My Probation Consists of Guarding an Abandoned Asylum | Part 7

 

Part 6 | Part 8

“6. Make an inventory of the library.” If my task list says so.

In the ocean of wet, unorganized, and page-ripped documents of the library found a couple interesting things about this place. Turns out the fires on Wing C were something constant, almost happening twice a year. Multiple patients got burn or died due to the supposedly- supernatural lightning rod that was this area. Bullshit.

Also, there were multiple notes from The Post stating the Asylum had been under scrutiny due to fiscal controversy. I read: “Due to massaging the figures of the private psychiatric Bachman Asylum, the institution has been retired from ‘N’ Family and, in addition to a fine, the installation will be run by the State now.”

The government always takes everything.

***

“So, the accused denied giving false information to the Company’s clients, stating that even if he had done it, he didn’t regret leaving (and I’m quoting here) ‘those rich fat bastards without the 0.01% of their patrimony.’ Also refused to name those affected and for how much, information that he eliminated from the Company’s record, leaving to not possible restitution of the harm,” I was told by the Judge on my trial.

Looked at Lisa as she left the building, not knowing that it was the last time I ever saw her.

“For that, you are considered guilty as charged. You’ll be ten years in San Quentin and could only apply for probation after seven,” determined the Judge. “Take him away, it’s now the State’s responsibility.”

***

“What are you looking for, dear?”

I was snaped back to the present in the Bachman Asylum by the warm and sweet voice of a middle-aged librarian looking at me. Confused, stared at her in silence.

“Oh, I think I know something.”

She strolled away slowly. Yet, returned promptly with a newspaper in her hands. I noticed she was wearing an old medical uniform from the abandoned medical facility.

The paper confirmed it. A big heading read: “Librarian Missing in the Island of the Lost: Is something wrong with the Bachman Asylum?”

Then she grabbed my hand and with a very strong pull for an almost thirty-year-old dead woman led me to a locked drawer in the Librarian station. She trusted me with the notebook that was stashed in there.

“Please, make this public,” she told me with her comfortable smile.

Before I grabbed the notebook, her smile suddenly broke. The woman trembled uncontrollably. Spited ectoplasmic blood.

Jack ripped his axe out of the poor woman’s back. She fell towards me.

Scared, I backed up.

Jack approached the lady’s hand and fetched the book from her stiff hand.

I clutched to my protective necklace that had proven so effective before.

Jack, without breaking a sweat, ran away with the notes.

That’s not the modus operandi of murderous ghost I’ve encountered before. Shit.

I chased him.

He arrived at the incinerator room before me and hit the button to start it.

He was too fast.

Thankfully, the librarian appeared again and made Jack trip. Granted me enough time to retrieve the notebook and flew away while a furious Jack used his dull axe to badly dismember the poor lady, again.

 I didn’t stop.

***

I arrived at the building’s lobby. Attempted to retrieve my breath and check the notes I had fought so hard for. The scarce moonlight filtering through broken windows wasn’t bright enough to decipher the calligraphist squiggles on the page. Neared at a window hoping it will get a little better. It didn’t.

Woof!

A bark caught me off guard as a dog assaulted me. Rose my hands to cover myself, but the canine snatched the book from me.

The big, brown and almost incorporeal phantom animal dashed away. It disappeared in the hall leading to Wing J.

I just can’t get a break. Hurried behind it.

Always found curious that the five Wings, apparently named in alphabetical order, jumped from D to J without the rest of the letters.

My thoughts were interrupted when at the end of Wing J was Jack’s silhouette with its heavy axe supported in the ground and the robbed notebook gripped in the air. Couldn’t distinguish anything else than darkness in him, but somehow, I felt him grinning at me.

Approached him while tightening my necklace with my hand. He didn’t back up. I continued. He stood still. It was just a matter of getting close enough to him. He was supposed to retrieve. Couldn’t hurt me with my token.

He stepped forward. Fuck.

Returning seemed like the only logical option. Until the growl of the long-dead hound chilled my nerves. I was trapped. From one side the dog stepped decidedly towards me, and from the other the psycho-grinning axe-maniac bashed the walls to cause a rumble.

Both stopped when they reached three feet close to me from each side of the hall.

Jack swung his axe at me. I leaped back, barely avoiding it. A second attack. I dodged it, but made me fall.

Woof!

Jack lifted the weapon.

I looked up.

The assassin puppy charged me.

Axe dropped.

Lifted both arms.

Held the hound.

Crack.

The axe perforated the canine’s spine. Its body weakened. Blood blotched all over me.

Jack, with his free hand, tried to retrieve his negligently managed weapon that had just cost his partner’s life (… dead?). Ghosts are complicated.

Before letting my mind wander through those ideas, I raid against Jack. Tackled him.

He dropped the notebook.

He tried grabbing me. His big dark ectoplasmic apparition pulled me like a black hole.

Buddy’s blood made me slippery.

I leaked out of his grasp. Kicked him on the head. Grabbed the notebook and fled the area.

***

Back in the spacious and freezing library, I finally skimmed the notebook as I hid behind a bookshelf. Last written page included the following:

“Not know who will be reading this, but hope you do the right thing with my testimony. My name is Mrs. Spellman; I’m the librarian working in the Bachman Asylum. I’ve discovered what had been happening here, and it is no supernatural thing as some claim. It’s all Dr. Weiss.

“He has been experimenting with the patients. Through torture procedures such as shock therapies and lobotomies, he has been attempting not to heal the patients, but drive them insane to the point of manipulating them. That’s Jack’s case in particular, a young guy who due to poor decisions got involved with drugs and lived on the streets since very young. Dr. Weiss has managed to control him pretty efficiently and even forced him to murder.

“It is not Jack’s fault. Dr. Weiss is the evil mind behind the carnage that has been taking place on this island. I’m fearing something will happen to me. I’m being guarded. They don’t like loose threads. If that’s the case, surely it was Jack, but don’t let Dr. Weiss wash his hands.”

Pang!

Jack was here.

Sought through the shelf that I was camouflaging with for something to help myself as the steps and axe thumps became louder, closer. Got an idea.

“Wait, dear. I know you don’t want to do this,” the sweet librarian’s voice trying to dialogue with Jack at the distance calmed me.

I left my hiding spot with the notebook on sight.

Jack lifted his weapon against the multi-time-murdered lady.

She freed a single tear and closed her eyes.

“Hey!” I screamed from the other side of the room. “No need to do that.”

Jack faced me. The comfort-inducing ghostly ma’am opened her eyes.

“Here you have it,” I indicated.

I slid the notebook through the floor until it hit the spectral mud on Jack’s boot.

The ghoulish librarian stared surprised.

The turned-mad serial-killer ghost grabbed the notebook and, without even a second glance at us, exited the place.

I didn’t follow him.

You know how they say the eyes are the soul’s window? The Librarian smirked at me, but her eyes transmitted disbelief and deep sadness. The only thing left in her soul.

The incinerator turned on.

I approached the selfless apparition.

Every barely audible bump of the notebook falling through the metal tunnel broke her a little more.

Grabbed her hand. Leaded her gently to the bookshelf I was hiding behind.

In the lowest level there was an old psychology book. Big, hard cover and with almost a thousand pages. The title read: “No secret is forever: the power of truth in the healing process.”

Opened it in the middle, helped with some sort of bookmark. The last written page of her notebook.

“Truth will be known,” I promised her.

She smiled with all her teeth. Her eyes now were full of peace and calm.

***

Fucking Russel!

He didn’t want any of this to be known. Sent him a letter about what I discovered and the lengths the luckless non-resting former employee and I had gone through to manage to get the information, hoping to get it published by a paper. He refused it. Wants me to burn all the evidence.

I have a non-disclosure. I was forced to sign before coming here, it prevents me from talking to the press myself. Thankfully, I know my way through the fine prints, and it didn’t consider all the possibilities. Never stated I couldn’t share information through personal posts on the internet. Thanks for the democratization of information.

Hope this information reaches someone important. Someone who can get this to a real distribution. Someone who could truly help the soul that gave her life and death trying to help others.