Crying Infant--EXCLUSIVE HORROR STORY!!!

In my lifetime, I’ve taken quite a few road trips, between vacations, competing in beauty pageants and running various other errands. One thing I always hated about these trips was when it’d be late at night, and I was in the car with maybe a couple of other people, going down a strange and dark piece of road. Just looking at the surroundings, you can almost sense that something is about happen. And for the people in our story--it does.

“Crying Infant”

(Based on a True Story)

A Michael Jackson Horror Story By:

MJsLoveSlave

Premble Police Department
Premble, Delaware
Winter, 1978

A young man sits on the front steps of the small police station, his slim shoulders slumped and his head held tightly in his hands.
Anyone looking upon the man could tell that at one time he was an impeccably and well dressed fellow of considerable means. That is, if they could see past his now shabby appearance.
His thick and wide afro is matted and all in a disarray, small twigs and branches tangled in it.
He wears a black trench coat, one sleeve sagging as it had been ripped from the shoulder seam. His designer jeans were torn down one side, exposing his toned brown thigh ,now dotted with skin beginning to scab over. Dust is streaked and crusted all over the man.
If anyone could have gotten close enough to actually smell the young man, they’d get a whiff of an exclusive and expensive cologne, mixed with the odors of sweat and very, very faintly, urine.
Looking up at the first few strains of morning light breaking over the horizon, the man wraps his arms around himself, trying to make complete sense of what he has just been through. The things he witnessed.
Would anything ever make sense to him again?
Would he want anything to make sense?
The weight of seemingly the world and the previous night’s events were tearing at him. The horror, terror and fear were just still too fresh and raw in his mind.
Beside this young man, another young man appears, his appearance similar to other man in that his afro is also in a shambles and his once nice clothing, including a brown leather jacket are torn to rags. Even one of his alligator skin shoes is missing.
His big, hazel eyes are glazed over as he sits and puts a hand on the other man’s shoulder.
Both men stare at each other.
They’d been through hell.
Suddenly, fiercely, both men embrace each other, instantaneously bursting into tears.
“Marlon…Marlon, I’m sorry! This is my fault! I’m so sorry! Oh Lord!”
Michael Jackson, the man in the remnants of a trench coat sobbed, holding his brother’s moist and damp face close to his.
“No it ain’t--it’s nobody’s fault, man! It ain’t your fault!” Marlon sniffled loudly and was hugging Michael all the tighter.
“We were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
But the words meant little to Michael, because contrary to what his sibling was telling him, it was indeed his fault that they were at the wrong place at the wrong time…


A Few Hours Earlier
About One Hundred Miles
From Premble

“..can’t we stop for a burger or something?”
“No.”
“But I’m hungry!”
“Little girl, stop talking to me!”
Michael Jackson growled, through gritted teeth, as he was vainly trying to keep his eyes on the snow crusted, tree-trimmed road that was stretching before his car.
Glancing up into the review mirror, he got a pretty clear view of the back seat. And the middle finger being waved at him by his little sister.
Sometimes Michael just didn’t understand the twelve-year-old. It was utterly remarkable to him how they were related and had come from the same mother.
Michael had always been a good kid, and now at twenty, he reckoned he was a good man. He’d never gotten in trouble in school or with the law, had always brought home good grades--nothing lower than a “B Minus”--and was generally in a pleasant mood.
Looking to the side at his brother, Marlon, curled up in the front passenger seat and sleeping, he shook his head. Marlon’s traits were closer to Michael’s. He was good, nice to be around, excelled in school, and except for a few speeding tickets, he was on the right side of the law.
And then there was Janet. The baby of the family and a little hurricane from Day One. . As an infant, for nearly the first six months of her life, Janet cried and screamed. Everyday, every hour, to the point where Michael and Marlon had to go live with their grandmother just to get a decent night’s sleep.
And then Janet, who learned to walk early, at only ten months, was never a stranger to trouble.
Every time you turned around, from the time she entered pre-school, Janet was always doing or saying something wrong. Everything from little fights in school, to cutting class, to getting her bellybutton pierced against her parent’s wishes when she was only nine!
She’d been thrown out of several schools, so many no one even tried to keep track anymore.
This time was just her latest entry on a never-ending list of infractions.
Though the entire Jackson family lived in California, Janet had been sent to a Catholic boarding school in the small rural town of Augustine, Delaware, about two hundred miles from the capital of Dover.
And true to her fashion, Janet hadn’t been there a good three months before she was being suspended for smoking in the bathroom.
At this rate, Janet was going to go through every school in the USA before she graduated--if she ever did, since her grades stayed in the toilet.
“Geez, Michael, get the stick out your ass, you’re acting like you’re the one who got caught smoking.” Janet scoffed, shaking out her short black locks, and looking like a tick about to burst in the large, pink puffer coat she wore.
“And you’re acting like you don’t have the sense God gave a gnat!” Michael shot back. “I don’t think you understand just how much you cost Mother and Dad, Janet. Damn it, all this stuff ain’t free you know. They’ve gotta pay tuition for your little ungrateful self, not to mention the plane tickets for me and Marlon to come get you and then to fly home--”
“Yeah that’s great. Mom and Dad didn’t even come to get me--they sent their stand-ins.” The girl laughed derisively. “They didn’t even care enough to come get me themselves--”
SCREECH!
Suddenly, Michael slammed down on the brakes, causing the car to skid several feet on the damp asphalt, and sending everyone in side lurching forward.
“Man, what the hell?” Marlon, awakened as he was thrown into the dashboard, exclaimed, sitting up in a state of confusion.
“Ow!” Janet screamed as she slid off the seat onto the floor of the car.
Michael, hands trembling as he unfastened his seatbelt, turning, got on his knees in the seat and was leaning into towards Janet, a long finger pointed at her.
“Janet Damita-Jo Jackson…” He began, voice stagnant and his large dark eyes flashing as he tried to restrain himself. “You better get down on your knees and thank God right now that Mother and Dad didn’t come to get you, because trust me, they were so mad, they might have killed you! Dismembered you and thrown you in the woods or slam-dunked your ass out the plane on the way home. They’re tired, Janet. Tired as hell of your antics, and cutting up. It ain’t cute. It never was. You’re the reason why our folks both have high blood pressure, and Dad gets those migraines. And guess what, I’m tired as all hell too. And if I wasn’t afraid of going to jail for abandonment, I’d make you WALK home!”
Janet, awed, because neither of her brothers had ever raised their voices at her, stared at Michael with wide eyes, dumbstruck.
“That’s the first time you’ve shut your damn mouth since we left the school!” Michael pointed out and alarmed, Marlon was trying to grab after his shoulders.
“Mike! Michael! Calm down, man! Calm down!” He urged, trying to soothe his sibling.
“Nah, man Marlon! I won’t sit here and have her talking shit about Mother and Dad after all they’ve done for us. Especially her! I wish she were a boy for five minutes so I could wear her the fuck out!” Michael was pulling from his brother’s grasp, and truly believing she was about to be slapped, Janet was curling up into a ball on the floor.
“Michael, you know she’s always talking shit! Let it go! You know we have to get over to the airport in Dover if we wanna make our flight. We don’t have time for you to go kicking her uppity ass right now!” Marlon was crying out, hands in his own thick afro, as Michael was unlocking and opening his door, and stepping out, letting a rush of icy air into the car.
“I’m not going after her!” Michael whined as Marlon was laying in the seat and in a desperate effort, grabbing onto the sleeve of his black trench coat.
All at once, Michael’s cheeks were tinged scarlet, and a puff of steam left his mouth as he chuckled sheepishly,
“I gotta use the facilities…”
“Oh!” Marlon, relived hooted as he finally released Michael’s arm. “Well hurry up! We gotta make that plane!”
“I will!” Michael nodded , as he began running up the bank, shoes crunching in the freezing snow, looking for a tree to hide himself behind.
“I hope a wolf comes and snatches your ‘winkie’ off!” He heard Janet call, emboldened by the fact that she wasn’t going to get the tartar knocked off her teeth.
“Shut the hell up, Janet!” Marlon screamed. “Cause I WILL hit you!”
“Kiss my ass!”
“I will KICK yo’ narrow ass!”
Chuckling to himself, Michael went a couple of yards into the woods, making sure that he never lost sight of the car and it’s headlights, because the last thing he wanted was to get lost out in the wilderness like that.
Finally, Michael spied a nice, large, thick-trunked tree, and eagerly ran behind it.
“Ahhhh!” He sighed happily. He’d been so angry with Janet and had carried her away from her school so quickly, he’d completely forgotten to make a pit stop. His bladder was near bursting. He didn’t care that it was so cold or how the breeze was whipping his nether parts.
Michael even wrote his initials in the snow.
He was finishing up and tucking himself back into his trousers when he heard it.
“Waaah! Waaah!
Startled, Michael turned in a complete circle.
“Hello?” He called shrilly. “Is some one there? Hello?”
“Waaah! Waaah!
Michael’s jaw began to sag as he recognized the noise.
Somewhere nearby, a baby was crying.
“Waaah! Waaah!
Unable to see, Michael went tearing through the woods and over to the car.
“Girl, you need to shut up, because if I get in that back seat, an ambulance will have to carry you home!” Marlon was threatening, waving a balled fist at Janet.
“I’d love to see you try. I’ll knock the crust off those big lips of yours!” Janet was wagging her head as Michael got to the car and was flinging the door open, breathless.
“You guys…Marlon…shut the hell up Janet…guys!” He wheezed and was doubling over, trying to catch his breath.
“Mike, what’s wrong--don’t tell me something really did grab your ‘winkie‘!” Marlon snickered as Michael was crawling into the car, over him and digging into the glove compartment.
“No, you schmuck! When I was in the woods…” Michael paused and came up with a floodlight flashlight. “…I swear I heard a baby crying! I think someone left a baby out there! It’ll die in this cold!”
Marlon raised a quizzical brow at Michael and behind him, Janet was indicating that he was crazy, twirling her finger beside her head.
“A baby? You heard a baby?” Marlon repeated, not sure how to take it. “You heard a baby in the woods?”
“Yes! We have to find it! We have to help it!” Michael, adrenaline starting to flow through his veins was reaching over Marlon, opening his door and shoving him out. “Come on!”
“Do you realize how crazy you sound right now?” Marlon demanded, zipping up his brown leather jacket against the cold wind as Janet, not wanting to be left behind alone, was also getting out the car and slamming the door.
Marlon knew that Michael had always had a soft spot in his heart for helping children, but this seemed ridiculous.
What kind of demented person would leave a child out there in the woods like that?
 “Waaah! Waaah!
Michael jumped as he was able to hear the crying carrying on the wind.
“Listen! Be quiet. Janet if you open your mouth, you’ll be picking up teeth! Listen! There‘s a child out there and we have to get it to a hospital or the police!”
Keeping their mouths closed, and Janet scowling, the others tilted their heads and strained their ears to try to hear this so-called crying that was making Michael work himself into a lather.
And very, very faintly, they could hear it.
“Waaah! Waaah!
“Holy shit! I hear it!” Marlon gasped and Janet put her hands to her mouth, stunned.
“I told you!” Michael replied and was turning, leading a stampede into the woods. “Get the molasses out your asses--we got a baby to save!”
“Waaah! Waaah!
With eyes wide, the flashlight sweeping the ground and ears open to try to locate the crying infant.
“You got any idea where it’s coming from?” Marlon demanded, his breath coming in puffs as he and Janet were running behind Michael, going deeper and deeper into the woods.
“Waaah! Waaah!
Michael, in the lead, stopped for a moment, allowing his siblings to catch up to him..
Straining his ears, Michael was certain that the crying and weeping was becoming louder. They were perhaps a few yards from the child.
“This way! This way!” He announced, waving his arms wildly and they were running deeper and deeper into the woods, knocking low branches out of their way.
“Don’t worry Baby, help is coming.” Michael vowed, his lungs stinging from the cold and was running.
“Michael! Mike! Mike!” Marlon and Janet were calling after him, stumbling over tree roots and rocks doing their best to not lose him, as their platform shoes were not the best choice for this rugged terrain.
“Come on, hurry up!” Michael was sweeping his light back and forth wildly, trying to locate the child. His heart was pounding out his chest, he was so anxious and fearful.
That’s when Marlon said something that made Michael go colder than any of the plummeting temps surrounding him could.
“We don’t hear the crying anymore…its stopped!”
Michael came to an abrupt halt and stood, incredibly still for several moments.
His entire body seemed to sag as the realization hit him--Marlon was right. They could no longer hear the crying.
“Oh God…that…that poor baby…” Michael was instantly in tears his worst fears rushing to him and grabbing onto him. “It’s…it’s…”
He couldn’t even bring himself to form the words.
“It’s alright…we’ll get help.” Marlon was assuring him, patting at his shoulders. “That’s somebody’s child and I’m sure they’re missing them.
Marlon went to say more, but was drowned out drowned out by Janet beginning to shriek.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“What?” Both brother’s whirled around and Michael was shining the light in his sister’s face as she continued yelping.
“There’s something on my boot! I think it’s blood!” The girl yawped and shrieked some more.
“Blood?” Michael took his light off Janet’s frightened face and shone the beam on her pink boots.
Sure enough, there was a dark red substance on her left boot.
“Good Lord!” Marlon was staggering, as the sight of anything bloody weakened him.
Michael saw that the blood seemed to be coming from behind some low shrubbery about a foot from his sister.
“Stand back, move!” Michael was pushing the girl out the way and into Marlon’s arms.
Heart thudding in his ears, Michael managed to will up the courage to go over to the bushes and pushing them back was shining his light on the ground.
“Jesus Christ! No!”
The sight before him disturbed Michael so badly, that he dropped to all fours on the icy ground and was vomiting so fiercely, that Marlon and Janet came running to his aid.
“Mike! What is it? Talk to me!” Marlon begged as he and his sister were trying to pat after Michael who was simultaneously sobbing, screaming and puking.
Michael, still nauseous fell back onto his bottom and speechless, at a true loss of words, could only point.
Marlon, followed by Janet, was shoving the bushes back and taking a look.
Marlon, like Michael doubled over, head swimming, and the contents of his stomach coming out and spilling on the ground. And at some point, he managed to soil himself.
Behind them, Janet tumbled to the ground in an unconscious heap.
There, concealed by the bushes were two bodies.
That of a tiny infant girl, probably a newborn, completely naked, and covered in blood and perhaps the placenta. It appeared to be asleep, but it wasn’t.
No, this child’s chest wasn’t moving at all, and she was an ashen shade of blue. The baby wasn’t alive.
If the sight of a poor dead infant wasn’t awful enough, about two feet from the child was the body of a woman.
The mother.
But it didn’t appear that the woman had escaped into the woods and given birth, then died herself, leaving an unprotected child behind.
No, not at all.
The woman, who didn’t appear to be that much older than Michael or Marlon, was clad in a thin coat and dress, the dress had been raised up, her coat fanned behind her, drenched in a pool of blood. She had once been beautiful, with a small, oval face, and short, waved hair. Her eyes, once a pleasing shade of green, were now staring off, seeing nothing.
And the woman’s exposed tummy was what had Michael and Marlon trying to throw up their own skeletons.
The woman’s stomach appeared to have been quite literally ripped open, and a closer look would reveal that the woman and child were still linked by the umbilical cord.
Just what was this? An attempted baby abduction gone wrong? A murder? Both?
Michael, Jackson didn’t wait for an answer. He didn’t want one.
Leaping to his feet and around Marlon, he stooped and scooped up Janet, still out cold on the ground.
“Come on Marlon! Run! Run!” He screamed at his brother before, terrified, he began fleeing from the horrific scene.
Very close behind him, Michael could hear Marlon running behind, trying to keep up.
It was a very awkward and dangerous run, as the trio were whipped in the faces by low hanging branches, their clothes snagging and ripping.
At one point, Michael’s entire pant leg was ripped open by a low branch, exposing his leg  up to the thigh. Another branch ripped the arm of his jacket.
Marlon was also taking his own beating, falling several times, losing a shoe and getting his leather jacket torn to ribbons.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Michael’s car came into view and in a huff, Michael yanked the back door open, threw his sister into the backseat, and was scrambling into the front as Marlon was climbing over the hood to get around to the passenger’s side.
Smoke went up as he burned rubber to get away.
“Mike, did you see what the hell I saw?” Marlon stammered, his entire body shaking. “A woman and a baby--”
“They’re dead! Marlon, they were dead!” Michael was crying all over again as he was trying to control his car and keep from crashing he was so messed up. “Someone killed them! Oh Marlon!”
“”Michael, I got a wife and two kids at home. If anything like that ever happened to them--I’d die!” Marlon gasped and was holding his head in his hands.
“We’re going to the police. There’s a town coming up ahead…Premble, I think. We gotta get help man…that’s just horrible. Oh my God, that poor child!”
They didn’t know how long they were on the road, but eventually, they did reach the town of Premble, and the police station.
Driving into the nearly empty parking lot of the station, a low, squat building, Michael and Marlon leapt from the car, and paused a moment to look at Janet.
She was still knocked out in the backseat.
“You think she’s gonna be alright out here?” Michael wondered, staring at the girl.
“Yeah, she’s got her anger to keep her warm, come on Man!” Marlon was tugging at Michael’s arm.
Both men went running up the salt covered sidewalk and concrete steps and through the double doors of the building.
At that late hour of the morning, they found only one man on duty, a skinny policeman dozing behind his desk, a cup of long cold coffee before him and a half eaten, now-stale donut.
The visor of his hat had been pulled down over his eyes.
Across the room in a cell, a dirty drunk was sleeping off his night’s worth of libations.
“Hey! You! Help us! Help! Wake up!” Michael announced as he came around the desk and was shaking the man awake.
“Leave me alone, Emma, it ain’t our anniversary and it ain’t your birthday!” The man grumbled sleepily, and forgetting he was in a lawful setting, Michael drew back a hand, striking the cop with all the force he could muster.
The cop flew out his chair and landed on the tiled floor.
Alarmed, he put a hand to his face and was staring up at Michael in shock.
“Motherfucker, did you just hit me?” He demanded and  was slowly putting his hand onto the gun hanging in his holster.
“Mister, we got an emergency! We think we found a murder scene!” Marlon cried out as he and Michael, afraid of being shot put their hands up to shield themselves.
“A murder? Where?” The cop leapt to his feet, ready to spring into action and round up the rest of the force.
“Out over on Highway 76. Off the road, in the woods. We found…oh lord…” Michael clung to  Marlon as tears began streaming from his eyes.
“We found a woman and a baby--both dead, Sir.” Marlon, unaware of it, was doing his own crying, snot falling from his nose. “The baby had been crying, it stopped…”
Both brothers were unprepared for the policeman’s reaction.
“I want you two kids--I know you ain’t from around here--to forget what you done seen and go on home. Go on home and never speak about this again, you hear me?”
Michael couldn’t have looked more shocked if the deceased woman had strolled in with her baby in her arms.
“What the hell do you mean ‘forget it’? There’s a woman and baby dead out in the woods! Have you lost your damn mind?” Michael demanded and was pulling free from Marlon. “That’s someone’s wife! Someone’s child! Hell no I won’t forget it! What kind of a cop are you?”
Before the cop could respond, Michael turned to his shaken brother and informed him,
“Let’s get out of here. If this crooked son of a bitch won’t help us, we’ll find someone who will!”
As the men gave the cop a look of pure hate, and turned to leave the station, the cop blurted,
“What you kids saw…what you saw--it ain’t real. It ain’t real!”
Marlon spun on his heel.
“Look, my brother and I may look completely busted and screwed up right now, but I can guarantee you: We ain’t stupid. We know what we saw--”
The policeman stalked over to Marlon and was staring down at him harshly.
“I don’t know what you and your brother thought you saw, but I’m telling you--there ain’t no dead woman and child on Highway 76 in the woods, god damn it. And there hasn’t been since 1934.”
“Huh?” Michael and Marlon both stared at the policeman, trying to make heads and tails out of him.
“What you saw…it ain’t real. I don’t know how you boys are fixed for the paranormal and stuff like that, but--”
“Are you trying to tell us we saw a ghost?” Michael started.
“Of some people that died in 1934?” Marlon finished for him and they traded glances.
What was going on?
“Yes, let me guess. You saw a woman with her stomach bust open, in a dress and coat, with the baby still on the cord to her, right?” The cop asked and was taking his seat back behind his desk.
“Yes…” Michael confirmed and head spinning, he grabbed onto the desk to keep from sinking to the floor.
Marlon supported him from behind, his own knees weak..
“Yeah…” The cop nodded. “That’s not a strange occurrence in these parts around this time of year. You see, back in 1934, a woman named Liza Simmons who was expecting, worked as a house keeper to some people here in town--she lived in the woods as she and her husband, Richard, weren’t that fixed for money, you know. And she always walked to the street to be picked up by her boss…” The cop reached into his desk and came up with a box of donuts, offering them to the Jackson.
Both declined. Neither didn’t think they’d be able to eat again after what they’d seen.
Munching on another glazed donut, the cop spoke some more.
“So the boss, a rich lady named Pearl White gets there, no Liza. The woman gets out her car and goes to Liza’s house and finds Richard alone, eating his breakfast--he was factory worker here in town-- and tells him Liza wasn’t on the road. Well this worried Richard, because he’d seen his wife take off. He’d kissed her goodbye. So the two of them going running through the woods, calling for her. And I’m sure, just like you, they heard a baby crying…”
Michael and Marlon stiffened up, but said nothing.
“And suddenly the crying stopped. Then Pearl screamed and fainted, leaving Richard to find his wife and baby dead. Called the police, called the coroner. Damndest thing.. With the autopsy and all, they said that since Liza was on the side of the road, some driver must have hit her and knocked her back in the woods. Must have been doing some hell of a kind of speeding because she was hit so hard, it knocked the baby clean out her!”
Marlon sagged to the floor and crawled over to the trash can emptying what was left of his stomach into it.
Michael just sat there. Numb.
“We never did find out who did it. Richard died not too long after--from a broken heart people said. But this is right around the time, the anniversary of those lives cut short. When people start claiming to hear and see stuff…It was Liza’s first child--she was only seventeen. Damn shame….”
The cop went to say more, but Michael stood and started slowly making his way for the door.
“Just forget it kid, please! You can‘t do anything! You‘re decades too late!” The cop called after him as he left the station and took a seat on the front steps, head in his hands, trying to figure out just what he’d witnessed. What he had been through.
Tears of confusion fell from his eyes as Marlon emerged, just as shell-shocked as he.
He took a seat near him and as Michael blubbered that the whole episode had been his fault, Marlon tried to comfort him.
It took a good long while before both men could get their heads on straight enough to get back in their car and continue on to Dover. They had missed their flight, but caught a later one on home. They just really wanted to get as far away from Delaware as humanly possible.
As crazy as it all had been, the death and the bodies and the possibility that it had been an illusion, one good thing did come from it.
Janet had been scared straight, and never caused any sort of trouble, ever again.

THE END

The Patient in Room 377--EXCLUSIVE Michael Jackson Horror Story!

 Hello Readers! When I was younger, I was literally obsessed with Michael Jackson’s Thriller album and the short film that went along with the title track. I used to pretend that Michael really could turn into a werewolf and haunt the woods. I was inspired for my story by just that idea, what if strange mythological creatures were indeed real and just what would happen if someone ran across one?

“The Patient in Room 377”

A Short Michael Jackson Horror Story By:

MJsLoveSlave

Boylan Mental Sanitarium

Waverly Hills, California

I was eleven years old when I made up my mind to become a doctor. When I was little, I could remember sitting on the couch with my parents and watching reruns of medical-based dramas such as “ER” and “Mash”, and being enthralled with the fast paced, high-action of emergency situations.

In my mind, I truly believed that I would grow up and go on to be an emergency room physician, spending out most of my adult years patching up bullet and stab wounds and reattaching severed limbs, sweat pouring from my brow as I rushed and ran ragged to save lives.

But when I was fifteen years old, just four short years after making my declaration, a tragedy in my family changed the field in which I wanted to work.

At that time, my father, who had spent more than thirty years, slicing out a living, working as a crane operator for a local construction company, was abruptly let go when the company suddenly went bankrupt. (It was years before we found out that the owner of the company had had a terrible gambling addiction and had basically bet--and lost--his company in a simple game of poker.)

My father, who had been the primary breadwinner in our home was now out of work and at fifty-five years old, was too old to be hired for anything other than to be a flashlight toting security guard at the local mall.

Unbeknownst to my mother and myself, that while my father put on a happy and cheerful front to us at home, when he was at work, he was a different person. His coworkers had described him as an angry, distant and loathsome man--a man my mother and I knew nothing about. My mother and I refused to believe it. Not her husband, not my father. Not the man who sat and made his baked potatoes dance with forks while he sang blues tunes just to make us laugh. Not the man who always hugged us and kissed us and told us how much he loved us on a daily basis.

Not Daddy.

Then one day, my father left for work and never came home.

My father leapt to his death from a bridge spanning a nearby river.

He had drowned himself. If it weren’t for the fisherman who had found his body tangled in his trout net, my mother and I may never have been able to give him a proper burial.

A long time later, my mother found a secret journal that my father had started a few weeks before he was fired.

And in it, was a stranger.

From the day he’d lost his job, my father’s mind had been eroding and deteriorating and his writing frequently ran to thoughts and methods of suicide, from hanging, to taking cyanide tablets and eventually, to the idea of drowning. He had felt he couldn’t come to my mother or me with his concerns, that we could consider him weak and less than a man, and it was eating him alive to have no outlet, no ears on which to air his fears and woes.

And it killed me inside that he felt his only out was with lungs full of water and algae.

At the moment I came across the last passage of the journal, I made up my mind. I no longer wanted to be an emergency room doctor. I was going to be a counselor to the people who felt alone, and had no one. And hopefully save lives.

Now, a full ten years later, I was working at Boylan Mental Sanitarium, a round the clock facility that catered to nearly five hundred at risk men, women and children who were in danger of hurting themselves.

I fancied myself as having a pretty good success rate. Over the last three years I had been at Boylan, I had worked with no less than a hundred people personally and only lost two of them.

And walking into work on that particular, sunny Thursday afternoon, I had my head held high, secure in the assumption that I had seen it all.

Women wanting to kill themselves because their “lovers” had left them for another woman (or in some cases another man); men wanting to off themselves because they thought they were the second coming of Jesus and had to do it to save humanity. Young girls killing themselves slowly, with starvation, in an attempt to attain the “perfect” body, and little boys coming off of drug fueled hazes wanting to end it all simply to stop the pain of their bodies detoxing.

Yes, I had truly seen it all.

Then I was handed the case of Mr. Jackson.

“Dr. Laroche! Dr. Laroche!”

I had barely gotten through the automatic sliding doors of the front lobby, when a young orderly, just barely out of her teens, came running towards me, a file folder clutched in her hands.

“Yes…Amanda?” I replied, stopping at the large wall of cubbyholes that served as the mail drop for all the workers in the sanitarium.

“Dr. Laroche, Dr. Pelham insisted I give this case to you. He refuses to take it. In fact, no one wants to take it. I’ve been all over the hospital trying to pass this on to someone--no one wants it ma’am!” The girl was staring at me, her eyes large and frantic.

“No one wants it--is the man threatening to harm others? Has he been properly restrained?” I questioned, taking the file from the girl, who heaved a huge sigh of relief.

We had a very strict set of protocols that we were supposed to follow if a patient was being absolutely belligerent and not only being a danger to themselves, but others.

“No, Dr. Laroche. From what I heard, he hasn’t even made a peep of noise since they brought him in last night.”

“Let’s see…Name: Michael Jackson. Age: Fifty. Race: Black. Allergies to Medications: Penicillin. Reason for being admitted to Boylan--”

I paused and blinked my eyes a few times to make absolutely certain I was reading the writing in the chart correctly.

“Amanda…is what’s written here absolutely the reason why this Mr. Jackson had been admitted here?” I demanded, slamming the file closed.

Amanda appeared frightened,

“Yes ma’am. That’s what Dr. Pelham said that man told him--”

“Well you go page Benny, eh, Dr. Pelham, right now! I have a bone to pick with that man myself!”

“Yes Dr. Laroche!” Amanda ran and immediately began calling for Dr. Pelham over the loudspeaker.

A few minutes later, Dr Benny Pelham, a large, rotund man with a permanently red face and three tufts of white hair clinging to his crimson scalp made his entrance.

I didn’t even give him a change to say hello before I blurted out sharply,

“ A werewolf? You sent me a case where a man was trying to kill himself because he thinks he’s a werewolf? Benny, honestly, it’s too late to try to pull an April Fool’s joke on me, and shame on you for coercing Amanda in on the gag!” I scolded him as I threw the obviously phony case file into his large and jiggling chest.

Dr. Pelham, in his pristine white lab coat, took on the look of a shocked polar bear as he made a grab to catch the file before it spilled to the floor.

“Brielle, you think I am joking?” He growled, becoming even redder, and was shaking the file at me. “Do you honestly believe that I would try to pass on a case if I thought I could handle it myself? I can’t. But you--you, Brielle, have the best success rate of any doctor in the hospital! One hundred patients in three years and only two casualties. I’ve had eight up and die on me in the last three years! This man is so strange, so odd, so…so….” The large man’s entire body shook as he searched his mind for the right word.

“He’s so unique, I couldn’t trust him to anyone but you.”

“Stop your lying, Bubble Butt.” I accused, shoving fists into the pockets on my coat. “ Amanda already told me you tried to pawn this off on no less than a dozen other doctors.” I revealed and Amanda was given a glare so harsh, she dropped down and out of sight behind the front circulation desk.

“Trying to appeal to my vanity won’t help you! Now if you’ll excuse me, Benny, I have to go clock in.” I spoke curtly, brushing past Dr. Pelham and going towards the time clock and hunting my time card.

“I still have eight other patients to look after, and Miss Cartwright in room 511 keeps trying to use her own hair to strangle herself. I have a full plate.”

Finding my card and punching it, I turned to find Dr. Pelham still in my face.

“Brielle, I’m begging you, please take a look at this man. If I can’t help him and can’t find someone who will, this man has no other place to go, damn it! He will hurt himself! Now please, I’ll go tend to your hair-hanger and even that guy who keeps trying to slash his wrists with the plastic sporks, if you’d just look into this man’s case. Talk to him. If you still don’t want him, I’ll do my best to help him. But please!” A beefy hand wrapped around my arm and for the first time, I noticed just how distraught and pleading Dr. Pelham’s eyes were.

He really was desperate for me to at least look at this case.

And I relented.

“Alright, Benny! Alright! I’ll look at Mr. Jackson. What room is he in?” I still wasn’t quite sure I wanted this case, but there it was, in my hands. And I would have to handle him with a delicate hand just like all my other oddball cases, like the man who tried to kill himself by licking electrical outlets.

“He’s just been transferred to room 377. I’ll take you to him…” Before I could object, I was being yanked towards the elevators.

Pulling away from him as we stepped inside the rectangular box that carried us to the third floor, I offered him nothing but a cold shoulder and evil eye.

As we came out onto the third floor and began navigating the winding corridors, I was all business.

“What method was Mr. Jackson using to go about killing himself?” I wondered thoughtfully, peeking at the file on him again, not truly believing the cause.

“His brother, who had him committed, said he found him in his garage, trying to drink a can of antifreeze. He said his brother was covered in blood and he still has no idea where the blood came from.”

Dr. Pelham was somber as we came to the closed door of Room 377.

“Antifreeze. Been a while since I had someone using that.” I nodded and motioned for a male orderly to open the door for us.

Dr. Pelham started to enter the room with me and I put a hand out.

“My case now, Benny. I’ll take it from here.” I assured him and entered the room.

“You be careful!” Dr, Pelham called after me. “Strangest of the strange, believe me!”

Room 377 was much like all the other rooms at Boylan, white with quilted and padded walls and entirely bare save for a bare mattress in a metal frame (most patients couldn’t even be trusted with a down pillow) and an unadorned window on the opposite wall.

I spotted Mr. Jackson on the other side of the room, crouched in the corner, his knees drawn to his chest, head lowered with a long mass of shiny black curls tumbling down. He was barefoot and clad in the standard issue grey pajamas that all the patients, male or female, wore.

“Mr. Jackson?” I spoke softly, so I wouldn’t startle him and drive him to act out.

The man on the floor remained still for a long while and finally, finally, he lifted his head.

I was momentarily taken aback by just how attractive the man appeared.

He had clear, pale, milky skin, a face with lovely and sharp features and bright, expressive dark eyes, under finely tweezed black brows. He appeared much younger than his stated fifty years old.

Under any other circumstances, I might have asked him out to dinner and a movie.

The expression I found in his eyes weren’t of fright like most of the people I encountered, who appeared like caged animals within their cells.

His expression was different. If I was correct, it appeared there was remorse in his eyes. A quiet sadness.

“Are you the lady that’s supposed to help me?” His voice was very high-pitched for a man and he seemed timid as he continued to stare up at me.

“Yes, my name is Dr. Brielle Laroche. I’m here to help you. May I call you Michael?” I ventured a few steps closer to him.

“I don’t mind.” He sighed softly, then added coldly, “I don’t belong here.”

“Oh, but you do, Michael.” I objected in a tone so sweet, you’d have sworn I was agreeing with him. I had learned from experience it was best to act like I was a friend to a patient rather than a foe.

“You tried to harm yourself by drinking antifreeze. That’s not normal behavior. And this claim about being a werewolf--”

I was cut off by Mr. Jackson declaring with hot conviction.

“I am a werewolf! No one believes me! I tried to tell my brother, Jermaine, and he didn’t’ believe me. He sent me to this…to this prison! And that doctor, that big fat man, washed his hands of me before he even saw me. I heard him through the door. I heard him asking God why he was given a case like mine. No one believes me. And now you’re here. Another skeptic.” Eyes running up and down me with distaste, he laughed bitterly, and lowered his head once more.

Alright, so the man thought he was a werewolf. I had everything to lose in writing him off and humiliating him any further. The sanitarium was already packed with people who’d been written off left and right,

No, if I was going to make headway with this man, I had to make him believe that I believed and was on board with his cockamamie tale.

Turning on all the charm I had in my body, I kept my voice so sweet I nearly contracted diabetes,

“I’m not like Dr. Pelham, Michael. I’m not a skeptic. That’s why I have your case…I do believe you are a werewolf. That’s why I’m here.” god I was lying through my pearly whites, but if it benefited this man, I’d pretend I thought moon was made of cheese and inhabited by little green men.

In order to help a patient, I had to learn what led them to their breaking point, what had caused them to snap and want to end their own life.

I was about to go to work on Mr. Jackson.

“Now, I want to understand you, Michael. How did you come to be a werewolf…is that why you want to harm yourself?”

Was I really having this conversation?

In front of me, Michael shook his head, tresses bouncing, and I inched closer to him.

“My being a werewolf--it’s only a part of the problem…” He paused and stared up at me, as if to study me.

“What are you, French?” Mr. Jackson asked suddenly.

“Half. My father’s French and my mother’s Russian and Romanian.”

There was no need to tell him my father had offed himself so long ago.

“Ah, Romanian…” Mr. Jackson stretched his legs out and rubbed at his clefted chin thoughtfully. “Have you, by any chance, ever been to Romania, Dr, Laroche?”

“No.” I smiled at him and patted his thin knee. “Never crossed my mind to go there--”

“Well, I have been there, and I wish every waking second I had never gone!” Mr. Jackson’s voice was now deeper, beckoning, and it was clear he felt comfortable in sharing his story with me.

“You see, I am a great traveler. Since I was a teenager, I’ve loved traveling to distant countries and learning their customs and cultures. Last summer, I had the opportunity to go and visit some Romanian villages. And that was the sort of thing I liked, seeing the country folks, untouched by modern society. I took a lovely little cabin at an inn on a beautiful mountain top, in a very small village, called Gorlak. I adored the view of the surrounding area, all pretty and green with little goats here and there, and would often leave the windows open to enjoy the cool breezes and fresh air. I tended to leave the window open for the breeze at night to help me sleep. And that was the start of the problem.” Michael groaned and put a hand to his forehead. “The woman who ran the inn, Oksana, kept begging me to close the window at night, claiming that something called a ‘reshnik’ might get me. I had no idea what a reshnik was I had never heard of such a thing and assumed that she meant I might catch a cold from the cool air. I‘m not fluent in Romanian by any means,”

“Yes…” I was nodding, trying to figure where this story was going.

“One morning, I awoke with the worst pain in my left arm. At first I thought I was having a heart attack, but when I looked carefully, I saw that I had a bite mark on my arm--like a dog had bitten me.” Michael stopped and pushed up the sleeve of his top, revealing a set of scars on his thin forearm that did indeed resemble a canine bite mark. I could make out at least seven tooth indentations that had healed over, leaving dark pink touches to his pale skin.

“I was bleeding a little and ran to Oksana to make her help me. She immediately kicked me out, throwing my things into the mud, screaming “Reshnik! Reshnik!” at the top of her lungs.

I tried going to several other homes for help, as I was still bleeding, and no one even answered their doors. No one wanted to help me.

“I eventually stopped bleeding, and came on home to California. I saw a doctor and he said it looked like I had been bitten by a dog, but that I would be alright. I was given a series of rabies shots and sent on my way. ”

I leapt back as Mr. Jackson rose to his feet, standing a few inches over me.

“And I was fine, for nearly a month. That all changed with the first full moon after my bite.” He was running his hands through his hair, hands trembling.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, with a hard, raging craving for red meat.”

“You’re a grown man, that’s normal.” I tried to ease the rapidly tensing situation with a chuckle. Mr. Jackson didn’t laugh and gazed on me with a look of aggravation.

“ It’s not normal. I’ve been a vegetarian for over twenty years. I don’t even like beef broth in my vegetable soup. But I found myself driving to an 24-hour grocery store and buying a pack of steaks. I didn’t even make it home. Right there, in the parking lot in my car, I tore the package open and ate the steaks. Raw, uncooked, and bloody. Licked the blood from my own fingertips. I ate five raw steaks and was happy as a clam.

The next morning I was sick to my stomach from the meat. I didn’t know where the craving had come from, but as soon as I ate the steaks, the feeling left me. And it continued like that for the next six months, Dr. Laroche. Every full moon, I’d eat a bellyful of raw meat. Then came the fateful night this past February. Things changed.” Mr. Jackson turned his back to me and was gazing out of the small window. “I began craving strange things. Stranger than the meat. At home I have a pet snake and once a week I’d feed him a mouse. And one night I found myself wanting to eat the mouse. Me. I was looking at the small mouse in my hand like it was a hamburger with all the trimmings.”

He confided, voice quavering.

“And did you eat the mouse, Michael?” I inquired and instantly regretted it.

The man whirled around, aghast, skin grey in disbelief.

“Hell no! I didn’t eat the mouse! What do you think I am, some animal with no self control? I walked into this building, not crawled in on all fours! I do have some self control you know--see, I knew you wouldn’t understand!”

He shouted and behind us, the door cracked and an orderly put his head in, surely checking to make sure I wasn’t being attacked.

I quickly waved him away and placed my hands on Mr. Jackson’s shoulders. It was against protocol to really physically touch patients, but this man seemed so disturbed, I figured a kind touch wouldn’t hurt.

“I want to understand, Michael. Make me understand.” I encouraged him and was patting at his back.

Mr. Jackson appeared to calm a bit and trust me again.

“I’m getting to it. I began searching online and trying research this crazy behavior of mine, these odd cravings. I always remembered that woman yelling “Reshnik” at me and looked it up on a word translation site. I almost fainted when I saw what it meant. It’s an old Slavic word that does mean “werewolf”. it seemed completely ridiculous to me--I don’t even really believe in things like this myself. Then I began reading into the folklore, the stories about werewolves. And the more I read, the more it seemed like I had this…this disease.” The man was trembling beneath my hands.

Michael Jackson truly believed he was this mythical beast. Oh, I had an extremely long road of therapy ahead of me in helping this man.

“It’s not like how it appears in the movies, a man growing a coat of fur and a long snout and claws. That’s just Hollywood imagery. In truth all I have are cravings. I haven’t changed physically at all. Every month, just at the full of the moon, I go meat crazy. The rest of the time, I’m a vegetarian and could care less about red meat--”

This man was talking in circles and I still had many patients to see on my shift. I had to hurry him along.

“What drove you to want to kill yourself? I see the idea with being a werewolf and being bitten, but it’s not telling me what I really need to know.” I announced, a sharpness creeping into my tone as I was starting to get fed up.

I was ignored, but got my answer soon enough.

“I was visiting my brother, Jermaine--the same steel-headed so and so that had me committed--and we happened to see the weather report. It said that in two days there would be a lunar eclipse.” He turned to me suddenly, staring plainly as if this bit of information was to have awaken a revelation in me.

I stared back just as plainly and it became clear of my ignorance to whatever it was he was implying.

“Ah, how would I expect you to know what a lunar eclipse means to a werewolf. You’re just a doctor.” He simpered, wrapping his arms around himself, if though he had a chill.

“I’ll tell you what a lunar eclipse means to a werewolf--it means death.”

A long slim finger wagged at me. “You see, any werewolf exposed to a lunar eclipse, even the tiniest bit of exposure, he will die a violent death. I’m not completely sure what happens, if we go up in flames like vampires before the sun or what-- al I know is me and my brethren caught in the eclipse will suffer greatly. And I didn’t want that. That’s how I ended up in Jermaine’s garage, chug-a-lugging that green goo.” Mr. Jackson turned and brushed past me and dropped down on his bed.

“It was sweet, but made me so sick, that I began vomiting, over and over, until blood gushed from my mouth. And then I blacked out. I was already out when my brother found me and rushed me to the hospital. They pumped my stomach and while the stuff was still coming out of me, my brother signed the papers and put me away in here. And here I am. I didn’t want to die in a violent way. You see Dr. Laroche…” He held his hand out to me, and I took it, not sure what force had driven me to it.

“I am not afraid to die; I know there’s something for me on the other side. It’s just the way to go. I don’t want to hurt. I have a very low threshold of pain, and I just wanted to be painless. I know I’m going to die, tonight. The eclipse is tonight” He was somber and looking like a small child.

I didn’t usually play into my patients eccentricities, but there was something in Mr. Jackson’s eyes that moved me to say,

“You have to be hidden from the eclipse, tonight. If I could find a shade or something to block that window--” I indicated his tiny hole in the wall,

“--then you would survive the eclipse and we can work on some therapy for you.”

Mr. Jackson hung his head woefully,

“I don’t want to survive the eclipse, Dr. Laroche. You see, I’m terrified of these cravings. Sure it started with steaks and wanting a mouse, but what about the future, what lies down the line for me? Will I one day want human flesh? Will I one day crave that? And what if I give in? It would be hell on earth for me if I was going around, murdering innocents. I couldn’t stand it. I want to remove myself from the situation before it comes to that. You must understand, I’m trying to help mankind. I’m no longer a man, not really. I’m…I’m something else, Dr. Laroche. Something different.”

I was almost convinced this man was a werewolf, he was so soft and gentle in his ways. I actually felt pangs of guilt for laughing about him earlier.

“Dr. Laroche…” tearing my eyes from Mr. Jackson, I saw that Amanda, the orderly had poked her head in the room. “Dr, Pelham needs you. Miss Cartwright has bitten him several times and he needs your okay to administer a sedative to calm her” She alerted me.

I waved a hasty hand at her. “Give me a few moments, I’m with a patient here, dang!”

“Yes ma’am!” Amanda leaned back and closed the door.

“Will you excuse me, Michael?” I started to leave, when I saw tears falling down his cheeks.

“Why are you crying?” I dropped to my knee before him and grasped one of his large hands in mine.

Sniffling, I got a choked reply,

“You were the first person to listen to me. My brother wouldn’t listen to me, and neither did Dr. Pelham. I, I thank you so much for listening to me, Dr. Laroche.”

Before I could stop him, Mr. Jackson leaned and pecked my mouth gently.

I recoiled in horror. I could have easily been fired and lost my practicing license if I was founds engaging in such an act with a person entrusted to my care.

“Forgive me, Doctor.” Mr. Jackson’s cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment. “I lost myself. I was so overcome with emotion, at finally having an ear to my troubles and not being tossed away. I apologize, but I do thank you so much.”

He was squeezing my hand appreciatively, and I did feel as though I had accomplished a breakthrough with Mr. Jackson, and that was the first step to a full recovery and going back out into mainstream society.

“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Jackson. I have to go see my other patients, but I will be back to check on you in the morning. And you will be fine.” I assured him, and Mr. Jackson’s hand went limp in my hand.

“I won’t be here in the morning.”

Was the last thing he said to me, as I slipped from the room.

* * *

I worked overtime that night, as a crisis with another one of my patients (we solved Miss Cartwright’s want to hang herself, right away by shaving her head bald of any hair to keep her from trying to strangle herself with it). This other particular patient had managed to loosen a screw from his metal bed and used the pointed end to gouge jagged holes in his wrists to try to bleed to death.

He’d managed to stay coherent despite bleeding profusely and it had taken all night to talk him from his anxiety drenched high to where he could be taken and have his wrists stitched closed.

I was tired, and drained, and would have loved to have driven home and dove into bed, but something compelled me, drew me back up to the third floor to check on Mr. Jackson.

I wanted to see that he had made it through the night and tell him “I told you so.”

I never got to.

As I stepped off the elevator in the early morning hours, I became acutely aware of a man shrieking at the top of his lungs.

“…I trusted you! I trusted you! You big bastard! I should kill you!”

I flew into defense mode, thinking that some how one of the patients had escaped their cell and was threatening somebody.

Running through the halls, I came upon a wild scene.

There was a man I had never seen before, being restrained by two large orderlies and was screaming and reaching at Dr. Pelham, who was standing just out of the man’s reach.

“You son of a bitch! You told me my brother would be safe! You told me you’d help him! I’m gonna break your damn neck! My brother! My little brother! Michael! Michael! I’m sorry Michael! Michael!”

Michael? Oh no… No!

The man sagged to the floor, breaking down and weeping, hands mashed to his rough and leathery face.

I was in a daze as I got over to Dr. Pelham.

It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

“Benny…Benny…” I swallowed hard as I grabbed onto his arm.

“Is that Jermaine Jackson?” I barely heard myself my voice was so weak.

“Yeah,” Dr. Pelham, voice cracking, turned to me, his own eyes watery.

“I’m sorry Brielle…I’m really sorry.”

“You mean Michael is…he’s…” I put a hand to my chest as it began heaving.

Behind us, the door to Room 377 opened and I had to hold on to the wall as my knees became weak.

Two medics came by, pushing a sheet covered gurney between them.

At the sight of the gurney, Jermaine was inconsolable.

“Michael! My brother! NOOOO! What am I going to tell our mother? How can I tell her that Michael is…is….Oh God!” He screamed and breaking from the orderlies laid himself against the sheet covered remains of his sibling.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me! I love you! I thought I was doing the right thing, Michael! Please forgive me!” he dropped to the floor again and as the medics continued on, I noticed something that would haunt me every time I closed my eyes.

As Jermaine had jostled his brother, one of his hands had fallen from under the sheet and dangled.

At least what was left of his hand. All I saw was bloodied, bruised and torn flesh, a few bones peeking through.

Reaching a hand to Dr. Pelham and holding on my throat with the other, I wheezed,

“Benny, what the hell happened to that man? What happened? He was fine when I left him and…did you see his hand? No one does that to themselves!”

“I don’t know! Nobody knows what happened. Around midnight last night, I got paged and one of the orderlies said that Mr. Jackson had begun shouting and raising a ruckus, carrying on, hollering for help. They thought he was just coming to terms with being in Boylan. Eventually the noise died down….but I didn’t know that the man had himself died.”

Benny slapped a hand to his forehead.

“How did he die? How did he manage to kill himself? There was nothing in that room to harm him!” I was still trying to be objective, vainly pushing the thought of the Reshnik Curse out of my head.

“That’s what no one can grasp.” Dr. Pelham grasped my arm in his hand and was leading me to Mr. Jackson’s room. “I hate to show you this, but you have to see.”

Pulling me along with him and pushing the door open, I felt my eyes swelling first in disbelief and then blurring over with hot tears of my own.

The room.

My God that room looked as though a napalm bomb had gone off in there.

All over, the padding had been ripped and torn off the walls, the bed all the way across the room and over turned.

Blood was everywhere. So much blood. Streaking the walls, spattering the ceiling, even pooled on the floor.

“We don’t know what the hell happened. It’s like the man himself exploded and everything flew everywhere. We just don’t know. The only thing we do know is that man didn’t have any weapons on himself or hidden in here to do this. And I saw that man, it looked like he went into a knife fight, without a knife. He was gashed all over. It was something out a slasher film. Four orderlies threw up when they saw him. It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life. What did that man tell you? Did he give you any clue about what he could have done I‘m so sorry I gave this to you!“

My colleague was pulling at what was left of his hair in anguish.

It was completely obvious that in what ever agony he’d been feeling, Michael Jackson had not only ripped his room, but himself to ribbons.

Patting his shoulder I shook my head and cried harder.

“You wouldn’t understand, Benny. You just wouldn’t understand. That‘s what he told me. This is something that‘s different, and bigger than us.”

That was the last thing I remembered before collapsing in grief.

When I came to a few hours later, I immediately requested for a transfer to another facility. Any facility.

Dr. Pelham followed suit and also left the hospital.

I just wanted to get as far away from Boylan Sanitarium and hopefully never encounter another patient like the patient in room 377 ever again.

At least that’s what I pray for every day.

It was never explained what truly killed Mr. Jackson, but I will believe that it was the Curse of the Reshnik.

　

　

ALTERNATE ENDING FOR THOSE WHO DON’T LIKE MICHAEL HURT:

I worked overtime that night, as a crisis with another one of my patients (we solved Miss Cartwright’s want to hang herself, right away by shaving her head bald of any hair to keep her from trying to strangle herself with it). This other particular patient had managed to loosen a screw from his metal bed and used the pointed end to gouge jagged holes in his wrists to try to bleed to death.

He’d managed to stay coherent despite bleeding profusely and it had taken all night to talk him from his anxiety drenched high to where he could be taken and have his wrists stitched closed.

I was tired, and drained, and would have loved to have driven home and dove into bed, but something compelled me, drew me back up to the third floor to check on Mr. Jackson.

I found Mr. Jackson, in the wee hours of the morning, asleep on his cot of bed, stretched out under thin standard issue blanket.

He appeared so peaceful lying there, the first strains of morning sunlight coming through the one window of his room.

Everything about the poor man appeared normal, except for the fact that his clothing was stuck to him-- Mr. Jackson was drenched in sweat.

I figured it was probably from his own anxiety and worry of a fairytale death that was not to be.

But he was none the less alive, his chest going up and falling with each breath he took.

Placing a hand on his smooth forehead, I leaned and whispered into his ear.

“You’re fine; I told you so.”

Shifting in his sleep, one of Mr. Jackson’s hands fell from beneath the blanket and as I stared at it, I found my eyes widening in awe and horror.

His hand was badly bruised and bloodied, the nails completely knocked back.

Stunned and wondering how he’d hurt himself, I turned to call for an orderly.

And that was when I saw it.

The padding on the inside of the door was torn and ripped to shreds as if it had been gashed by a wild animal.

At the sight of the blood stained door, I stood, squared my shoulders and walked out of the room.

And I kept walking.

I never returned to the sanitarium or the patient in room 377.