TThe Horrors That Hide by Julianna Rowe: Chapter Seven: Transferred

 

Chapter Seven:  Transferred

 

Surely, I was dreaming? I woke up on a thin mattress in a strange grey room on a metal bed alone. No bars like I had in the jail. Where was Lisa? Maybe this was a hotel room where they were hiding me. Maybe this was something to do with victim protection for me. I didn’t dare move. Terror coursed through every vein in my body. My mouth was so dry, and I felt as though I could feel my blood moving around inside me. My heart could be seen moving through the dirty white hospital garb I had on. Why did I have one of those awful garments on? My confusion was debilitating. I could see Todd and his lover or wife caressing, I saw Lisa smiling at me with hope in her eyes, I saw the jail, and then I saw Adam’s face, the dirt tunnel, and the note he left me saying he was murdering me. That was when I began screaming for what seemed like forever.

Unannounced to me, two men unlocked the door to my new prison, locked it behind them, and proceeded to yank me up from my sweet little nasty bed. The bigger one was bald and looked like he was right out of the movies as a bouncer. He held me up in the air and told me to, “Shut the hell up!” I hung helpless as his eyes glared into me and his hands dug into my armpits with pungency. The other man was holding something that appeared to be a cloth sheet. He came toward me with the sheet and told me to hold still if I wanted to remain intact physically.

I spoke. “Where is Lisa?”

Again, the big man told me to shut up. I started to cry, asking over and over, Where am I?” The smaller man put a hood over my head, and pulled a drawstring that tightened around my neck. I tried to stop crying, but fear had taken over my entire being body, mind, and spirit.

The big man yanked my arm into a sleeve, and then the other arm into the other sleeve. I was trembling beyond control as I wet myself. That was when one of them yanked my arms into a pattern that appeared as though I were holding myself, and tied it securely in the back. Jesus God almighty I was in a straitjacket, but why? Where was I? The big man directly threw me back onto the nasty little bed where I whimpered and pulled myself into a fetal position as I lay in my soiled attire. I was afraid to move, to cry, to do anything but try to breathe through that horrible hood that had been secured around my head. I had to be in hell.

No one came to check on me until the following day. I heard the door to my new living space click as in unlocking. I started to weep with fear the men were coming back to finish me off this time, but instead, I heard the gentle voice of a man asking his nurse who the hell left that hood on this woman, and why hasn’t she been cleaned up?

The nurse insisted she wasn’t aware the woman had been brought in. Officer Adrian did not call and let them know anyone was coming, nor did the orderlies write her in on the overnight chart.

The Doctor interrupted her, “Well never mind, just remove that dastardly thing at once.”

The nurse did as directed. When the bag came off my head, I gasped the rancid, urine-smelling air several times as though it were a fresh mountain breeze coming off the morning sea. It momentarily calmed me as I spoke timidly.

“Why am I here sir? Officer Lisa told me she would be right back, and I would be released, but she never came, then I was drugged by Officer Adrian, and that is the last thing I remember until I woke up scared, then two men came into the room and viciously placed me in a secure situation. Please help me.”

“Madam Jayne, I am Dr. Regents and you have been committed to the Waverly Mental Institution by your husband.”

I started to sob uncontrollably while trying to speak my story. Dr. Regents told me to calm down, or they wouldn’t be able to remove the constraint, or better known as the straitjacket. I was near hyperventilating when I recalled how to hold my breath to stop from passing out. If I didn’t stop, they were liable to leave me in my distress another day. I was hungry and had to use the bathroom as well.

Dr. Regents instructed his nurse to remove the binding and get me cleaned up. He would be back after his rounds.

Adam had signed the committal papers and left the building. That was of course after lengthy talks with Dr. Regents about his wife’s mental distress and other wild lies to protect himself.

I calmed myself internally saying to my brain that after I told Dr. Regents the truth, he would help me. He would sign me out of the godforsaken place. But, go where? I suddenly thought. I have no money for a cab. I have no home and no vehicle. I was told Lisa no longer worked at the Third Street Police Station, but why so suddenly? And if Adam had the authority to have me committed, who would be able to undo that?

I began trembling, realizing the gravity of my already serious situation. I couldn’t stop shaking when the next fear surfaced. If I didn’t gain control, what would they do to me next? I had heard horror stories about these places. I had already been tortured by those two smelly thugs. Tears began to pierce my cheeks like hot irons. Why did my tears feel so hot? Just then the door opened, and another man walked toward me with a tray of food. He sat it down, all the while never taking his eyes off me to the place of a creeper.

He turned to leave, then turned back to me, and mumbled, “What’s wrong? Why are you shaking like that? Are you sick?

I shook my head as the tears fell like a speeding train with no sound.

“You will be fine lady. Just relax and give it time. You’ll get used to it here. They all do.”

I muttered my name to him as I clutched my gown in front of me, fists tight and arms crossed. He in turn told me his name was Arthur, and if I needed anything to let him know. I asked how I would do that, and he responded he worked almost every day and would be checking in on me as often as time allowed him to. I thanked him as I continued shaking.

A while later a nurse came into my room. I hadn’t been sure any women worked there until then. She took my temperature and upon viewing the thermometer she made a curious sound. I asked what? She didn’t answer. I was still shaking and asked if I could have another blanket as she left the room. Arthur returned with two white pills and a blanket. I was afraid to take them until he assured me, they were aspirin to take my fever down.

Arthur left as I sat huddled in my blanket staring at the food tray. A small glass of milk and a bowl of cold oatmeal with the consistency of glue. I thought it was what my grandmother used to call porridge, or was that in the song we sang as kids?

“Pea’s porridge hot, peas porridge cold. Some like it in the pot nine days old.”   

That is what this was. Awful thick and probably leftover. A piece of white bread spread with something. It didn’t appear to be butter, rather I believe it was lard. Yellow lard. I began swallowing over and over to stop the vomit from erupting from the depths of my mind. The mind that was connected to my stomach wanted to regurgitate the entire past three days, and then I passed out after some delirious talking, sobbing, and screaming. The orderlies came running in, but I was out cold thanking God, because they would have bound me again had I not been.  

The nurse waved something horrible under my nose that brought me back to the reality of the black hole my life had turned into. She told me to turn on my side, and without any warning, she pulled up the ugly wrinkled gown to expose my derriere to the thugs, and now Arthur as well while she shot a needle directly and without ease into me. Dear God, what are they doing to me now?

I begged, “Please don’t touch me anymore. Please leave me alone.”

My terrified mind brought a memory to me of Nurse Ratchet from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” God, I didn’t need that memory, or did I? She didn’t like anyone telling her what to do, much less a patient. Holy Mother Mary was I Jack Nicholson? That nasty nurse ran her psychiatric ward with an iron fist, using abuse, medication, and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills I didn’t want to ever get into with her, but I had already unknowingly started it. I was in deeper than when I fell through the floor into Adam’s murderous hellhole trap beneath our home, or jail. How could this get any worse? But it did.