Faces of Beth, page 11
at all.”
“I would have killed you.”
“I know you would have, but—”
“It’s Beth, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I really don’t want to hear the I told you so speech tonight. I
know you warned me about dating her and marrying her, but I love
her, Liv.”
He fell into the chair and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his
hands like a sleepy toddler.
“You really do love her,” Olivia said.
“I always have.”
“I can’t even imagine living with her and, well, all her others.”
“It’s not easy. I do my best to go with the motions, but it’s
exhausting sometimes.”
“Still fucking Ruby?” she asked.
He removed his hands from his eyes and stared up at her. “You
were supposed to forget I told you about that.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “Remember, I’ve been there. Literally. With
you I mean. I definitely have not been with Ruby.” Olivia laughed.
“So, of course, there was some slight bit of jealousy when you told
me about the freaky sex the two of you get up to. I mean, you guys
even tried the wheelbarrow move. I haven’t even tried that.”
Olivia stood and pretended to be holding someone’s legs like
wheelbarrow handles as she shook her head in disgust. “So, you
had her like this and…” Her voice trailed off when she realized he
wasn’t really in the mood for her joke.
Andrew shook his head. “It feels wrong.”
“What’s feels wrong about what?”
“It feels wrong having sex with Ruby. It’s not Beth.”
“But it is Beth,” Olivia argued. “It’s totally Beth. Please stop
sulking about this. And please don’t complain to any of your guy
friends. They’ll laugh at you. I mean what guy doesn’t want to have a
sweet, charming wife who flips a switch and becomes some wild,
super sex-charged nympho with a bad mouth?”
Andrew laughed. “I don’t have any guy friends.”
“Even better,” Olivia replied. “Seriously though. What’s to
complain about?”
He obviously couldn’t tell her about his wife’s desire to sneak out
in the middle of the night and murder men in dark alleys. So, he went
with something a little less dramatic.
“Ruby says things Beth never would,” Andrew said. “Her voice is
sultrier and she’s kinky as hell.”
“Again,” Olivia said, “what’s to complain about? Hell, keep talking
about her that way and I’ll want to go over there and do her.”
“Do her? What are you, a college frat boy?”
Olivia plopped into her seat. “I feel like it sometimes. Dan isn’t
going to work out.”
As much as he didn’t want to hear about Olivia’s sex life, he
thought it might get his mind off his own problems.
“Tell me more,” he said.
“You sure you want to have this conversation?” she asked. “It’s
not really work appropriate.”
“Is anything you say work appropriate? A second ago you were
demonstrating the wheelbarrow move.”
She laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “Dan won’t go down
on me.” When Andrew didn’t reply, she added, “I mean he won’t eat
my—”
“Whoa, I know what you mean,” he replied with a chuckle. “Ruby
goes down on me.”
“Rub it in. I can’t be with a selfish man. I mean he lets me go
down on him, but he won’t return the favor.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“I did, and he said it’s something he’s just not into. I told him
romantic comedies are something you’re just not into. Dungeons &
Dragons is something you’re just not into. Microwaveable mac &
cheese is something you’re just not into. Eating pussy is not
something you’re just not into. So, I told him to get the fuck out of my
house and don’t bother calling.”
“Yeah, sounds like it’s not going to work out.”
Once again demonstrating her amazing ability to go from hot to
cold in no time at all, like she had back when they’d dated, she
changed the subject with no easing into it at all and said, “We should
round everyone up for the movie.”
With all the patients finally gathered in the recreation room, seated
on foldable chairs, Andrew thought the place seemed rather
pleasant. Nobody complained or accused anyone else of pissing,
shitting, or wiping his or her nose on any of the furniture.
So far, so good.
When he pressed the play button on the DVD player and the
large, rolldown white screen came to life with the movie Hook
starring Robin Williams, the crowd of people seated in front of them
cheered.
Andrew couldn’t help letting his mind drift off to a time when Beth
would have been seated in that crowd. She’d made friends with a
woman named Nelly who was no longer here at the hospital. She’d
been released to her family shortly after Beth left. Andrew wondered
what happened to her.
Was she living a good life now? Was she locked up in some other
hospital? Was she even alive?
The girl had suffered from psychotic tendencies and would go
from pleasant and somewhat cheerful one minute to trying to stab an
orderly with a ballpoint pen the next. Medication seemed to help her,
as it did with many of the other patients, but that depended largely
on what one would consider help. Being so drugged up they’re
unable to think let alone attack someone was hardly a solution.
She’s probably in another institution.
While an adult Peter Pan got his ass kicked by Tinkerbell, the
audience roared with laughter. Andrew was busy counting the
patients while Olivia sat next to him, stuffing her face with sour
worms and laughing along with everyone else.
Andrew had always liked this movie, but tonight he couldn’t seem
to concentrate on the film. Something didn’t seem right. An uneasy
feeling settled in his gut. As his gaze touched each patient’s head,
he took inventory of the Q-tip cotton look of the white hair at the top
of most of the ladies’ heads and the sometimes shiny, sometimes
liver-spotted domes of the men’s.
When he finished his count, he realized what that troubled feeling
had been. Two of the patients were missing, and he knew
instinctively which two they’d be. Sure enough, he went over the
room again, and he was right. They’d been in the room at one point.
He was sure of it. He’d counted everyone himself.
First, was the woman he feared. Old Lynne. The bony, decrepit
old bitch who always found a way to torment him was doing it again.
And, of course, the other had to be the one they called The Quiet
Man.
Andrew stood and walked around the room, making sure they
hadn’t slid to the floor. Sometimes patients would curl up on the floor
to watch the movie or they’d find extra chairs and lie down across
several seats.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked.
“We’re missing two,” he whispered to her.
“No, we’re not.”
“I counted.”
“Who?”
“Do you see Old Lynne? Or Jimmy Grainger?”
“The Quiet Man?” Olivia asked. “And Old Lynne? You’ve got to be
kidding me. I swear I saw them both earlier. I personally went to her
room and got her. His too.”
“Well, they’re not here now.”
“I’ll stay here then. Someone has to. You go find them.”
“Fuck that,” he replied. “You’re mighty quick to volunteer to stay
here.”
“I love this movie.”
“Bullshit.”
“I do. Seriously.”
He wasn’t going to win this argument anyway. When Olivia put
her foot down, she quite literally put it down. As if her canvas
sneakers were filled with hardening cement, she was not going to
budge.
“Fine,” he said, “but I hope all the patients in here start throwing
up on one another and you’re forced to clean it up.”
She laughed. “You would wish something like that on me.”
“I would. And I hope your next three boyfriends just aren’t into
going down on you.”
“Now that’s evil,” she snapped back as he stood to leave. “Take it
back.”
He wouldn’t. He walked away, hearing her call out, “You’ve gone
too far this time. Take it back.”
“Fuck you,” he called back, “I wish you a life full of giving head
and never receiving it!”
She wouldn’t hear that last part, but he still felt satisfaction in
saying it, and the lighthearted banter broke up what could’ve been
an ominous departure from the rec room. Leaving a room full of
people to walk empty corridors to find the two creepiest patients in
his care wasn’t his idea of a fun Friday evening.
I’m quitting this job tomorrow.
It was a phrase he’d repeated often, but the pay was decent, and
the benefits were good. He couldn’t afford to search for a new job.
Not with everything that was going on with Beth right now, so he’d
suffer the torment of Old Lynne, find her scary ass, and throw her
back in there with the others to finish the fucking movie.
The lights were as dim as always at this hour, and when he
stepped out of the recreation room and let the door close behind
him, all was silent except the muffled sound of Peter Pan waking up
on a pirate ship. He liked the movie too, probably even more than
Olivia did. He would have preferred something scary, but that had
been strictly banned after the last time they played a horror flick, and
one of the patients spent every night of the following week convinced
her floor was the ocean and Jaws was trying to attack her.
Some people just had tile-floor shark phobias.
From what Andrew could see as he looked left and glanced right,
the hallway was empty. Old Lynne’s hallway was one more over, so
he made his way toward the atrium where he could move to the next
hall.
His feet tapped against the tile floor and brought back the sound
of Old Lynne’s hands and feet slapping the ground as she galloped.
If he heard that sound tonight, he was going to haul ass back to the
recreation room. Or out the front door, whichever was closest.
This time, he felt entirely alone in the building. His feet clip-
clopped across the floor and echoed so loudly off the walls he had to
stop several times to focus on the other sounds around him. The
feeling he was being watched was irrational considering everyone
was in the recreation room except the two he was seeking.
Unless they were dangling from the roof at the dark end of the
hallway, it would be impossible for them to be watching.
Even though he knew it wasn’t the case, his mind went there, and
suddenly he was imagining Old Lynne and The Quiet Man side by
side somewhere in a dark corner, stifling their wicked giggles as they
saw him searching for them. Like some sick and twisted game of
hide and seek.
They were both probably asleep in their beds right now. That’s
where he’d find them. They’d be—
A giggle sounded off from somewhere in the atrium. He hadn’t
imagined it. This was real. Someone was out there laughing and
suddenly the false imagery he’d conjured in his head didn’t seem so
ludicrous. What if the two of them had actually teamed up and were
hiding somewhere?
Andrew reached the end of the hall and stood at the opening to
the atrium, peering over at the orderly desk. Aside from that one
central hub, there was nothing else in the large open area. Only a
couple of seats for visitors that were bolted to the floor and wouldn’t
serve as a reasonable hiding spot. To his left, over near the bulletin
board, were a couple of fake potted plants that were as tall as he
was but too thin for someone to hide behind.
The giggle came again and this time the hair stood up at the back
of Andrew’s neck. The skin on his arms could have been braille and
he read his right arm with his left fingers, fidgeting in the dull
overhead lights. Lightning flashed outside, informing him that it
wasn’t only the lack of windows making it feel like there was a storm
outside. One was indeed on its way.
“That’s enough,” Andrew called out. “Lynne. Jimmy. If you’re out
here, you need to go to the recreation room and watch the movie
with everyone else. You know the rules.”
The air conditioner turned off and the sudden silence could have
been a loud bang for how it made him jump. Andrew scoffed at
himself and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
“What’s the movie?” a soft voice asked. It seemed to come from
a small child.
Andrew jerked his head around in the direction of the voice. It
seemed to come from the hallway where Old Lynne and The Quiet
Man’s rooms were located. He walked in that direction, quickly
crossing the atrium. He paused before turning into that hallway. It
seemed darker there than it had any right to be.
“Lynne? Is that you?”
Silence.
“This isn’t funny,” Andrew announced. “I need everyone in the rec
room right now.”
“Is the movie good?” the voice came again.
This time it sounded like it came from behind him. He spun
around and stared into the empty atrium. It was impossible. Nobody
was there.
“What’s the movie?” the voice screamed from behind him.
Andrew turned just in time to see Old Lynne take her final charge,
naked and on all fours, before she leapt at him. Her pure black eyes
and wild grey hair came at him with such speed and ferocity he
barely had time to get his hands up. Old Lynne’s mouth was open,
her jagged teeth barred, ready to take a bite out of him. She growled
and screamed.
He yelled and tried to fight her off, but she’d come at him hard,
and her momentum knocked him backward. Sliding across the slick
floor on his back, Andrew held his hands up to protect himself from
the wild woman swinging her fists at him and shrieking like a crazed
animal.
“He’s coming for you!” she yelled. “And he’ll fuck each and every
one of you! He’ll shove his giant purple cock up your ass!”
One of the security guards, a guy named Tony, must have been
near because suddenly Old Lynne was being pulled off him, her
sagging tits flinging back and forth as Tony tried to pin her arms at
her sides. She was going crazy.
“The Father is coming!” she screamed, wrenching herself free
from Tony. “He’s going to eat your soul like he ate my cunt!” She
slammed a hand between her legs and slapped her naked, hairy
vagina. “He was here, you know? He ate me, Andrew!” She fell to
her knees and continued to finger herself. “He ate me with his long,
purple tongue just like he’ll eat all your souls!”
Tony grabbed her again, yanking her hand out of her and pinning
both her arms to her sides. “Grab my radio and call for help!” he
ordered.
Andrew climbed to his feet and reached for the radio at Tony’s
hip, coming dangerously close to Old Lynne. She sensed it too and
shoved her face into his, wailing like a banshee as she bit his ear
lobe and jerked her head back at the same time, tearing the bottom
portion of the lobe clean off his ear. Andrew howled in pain and
brought his hand up to find blood rushing down his neck.
Old Lynne cackled with laughter. “He’ll eat your soul!”
“Call for backup!” Tony ordered.
Feeling woozy after seeing the blood running down, Andrew
fought to bring the walkie-talkie up. He held down the button and
announced, “Code Red at Atrium 1! Code Red at Atrium 1!”
The radio crackled and then a tinny voice replied, “10-4,
responding.”
Old Lynne seemed to sense the jig was up because her
breathing calmed and she stopped struggling. It only took about a
minute for two more security guards to arrive. Once she was
constrained, Andrew jammed a syringe full of Ativan into her arm.
Lorazepam wasn’t a drug he had to use often. Most of the time, the
patients on the bottom floor were reasonable enough to respond to
verbal coaxing methods, but this bitch deserved it. She needed to be
knocked the fuck out.
With a rag over his ear, he watched as the guards carried Old
Lynne to her room. They held her down while he strapped her to the
bed. All this went on while Olivia enjoyed the movie. His ear stung
and Andrew had to admit he was glad it was him who’d gone looking
