Words spelled out in mud and blood. A warning. A gasp-inducing warning.
You Too.
Two words. There were so many possibilities to the cryptic message, but the sobs in my throat met the realization in my mind.
I sank to the floor, covered in water, tears, and the remnants of the ghostly apparition who had ascertained what I’d already feared; this wasn’t just about 5B. Tucked in a ball on the floor, I thought of 5B’s chant.
Little Brown, face down, one, two, three, straight from the gate.
I thought of Red’s, too.
Little Red. Around the Bend. The Crooked Nose.
My mind whirled in a string of madness that was unending as I drowned myself in tears and wished for it all to end.
I really thought about making it all end, and not for the first time. I was no stranger to darkness, after all.
Chapter Twelve
Iwasted no time the next day confronting 5B. Regardless of what was happening in the godforsaken walls of Redwood, I knew that the children had something to do with him. And I had my wicked suspicions from the nature of the drawings, from his behaviors, and from their ghostly appearances that he had some menacing secrets of his own.
Anna was busy in the A wing, so I took over the B wing. I opened the door, quickly noting that he was at his desk, crayons in hand. My heart leaped at the prospect. A part of me wanted to encourage the drawings, but a part of me knew I needed to put an end to the crazy stuff happening. I couldn’t take it any longer. I stomped over to him.
“What did you do to them?” I asked, my voice shaking even though I tried to steady it.
He didn’t stop, his hand wildly drawing in blue this time.
I averted my curious eyes, telling myself not to get roped in. I couldn’t handle this anymore. Redwood was too much. I didn’t need this. Jaw clenched in fury, I leaned on his desk. He looked up.
His eyes were bloodshot now, and it seemed like he’d been crying. He leaped from his seat at the sight of me.
“Make them stop. Fucking make them stop. You have to make them fucking stop. You’re the only one, Jessica. You’re the one. You. You. You.” His angered words became saddened pleas, the word ‘you’ drifting on the air like a confessed dream. Tears fell from his eyes, mingling on the floor with the ones that fell from mine.
I had established camaraderie with a mad man. I had somehow become the one to help in this twisted horror game of dead spirits. How would I ever bring it to an end?
There was only one answer, and I quickly usurped it with questions of how I would fix it all and still escape with my sanity. Of course, maybe sanity was a relative term. Or maybe it wasn’t mine to lose after all.
“What did you do to them?” I demanded again, needing answers that clearly no one had found. If he had murdered all of these children, he would certainly be in prison or at the very list in the A wing, wouldn’t he? My mind unraveled, traveling down dusty trails of uncertainty.
“Please, Jessica. Help me. They won’t leave me be. They’ve been so loud. They thought you would help. I thought you would. Help them.”
And then the chants began. Over and over, the chant for brown, the chant for red. And a new one added to the repertoire as he approached the blue drawings on his desk.
Little blue. The sand is hot. The cats are a lot.
Frustration usurped me as I grabbed my head with my shaking hand.
“What the fuck does it all mean?” I asked, anger growing. I slammed my hand on the desk.
“Take them,” he ordered, handing me a stack of blue drawings. The words were uttered with such conviction. I glanced at the front of the stack, a boy in a puddle with bulging eyes. I swiped at them, knocking them to the floor.
“I can’t help you. None of you. I don’t understand. I can’t,” I argued, as much with myself as with him. The do-gooder Jessica was gone. Now, I just wanted what I came to Redwood for. Quiet. An escape from all things troubling in my past life. I didn’t want more horrors here, but that’s exactly what I’d found.
“Take them,” he demanded, his body shaking now with anger. I backed away, ready to leave the room and tell Anna that she was right, that I couldn’t handle 5B anymore. But before I could get to the door, he had his hand around my wrist, his fingers digging in. My arm screamed in pain as his nails scratched into me. He frothed at the mouth like a wild beast, spit flying with every word.
“You owe them this, Jessica. You owe me. Take them and find them. You’re in this now, too. You’re the only one.”
I cried out as I reached for the button that would call security, but before I could touch it, he’d let go. He grabbed the pictures and shoved them at me, a crinkled mess of blue. I didn’t look down at the haunting images, taking the pictures with me out of the room. I was shaking and bleeding, a mess even by Redwood’s standards.
“Jesus, what happened?” a voice called, and my eyes landed on Anna, who was seated at the desk. She leaped up, rushing toward me as I sank to the floor, a teary mess, feeling like I was, in fact, dying.
The Murder
Dying in Redwood is a certainty for essentially all residents of the stone building. Once you walk through those doors and murmur your despondent farewells, you rarely get to leave. It is a miniscule percentage of patients who ever breathe free air after being
