Sorrel's Long Journey to Love Ch. 12

As a result of Mildred's excessive exuberance Sorrel had been transported to Hadamar; a maximum security institution for the criminally insane; an institution, from its inception, known as the worst possible place any patient might ever be drawn into or in Sorrel's case, compelled to enter. Even the name, taken from a Nazi place of horror, conjured the most frightening images. This was the kind of place a person entered, but from which they never returned.

Originally intended as a staging area for people in need of unique interrogation techniques; a place where inmates could be processed in special ways, usually for departure to foreign countries where more macabre cross examination procedures could be employed. Since its first creation in the 1970's Hadamar had been refined, improved, and reshaped in fiendishly new ways.

With time its first role had been expanded to include more ambitious activities. Secret officials interested in securing additional funds had progressively extended and refined its purpose. Instead of a half way house restricted to the strange bedfellows covert operatives happened across it had grown into a mentally invasive investigative center. From simple investigation it evolved as a facility equipped to employ techniques that encouraged the most exotic extremes in behavior modification. Then from behavior modification came the penultimate attribute, the permanent alteration, erasure, of selected patient's physiologies through the implementation of the most controversial of surgical procedures.

It was this last category of activities for which Sorrel was intended. For Sorrel Hadamar was not a staging area, not a storage unit, nor some benign halfway house. For Sorrel Hadamar was no simple stopover; it was her terminus, her final destination.

At Hadamar Sorrel was to be permanently, biologically, mentally, psychologically changed. Using techniques developed in the 1920's and 1930's Sorrel was to be transformed from a vibrant vivacious active living breathing beautiful young woman to a near lifeless inert expressionless vegetable. In so doing anything she ever knew or ever could know was to be forever eradicated, expunged.

It took special kinds of people to work at Hadamar. Some served as medical personnel, others as security of clerical operatives.

Of course many people, men and women, have entered the medical professions as a way to improve the lives of their fellow human beings. Yet in truth, there have been some who have used their medical training to sublimate baser, more feral, inclinations. Everyone has read the disquieting stories of those doctors who worked for the Nazis during World War Two. No one who studied history could ever forget the 'Angel of Death', Dr. Mengele; his horrid pseudo-experiments at Auschwitz, or the cold blooded way he dispatched countless thousands of children to their deaths.

People can never know how many caring wonderful doctors, world famous surgeons, respected internists might have become sadistic monsters; savages using primitive home made tools to hack, slice and maim innocent lives. Cruder interests in carving meat, human meat, have certainly been redirected by societal prohibitions; the meanest most vicious inclinations sublimated by the medical profession into positive outlets.

Does anyone ever really know what demons might lay at the root of any person's true behavior? It has long been common knowledge grieving ancient Egyptian families withheld their daughters from the Houses of the Dead until rigor mortis had thoroughly set in. Can anyone say how many morticians are at heart necrophiles; interested more in touching, defiling, and debasing their dead clients than in preparing a loved one for their final rest?

Tradition has long held that law enforcement is one of the noblest professions. Yet do some policemen really only join the force for the chance to handcuff nubile young girl's hands behind their backs so unopposed they might fondle helpless supple breasts.

Do some doctors deliberately turn the air conditioning lower when a pretty girl comes for a visit only so they can watch in perverted glee the girl's self conscious discomfort as she tries to conceal nipples deliciously extruding in the cooler environment?

Has there ever been the caring nurse who deliberately waited until well after the comforting affects of the drugs they are trusted to inject had worn off before introducing a new round of soothing medication. Has anyone ever been in hospital knowing there was one nurse who took secret, furtive, delight in seeing the pain, before condescending to the relief the desperately sought medication would bring?

Of course, to even consider that someone in one of the caring professions might derive pleasure from the pain they've been trained to ameliorate would be vigorously, no vociferously, denied. But doctors, nurses, and all care givers, come from the same gene pool that produces society's worst criminals. Is it conceivable once in a while some sick deviant does find his or her way into the healing professions? The answer to that question is a redounding yes!

Then if that is the case, what if there was a place, an institution, where such people might be allowed to congregate. What if there was such a facility where the sickest, most perverted, most muddled minds might gather to feast on the helpless, the infirm, the trusting, and the vulnerable needy? Would, could such a facility ever exist?

Of course, the answer to that question would be obvious to anyone who has read the foregoing chapters of this story. For that was exactly the kind of facility Hadamar had become; yes, certainly a home for the criminally insane! But the real deviants weren't the patients; the real monsters were the care givers!

A visit to Hadamar, even by the most casual observer, would have revealed an institution so fundamentally different in the way it conducted its daily operations, so despicable in its standard patient care, so diseased in the way medical treatment was administered, that it would induce such profound revulsion as to be nauseatingly sickening to even the stoutest of hearts.

Tragically, on the fifth floor of this modern Tartarus, this Twenty-first Century Gahanna, a pretty protagonist lay in despondent half sleep feebly twisting and turning in deliberately over tightened straps and maliciously fitted undersized garments. Had she committed some terrible misdeed, performed some awful crime? No, poor Sorrel's only crimes had been her innocent determination to do her very best, to avoid senseless office complications, to seek the means by which she might reclaim her children, and to work assiduously, determinedly, toward the completion of a project that would have been beneficial to millions.

Sorrel's crimes weren't of her own choosing. Her crimes were rooted in her natural beauty, her selfless grace, her feminine purity, her womanly charm, and her fundamental goodness. The normally beneficent things that brought good people good will had become sources of jealousy and envy for some few of those around her. Her crimes had been her lack of sophistication, her failure to cultivate the influential and the powerful , and these things, in her trusting innocence, contributed to a vulnerability, a belief in the goodness of others, that enabled those same others to exploit, to torment, even perhaps destroy her.

Would this innocent young woman, so pure of spirit, kind of heart, of such gentle nature, be stripped of her identity, her life, her personhood? Was there anyone, anywhere, ready to stand against the malignant forces that had placed her in such jeopardy? If there was such a person, where was he?

Fletcher awakened early. He knew the private detectives would be several hours away, so he used the time to get a good view of the place Sorrel where was confined. The first time around he knew this was no place for someone like Sorrel. The sign 'Hospital for the Criminally Insane' was proof of that.

The front looked like a steel trap; a veritable Fort Knox. He couldn't imagine anyone placing a mental facility above a cemetery. It was as though he were glimpsing a mortuary sitting atop a gruesome field of cadavers.

Thankfully, the rearward areas weren't nearly so forbidding, even if everywhere he looked he saw evidence of high chain linked fencing and electronic surveillance equipment. The fencing didn't worry him; a good set of snips would manage that. He might be in his thirties, and he might not have kept up with his more youthful exercise regimen but he was still a pretty strong fellow, still reasonably agile. Breaking through the fencing could be handled.

What did bother him was the surveillance equipment, and the off hand chance that portions, if not all the fencing was in some way electrified. He realized this was a high security, government operated, interrogation operation; a fortress not easily breached, anything was possible. But his sweetheart, his 'Helen', was inside. It behooved him to batter down its walls.

Fletcher was proud of his country, but he understood what most Americans hadn't; that most of his country's technology had been devoted more for destructive than productive goals. Had this been a college or university corners would have been cut at every turn, but never at a place like this.

He circled the place three times trying to find the most likely place to break in. It looked tight as a drum, but still he imagined he saw at least two places where he, if he had some help, might be able to at least penetrate the outer perimeter.

Actually, where to get in the building once inside the fence was still a mystery; a conundrum he'd have to resolve later. He hoped perhaps Florence, or maybe Warren, would come up with some kind of floor plan; some way to get inside. Once inside he'd figure something out. He'd manage some way to locate her, his Sorrel.

He had to control his emotions. From time to time his imagination got away from him. He imagined what they might be doing to her, and it scared the hell out of him. Were they cutting up her brain? What if they were trying all kinds of sick experiments on her? What would she be like when they finished with her? What would her mind be like? If he didn't get to her in time what would he tell his children, all his children?? It scared him. He had to get in there. Still, even if he was too late, and even if she was some kind of lost soul, he'd care for her, he'd love her no matter what. It frightened him, but he had to put it out of his mind. If he didn't he'd end up so paralyzed with fear he'd be unable to get anything done.

A little after 10:00 that morning several detectives did finally show up. Their overall appearance wasn't very comforting. He thought they acted like this was the last place they wanted to be.

Fletcher asked the lead detective if any of them had ever heard of the place.

The leader, an older, somewhat overweight man, responded that none of them had ever heard of the institution, and none of them even knew anything like it even existed.

At Fletcher's request their boss called his home office to get as much information about the place as they could; it took several minutes before they got a return call. What they found out was most disheartening.

Earlier that very morning, perhaps an hour before Fletcher had risen three nurses entered Sorrel's room and had awakened her. This was the third room she'd occupied in as many days, or at least that was what she thought. For Sorrel the days and nights had somehow seemed to bleed together. Had she been there one, two, three nights? She just didn't know.

In this room they'd confined her to a small bed with soft but tight Velcro straps. Both wrists and both ankles were held snugly, most uncomfortably, and tightly to the sides of the bed. She hadn't slept well spread eagled as she was, or at least she didn't believe she'd slept well. She had no idea what sedatives she'd been given.

She was still wearing the same kind of simple hospital gown she thought was tied in the back. She knew it was uncomfortable in as much as it had managed to wrap itself around her torso in the most discomfiting ways during the night.

Three women entered her room. She assumed they were nurses; at least that was how they were dressed. No one spoke to her. The woman who must have been in charge instructed the other two to unstrap her and assist her to a bedpan they proffered her. Sorrel was glad for the chance to get a little relief.

She asked, "Might I have something to drink?"

No one responded to her question so she asked again.

"See here, I'm thirsty, might I have at least a glass of water?"

To her surprise the head nurse, if nurse she was, reached down, pressed her hand on her breast, and pinched her nipple, "No talking."

Sorrel jumped slightly and after an involuntary ouch replied, "You didn't have to do that."

She watched as the three women glanced back and forth at each other. Sorrel knew she'd better be quiet. These weren't real nurses. She didn't know what or who they were, but she knew they weren't nurses, not like the ones she'd known anyway.

They got her up and walked her to the rear of the room to a door she hadn't noticed before. While one opened the door the other two pushed and handed her into a shower room. One turned on the shower, while the other opened a tube of what she assumed was some kind of cleanser.

For next ten minutes or so the nurses scrubbed her from head to foot. They didn't miss a single spot. She thought they dwelt overlong on her private parts, but that wasn't the worst of it. The soap they used seemed more like toothpaste than cleanser; all very abrasive and uncomfortable. It felt like they were trying to scrub her surface skin away.

Once finished her shower they half walked half pushed her back in the room. She was thoroughly dried and placed in another of those hospital outfits. Once tied off in the back they helped her slip into some soft slippers, combed out her hair, and unceremoniously lifted and laid her on a gurney she hadn't seen brought in.

They strapped her down. As they tied her, the woman who was the head of the group spoke to her for the first time.

She looked smugly down at Sorrel and said, "Today's your big day."

Sorrel grabbed at the remark, "Why? What happens today?"

The other two nurses were smiling. The head nurse added, "Do you know who you are?"

Sorrel answered, "Yes, of course."

"You know your name?"

Sorrel replied, "Of course I do."

You know where you're from, who you work for, who your friends are?"

Sorrel was getting scared, "Why are you asking me this?" She asked, but in her heart she already knew.

The head nurse answered, "After today you'll be lucky if you'll be able to count to ten without getting it wrong."

Sorrel heard what she said. She'd been afraid of this. She struggled with the straps that held her hands and feet, "Let me go!"

To her surprise the head nurse slapped her, hard on the cheek. "Shut up!"

Sorrel wasn't deterred, "No! You've got to stop. This is a mistake. I'm not who you think. I'm not supposed to be here!"

The nurses slowly and deliberately wheeled her down the corridor. Every now and then an orderly or she believed they were orderlies, passed them in the hall.

Sorrel grew more frantic with every step. She kept calling out, "You've got to stop! I'm not supposed to be here! You're making a mistake! I'm not what you think!" Between her calls, her appeals, and her entreaties she cried.

The nurses who pushed her cart seemed to be enjoying every moment, every cry, every pathetic plea. At some point they reached another door. The head nurse opened it, and they wheeled her in.

As Sorrel crossed the threshold from hallway to room she read the sign; 'Experimental Lab A'. She started to scream!

Outside, somewhere on the edge of the wooded area and outside the fence Fletcher waited impatiently while the head detective first talked and then listened to someone on his cell phone.

The man flipped his phone closed, "Mr. Hanson."

"Yes, answered Fletcher.

"I've been instructed to leave."

"Leave?" asked Fletcher incredulously.

"Yes, it seems this institution really doesn't exist."

Fletcher looked at the man like he was crazy, "What do you doesn't exist? You can see it right in front of you."

The man looked at the fencing, then he looked at Fletcher, "No, I don't see anything."

Fletcher took the man by the shoulder and tried to walk him away from the other men, "Tell me what you were told."

The detective declined to move. He refused to look at Fletcher. He turned to his colleagues, "All of you get in the car."

Fletcher tried to hold him, "You can't do this."

The man backed away; as he started for his car he spoke, "You're in way over your head. I suggest that you forget you ever saw this place. Forget about anyone you ever knew who went in there. This place doesn't exist, and anyone you think you know who might have ever gone in there no longer exists."

Fletcher was disbelieving, "You can't mean that."

The detective, a leader in one of the nation's top private firms only shook his head, "Get out of here. Get out while you still can." He climbed in his car, backed it up, turned it around and drove off.

Sorrel screamed all the way into the lab room. She yelled. She hollered. She cursed. She cried. She made as much noise as she possibly could. She was determined they weren't going to cut her up, Not her! She'd fight. She'd fight them! She'd fight with every ounce of strength. She was fighting for her life!

In a nearby room one of the orderlies attached to her case asked, "What is that baleful noise?"

Another answered, "Oh you get used to it. Once they find out, they usually do a lot of yelling and screaming."

The first asked, "Yeah, but why do we have to put up with it?"

The second responded, "Look wouldn't you yell and scream if you found out they were going to cut away your personality, and leave you a lifeless hulk, a freak?"

The first answered, "Well, yeah, I guess so, but it's giving me a headache."

The second suggested, "Well come on, the doctor isn't due for a while yet. You want to go in and look her over? I hear she's not bad."

"OK," said the second.

The two orderlies walked in the room. Sorrel's gurney had been parked against the far wall. She lay there screaming and yelling. The two young men walked over.

"Wow," said the first, "She's beautiful!"

The second looked at his new friend, "You want her?"

"What do you mean?" asked the first.

"After they're done with her, we'll roll her back to a storage cell. They'll leave her there for a few days. We get to do anything we want."

The first asked, "Won't she be sort of like dead?"

The second replied, "She won't know who she was. She won't be able to say much, at least not much that makes sense, but her body will be working fine. In fact, I think they're better after the surgery than before. You know no inhibitions, hardly."

The first was starting to think about what it would be like to have this woman, "What about now?"

The second orderly answered, "No, she's the doctor's for now."

The first asked, "What, he does her first?"

The second replied, "Not this doctor. He's really fucked up. He does things, but not sexual stuff. He just does stuff. Stuff I wouldn't do."

The first asked, "Really? Like what?"

The second looked at his young friend, "Not now, not before lunch, I'll tell you later. In fact, if it's like the last time we'll get to watch, not really watch I mean, but we'll see it from a little further off. This doctor, he's one sick man."

The two orderlies looked down on the young woman as she lay there bound, screaming, and writhing.