Then I heard it. Footsteps coming out from the hallway. Not like the ones I had heard earlier, the ones that belonged to the girl. These footsteps were slower, more discreet and even gaited.
I suddenly wanted Dex’s strong arm back around my shoulders.
“Wha-” I opened my mouth to speak again but he pressed his finger against my lips and held it there. Despite the circumstances and my rising fear, there was still a tiny part of me that was sorely tempted to put his finger in my mouth and suck on it.
We both listened, as still and quiet as statues. The footsteps came closer.
And closer.
Closer still.
Then they stopped, right outside the door. Dex took his finger away from my lips and put his arm back around my shoulder, holding me in such a way as if I was about to bolt. I wanted to, but if I went out the door, I’d run into whatever the hell was out there.
The door knob jiggled. The sound of it turning. Dex had locked it and now I knew why. The jiggling continued.
I nervously eyed the camera on the sink, which was filming the door and understood what Dex had done. But what would we do if the thing came inside?
The knob stopped rattling. It was followed by a few heavy knocks that filled the tiny room and made the window rattle. Then there was a scuffling sound, as if the person (creature?) was leaning against the door, trying to hear us.
Then it stopped. The footsteps picked up again and continued back down the hallway from where they came. We listened to them until they faded away into the night.
We waited for a good five minutes, breathing as quietly as possible. It felt like the longest five minutes of my life. Dex’s grip around my shoulder’s loosened and eventually he took his arm off me.
I leaned close to him, sensing his face wasn’t too far away, and whispered, “What the hell was that? Did you know that was going to happen?”
“Sort of. One of the things people had reported was that back in the day, a security guard had killed himself. Hung himself on this floor in one of the rooms. Apparently he had gotten too close to the patients and one in particular had been…mean. Played mind games with him. He killed himself, and afterward people reported him walking up and the down the halls, making sure everyone was in bed and asleep. I don’t think he means any harm but…I would have hated to see what happened if I hadn’t locked it.”
“But you heard that, right? The footsteps? You heard the doorknob turn?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding surprised, almost insulted. “I hope the camera got it too. That’s really all we need to make tonight worthwhile.”
The reason I had asked was that Dex hadn’t seen anything else this whole time. Sometimes I wondered if only I picked up on certain things. And maybe I did. But it was a relief to know what just happened was something shared by both of us.
“Can we go now?” I asked, ready to get the hell out of there, even though I didn’t feel like making it down three floors of dead security guard, mutilated bleeding girl, and one already suspicious doctor.
I felt him nod in the dark. “We’ve outstayed our welcome anyway.”
He got up and gathered the camera, turned on the lantern and we left the room. The hallway looked the same as it had earlier. Blissfully unoccupied.
He closed the door quietly behind us. I began to walk away.
“Hey wait,” he called out, reaching for my arm.
I stopped. He flicked a few switches on the camera until the infrared came on, the one that picked up heat sources. He aimed it at the door.
Through the viewfinder, I saw two large handprints lit up in a glowing pattern of yellow and red. They were fading fast.
“Are those yours?” I asked.
Dex reached with his hand forward and held it beside the handprint without touching it. The handprint was almost twice the size of Dex’s hands. They weren’t his and they most definitely were not mine.
“The security guard,” Dex whispered excitedly. “I think we’ve fucking got something here. Fuck G.J. Jermaine and his Douche Factory. We’ve got this.”
We both watched the camera screen until the colors on the handprint faded and the door looked normal again. That was some pretty awesome proof to have. That almost made everything tonight worthwhile.
Dex shut off the camera and looked at me. He was grinning. It lit up his face more than the lantern light did. He looked ridiculously manic and ridiculously handsome. I couldn’t help but smile back at him. Then I turned and headed down the hall before I got all mushy-eyed.
We made it down the hallway (Dex pausing briefly to collect the EVP he left recording), made it down the stairs and to the heavy front doors that led outside. This time Roundtree was at her post. She eyed us warily from her short seat.
“I hope you weren’t causing trouble up there. This place has no use for troublemakers,” she said.
“No way, ma’am. You’re probably the biggest troublemaker of them all, ain’t that right, sweetheart?” Dex said in his most sincere voice. He opened the door and we bustled out into the cold, wet evening before we could hear her response.
He looked down at me as we walked over to the car, adjusting his pack on his shoulder. “I could never get along with the nurses. Don’t know why.”
I shook my head. We got back in the car and headed back into the city and civilization, leaving the looming building with its layers of secrets behind us.
For now.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Perry? Kiddo, you awake?”
Dex’s voice entered my dreams and a light knock at the door brought my eyes open. I was on my back, in bed, in the small, dark den, trying to recall the fragments of the dream I just had. Jacob was in it, again. Jacob and Dr. Freedman.
“Perry?”
The door knob turned and Dex entered the room, covering his eyes with one hand, harsh daylight splaying inside. “Hey, sleepyhead, are you decent?”
I groaned and rolled over. I was decent but all I wanted to do was keep on sleeping.
With a click the lights came on and I heard the door close behind him. He came over and sat in his chair at the desk. I turned my head away from the pillow and blinked blindly up at him. He was wearing camouflage cargo pants and a white T-shirt that was on the tight side. This wasn’t a bad thing. I could see every curve and sinew of his upper body. The fleur-de-lis peeked out noticeably from under his sleeve.
His face looked good. Curious and amused at the fact I was still in bed. He was clean-shaven, highlighting his high, sharp cheekbones and that olive coloring the doctor mentioned last night, and his moustache was almost faded out of existence. His eyes looked bright and not as broody as usual. Not crazed either. Interesting.
I had a reason for inspecting him like this. A terrible reason, but a reason nonetheless. After we had gotten in last night, I put my plan into action. Once he took Fat Rabbit out for his last walk, I quickly dumped out the contents of two of his prescription pills and refilled them with the Valium and placebo pills. I hid his actual medication in the very bottom of my duffel bag and placed the pill bottles back in the hollowed-out book like nothing had happened.
When Dex came back from the walk, he came in the room, we chatted a bit about the mental hospital footage and watched some of the interview we did with Doctor Hasselback. Then he took his pills with a glass of water. I watched him do this, trying not to be intrusive or overly interested, but it was hard. I didn’t know if he’d notice the pills were different. What if they didn’t feel the same way going down? What if they tasted strange?
But Dex didn’t seem to think anything was off. We said our goodnights and that was it. He left the room and I went to sleep.
Now, though, he was sitting in front of me and looking more or less fine, even though the night had passed and the medicine was coursing around in his system.
I know it’s totally wrong to play around with someone’s medication. I know that. Don’t judge me. At least, don’t judge me much. But I needed to know what would happen if Dex wasn’t on his meds. Sure he was still on some – I had only switched half – and Valium was no picnic either, but I needed to see why he was on them. When we were in Red Fox, he had forgotten his medication and had gone the entire weekend without any. There were some side effects, but he had professed to me how much different, almost better, he felt without them. Yet, for some reason he was back on medication again, and this time a whole lot more. It made no sense to me and I knew I’d never get any straight answers out of Dex. I was just planning to do this for a few days, then put his real pills back in before I left. My own little experiment.
I guess I was staring at him a tad suspiciously because he furrowed his brows and asked, “What? Something on my face?”
I smiled quickly, trying to bury the guilt deep down and said, “Just your nose.”
He rubbed it vigorously. “This old thing? Anyway, time to get up, lazybones.”
I sat up slowly and looked around. It was hard to tell the time in this room with no window. “What time is it?”
“Eleven,” he said.
“Eleven!” I exclaimed and sat up straighter. “I have a lunch date, don’t I?”
It was Wednesday. Time was flying and I was supposed to go out with Wine Babe Rebecca for lunch.
“Yes you do. And I need to start working through the rest of the footage we shot last night. And you’re kind of in my office.”
I grunted and got out of bed, but not before making sure I was wearing pajama pants underneath. “Why did you let me sleep in so long?”
“Because you needed it after last night. I needed it too. I only got up an hour ago and that’s because the Rabbit was licking my face, threatening to piss all over me.”
I gathered up my clothes for the day and my toiletries bag and hurried to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready. The apartment was empty and cold and Fat Rabbit was spread out on the couch like a floppy doll and snoring loudly. The skies outside the windows were grey, wet and wild as the Monorail rumbled past the balcony.
I had barely gotten ready when Dex pounded on the bathroom door to tell me Rebecca was already waiting outside. I had wanted to look nice today – there was something about Rebecca that had me nervous and wanting to look just as put together as she did – and it took a lot of extra time to blow dry my thick hair straight (even though I used Jenn’s super-powered dryer that nearly flattened me against the wall) and put on more makeup than usual.
I opened the door and Dex was right outside, waiting. He gave me a surprised once over.