The Wolf -Chapter III: South Peak COMPLETE

III: South Peak

1.
Mary Lindell stared out from behind her desk at the falling snow outside the glass double doors. She hated the cold, and the winter, and the place. South Peak, as far as she was concerned, was hell frozen over.
She had to wonder how, exactly, she had come to be here. Not even a year ago she was bussing tables to pay for college, and now her years of higher education in the field of sociology and psychology had paid off with a desk job.
The irony was, of course, that she was the front desk secretary of a mental institution.
And of course, it had only been two years. The stress, it turned out, had been too much for her, not to mention the student loans, and she’d dropped out.
It was Mackey that had got her here, Mackey who had called her just days after she’d put in an application. “Mary!” he had said. “Mary, we could use somebody like you, with your experience! We have an opening, and it’ll pay three times what you’re getting now! You must come work for us!”
Hadn’t that sounded nice? Three times her current paycheck, how on earth could she resist? Except her current paycheck hadn’t been much, so of course the new one didn’t need to be much more; and now she was stuck in the lobby of a mental institution, taking calls all through the night, and when she’d commented on how odd it was for a secretary to work over nights, Mackey had stated simply, “The crazy house tends to draw the crazies.”
And the truth of it was she did get more calls than she would rationally expect during the late hours of the night. Of course she never talked to anyone; she stated where they were calling to and asked how she could help, and they almost always replied that they needed to talk to someone, and then she would connect them. So it was generally a very boring job, a very brainless job, and one that could easily be done by a machine. So, insofar as that was concerned, she was at least a little bit grateful that she even had a job at all.
The clock hung just above the double doors ticked to 4 o’clock in the AM, and Mary stood up. Break time, she thought, though why she needed a break from sitting down was a question she would never be able to answer.

2.
Outside, Mary regarded the falling snow with distaste, but bore it long enough to smoke a cigarette.
She looked across the parking lot, the scattered street lights catching on the snow and causing the world to look brighter than it ought by rights should. Everywhere beyond the immediate vicinity of the South Peak Mental Institution was forest, and though this was a recently built facility (or rebuilt, she had heard some stories, though she remembered no specifics), the area around it was prosaic at best. The main road was paved, but the few others that led to God knew where else were composed only of scattered rocks and dirt. This was hick country, and boy did Mary know it.
The parking lot itself was beginning to look just as white as everywhere else, but in a couple hours it would be plowed up before it got a chance to melt and ice over. Two whole floors of the building were dedicated to sane residents, and maintenance crews were almost always on call. Resident floor cleaners, resident snow plow drivers, resident secretaries; the only people who didn’t live there, it seemed, were the doctors and the psychiatrists; the people who did the work that the place was known for. But, she knew little of standard procedure in regards to insane asylums, or mental facilities, or crazy houses, whatever you wanted to call them; either way, she just pegged it on being remote and left it at that. As far out as this place was (the nearest town, Alcudda, had a population of 562, and was forty miles away), the parking lot managed to fill up every day. Now, however, only a few vehicles remained in the “designated resident parking area." The rest was empty.
Except, she noticed, at the far end of the lot, close to where the main road opened up to the facility. There a dark colored jeep was idling, and though the lights were on in the cabin, Mary was too far away to tell what the person on the inside was doing.
But there was at least one person in there, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he (no woman would ever idle their car in the parking lot of a mental institution, if Mary knew anything it was that) was looking right at her. A chill ran down her spine, and she dearly wanted to go back inside, but her cigarette was only half done, and God knew when she’d get a chance to run back into town to pick up another pack.
This she told herself, not consciously aware that she was blocking out memory of the coin-op cigarette dispenser in the resident lounge, which she visited every day. So it was for many of the non-crazies who resided at South Peak; a haze had fallen over them, though they had yet to notice it.
This was, of course, to the benefit of certain individuals with much larger paychecks than Mary.
“The crazy house tends to draw the crazies,” Mary told herself as she dropped the butt of her cigarette on the ground, crushing it beneath her heel. How time flies, she thought. Only a moment ago it seemed she had been worried about wasting a cigarette. Only a moment ago it had been just half burned, and since then she could not have taken more than a single puff, but sure as the clothes on her back it lay on the ground but a filter, the last of its embers choking in the cold, drowning in it, and she had her hand on the door, ready to make way for the body guiding it to go back inside.
Just as Mary made to return to her desk and her boring job, her eyes glanced upward. The snow was coming down as hard as it ever could, and would surely only get worse through the night; but somehow there was a break in the clouds, and she would not have noticed it except that, showing through them was the moon, so close to being full that she almost would have said that it was. But her first response was, “Two days.”
She didn’t understand how she could know that, had never cared much to know the specifics of the lunar calendar (did not, in fact, know that there was such a thing), but by the time she was back inside the slip of the moon had left her mind entirely, and she recalled only stepping out and smoking a cig and stepping back in.
The idling jeep and the two-days-away full moon may as well have never been there at all, and this was for the best. Because this was not the first time that she had seen that idling jeep, nor would it be the last, though that time was certainly coming; in fact, it was only two days away.

3.
Two hours later, slumped in her chair, Mary was startled awake by a ringing phone. For a moment she stared at the console as though it were an alien thing, not entirely sure what it was for, and then it all came flooding back to her.
She composed herself and lifted the phone off the hook.
“Hello, this is South Peak Mental Facility, how may I direct your call?”
No answer for a few seconds.
“Hello?”
Finally a cough, and then, “Yes, hello, sorry. I wish to set up an appointment with one of your residents.”
“Please hold.”
Mary pressed a button on the console, with a white slip next to it labeled GERALD MACKEY. The line went dead, and Mary hung up the phone.
She set her head on the table, and did not make any attempt to pretend not to be sleeping.

4.
At first, he did not hear the phone ring.
Gerald Mackey sat in a rolling chair twice as large as himself (a thing he felt asserted his authority), staring out the window at the falling snow. It had seemed to him that worlds were passing before his eyes, stars being born, living, and dying out, hundreds of thousands of years ticking away like seconds. His thoughts were in dark places, considering the things that he and his associates had done, and would do over the coming months. Perhaps even years, if all went according to plan.
It was not a moral dilemma, of course, that was keeping him up. It was the complicated nature of the acts themselves, the high probability of failure.
The possibility that he would be caught. Yes, that pretty much summed it up.
And then it occurred to him that there was a consistent noise in the background, and he turned towards the phone. An outside call was ringing, and though he had no evidence to back it up, he knew it was someone whose voice he did not want to hear.
After it rang three times, he considered that missing the call altogether might be worse, so he picked it up.
“Hello, this is Gerald Mackey,” he said, clearing his throat. He didn’t ask how he could help the caller; it was long past midnight, and anyone who would call at such times knew exactly what they wanted.
“Hello, Gerald.” A smooth, familiar voice. “I take it you know who this is.”
“Of course,” he coughed, breaking a sweat. “Yes, of course I know who you are. How could I forget?”
“Don’t talk to me in that dismissive tone. You can’t play off your fear no matter how hard you try, so stop. I can practically smell your sweat.”
“What do you want?” Gerald asked without much enthusiasm.
“I want to see him.”
Gerald scratched his head. “Who?”
“You know who!”
He flinched. “I don’t! I honestly don’t, Abraham, so please don’t yell at me!”
Silence. Then, “How is it you remember my name, but not who I brought you?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed, rubbing his face. “I’m just having a hard time remembering, that’s all.”
“You know, Gerald, I think maybe your experiments are affecting the wrong person.” He could practically see the smug smile on Abraham’s face.
“You have no idea what you are talking about. Now tell me who you want to see or leave me alone, I have business to attend to.”
A lie, of course, and both of them knew it, but it cut to the point nevertheless.
“Dade Williams.”
Spoken with the slightest hesitation. And hearing it, Gerald knew why.
Suddenly it came flowing back to him. Abraham had been an early financer of the facility, one of a handful of private investors along with several small organizations and one very large one. However, Abe’s contributions had been minimal, instead promising that he knew someone of the sort that Gerald was looking for.
Someone important, in other words.
And that person had been Dade Williams. Who now lay asleep in room 77A, alone on the entire block because all the other tenants had nearly gone insane from the nightmares they had around him. And the voices they heard, and the things that they claimed to see crawling around their rooms; the list of phenomena went on and on, but none of it could be proven because it had been personal and perceived. But Gerald, and his associates, had known exactly what happened and exactly how to fix it; move the tenants elsewhere.
Dade’s medication, so-called, could not be aborted. It was vital the experiments-
“Gerald? Why has your breathing quickened? You do know of whom I speak, correct?”
“Yes,” Gerald said quickly, “Yes godsdamnit I know who you’re talking about.”
Gods? Godsdamnit? Where had that come from?
“So then, when may I see him?”
“I can’t. You know I can’t. You know the people I work for, the people I report to, and I can’t let you see him. Can’t let you talk to him, and hell, even saying his name reeks of broken protocol.”
An impatient sigh. “Doctor, I think you’re making excuses.”
“It doesn’t matter what I say, my word is final!”
Silence.
For a long time, only breathing on the other end.
And then, “Alright. That’s fine. When the time comes,” he spoke confidently, “you’ll know I tried to go about this the legal way.”
The line went dead.
A chill ran down Gerald’s spine as he hung up the phone.

5.
He did not realize until someone knocked at his door that he was crying. Very likely had been for some time. But why? Gerald had been sitting at the window, watching the snow fall, and he had gotten a call. But by the time he picked it up, the other party had hung up –that was right, wasn’t it?
Yes, of course it was.
Gerald Mackey wiped the tears from his cheeks and called out, “Yes, come in!”
The door cracked open, but no one entered the room.
He stared for a moment, not comprehending, then said, “Come in if you’re coming in, or for God’s sake shut the damn door!”
Footsteps, slow and deliberate, leading away from the door.
It must be that damned secretary, Gerald thought. He had wanted to hire someone profoundly stupid so that they would not ask questions about the general goings-on at South Peak, especially considering most of them were unusual for such a facility and many of them were against the law. In Mary Lindell he had gotten his money’s worth, and she certainly was not the brightest bulb. She answered a mean phone, but when it came to talking to people in person, she was as shy as they came.
Gerald did not for a moment consider that the footfalls were too heavy for someone like Mary.
He stood up from his chair and his legs protested. How long had he been sitting there? It seemed to him only a few hours, but on nights like this, one never really knew. Time went by so fast when you weren’t paying attention.
The carpet felt warm beneath his feet, and Gerald realized he was not wearing shoes. How could that be? Thinking perhaps he had kicked them off while working, Gerald checked under his desk, but there was nothing. He shook his head and dismissed it entirely.
As he reached the door, Gerald found himself thinking about how nice it would be to run around outside under the moon, then stopped and told himself that it was an utterly ridiculous notion. He considered why he would think such a thing, gave up, and continued-
The lights went black and suddenly his brain was screaming in his hands and there was darkness surrounding all and there was a high whisper in the air-
HIGH AND FREE ACROSS THE SEA A PIRATE’S PIRATE SHIP ARE WE
-and it constantly repeated itself over and over, the succession forcing Mackey’s fingers into his frontal lobes, and he thought he could hear popping as his eyes left his head for greener pastures.
-toward the door. He stopped. A headache was coming on, and he wanted very much to lie down. Gerald coughed, wiped blood away from his lips (thinking it only mucus), and tried to push the door closed. He noticed, however, the corner of a box jamming it.
It was a small thing, wrapped in brown paper and tied together with twine, and scrawled in black ink across the top was a name he did not recognize
(Adrian Quist)
but he picked it up anyway, and held it in his arms as though it were a thing from another world. And distantly he thought, This thing isn’t really here. It is a fragment, like everything else, a discarded memory or a thought-
An image flashed before his eyes of a foggy glass door and a black silhouette across it, and when it vanished the package was gone and he was standing outside of his office, face against the faux oak door, a line of drool running down its surface and pooling on the floor.
Gerald’s hands were shaking, though he knew not why. He had been walking down the hallway, to go back to his room and back to sleep, and had decided to get a little bit of extra work done. Exhaustion was all it was. He fell asleep opening the door, that was what had happened.
Only there was a name on the edge of his mind, and like a child cringing away from thunder (Adrian Quist) it made his heart race to even consider it. Somewhere there was a person who bore that name, and that person was marked and hashed and important, as only certain kinds of people can be-
I WANT YOU TO LET ME GO, a scream in his head, and Gerald’s legs crumbled beneath him.
THEY’RE COMING FOR ME NOW AND YOU KNOW IT EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO, YOU CAN’T HIDE ME HERE FOREVER AND NOW I AM GOING TO DRIVE YOU MAD UNLESS YOU LET ME GO.
“I can’t!” Gerald screamed at the ceiling. “I can’t, I won’t, I refuse! This is all just a bad dream! This all just-”

6.
Locked in room 77A, Dade Williams was not smiling, but felt better than normal all the same. He was confused and scared, had been for such a large amount of time that he did could not distinctly say how long it was, and his mind was so drowned in drugs that he was no longer sure just where and when he was, but all the same he knew some things that felt like they should be optimistic.
He knew that he had been left sitting for so long that his affects were finally spreading to those who thought themselves immune.
He knew that somewhere a man was driving himself crazy with his own demons, and that this man deserved every second of it. Would bear three times as much before it was over, if Dade was given the opportunity to make it so.
And he knew that his time here was growing short. He felt it beneath the universe somewhere, ticking away as only the God Machine could. And at this last he would have smiled most, if his mind were right enough to understand the concept of smiling.
Under his breath, Dade sung, “High and free, across the sea, a pirate’s pirate ship are we.”
Two days, he thought. Just two more days.

7.
Gerald screamed and fell out of his chair.
He lay there for a few moments, entirely uncomprehending what had just run through his mind. The snow was still coming down, but it was daytime now, and he realized that he had slept through an entire night’s worth of paperwork.
He did not exactly remember the phone call, nor did he remember the specifics of the thing one could loosely call a dream, because that was just a word Gerald threw around to make himself feel better. One thing he did know, and quite vividly, was that he was angry. He felt a fool for not having noticed it sooner, and thinking back he knew that it had been around for some time. The haze of mental instability brought on by a certain individual with very malicious thoughts.
Now Gerald was angry, and he knew exactly who to blame, and had several ideas of how to make him pay.
And Dade Williams was damn well going to pay for his insubordination.
If Gerald Mackey knew anything, it was that.