Got Framed for Murder in a Dementia Village | Part 2

 

Part 1 | Part 3

“What in the ass you mean you possessed me? To get revenge on that old woman?!” I, understandably angry, questioned my ghostly “friend” Luke.

It was already late at night, and I was doing my best to avoid waking up the dementia patients that share residence with me, or the caregiver who slept with us that night.

 “I’m sorry, it wasn’t like that,” Luke defended himself, talking with me through the special earphone that we had found was the easiest way to communicate between us.

“Don’t see any other way it could have been.”

A loud snore from the guy next room made us aware of our emotions and volume.

“I just wanted to get answers,” Luke explained. “I did possess you to try to go and interrogate the motherfucking lady that got us here.”

“So, you killed her?” I was getting impatient. “And I thought you said you could only possess people with their permission.”

“I mean, I already had your permission given once before. And when you were asleep your defenses lowered down, allowing me an easier backway in.”

“You make it sound like I got raped,” I complained. “Forget it, never do that again.”

“Deal. But I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“You stole a kitchen knife!”

“Just to scare her!”

I stared at his demarcated ectoplasmic face.

“Once I was in the office next to hers, you know how that place feels wrong, something compelled me to get inside and stabbed her.”

“Really? You just took a knife with my stolen body, and the same force that doesn’t let you out of this miserable village forced your hand to stab the manager?” I asked him not wanting to get an answer.

He got the cue.

We both glared at each other, hoping the other would say something to make amends.

“I tried to stab her on a non-mortal area,” Luke indicated almost in a whisper.

That’s it.

“Get out,” I demanded looking down.

“What?” Luke’s confusion wasn’t evident on his torn-apart body, but was crystal clear in his voice.

“I need some time.”

I didn’t lift my head, just pointed to the window on my room that had a view to the inside of the Morlden Village (the one without bars or magnetic fields to prevent any of us from escaping).

Luke stared at me for a couple of silent seconds. He flew, literally and slowly, out of the room.

Fuck. I let myself fall into bed.

***

You know this creepy thing about dreams where you see people you never encountered before, but you know it’s them. That happened to me with my grandmother.

I never met her. My parents never talked about her directly to me. I once heard my father blaming my mother for it. Yelling that my grandmother had never wanted to know me because she was embarrassed of him, or something like that.

Yet, for some mystical reason, I knew that the old lady of my dream was her. I was sure that the wrinkled and grey, kind of scary looking woman covered under colorful silk robes was my grandmother. I had no doubt that the Victorian house, full of dark paintings and poor-quality lights, was the place where my grandmother was born, grew up and eventually died. It all seemed so familiar.

I was following her through a long hallway, screeching under every step thanks to the old wooden floors. She was talking so fast, almost like a praying. She was given me instructions, in English, but I just couldn’t catch any of it.

“…keep her away,” was her closing statement.

She stopped in place. Raised her arm to signal me to do the same.

A creek from outside made me turn to the window of my left.

A familiar, old and evil face was spying on us through there.

***

By pure instinct, on my awakening, my body turned to the left. Towards the window through which Luke faded. There was a creepy wrinkled face staring at me.

Fuck!

The face turned back.

I stood out of bed and approached the foggy glass.

It was an old guy attempting to run away as fast as his fragile bones and arthritis allowed him to do.

This place is full of crazy people. Well, what do I expected to find in a Dementia Village? The caregivers even think that I have some sort of cognitive detriment.

Yet, for supposedly having lost multiple of his neuronal connections, it was clear that he knew where he was going. Residence building B.

***

The screams of my fellow residents woke me up very early in the morning, even before the sunlight was just peeking through my window. Old people who got desperate and never knew when or where they are, make effective alarms to get you out of bed.

Of course, my door was closed. Not locked because it could only be locked from outside and someone had taken my key. Yet, the loud inquiries about the relationship that Mr. Bunn had with Mrs. Mitchell were not going to be stopped by an inch of plywood.

“So, what’s the relationship between them?” I asked as I approached the table rubbing my eyes.

“Depends on the day,” William answered me placing the already cooked breakfast on my well delimitated blue plates and utensils in front of me. “Sometimes they say they were a young couple in love. Others they don’t even know each other.”

I contained a little laughter under a bite of eggs.

“You were a hooker who I picked up the street!” Mr. Bunn declared.

A couple of caregivers whose names I don’t give a fuck, tried calming him.

“Seems like a traditional marriage to me,” I joked taking a sip of orange juice.

Even the food here was ridiculously stereotypical.

William jiggled a little.

“Hey, last night a weird guy was looking at me from my window,” I felt in a mood for a chat.

“Yeah, that’s pretty common here. I recommend you to simply ignore it.”

What a shitty solution. But in between the off tune singing of Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Pike card game that implicated slamming the table every half a minute, it seemed that it was the solution to everything around here.

I nodded, half accepting my fate and half wishing to wake up again in a quieter place.

“Also, I was hoping I could speak with Ms. Rowen. There are a couple of things I want to sort out with her,” I said.

“Sure,” surprisingly, William was cooperating. “I have a meeting with her in a couple of hours. You come by and I’ll let her know you want to speak to her.”

“Thanks,” I replied in a sarcastic tone masquerading my actual gratefulness.

William wasn’t going to get that satisfaction.

***

Three hours later I was sitting, waiting, with a perpetual chill of comfortless on my spine, in the room I had been interrogated for the second time yesterday. To my right, I could distinguish William and Ms. Rowen talking in the office where her aunt had been murdered yesterday, and she had claimed her own as the new manager of this place. As expected, my shinbone was burning, a constant situation I’ll be having to deal with when coming to this room.

I noticed that, through the window on my left, I could distinguish the bridge that connected the main park with the staff quarters area and the shed where they keep all kinds of maintenance stuff. “Bridge” is kind of an overstatement. It is a high pass that crosses over an artificial and rocky river the deep as a pond for decorative purposes. Yet, it is ridiculously high, like six feet high and with one-meter-tall handrails for security intentions. It is a little ridiculous to have that in a place like this, but it merged with the Zen atmosphere it was going for.

What seemed more intriguing was the fact that everything was being surveilled. I noticed a small camera with night vision integrated (I learned a couple of things about cameras by guarding the Bachman Asylum) staring directly at me. But also, on one post on each side of the bridge, there was a camera pointing towards it. Shit, it was like Big Brother in here, just with less obnoxious people.

“The stabbing didn’t kill her,” Ms. Rowen’s voice took my attention back to what´s going on.

I did my best to block any sound from outside and focus on the conversation taking place in the room next door.

“So, then what did?” William shared my intrigue.

 “Not sure. But the autopsy showed that the knife wasn’t in a mortal spot.”

Shit.

“AAAAGHHH!” I shrieked in pain when I felt a perfect denture piercing through my arm’s skin.

Instinctively, I whipped my arm and punched it to get it off. It was the old man who was spying me last night.

Ms. Rowen and William left the office to find me trying to stop the bleeding, while my attacker ran away (or walked fast away) of the scene leaving a trail of blood dripping from his jaws.

***

In the medical facility towards the Southeast of the village, I waited on an examination table as the nurse rolled a vendage around my wounded arm. They gave me a fucking kid’s medicine for the pain that didn’t work.

This white, open place felt fake as well. The nurse’s coat was so white it hurt my eyes and its lack of any wrinkles made it felt like never worn before. The nurse herself was pretty kind.

William just didn’t shut up.

“Sorry. We have been having this kind of incident more frequently recently. Don’t take it personal, he was just out of his mind…”

Yes, he was.

William continued talking about this shit, but I stopped listening for my own mental health.

***

That night I was woken up again. This time it wasn’t a dream. Fucking guy bit me again.

The punch I gave him twisted his nose.

His whining woke up the caregiver who slept with us in the residence.

“What the fuck is going on?” The caregiver demanded to know.

He was agitated. It was clear he didn’t want to say that, it just slipped in the heat of the moment.

All the other residents started waking up, getting out of their rooms and screaming.

My attacker rolled over the floor like a worm who had been placed on a bowl of salt. His blood was creating an expressionist painting on the carpet.

“He bit me,” I extended my arm. “Again!”

Below my now mucus covered dressing, there was another bite mark. Thankfully, this one didn’t pierce my skin. Guess that laying down isn’t the best position for a vampiric elder to feed.

“Oh, fuck,” the caregiver let out. “Sorry.”

I nodded.

The mediocre cannibal kept bitching for a couple of minutes until a second caregiver managed to take him back to his residence. I was right, he lived in Building B.

***

An hour after everyone went back to sleep, I was awake and strolling through the cold windy streets of the Morlden Village. I couldn’t go back to sleep with the threat of the crazy old biting guy. Fuck that.

I approached building B. It was in front of a fountain with a dragon sculpture on top. It’s not fair they have such a badass landmark, and we just have an amalgam of concrete cubes.

The main door, like all the others in this entire place, was unlocked. Thankfully the level of perfection that creeped me so much of this place, made it that the door didn’t screech while opening it slowly. Also, the floor didn’t produce a sound against the personalized slippers I had been given as a welcoming present.

The distribution of this residence was the same as the one in mine. A central living area, surrounded by rooms. The smallest of which, reserved for the night-guarding caregiver, is on the right side of the main door. I would like to have been able to close the door of it, but those rooms don’t have one. It is just a bed where your caregiver’s head is always ready to watch whatever is happening outside.

After two steps into the building, I closed the main door to avoid the wind from outside making any noise or giving someone a cold.

I checked behind me, at the caregiver’s room.

His eyes were wide open.

Fuck. I froze in place.

The caregiver was watching me, still laying down on his bed.

My breathing stopped as if that would make me disappear.

He exhaled.

My sphincter contracted.

He snored in.

This fucking job. These guys must be so alert that some of them had learned to sleep with their eyes open.

Calmly, and silently as I could, I approached the first resident room door.

My clothes rubbing against my body could be heard.

I turned the doorknob.

Felt the exhalation of the caregiver on my nape.

Peeked inside.

A woman.

Fuck.

I went to the next door.

My sweat rolled all the way to the carpet, leaving an unfollowable trace.

I pushed the second door open.

A loud snore out of rhythm got me stuck in place.

A man with mustache and a beard as if he was a fantasy wizard.

Shit.

Please, don’t make him be on the last door.

I approached a third door.

My heartbeat rumbled through my chest.

I grabbed the doorknob.

The door picked up the vibrations of the heavily breathing person inside.

The wind from the open window sucked the door shut.

I pulled harder.

The leverage made the wooden floor creak a little.

A cough from behind me.

A snore followed.

I exhaled.

I checked this bedroom.

Bingo!

I entered patiently as I made sure to shut the door close behind me, fearing the air from the window might close it violently.

This old man, thankfully for my peace of mind, was sleeping with his eyes closed.

I walked forward.

He snored loudly, surely thanks to the trauma-based nose reconstruction I did on him earlier.

I noticed over his night table a yellow glass.

His mouth opened, sucking all the air from the room.

He had only two teeth.

Yes!

In the yellow glass, the perfect denture that my skin had met twice was now submerged.

Fucking yes!

With a little more confidence, I grabbed the glass and went around this man’s bed.

I reached the open window. Waving blinds hit my face.

Got an uncontrollable urge to sneeze.

Fuck.

I jumped out of the window. Rolled. Sneezed. Backed myself against the wall with the window I just leaped through.

A snore came from inside.

I took the denture in the glass to the closest edge of the village. The North edge. There was the supermarket. Perfect.

I threw the plastic yellow glass with the denture over the 8-feet-high rustic building that inside looks like a 1950s warehouse full of moldy groceries.

It bounced a little on the roof but didn’t fall. A sound rumbled the empty building.

The motherfucking biting device was neutralized.

***

I was woken up again due to the same motherfucker biting me.

I yelled out of pain and anger. Used my free hand to separate the clutched guy’s face.

His only two, half decayed teeth were deep inside my skin. He had bitten the same exact position as before.

The caregiver entered.

“I need to shower!” Screamed Mrs. Mitchell from across the building.

“Fuck,” this time the caregiver didn’t felt ashamed or regret his word choice.

He took the bastard away from me.

The crazy old loose-teethed motherfucker shrieked as if he was being separated of his only meal of the week.

I turned to my left to get my slippers, when I noticed that on my night table was something missing: the earphone I use to communicate directly with Luke.

***

After I returned from the medical center, with new dressings and multi-disinfected wounds, my blood was burning in anger as my veins on a possible bacterium.

“Fuck this!” I declared to William.

He continued preparing breakfast.

“Sorry about it,” he said to me without taking his eyes from the food. “This place can be a little unpredictable.”

“You think?! I can’t be living on a place like this.”

I attempted to get away to my room.

William followed me.

“Hey,” he tried approaching me with genuine care. “I know it is hard. I’ve been working here for years. It doesn’t get easier.”

I glared at him trying to understand the purpose of his shitty pep talk.

“But this place does give them a good life in the last years,” he continued. “I’m aware you’re probably more cognitively functional and younger than most other residences, so can you just use them as proxy of your grandmother?”

Oh, he was getting to something.

“No!” I replied. “Never knew her, she never wanted anything to do with me.”

I looked at the floor.

“Well, maybe then you can find a proxy for her over here.”

The idea was bullshit. But the way William said it, it was so heartfelt and honest that I couldn’t do anything but nod.

Silence. Not uncomfortable.

“I’ll leave you alone for a moment,” he finally declared standing up. “Food is already ready if you get hungry.”

I nodded as he strolled away.

“Before you go,” I stopped his dramatic exit. “In my night table, I had some sort of earphone, it’s silver and bulky, it’s meant to receive calls.”

William nodded with oblivion to my request. He doesn’t know how to read a room.

“It’s missing,” I overexplained. “You know anything about it?”

“No. I’ll check with other caregivers,” he used his same unproductive answer.

I nodded again, giving him the cue to leave the room.

I sat alone in my room. Explored the nuances of this room that, apparently, was going to be my home for quite a while, unless I manage to convince Ms. Rowen this is all a big misunderstanding. I felt the vendages covering half my arm.

I had to get something from the supermarket.

***

That night, I didn’t even bother to try to sleep. Instead, I escaped the caregiver and swirled through the dark village. I crossed the bridge over the artificial pond/river, studying the places and angles the cameras had.

Yeah, there were just the ones on each side under a couple of streetlamps. No other camera was pointing at the bridge.

Yet, my main objective wasn’t there, but the shed that was beside the staff quarters. While crossing them, I made sure to be as quiet as possible, to avoid waking up any caregiver. Those fuckers are trained to wake up and investigate even silence itself.

When I was outside the window of the manager’s office, my shinbone burned as expected. I took it like a man and, without complaining. I got all the way to the Northeast corner of the Morlden Village, where the shed was expecting me.

I approached the enormous wooden building. The doors were, as I suspected, kept shut by an enormous metal chain the size of an anaconda and a tough-looking padlock. It was some serious overkill if you ask me, none of the residents here would have been able to open a simple lock, so the half a ton chain was just going the extra mile (or an extra league to be more accurate). Thankfully, I’m not like any other resident here.

I forced the lock with the bobby pins I got from the supermarket, where I had to pretend dementia so the fucking clerk/caregiver stop bothering me on why I was buying female articles (intolerant jerk). If I learned something valuable by the missing keys and solve-it-as-you-can approach of the Bachman Asylum’s guarding gig, was this. I got astoundingly good at picking locks.

Cling!

Oh, yeah.

Carefully, I grabbed one end of the chain, and, with a mixture of brute strength and stealth, took it out of the hole in the door it was hugging. Continuing that process, I managed to place the metal constrictor on the ground, out of my way. I opened the shed doors.

I covered my cough with both my elbows and will power to avoid any sound. This place hadn’t been open in some time. Dust was everywhere.

It didn’t make any sense. I could distinguish everything you’ll need to take care of a place like Morlden. Spare lightbulbs and a thousand cans of paint, a lawnmower and three ladders for different heights, a big box of construction tools over a massive red coffin (they even have things to take care of the funerals of the residents), and so much more that the precarious twinkling yellowish light bulb didn’t make clear. Everything was full of dust and cobwebs, like they hadn’t been used in years, yet the village was in perfect condition as if these things were used every day.

My mind started spiraling. I had never seen a single person mowing any grass or trimming any tree, yet all the parks seemed like publicity good. Never saw any of the caregivers do any actual brooming or cleaning beyond washing dishes, and I had never encountered dust until now. Even the supermarket…

Pang.

My train of thought got interrupted by some object fallen due to wind blow entering the recently unlocked shed. It sounded more like something hitting wood than something falling, but I got no time to evaluate the place reverberance.

In between the gardening supplies and paints I found a rope. Over a small shelf there was a pile of cloths perfectly packed and folded; I took a couple. Finally, in the toolbox, I went through my options like a kid in a candy shop. I got the big chocolate I was hoping for, a wrench.

A packet of allen keys followed its way.

I saw them fall in slow-motion.

Fuck.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang. Clang, clang, clang…

I heard sounds next door. Uncomprehensible chatting and heavy walking. Someone had gotten up over at the staff quarters.

Shit.

I snatched my souvenirs and exited the wooden prison I got myself in.

In the building to my left, the light got turned on and escaped through a window.

Slowly, avoiding big dramatic sounds, I closed the doors.

The window in the door next to my position got illuminated.

Fuck. No time to put the chain back.

Carrying my treasure, I rolled around the shed and hid on the opposite side from where my adversaries were coming.

“How do you think it got opened?” a caregiver asked her companion.

“No idea,” other caregiver replied. “But look, someone picked the lock.”

Shit. I left the pins in there.

“It is jammed,” the voice continued. “We can’t close the shed anymore.”

“We’ll have to let Ms. Rowen know immediately.”

Thankfully they didn’t look for the responsible at that time.

Once they closed the door behind them, I fled away.

***

I covered myself behind the dragon statue of building B for a while.

Once I determined no one was looking for me, it was show time.

At the back of the residence building, the biting guy’s window was wide open.

I entered the empty room.

Of course, the bastard wasn’t there, was somewhere out looking to bite me.

Shit, I’ll have to wait again.

By divine grace it didn’t take long. After just twenty minutes hiding under this crazy bastard’s bed, someone enter through the window. I could distinguish the same personalized slippers that all the residents here use at night. The person got on his bed.

I felt the mattress being compressed and letting out a quiet squeak above me. It shook a little.

After two minutes, any other sound was obfuscated by a loud snoring.

I got out of my improvised burrow and started to work.

Carefully, avoiding as much contact as I could with the two-teeth skin-piercing machine, I placed the rope over him, circling it once on each wrist and ankle.

I tied one end of the rope to a bed leg.

I made one cloth into a ball.

I grabbed the loose end of the rope with my left hand.

My right hand held the cloth ball over the guy’s face.

I chugged the cloth in his mouth.

He woke up.

I pulled the rope.

He got yank to the bed.

He took a deep mouth breath.

The cloth prevented it.

I tied the other end, immobilizing the guy in his own bed.

He attempted to scream.

He failed.

I tugged the other cloth inside his mouth with the other.

He couldn’t do anything.

I placed the wrench on his upper tooth and adjusted it.

The guy’s eyes were open like a deer’s in a highway.

I smiled with satisfaction.

He shook his head, begging.

I leveraged.

The tooth got out of his place.

Blood.

A choked pain shriek.

Cloths soaked.

Tears rolled down his boney cheeks.

He started to attempt mouth breathing.

Got to the second and final tooth left.

Wrench fell into place.

A face of fake regret almost convinced me of not doing it.

More blood.

A futile attempt at punching the bed.

Teethless gums.

Satisfaction.

Not nose breathing at all.

The motherfucker fainted in his bed.

Thank God.

I grasped the wrench and the two newly acquired teeth. Left the blood smelling room.

I hid the incriminating evidence under my bed, and for once, I went to sleep in peace.

***

I went back to my grandmother's old Victorian house. I could see all the details in every damaged wall and every cobweb under the mediocre light coming from outside the enormous windows. The moonlight made this study/library look like a gothic time-piece-movie.

On the opposite side of the room, there was my grandma on a big carved desk that almost curved the floor beneath its weight. She was writing a letter. With old ink on a feather. She wrote as fast as his old poorly responding hand allowed her to.

“I love you,” she whispered.

I understood that clearly before she took the letter to her lips and gave it a kiss.

***

Weirdly, I felt that kiss on my cheek when I woke up.

But it wasn’t magical or supernatural. The biting looney was sucking my face with his teethless gums.

This fucker was relentless.

This didn’t hurt, it was just creepy as hell.

New approach.

I grabbed him and covered his mouth.

“I just want to talk. Can we?”

He nodded.

I let him go.

It was very early still. The first rays of sunlight were just piercing through the window and the usual screaming and singing that characterizes a dementia village residence hadn’t started yet.

“What the fuck was that? Why you keep doing this?” I asked as calmy as I could after being sucked by a weird old man.

“You’re delicious,” he answered as if that was obvious.

“Bullshit,” I replied. “Not one just decides to bite and try to suck someone just because he tastes good.”

“I do.”

Couldn’t argue against a cognitive detriment patient, their logic is something else.

“What’s so delicious about me?” I adventured through a different side.

“You have something that protects you here, I want a little of that.”

Yeah, that guy was completely out of his mind. Nonetheless, that was good enough.

“You just had to ask,” I lied to him. “I can share that protection with you, but it requires a special incantation.”

“Incantation?”

“Like a ritual.”

He stared at me as if we didn’t speak the same language.

“Just, don’t bite me anymore. Tonight, I’ll take you to the place it must be done,” I assured him.

***

Surprisingly that shit worked. I was able to rest that day, as much as my fellow residents of Building E allowed me to. But, not being bit or sucked by a crazy guy was an improvement.

As soon as the night arrived, and everyone was sleeping (elderlies go to bed early), the old crazy guy appeared in my room.

“Okay, let’s go,” I indicated.

We walked carefully out of my residence building. He was leading the escape, which gave enough leverage to snatch the cane Mrs. Welch uses to walk. I returned it to her later.

We found ourselves outside, in front of the cube-formed fountain that serves as a landmark to identify building E.

“We have to go to the bridge,” I instructed my teethless disciple.

We walked in silence. The cold wind of the night didn’t invite us to chat. At least, it didn’t make my companion walk like if he was dying right away, which is something many old people here do.

We were halfway there. Before arriving at the park where you can take a stroll along the artificial river or watch a creep smile at you from the barbershop, we got caught.

“Where are you going?” A voice from our left froze us in place.

I turned to find a caregiver with a flashlight, pointing it at us. He looked like a middle-aged man, with a very thick mustache and a weird accent I couldn’t really point its origin.

“Sorry. Who are you?” I asked him.

“He’s a bitch!” My biting friend answered me.

“I’m the new night guard,” he replied.

“Bullshit!” My companion raised his voice.

“There hadn’t been any in the last few nights,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, management had been looking for one for a while,” he replied. “Today’s my first night doing this.”

“Incompetent!”

“Sorry, man,” I explained pretending to be embarrassed. “He couldn’t sleep, so I took him out for a walk.”

“The bridge, now!”

I didn’t know if he was trying to help with our case or was just him being himself.

“Oh, I see,” the new nightguard hesitated for a second.

“You know how it is with this people,” I appealed to sympathy.

“Who you call ‘this people?’” The biting bastard was getting more aggressive.

“Not you, Mr. Penn,” that was the first name that come to mind. “Let’s go see the stars. They look amazing from the bridge.”

In between the confusion of his new identity and me guiding him towards the park, my previous rabid foe turned into a confused cooperating puppy.

“Wait,” the new caregiver stopped our way out. “Can you show me your caregiver badge?” He asked me.

Fuck.

I touched all my pockets looking for something I already knew wasn’t there.

“You see, man,” I attempted to be as cool as possible, “I think I forgot it on my residence building.”

He looked at me with distrust.

“Let’s go!” The yelling of the annoying elder pulling my hand started again.

“Man, I wasn’t expecting anyone out here. He started screaming and complaining and I had to get him out as fast as possible before he woke everyone.”

“NOW!” This motherfucking was really busting my balls.

The new guard saw my situation with sympathy.

“I’m on building E, name is William, tomorrow I’ll show you my ID.”

That was trouble for my future self, and William.

“STARS!”

“Okey,” he let down his protocol obsession. “Good luck.”

“Yes!” The bastard didn’t give a break.

“Thanks, man. Really appreciate it,” I closed our interaction.

I turned back to the biting old guy and continued our way through the park. I saw the new employee wander away and take a right turn. That led us out of his sight.

Once we arrived at the small bridge/high pass over the artificial five-inch-deep river, I extended Mrs. Welch’s cane as long as possible and held it up. When we crossed under the nightlight, the cane tilted up the camera, getting the bridge out of the surveillance angle.

My recently baptized Mr. Penn looked confused at me.

“Oh, this is a secret ritual, nobody can know about it,” I explained him.

That was enough for him to avoid questioning and started jumping excitedly. He even let my arm go, which he had been hugging the whole time. Perfect.

Slowly, I strolled towards the other side of the bridge and used the cane to tilt the other camera up. Now it was completely out of surveillance coverage.

I returned to the middle of the bridge, its highest point, and kneeled on the floor.

“We need to be laying down to watch the stars,” I assured him. “Also, be open and relaxed to receive the moonlight.”

I helped Mr. Penn (his real name wasn’t important anymore) to get down to the ground.

“Lay down,” I ordered him.

He compelled with a lot of grunting, typical for his age.

The handrail is about a meter high, but it has big holes on it. Nothing dangerous really, unless an unbending grandpa decides to crawl there.

“Close your eyes.”

Mr. Penn did.

I grabbed his legs firmly.

“Breathe deep.”

He did.

I made sure to have a good grip on him.

“Again.”

He inhaled.

I bent his legs to the front, using my other hand to create leverage.

Snap!

Mr. Penn growled in pain with the whole air he previously inhaled.

Both legs got broken.

The lights of the staff quarter turned on.

The left leg had an exposed bone.

Mr. Penn continued whining.

I grabbed him firmly from the ankles.

The lights of the closest residence building turned on as well.

I pushed.

The night became a choir of screaming elders.

Mr. Penn slid under the handrail and fell to the artificial river.

Splash.

He kept yelling in pain.

“Help!” I joined the commotion.

Steps approached me from the back.

Staff quarters doors opened.

“Help!”

The new night guard arrived.

“What happened?” He asked me.

“We were laying down, watching stars, when he pushed himself over the edge,” my voice was so agitated it sounded like genuine worry.

Multiple caregivers went to the river to help Mr. Penn, who wouldn’t be moving on its own to go suck my cheek anymore.

In the mess, I disappeared when nobody was watching.

Even with all the screams, I slept like a baby that night.

***

Next day, at first hour, I had an appointment with Ms. Rowen in her office. It was so unnaturally clean that you would have never guessed that a murder took place in here a week ago. The old desk stands magnificently between me and her. The safe on her back looks so big and old that you can’t imagine opening it without a superstrong archeologist. Of course, like every time I’d been close to this place, the spot where my shinbone got broken by a witch when I was an infant hurt really bad.

“You’re denying your involvement?” Ms. Rowen asked me.

“For sending him to the medical facilities?” I asked just to piss her off a little for having done anything to help me since I arrived at this twisted place. “You have no proof.”

“We have you with him in the bridge at the time it happened.”

“Really? Can I see the surveillance video of it?”

She didn’t like what I was doing. But she had to play along with me.

“Don’t be insufferable about this,” she attempted diplomacy.

“Sorry, Ms. Rowen,” I took great care of the words I was using. “He had been biting me for multiple days now, and nobody did anything about it.”

“So, you take it into your own hands?” She asked without missing a beat.

“Also, I’ve been having an issue here that I need to resolve with you, and I just couldn’t get a chance to meet with you. If only I’ve known this was what was needed to get this appointment…”

“Are you confessing?” She didn’t play subtlety.

“Of course not,” two can play that game. “And even if I was, you wouldn’t turned me in.”

She stared at me with condemning eyes for a minute. I smiled at her.

“You already had a chance of doing so, but you didn’t take it. Not sure why. But I bet you know who I am, how I got here, why your aunt hired me to come here to solve some shit that was occurring recently and that I’m not a patient with early dementia that needs to be here.” I contained myself for almost screaming at her.

“Is that so?” She answered me with a vicious smirk.

Oh, fuck. She wasn’t that pretty at first, but her ashy face seemed at least kind. Now she looked like a monster ready to eat me for breakfast.

“You seem to be very confused,” she twisted her tone to a calmer and sweeter one, and her smile morphed into a warming and contagious one. “It seems like you’ll be needing perpetual supervision.”

“Shit,” I mumbled.

“I’ll assign you William, you already know him, and other two caregivers to be watching after you 24/7.”

She closed her threat with her caring smile that felt even darker than her evil one at this point.

“No,” trying to be as cooperative and innocent as possible. “There’s no need for that…”

I got interrupted when a caregiver I’d never encountered before opened the door. Her voice was familiar, she was the one who found the picked lock two nights ago.

“Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Rowen,” her voice was cutting as if she had just run a marathon. “It’s very important.”

“Don’t worry, we already finished here,” Ms. Rowen kept her act as the greatest manager ever. “What happened?”

“Mr. Melvin, the guy who fell into the river las night, is dead.”

“Fuck,” slipped from my thoughts to my words.

“Dead? From the fall?” Ms. Rowen inquired.

At least once I was going to be in the room for the answers. I needed to know what happened to Mr. Penn… I mean, Mr. Melvin (with him being dead I must respect his real name). I couldn’t had killed him, I was very careful.

“No,” the caregiver answered giving me a little peace of mind. “He got stabilized last night, but today, they found him blood drained from a human looking bit on his neck.”

The caregiver was in shock. Ms. Rowen pretended to be; I already knew how her real distress looked like. I was flabbergasted too, but I contained my laughter.

A vampire killed the biting guy. Ha.