Asylum (Asylum, #1)(43)

Almost as troubling as his apparent amnesia was the fact that Dan’s face had been X-ed out so thoroughly in both pictures that the paper had been torn.

“What are you doing here?”

“Shit!” Dan whirled around, dropping the photographs. “You scared me half to death, man!”

“Do you think I care?” Hair wet, holding a towel, Jordan had clearly just returned from the shower. He jabbed a finger at the door. “Get out!”

“Wait, Jordan—I just wanted to see if you were okay. That’s all! I didn’t mean to—”

Jordan grabbed Dan by the arm, and dragged him a few steps. “I don’t care what you meant to do! Get the hell out!”

Dan sprinted for the hall, cringing when he heard the door slam shut with a bang behind him. He fumbled for his phone, sending off a quick text to Abby. It read simply “Jordan v. mad.”

That was rage, real rage, and Dan seemed to be the reason for it. But why? What on earth had he done? Why would Jordan hate him so much?

Wait, could Jordan be his stalker?

Now that was paranoia.





Dan smelled mint. His office always smelled of mint. The young secretary left a tin of peppermints on his desk every morning and he ate them throughout the day. Julie was her name. Pretty and young—too pretty and young to already be working in a place like this.

A half-finished report sat on the desk before him. This side of things, the paper-pushing side, always annoyed him. That’s what assistants were for, damn it all, but they couldn’t be depended upon for anything. Sucking on a mint and adjusting his spectacles, he went back to the business at hand.

Where was he? Ah, yes. Writing.

Each victim had been strangled, although some had struggled, the signs of which were evident in the bruises and cuts they sustained. Reportedly, the victims posed to dance looked remarkably convincing, as did those set around the rest of the bar, sitting and standing. Good God, the planning it must have taken to achieve this. . . . A corpse reaches its peak stiffness at approximately twelve hours after death. To kill the patrons of an entire bar and then wait among the dead for hours . . . I admit, even I was skeptical that treatment could help a man so deeply, deeply troubled.

Happily, repeated insulin shock treatments and two weeks in the Dark Room have somewhat improved the patient’s temperament. He seems almost docile. I have nearly accomplished something astounding with the man. There will be more sessions, the next one on Thursday, and further monitoring of his behavior.

Report complete, he signed his name.

Daniel Crawford, Warden

He considered the signature and signed it again. And again. He wrote his name faster and faster, pen flying across the page. Daniel Crawford, Daniel Crawford . . . The page disappeared in front of his eyes. He could see the dancing corpses, hear the record wheezing softly in the background. It played the tune of Lucy’s music box. And then he was falling down the rabbit hole, falling, and he . . .





. . . woke from his nap with a start. Dan hadn’t even known he’d fallen asleep. What was the dream? He concentrated before it faded away. . . . He was seeing again through the warden’s eyes as if they were his own. It felt so real. He even remembered writing the report, in the warden’s own hand. If he thought hard enough about it, he could taste the peppermints.

Dan rolled out of bed, still decidedly groggy. On the bedside table, his phone lit up with a picture of Abby. Her text message appeared underneath.

Class over. They’re handing out ice cream in quad. Want update on Jordan. Meet me in 5?



In five? Damn, no time to shower. Dan checked his breath, cupping his palm over his mouth and blowing. It . . . could have been better. He tracked down a beat-up, old pack of gum in his backpack, but just tasting the mint made him feel sick.

What else would Daniel Crawford ruin for him?

The lure of ice cream had apparently emptied the dorm, both of students and the police. Dan jogged through the silent hall to the back stairs. At the second floor, he grabbed the handrail as usual and swung around it to the next set of stairs below. But a dark shape startled him, and he stumbled, nearly colliding with the lump in the stairwell. He dodged it just in time, sliding to the right and grabbing the opposite handrail.

At first, he assumed it was just a backpack someone had dropped, or maybe a bucket one of the maintenance workers had left. But no, the shape was bigger and—oh, God—it was human. There, with one arm on his legs and the other slung over his head, was Jordan’s roommate, Yi. For a second, Dan’s limbs refused to cooperate. He couldn’t move.

Oh, God, he’s dead, oh, God, he’s dead, he’s dead. . . .

Then Dan knelt, taking Yi by the shoulders and shaking him gently. What did those safety pamphlets always say? Don’t move someone who’s fallen because you might make things worse?

“No, no, this can’t be happening. It isn’t happening,” Dan whispered, carefully searching along Yi’s T-shirt. He pressed his palm to Yi’s chest and waited, a hysterical laugh of relief escaping when he felt the thump of his heartbeat.

“Yi! Yi, can you hear me?” He shook him again. No response. Dan yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and frantically dialed 911. Would campus security be better? They’d be closer, that’s for sure. Where had those cops gone anyway?

“Yes, hello? I need help. I’m at the Brookline Dormitory on campus. Sorry, um, Camford, New Hampshire College. My friend is unconscious. It looks like he was attacked or maybe he fell? I don’t know. He’s breathing, but I can’t wake him up, but there’s definitely a pulse. . . .”