Return Of The Cannibal(Hannibal x Reader)(Book 2)

Chapter 11

And so, you returned to the place where it all began for you, the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, now defunct. The old brown building, house of pain, is chained and barred, marked with graffiti and awaiting the wrecking ball.

It had been going downhill for years before the disappearance on vacation its director, Dr. Frederick Chilton. Subsequent revelations of waste and mismanagement and the decrepitude of the building itself soon caused the legislature to choke off its own funds. Some patients were moved to other state institutions, some were dead and a few wandered the streets of Baltimore as Thorazine zombies in an ill-conceived outpatient program that got more than one of them frozen to death.

Waiting in front of the old building, you realized you had exhausted the other possibilities first because you did not want to go in this place again. In the first couple years that Hannibal left, this place reminded you to much of him and everything you did together in secret.

The care-taker was forty-five minutes late. He was a stocky older man with a built-up shoe that clopped, and an eastern European haircut that may have been done at home. He wheezed as he led you to a side door, a few steps down from the sidewalk. The lock had been punched out by scavengers and the door secured with a chain and two padlocks. There were fuzzy webs in the links of the chain. Grass growing in the cracks of the steps tickled your ankles as the caretaker fumbled with his keys. The late afternoon was over cast, the light grainy and without shadow.

"I am not knowing this building well, I just check the fire alarums," the man said. "Do you know if any papers are stored here? Any filing cabinets, any records?" You asked. He shrugged. "After the hospital, they had the methadone clinic here, a few months. They put everything in the basement, some beds, some linens, I don't know what is was. It's bed in there for my asthma, the mold, very bad mold. The mattresses on the beds were moldy, bad mold on the beds. I kint breen in dere. The stairs are hal on my leck. I would show you, but-?" He said. You would have been glad of some company, even his, but he would slow you down. "No, go on. Where's your office?" You asked. "Down the block there where the driver's license bureau was before." He told you. "If I'm not back in an hour-" You began. He looked at his watch. "I'm suppose to be off in half hour." He said, cutting you off.

That's just about E goddamned nuff. "What you're going to do for me, sir, is wait for your keys in your office. If I'm not back in an hour, call this number here on the card and show them where I went. If you aren't there when I come out- if you have closed up and gone home, I will personally go to see your supervisor in the morning to report you. I addition- in addition you will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service and your situation reviewed by the Bureau of Immigration and... and naturalization. Do you understand? I'd appreciate a reply, sir." You said, harshly. "I would have waited for you, of course. You don't have to say these things." The man said. "Thank you very much, sir," you said.

The caretaker put his hands on the railing to pull himself up to sidewalk level and you heard his uneven gait trail off to silence. You pushed open the door and went in to a landing on the fire stairs. High, barred windows in the stairwell admitted the gray light. You debated whether to lock the door behind you and settled on tying the chain in a knot inside the door so you could open it if you lost the key.

On your previous trips to the asylum, to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, you came through the front entrance and now it took you a moment to orient.

You climbed the fire stairs to the main floor. The frosted windows further cut the failing daylight and the room was in semidarkness. With your heavy flashlight, you found a switch and turned on the overhead light, three bulbs still burning in a broken fixture. The raw ends of the telephone wires lay on top of the receptionist's desk.