Patient 1543 (1543 Series Story 1)

Epilogue

1.

     The next day, one of the doctors, who had called in “sick” the previous day, came in almost an hour late after a long night with a certain lady, whom he spent the entire previous day with. When he first entered the building he knew there was something wrong, he could smell it in the air. The air itself had an impulsive odor, a dead smell to it, almost as if something had died in the building. He thought it was ridiculous, after all if someone had died the night crew would’ve called the police, who would’ve taken the body away.

     It’s not like they’d just leave the body to – He had been thinking but then stopped upon turning the corner in the hallway that led to the offices – which included his own – for scattered throughout the hallways were bodies. Lots of bodies. Some were beaten to death to the point of having their faces smashed in, others were stabbed to death, some appeared to have been disemboweled and various other horrific ways of dying. Blood was everywhere; on the walls, on the floor, even on the doors. And the smell was unbearable. The doctor ran from the hallway, dropping his suitcase without even thinking about it. He didn’t stop running until he was out of the building and in the asphalt parking lot, where he vomited his morning breakfast that he had in bed with that certain lady, by the back tire of his car.

     After he finished emptying his stomach, he regained enough composure to call nine-one-one from his cell phone. He hurriedly told where he was, who he was, and what he had seen to the operator, who after hearing his story assured him that several police units were on their way to his location.

2.

     The police arrived nearly ten minutes later, a rather good time considering they had to go all the way across the metropolis in heavy traffic time, and drive out to the outskirts of the city, where the city slowly becomes the country farmland – and eventually – ranchland. The Asylum was just inside the city limits as to allow the police to still have jurisdiction but it was out away enough to provide a peaceful, scenic even, environment for the patient, which if you thought about it was great, that is until a nut job decides to kill everyone inside.

     One police officer who responded to the call was a, Det. Sargent Sam Kelding, he’d worked homicide for many years, and seen many horrific things, but when he entered the hallway with the other officers, nothing he’d ever seen properly prepared him for what he saw. At first it was fine, no blood, only a smell that he’d come to know as the smell of death. Then he turned the corner with another officer, and they laid their eyes on the sight that the doctor had seen only minutes ago. The bodies were scattered everywhere, some lying face down in a pool of their own blood or innards; some leaning against the wall with their back, blood splattered all over the wall beside them; and others who were lying face up, blood splattered all over their necks and faces, and with cold, unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling, which was perfectly clean. A polar opposite to the horrors on the walls and the floor of the hallway.

     Sam slowly made his way through the bodies, his fellow officers following him even slower. Office by office they went, and eventually cleared all the offices. Sam found an older man who had a single gash in the back of his thigh; his face was covered by a coat, which implied to Sam that at the time of this person’s death there was at least one other sane person alive when this person met their demise. He replaced the coat over the man’s face then exited the office after he cleared the rest of the office, which only required looking around briefly.

     When he reentered the horrific hallway, the rest of the officers had cleared all the other offices; now there was the pitch black stair case, which would lead to the other floors. It was at this time that Sam realized that the power was out. No lights on the first floor were on, but when he flicked on his flash light on and saw the light bulb on the wall that was dark and no switch to turn it on, he just somehow knew. Also when the other officers tried the elevator and got no response of any kind that only confirmed Sam’s belief that the power was out.

     “Power’s out guys. We’ll have to take the stairs.” He informed them, and then with his flashlight in one hand and his service weapon in the other, he entered the pitch black stair case. At first he was alone, but then the other officers joined him. They ascended the stairs relatively quickly, stopping only when they came upon a body, which they only did once from the first floor to the second one. The victim’s face was smashed in as if they were hit by a sledge hammer several times by someone strong. Sam could see it was an elderly person by the hands though, and also the thinning hair that peeked out from the back of the victim’s head, which as splattered with blood. When they came to the second floor, they found only four bodies. Three were grouped together and the fourth was further down the hallway. A woman, who had a stab wound in the abdomen with blood in a decently size pool, was first. A blood trail from the door led to her so Sam reasoned that she wasn’t stabbed there. Another body was a large man in inmate clothes, he clutched a large, bloody kitchen knife, and had a stab wound in the throat that was coated with dry blood that covered almost his entire chest. The third body was dressed in a suit with a white doctor’s coat on, there was blood all over him, but Sam couldn’t see an actual wound.

     As the other officers continued down the corridor, Sam stopped by the third body and felt suddenly moved to check for a pulse, though he did not know why. He reached out his hand and placed it on the corpse’s neck, felt for a pulse but didn’t find it. Suddenly the eyes opened and the corpse breathed in a long breath. The pulse was suddenly there, strong and steady despite that the man was weak beyond the description of words. Sam called out four words as loud as he could.

     “We need an ambulance!”

3.

The man that survived was identified as Harry Mel, one of the psychiatrists who worked at Scranton Mental Asylum for over twelve years. The story he told was that one of the patients – the large body in the inmate clothes from the second floor – went nuts and started killing everyone with a large kitchen knife. Mel said that he stabbed Terry – the woman from the second floor – but Terry and him got away to the second floor where she died. He said that when the patient attacked him, he stabbed him with a scalpel.

All of this most of the police present at the scene believed, but Sam didn’t like it. It just didn’t feel right to him; nevertheless, it wasn’t investigated any further once the overall evidence proved Mel’s story. Sam never agreed with it, but it wasn’t up to him. He just didn’t like the way Mel’s icy blue eyes looked when he told his story. Sam could see a lie there.

4.

Eight months later, Sam was found dead in his home. He’d apparently committed suicide in his empty house, three months after the death of his wife in a hit-and-run car wreck, and five months after his two daughters were murdered after Sam had been reviewing the evidence and Mel’s statement. A week after his daughter’s death he found a folded note in his wallet that read: You shouldn’t be poking your nose into something that doesn’t concern you.

 

 

 

The End -- To Be Continued