Childhood Insanity

The dark shielded her from whatever made the wet squelching sound. Down in the basement of her childhood home, the smell of mildew and rotting wood was potent. Her scraped knees were curled into her torso and she kept a hand pressed against her quivering lips. Her pale green eyes blinked back tears as she attempted to hide herself deeper behind some shelving near the basement stairs.

She didn't dare move from her spot, terrified that whatever was out there would get her next. Oh why did I ever come back here? She thought to herself dismally. Her body began to tremble as she heard something being dragged by her hiding spot, a low groan coming from somewhere close to the floor.

She jolted in place as a light from somewhere in the basement was switched on. Her eyes shifted back and forth cautiously. A few feet from her, a limp body was lifted and then tossed onto an old work table. The table protested at the sudden weight.

The young woman maneuvered carefully to her knees, peeking through the shelving. She watched as a tall figure, who wore something over their head, an apron, dark stained jeans, and black work boots, stood over the work table. Her eyes widened at the scarred disfigured back as it flexed while moving. Tears welled up in her eyes as she stared at the face of her boyfriend, one of the few people who had unwittingly joined her on this morbid trip down memory lane.

The disfigured monster, who had haunted her dreams as a little girl, placed a meaty palm atop the now whimpering boy's head. Tears and blood streaked down the poor boy's face.

With trembling hands, she touched the old shelving that her mother had once used for housing their canned goods. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on edge as she watched the disfigured human-like creature pick up an already bloodied cleaver. The creature stared down at it with some strange fascination and she could hear it faintly speaking to her boyfriend, the voice a dull rumble. Her boyfriend's eyes flicked up towards the creature's face and then around the room as he began to blubber, his bottom lip quivering.

For a moment, she thought he was attempting to shake his head, but whether it was a method of escape or a response to what the creature said, she would never know. Her boyfriend's mouth had barely opened in a scream when the creature began to deliver blows to his head with the cleaver.

The girl fell back in shock, the sight of bloody brain matter splattering from his head making her feel sick to her stomach. She pressed her eyes into her knees, willing the image from her mind. She could hear the creature as it continued to rip her boyfriend apart, the cleaver seeming to slice through him almost like butter.

She took in a deep shaky breath, wishing the nightmare could be over, as she scooted herself back into the corner. She felt something give behind her back and she gave a soft squeak in fright. Now with some mildly dim lighting, her eyes were able to make out a small wooden door. She reached out a shaking hand.

Finger-tips brushed against splintering damp wood and the door gave way with a soft protesting squeak. A darkened crawl space gazed back at her. She glanced between the hole and the direction of the sounds of her boyfriend's dismemberment. She heard the cleaver as it clattered against the work bench. Heavy footsteps made their way in her direction.

Hurriedly, she crawled into the hole, not bothering to close it up behind her. The loose dirt and rocks made her wounded knees ache and she gritted her teeth in response. During her time as a child in this house, she never recalled this crawl space nor where it would lead her to. She simply prayed it wasn't to somewhere in the house where the creature would snatch her up.

She crawled for what felt like forever, her leg muscles sore from all the running she'd done before hiding herself in the basement. Dirt clung to the underside of her nails and in the dark, she never saw the exit to the crawlspace as it came closer. Her head bumped against a wooden hatch door. "Ouch!" she groaned to herself as she rubbed her sore head.

She pushed the hatch open and pulled herself out of the dark cramped hole. Her eyes hurt as they adjusted to the light of the growing dawn. She pushed herself up to her feet and froze at the sight of the house behind her. The lights on in the house seemed to call out to her, luring her to come back inside. She gulped nervously and sprinted away from it, heading towards the lone country road that went right by the house.

She scrambled up the hill to it and stood in the middle of the road, unsure of which way she should run. Her sense of direction was all discombobulated. The roar of a car's engine pulled her attention and she spun on her heels, coming face to face with the headlights of an older pickup truck.

The truck honked loudly at her as she failed to move out of the way. Wheels squealed against the asphalt as the driver stomped on the brakes. The nose of the truck came within mere inches of hitting her and she jumped back. The driver jumped out of the cab and stared at her bewildered.

"Damn, girl, are you insane?!" The old man began to yell at her. "I could've hit you! What are you doing out here anyway?!" Her heart was in her throat and she felt her chest tighten around her lungs.

"I-I need help," she said softly, her eyes constantly darting towards the house. "Please you have to get me out of here. He's coming." The driver raised a confused brow as he studied her with dirty clothes and torn up knees. She glanced back at the house again and her heart leaped into her throat at the sight of the door opening. Two figures emerged and began to make their way towards them.

The old driver followed her gaze and let out a sigh of relief. He waved to them. "Hi, Billy! Hiya, Martha! Hope I didn't wake ya!" The two waved back as they continued to approach. The young woman let out a scream causing for the others to jump in fright. She turned on her heels and sprinted off, the old man calling after her.

Her feet pounded against the asphalt and her lungs ached, but she pushed on. She refused to become another victim to that creature. A police cruiser came screaming up to her and swerved in her way, stopping her in her tracks. Two officers jumped out, the passenger with a hand on her firearm while the driver walked around the car with raised arms.

"Easy there!" he called out. He waved his hand towards the other officer. "Don't draw your weapon dammit! It's her!" The officer reluctantly withdrew her hand from the firearm, watching them with weary eyes. The male officer looked back at her and gave her a cautious smile. "Hey, there. I'm Officer Bertram and this is Officer Graham. We came to take you home, sweetheart. Are you alright?"

She turned back and licked her lips as she watched to see if someone was following behind her. She looked back at them and tears began to fall down her face. "Please," she said softly, taking a few tentative steps towards them. "Please, I just want to go home. I-I was visiting a house I grew up in as a child...and...and there was this thing! It hunted me and my friends down and...and I think they're dead!"

The officers' faces softened and Officer Graham came out from behind the passenger door. "And what about you? Are you hurt, sweetie?" she asked in a soft lulling voice. The young woman wrapped her arms around herself as she shook her head, tears freely streaming down her face.

Officer Bertram glanced between the two women. "Officer Graham, why don't you get the blanket from the trunk? This young lady looks like she's freezing." Officer Graham nodded her head in response and rushed to get the blanket. "Can I get your name, Miss?"

"Ayla. My name is Ayla Perchman." The officer gave her a kind smile as Officer Graham returned with the blanket. He glanced at her.

"Officer Graham, this is Miss Ayla Perchman. I think we outta give this young lady a ride back home, don't you?" Officer Graham nodded her head in response as she approached Ayla cautiously, wrapping her in the blanket. Ayla gripped the blanket tightly as she nodded her head.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." Ayla followed the officers back to the car and got in the back seat. After the door was closed behind her, they began a quiet drive.

"So, Ayla, can I ask you a couple of questions about what happened out there?" Officer Graham asked. Ayla nodded her head slowly. "Great...now you said you were with some friends. Can you tell us their names? So, we know who we're looking for and what families we may need to contact."

Ayla licked her lips nervously. "Um...there was my boyfriend. His name was Jordan Admeyer. Then there was my best friend, Isabel Rogers, and her boyfriend, Camden Iverson." Officer Graham scribbled some notes into a notepad.

"And you mentioned a house?" Ayla nodded her head, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"112 Washington Street. It used to be my house when I was a child. We wanted to just drive by and see it and then..." she trailed off, her memory drawing a blank.

"And then what, sweetie?" Ayla shook her head, tears falling down her cheeks.

"And then I don't know," she admitted sadly. "After that it's like there's a giant hole in my memory."

"Okay, that's fine. Sometimes that happens. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

"I remember the car being pulled up in front of..." Ayla trailed off as she saw they were approaching the house. "Why are we going back there?!"

Officer Bertram pointed at the house. "Is this the place? This is just the way we have to take back to town." Ayla scooted away from the passenger side window, terrified to even be close to it, but then she froze. The house was boarded up and dark. There were boards missing and the grass in the yard had begun to die.

"What...no. The house...it was lit up this morning! There were people inside! This old guy nearly ran me over after I came out of the crawl space." She glanced frantically and her eyes widened in shock at the lack of a hatch in the yard. "I-I don't understand."

"Ayla? Ayla, you alright back there?" Officer Bertram asked. She nodded her head confused and took a deep breath.

"Yeah um...I'm just confused is all. The house didn't look like that earlier." The two officers nodded their heads and the drive was continued in silence. "There was a creature."

"I'm sorry?" Officer Bertram said, glancing back at her in the rear-view mirror. Ayla looked up and met his dark eyes.

"There was this like...horribly disfigured...man? He...I don't even know if it was a he, but he was pretty big and...he murdered my friends."

"Why don't you give your friends a call when you get home, alright?" Officer Graham offered. Ayla nodded her head.

"I'll have to yeah." The cruiser pulled up in front of a tall opened iron gate and Ayla lifted a skeptical brow. "Where are you guys taking me?" The two officers shared a look before driving through the gate. Up a long winding drive, sat St. Montgomery Asylum, home to the mentally and criminally insane youth. Ayla's mind began to flash back between the present and her arrival at the hospital.

She zoned out as she remembered being eight years old when her mother had dropped her off here. She had sobbed and clung to her as the orderlies attempted to take her to her room. Ayla remembered her grandparents holding her tightly, sad grievous looks spread throughout the group. She had screamed and cried, begging her mother not to send her away.

She remembered now what awful thing had happened in that house. Her father had died tragically, murdered by the creature. Tears welled up in her eyes, recalling a faint memory of a heavy pair of scissors in her child hand.

"This is home...isn't it? You're not taking me back to my mother." Officer Graham turned her head enough to look at her.

"Your mother is here, waiting to see you're returned safely, Ayla," she said in a soft sad voice.

Ayla nodded her head, understanding. "My friends weren't real...were they?" Officer Graham looked pitifully back at her and she bit her pink lip.

"They're real, Ayla," she replied comfortingly. "However, we were called about four escaped patients. You, Jordan, Isabel, and Camden, got out sometime last night? You stole someone's car from a nearby gas station. Do you remember where the others are?"

Ayla shook her head, staring down at her bleeding knees. "I just remember going to the house and seeing the creature again. I...I'm sorry I didn't...I don't..." Ayla trailed off, unsure of how to form her next words. There was nothing she could say, because there was nothing she could remember.

The car stopped by the large stone steps. A few doctors and nurses waited there for her. The only person not dressed in scrubs was her mother, who was dressed in an olive green overcoat, a black blouse with matching pants, and flats. Her graying blonde hair was pinned back by a large clip and her face had aged since the last time she had seen her.

The officers both exited the car and Officer Graham opened her door slowly. Two orderlies approached with a wheelchair and without warning, they pulled her from the car. Ayla's arms ached from where they gripped her, but she complied anyway and sat in the chair, keeping her fingers woven around the blanket.

"Don't be so rough with her!" Her mother exclaimed. "She's not fighting you!"

"Ma'am, please!" another woman's stern voice said. Ayla knew that voice even through the puddle of her memory. It was the head nurse, Gretchen Van Beckett. Ayla didn't even have to look at her to know she was receiving the Beckett frown of disappointment. Gretchen stopped the orderlies before they took Ayla into the building and knelt down at her side. "Ayla? Ayla, where did you and the others go? We really need to find them."

Ayla sat silently in the chair, her eyes never leaving her bloodied knees. "Ayla?" Gretchen tried again. "Ayla, please. Their families are terribly worried and you're the only other person who came back."

Ayla's eyes shot up to meet Gretchen's. "Who?" Gretchen touched Ayla's shoulder softly.

"Camden came back...he was rather beaten up. Poor boy seems to have nearly died on your little excursion. He recalls a house. Are the others there, Ayla?"

Does...Camden remember what happened?" she asked softly. Gretchen glanced back at Ayla's mother, who fretfully bit at the skin around her thumbnail. She turned back, meeting Ayla's eyes again.

"He says you all escaped through some hole in the fence? That you four walked for awhile and that Isabel dared Jordan to steal someone's car. You had driven for some time and there was something about a house in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere on Washington Street and that you had said that was your old house. You mentioned your parents and you made Jordan pull over." Ayla felt her heart quicken.

"And? And then the creature came out?" she asked softly. She glanced at her mother this time. "I told you the creature was real, Momma. It's real and it tried to kill me and my friends!" The orderlies both clasped a firm hand on Ayla's forearms, pinning her to the chair. A nurse slowly began to approach them and Ayla's mother turned away to hide the tears falling from her face.

"Ayla? Ayla!" Gretchen summoned back Ayla's attention and she stared back with a near crazed daze. "Ayla, honey, Camden said the house was abandoned. That you broke in, showed everyone around...and that you just started acting differently. Did you stop taking your medication again, sweetie?"

Ayla cocked her head to the side and glared back at Gretchen. "What do you mean differently? I went to see my childhood home with my friends and that....thing came out of nowhere! It attacked us! I would never have hurt them! Especially not Jordan." Gretchen nodded to the other nurse and Ayla felt a faint prick in her arm.

She gritted her teeth and felt her body slowly begin to go limp. The orderlies began to cart her away while Gretchen began speaking with her mother. "I'm sorry. There's no way she can be released into your care. It's clear to the staff and Doctor Edison that she's just as much a danger to others as well as herself. The black-outs have clearly become more in control than her."

"What will you do?" Ayla's mother asked sadly.

"We will have to keep trying," Gretchen said, attempting to sound reassuring. "It would however help if you came to visit more often. I think part of this incident has come from not seeing you for some time and then the first visit she has with you in over four years, you tell her your mother died." Ayla's mother glared back at Gretchen and she dug her nails into the palm of her hand.

"I came to see her with her new baby sister and she nearly sliced the poor thing to ribbons! My daughter, Eliza, still has the scars! I had to stop coming in order to keep my family safe."

Gretchen pursed her lips and folded her arms in front of her. "Ma'am, with all due respect, Ayla is your daughter too. She was twelve years old and you brought in a two year old child that she had not heard about until that day. She's sick, she cannot help it, and she does need her mother. Her therapist has been telling us she needs to see you. She might not get better, but at least the part of her that is her will know you're there. Isn't that important too?"

"Look I just can't-"

Gretchen held up a hand and the words stopped in her throat. "Mrs. Larson, I have worked here for over twenty years. I have heard every excuse in the book for why loved ones can't be with someone just because they had to be locked away for their own safety. I can't understand the stress or the pain it has been causing you, but I do see the pain and stress it puts Ayla in when you won't even pick up the phone."

"She killed my husband," Mrs. Larson stated hatefully. "She killed her own father and blamed it on some "creature." How am I supposed to treat her? How do I know she won't kill me next?" Gretchen sighed heavily and began to go up the steps.

"It would appear, Mrs. Larson, that we are not going to agree on what part of yours is best for, Ayla. I can only tell you that she asks about you every day and that she spends a lot of time in her room, becoming quite depressed when she can't reach you on the telephone. When family day comes, she has simply started isolating herself in her room, because she already knows you have no intention of coming to visit. She's expressed great remorse for what happened to her sister and even greater remorse that she could not be there for you after your husband's death. So, I will go tend to your child...while you go home and tend to your family."

Mrs. Larson stared up at the older woman with pure distaste, but did not move to enter the building as Gretchen walked away. When the doors slammed closed behind her, Mrs. Larson knew she'd never see her eldest daughter again. The night of her husband's death was too vivid, too traumatic in her mind for her to forgive Ayla.

She remembered coming into Ayla's bedroom and finding her husband slumped over with blood still oozing out of him. Ayla's bedding was soaked in it and when Mrs. Larson began to fear the worse for her child, she spotted Ayla in the corner, a pair of once sterling silver scissors in her blood smeared hands. Mrs. Larson got into her car and with tear filled eyes at the thought of her departed husband, she drove away from the asylum, vowing to never return.

Ayla sat in her bedroom, staring out the window. Somehow, the sedative had not been strong enough and she stared with a crazed smile. "Bye, bye, Mommy. We'll play again real soon."