Frank Green, a hospital cleaner, discovers dark and mysterious happenings at a local hospital. Now, he is nowhere to be found. Join Inspect Ruth Oakwood of London's Metropolitan Police as she examines his letters to find out what happened in this ho...
A spate of ritualistic murders has dominated the news since I last wrote to you. The hearts and livers of the victims have been removed, and there have been runes and glyphs found surrounding the bodies, as well as carved or tattooed into the victims' skin. The Times reported that one body had more than three hundred symbols carved into its torso and legs alone. Has this news made it to the US?
I have received your package; thank you! While I appreciate the gesture, I must admit that I was surprised by the selection of books. I'm all for broadening my horizons, but in the interests of honesty, I must confess that I haven't placed some of them on my bookshelf, as others may judge me harshly.
Nonetheless, they are in my ever-growing pile of books I plan on reading, alongside others I picked up at Watkins Books this weekend. I took the engraved coin there to see if any of the staff could tell me what the symbol Smethwick carved onto it means. It's a charming little store tucked down an alleyway near Leicester Square. The smell of years of incense burning hangs in the air. Its shop floor is overseen by mystical statues, who stand guard between the seemingly endless shelves of grimoires, bestiaries, and other forgotten lore.
When I arrived, I showed the coin to an earnest manager, who carefully examined it and simply said it was a protective symbol against evil. She demanded to know, with great forcefulness and concern, who had made it. I told her a sanitized version, afraid she wouldn't listen beyond the words "patient" and "Royal Nazarene," after which she vanished into a back room. She emerged after several minutes with an armful of ornate, yet nonetheless decaying due to the passage of time, leather-bound books. The manager insisted that I take them for free, on the sole condition that I write to a professor at Brichester University, whose details she scribbled on a note, and to tell him of everything Smethwick has said and done that is unusual. I agreed, of course, but I couldn't find the note when I intended to write such a letter earlier today. I searched the entire flat for it to no avail. I guess I lost it on the way home from the shop.
Smethwick has deteriorated considerably in the last couple of weeks. He hasn't slept without the aid of sedatives, which have to be administered forcefully. He's carved the symbol into every surface and item in his room. They're on the floor, the wall tiles, his bed frame, his chair, and there must be at least a hundred on the door alone. Even the inside of his toilet (including below the 'waterline') hasn't been spared. Standing inside the cell, it feels as though the symbols are swarming around you.
I previously thought Smethwick smuggled knives from the dining hall to do this, but I have been violently disabused of this notion. One day, as I passed by his cell, he was on his hands and knees, smashing his mouth against the floor in a practically mechanical motion. I raised the alarm, and while assistance arrived, he was flailing with such unexpected energy that it required three men to restrain him while another injected a sedative.
Then followed the worst experience of my job: to clean it up. I came across half a dozen teeth worn down to stubs and mopped the mixture of blood and 'fresh' teeth. It's a horrendous thing, hearing teeth 'plop' into a bucket, in which the blood and soap lather to form pink bubbles, which one proceeds to push around the floor tiles with a mop, watching it soak into and discolor the grout. I don't think I will ever forget that scene or stop my mind lingering on dark questions such as: how did he decide which tooth was next? Was there any hesitation? When did he first get the idea? The more I've stewed on these questions (with no meaningful conclusion), the more I'm convinced that I would be better off not knowing the answers to any.
While some patients have always been asleep during my shifts, I've recently started to pay attention to what they're calling out from their dreams. Mostly, it appears to be in some form of gobbledygook language. I'm aware that this will come across as xenophobic, but I assure you I'm merely trying to convey how incoherent it is and also how it's distinct from any language I've ever heard. Occasionally, a word or two of English or Latin will get through, though.
However, an even more unsettling thing is that patients have started occasionally chanting. One day last week, every patient, whether or not they were asleep, began chanting the words' the gate' repeatedly, building from a whisper to screaming at the top of their lungs. I later found out that this was the same for male patients exercising in the gardens and those in isolated confinement; they all did it.
I've wracked my mind for a rational explanation, but the seed Smethwick planted in my mind a couple of months ago has begun germinating. Has anything like that happened at your hospital or in your career? Any light you can shed on this phenomenon would ease my mind.
I close with a confession. I strayed from my designated area. You see, I was mopping a corridor, and my mind, occupied as it is with recent events, wandered also. There was no sign demarcating where the general ward ends, and the research and criminal wards begin, not that this is any excuse. It wasn't until I bumped into a rather large fellow, who introduced himself as Dr. Voigt that I was told I wasn't authorized to be in that part of the hospital. He didn't quite give me a dressing-down but grinned and told me "as a friend" that it really would be best to never repeat this.
However, a few days have passed, and nobody has approached me about this, so I guess Dr. Voigt didn't report me. I am very grateful for his discretion, but I feel guilty for this mistake nonetheless, so I wanted to get it off my chest.
Write soon,
Frank
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