Nillium Neems (10 page)

One of them opened, a doctor I’d never seen
before poking his head out to see what the hubbub was about. I
waved at him cheerfully and smiled. He gave me a confused look. I
gave him a thumbs up in return. Shaking his head, deciding he
didn’t want to deal with me, the doctor withdrew back into his
office. I continued running, hoping to find some stairs leading up
to the third floor.

A door opened a little
further down from where I stood and a large mass slowly shambled
out to confront me. It was hard to even tell what faced me, just a
massive pile of
stuff
. I saw what looked like fire hoses, lots of what seemed to
be moss, and bits of moldy hospital clothes and
blankets.

The creature made a loud huffing sound, like
a dog choking on a hairball, and then shambled menacingly towards
me. It was like a walking pile of trash. Not even wanting to deal
with this Shambler, I turned and ran back the way I’d come, taking
a different turn in the hall that might offer a route of
escape.

Within moments I found an old set of fire
stairs and ran up them, slamming open the door at the top. Sunlight
hit me in the face, forcing me to shield my eyes. The Tree from the
yard rose towering above me, even here at the top of Atrium. I took
it as a good sign.

As I turned away from it, hoping I might
find some ladder or something leading straight down, a Warden hit
me from behind with his baton. I tried to push myself back up with
my arms, but the man kicked them out from under me. The sound of
others running up the stairs assailed my ears, moments before they
too joined in on the fun.

They hit me, again and again, bruising and
breaking my helpless little body. I rolled onto my back, trying to
protect myself with my arms as much as possible. It wasn’t much
use. Fully half of the attacking wardens were Monsters, who rather
expectedly, were the ones that hit me the hardest.

I was down and out, poor me soon beaten into
unconsciousness and hauled off to God knew where. The last thought
I had before the darkness took me was a hope that my death would at
least be quick.

Time passed. I’m not sure how long. Even
here in the dark, I did not dream. So it seemed like only seconds
before I woke up, finding myself strapped to a chair surrounded by
doctors. Though I knew it had to have been longer than that.

I couldn’t see too well, since one eye was
swollen shut and the other was close, but I could make out Dr.
Higgins. That man so obsessed with dreams who just could not
believe I was incapable of the phenomena. Beside him stood the
emotionless Dr. Sirius, and behind him was dear Dr. Flagham,
wringing his hands nervously while watching me. There were a few
other doctors standing about, some I knew and some I didn’t, but
Sirius and Higgins were the highlights.

A lesser doctor who stood in the corner, a
man I’d always known as Dr. Cornwall, was obviously a Monster. He
was grinning at me, though I’m sure no one noticed. I also spotted
my Snoopy Cap, chucked uncaringly onto a table in the corner. That
more than anything made my blood boil.

The doctors had been engaged in some kind of
discussion, but broke it off once they saw I was awake. Sirius
stepped forwards till he was right in front of me.

"Feeling well?" he asked calmly, a simple
enquiry as if they hadn’t just nearly beaten me to death.

"More so than you can ever imagine," I
replied, thinking back to Siegfried telling me that I was not blind
like the others but could See.

Dr. Sirius stared at me, perplexed by my
answer. He then shook his head as if to dismiss anything I had to
say as irrelevant.

"No matter," he confirmed, waving a hand and
motioning two doctors I didn’t know to step forward. "The Board of
Directors have been apprised of your case and are in full
concurrence with me that the only logical solution left to alter
your dangerous behavior is a lobotomy. As you know, we take this
drastic step with the utmost reluctance and only resort to it when
left with no other choice."

He then adjusted some of the straps on my
chair, moved some kind of metal arms into place, and clamped them
around my head.

"Please reconsider," said Hammy, stepping
forwards. I was overjoyed to see that there were actual tears in
his eyes. "Nil isn’t a bad girl, Dr. Sirius, she’s a gentle soul. I
know in my heart that she didn’t hurt anyone. She just suffers from
a mental disease, that is all."

"And that disease is called insanity,"
Sirius replied calmly, regarding Hammy with a disdainful look.
"Proceed with the operation, gentleman." Two of the doctors started
towards me.

"Don’t listen to him!"
shouted Hammy, stepping in front of them and shielding me from
them. "I’ve talked to this girl many times and she is not evil! She
is not insane! She does
not
deserve what you are about to do to her. A
lobotomy is a crude and barbaric method of ‘treatment’ that has
been banned in more than one place across the world. You can’t just
tear into someone’s brain!"

Sirius held up a hand for his minions to
halt. It was obvious that he was the head doctor here. He then
waved the same hand questioningly at Hammy.

"Go on, Dr. Flagham."

Hammy took a step towards Sirius, taking
courage from the fact that his words seemed to have effect.

"Nillium Neems is a sweet and logical girl.
She suffers from schizophrenia, a disease which causes
hallucinations. Hallucinations that she can see and hear, things
that she believes to be real. But that does not make her insane.
She is a young girl, Dr. Sirius. Only twenty years old."

"Twenty is old enough to commit murder, Dr.
Flagham. And there are worse things in this Ward than a mere
lobotomy. I would be thankful that a lobotomy is the extent of the
treatment I recommend for her. I could suggest something more...
severe to the Director of Atrium."

Hammy colored with anger, taking another
step towards Sirius.

"Nil has told me, Dr. Sirius, about these
‘monsters’ that she sees. Though she does see hallucinations, I am
half-inclined to believe that those monsters she fears are here in
this very room!"

"Only half-inclined?" interjected Dr.
Higgins, stepping up beside Sirius and raising an eyebrow. "Really,
'Hammy' you always were one for half measures. I’ve spoken to
Sirius about your ineptness as a doctor on several occasions. He
has always replied that you seem to do a decent enough job for us
to keep you around. But now I’m hoping he might see things from my
perspective?" he added, turning around to raise that questioning
eyebrow towards Dr. Sirius.

Sirius pursed his lips for a moment in
contemplation, his eyes flicking from me to poor Hammy, who still
stood protectively before me, trembling a little with rage and
perhaps fear.

"Dr. Flagham?" he asked, voice monotone. "I
will ask you once. Are you with us or are you against us? Atrium
Psychiatric Ward offers many lucrative opportunities for a
dedicated doctor. You could go far..."

"I am against you," replied
Hammy. I would have cheered if I could, for he said it without a
note of hesitation, though his voice shook. "I do not like the way
you do business here. I do not like the way patients are treated. I
do not like the way that shock therapy or a lobotomy is always the
answer, instead of trying to show a little kindness. I quit. And if
you dare to harm poor Nil, then I will take this up at the highest
level. I will see to it that you
all
get your just rewards, including
the Director himself!"

Dr. Higgins went red and took a few angry
steps towards Hammy before Sirius held up a warning hand.

"I am a fair and reasonable man, Dr.
Flagham. Thus I’m willing to give you a chance to further explain
yourself. Why do you feel so strongly about this girl, this ‘Nil’
person? What does she mean to you?"

Something in Hammy’s countenance changed and
I saw fear no longer present on his face. He seemed to stand a
little taller, and the look of righteous anger he speared Sirius
with made him seem like an entirely different man.

"I will tell you what she means," Hammy
began, his voice coming out with a thick English accent. It was the
voice of Siegfried. "Nillium Neems is the only hope this hell has
for a future. The only hope that you all have. For we are done with
being tormented, done with the sick experiments and the death and
the fear that pervade this place. You are corrupt and evil men, but
you do not realize, even in your villainy, that you are influenced
by something far worse. You are controlled by a demon incarnate
that uses horrors like the Hooded Man as mere play things, sating
itself with the terror the Tormentors invoke."

"Who are you?" asked Higgins. "What kind of
nonsense are you speaking, Flagham, what game are you playing?"

"Dr. Henry Flagham is still here," replied
Siegfried, " and was kind enough to willingly let me confront you
all. For he is starting to Believe. My own name is Siegfried Von
Nillium, former director of Atrium Psychiatric Ward. Dedicated to
helping the mentally challenged since I founded it fifty-one years
ago, this was once a blessed place. As is known in the records of
this Ward, assuming that you haven’t destroyed them, I died in my
office of a heart attack."

Anger began to enter Siegfried’s voice as he
continued.

"It was actually a carefully applied
ten-milliliter syringe full of air into a vein, causing an air
bubble to block my heart, but hey, it was the same effect so I
guess that’s all that matters. And since my unfortunate death,
pathetic mongrels like you, Dr. Higgins, seem to have done your
best to make a mockery of my work. The Director himself most of
all. Now we, the spirits of the fallen, are done..."

"So you’re telling me that
you’re some kind of
ghost
?" Higgins asked incredulously.
"Do you really expect me to believe that garbage?"

Siegfried smiled thinly.

"It is debatable what the
‘garbage’ in this room might be. But believe me or not, I am
telling you all, doctors and wardens alike, that you have one
chance to be saved from the evil that has you in its grasp.
And
she
," and
here Siegfried pointed a quivering finger at me, still strapped
into the torture chair, "is the only hope that we have."

Higgins opened his mouth to reply but Dr.
Sirius shut him up with a raised hand.

"Obviously, Nillium is not the only one in
this room who’s hopelessly insane." he said it almost smugly, the
first hint of emotion I’d heard from the man. "Grab and restrain
Dr. Flagham please, gentlemen. It appears we have two patients in
need of a little brain surgery."

As the two lesser doctors stepped forward to
obey, Siegfried pulled a scalpel from his lab coat and lashed
towards them, a long horizontal slice followed by a quick upwards
thrust. Both doctors fell to the ground dead. Siegfried then turned
and slashed my bonds. I slumped to the floor, free, but lacking the
strength to get up.

"I know it hurts, Nil," he said softly, "but
you have to run for our sake. Run and stop them. Stop every last
one of them and confront the Director."

"You said your name was Siegfried Von
Nillium?" I asked, getting a hand under me and pushing myself up,
though every ache in my body protested. "Are we related?"

"I’m your father, Nil, slain by a power
hungry fool. As soon as I clear the path you must run. The Director
is on the third floor, west wing, office 33A. Two floors up from
this one. Kill him. Any Tormentors you encounter, kill them too.
This evil must end. Kill anyone who stands in your way. All of us
are counting upon you, Nil."

I looked at Sirius, Higgins, and the few
remaining doctors who stood between me and escape. All of them
looked concerned by the threat of Siegfried\Hammy’s scalpel except
for Sirius.

"There are cameras in this room, Dr.
Flagham," Sirius said calmly. "Security is already well aware of
your actions, and I have no doubt they are being reported to the
Director as we speak. Drop the scalpel and submit to us before you
incur his wrath."

I thought that Siegfried would say something
defiant or brave, but instead the color drained from his face. He
was scared, the weapon trembling slightly in his hand.

"God protect you," he said quietly to me,
and then charged towards Dr. Sirius, thrusting forwards with the
scalpel.

It seemed as if time slowed in that moment,
the blade in momentum but barely moving as a darkness descended
upon the room. I saw it more in my mind’s eye than in reality, a
dark, swirling mist pouring from the ceiling and into the room. It
hovered above us all, a looming storm cloud, a portent of an evil
to come, before it condensed above Sirius. Pouring into the doctor,
he started to quiver and spasm as if from seizure. His skin dried
and flaked before my eyes, as if mummified in an instant, falling
away and leaving nothing behind but a rotting skeleton. It grinned
obscenely at us and its fingers lengthened into pointed claws.

I thought for a moment that Sirius was
revealing his true nature, a hidden Tormentor all this time, but as
all the other doctors started to transform as well, I knew it had
to be the Director’s doing. For not only did we now face a
Skeleton, but four other creatures as well, surely Tormentors like
the Killer and Hooded Man.

One doctor’s flesh hardened into wood,
turning a once ordinary looking man into a sick and Twisted Puppet,
like some kind of wicked Pinocchio. Another melted before my eyes
into a puddle of Green Ooze, one sludgy arm reaching up from the
mass. Two more fell together and merged into one, a two headed and
four armed Scarecrow, purple droplets dripping down his brow like
sweat. And Dr. Higgins, poor Dr. Higgins, refused to obey his
master and remained himself, flawed yet human.