Tales from the Lake by Jack Ketchum

Author:Jack Ketchum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook, QuarkXPress
ISBN: 978-1-944783-31-0
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Published: 2022-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

DESCENDING

John Whalen

Lichfield Psychiatric Hospital had its secrets. However, as was true with most institutions, the majority of those secrets were forgotten in the bowels of file cabinets and resigned to the recollections of select veteran employees. The elevator murder of 1974 was not typical in this regard. Indeed, it was known by every member of the Lichfield staff as the greatest of the hospital’s mysteries. Though many explanations were proposed, none were able to fully discredit the event as something singular and tragic. Intrinsically, many believed the evil responsible to still be at large, waiting in the deep recesses of the elevator shaft.

James Miller had heard about the murder far too many times. It was beyond getting old at this point. The version he was told involved a particularly violent patient who had gotten loose and somehow managed to hide in the elevator shafts. Were there holes in the story? Of course. But it was the story he was told first, and the one he was told most. In fact, James heard it nearly every day from Henry the janitor on his path through the hospital to work.

“And when the doors opened that morning poor Mack’s body was so slashed up that the blood poured out on the fifth floor. Could you imagine that,” he laughed nervously, “all those crazies getting a load of that to start off their day?” Henry paused for approval, but James showed all the signs of a man in a hurry.

Frustrated that Henry was not getting the picture, James quickened his pace. “But it was grisly,” Henry said with a sort of needing. “Just plain gruesome.” He attempted a dramatized shivering noise, but was so short of breath from pushing his janitorial cart fast enough to keep up, that it came out an awkward exhale.

James inched toward the elevator door with every word the janitor spoke, and with every inch, Henry spoke louder and faster. “You couldn’t get me to go in that elevator for the life of me. No sir, I take the stairs when I can. And when I’ve got my equipment, I go around to the main elevator near the lobby.” Everyone talked about it from time to time, but Henry lived it. His attitude and ritualistic behavior in regard to the event revealed an apparent paranoid streak in the old man. James knew it well enough from his job as an orderly for the patients on the tenth floor.

“But Henry, that’s half way through the entire hospital,” James reminded him. “You walk that far out of your way because of something that happened 30 years ago?”

“See that’s the thing! They never—”

“I know, I know. They never caught him. I’m sorry but I’ve heard it a million times. I get the tragic unsolved crime thing, but it’s been so long since it happened.”

“Jimmy, who’s to say he didn’t hide in the elevator shafts? It’s a big hospital, and you know about the basement?”

“Yes, I know.” James pressed the button repeatedly. “Listen, Henry, I like talking to you, man, but I really need to take a rain check.

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