Outpatient - A Story of Horror and Madness by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 1

The cabin stood at the end of Stratton Brooke Road, a few yards away from the pond, surrounded by the isolated woods of Carrabasset Valley, overlooking the southern face of Mount Bigelow, standing as a monument to time and nature. Autumn brought a palette of colors that burned across the mountain and dipped down into the valley, while winter laid out a chilly blanket of white, leaving only the rock of the southern face to bear itself out. In the snow, she could easily follow the multitude of tiny mouse tracks that barely left their mark in the fine crystalline covering of old man winter's silver blue. It was August and the heat was at its peak, with small bursts of rain moving through almost daily like curtains of gray crawling across the sky. The valley seemed to be a magnet for turbulent weather this year, but so far, there were no real problems – it was just rain.

A glimpse of its exterior cast a well-ordered reflection of who would live inside. But this façade, in time, would only prove to be an illusion – well-built walls of protection for the chaos that now takes sanctuary within. There is a tense quiet in the house, as though its occupants were merely ghosts quietly sleeping among the attic rafters.

And all around, in every room, lay scattered the articles of a previous existence. But that was when life held out a promise of the future. A singular photograph, framed in pewter, was the only image that graced the mantle – a strikingly beautiful woman at the peak of her youth, dressed in the academic garb of graduation. To her left, a middle-aged man in a simple business suit, a hand on her shoulder and the proud smile of a father's love stretched across his face. Written on the upper left were neatly penned the words, „Congratulations, Cat. Love, Dad!" This single portrait lay surrounded by all things feline. Even the clock on the wall that ticked and tocked, marking the inevitable march of time, slowly scanned the room with its black and white eyes at every sweep of its plastic tail. Not far from the mantle, another frame clung to the wall, larger than the first. A beautiful document lay inside the frame – „Bowdoin College, department of Physics, Physician's Degree, Catherine Thomaston". The signatures of the President and department chair were scrawled across the bottom left.

The kitchen was spotless and presented itself with the odor of numerous cleaning products. But upon closer examination, something was amiss. There was not one knife to be seen – not on any counter; not in any drawer. In fact, there were no knives in this kitchen – perhaps in the entire house. Toward the back, a bedroom door stood slightly ajar, and on the bed of this spartan room lay a woman in her thirties. Her auburn hair cut short with a pair of sewing scissors – her body now merely a shell of the romanesque figure she once possessed. She began to noticeably perspire as her eyes darted from side to side as if her mind had taken residence in another place and time, where the universe of what was real stood still in its celestial motion. And it was in this chaotic world she heard the tapping sound of steps slowly making their way down a darkened corridor, dimly lit by a pair of lights mounted high upon the wall. With bare feet lightly walking the cold linoleum floor, she cautiously wandered her way through a strangely familiar place. Her name was whispered from the air behind her, and she spun around, startled into a heavy sweat, to find no one. With foreboding hesitation, she turned back again, gasped, and screamed in terror as the hallway lay transformed. Rusty cages lined the walls, bound shut by locks and chains from a bygone era. And from behind those bars reached out to her the filthy hands of the disrobed insane. Rattling their bars and screaming in madness, they seemed to reach out from everywhere, grabbing at her shoulders and pulling at her hair. With arms covering her head, she turned in each direction, looking for escape. And in a sudden scream of panic, the hallway once again lay empty. She held her breath in uncertainty with fingers pressed upon her mouth and tears streaming down her face. Feeling a sharp sting enter deeply into her shoulder, she quickly turned to investigate. She was startled to find an elderly nurse with eyes a hauntingly solid black and a bony thumb pushing down the plunger of a hypodermic needle. She gasped again in disbelief, and her vision slowly blurred to a field of white, then collapsed into the blackness of nonexistence.

She bolted up in bed, hands firmly gripping the sheet around her throat. Her face and hair soaked with sweat, her eyes darting about the room, being certain that she was alone. In a moment of confusion, Catherine glanced over at her shoulder and, finding it unmarked, breathed a sigh of relief as she wiped the sweat from her face. She turned, put her feet on the floor beside the bed, stood, and slowly wove her way down the hall and into the bathroom. She turned a slightly rusted faucet that let out a somewhat piercing squeal, as cold water flowed out into her hands. When it was nearly overflowing, she brought the water to her face and held it to her skin, letting the cold and wet sink deeply, washing away the sweat and steadying her nerves. As she brought her hands away from her face, the cool water slightly warmed by her waking flesh dripped from her eyelashes and ran off her nose and lips. Catherine raised her head and noticed a familiar face staring back from the streaked bathroom mirror. Momentarily, her gaze froze on the eyes that lay inside the glass; as though they belonged to someone she'd never met. But, her gaze was broken by the sudden realization that water still flowed from the bathroom tap.

Standing in the shower Catherine crossed her arms tightly over her breasts as she stood beneath the spray of warming water running down her naked body. Stepping out onto a plush green mat, she pushed her toes into its soft, deep nap. This was one of the few pleasures Catherine had in her life. The other was coffee – sweet nectar of God incarnate – a divine gift to a weary world. And after she toweled off her hair and body, she walked into the kitchen, her head wrapped in a towel and dressed in a white cotton robe. She preferred her coffee black and steaming hot, bringing her senses back to life after another night of disturbed sleep. She left the kitchen with coffee mug in hand, holding it carefully so as not to lose a single precious drop. And entering her living room, went straight to the framed photo on the mantle where she stood gazing at the face of the man who departed from her life – the only man she thought ever truly loved her. Every morning, she approached the photo, still sick at heart with the pain of grief. She gently stroked a finger down the face of the man in the photo.

“Good morning, daddy”, she whispered in an almost childlike voice.

Catherine quietly kissed the tip of her finger and touched it back to the man"s face, not noticing her image smiling back from his side. She placed her now half-filled mug on the coffee table that was arranged between the mantle and the couch. The furniture of her small cabin was arranged as though the house had been built around it, unchanging and ordered – almost to a fault. There were opened bills on the coffee table staring up at her – power, cable, phone, water, and mortgage. These would all be dealt with, as her father made certain of that when he left a retirement trust for her in the amount of some seven million dollars. She had been forced to leave her job as a professor of theoretical physics at Bowdoin College and since the onset of her illness; Catherine was no longer able to teach, as her thinking had become disabled by the loss of who she had been.

She looked down at the coffee table again, this time with focused intent. A manila folder sat patiently waiting for her examination. It was a good two inches thick and in bold stenciled letters blazing across the front read, „Augusta Mental Health Institute". Catherine had made a special request for a copy of her records in order to satisfy her craving for a deeper understanding of an illness that no one can touch or see, as there was no blood test for schizophrenia.

She skipped over everything else and flipped to the psychiatric note written just before her discharge. But just before giving the document her full attention, she felt something soft push against the top of her ankle. Looking down, a rare smile came to her face as her eyes looked into the caring gaze of her cat. Ivan was her constant companion. A solid smoky gray Russian Blue with striking golden eyes and a gaze that gave him a look of understanding. Catherine relied upon his silent feline wisdom as though he was her father confessor. She leaned back on the couch and Ivan leaped up into her lap. It was always a welcomed place and a great source of comfort for him. Catherine picked him up and laid him on her chest. She spoke to him in baby talk, like anyone else who happened to be owned by a cat. Licking her chin and loudly purring brought a broad smile to her face.

“Mommy loves you too”, she whispered into Ivan's ear. “But she has things to do before she goes to see the doctor”.

As though he understood, Ivan gently jumped down from Catherine's chest and onto the cushion at the end of the couch, where he curled up in a ball and closed his eyes. And with the end of his tail covering his nose, Ivan began to gently purr as he drifted off to sleep. Catherine could now direct her attention back to the documents that lay on the table in front of her. She poured over them for about forty-five minutes, reflecting on the course of her life and the events that led to such a painful existence.