Long time no write, I know, I know. I bow my head in shame. However, after 10 weeks of planning, lectures and wondering what's gonna happen next, I've finished the story for my Exploring Fiction portfolio.
Inspiration for this came from The Shawshank Redemption film and Manhunt 2 on the PSP in which the protagonist escapes from a mental hospital. People who have read certain parts of it said it made them feel a bit awkward or uncomfortable. And for that I am glad as it was my aim.
As I've never set foot in a mental hospital nor read of any real escapes, this had some tricky parts to write in which I simply had to make things up (the alcohol-drinking) and go by what I'd seen in films and on TV re-enactments. Saying that, I think it turned out pretty decently. Just don't take it too seriously. Thanks.
Now, without further ado, here is the story with the working title of 'Death is the Answer'.
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As the voices screamed through the long night, I wondered how long I’d be in this hellhole.
I wasn’t always considered a madman. On the outside I had a well-paying job as a record producer, a family and a home. That was until I killed them on January the twenty second.
It began like any other - I was working with a big rock band at the time but after a major fuck-up at the office and finding my wife of eighteen years in bed with my best friend - a bit of a cliché, really - the switch was flicked and I snapped, cutting my wife’s and 15 year old daughter’s throats as they slept.
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“Heyyyyy, brother!”, Andrew called as I walked into his and his wife’s shop. I wasn’t really his brother, it was just a name he had for me as we’d been friends for years and were indeed more like brothers than friends.
“Morning,” I replied, “Got any snow?” I was on a quick break and decided that now was probably the best time to pick up as the shop was rarely busy at 11am and Andrew was always here at this time without fail.
He reached into his royal blue shirt pocket and threw a small bag filled with white powder to me. “On the house”, he said as I caught it. It was a Friday and after the week I’d had, I needed something a little stronger than a glass of whiskey when I got home that night and cocaine was just the thing.
I thanked him, said I’d see him tonight and left the shop feeling slightly more upbeat as I knew tonight would be a good one. The sad thing was, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
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At three thirty I left work in order to surprise my wife with an early arrival. I got home, slipped my key into the lock and opened the door quietly, hoping I wouldn’t be heard. I then stood in the hallway, listening for the TV, voices or footsteps until I heard the one thing I didn’t expect: my wife’s panting followed by the unmistakable voice of Andrew. I hoped they were having some sort of weird discussion or comparing sex noises, but when I heard it again, my hopes were dropped. It was coming from the bedroom. Our bedroom.
There was only one thing that could make this week worse, and it sounded like it was happening right now. I dropped everything where I was standing, walked towards the bedroom and burst in, yelling obscenities, telling Andrew to “Get the fuck out” and asking my wife what she thought she was doing.
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“You cheap, lying, fucking whore!”, I shouted, emphasising the word “whore” and stepping forward as I did so.
She whimpered and looked at the floor, wrapping her clothes around her bare body as she did so.
“Got nothing to say? Not even a fuckin’ apology? Worthless!”. I was unable to control my anger.
“That’s not fair! Not after the way you’ve been neglecting me”.
“Neglecting? I’ve been working! Without my working you’d be homeless. Of course, you wouldn’t understand that being the lazy, useless one you are!”
Apparently they’d been at it for around six months, meeting daily for afternoon sex whilst I was at work. I was beyond furious, beyond upset and beyond confused. I wanted to murder her on the spot but knew that I wouldn’t be able to contain my guilt.
That was until I took the cocaine that night.
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I waited for them to go to bed - my daughter in her own room, my wife in the spare - and began my preparations. Everything I needed was readily available so, after finding a decent knife and sharpening it, I got down to business, so to speak. Although my head was spinning, I felt in control. It was time.
Starting with my wife, I entered the dark room and stopped, listening to her soft breaths. The final ones she would take. I looked at her dark outline, her chest rising with each breath, and thought about our marriage and the waste it had been. I was furious.
As I stepped forward, I bent over and plunged the ten inch blade into her smooth throat, feeling the steel scrape bone and muscle as it went through. I clamped my hand over her mouth to prevent her from making any noises as she wriggled and shook in pain.
Nothing could have prepared me for the amount of blood that would spray as I pulled the knife out. I’d expected a bit of spray, but not this much. A dark fountain of red covered the walls, bedclothes and myself, ruining everything it touched. The shaking finally stopped and my lying, cheat of a wife let out one more long breath before becoming a corpse.
As I stood staring at the lifeless body in front of me I tingled all over. I had no idea murdering someone would feel this great and I couldn’t wait to do it again. I left the bloody corpse where it was and went to perform the same on my daughter, not thinking of the consequences likely to arise.
I entered her room and looked at her head poking out of the covers as she slept, peacefully unaware of the hell she was about to experience. In my high, angry and excited state I’d forgotten that she was just an innocent bystander.
In a similar manner as before, I sank the knife into my daughter’s throat, this time feeling it exit the back of her neck and pierce the mattress. Like her mother she had to be silenced and restrained while she struggled as well as showering me with blood. However, she died a much quicker death, lacking the dramatic final breath and shakes, instead just closing her eyes. If there wasn’t a large hole in her throat, she’d have just looked asleep.
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The trial judge called it the most “disgusting and brutal” murder he had encountered in 32 years; the press hated and me and my parents and in-laws forgot about me. I was a lone man with nothing to lose.
I loved my family, they were my life and soul, but until it happens to you, you’ll never understand why I did it.
There I was, lying in a cold cell, half naked and forced to listen to the constant screams day and night with nothing but regret and medication running through my head.
My actions may have crossed a line, but I was a sane man processing sane thoughts. I didn’t deserve this torture, but the warden didn’t care. I’m sure he even took pleasure in knowing that I had to hear these screams. Was this not a bad enough sentence? A cell was understandable, hearing those long, terrifying - and terrified - screams of the insane, that was torture. Right to the point of planning my escape. Mentally, of course - pen and paper were both out of the question for me as, apparently, both could be used as a weapon of sorts.
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When you’re locked up, unable to do what you want and when, time is all you have. Time and thoughts. I sat in my cold cell for hours at a time, thinking about the murder, my family, my freedom (and lack of) and, after some time, escape. I thought of ways to escape - tunnel under, feign illness, ambush or kill a guard and steal his uniform, but when I mentioned it to Danny, my cellmate and fellow sane man, he told me I was stupid for even thinking about it.
That was until two years into my incarceration and he was just as fed up as I was with living in this stone hole.
As we sat on our hard beds - me on the left side, Danny on the right - he looked up from his book, Stephen King’s ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption’, smiled and said “Let’s do it”.
Over the following two weeks we would quietly discuss our escape - methods, routes and times - until the day finally came. March the tenth was the day we’d decided that this was it, we were going to get out of there and re-experience our
freedom.
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Lunch was the perfect time to study the building and plan the escape as our cell was a long distance from the lunch hall and involved passing a number of cells similar to ours and various rooms used for interrogation and interviews.
Walking along the sheet metal platform I could hear screams, cursing and mumbling. Everything I assumed was stereotypical to a high-security nuthouse. Glancing into some of the cells I caught sight of the source of the rancid smell which floated around the building: piles of shit left my those too lazy to use the toilets provided for them. I gagged. This building was a shithole, and I couldn’t wait to get out.
Entering the dinner hall (could they have named it anything more childish?), I saw people throwing food, nut bags talking to themselves and others just staring into space. The latter seemed the sanest. But I wasn’t here for friends, I just wanted to be a citizen again, living in a normal home and working a normal job.
After collecting my lunch of a cup of fermenting water and moulding bread, I ate slowly, looking around the hall for cameras, guards positions and doors. The first were everywhere, the second obvious and the third rare, but accessible, albeit protected by wire mesh. We just needed to use some simple violence and we’d be out.
I did the same for a week - looked, listened and mentally noted - until I could picture the building interior with my eyes closed. It was then that I knew it was going to happen. We, my cellmate and I, were going to escape. Have no worries. Live our lives and be free.
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The following week we spent preparing ourselves for the escape - sharing mental notes, discussing times and creating makeshift weaponry by each sharpening a toothbrush handle using the metal bed frame. It was exhausting, mentally (due to the secrecy) and physically, but the reward was going to be worth the exhaustion.
Easter was coming up which meant, like every yearly holiday in this madhouse, people were allowed to have the odd alcoholic drink and festive meal. It also meant that security would let their guard down.
We went to lunch at the usual time of midday, each grabbed a beer to cool our nerves and boost our confidence a little and sat in our usual places.
With our hearts racing and tension running high, our drinks were finished, we nodded at each other and stood, knocking our chairs over in the process. Due to the permitted drinking, the guards were none the wiser and simply glanced at us then continued drinking. Just how we hoped it would be.
Our first destination was the foods counter to collect another drink with the hopes that the guards would suspect nothing, then, with our drinks in one hand and weapons concealed up the sleeve of the other, we casually strolled towards the mesh-covered door, ignoring the flying food scraps and drunken shouting. It was time.
Danny distracted the sober-looking guard by asking if he wanted a drink which was held out to him. Naturally, the guard turned his head, revealing his neck to me, at which point Danny screamed “Now!”
At that signal I let the toothbrush fall into my hand and with a quick swing of the arm, embedded it into the guard’s exposed neck, hitting him so hard that the handle was invisible with only the brush showing. The sounds he made as he dropped to his knees were like nothing I’d heard before: he gagged, then choked, sounding as if a lump of food was stuck in his throat. Seconds later he coughed once and fell forward, has face bouncing as it hit the tiles.
The sounds of the guard hitting the floor caught the attention of the other guards who, by now, were a little worse for wear. “Shit!”, we both said sharply.
“Grab the keys”. Danny bent over the guards still corpse and started to detach the loop of keys from his belt while the other guards continued to wobble towards us, fiddling with their guns and walking into various obstacles familiar to a drunk person. “Hurry”, I told him, becoming impatient. The initial alcohol buzz was beginning to wear off now and I was feeling tired and irritant. If we wanted to escape we needed to do it now, and Danny’s slowness wasn’t helping.
“Got it!”
“Open the door.” The guards’ distance between us was decreasing and I was getting nervous when I heard a loud crack followed by a hollow thump behind me. Risking taking my eyes off of the guards, I looked towards the door and saw Danny’s body slumped against it. A trail of blood which looked like it had been painted on ran down the door and stopped at his face which was now flat against the door’s mesh covering.
With no time for upset, I turned and half walked, half ran to the door which, luckily for me, had been unlocked by my cell mate. I kicked him out of the way, pulled the door open and picked up pace, the drunk guards attempting to follow me. I only had to run a hundred yards and I’d be out.
Suddenly, I was propelled forward as something hit the middle of my back. I fell in a similar way to the guard I killed, my face hitting the floor and resulting in a mouthful of dust. I’d got out the building, but I hadn’t truly escaped. I’d failed for the last time, but with a strange feeling of euphoria I smiled before blackness took over.
Epilogue
What I did to my family was wrong, I know that, but as I’ve said before, until it happens to you, you’ll never truly understand why I did it, nor will you understand how I felt on that night.
My time in the mental institution was like none other. At home I was free and in the open, the nuthouse took all of that away from me in an instant and plunged me into a world filled with security guards, locked doors and mesh-covered windows. It was hell. That is why death, when it came, was a blessing.
Had the guards simply caught me during my escape, I’d have been locked up
with tighter security. Death was the only answer. For my wife, my daughter and myself.
