Ward D

by Freida McFadden

If they were well controlled, the unit wouldn’t have to be locked, would it? But that’s not the real reason I am dreading my night on Ward D. I can’t tell Dr. Sleepy the real reason I was tossing and turning last night. I can’t tell anyone the real reason I’m desperately terrified of Ward D.

The truth is, I’ve already seen Ward D. I visited it once before, nearly a decade ago. Back when my best friend was a patient there. I still remember her matted hair and wild eyes when I came to visit. She didn’t look like my best friend anymore—more like a wild animal closed up in a cage. But the thing that sticks with me most—the thing I will never forget—are the words she spit out at me just seconds before I ran out of the unit, swearing to myself I would never return ever again: You should be the one locked up here, Amy.

“What if,” I say quietly, “at the end of the night, they get confused and think that I’m one of the patients there and they don’t let me out?”

“What little girl?” “The little blond girl who was standing next to me.” “I didn’t see a little blond girl standing next to you. What are you talking about, Amy?”

“No.” Dr. Beck frowns. “He’s not ‘a schizophrenic.’ We don’t refer to patients that way. Miguel is a human being, and he’s more than his psychiatric diagnosis. He is not a schizophrenic—he’s a man who has schizophrenia. Do you understand that?”

A mental health diagnosis is not a death sentence. All the patients in this unit are just trying to get better.

After all, if you meet someone who is truly mentally ill, that’s the only way to know that you’re sane.

Dr. Beck shoots me a look, and I could swear he rolls his eyes a bit. Gabby was right—I do like him.

How does somebody get to the point where their brain stops functioning like a normal brain? That their reality completely breaks from the reality that every other person in the world lives in? And what’s to stop it from happening to anyone else?

“Damon Sawyer wants to kill every single one of us tonight.” “Why…” My voice is a hoarse croak. “Why do you think that?” “Because that’s what he told me he’s going to do.”

“You’re welcome to listen to me play,” Will says as he sits down at the piano bench. He cracks his knuckles, then he rests his fingers on the keys. A second later, the sound of Mozart fills the room.

yes please 🙏🏻 😏

It’s Miguel, except he’s not wearing four shirts anymore. In fact, he’s not wearing any clothing at all. And he’s covered in blood.

“Miguel?” I call out. “Are you okay?” Then something emerges from the crack under the door. A dark liquid. It’s blood. And it’s leaking out from under the door.

Except when we get to the room, I get the shock of my life. On the floor outside Seclusion Two, there’s absolutely nothing there.

And then I see him. The dark figure in the corner of the room. Waiting for me. And the door slams shut. I don’t even have time to scream.

He glances at the closed door, then back at my face. “I saw the blood on the floor too.”

“So what happened to the blood then?” “That nurse Ramona got rid of it.”

After all, why would Will be going into Jade’s room?

Except just as my eyes have started to drift closed, I hear footsteps.

“He came to my room,” Spider-Dan explains. “He was looking for you, but I didn’t tell him where you are. I won’t let him hurt you.” “Wait.” Any possibility of ever falling back asleep has officially left the building. “He was specifically looking for me?” “You’re Amy, aren’t you?”

“He’s locked up,” I tell Spider-Dan. “No, he’s not.” He gives me a meaningful look. “He got out earlier tonight.”

But before I can think about it, an ear-piercing sound breaks into my thoughts. It’s a woman screaming.

My eyes briefly pause on Will and Jade, standing at the periphery of the crowd. And strangely, Jade’s hand is resting on Will’s shoulder.

WHAT THE FUDGE GUYS

The same night Will was admitted to the emergency room. Oh my God. Will is Jade’s boyfriend.

“No, I…” He licks his lips as he takes a breath, carefully measuring his next words. “They never went away because I never heard them in the first place. I was never hearing voices. I… I lied about it.” Okay. This is the absolute last thing I expected him to say. “Excuse me?” “I lied, okay?” He scratches at his stubble. “I read a bunch of stuff about how a paranoid schizophrenic is supposed to act, then I went to the emergency room and read the script. And they put me here.”

Whenever I pick up a book, it’s like an escape. For an hour or two, I get to be part of the book world instead of my own much more boring world.

Jade does have a boyfriend. But her boyfriend isn’t Will Schoenfeld, who was never hearing voices at all and just went too far to achieve his dream to be a reporter for The New York Times. No, Jade’s boyfriend is Damon Sawyer.

I stare at the text message on the screen. My heart is pounding out of my chest. I heard he’s been working on the unit for like fifty years!

The stench of blood fills Seclusion One.

The beam of my flashlight first rests on the bed. There’s a woman there. A small woman of around eighty years old. She is staring up at the ceiling, a drop of blood in the corner of her mouth. She is so still. It’s Mary. Mary Cummings. She’s finally joined her husband.

I move the beam of light away from Mary’s dead body. But that’s a mistake. Because the next thing the light illuminates is a figure lying in the corner of the room. A male with the frame of a football player, dressed in blue scrubs. And when the beam hits his eyes, they are staring ahead at nothing. I clasp my free hand over my mouth. “Cameron,” I whisper. “Cam…”

The first is a woman. I don’t recognize her, but she is just as still as Mary and Cameron. She’s lying face down on the floor, her arms and legs splayed out around her body. She’s dressed in only her underwear. And there’s one final body. This one is a man. He looks like he was in his seventies, with a bushy white beard. Like the woman, he is also in his underwear. I notice a bruise blossoming on his shoulder from where he tried to bash the door down. As I shine my light on his head, I can make out the deep indentation in his skull.

well there is Nicole and the real Dr Beck…..no wonder he wanted out so bad

“You’re right—I haven’t even introduced myself.” He smiles at me and those dimples pop. “My name is Damon. Damon Sawyer. And it’s very nice to finally meet you, Amy. I’ve heard so much about you.”

My eyes are drawn to the woman that I believed was Ramona all night. She’s looking down at her nails critically, but when she notices my attention, she looks up and smiles. “My name is Nicole,” she says. “I actually am a nurse.”

welp nevermind

Damon grins. “Maybe you should’ve dropped a few more hallucinogens in her peach iced tea.” I feel like Damon just slugged me. For a moment, my entire world is crashing down around me. “What?” Jade drops her eyes, but Damon just laughs. “Come on, Jade. She’s going to die—you should at least tell her what you used to do to her. It’s funny.” “You didn’t!” I cry. Jade lifts a shoulder. “You are always drinking those iced teas. It was so easy just to drop a little something in there if you went to the bathroom or… you know.”

But the offensive move never comes. Out of nowhere, Damon’s face morphs into a mesh of white lines. He screams and claws at his cheeks. “Go web!” a voice yells out.

FUCK YEAH

“I told you I would protect you, Amy,” Spider-Dan tells me. “You did,” I acknowledge. “Thank you so much. I can’t thank you enough.” “All in a day’s work for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” he says. His voice is still monotonic, but I could swear I hear a touch of pride as well.

My boyfriend introduced me to them, and now I’m weirdly addicted. I may need to go to a support group if I ever want to quit.

The guilty party in my addiction. Will Schoenfeld.

After all, I would have to be insane to do something like that.