Bedlam Stories by Christine Converse & Pearry Teo

Author:Christine Converse & Pearry Teo [Converse, Christine & Teo, Pearry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781492116561
Publisher: Darkhaus Press
Published: 2013-09-23T20:00:00+00:00

Nurse Ball inserted the black iron key into the keyhole and twisted it, sending the tumblers inside into an organized row. She twisted the brass knob on the door labeled “HYPNOTIC INDUCTION ROOM 1” and pushed the door open with a solid thrust of her shoulder. With a resistant groan, the heavy door on rusted hinges opened most of the way before coming to a grinding halt in the groove of the cement floor.

Nurse Ball turned back to the gurney and pulled Nellie through the doorway into the mildewed room full of machinery, water tanks, gears, wires and hoses. Nurse Alissabeth pushed the other end of the gurney in and shut the door. Her key scraped in the lock, the noise reverberating throughout the large, dank, cement chamber.

Dr. Braun poured a perfect white stream of Epsom salts into the liquid solution swishing about inside the brass tank walls. The liquid’s surface appeared to be partially solid, like curdled milk, with dissolving salt chunks.

The nurses carefully connected the straps on Nellie’s prone body to a set of dangling chains, which were attached to a pulley system. Having first been suspended in the Seclusion Room, she was now to be hoisted from the gurney and into the water in the tank. With Nellie’s body hovering inches above the water, Dr. Braun slipped a mask over her eyes, nose and mouth.

Nurse Alissabeth cranked the metal ring at the top of the oxygen tank one full turn, and cool oxygen hissed through the tubing and into Nellie’s face mask. Nurse Ball poured a bucket of warm liquid into the tank and nodded to the doctor. “Ready.” She spoke gruffly to the doctor. He noted wryly, she would not make eye contact with him. He nodded to Nurse Alissabeth, and together they lowered Nellie into the tank.

Warm water washed over Nellie, the sloshing water surrounding her instantly bringing her to a panicked consciousness. She flailed her arms and legs, crying out, into the mask.

“Nellie, calm down this instant! This is your treatment now!” Dr. Braun spoke slowly and loudly, yet Nellie could not hear a word.

As far as Nellie could discern, she was completely immersed in water, and naked save for the hoses and tubes connected to her limbs. She struggled desperately, air bubbles churning around her body.

Dr. Braun sighed. “Make sure Dorothy is in position.”

Nellie stopped thrashing long enough to peer through the milky white goggles of her mask. She could just barely make out Dr. Braun’s distorted form standing next to the tank, his hands on his hips.

Nurse Alissabeth stepped to the flotation tank adjacent to Nellie’s and peered through the windows.

“Patient Gale is ready,” she announced.

“Good. Let’s get started.”

Nellie watched the doctor lower his arms and step away. But there, in the void that he left, stood a familiar silhouette about the size of a little girl.

Dr. Braun and the nurses stepped out of the large chamber and into a separate room behind a glass window. The room contained all manner of switches, knobs and buttons that only the doctor knew how to manipulate.

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