The Lunatics 2: Push Tumble & Fall

Saturday 2 AM

Loxi rode upfront with the driver. Tuesday and I sat in the back seat with Wrecked Girl, who was coming in and out of consciousness.

"Is she still high? Why is she doing all this nodding?" Loxi spoke over her shoulder. She sat next to the driver, a middle-aged Asian man, who pretended not to hear. He steady didn't want to be part of this conversation. For all he knew, he was driving around a pack of teen prostitutes with a casualty on their hands. The casualty being Wrecked Girl.

"The Delirium will override it soon," I said. "It will override whatever she's on."

"At least she's not foaming at the mouth anymore. That's gotta be a good sign, right?" asked Tuesday and the driver turned up the music. It was an old song my dad used to listen to when I was a baby. I remembered because of the soothing synth sounds. Roxy Music, he'd call it. But I never knew if he was referencing the song, the band, or the genre.

"Momma?" Wrecked Girl's blue eyes faced me. The car stopped-and-started one too many times on the yellow light until the driver finally stepped on it and her body slammed into me. She was stuck in a realm between sanity and insanity, and kept thinking I was her mother. "You won't let me die? You'll take care of me like you always have? Right momma? I have this bad cold, this fever that won't go away."

"Don't worry, honey; I got it all taken care of," I said to Wrecked Girl, and this seemed to put her back at ease. I placed my hand on her thigh, and she went back to her nod.

I reached into my back pocket to double check if the letter Wrecked Girl had given me was still there. The worn paper felt fuzzy on my fingertips. I pushed it back in my pocket as we approached Laurels.

Laurels Home for the Mentally Exhausted and its familiar old iron gates. This was the place we called home.

Laurels was not your typical asylum you see in old French movies or new horror films. There weren't any long corridors with bad lighting and no flippant nurses with nappy gray hair barking orders at less than average intelligence orderlies.

It was nothing like that.

It was even scarier still.

I don't know if it was because it was an old mansion with many unused rooms like a music hall, a ballroom a study, or that it sat catty-corner to the cemetery and the French Quarter. But between the crackly floors, the white wood exterior and rocking chairs on the balconies it may as well have been 1857.

DeaDorian owned the place, and in a way, he owned us too because he had that much power. He was the only one that was able to bring people back from Delirium and restore their sanity by giving them Balance. That's how they would complete their treatment with us. DeaDorian ranked highest in The Order of The Lunatics.

Loxi entered the code to let us in. Wrecked Girl held on to my arm as I walked her down the dark hallway into bedroom #2 where the nurse waited for her. Her knees had finally stopped bleeding.

"Nurse will take care of you, so take a shower and get some rest. Everything will be okay," I said.

The Wrecked Girl hugged me. The smell of Gin still present.

"Myla," she whispered in my ear.

"You know my name?" I said, pushing her away from me but still keeping her close. She reached for my pendant namesake.

"You'll find the cure?" Wrecked Girl asked, "I am going to get better?" I wasn't sure what cure she was talking about, but I reassured her things were going to be fine.

"You're going to get well," I said. My hand landed on her head, "I promise."

The truth was that I didn't know if she was going to get better. It was a miracle she was still alive.

"You don't understand, Momma," said the Wrecked Girl to me, still confusing reality and fantasy. "The answer to everything is in this: Push, Tumble, and Fall: It's the curse that everyone longs for."

That was the last thing she said to me before she crumpled onto her bed.

***