Asylum

Chapter 2

2

The drive from the airport to Evergreen Hospital outside Seattle was a long but pretty one. It was east of downtown, past Lake Washington, and surrounded on all sides by beautiful wooded foothills. Sunlight speckled the two-lane highway, casting shadows and pools of light on a forest floor littered in fall colors. Red and orange leaves covered the side of the road and kicked up in small clouds as the car passed through them. Clouds threatened to take away the sun, but it was not going without a fight.

Andrew saw all of this without comment or emotion from the backseat of the limo. He and his father never talked now. All pretense of family was abandoned. His father did not love him. Any emotion his father showed was to keep up appearances.

A few days after his jump, after the hospital had released him and he was back home, his father had drunk his courage and came to Andrew’s room. He’d pushed open the door and stood in the doorway swaying slightly, the ice clinking gently in his glass like a wind chime. The odor of Scotch hung about him. Andrew hated the smell.

He had hoped his father would say something, anything that at least hinted at love. He longed for his father to come and hold him. For his father to tell him that he forgave him, that he knew Andrew had no choice in killing Simon.

But his father had said only one thing. “I wish you had missed the bag.” Then his father had stepped back, stumbled, and careened down the hall.

Andrew had curled up and cried: loud, racking sobs that only the mixture of anger, hurt, and love can create. He had fallen asleep crying, and when he woke, the sun was out. It was a beautiful day, and nothing had changed. After that night, he and his father had only spoken when they had to. So it was, on this final drive, neither had spoken to the other. Andrew wished David were here with him. He was afraid.

The hospital itself would better be described as a compound. As they approached the gated entrance, Andrew saw an imposing ten-foot brick wall, topped with a wire mesh that had no barbs but he guessed was electrified.

The walls around the gatehouse were old. Ivy clung to the brick, draping most of it in green. It made Andrew think of old New England buildings with their aloofness—the kind that said they had stood for a hundred years and had no doubt they would stand for a thousand more.

A camera was mounted like a baleful eye on the wall, focusing on the front gate. The brand-new gatehouse was most likely state-of-the-art. The gate itself looked strong enough to withstand a small tank assault. As their car pulled up, Andrew risked a glance inside the booth from his window. The gatehouse was loaded with electronic equipment. Inside monitors covered the wall, constantly cycling through images from the various cameras. A guard stepped out and over to the car.

Andrew caught a glimpse of the guard through the front window. For a second he saw the man’s eyes—cold, distant, impersonal. They seemed devoid of feeling, as though he were more robot than man. When the guard glanced at him, a dark shadow seemed to fall over Andrew. It was only after the guard nodded them through that he realized he’d been holding his breath.

His mother leaned forward and patted his leg. “Everything is going to be just fine.” She said this a lot; it was her mantra now.

Andrew said nothing and continued to gaze out the window. He was an embarrassment to her, and she was becoming a nervous wreck. Before Andrew had turned crazy, her mother had thrown extravagant parties, sometimes two or three times a month. Now she and his father went out more and rarely had friends over. They had said nothing, but Andrew knew they were afraid he’d have one of his fits. Maybe he’d start talking to thin air, or curl up in a ball in the middle of the dining room, or just start screaming for hours, and then their dirty little secret would be out: their son was deranged. A loony—or something worse. Could they recover socially? Probably not. No, a part of her was probably glad he was going to be locked up. She could stop popping all the Valium and relax, her place in high society once more secure.

Still she patted his knee, told him it was for the best, and that everything was going to be just fine, because she was a mother, after all, and had to justify the title.

To say the hospital itself was grand, large, or even huge would have been an understatement. As the car made its way up the long driveway from the gatehouse to the main building, Andrew only caught glimpses of turrets and spires above the treetops. But when they cleared the last of the trees and approached the sprawling lawn, Andrew saw how truly imposing the hospital really was.

It was more like a castle than a hospital. Spires jutted from steeply angled roofs green from age and exposure. Dirty red brick made up the majority of the building. Two huge wings stretched off in either direction from a central structure, framing a long courtyard with a fountain in the middle. The dramatic statue in the middle of the fountain was of a man on a rearing horse. Windows dotted the building like hundreds of glaring eyes.

Andrew had once seen a documentary on the palaces built in the gilded age by Vanderbilt and Carnegie. This hospital looked like it belonged to that time. It was a beautiful building, but he was glad they were approaching it during the day. His relief soured, however, when he realized he would be seeing this place at night for years to come. He was home.

As the car turned onto the wide loop at the end of the driveway, he was able to see the hospital from the side. It sat on the edge of a cliff, the jagged precipice falling away from the building to a lakeshore far below. From any of the windows in the back the view would be amazing, but the vertigo excruciating.

There was another, somewhat haunting feature at the rear. The front and sides of the building were covered in lush, green ivy, but toward the back, at the lowest levels, the ivy was dead. Its gray skeleton clung to the walls as if in a bizarre death grip.

They pulled up in front of the door and exited the car.

Andrew’s father scrutinized the estate with surprise and, maybe, a little awe. “This looks nice. Won’t be too bad.”

“I guess,” Andrew said. It was growing colder, and the wind had picked up. But as imposing as the building was from the courtyard, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go inside, even if it meant getting out of the cold.

“I wonder what lake that is behind the hospital,” his mother said. “Maybe they’ll take you down and let you go swimming.”

Andrew and his father exchanged looks. They both knew what kind of place this was. You could call it a hospital, a castle, or even a sanitarium, but in the end it was what it was: a prison. There would be no swimming.

The driver pulled a small suitcase out of the trunk of the car and set it down on the sidewalk. Andrew picked it up. He was not allowed to bring much with him; the hospital would provide everything he needed.

As they approached, the massive double doors opened just enough to let a man ooze through. A huge smile, framed by a moustache and goatee, stretched across his face. He appeared to be in his early forties, but his hair and goatee were generously peppered with gray. He hurried down the steps toward them, hand outstretched like a divining rod.

The man was happy, Andrew thought. Happy like a used car salesman who has seen a sucker walk onto his lot.

“Hello. You must be Mr. and Mrs. Harland.” The man snatched Andrew’s father’s hand and pumped furiously, then his mother’s with only slightly less enthusiasm. “My name is Richard Canell. I’m Dr. Amoroth’s assistant. He wanted me to take you right up to his office when you arrived.” He c****d his head toward Andrew. “And you must be Andrew. What do you think of the hospital?” He waved at the building behind him.

“Seems pretty big,” Andrew said.

“Yes, well, it is that. If you’d like to follow me, I’ll take you to Dr. Amoroth’s office.”

Mr. Canell turned and headed back through the entrance. Stopped by a sudden, inexplicable flicker of fear, Andrew paused while his father followed Mr. Canell inside. He gently grabbed his mother’s arm before she could follow.

“It’s not too late, Mom.” He spoke quietly so Mr. Canell and his father would not hear. “I could come back home and keep working with David. He was helping me. I don’t like this place. It feels wrong somehow.”

He looked at her with pleading eyes, but only a Valium-glazed emptiness returned his stare.

“Everything is going to be just fine,” she intoned.

Then, smile firmly in place, she stepped through the doorway and was swallowed by the same inky blackness that had just consumed his father and Mr. Canell. Andrew, knowing he had no choice, followed her inside.

The inside of the hospital felt as old as its castle like exterior. Hardwood floors and expensive looking rugs stretched down the corridors. The entryway was cavernous, reaching thirty feet up to an arched dome. A large chandelier, hung from the ceiling, was gently aglow with soft lights dim enough to resemble candle glow. Four corridors branched off: two to the left, one on the right just before the stairs, and one down the long entrance hall just beyond the stairs.

The stairway was impressive. Fifteen-feet wide with a beautifully carved railing, it ran up to a landing with still more corridors branching in other directions before turning back and up another flight up. The carvings on the railing were detailed, seeming to flow into one another. Andrew tried to focus on the woodwork, but an optical illusion kept the carved figures moving while his gaze slid over them. It began to make Andrew feel queasy, so he looked away.

Dark wood wainscoting lined most of the halls, giving them an archaic, shadowy appearance.

“Impressive, huh?” Mr. Canell asked as they started up the stairs. “Evergreen Hospital was originally built as a retreat for the social elite back in the early 1900s. It wasn’t much more than a relaxation spa, but it was hyped as a miracle hospital.”

Mr. Canell stopped a moment and leaned toward them as if letting them in on a little conspiracy. “The head doctor at the time had some questionable credentials.” He winked and resumed walking up the stairs. “Unfortunately, back then it was still pretty far out of the way for most of the wealthy, so it quickly became a place to put family members who had become an embarrassment. You know, black sheep and such. It naturally evolved into a psychiatric hospital in the late 1920s.”

They crossed the first landing and continued up.

“Of course,” Canell added, “back then they called them asylums and sanitariums. It kept going, in one form or another, until 1963, when the funding from the government ran out.” As they crested the top of the stairs, Canell paused, slightly out of breath. “I keep telling them we need an elevator at the entrance.” He smiled at them.

They continued down a wide hallway and encountered the hospital staff moving between offices. Where the entrance was quiet and mostly empty, this floor teemed with activity. The noise comforted Andrew. This was how a hospital was supposed to sound.

Canell rambled on in his tour-guide speech. “It remained abandoned until fifteen years ago, when Dr. Amoroth persuaded some people in Washington, D.C., to cough up some money. He spent millions remodeling and renovating. Now it’s a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to helping afflicted youth.”

His speech ended with perfect timing as they stopped in front of a door. Mr. Canell opened it and ushered them in.

A handsome woman in her fifties sat at a desk. She looked up when they entered but did not smile. From her hard expression, Andrew guessed she smiled rarely. Mr. Canell nodded to her, his casual rhythm thrown off by her presence.

“Dr. Amoroth will see you now,” she said and then, as if it were an afterthought, “Welcome to Evergreen Hospital.”

“Thanks, Joyce,” Mr. Canell said.

He led them to a door behind and to the right of Joyce’s desk. The first thing Andrew noticed was its size: tall, reaching almost to the ceiling, but no wider than a normal door. As Andrew watched, though, the top began to curve inward, like the end of an old-fashioned sled in a hallucination that marked his condition. Most of the time his symptoms were mild, so he hoped this wouldn’t lead to a more pronounced episode. It was not a good time for a fit, although if there were a right place to have an incident, it would be here at a hospital.

As they walked into Dr. Amoroth’s office, all of them except Mr. Canell gasped. The office was as old and perfectly preserved as the entry hall but made all the more impressive by the multitude of books on shelves that lined the walls and stretched two stories to the ceiling. Skylights soaked the room with intense light and gave it a warm, happy feeling. In the spaces along the wall not covered by the shelves modern, abstract art pieces sharply contrasted with the old-world feel of the room and its furnishings. In spite of the sunlight, iron sconces braced against the walls were all lit, banishing any lingering shadows. It was as though the office was outside in a field, and they were meeting on a bright summer day.

The most striking thing in the room, however, was the man sitting behind the huge desk at the far end. He stood up when they entered and smiled.

He appeared a tall man, although it was hard to tell as the height of the bookshelves would dwarf anyone in the room, and slim. So slim, in fact, that he appeared to be on the verge of malnourishment.

“Hello, and welcome to Evergreen Hospital.” He strode around the desk, hand extended. “I’m Dr. Amoroth.”

He met them halfway across the office near a couch and two chairs. Andrew tried to guess his age. The doctor could have been in his sixties, but his smooth, comfortable strides and charming manner gave him a youthful appearance. He has fierce eyes, Andrew thought. The kind of eyes that revealed he was dedicated to his job. He had the gaze of a man who would not easily surrender to defeat.

When he shook Andrew’s hand, however, Andrew saw something more in those eyes. Something that wanted to grab him, pull him inside, and consume him. As they stood there shaking hands, Dr. Amoroth’s eyes begin to grow larger; the green-gold tint of the iris brightened and began to swirl. A blur of color and vague shapes reached toward Andrew. Shadows of green and gold flowed in a sudden ocean, filling the world in front of him. Down a long tunnel, he saw a swirling mass stretching in his direction. The animated iris was taking shape. Hands . . . no, claws . . . grasped for him, lunging for his face.

Andrew gasped but held his ground. He knew this was only a hallucination and did not want to break down in his first meeting with the doctor. Through the anxiety of the hallucination, he was vaguely aware he was still shaking the hand of the doctor. Only a moment had passed, but if he did not release Dr. Amoroth’s hand soon, they might suspect something was going on. He also became aware of a deep droning that permeated the room around him. But then the sound vanished, as did the visual illusion.

He released Dr. Amoroth’s hand and glanced around sheepishly. His mother and father were sitting on the couch and had not noticed his episode, but Dr. Amoroth hesitated and stared at him with an unreadable expression for a moment longer before sitting in one of the chairs. Andrew took the only chair left. He was shaking a little. It had been a powerful hallucination, and he felt drained, as though it had lasted hours. It took a few minutes for him to focus on what his parents and Dr. Amoroth were discussing.

“. . . state-of-the-art facility,” Dr. Amoroth was saying. “We have a great staff and the latest technologies. I have looked through Andrew’s records, and it seems most drug treatments have had no effect on him. Is that correct?”

“Yes, his other doctors said as much,” Andrew’s father answered. “In fact, his condition has not changed in the last couple of years. That is why they want to send him here.”

“Don’t worry. We have plenty of treatments left to explore, including some recent drug therapies of which his past doctors may not have been aware. I have all due respect for Dr. Hamurob, but some of his ideas are a little, well, outdated.”

“I was working with David Styles before I came here,” Andrew said, speaking up at last. He had worked with David for the last several months and thought he was making progress. “I haven’t seen Dr. Hamurob for three months.”

Dr. Amoroth glanced at the file on his lap and then at Andrew’s parents. His eyebrows raised in a question.

“He was a doctor working with the police at the attempt a few months ago,” Andrew’s mother explained. “He didn’t seem to be hurting anything, and they got along well, like brothers.” Her voice trailed off as if she realized what she’d just said. The silence hung like a weight.

No, Mom, I killed my brother, remember? Andrew felt like screaming. Anger and shame colored his cheeks.

“What about protection?” his father asked, powering ahead.

“Protection?” Dr. Amoroth raised his eyebrows again. “I assure you we take every measure to make sure all our patients are safe, and if there are indications of suicidal tendencies, we act by—”

“That’s not exactly what I mean,” his father interrupted. “I mean protection from each other.”

Dr. Amoroth sat back in his chair and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Andrew could see a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “I assume you are referring to the juveniles with criminally disturbed minds who reside here?”

Even Andrew’s father appeared shocked to hear it put so bluntly. “Yes, I am.”

“Let me put your mind at ease. Although we encourage social interaction, everyone is closely monitored. Those who show indications of violence are immediately isolated, and those we suspect have violent tendencies are kept on a separate floor.” Dr. Amoroth leaned forward with a smile. “I assure you your son will be just fine in that regard.”

Andrew glanced at his father and saw he was not satisfied. Dr. Amoroth had assumed Andrew’s safety was the reason behind the father’s inquiry, but Andrew knew the real reason—the safety of the other kids.

Dr. Amoroth walked back to his desk and picked up a packet of forms. He brought them to Andrew’s parents to fill out.

“I must say I’m a little surprised to be meeting with you personally,” his father said. “We talked on the phone, but I assumed some functionary would assist us with checking in. That you would be too busy for such tasks.”

“Well, yes, usually I don’t get this involved with the check-in, but after reading about Andrew’s unusual case, I wanted to meet him right away and let him know I am here to help.” He turned his gaze to Andrew as he spoke, but Andrew looked away, afraid to fall back into the hallucination.

Interesting.

Andrew jerked at the sound but quickly recognized it as the voice in his head. The voice was immediately joined by others, as though he were in a room with many people mumbling quietly. He ignored it and tried to push the voices away, but they were talking about him. That was silly, of course, because there was no “they.”

“Did Richard give you the full tour?” Dr. Amoroth asked his father.

“No, just a brief history blurb while we made our way up here.”

“Well, I have a few minutes before my next meeting. Perhaps I can show you around.”