Noah Trammel was in his seventies, with more gray hair than me and broader shoulders, too. He ordered a scotch. I sipped my beer.
I repeated what I’d told him in my message, without naming my client. “So we’re just interested in what happened at Lewiston. My client’s just curious about her uncle.”
“I don’t know about anyone else, but . . .” He looked at the floor. “Maybe I do. I just know—that place was haunted.”
Uh-oh. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.” He swallowed some scotch.
I’ve heard a lot of crazy things in my life. And seen them, too—vampires, demons, aliens, ghosts. I seem to attract them. "I won’t laugh.”
Trammel chuckled. “It was my older brother. Alec. He had—problems. High on the spectrum, much too much for my parents to handle. They put him into Lewiston because he started hurting himself. And, yeah, he punched me a few times, and I was just a kid.”
He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his nose. “Sorry. Anyway, I didn’t see him for a long time. Except we drove down a couple of times a year. The staff didn’t seem to like visitors. They had him restrained most of the time. I hated . . . seeing him like that.”
Trammel finished his scotch and ordered another. “One time I went to the bathroom down the hall. I was 12 or 13. I heard screams through the doors. The bathroom was dark. I—anyway, I was washing my hands, and I looked up and there was this man standing behind me. In the mirror. But I never heard the door open, and all the stalls were empty. There were only three. I sort of jumped and turned around. But the guy wasn’t there.”
He sipped his next scotch. “When I looked back in the mirror, he was there. In a gray hospital gown, like my brother, and he was bleeding from one ear. He opened his mouth like he was trying to talk, but he couldn’t say anything. When I looked back again, he wasn't there."
Trammel shuddered. “I just ran. But I felt this, this cold draft all over my body when I moved through where he was standing. All over my arms and legs, and my face. My parents were leaving. I heard Alec moaning inside his room. It was more like a cell. The hallway was gray and dark. I didn’t say anything until we got in the car, and then I told them everything.”
“Did they believe you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I sort of thought they wouldn’t. but they heard the screams and the moaning too. The next day they called someone from the state, and the day after that they went and took Alec out and put him into another hospital. He, uh—he died a few years later.”
We were silent for a minute. “I’m sorry to put you through this, sir.”
Trammel shook his head, “Thanks, but it’s—it’s okay. After we complained, and it turned out there was other stuff they were investigating. Anyway, the lawsuit took years, and in the end we got some money and I guess some guys got locked up. But I can’t stop thinking about that guy in the mirror. And the cold. And Alec, too, you know?”
“Of course.” Damn it. Why did very case I get have to turn into something supernatural? Maybe I’d been cursed in a past life.
“Does that help?” He finished his second scotch with a gulp and ordered a third.
I wasn’t sure. “Will you be okay getting home?” The bartender set his glass on the table.
He chuckled again. “I’ll call an Uber.”
I nursed my beer until he finished, paid the tab and got a receipt, and walked him out to the street to wait for his car. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Trammel shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I haven’t thought about it much, or talked about. It’s . . . kind of good to remember him.”
The Uber pulled up. I watched it head down the street, and then I went for my car.
So the next day we drove out to Lewiston for the 3 p.m. tour.
Joliet is an hour or so southwest of Chicago. Rachel sat next to me in the Prius, working on her laptop, occasionally shouting at me to get around a slow-moving truck. My GPS eventually led the car to Beacon, Illinois, and then up a gravel driveway to parking lot in front of the Lewiston Institute.
The landscape was barren and chilly on a gray January day. A hill rose next to the facility, grass dead in the winter. Dark branches on a lone tree swayed in a cold breeze.
I stopped the car in front of the main building. Two other structures lay behind it.
Rachel saved her work and closed her laptop. “Okay. So I’m looking for—what? Ghosts?”
“Or anything you can find.” I was nervous after my chat with Trammel last night. “I didn’t think this would turn into—”
“Oh, come on.” She slugged my shoulder. “You live for this.”
Maybe I do. Maybe one day it would kill me.
A few other cars sat in the lot, plus a tour bus. Was an asylum tour a hot ticket for tourists? Rachel and I waited. Watching the front door.
A big sign hung over the doorway of the big building: LEWISTON INSTITUTION MEMORIAL SOCIETY. WELCOME. Big black letters underneath—“Tours This Way.”
Cari Sheppard pulled up in a black BMW a few minutes later. She slipped out and zipped up her leather jacket, slinging a briefcase over one shoulder. I’d called Cari last night, after talking to Trammel. She’d listened, slightly confused, but in the end she seemed to understand what I was telling her.
Rachel and I opened our doors. “Hi. This is Rachel. She works with me.”
“Nice to meet you.” Rachel held a hand out. “Just so you know, I’m kind of psychic.”
“Uh—okay.” They shook hands
Cari stepped next to us, her head down. “I talked to my grandmother last night. About Martin.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward. “What did she say?”
“Martin had some kind of brain injury in the war. He got worse. Drugs and—other things, I don’t know? I guess grandma couldn’t handle it. Grandpa was dead by then. So she sent Martin here. And then she couldn’t stand to see him. I don't think my mother knew anything about it. And grandma, she never came to visit him or anything. She only got a letter when he died.”
A cold wind blew across our faces. Rachel took Cari’s hand. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She straightened her shoulders. “I didn’t think it would matter this much. I never knew him. But now . . .” She looked at the door. “I have to know.”
“Hello! I’m Patty Jerelle, and I’ll be conducting your tour today.” She smiled.
She was young and tall, with short black hair, and she wore a long white lab coat like a doctor as she greeted us in the outer room. “We’ll be walking through the hospital, where patients were treated for mental disorders early in the days of the facility. Then we’ll take a look at the infirmary, where they were treated for medical issues. Unfortunately, the third building is closed for renovations, but that was mostly an administrative center."
She folded her arms. “I have to warn you, this may be disturbing. What the so-called doctors did here was completely unethical. That’s why it was shut down. But we believe there’s value in understanding what’s been done here.” She turned. “This way, please.”
Rachel grabbed my hand.
“Are you okay?” I squeezed.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She rocked back and forth on her feet. “Shut up.”
Something was wrong. But I kept my mouth shut.
Aside from me and Rachel and Cari, the tour group consisted of 12 Asian senior citizens from the tour bus, plus a mom and dad hustling three teenaged girls along with them. “Keep up!” the dad ordered. “Come on! After this we can go to Burger King!”
The walls were cinder blocks painted a dingy gray. A long series of fluorescent tubes burned from the ceiling. Everything smelled liked lemon disinfectant.
A series of screams and hollow laughs from a bad horror movie soundtrack burned the air.
"Those aren't real," Jerelle said reassuringly. "It's just to give you a taste of what this place was like at its worst."
Cari looked up and down the walls, the ceiling. She shivered.
Jerelle stopped in front of a door and gestured with her foot toward a six-inch slot at the bottom. "Meals and water were sent in here. The diet was—not good. A little meat, often spoiled, rotted vegetables, some dried fruit, maybe oatmeal in the morning. And water from pipes that leaked lead."
She opened the door. The room, six feet by six with a 10-foot high ceiling, was too small for everyone to crowd into. We took turns peering over each other's shoulders. Cameras clicked from the tourists.
A metal cot was pushed against the back wall with a thin gray mattress on top. A bucket sat in a corner. A drain lay in the center of the floor.
"What, no manacles?" I asked. Rachel slugged my arm.
Jerelle gave me a sharp glance. "Some rooms did have those, for patients who doctors felt needed to be restrained. We'll see those later."
The kids hung back—one girl leaned against the wall, rolling her eyes. “Dad? Can we go now?”
“Just a minute.” The father leaned through the door. His wife stayed outside, holding the kids' hands.
We looked into other rooms. Two of them did have manacles bolted to the walls. A few larger ones held actual sinks and toilets.
The tourists whispered among themselves and took pictures. The girls tried to be brave. The wife glared at her husband.
Then Jerelle led us out a back door and across a cracked concrete path into another building. Smaller, with the same dim fluorescents in the ceiling. Instead of a long corridor, a metal desk stood like a tombstone in the center a wide circular room.
Four doors stood around the room. Jerelle put a hand on one handle. “In here, operations were performed. Men and women had parts of their brains removed to make them more manageable. Take a look around.” She pushed the handle and leaned in to flick a light switch inside.
The seniors walked into the room. The kids hung back—one girl leaned against the wall, rolling her eyes. “Mom? I don't like this."
“Keith . . ." She put a hand on his arm. "Is it almost over?"
"I just want to see this." He shrugged. "You can wait."
Cari shuddered, and Rachel clutched her hand. We slid past the father and stood beside the rest of the group, shivering. Not only because it was cold.
Eight metal cots with thin white mattresses lined the room. Black curtains obscured the windows. A single yellow lightbulb dangled from the ceiling.
Jerelle picked up a metal tray. "These instruments were used for leucotomies, also called lobotomies. The procedure involves cutting connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex in an attempt to control patient's mental disorders. This—" She held up a T-shaped instrument— "is called an orbitoclast. It was used to—"
Cari jerked back. "I can't take this. Sorry." She turned and walked away.
I followed her back down the shadowy hallway to the door. Rachel was right behind us.
"I'm sorry." Outside in the parking lot, under the gray sky, Cari bent over the hood of her car. "It's just . . . too much."
"You feel it too?" Rachel put a hand on her shoulder.
Cari jerked. "What do you mean?"
Rachel leaned back and took a deep breath. "Like I said, I'm sort of psychic. And this place . . ."
She turned and gazed up the hill. Her boots staggered in the gravel. Rachel blinked. "Up there. People are buried there. Lots of people." She shuddered.
"Oh god." Cari Sheppard trembled. "I have to get out of here. I didn't think . . ."
"Take her home." I pointed toward Cari's car. "I'll stay."
"What?" Rachel lifted a fist. "I'm not leaving you here!"
"I have some questions to ask." I backed away. "Come on. It's what I do. It's my job. I have to find out what's going on." Or what happened. "Go."
"Don't be an idiot." She punched my arm. "Or I guess it's too late for that."
I grinned. "I'll be okay."
"You always say that." She kissed me quickly and slid into Cari's passemger seat. "Call me."
I watched Cari's car roll through the gate. For a moment I seriously thought about following them.
But although no one's every called me brave, some people have described me as a stubborn asshole. It worked when I was a reporter—although it ultimately got me fired—and it's still part of my job now.
I took a deep breath and headed back into the asylum.
No comments:
Post a Comment