William h keith warstr.., p.10
Generation Annihilation, page 10
I blink and take another step.
I wonder when the mirage will waver and evaporate.
When I get to the railing, I grasp it once more. I look down and around the room.
Then I fold over and vomit by my feet.
I straighten and look down again, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
There is no sound except the heavy intermittent sighing of the asylum. The only breathing is my own.
But the room is clearly not empty.
It takes me a few moments to comprehend what I’m seeing. Even though I can comprehend it, I still can’t believe it.
The walls reveal the asylum’s long history through the chipped layers of peeling paint, but only part of the walls are visible. The bottom half is hidden behind bodies. Young bodies stand shoulder to shoulder, spanning the three walls of the room. I assume they are also underneath the balcony on which I stand, but I don’t know.
Their backs are against the walls, and the only break in their line is for the windows. Hands by their sides, fingers rigid and unmoving. Faces frozen, emotionless, and lifeless. Many stand on boxes, and I guess it is to ensure that the tops of the heads are all at equal height.
They look like the statues or wax figures you’d find in a museum. Glass spans the entire room, walling in the bodies. If one of them were to collapse, they would slump against the glass instead of falling.
But they aren’t real. They can’t be real.
They aren’t alive. They aren’t real flesh and blood human beings.
Of course, they aren’t.
Their legs are straight, and their posture perfect like they are strapped to iron rods. They wear what looks like hospital scrubs, brown like Gibbon’s. All wear blaringly white sneakers on their feet.
And each one, male and female, sports a cleanly shaved scalp.
I reach up to run a hand through my hair, but it isn’t there. My hair is gone. I run my hand over my head so many times, I rub the skin raw as panic swells in me.
Someone shaved my head.
Biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from crying, I force my hand to leave my bare head and return to my side.
None of them moves or seems to notice that I’m standing here. Silence hovers in the air, oppressive and weighty.
I tear my eyes away from the bodies and focus on a table in the middle of the room. It’s wooden and reminds me of a table you’d see in a high school library. If it was from my high school, it would be covered in all manner of scrapes, gouges, and graffiti. This table might be the same, but I don’t notice because my eyes stray to the waxlike teenagers sitting around it like they’re at a dinner party.
They aren’t moving. Just sitting and staring, cushioned by the teens behind the glass wall.
This can’t be real.
The asylum seems to push against every cell and vein I have. I want to cover my ears and my eyes, but I can’t. I feel paralyzed.
I see a stairwell to my right and take it down into the room.
They share no similarities other than their shaved heads and scrubs. They are all colors, sizes, and genders.
They all look to be somewhere around my age.
Teenagers. I see no adults or children.
They are all as still as stone and have a paleness, a sick pallor to their skin that’s exacerbated by the dim light from the windows. I hear thunder in the distance and assume it must be raining.
The sound of my footsteps is loud, but no one turns toward me. It’s as if they can’t hear me. I wonder if they can see me.
The first person I come to is about my height, staring ahead at my eye level. His eyes never register that he sees me. His pupils do not constrict or widen. He must be wax.
This becomes a mantra in my head as I make my way around the room.
“Hey,” I whisper when I come to another guy about my age and height.
No response.
“Hey,” I say again.
I tap the glass. Nothing.
I look at his chest, and I can see it rise and fall. It’s slow, shallow breathing. My mantra no longer soothes. He’s alive. Are they all?
I scan the room.
My teeth start to chatter.
I study the faces one by one, going down the line like a drill sergeant.
A snap of my fingers here, a slap to the glass there.
There is no reaction. Not even the flicker of an eyelash.
I move toward the table like I’m walking through water. There are two girls and two guys, sitting in straight-backed wooden chairs. They sit upright with legs molded against the chair and feet planted on the floor. Their white sneakers flash against the brown tiled floor. They wear the same brown scrubs as the others and also have shaved heads. I run my hand over my scalp again.
A boy and a girl sit on one side of the rectangular table, and another boy and girl sit opposite them. The two on the right side have similar features, and I wonder if they might be related. The teens on the other side look randomly paired. An empty chair sits at the far end of the table.
“Can you hear me?” I lean into one girl’s face. She doesn’t even flinch. I lift her hand, and it somehow feels cool and warm at the same time. She’s alive, as evidenced by her faint pulse, but also not.
I return her hand to her side and study her profile. Her eyes are huge and as brown as chocolate. Her eyebrows are thick and overgrown. Her skin is darker than mine, but there is a pastiness underneath it.
There are several empty piercings in her ear, and a teardrop tattoo under her left eye. The sleeves of her scrubs fall over her hands. I straighten, glancing around at the others sitting at the table. I move my gaze to those standing behind the glass. No one is reacting to my presence. It’s as if I’m not even in the room.
I bend back down so I can look more closely at the girl with the teardrop tattoo. I expect to study her profile again, but when I look at her face, my eyes meet a huge, round, brown eye. Her left eye is angled to the side as far as it’ll go without her head turning. She is staring at me.
That eye holds me hostage.
I stumble back as soon as my brain registers what is happening. There can’t be enough space between me and that eye.
I stand still, barely breathing. As soon as I work up the nerve, I start forward again, giving the girl a wide berth. I move to the other side of the table and look at her from over the shoulder of the other girl.
“Are you awake?” My heart beats like a jackhammer. “Can you hear me?”
No answer. She stares straight ahead. I don’t think she is looking at my face exactly. She seems to be gazing a little above the head of the girl I’m standing behind.
I poke the guy on this side of the table in the shoulder. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
I take a look around the room. I’m still not sure if the bodies behind the glass are real. There is no fog of breath on the glass to indicate that they are breathing.
I hear a choking sound. I whip around, and at first, I can’t tell where the sound came from. I glance at the balcony, but there is no one there.
I move back to the table. “Was it you?” I ask the girl with the teardrop tattoo.
Her eyes blink so slowly it’s like she’s forgotten how to use them. Her mouth falls open and hangs there. Her pink tongue darts out, and she tries to lick her lips.
“Can you speak?” I glance around to see if anyone else at the table reacts to my voice.
She pulls her dry, cracked bottom lip between her teeth and tries to swallow. I can see how painful it is and wish I had water for her.
Her mouth opens and closes, then she licks her lips again. Her tongue is pale and cracked like her lips.
“Do you want water?” I ask so softly I’m not sure she hears me, but then her features collapse, folding into themselves with pain and distress. If she wasn’t so dehydrated, I know tears would flood down her cheeks.
“I’ll get you water.”
I dart toward the stairs. If I hurry, I can be back by her side in a minute. Just as I reach the first step, she cries out—a guttural, desperate kind of sound.
I look back. Her head is turned toward me, her eyes wide and afraid. Some sound comes from her mouth, though it sounds ragged, harsh, and full of dust.
I hurry back to her.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispers. “Please.”
“Who are you? Why are you here? Who are these people?”
She opens her mouth to speak, but her words come out garbled like her throat is full of sand.
“I need to get you water. That’ll help you speak. There’s some in the room where I’ve been.”
Her face jerks then locks into an expression of confusion. I wonder if she’s wondering how I have access to water. How do I have access to water?
“I’m not supposed to be awake. I’m usually in a straitjacket,” I rush to say, squashing the tremor that threatens to roll through me. “She just leaves the water pitcher full likely thinking I can’t get it. I’ll be right back.”
She jerks her head back and forth.
“I have to leave you if I’m going to get water.”
“No,” she mouths as she tries again to shake her head.
“I know how thirsty you are. You’ll feel a million times better after you have water.” I glance around the room, up the stairs, and over the balcony. “I’ll fill a glass and be right back. I promise.”
She looks like she is crying despite her inability to form tears.
I run up the stairs, stop at the door, and listen. I peek my head out, see the empty hall, and dart down to my room. I’m desperately trying to be quiet, but my footsteps are loud, and my breathing even louder.
I stop outside the door to my room, and I peek in. The room is empty; the restraints and straitjacket lie in the same discarded position I left them in.
After filling a glass with water from the pitcher on the table, I take a quick drink. Then I grab both and race back down the empty hallway.
Spurred on by the memory of my own deadly thirst, I forgo caution to hurry back to the girl.
“Here.” I stop in front of her, spilling some water on the floor, and hold the cup to her lips. With jerky, robotic movements, she latches onto it with a claw-like grip. Water runs into her mouth, over her parched lips, and down her chin and neck. The collar of her shirt becomes saturated.
She starts crying without tears again. “More. Please. I can’t stand it.”
I start to refill her cup, but she grabs it with clumsy hands when it’s only half-way full. By the time she’s done, the entire front of her shirt is soaked, and I wonder if she actually swallowed any of it.
“Who are you?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
“My name is Shaun Treadway. I don’t know why I’m here or why you’re here. What can you tell me? Make it fast. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here, but I’m not sure how much time we have.”
Her shoulders slump, and the cup falls to the floor. The thud is soft, but I still whip around, planting my eyes on the doors of the balcony. When I don’t see them open, I turn back to find her looking at me with the saddest expression I have ever seen.
“You have nothing but time, Shaun Treadway.”
Two days have passed since I woke up locked inside the cottage.
It’s unusual for Cyrus to leave me alone for so long. His paranoia usually has him checking on me throughout the day, and he’s always home at night. I guess he’s been at the asylum. Doing what, I don’t know. And I don’t think I want to.
The isolation has opened the door for my own paranoia to set in.
I’m sitting at the kitchen window, staring outside. My nails have been chewed down to stubs, and my cuticles have been picked till they bled. From here I have a view of the cemetery.
It’s an ancient burial ground with crooked, weather-beaten, and crumbling gravestones. Some are tall and thin, while others are short and square. A few must represent people of importance as those are bigger. They have thick bases with long crosses jutting from the middle.
There is a black iron fence surrounding the cemetery, and two statues stand at the entrance in place of a gate. I assume they used to be statues of men, maybe the founders of the asylum or the first doctors to work here, but time has weathered their features. They are now as smooth and featureless as glass. They are made of light gray stone, but moss has turned it a greenish sheen.
I stare at the statues and pull another piece of skin off my cuticle.
My only way to leave this cottage is by breaking a window, but knowing Cyrus, the windows are probably hurricane-proof. I’m going to be sitting here for the rest of my life. Swallowed by this cottage. Buried under the looming asylum.
I jump to my feet and pace.
The asylum has always had periods of activity. I’ve seen all sorts of vehicles pull up after dark. They drive to the back of the asylum, going around to the side opposite the cottage. They leave a few minutes after arriving.
Sometimes I see people. I’ve seen Dr. Richter a couple times, and there’s been a man or two I’ve never seen again. Then there’s Gibbon. The first time I ever saw him, he was lumbering toward the cemetery. At the time I’d thought he was a gardener.
He was pushing a wheelbarrow filled with what I’d assumed were gardening tools. I could see the long handles of a shovel and a rake sticking out of the back. A blue tarp was thrown over the bowl, hiding what was inside. I believed it was mulch. As he pushed the wheelbarrow forward, the edge of the tarp got caught under the wheel and slid off, revealing shoes. The white sneakers were so clean they nearly glowed. The shoes were attached to feet, and the feet were connected to legs. I couldn’t see what the legs were attached to—but I could guess.
Gibbon, only yards from my window at this point, rearranged the tarp. He didn’t seem afraid of being seen.
He maneuvered the wheelbarrow through the statues and then past the first line of gravestones. I couldn’t believe what was happening. He was wheeling what must be a body into a graveyard that hadn’t seen a new stone in a hundred years.
From the window I couldn’t see the entire cemetery, so when he disappeared from view, I assumed he was near the back.
I waited at the window until I saw Gibbon return. He still had the shovel and rake hanging over the back end of the wheelbarrow, but the tarp and the body were gone. He walked with less purpose than before, and his shoulders were stooped. He disappeared around the back of the asylum.
I slipped out of the cottage and walked toward the statues. Their blank faces seemed to mock me. I imagined that they collected pieces of all the souls that lay within their care. I hadn’t entered the cemetery before, and I felt a harsh blast of unease as I stepped between the statues.
A breeze swept over me, adding an icy chill to my anxiety.
My unease did not lesson as I walked, but I found no freshly turned earth, no new gravestone.
A sort of calm settled into my brain—maybe I was dissociating—and I was able to keep walking. I felt pulled toward the back edge of the cemetery.
The cemetery was only fenced in on three sides. Because the back wasn’t closed in, the gravestones spilled into the forest, competing with rocks and trees for space.
When I was several yards past the tree line, I came upon another statue. It was a stone statue covered in moss. It lay in a fetal position as if it represented the sorrow and loss of every person buried here.
I shivered and lifted my eyes, scanning the forest.
There were no more gravestones back here, but there were clearly graves. They were marked by numbers on small signs sticking out of the ground. One, two, three…
The earth was different here—less grassy cover, weeds, and tree roots. The dirt wasn’t packed down by time but was brown and rich like it had been disturbed recently. I scanned the forest ahead and saw hundreds of the numbered grave markers.
I shook uncontrollably, frozen in place. The statue lay at my feet, and my grungy sneakers looked white against its aged surface.
I felt like I was dissociating again as my feet finally started forward, stepping over the statue.
I walked as if lost in a fog until I came to the last number: 297.
I stood by the side of the mound of newly turned earth, while the icy breeze became a force screaming through the trees. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the already dim light grew darker as black clouds hovered overhead. Lightning flashed in the distance.
I continued to gaze down at the mound of dirt.
Gibbon had obviously buried this body in a hurry. The grave was shallow, and I could see the edge of the blue tarp and what looked like fingertips sticking out of the ground.
I fell to my knees, oblivious to the cold of the damp earth seeping through my jeans.
Reaching out, I touched the dirt and ran my hand over the grave. I created a little opening around the fingertips and watched a worm hurry from my touch.
Something came over me, and I found myself digging. My fingers became raw from the effort. Soon the hands were fully exposed and sticking out from under the tarp.
I was struck by the fact that it was all right here. It felt as if the grave was intentionally shallow…as if Gibbon had wanted this body found. Maybe he had assumed there wasn’t another soul around who could find it.
I looked down into the opening I had created. I pushed against the blue tarp and heard it crinkle. I felt the body, solid, wrapped inside of it.
Thunder boomed, and lightning struck a nearby tree. My shirt stuck to my back, and my hair was matted against my forehead, but little rain actually fell through the trees. It was my own sweat I was drowning in.
I made the opening wider and pulled back the tarp.
I was greeted by a bald scalp.
Then a pale forehead.
Eyebrows, closed eyelids—thank God—nose, and an open mouth.
It was a boy—a boy I recognized.
He wore a brown shirt that reminded me of Gibbon’s scrubs, and he had a necklace around his neck that resembled a dog tag.
I pulled the tag up and held it between my fingers. Rain obscured the letters or maybe it was my sweat falling from my head onto the smooth metal. I wiped it clean with my thumb and brought it closer to my eyes.
