I turned and took myself back up the corridor to the front parlor. I heard nothing as I went, saw no one. There was only silence that sucked all the air into it and left a stale deadness behind, and suddenly I started to worry. How long had I left Creeton alone? He was upset, but this was Creeton. Surely he wouldn’t—
The parlor where I’d left him was empty.
I stared for a wild moment, and then I shouted, “Paulus!”
He met me in the corridor. “Creeton,” I said. “I had to escort his parents out, and he’s vanished.”
“Bloody hell,” Paulus said. “Was he upset?”
“Yes—I think so, yes.”
“I’ll get Roger,” he said. “Go to—”
We were interrupted by a shout and the sound of splintering glass.
“Bloody hell,” Paulus said again, and we both ran.
The shouts came from the common room. A pane in one of the French doors was broken, glass littering the terrace. The patients were excited. “He came right through here!” someone shouted. “Broke the glass, opened the door, and went out!”
It was the broken glass that drew my eye. The French doors were unlocked at this time of day; Creeton had not needed to break the window. That meant he had wanted to. Perhaps he’d had a fit of rage. Or perhaps—
I thought of Creeton’s parents walking away toward their motorcar. One action that spilled over into another and another, like water running down a slope, inevitable.
“Paulus.” This was Jack Yates. One look at his face and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. “You need to get the visitors out of sight of Creeton. They need to get into the house.”
It took Paulus a longer moment, but then he went pale. “Bloody hell—not again,” he said, careful to keep his voice too low for the rest of the patients to hear. “Roger!”
“I can help,” Jack said.
Paulus aimed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare. I’ve got enough going on.” Roger appeared at his shoulder, and the two orderlies quickly conferred.
Matron came in the room, drawn by the commotion. “Nurse Weekes, what is going on here?”
“There’s no time,” I said to her.
“Go,” said Jack, almost in a whisper, and in a second I was through the French doors, aiming for the garden gate.
“Kitty!” Nina grabbed my arm. She was on the terrace with Mr. West, whose parents were staring at us, their eyes wide. “Creeton came through here,” Nina said.
“I know,” I replied.
“He broke the glass and took a piece of it.”
My stomach lurched. “Get them out of here,” I said. Then I ran into the garden and gave Martha, who was shepherding Mr. Derby, his fiancée, and his mother, the same order. Martha heard the urgency in my voice and jumped to it, asking no questions.
I didn’t see Creeton on the grounds outside the garden. I walked quickly through the weeds and called his name, receiving no answer. But I knew where he was going. It was where the others had gone.
His white patient’s uniform stood out against the shadows on the grass in front of the isolation room. I called his name again, and broke into a not-quite run; I didn’t want to approach him too quickly in case that sent him over the edge. He turned and watched me coming, and when I got close enough to see, he raised one hand and put the jagged point of the large shard of glass he was holding against the soft spot of his throat.
“Go away, Nurse Weekes,” he said. His eyes were strangely calm.
I was entering the shadows of the west wing now, choking on the oppressive air. “Creeton, don’t!” I shouted.
He dug the glass farther into his neck. “Don’t come closer. Do you think I won’t do it?”
I stopped where I was. Even though I’d known what he was planning, the sight was still shocking. This is not a nightmare, I thought. This is real. There may have been shouts or movement far behind us, but I didn’t turn to look. It was just the two of us, the day’s heat a living thing even here in the shadows, where it pulsed over us and intensified the sour smell of this place. “Please,” I managed. “I know that was difficult. But—”
“Where’s my Luger?” he said.
“What?” The word meant nothing to me.
“They took it from me when I came here,” he said. “I know they have it. I’d rather use a gun than this piece of glass, but if I have to I’ll make do.” He laughed.
“I can’t do that,” I said helplessly. “I can’t get you a gun.”
“You mean you won’t.” He laughed again, and his gaze darkened when he saw Paulus, Roger, and two other orderlies fan out around us in a circle.
“Put it down,” Paulus said.
Creeton’s knuckles whitened on the shard of glass. “I can see I’ll have to be quick.”
He would do it, I knew. It would be messy, imprecise, and it might not even kill him; but here in front of everyone he would do his best to shove that piece of glass into his neck, just like the men who had stood here before him. “Please, for God’s sake, stop!” I cried. “It’s this place, Creeton—can’t you feel it? It’s this place that’s wrong.”
He gave no sign that he heard me. His gaze wandered over the orderlies, who were pressing in closer. “My father fought in the Boer War,” he said. “I would have liked to show him my Luger. Maybe then he would be proud of me.” He looked directly at me and screamed, “Give me back my Luger!”
“Put it down!” Paulus shouted again.
“Do you think you can help me?” Creeton said to me, his eyes blazing with a sick, despairing triumph. His knuckles whitened on the shard of glass again. “Nurse Weekes? With your caring? With your concern? Do you actually think you can help me? Do you actually think you can help any of us?”
“What does he say to you?” I asked him, locking my gaze with his. His was so mad I almost felt the madness coming out of him and blooming inside me. “In the nightmares, what does he say? Does he call you a coward?”
His mouth went slack with shock.
“Dead is never better,” I said, the same words I’d said to his father’s retreating back. “Never.”
His pause lasted only a second, but it was long enough for Paulus to come up behind him in three huge, long strides and deliver a powerful kick to the back of Creeton’s knees. Creeton overbalanced and fell forward, the glass falling from his hand. The orderlies were on him before he could move.
“You’ll want to cooperate with us now,” said Paulus calmly as another orderly unfolded a straitjacket. “Off we go.”
Creeton struggled only a moment, and then he went slack, facedown in the weedy grass. The orderlies moved his limbs as if he were a heavy rag doll. I looked around and saw Matron some twenty feet away, watching, flanked by Boney. Matron hurried forward, a needle ready in her hand.
The gardens and terrace had emptied. Martha and Nina were presumably inside keeping the other patients quiet, though I could see faces pressed to the glass of the French doors.
The orderlies rolled Creeton over to put the jacket on him. His eyes were open and staring at me. “Go to hell, Nurse Weekes,” he said, and he closed his eyes as Matron bent over him and they put his arms in the sleeves.
? ? ?
“It’s called a relapse,” Roger told me after they’d put Creeton in his room, sedated. “When they top themselves. That’s what they put in the letter. ‘We regret to inform you your son died after a relapse,’ or some such nonsense. They never just say they did themselves in.”
I remembered this as I sat in a broom closet, where I’d ducked in looking for a bucket, thinking I was going to throw up. I hung over the dingy bucket, my clean sleeves getting dirty, but nothing happened.
I can’t do this, I thought. I can’t, I can’t. I couldn’t stop shaking, and my stomach turned again and again. I prayed that no one would come in here, that no one would see me like this.
This house was a vampire, feeding on the pain, the insecurity, the despair of these men. It was feeding on Creeton, it was feeding on Archie, it was feeding on Mabry and Jack. It knew my weaknesses, my fears, and it was only a matter of time before it fed on me. I let go of the bucket, put my head in my hands, and surrendered to my own madness, the madness of this place.
It was killing them, and it was winning. And soon, there would be no time.