PROLOGUE
March 4, 1957
Lake View Asylum
Bedlam Falls, Michigan
The soiled rag did little to silence the screams echoing throughout the hospital’s dank subterranean basement, but it did keep the young woman strapped to the examination table from biting through her own tongue. Small consolation, however, her sky-blue eyes had already been removed and tossed carelessly onto the morgue’s green-tiled floor. Through her muffled cries, blood-filled tears streamed down her face and onto the cold metal table where they collected in a growing pinkish-colored puddle.
Tall and slender, with silver hair falling to his shoulders, Dr. Wesley Clovis stood at the table and surveyed his handiwork. The woman had been brutally stripped naked, her head, wrists, and ankles secured to the table by soiled leather straps. With each spasm of pain, her full breasts heaved and the restraints dug further into her cold flesh, causing the white clad orderly standing at the foot of the table to squeal in obvious delight.
“Douglass, if you would be so kind,” motioning toward a cluttered tray of instruments near the table, Clovis directed his assistant, “I am in need of my scalpel.”
“Indeed,” the diminutive orderly responded, moving to the side of the table and the instrument tray. Douglas’s unsettling grin widened beneath a pencil-thin mustache, revealing a jagged row of yellow stained teeth, he asked in a sinister whisper that was dripping with vehemence. “You gonna cut her?”
Clovis paused, recasting his gaze from the prone woman on the metal table to the impish man in white. “Yes, Douglass, her blood shall flow,” he whispered tersely, and then continued, his voice filling with conviction. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood … for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”
Twenty minutes later Dr. Wesley Clovis walked from the morgue, his starched white shirt soaked with the ‘life of the flesh’. Although, no closer to unlocking the secrets, which separated the living from the dead, he took solace in the knowledge that an unlimited supply of subjects remained at his disposal.
As the sound of Clovis’ thunderous footfalls echoed in retreat though the cavernous basement, Douglass Wyatt was in charge and to left to care for what remained of young Debra Moored. Shrugging free from his pristine hospital uniform, the pony-tailed orderly climbed atop the table, eager to explore the woman’s still-warm flesh before it grew cold.
CHAPTER 1: HEAD GAMES
“So tell me, Mr. Tanner, how’s that working for you?”
Brady responded to the acerbic inquiry with a corresponding sour smile and a long stretch of silence. His weekly tug-of-war sessions with Dr. Laurence Vredeveld were just now beginning to gain traction. Therapy hadn’t been his idea and he wasn’t quite ready yet to acknowledge April’s suggestion to “get some help” as a good idea. Yet he found himself looking forward to his Wednesday afternoon appointments nonetheless.
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Brady continued, allowing a brief smile to spread beneath his hazel eyes, “I’m too old for another run at American Idol – damn bastards and their age limits – so I decided to get back into the business of writing. Maybe start slow – fortune cookies and Dove Promise wrappers; nothing too complex right away”
Vredeveld’s shoulders shook with soundless laughter as he plucked the glasses from his face. The psychologist paused to let the mirth drift from the conversation before turning his naked eye to Brady. “Something tells me that’s a wise choice, Mr. Tanner.” He paused briefly, “So what does writing look like to you – a novel or maybe throwing your hat back into the media circus?”
Brady shrugged. “That’s the rub – I’m just not sure; perhaps both.”
Vredeveld considered the reply as he perched his wire-framed glasses once again on the end of his nose. “Can you be more specific? Something tells me you’ve given this some thought.”
Brady fidgeted anxiously in his chair, bringing to mind a sense of déjà vu as he recalled his first visit to Dr. Vredeveld’s office some six weeks prior. A large mahogany desk dominated the space and book-laden shelves lined the taupe colored walls. The combination of furnishings brought to mind the movie, Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy, starring the incomparable Will Ferrell. During Brady’s favorite scene from the film, Ferrell’s character claimed his self-importance by bragging of his collection of several leather-bound books and an apartment that smelled of rich mahogany. Brady had spent his entire first visit with Dr. Vredeveld stifling nervous laughter and doing his best to resist the temptation to scan the shelves looking for leather-bound books.
“The hospital,” he finally responded, shaking free from the urge to chuckle. “I want to write about the hospital.”
Vredveld sighed noisily. Brady had picked up on his doctor’s “tell” early on in their therapy sessions. A sigh from Vredeveld usually meant he didn’t think whatever Brady was contemplating was a good idea.
“”I’m confused, Brady. During our sessions you’ve done nothing but talk about how badly you wish you could just forget about the whole affair. It seems to me that writing about it is an odd way to forget.”
Brady glanced down at his wrist, much the way someone would glance at their watch to see when they would be released from whatever Hell they had currently found themselves in – work, school, a crowded elevator – or in this case, a therapy session. Yet it was no time-piece that Brady looked to. Instead, encircling his wrist was a simple band of thin plastic. Brady had never once spoken of it in therapy, but Vredeveld could sense its hold over his patient.
“Maybe forgetting isn’t the best option,” Brady stated simply, not wanting to admit aloud that it didn’t appear to be an option at all. Brady’s hopes of moving beyond the unexplainable experiences he had shared with his small circle of friends over the past several weeks were foolhardy, at best. The hospital bracelet about his wrist guaranteed it.
“Can you at least tell me what has changed,” Vredeveld asked, probing for insight. “Haven’t you seen progress, Brady? You’re sleeping better, right – the night terrors and sleepwalking have subsided?”
Brady nodded slowly, “Yeah, I’ve seen progress.” Brady’s short reply hid the truth. The progress which he spoke of was not the kind Vredeveld was referencing. Brady’s battle with the vengeful spirit Ellis Arkema for control over his fragile mind had come to a crease-fire of sorts. Whatever else the plastic hospital bracelet was, Brady believed it was no longer a danger to him personally. There was no malicious intent from its original owner. Ellis’ vengeance, Brady had come to understand, was being redirected elsewhere. That’s not to say that Brady’s role in the matter was resolved. A doorway had been opened inside him – a doorway that led…beyond. The veil has been parted, the once-cryptic message, now rang clear in his tired mind.
“Listen, I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do,” he continued. “I’m just saying that it’s the thing I need to do.”
The silence hung between them. Once again they had reached the familiar impasse. Brady had shared only bits and pieces of his recent brush with the supernatural. Partly because he had hoped that denial would somehow make it all go away, but mostly because he feared the doctor’s ability to have him escorted away for an undisclosed amount of time for intensive treatment. The irony of which, considering his past experience with Janie’s Law and the treatment of individuals with mental illness, was not lost on him.
All sense of joviality was removed from Vredeveld’s voice when he finally spoke. “This writing you plan to engage in, it’s not going to interfere with our sessions, correct?”
Brady’s mischievous grin spread once again across his face. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
Grave Undertakings concludes the story introduced in my debut thriller Asylum Lake.
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