Chapter 6: Patient File 237

Chapter 6: Patient File 237

The word “sealed” was not a dead end. To the old Leo Vance, it was a flashing neon sign that pointed directly at the truth. Elias Thorne, the archivist, was either a bureaucrat clinging to rules or a gatekeeper guarding a secret. It didn't matter which. Leo knew from experience that official channels were for people who had time, and he was running out of it. The woman in blue wasn't waiting for paperwork to be filed.

He spent the day in a fugue state, his mind a whirring engine of half-formed plans. He couldn’t afford a direct confrontation. He couldn't bribe or threaten his way in. His only currency was desperation, and his only ally was the darkness. He knew the town hall’s layout, he knew its hours. He knew that the window to the men’s restroom on the ground floor had a faulty latch. He’d noticed it absently months ago. An insignificant detail. Until now.

Night fell like a sentence. Leo waited until 2 AM, when the quiet of Blackwood Creek was at its deepest and most absolute. He left Buster locked in the house, a decision that felt like abandoning his only soldier, but the dog’s frantic whining would have given him away. Dressed in black, a small flashlight in his pocket, he slipped through the sleeping town like a wraith.

The restroom window latch gave with a soft, metallic sigh. He was inside. The air was cold and smelled of stale cleaning products. Every footstep on the linoleum floor was a thunderclap to his own ears. He made his way to the basement door, his flashlight beam cutting a nervous, trembling path through the oppressive dark.

The archives were a different entity at night. In the daylight, they were dusty and forgotten. In the dark, they were a tomb. The towering shelves of records loomed like ancient monoliths, their contents the fossilized remains of countless lives. The air was heavy, still, and colder than the rest of the building. His flashlight beam danced over cardboard boxes and leather-bound ledgers, their titles faded with age: Tax Rolls 1920-1940. County Zoning Permits. Public Works.

He moved with a hunter’s focus, his fear a cold, hard stone in his gut, but his purpose a sharper edge. He was looking for the Asylum. He found the section in the far corner, a stack of drab, grey document boxes shoved almost as an afterthought behind a cabinet of pre-war property deeds. The labels were handwritten, the ink faded to a ghostly brown. Blackwood State Asylum: Staffing & Payroll 1950-1965. Blackwood State Asylum: Procurement & Supplies 1948-1960.

He pulled down a box labelled Patient Records: Intake & Discharge 1951-1955, the cardboard gritty under his fingers. It was heavier than he expected. He settled on the dusty floor, crossing his legs, and placed the flashlight on a nearby box so its beam illuminated his grim workspace. He lifted the lid. The smell of decaying paper, acidic and sweet, wafted out.

The files were thin manila folders, each with a name and a number typed on the tab. He started at the front, his fingers working quickly, scanning the pages within. Most were tragic in their mundane cruelty. Men committed for "melancholia." Women for "nervous disposition." Lives dismissed and filed away. He was looking for a ghost. He was looking for Bluebell.

His search was guided by a grim checklist formed from his nightmares. Female. Admitted in the 1950s. Cause of death: a fall. He worked through dozens of files. Agnes Parker. Dorothy Schmidt. Mildred Crane. Nothing fit. His hope began to fray, the cold dread seeping back in. What if the legend was just a legend? What if the files were incomplete?

Then he saw it. Tucked near the back of the box, a folder that was slightly thicker than the rest. The tab was crisp, the typing precise.

Hemlock, Elara. File #237.

The name meant nothing to him, yet it felt like a key turning in a lock deep inside his mind. He pulled it out, his breath catching in his throat. He opened the folder.

The first page was an intake form, dated May 12th, 1956. A photograph was stapled to the corner. The woman in the picture was beautiful, with wide, intelligent eyes and dark hair elegantly styled. There was a sadness in her gaze, a tension around her mouth, but she was vibrantly, breathtakingly alive. It was her. He knew it was her, even without the decay, without the horror. This was the woman she was before she was broken.

Name: Elara Hemlock. Age: 27. Admitted by: Mr. Alistair Hemlock (Husband). Reason for Committal: Acute female hysteria. Paranoia. Violent emotional outbursts.

The clinical, dismissive language made his stomach clench. He flipped the page. A series of doctor’s notes, written in an arrogant, sloping script. Patient is agitated, non-compliant. Prone to elaborate fantasies regarding her home life. Believes she is being persecuted. Standard sedative regimen initiated. It was a textbook case of a powerful man having an inconvenient wife erased.

He kept reading, his flashlight beam shaking slightly. The notes chronicled three weeks of her "treatment." Then, the entries stopped. The last page in the file was a different kind of document. An official incident report, typed on the asylum director’s letterhead, dated June 3rd, 1956.

It is with profound regret that I must report a tragic incident. At approximately 10:45 PM, Patient 237, Elara Hemlock, gained access to the third-floor solarium. It is believed she became disoriented and suffered an accidental fall from an open window, resulting in her immediate death upon impact with the courtyard below. A full investigation has concluded, finding no evidence of foul play.

An accidental fall. The official story. The lie.

Stapled behind the report was a single, flimsy sheet of carbon paper—a copy of the preliminary coroner’s findings. It was a cold, brutal list of injuries. A catalogue of horror. And as Leo read it, the pieces of his own personal nightmare slammed into place with sickening precision.

1. Massive comminuted fracture of the occipital bone and posterior cranium. The caved-in skull. The horrifying ruin he had seen on that first misty morning.

2. Complete fracture and severe dislocation of the left temporomandibular joint. The unhinged jaw. The source of that wet, obscene clicking.

He had to stop, forcing himself to take a ragged breath. His eyes scanned down the list, his blood running cold as he found the last major entry.

3. Extreme torsion fracture and dislocation of the C1 and C2 vertebrae. A broken neck. An injury so violent it would allow the head to be twisted into an impossible position. The grotesque, 180-degree turn he had seen at his back gate.

This was not a fall. A fall shatters limbs, fractures a skull, but it doesn't do all of this. This was a beating. A savage, brutal murder, disguised as a clumsy accident. They hadn't just killed Elara Hemlock; they had systematically dismantled her, breaking her bone by bone, and then they had written a one-page report to erase the crime.

He sat there in the crushing silence of the archives, the file resting in his lap, the truth a physical weight upon him. He had her name. He had her story. He had the proof of her murder.

And as that final realization settled over him, the air in the basement changed.

The cold, which had been a damp, ambient chill, suddenly became sharp, predatory. It bit at his exposed skin, a deep, penetrating cold that felt like it was radiating from the marrow of his own bones. He could see his breath, a white plume in the flashlight’s beam. The single, bare bulb that lit the basement stairs, twenty feet away, flickered once, twice, and then went out, plunging him into absolute darkness save for his trembling light.

His heart seized. He wasn't alone.

From the far end of the archive aisle, from the deepest, darkest corner of the tomb-like room, a sound emerged. It was quiet, tentative at first, then clearer, slicing through the profound silence.

Click.

Tck-click.

Click.

It was her. She was here. Not on a path, not at his gate, but here, with him, in the dark, surrounded by the paper remnants of her stolen life. He had found her truth, and she had found him.