Chapter Five

Dorothy crushed out her cigarette and smoothed out the wrinkles in her uniform. If she got caught with a wrinkled uniform again, she would be written up. She straightened her hat and her lapel pin, making sure she met the grooming requirements for a nurse at Silverwood Asylum.

She worked night shift, so the requirements were a little laxer than during the daytime. Her job really wasn’t that bad. She was responsible for giving the inmates their night-time medications. She also had to make sure that at least five of them took a bath. Most inmates bathed during the day shift, but those who were heavily medicated could not bathe themselves, and the job fell to the night shift nurse. She was usually done with her work by midnight and would spend the remainder of her shift reading a book at the nurse’s desk.

Dorothy walked past the security guard sitting at the front desk. The time clock was just beside his station, and she punched her time card. The date was December 7^th, 1938.

Dorothy saw the charge nurse walking toward her and braced herself for confrontation. The charge nurse approached her and said, “Dorothy, you’ll be on the fifth floor tonight. And straighten that hat. I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

Dorothy cringed. She hated working the fifth floor. It’s where the worst inmates were kept. She was supposed to call them patients, not inmates, but as the saying went, “if the shoe fits.”

The fifth floor housed the rapists and murderers. She would have two armed security guards with her, but that was little comfort against fifty-three insane criminals. Her only solace was that most of them were heavily medicated with powerful tranquilizers. Of course, that also meant that Dorothy would have to bathe at least five of them to help out the day shift.

“Well, get going. The day shift nurses have been on their feet all day, and they want to go home,” the charge nurse snapped at Dorothy.

“Yes, ma’am.” Dorothy replied. She took a step toward the grand staircase. There was an elevator, but the nurses were not allowed to use it. They were required to use the stairs. Dorothy climbed the stairs to the first landing, the one with the large window. She looked out at the woods looming just outside the asylum. It would be easy for a person to get lost in those woods. Two inmates had already escaped this month, and security guards lost them in the dense greenery.

Dorothy climbed higher until she reached the fifth floor. She opened the heavy wooden door and stepped into the ward. Upon spotting Dorothy, the day shift nurses made a beeline for the door. The security guards were at their posts, and Dorothy stowed her purse at the nurse’s desk.

The dinner trays had not been collected yet, so Dorothy set about collecting them. She pushed the large cart from room to room, picking up the dinner trays and noting if anyone did not eat. When she arrived at room 510, she was surprised. Mr. Pollock was stark naked, masturbating furiously, using the mashed potatoes from his dinner tray as a lubricant.

“Stop that. Stop this instant!” she shouted. One of the security guards started walking toward her. Mr. Pollock turned around, surprised. He stopped and ran to the corner of his room, crouching down by the floor. Dorothy swiped his food tray and continued down the hallway, gesturing to the security guard that it was okay. She made a mental note to ensure that Mr. Pollock got a bath tonight.

When all of the food trays had been collected, Dorothy put the cart beside the elevator. An orderly would pick them up there and take them back to the kitchen. She then loaded up her medication cart and started giving the night-time medications.

Dorothy always hated working the fifth floor, but tonight more than usual. She felt so uneasy, like something horrible was going to happen at any second. She kept a syringe full of Thorazine in her pocket, just in case of emergency, and she found herself grabbing onto it anytime a noise startled her. She wished there were men at the asylum who could handle the fifth floor themselves. It seemed like the wrong kind of place for a woman to be.

The inmates were quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. They each took their medications, with no complaint. Mr. Pollock and four other inmates took their baths, and everyone was in bed by 10:00 PM. Dorothy turned out the lights and sat down at the nurse's desk.

It wasn’t the first time Dorothy had seen a naked man. She was, after all, a nurse. But it was the first one she had seen one fully aroused and in the act. Dorothy was approaching thirty, and she had never married. Her mother had told her that she would die a lonely, old spinster if she didn’t find a husband soon.

The truth was, Dorothy enjoyed being a nurse. She wasn’t ready to give up her job to stay at home and be a wife and mother. In her previous job, she had been a nurse at the general hospital. She never had to deal with patients who inappropriately exposed themselves to her. She much preferred that job to this one.

Dorothy had been fired from the general hospital. She was accused of stealing from a patient, and she had even been reported to the police. She was cleared during the investigation, but the hospital fired her anyway, and it went on her record that she was fired for stealing. After such a thing was written on her permanent record, she was not eligible for most nursing jobs. Hospitals turned her away, doctors didn’t trust her. The only job she could get was here at Silverwood.

She had forgotten to bring a book with her. She decided to read the patient charts instead, to find out what each of these men were locked up for. She started with Mr. Pollock.

Mr. Pollock had been committed by the court. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity during his trial, where he was accused of killing and skinning six teenage girls. He was a taxidermist and claimed he was going to revolutionize the funeral industry.

Mr. Davis in 507 had also been committed by the courts. He caught a group of boys trespassing on his land, and rather than running them off, or calling the authorities, he had hunted them down and impaled each of them on wooden spikes.

Mr. Edwards in 515 was particularly scary. He, too, had been committed by the court after killing an unknown number of people and drinking their blood.

Mr. Paulson, Mr. Reston, and Mr. Haas had all been institutionalized after raping numerous women.

Dorothy became more and more frightened as she read. She came to the realization that she was locked on the fifth floor with the monsters who had committed these atrocities. She felt in her pocket for the Thorazine syringe. Its presence reassured her.

She was startled by the sound of a phone ringing. It was the telephone at the guard’s desk by the elevator. One of the guards grabbed it and listened for a moment before he said, “We’re on our way.”

He turned to the other guard and said, “We’ve got one trying to escape on the second floor. They need us for backup.” Both men stood and got into the elevator.

Dorothy cried out, “Wait! You can’t just leave me here alone.”

“We’ll be right back. Everybody’s sleeping, you’ll be fine.” The doors closed, and the elevator descended.

At first, they were right, and everything was fine. But it wasn’t long before Dorothy felt eyes watching her. She slowly turned around and screamed when she saw the inmates. They were all standing in their doorways, all the way down the hall. Every single one of them. They began walking toward her. Dorothy gripped her syringe tightly. Her back was against the wall, as the inmates continued to advance. Dorothy screamed and screamed, but no one could hear her.

When the guards returned to the fifth floor, there was a trail of blood on the ground, starting at the elevator. Dorothy was nowhere in sight. They followed the blood trail to room 515. That’s where they found Dorothy’s body. She had been beaten severely, her skull smashed, arms and legs twisted and broken, and all of the blood drained from her body.

Mr. Edwards was nowhere to be found. The remainder of the inmates were asleep in their beds.