it was
possible to get lost in the basement of a hospital and wander around for years
living off rodents and other creepy-crawlies that inhabited the darkness. I
made the turn automatically, like a psychotic bent on self-destruction, and
marched straight into that dark, dank, cavern, where they carted what was left
of those cadavers and the remains of their dissected and lobotomized brains.
Waves of heat were increasing on my body like a
sickening tide. I was either en route to the furnace room or taking a detour
to hell. I could not understand the bureaucratic necessity of keeping such a
monolithic structure in total darkness, just to save electricity. I could not
believe taxpayers or elected officials could be so parsimonious. I had gone
deep enough into the bowels of that hospital to start feeling worried about my
own mental health. I am not the kind of guy to remain under perfect control
when I am accosted on all sides by profound darkness.
As a child, I would lie awake in the middle of the
night watching the stars and the bright shiny moon, but when the sky darkened
and the moon and stars disappeared, and I could not see my hand before my face,
I panicked. The suffocating darkness knew my fear. My only option was to scream,
until some torchbearer came to set the night sky ablaze.
I know well and appreciate man’s glorification and
worship of fire, not as the source of heat, but of light. It is not in its
warmth that men rejoice, that came much later, but in its ability to purify the
darkness, to drive out the dark matter and shadows and destroy the hiding
places of terrifying creatures that threaten to devour all in the all-devouring
darkness. What a blessing it must have been to see the sunrise. I have always
believed it is unfortunate that men, as are other creatures, not gifted with
eyesight that illuminates the darkness.
I moved uneasily closer to the wall, but it felt even
more dangerous. I was knocking against great bolls of dust and cankered paint,
spider webs and things I couldn’t see, but only imagine. At one point, I felt
something cold and firm. My fingers drew images in my mind of a desiccated
corpse.
I tried to speak, to make familiar and friendly sounds.
Directly in front of me, I began to hear a deep and steady roar. The heat was intense,
crawling over my face like a troop of army ants. I knew the last place anyone
would look for my remains would be the basement of a mental hospital, but something
continued to draw me toward the heat.
I began to walk blindly, with my arms outstretched,
imagining how this situation might affect a child such as Elinore. Filled with
an even greater fear, I kept my face turned toward my shoulder in anticipation
of running into an open door or some random barrier.
My hands suddenly hit a door. It burst open, struck
the wall, and flew back into my shoulder, but I was through the doorway and
standing 30 feet from a roaring inferno.
Chapter Eighteen
Their eyes were yellow, limpid slow-moving orbs in a
sea of shadows that seemed to take forever to focus. Prognathous jaws carved
from the same recessive genes attested to the singularity of their pitiful
heritage. For a moment, I thought I was in trouble. I thought I had penetrated
into some inner sanctum guarded by three were
-
bears. I could see those little
dwarves or gnomes, or whatever they were, had never ventured beyond their
furnace room and were as equally disturbed by my intrusion into their domain.
They were veteran inmates who had succeeded in
climbing out of their walled rooms and acquired some useful purpose to the
hospital. In fact, they had made themselves so useful the institution could not
function without them, without going to a great deal of expense.
A cart near the door was loaded with trays full of
dirty dishes. In the light provided by the furnace, I could see an entry that
led into another dark hall, but with no light whatsoever emanating. Hanging
upon the wall near the doorway were hard hats topped with battery-operated
lanterns and an assortment of picks and shovels.
As my eyes became more accustomed to the limited
darkness, I saw that the entry was not a doorway at all but a huge hole carved
in the basement wall and leading into the earth! A narrow set of rails reached
from the shaft’s darkness and passed by bins loaded with lumps of pulverized coal.
It was a mine. The little gnomes, darkened by
coal-dust and sweat, had been working a mine in the institution’s basement! They
stared at me without moving. I detected a smile on their dull and inept faces
and tried to communicate.
“Forgive my intrusion, but I’m lost. Is this the way
to the administration office?”
They did not appear to comprehend or even hear my
question. Their witless expressions shifted slowly to fatuous smiles. Their
arms and hands moved in a strange pantomime, which led me to believe they were
not anti-social. I approached, exercising caution.
“Can you tell me how to get out of here?”
The one standing closest to the furnace pointed toward
the mine entrance.
“No, how can I get upstairs, back to the big chief’s
office?”
Big chief? Good grief! I was talking like a den mother
to a pack of cub scouts. They grinned like possums and scratched themselves. I
responded in kind, grinning and nodding, and started walking backward toward
the long dark corridor.
They proceeded to feed the furnace. With each lump of burning
coal, the furnace belched and roared. Flames leaped threatening to cremate the gnomes’
gnarled little bodies. I pushed through the door and lengthened my stride
intent upon getting out as fast as I could.
My eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and the
light from the open furnace door illuminated the hall. I was not at all
comfortable with what I saw. There were dozens of old mattresses lined up and
stacked against the wall, including worn out hospital equipment, and cases of old
unused supplies gathering dust. There were leather restraining straps,
harnesses and jackets, items that looked as if they might have been used to
train circus animals, all molding in the gloom.
There were also rows of worn out and obsolete gurneys.
Many of them looked as if they still held the final remains of their last
patients. I did not have the courage to remove the dust-laden sheets and expose
whatever lay concealed beneath them. There was little doubt in my mind that the
impressions beneath the sheets were none other than people, motionless,
lifeless people.
I retraced my steps out of the hall and back to the
administration office. It was a spiritually uplifting relief to feel the light
of 60-watt bulb illuminating my face.
I found Constance covering her typewriter and
securing her desk.
“Are you still here?” she asked. “I thought you might
have had your fill by now.”
I said it would have been hard to leave without
thanking her. She smiled and moved quickly from behind the desk to the aluminum
hall tree for her gray leather jacket and hat.
“Can I give you a lift?” she asked.
I shook my head and pointed out the window toward my
van in the parking lot.
“I have my own transportation; the RV. Ever see the
inside of one?”
“You drive around in that thing?”
I nodded with subdued pride. “It sleeps six, though
I’ve never had the opportunity to entertain that many guests. The bar is
stocked; can I interest you in a cocktail?”
She wanted to accept, but something stood in the way
of simple acquiescence.
“I’d like to, but…”
There seemed to be no shortage of buts in the argot of
young women.
“But me no buts,” I pleaded. “I’ve got a six-pack of
cola out there if you think alcohol is not the proper way to launch a new and
meaningful relationship.”
She smiled conceding some merit to my suggestion.
“I have time for a coke; I’m bowling this evening. The
hospital has a team league and I am a member. We’re not doing very well, but a
commitment is a commitment.”
She locked the office door and walked silently by my
side. We had less in common than I thought, only a few whimpering hormones, and
mine were probably whimpering a lot louder than hers. We barely spoke on the
way to the parking lot and unless I said something quickly, I suspected she
would find some excuse to reject my advances when we got to the van.
“Did you know there are little people living in the
basement of your hospital?”
“What?” She replied, anxious to follow up.
“You have little mini-people living in the basement.”
“You must mean the Alberichs. They have been
maintaining the furnace and boilers in the hospital for more years than I can
remember. Are they really midgets? I had no idea. I have never seen them. They
seldom leave the basement. The hospital takes care of all their needs. If they
want or need something, they just ring up and I send it down.”
“No, I don’t think they are gnomes, dwarves, or
midgets,” I said. “Hobbits maybe, I could see no signs of achondroplasia -- shortened
arms or legs, or prominent foreheads. Maybe they’re pygmies or elves; they look
more macro than micro-cephalic.”
“You know about those things?” She said.
“I read a lot,” I said. “I also think they may be working
a gold or silver mine down there; or maybe they’re alchemists trying to turn
lead in to gold, but all they’re getting is coal. They were filthy.”
She took a deep breath and smiled with relief, or so I
thought.
“So in three years you’ve never seen them, not even
once?”
She awkwardly shook the confusion from her head. “No,
as I said, they seldom come out or up. I suppose they’re a little embarrassed
by their appearance.”
“That’s not hard to believe, but three years…”
We were at the door of the van. She suddenly dug her
heels into concrete.
“Do you think I’d lie to you about something like
that?” she said in a display of temper. “Never. Why should I? What difference
does it make to me whether they come up or spend their entire life in the
basement?”
“It’s not the basement,” I replied, trying to salvage
a little credibility. “It’s lower than a basement; it’s halfway to the center
of the earth. Why did the hospital have to bury the furnace room?”
She was smiling again. My comments were giddy. I
fidgeted with the van keys.
“Because that’s where the coal is,” she said.
“Ah, yes, I’ve heard this before. The furnace and
boiler are actually sitting in a coal seam, correct? And they are burning the
coal they mine from the seam.”
“That’s right,” she said. “The comptroller estimates
the hospital saves many thousands of dollars a year in fuel costs. In fact, if
you consider all the money they’ve saved in the last 175 years …”
“They’ve been mining their own fuel for 175 years?”
She nodded proudly, as if it were a reflection on her
own industry.
“Longer than that, but
that’s as far as our records go.
If you
take those figures into consideration, we’ve saved
m
illions on
fuel bill
s
alone.”
I became deeply aware of the fact that far-reaching
powers were at work here and in the bowels of the institution creating the
capacity to sustain itself indefinitely.