The Redwood Asylum: A Paranormal Horror Read online

  The Redwood Asylum

  A Paranormal Horror

  The Redwood Asylum

  A Paranormal Horror

  By L.A. Detwiler

  Copyright © 2020 by L.A. Detwiler

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2020

  Cover by Cover Collection.

  For ordering questions, please direct your emails to [email protected] or visit www.ladetwiler.com

  Other books by L.A. Detwiler

  The Widow Next Door

  The Diary of a Serial Killer’s Daughter

  The One Who Got Away

  A Tortured Soul

  The Christmas Bell

  Her Darkest Hour

  To my husband,

  I love you forever.

  “It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”

  ~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

  Prologue

  On a winding road, concealed in a dark forest of overpowering trees and forgotten memories, sits a seemingly ancient building. The town it belongs to, Oakwood, likes to forget its existence, but the prisoners harbored behind the decaying stone walls know very much what the place is. Not many places like it have subsisted in its form, but since 1834, the Redwood Asylum has stood proud and tall, welcoming its patients in and feasting on whatever remains of their mental states.

  It began with good intentions in 1834, if misguided by the cruel realities of medicine at the time. Francis Weathergate’s sister, Claudette, was struggling with what medical doctors deemed nervous conditions due to her melancholic behaviors, tantrums, and risk-taking penchants. In modern times, medical doctors would deem her a teenager, but the era was different. We cannot always fault people for being who they are in the time they are born into.

  The son of a wealthy mine owner, Francis did what he knew to do—he threw money at the problem, building the most state-of-the-art, five-story facility dedicated to asylum medicine of the time. And for a while, Redwood, from the exterior, was a picturesque building one could smile at, a sort of vacation home quality permeating every facet of its existence. The wealthy felt good about locking up the members of their families labeled inferior. The outside was glossy, picture-worthy, and stunning.

  But as with all facilities of this nature, the interior was a horror that couldn’t be so readily masked. Some said if you got too close, you could hear the screams of not only the living. The deceased inhabitants supposedly strolled aimlessly through the thick forest at night, stuck in Redwood’s claws even after death. Some said their minds were too far gone to even know when to die. Others still thought maybe something was amiss at Redwood but of course didn’t worry enough to investigate. After all, they were ten miles away in the town center, drinking coffee and chasing dollars and feeling the warm sunshine on their pale faces. Thus, the town went quiet, leaving the asylum to its dark devices in the midst of its forest island so far on the outskirts of town, it was practically its very own.

  Today, Redwood Asylum would be a tourist attraction, a place for the photographer to visit, to smile in front of, to garnish attention. But Oakwood already has plenty of money, so it prefers to keep Redwood somewhat of a secret, a forgotten relic of the past that is still functioning. In fact, if you were to visit Oakwood, you would not hear a whisper about the building with a maniacal interior. And even if you stumbled upon the building, you may not even realize that the prisoners still remain—both living and dead.

  Certainly, the sign out front has been transformed from The Redwood Asylum to The Redwood Psychiatric Center, a play on words that sounds more pleasing to the ear of the mentally stable. But make no mistake—the residents, as they’re now called formally, know exactly what the sign out front should say. And the residents of the past know exactly what the current residents should expect.

  The nurses and staff at Redwood aren’t evil monsters. No, most are simply desperate for work or desperate to disappear from the world in a sense. Some are eager to remind themselves that they are of the mentally sound side, and there’s nothing like working with the most intense mentally disturbed cases to do just that.

  Still, this living artifact carries with it an evil past and an equally as frightening future. For once inside, the criminally insane, the darkly disturbed, and the eternally confused residents learn one thing very quickly: they are now at the mercy of others.

  If you know anything about human nature, you know that mercy rarely overstays its welcome.

  Chapter One

  Ifirst met the demented man of 5B on a gray Wednesday. The dismal weather heightened by the darkness of the impenetrably thick forest surrounding Redwood Asylum pounded into my already frayed nerves. I’d survived the first day at my new job—barely. I’d met the tortured soul of room 4A who was terrorized by imaginary demons sitting on his shoulders. I’d helped the floor nurse, Anna, administer medicines to wildly violent criminals and to a woman who shrieked at unimaginable decibels nonstop. I walked by shadows of people, perhaps the most haunting of all, who seemed dead, body and soul, but were still breathing. I’d gone home to my tiny apartment just on the outskirts of the grounds feeling completely worn, wondering what the hell I was doing coming to the decrepit place. Beggars can’t be choosers, however, and Redwood was perfect in many regards. Just not for the psyche.

  It’s true, I thought about not returning after my first day. It was like I’d walked inside a time warp, and the Psychiatric Hospital label wasn’t fooling me. I saw Redwood for what it was—a damned asylum. I knew that the screams from some of the treatment rooms weren’t imaginary or misplaced. It didn’t take long to realize that the thick walls didn’t completely mask all of the atrocities, horrors, and terrors happening in the modernized version of the asylum it once was.

  I was left asking myself over and over: how could a place like this exist in modern times? Still, there are forgotten corners in every town, and Redwood is one example—mercifully for the outside world, but inhumanely for those who grace the hallways.

  “This one’s a real nutjob,” Anna whispered to me outside of room 5B on the fifth floor, the one I was assigned to. Floor five housed the most difficult cases and was split into two wings. The A wing housed the criminally insane; the B wing housed those who weren’t criminals but were violent enough to become just that if the staff wasn’t careful. Each wing contained five rooms for a total of ten patients on my floor. How lucky I’d been to be chosen for floor five. . .

  As I prepared to enter 5B, her comment startled me. I appraised the middle-aged nurse, wondering if she were testing me to see if I would be bothered by her term of nutjob, which certainly wasn’t professional or clinical but perhaps accurate. I decided to stay silent. I still had a lot to weigh out in the place. It wouldn’t do to make enemies already.

  “Be careful around him. He seems harmless at first, but we’ve had quite a few incidents,” she continued.

  I wanted to remind her that anyone at Redwood had a few incidents, especially those on floor five apparently. Instead, I stayed quiet, wondering what I’d see in room 5B that could be any worse than the other rooms. I
had no idea at the time that I was about to flirt with destiny and damnation, that the man in the room with the dirty blond hair and eerily calm demeanor was about to set me on a hideous journey that I would never recover from, that would threaten my own sanity. He would potentially seal my inability to escape from the clutches of Redwood like so many who had gone before me.

  I didn’t know it on that dismal day, of course. There are never any flashing lights or billboards that tell you when your world is going to careen off the path. It just happens, leaving us with whiplash, tears, and a churning sense of regret that we missed all the signs.

  That day, I only knew that the job as a nurse at Redwood paid decently, was in my field, and took me far away from the disastrous mistakes I’d made over 1,000 miles away. Even though the place carried a weight of malevolence with it, it felt good to disappear. The dark forest, the thick walls of the stone building felt like a protective apron in a blast furnace, shielding me from the outer corners of the real world. In Redwood, time did seem to fade away and all realities of news, politics, and others dissipated, too. There seemed to only be Redwood, a community guarded in a forest alcove.

  I pushed back a strand of hair and followed Anna through the locked door of 5B, a tiny window casting a small glow of natural light that mixed with the too-bright fluorescent bulbs into the starkly white room. I reminded myself not to worry because this was the “high security” floor. There was limited movement of the residents, and the rooms were tightly guarded. Still, a sinking feeling wormed its way in. After a single day of work, I’d realized that the extra security just meant that one of the security guards would check the doors to the floor a few extra times if he remembered. There was also a panic button under the desk in the middle of the floor, our headquarters. Whether it actually worked or not was something I planned to never have to investigate. I did a lot of wishful thinking in the early days.

  Floor five, where I had been assigned, included rooms with padded cells where the residents were kept under special watch. While those in the B wing were afforded some privileges such as limited activity time for good behavior, it was closely monitored and rare. The other floors had as carefree of an atmosphere as one could expect to find in an asylum. Floor five, as my luck would have it, was stifling and restrictive.

  I walked in and spotted him sitting on his cot, staring at his feet. His hair was sticking up in all directions, what little he had left. His skin was leathered but pale. How long since he’d seen the outside world? His eyes looked bright, but his body seemed dimmed somehow. I had no idea how old he was, couldn’t even fathom a guess. It was like Redwood was an odd time warp that simultaneously mummified its residents and also catapulted them into the aging process. I shuddered at the thought, wondering how Redwood was any better than a prison. It wasn’t, in short.

  “Mr. Essic, time for your meds. Here, our new nurse, Jessica, will bring you the juice. Doesn’t juice sound good?”

  Anna was calm and poised, her voice kind although condescending in an unavoidable way. He ignored her words until she said my name. When my name left her lips, I noticed how his gaze darted up and landed right on me. My stomach leaped as I feared the worst. Would he try to strangle me? What protection did I have? The only armed guard was stationed down the hall. Would he hear my screams in a place like this where they were so commonplace?

  What 5B actually did, though, was perhaps worse. He stared straight into my eyes, and I watched the lines in his face soften. Recognition. He nodded, his lips a straight line. His poker-face would win thousands, doubtless, if it weren’t for his expressive eyes.

  “Jessica. They told me you were coming. Who knew they were telling the truth? Maybe this will be it. Maybe you’re it.” He smiled and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his luck. I exhaled as Anna reached for the juice from my shaking hand.

  She appraised me, and I painted on a weak smile coupled with a nod. I was brave and strong. Capable of handling this. Anna took care of giving out the meds, settling 5B back in—his name was apparently Robert Essic, but most everyone referred to the patients by the numbers here. It was easier when delivering items, Anna had informed me. 5B promptly settled back onto his cot, his head on his pillow as he stared at the ceiling.

  “Not long now, then. Not long now, Jessica.”

  Anna shook her head as she led me out of the room.

  “Told you. Total nutjob. I have so many stories,” Anna said as she locked the room tight. “Don’t want to scare you away though. With your actual medical experience, you’re a godsend.” She turned to walk down the hallway, spewing off information about night shift and records for medicine, leading me to the filing system at the front desk. I knew I should pay more attention, but I had to have one more look. I put my eyes up to the tiny window, peering in at him.

  He was still on the cot, but his head was turned, staring at the window as if he knew I’d be back. He pointed a finger at me, strong and serious. Entranced, I stared as he proceeded to put the finger in his own mouth and gnaw at the flesh, wild animal sounds echoing in the room. My heart thudded as I watched, horrified. A cold hand touched my skin, and I jumped.

  “Are you coming, new girl? You have so much to learn. I’ll tell you, Mama always said my generation was lazy here at Redwood. If she could’ve seen the ones your age. You’re not a zoo tourist, you know. You’re more like the keeper. Now come on. We’ve got an injection to administer in the A wing. 2A is getting out of hand. Bit one of the staff when he was delivering his meal this morning. Doctor wants to calm him for the day.”

  I let myself be led to the newest horrors in the A wing, wondering if every newbie was graced with the pleasure of the top floor—and wondering how long until I could switch to a new one.

  “You’ll be fine. Honestly. I was overwhelmed my first week, too,” Anna reassured, seeing the troubled look on my face.

  “How does anyone get used to this?” I asked, the thought of the gnawing, snarling man in 5B sticking in the fringes of my mind.

  “You can get used to anything if you’re around it long enough. That’s what Mama said. And if that doesn’t work, there’s also wine.”

  I grinned, knowing that at least I had a good partner in crime. Anna knew the asylum inside and out. It was the family business, she’d told me yesterday. Her mother had been a nurse in the asylum for twenty years before passing the trade down to Anna. From what I could gather, she was basically the keeper of the place. She knew everything, all the patients. All the history, the legends. She was a good one to learn from and the one everyone came to for help. She was essentially the main supervisor since the actual board of owners stayed at home counting money instead of showing up.

  I trekked down the hallway to the other wing with her after we entered some medical information in the archaic computer system. The hallways were cold and draughty, and I chilled as I walked forward. Anna was probably right. I just needed time to settle in.

  I had a lot to learn, but it was good to keep my mind busy. Maybe in a way, Redwood was the penance my soul needed. Still, it’s hard to find peace for one’s deeds when you’re surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of instability all around.

  Chapter Two

  Ichecked the mailbox when I got home from my shift, but I hadn’t been in town long enough to even get junk mail. I slipped off my shoes, my feet aching, as I headed to the kitchen to rustle up some food. I really needed to get to the store and to settle into a new routine.

  The apartment I’d found in Oakwood was nice enough. It was on a poorer street in town close to the asylum grounds. Still, in Oakwood, poor was relative; it simply meant the homes were middle class and modest. My apartment was nicer than the house my family had lived in growing up, in truth. And probably more expensive. At least it was just me, and I didn’t need much.

  Most of Oakwood was filled with mansions of all varieties. The town was known for its wealth. In the older days, tycoons of all types had settled in the glamorous town, as Anna
had told me. Now, it still housed many of their descendants who had settled into a quiet life in the suburbs while still flashing their money in a way to get noticed. The rest of Oakwood consisted of suburban life. The streets were lined with tiny houses, streetlights, and middle-class American life. It was a sleepy town, all things considered, although certain parts of it glittered golden in the sun.

  Weary from the week of changes, I settled on a pint of ice cream and some reality television for the evening. I’d almost made it through the first week in town, somehow. But the job paid decent, and I had the solitude that I needed. Redwood hadn’t even asked for references, hiring me on the spot. It was the kind of place you could escape to, and that was what I needed more than anything.

  I glanced at my cell phone, the familiar name and number lighting up. I’d thought about starting fresh with a new phone but just hadn’t had the time. Starting life over was exhausting, I’d learned quickly. So many details. Still, I knew I needed to handle this particularly important one. I shuddered thinking about how stupid it was to keep my number.

  Ignoring the queasy feeling in my stomach, I sighed at the other uncomfortable aspect of the number on the phone. A pang of guilt bit into me as I hit Decline, ignoring Sheila’s call yet again. I texted her a “sorry, working” note just so she didn’t get worried. It wouldn’t do for the people from my past to come looking for me, to come stirring up details. But I just couldn’t handle chatting with her, hearing about the old happenings at Mercy Hospital and feeling the shame for how I up and left. Sheila didn’t even know where I was, even though she had inadvertently prompted me to come to Redwood.

  She’d told me stories about how her friend knew a friend who knew a friend who had done an internship at this spooky asylum nestled in the hills. She’d told me how it was an oddity, that although it was labeled a psychiatric hospital, it most definitely was an asylum of sorts.