Post by Rotten Mark Keaton on May 23, 2020 13:53:17 GMT -6
The sound of crunching gravel stopped as a small American flag fluttered to a halt on the corner hood of a shiny, black Lincoln Continental. The driver's side door of the official government vehicle opened and out stepped a nearly bald man in his fifties, he shielded his eyes from the sun then turned to retrieve his briefcase. The man stood six feet tall and was in great shape under his navy blue suit jacket that had military service ranks displayed on the right breast and shoulders. He walked with purpose towards the large building, he pressed a button next to the front entrance and a nurse let him in the building. He was immediately greeted by Dr. Holderman, a black bald man whose face always looked like it was sweating. He shook the man’s hand excitedly.
“Welcome, welcome to my facility Mr….”
“Smyth will do. I’m told you have a patient that goes by the name Unknown #150?”
The doctor shook his head, again a little too excitedly and produced a large file that he passed to Smyth, “Yes, a very interesting case. Walk with me, we need to go to the top floor. The elevators are not working so we need to walk to the stairs past our large reading room. The local authorities brought him in to us a few years ago, he was involved in a number of break ins, some assault charges and was finally caught in a grocery store trying to steal a hundred dollars of groceries by knife point. Mary! Please tend to Jim over by the television! He’s trying to harm himself again! Quickly! Sorry about that, we are a little short staffed, as always. When Unknown 150 came here he was in a state of acute psychopathology with anterograde amnesia among other problems. The authorities couldn’t find any records of his fingerprints or face scanning in their systems, they’re much more advanced than us, we put out some flyers in Colorado but nobody answered or claimed him as family. It’s like his profile is…”
“Wiped from the record. There’s a reason for that.” Smyth said calmly, they made it to the top floor then walked towards a recreational area, he noted the sheer amount of neglect in the place as they made their way past more rooms, and into another hallway full of doors and discarded carts for cleaning and food dispensary. He suddenly stopped, wondering if he removed the keys from the ignition of his car.
“Doctor, you don’t have any patients who would be immediate flight risks here, do you?”
“There is a few, but they are heavily sedated because of recent incidents. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing important, continue.” They continued walking.
“Patient Unknown 150 has escaped himself in fact, three times. He’s currently in heavy sedation now because of a violent attack just a few days ago when we removed his mask from his room. You see, there’s something really off about Unknown 150 and this mask. The third time he escaped, we were very lucky to find him, he was three miles behind this facility in the middle of the woods. There is an old house back there roughly two hundred years old, most of the roof has been caved in to the floor and the walls are in their final stages of standing up, the paint has long peeled away. We searched the crumbling house and found Unknown 150 sitting in what we believe used to be the family room area, the brick fireplace is a dead giveaway, still in pretty good shape mind you. We found him sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, wearing this awful Halloween mask. He introduced himself as Morden Crypt when we walked in, but it wasn’t his voice, something that sounded like it was drowning and in considerable pain, I thought immediately that it couldn’t have been Unknown 150 because of that. My staff member attempted to help him up but had his arm broken immediately and thrown across the room. I sent another staff member back to this facility to get some stun gear and ropes, we have them on hand just in case of somebody with freak strength like this. After a good two hours we finally got Unknown down and strapped to a gurney, I got a chance to examine him closely finally and noticed he had no pulse and he wasn’t breathing. I tried to remove his mask to administer CPR but it was like the mask had grafted to his skin, it was impossible to remove. He’s not breathing, no pulse and this damn mask seems to be glued to his skin. Guess what happens next?”
“Humor me.” Smyth replied as they slowly made their way through another open area towards another hallway.
“He sits up! Easily breaks out of his straps, then pushes me on the ground, my staff are so shocked they drop him and start using the stun guns in fear. Long story short, we manage to get him back to this facility. He’s back in this coma state, not breathing or living, I have never experienced anything like this to date so I examine him. During the examination he puts his arms out, then peels the mask right off. He asks me what happened, his vitals returned to normal and he’s breathing again! I give the mask to my staff to destroy, he protested that one big time. We sedated Unknown 150 then called it a day, the staff member cut the mask up into one hundred pieces and threw it in our waste disposal bin. The next day a staff member went into his room to check on Unknown 150 and there he was, dead and wearing that fucking mask again, like it was never cut up. He’s just laying there. Eventually we convinced this Morden Crypt to allow us to speak with Unknown 150 for a moment, we got him to take his mask off and talk to us. I personally took the mask this time and threw it in my fireplace, burned it down to nothing. Unknown 150 is doing fine right now, he’s in sedation but you should be able to see him and maybe communicate with him as well.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, inside Morden McBride’s room.
He sat up in his bed, his head swimming from the drugs they gave him. He leaned over the side of his bed, so dizzy he felt like puking.
“Time to let me walk again!” A harsh, phlegm filled whisper nearby opened McBride’s bloodshot eyes a little wider. He knew exactly who that was, his new friend, his new master. He quickly looked around but saw nothing but his closet.
Morden stood up and nearly fell, he staggered forward and held his balance on the closet door. He opened the door but all he saw was soft cloth of various housecoats with the Colorado Mental Health Institute theme imprinted on them. His pajamas and gym pants were crumpled directly under the hanging housecoats, the eye of a mask was just visible sticking out from the side from under the gym pants. He managed a weak smile.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“How much longer Doctor?” Smyth asked as he closed Unknown 150’s file.
“Just around this next corner, room 245 on the end, right side. We should get an additional security member with us. As a precaution, he’s very unpredictable so we take all the safety measures we can with him.”
“I have a gun, that’s all the safety precautions we need.” They both stopped after they turned the corner of the hall. There was a door off the hinges laying on the floor at the end of the hallway.
“Stay here.” Smyth dropped his briefcase and produced that gun and waved the doctor back. He jogged to the end of the hall then pressed his back on the wall next to the forced opening, he quickly pivoted then pointed his gun in the room, no sign of anyone, he opened the closet, nothing. He made his way out of the room and quickly turned right into the stairwell, he could hear another door getting smashed off it’s hinges at the bottom of the winding stairs. He quickly sprinted down the stairs, skipping stairs as he jumped down to each platform. He eventually saw another door laying on the floor with hinges everywhere. He ran out with his gun drawn, he saw patients covering their heads and a nurse pointed down a different hallway, Symth nodded then made his way over, he just barely caught a glimpse of a man stepping out of sight at the end of this new hallway, he could have sworn he saw a pale face with black eyes and black hair, a scary mask of some sort. His mind raced as he ran down the hall as fast as he could, his gun ready. He turned and kicked open an emergency exit door then ran out to the parking lot, his polished Lincoln Continental was backing up the driveway fast, leaving a cone of dust in it’s wake, Symth raised his gun to fire then realized it would do no good, the car was bullet proof, he caught another glimpse of that masked face as the car backed on to the main road, then drove off down the highway.