Cacey was already opening a Coke and happily slurping away before we even pulled out of the driveway. She offered me one once we hit the highway, and I took it. I didn’t want it, but God forbid I tell her that.
Time slipped away along with the scenery, and eventually I saw a sign that read MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY 20 MILES AHEAD. Then another stating it was ten miles ahead, and another for five. At the one-mile mark I started to get a little bit nervous.
It was late afternoon when we arrived, and big rusted gates, one side emblazoned with an ornate G, the other with an F, blocked the way in front of us as the car came to a stop. Uri rolled down his window and said something to the guard that I couldn’t hear. The guard nodded and checked his clipboard to confirm whatever Uri had told him. Then he waved us in.
A series of gray buildings came into view, like oversize blocks. Two small ones on the left, two small ones on the right, and a giant one in the middle. Barbed wire covered sections of the high walls at the top, and spotlights were installed in every corner.
“Looks like a prison,” I muttered.
“It was,” Cacey said. “Once. In 1825 it was built to hold all the prisoners that were waiting on death row. Then in 1943 someone thought it would be a good idea to turn it into a mental health facility for the criminally insane. Over the past twenty years or so they’ve expanded into accepting all sorts of people with mental illnesses and diseases.”
“Lovely.” Exactly the type of place where I wanted to spend my weekend. “And we’re here to see someone?”
Uri pulled the car forward and found a parking spot. “Yup.”
“A patient, or a facility worker?” I asked.
“Not sure yet.”
Okay …
A nurse came to greet us as we got out of the car, and Uri went to speak to her. She shook her head, then ushered us into this weird little side building. It looked like a guesthouse or staff living quarters, because it was filled with half a dozen tidy little rooms.
“Looks like we’re going to have to meet him tomorrow,” Cacey leaned in to tell me as we walked down the hall. “Visiting hours are over.”
I was shown to one end of the building and given a small, colorless room filled with only a bed, a wash table, and a picture of the crucifixion. A frozen dinner was brought to me on a dingy silver tray fifteen minutes later.
Cacey came in when I was almost done eating (or rather, when I was almost done tentatively pushing my spoon through the gloppy mess) and told me that we were in for the night and she’d be back in the morning. Sternly, she warned me not to leave the house, that there were strict rules about who was allowed to wander the property and I didn’t want to be caught somewhere I shouldn’t be.
I just shrugged and quickly agreed. Like I wanted to go wander around an insane asylum at night? No, thanks.
* * *
The next morning, light filtered in through a small window cut high above my bed and woke me up. It was early, and I lay there for a while contemplating what it must have been like to live here all those years ago. When things like electroshock therapy and lobotomies were commonplace. Different rules, different medicines, different times.
What would they have done to someone like me? If someone had told them I thought I could see Caspian and Nikolas and Katy? Would I have been trapped here? Would I have ever gotten out?
The thought left me feeling grim, and my body was like lead as I got dressed. There was a small basin and a pitcher of water on a table nearby, and I washed my face and hands. A hot shower would have been nice, but all I really wanted was to just find whoever Cacey and Uri needed to see and get the hell out of there.
A knock came at my door, and I opened it to find Uri standing there. “Morning,” he said.
“Morning.”
“There’s breakfast in the dining room.”
“Okay.” I grabbed my bag. I didn’t want to come back here if I could help it. We walked silently down the hall, but I noticed that Cacey hadn’t joined us yet. “Where’s Cacey?”
“She snuck in the Coke cans last night and drank the rest of that twenty-four-pack. She’s not feeling too hot.”
I laughed. Then I felt bad. “I hope she’s okay.”
“She’ll be fine in a couple of hours. And then maybe she’ll listen to me next time.”
I shot him a look.
“Yeah, maybe not,” he said wryly.
I was actually kind of relieved that she wasn’t going to be with us. Without her around I might be able to get some answers. “So can I come with you, then?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I thought you might want to stay here with Cacey.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I’d much rather go with you.” I didn’t want my enthusiasm to show too much, so I added, “This place really gives me the creeps.”
Uri laughed. “Where we’re going isn’t much better.”
I gave him my best puppy-dog eyes. “Pleeeeeeeeease?”
“All right. Fine.” He sighed heavily.
“Do you mind if we skip breakfast?” I asked as we got closer to the dining room. The smells wafting out of there were revolting. “I’m not hungry.”
“Fine by me. I hate hospital food.”
He pushed open a nearby side door, and we went outside. There was a golf cart with a driver sitting there, waiting for us. Uri sat down in the back and motioned for me to sit beside him.
We drove down a winding road and up a short hill before finally stopping in front of the middle building. The biggest one.
“Just stay with me, okay?” Uri said. “Nothing will happen, but better to be safe than sorry.”
I nodded solemnly and followed him in.
We were buzzed into an entryway by a nurse who was simultaneously doling out pills into empty cups and entering something into a computer. She came around to get us, and we trailed behind her, walking past peeling walls and poorly lit patient rooms with their doors open. Her thick rubber-soled shoes made a squeaking sound that echoed eerily.
We rounded a corner and passed several more rooms. These all had closed doors.
“Treatment rooms.”
The nurse caught me looking, and it was amazing how fast her head could spin around to say those words and then spin back again.
“Obviously you won’t be seeing the insides of any of those. Strictly for the more severe cases. Although, I suppose a tour could be arranged,” she said brightly.
Ah, no.
Uri must have agreed with me, because he politely declined for the both of us. We passed an empty nurse’s station and went around another corner, then came to a small room with a sitting area. “Here we are,” the nurse said. “Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable.” She gestured at two cracked brown leather chairs with a round table in between them.
Uri moved one of the chairs closer to me, and I sank down into it. He sat in the other one.
The nurse turned to leave, then stopped and whipped her head back around. “I’m sure both of you already know this, but liability requires us to give you an official warning. Don’t go anywhere unattended, don’t antagonize any of the patients that you may come into contact with, and don’t believe anything they say. They are very sick individuals.”
She didn’t wait for a response, but only nodded her head and then marched back out the door.
I stared after her for a minute, kind of stunned. “What do they think we’re going to do?” I asked Uri, speaking in a hushed tone. “Go around poking the patients with sticks?”
“You’d be surprised,” he said.
I shook my head, and looked around again. “So, what do we do now?”
“Now we wait.”