Patient 1543 (1543 Series Story 1)

The Nut Takes Over The Nut House

1.

     The trio after exiting Mel’s office tried the elevator to the second flood. But just before Mel’s finger pressed the button that would bring the elevator down to their floor, the power went out. The only light they were offered was the sun light that shone through the windows in the offices, and the ones on the wall opposite to the offices. Mel pressed the elevator button anyway, but nothing happened.

     “Guess we’re taking the stairs.” McCoy said from the back of the trio. Mel and Terry nodded, both of them worried for in all their time working at Scranton there had only been power failures when there were severe storms, but last they had checked it had been a sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. And even then when the power did fail, the backup generators came on almost immediately, but that did not happen for whatever reason. Needless to say, it was very disturbing for all of them – especially Mel and Terry – when they had just finished discussing the potential abilities of 1543 and then a mysterious power failure followed by what must be a generator failure, for if they were working the power would’ve come back on virtually instantly. And also what was that loud bag they heard earlier; the one that sounded like someone slamming a door, amplified by a hundred times.

     They double backed to the stairs and took those. And since the power was out, the stair case itself was pitch-black. Mel placed his leading hand against the wall to help lead him through the darkness. A hand suddenly was on his shoulder, but Mel reminded himself that it was either Terry or McCoy; probably Terry, judging by the fact that one of the fingers had a ring on which Mel could feel as the hand gripped his shoulder.

     He continued walking up the stair case slowly. The hand, which Mel confirmed was Terry by her high heels clicking directly behind him, continued to grasp his shoulder tightly, as if for dear life. They walked up the flight of stairs till Mel saw some light shining through the narrow window in the door that would open on to floor two, which is where Mel thought the banging sound had originated from. He slowly walked towards the door, allowing the others to follow him, and then pushed open the door, which opened on silent hinges. The hallway before them was dimly light by the light that was coming from outside, shining into the rooms on either side of the hallway and then barely shining through the rooms and into the hallway via small observation windows on the room doors.

     The first thing that struck Mel as odd was the lack of noise. At Scranton they didn’t encourage loud noises, but at the same time they didn’t discourage patients from speaking to the nurses or even each other. But here he was walking slowly through the corridor on floor two, only a hundred feet – a hundred fifty feet at the most – away from the main therapy room and there was total silence. The only sounds he could hear were his breathing along with that of his companions, and their footsteps. Everything else was still and silent; eerily silent and still.

     Mel peeked into several of the patient rooms as he passed by but saw that they were empty and oddly perfect. That was the second thing Mel noticed that sent up a neon warning sign in his mind that flashed brightly. The first was the noise – or rather lack thereof – and the second was how perfect the patient rooms were. When working with mental patient, each one has his or her personal ticks, and many – if not most – have a big personal tick when it comes to their room. Every patient moves his or her room around in some way, shape or form. It’s just something they do to claim ownership of the space; their way of saying ‘this is mine’, more or less.

     “What the hell is going on here?” Mel heard Terry whisper from behind him. Mel, who didn’t want to speak and honestly didn’t think he could find his voice if he had to at the moment, merely shrugged and continued walking as quietly as possible down the corridor towards the therapy room, which also must be silent because if everything was going normal in there, they’d normally be able to hear the patients and nurses talking from the therapy practically throughout the entire second floor.