Chapter 39
Kendyll
(Present Day)
THE FILES FROM THE SECRET area beneath the hospital made me want to puke and scream all at once.
It was an area for sick pricks to get off on torture.
I didn’t care how they’d tried to spin it as experiments or necessary tests in the name of medical and scientific advancement.
The things they’d done to these poor patients down in that bunker beneath the hospital was abuse of the most inhumane kind.
The only bright side to what I’d read so far from the charts were the dates and the doctors’ names.
The people involved were all prior to any staff I knew from my time as a patient here.
That didn’t mean Mountview wasn’t full of sick bastards while I’d been there. They just weren’t these sick fucks.
I stared at the pile of charts I’d already gone through, recalling the gruesome tales.
The injection of harsh chemicals directly into a seven year old boy’s body.
Cutting off a woman’s tongue in small pieces at a time to see how much she could lose before it became fatal.
Forced sexual encounters between a doctor and young girls to see how early they could get pregnant and deliver a viable baby.
Smashing up certain parts of the brain to see if it fixed the patient’s mental disorders.
The thousands of pages were detailed reports and notes on nothing but heinous acts and experiments conducted on people who were already defenseless and struggling.
After three days of reading over the horrific details, I wasn’t sure how much more I could stomach.
But I knew I had to keep going. These people—because they were people, despite how the outside world viewed them—deserved to have their truths told and known.
I’d expose what happened and make sure that these people and their spirits, wherever they might be, would finally get justice to rest easy.
I blew out a breath and grabbed the next chart from the stack I’d made at the nurse’s station in my make-shift room at Mountview.
Reading more while stuck inside this empty building didn’t sound great, so I opted to take the file up to the rooftop where I could read in the afternoon sun with fresh air.
Maybe that would make whatever happened to this person a little easier to get through.
Xander sat in the window with Catsper in his lap.
He wore dark pants and a band t-shirt, and the longer hair on top of his head fell into his black eyes.
He petted the ghostly feline with an unreadable mask in place.
The view reminded me so much of my first day back here when I’d rounded the corner to find that I wasn’t doing this investigation alone because he’d shown up, just like he always had.
Except for the day I needed you most.
We still hadn’t talked about that day, the one where he’d broken one too many promises, resulting in my running one final time.
Or at least, I’d thought it would be one final time until he appeared here.
Since then, we’d been dancing around this huge thing between us, and while I’d initially been okay with pretending that day hadn’t happened, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
If we talked about what went terribly wrong, could we change our story’s outcome?
What if we could be together and be happy?
What if I let go of fear and fully trusted him?
What if, what if, what if?
“I’m going up to the roof,” I announced. He looked up at me, and there was no missing how exhausted he appeared. “You should rest. I’ll take Catsper with me so you can sleep. Come on, boy.”
Catsper meowed and nuzzled Xander before leaping into the air.
He hopped through the air alongside me, and he made himself at home once we reached the roof.
I sat crisscrossed with the phantom cat stretched out next to me, his one eye closed like he was sunbathing.
While patting his head, I briefly wondered if he could feel the sun’s warmth as a ghost. After gathering some strength from my ghost kitty, I took a deep breath and opened the chart.
Hernandez-Gonzalez, Maria.
I snapped to attention as an eager yet dreadful swarm of bees unleashed in my stomach.
A quick look at the age of the patient expelled the brief hope I’d had that this was little Maria’s chart and her story finally.
Though, it was a good thing this wasn’t her chart.
I didn’t want that little girl to be a victim of the terror from down there.
The patient’s photo had been defaced. Someone had taken a sharp object and shredded the image right where the woman’s face should’ve been.
All that could be seen in the black and white photo was long dark hair and a standard hospital gown on a frail torso.
Whoever she was, she was thirty-seven years old and a quick glance at the earliest hand-written notes caught my interest.
Behavioural issues (including but not limited to: bursts of violence; homicidal tendencies; self-harm)
Multiple personality disorder
“I’m surprised they acknowledged multiple personalities back in the seventies, what with the Satanic panic just around the corner and all,” I mumbled to myself. “Most people would’ve waved that away as demonic possession like the indoctrinated idiots they were at the time.”
As I began to read more notes, I realized I’d spoken too soon.
Patient involuntarily admitted today at age twelve by parents after failed exorcism with their priest. Family claims demonic possession.
Reasons given include but are not limited to patient’s bed-wetting; unexplained and abrupt tantrums that involve physical violence to self and others; inhuman sounds made during fits; and odd behaviour described as “more than one person inside her.” Patient has been admitted for psychiatric observation with no plan to leave at this time.
The progression of the notes on her only got more severe as she got older with constant evaluations, medications, therapies, procedures, and even isolations.
Her different “identities” also showed up in the notes throughout time.
Each of her seven personalities served a different purpose within her mind’s creation of it, and it was these personalities that got her taken down into the secret area below the hospital.
Or rather, one of the seven—a personality that the doctors labeled as “The Evil One.”
The doctors working in the hidden bunker forced her to relive childhood abuse, not merely through talking, but by acting.
Maria Hernandez-Gonzalez had been sexually abused as a child by the very priest who’d performed her exorcism.
The first incident occurred at some church event, where the priest had lured her away with a cluster of balloons and the offer to have one if she followed him.
The doctors would dress in priestly garb before assaulting her the same way she had been as a little girl.
They wanted to bring out “The Evil One,” who often came out as a protective and violent response.
They were trying to figure out how to command and control that identity.
The detailed and disgusting notes made me close the chart and tilt my head up to breathe in the fresh air. That did nothing to quell the churning in my stomach, nor stop the memories that came as I saw unwanted similarities with this Maria.
I laid flat on my back and stared up at the fading orange light of the sky. I closed my eyes for what felt like just a moment, but when I opened them again, the sky was black with hundreds of twinkling stars and a bright moon.
A shadow fell over me, but no sooner had it appeared than it moved to wordlessly lay down beside me.
The gentle wind in the trees and Catsper’s content purring were the only sounds for some time.
A pinky wound around mine with a reassuring squeeze, and with it, life seemed to flood back into me.
I inhaled deeply to savor the crisp autumn air and the spicy fresh scent that was all Xander.
I wasn’t sure what possessed me to talk.
Maybe it was because Iyla’s words had stayed with me, even after three days.
Maybe it was because Xander had been more distant since the club, as though preparing for my inevitable fleeing as we neared the end of our goal.
Maybe it was because after reading so much horrible shit, I couldn’t hold in all that vileness anymore. I needed to let some of it out.
I need to let him in.
“Do you know why I always hide in the closet?” I asked with my gaze trained on the distant constellations.
I heard Xander shift beside me before feeling the heat of his eyes on the side of my face. “I’ve wondered, but no. I don’t. Why do you always hide in the closet?”
A mirthless smile tugged on my lips. “Because that’s where monsters are supposed to hide.
The boogy man. The scary creatures of nightmares.
Closets were where monsters hid, so I did, too.
I hoped one of them would show up and take me away like all the scary stories promised.
” I squeezed my pinky tighter around his.
“You’ll never know how happy I was when my Mr. Monster finally appeared … even if he didn’t take me away.”
The silence was heavy and lengthy. When Xander spoke, his voice was ragged. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t take you with me back then. You have no idea how many times I’ve wished I could turn back time and change that.”
I finally rolled my head to the side to meet Xander’s pained onyx gaze.
“I don’t blame you for leaving me behind, Xander,” I confessed gently.
“After all, it’s because you didn’t take me with you, a seven year old girl, that I realized what was happening wasn’t right.
It’s because you didn’t take me that I realized monsters don’t hide in closets but right in front of me as normal people. ”