Maple Glen Mental Institution

Chapter Five: Escapee

She stood up. Stumbled and fell onto the bed. The cast was causing unbalance in her posture. I saw a wheelchair nearby the bed, and Shelia dragged herself into it. This was terrible. Shelia propped her broken leg on one of those leg supporters attached to the wheelchair. Maybe I was supposed to witness this so I could heal. Or just get worse, letting the guilt build up and stuff like that. She smiled at me. Pushing the wheels at the chair's side, Shelia neared me and Randall, who kept a hand at my shoulder. 

Shelia watched me as she pushed with all of her arms' strength. I wanted to cry. I wish I was in that state of mental insanity where I didn't know what the heck was happening when everyone else was ducking from my furious claws looking for bones to break. Ha, maybe I should have a nickname like Bone Breaker. My secret nickname at Maple Glen: Bone Breaker. Shelia parked her wheelchair in front of me. She doesn't bother to put the brakes on.

I squirm in my jacket.

How is this supposed to be healing? I got dropped off here instead of doing some counseling like I had done when I started getting really bad nightmares. I am supposed to heal! Instead I snap at times, I visit my family, I break bones, I sit on a bed doing nothing but thinking, I get sedated, I get put into leather restraints, and I don't heal.

Shelia smiles. She's acting a bit weird. Randall senses the weirdness and backs me up. Shelia's face falls. She nods curtly and turns her heel—or should I say wheel? And has her back to me. Randall takes her hand off my shoulder.

Then, I bolt right out of the room.

I'm not snapping, I'm just booking down a hallway. I feel the jacket loosen, and one of the straps fall off. I twist out of the sleeves and toss the clothing over my shoulder. Then, an alarm goes off. "Code red. I repeat: Code red." A female's robotic voice blares from hidden speakers. I guess I'm an escaped patient. Good thing I don't have to go down some carpeted stairways. I shoot pass Bryan's reception desk. I steal a glance, and he's listening to some punk rock, and then he sees me. Another alarm goes off. "Immediate lock down now in process." A lock down? I know what an automatic lock down is. That means, in a place like this, all the doors automatically close and lock.

The front doors leading to the outside exposure are sliding doors, so they're sliding closed as I'm nearing them. I turn to my side and squeeze through as I quick as I can. The doors close and lock. Bryan and the rest of the people in that asylum are locked in there. Banging on the reinforced glass.

I'm free, but I'm still a patient. An escaped one. I can hear the faint wail of the code red and lock down alarm, but I know that when they shut up in one moment, the doors will unlock. So much for Randall letting her guard down.

The steps I once descended are slippery and cold under my bare feet. The snow is melting, but some of it is ice. I should've been wearing socks when I visited Shelia. The driveway is clear, and surprisingly warm, and smooth. The alarms are still screaming, so I don't waste a second.

As I race against the clock for the alarms, I realize that I haven't been outside of this wretched place for a really long time. Before I came here, the leaves were yellow, and the air nipped at me. It was in the middle of October. Wearing a pink, flannel nightgown in the middle of some month I don't even know is not that great. It might be March or February. I have been in this hospital for months.

By the time I far from sight of Maple Glen, I can no longer hear the alarm. I running down a long, winding driveway, and suddenly I reach the gates. Slightly warped with dead vines wrapped around the poles. Just like the day Mom left me here. Goosebumps run up my arms and send a shiver down my spine. There's a keypad beside me, waiting to dial in some numbers. But I don't know the code. I thought of squeezing between the poles, and realized that the poles were so wide, I could just walk right through. But, if I stepped between the poles, cheating my way of out of using the keypad and jeopardizing security? I wanted to take the risk, but I also didn't want to take the risk. I had the urge to walk back to Maple Glen. My room was cozy and warm.

I shook my head. I squeezed my way through the poles. No alarm, nothing. Just the beautiful silence. Then, I heard it. An engine. I turned around, looking through the gate. A large truck—which wasn't a semi or an 18-wheeler—was barreling towards me, the words: MAPLE GLEN MENTAL INSTITUTION written on both sides. Oh great, now they're going to haul me back like a slave on the Three-Fifths Compromise (If you don't know what it is, don't worry).

I turned on my heel and started running from the truck, the asylum, and the gate. I ran until I saw the first house, old and worn—which was the last one I had seen before I was confined in a mental hospital.

There's a Subaru in the driveway.