Feb Challenge-Elysian Fields

[trancifer]

Elysian Fields

Madness wracks these walls. And unbelievable horrors that no one seems to want to recognize. And it’s not just the patients. Most of the madness derivres right from the staff. In the night you can hear the screams echoing the corridors. Fear from the darkness, fear from the staff, fear from being alone. The familiar banging sounds filled the silence as the guards make their rounds. Slamming their nightclubs into the doors of the patients to rouse them from their sleeping. That is if they were even sleeping at all. It was hard to sleep around here. I know from experience. Starting out as staff, becoming crazy as the rest of them. The story I’d like to tell you tonight happened while I was on the staff at Elysian Fields. It was how the horror began; it was how the madness corrupted the entire building. Seeping into its walls and making it impossible for anyone to escape it.
One thing that can be remembered about her was that she had the most dazzling blue eyes. The girl had come to Elysian Fields because she’d become too much for her parents to handle. Not because of tantrums, not because she had a predilection towards psychosis, but rather because she was not like other girls her age. It was because at seventeen she showed no interest in boys. She showed no interest in her schooling. For hours at a time she’d spend her time alone, outside. It was weird to them that she would enjoy nature. And at the time what they thought would be best for her was institutionalization until they could figure out what was wrong with her.
At first, or so the story goes, the girl adjusted to life within the walls of the asylum quite well. She was liked by both most patients and most of the staff. Despite the fact that she spoke to no one, the girl was kind, and caring. It was when these walls started to close in around her that our story begins.

The sun had set but the full moon hung high in the sky, which cast eerie shadows across the padded white walls. The girl sat in the corner, her arms bound around her in a dingy canvas straight jacket. Her long black hair was matted and dirty. From behind it her piercing blue eyes stared out, watching carefully as the man walked into the normally locked room. The man was older. He had dark grey hair, salt and peppered with lighter colors. The best way to describe him is looking like modern day’s George Clooney. An attractive man despite his age, ruggedly handsome with a small look of intellect hiding within his eyes. He glanced upwards towards non-functioning overhead light.
“It seems as though your light is out again. Don’t worry, Bella, we’ll get that fixed for you.” He started towards her, side stepping around the tray of uneaten hospital food. Bella never ate the food that they brought her. Not even the jell-o, which was something that most of the patients would eat, even if it was the only thing they ate. It was no wonder she was growing so thin, so frail. “Okay, Bella. We are going to go upstairs again. You know what that means don’t you?” He asked, not expecting a response. Since Bella had arrived all of those months ago she’d not uttered a word. Though at first she’d been quiet. Content to stay in her room upstairs, interacting with the staff and with the patients. But slowly she became moody. And then she became aggressive. Before long they were forced to bring her into the padded rooms in the basement. When she started to hurt herself they started putting her in the straight jacket. Now she spent long days sitting in the darkness, in the corner of her room. Dr. Everett drew a syringe out of his white jacket pocket. “Just hold still Bella.” He said, brushing a bit of her dirty hair back out of her face. From the very first moment he’d been drawn to her. To her beauty. Even dirty, her face streaked and her hair matted, he thought she was gorgeous. For a moment he just looked at her and then he lowered the syringe. He pushed it through the canvas that covered her arm, and it pressed into a vein. He pushed the plunger forward, injecting the amber liquid into her system. Bella didn’t take her eyes away from his, just staring at him without making so much as a face. When her eyes started to glaze over and her face slackened, Dr. Everett slipped her carefully out of the straight jacket. It was time for her weekly bath followed by a little electroshock therapy. Dr. Everett was convinced that he could cure her. He helped her slide into the wheelchair and then he wheeled her towards the stairs.
The bath area was brightly lit, windows on all sides. It was the only place that she ever seemed to stay calm. Dr. Everett stood off to the side and watched as one of the orderlies undressed her. As much as he wanted it to be professional observation, he was enthralled by seeing her naked. Drawn to her in every way.
“I’ll be preparing the other room.” He said as he pushed away from the wall, still watching as the orderly lowered the girl into the tub.
The orderly dried her off and dressed her again in another clean gown and robe. Because she was drugged the orderly assumed she would be harmless. He was wrong. For one second he turned his back on her, not paying attention to Bella. She reached down, picking up one of the clean bedpans off of the floor. They were stacked along the wall after being cleaned and were well within her reach. When the orderly turned back around Bella smashed the pan against his face, knocking him cold out and onto the floor. She dropped the pan down beside him and turned to face back towards the door. Taking a step forward and then another she felt her strength returning to her. The drugs were already fading. Over the months she’d been here she’d developed a resistance to them. As she crossed the hallway she could see it shimmering behind the glass. Bella strode forward and put her fist through the glass, grabbing onto the axe that rested behind it. She pulled it forward from within its holder. A smile spread over her pale face and she turned those shining blue eyes toward the hallway.

[trancifer]

The axe was almost too heavy for her frail arms to carry so she lowered it to the ground and drug it along behind her. The morgue was on the same floor that they were on now and as she turned the corner she saw the double doors leading into it. The smile curled heavily on her lips and she started towards it. The axe made a shrill scraping sound against the floor but it didn’t seem to faze Bella. She didn’t even seem to notice. She pushed through the double doors and walked further inside to take a look around. This room was one of the few rooms that patients weren’t allowed inside and she’d never seen it before. There were cadavers laid out on tables, their chest splayed open from a y shaped incision running from just beneath their navel all the way across to their shoulders. One or two had already been haphazardly stitched closed, but one in particular wasn’t. Almost as though the autopsy had been started and never finished. Bella crept slowly over and looked down inside of it. She could see the kidneys, the heart from behind the cracked sternum, the lungs, all of the major organs. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as she leaned back away from it. These people were dead and were of no use to her. She turned back around and started back out of the morgue. She was going back the way she came but this time instead of turning a corner to head back towards the bathing rooms she went straight, headed towards the patients rooms. She slipped quietly inside, one by one. The axe that had been almost too heavy for her to carry was lifted easily above her head and brought down onto the beds of all of the sleeping patients and the ones that were awake…. well the never saw it coming. She hit every room as though she was an orderly making her rounds and when she was through she wandered back into the main area of the hospital.
For as long as anyone could remember the elevator had been out of order. The doors permanently wedged open, the elevator permanently resting at the bottom in the basement. It was roped off, but the little bit of rope did virtually nothing to keep it safe from someone falling. As Bella got closer a nurse stepped into view, stopping just in front of the elevator to check over her chart. Perfect. Bella picked up the axe and just hurled it forward. It hit the nurse, knocking her off of her balance and she fell backwards…right down the elevator shaft. With a sick glee Bella skipped over towards the door and she looked down. The force of the nurse hitting the ground had caused her left shoe to fall off and her legs to twist in odd directions. Bella couldn’t stop smiling until she realized that her axe was laying on the ground a few stories down next to the dead nurse.
Never the less, she improvised. Mere moments later she was stalking back down the hall with a scalpel in hand. The first orderly she came across was the one that reminded her desperately of a pig. Funny, he even squealed like one as she spilled his guts along the linoleum floor. She twisted around the corner after he’d fallen dead to the ground and ran into a defibrillator cart. For a few moments she thought long and hard about using it on the next person she came across but it was too big, too bulky to tote around. The scalpel was much more efficient.
By the time she made it to the electro shock room everyone that had came to cross her path was laying in a puddle of their own blood. As Bella crossed the threshold she dropped the scalpel and looked up at Dr. Everett. He had been waiting for the orderly to bring her but he’d been so busy doing paperwork that he hadn’t noticed the length of time it had taken her to get there. When he finally did glance up he was greeted with a horrific sight. She was covered in blood and smiling at him.
“Bella are you alright?” He rushed over to her, trying to check her over to see if he could find any wounds. When he found none he realized that none of the blood was hers. For a second he was very confused, not even for a second believing she could do anything to harm someone else. He stepped to the door and looked out, seeing a dead orderly or two littering the floor. He turned back to Bella, his mouth open but not sure what to say.
“I killed them.” Bella whispered. The first time she’d spoken since she’d come to this place all of those long months ago. “All of them. All for you.” Bella came to him, putting her hands against his cheeks. “Now its just you and me.” A mixture of elation and complete terror filled Dr. Everett. The girl was capable of monstrous things but she’d done it for him…she’d done it so they could be together. And after all this time he hadn’t thought… he’d loved her for so long, but how could he deal with this? How could he deal with what she’d done? What if she did the same to him?
“I’m going to give you something Bella, something to help you rest.” He said as he slipped away from her grasp and walked to the cabinet. He pulled out a syringe and a vial of clear liquid. Nothing that would harm her in moderation but he was sure to fill the syringe with a lethal dose. “Come here Bella, come sit down.” He patted the table that she normally lay on for electroshock. Without a single questioning glance she walked over and sat down, doing what he wanted her to do. She’d always been so calm, so docile around him. Always doing anything he asked her to do. As she looked at him she assumed this was just like any other time. He was giving her something to help her rest, so they could be together again. As he slid the syringe in she kept her eyes on his, smiling as she watched him. He pushed the plunger home and pulled the needle back. It took a second or two before Bella’s smile slipped away and she looked down at her arm. It hurt. It wasn’t like all the other times. Confusion spread into her glassy blue eyes as she lifted them back up to his.
“But… I did it all for you” She said before she drooped forward against him. Dr. Everett dropped the syringe and caught her before she could slide off of the bed. Carefully he lifted her up and carried her out of the room and down towards his office. He laid her delicately onto the top of the desk and closed the door. His body was running in autopilot now as he lit the candle on his desk, letting the aroma fill the room. A scent that usually relaxed him now reduced him to tears. He laid his head down against her body and he wept.

The police found Dr. Everett’s body lying along side of Bella’s. He’d slit his wrists with the scalpel that she’d dropped near the other room. It wasn’t the fact that she’d killed all of his patients, all of his friends. It was the fact that he had killed her. She’d done it all for him and in one moment of fear he’d killed her. A horrible grief settled over him and he knew what had to be done. To this day the massacre at Elysian Fields was one of the most horrifying stories ever told. Sure they cleaned the hospital up, hired all new staff, and entered a whole new band of patients into the system. They tried to make it seem as though it never happened. But it did happen. It was the madness in these walls that forced it out of them. And as I sit here and tell you this story I can feel the gentle tug of fingers on my hand.
“Come on Everett” She beckons me, tugging me up to my feet. “We have patients to visit.” I turn my head and glance in her direction, smiling at her beauty. The dark obsidian of her hair, the crystalline blue to her eyes. I have no choice but do what she wants because after all, she did it all for me. So if you’ll excuse me now… a doctor’s job is never done.