Escape from a Nightmare

Silently, I thought about that Halloween Day that seemed so long ago.

Lane took the children to my parent's house for candy, and I stayed home.

Lane took our daughter and Will; yes, now I remember. My son's name is William, but we call him Will. We named him after his grandfather, Will Sinclair. My father always claimed he was a descendant of a Knights Templar with the same last name. Sinclair, that's my maiden name.

"Oh, don't fail me now, memory. I remember a chant when I was a little girl. Now how did it go?"

My thoughts were speeding up, bouncing around in my head, crashing into each other. But I remembered the chant girls sang with our names in it while jumping rope.

I said it out loud.

"Lucy, Lucy, bo-bucy

Banana-fana fo-fucy

Fee-fi-mo-mucy

Lucy!"

I screamed, "I remember, my name is Lucy Thomas, and I'm married to Lane Thomas, and our son is named Will, and Betty, our daughter is Betty, and I'm a nurse in the pediatric department. These items on the table are for IVs."

I was sobbing now, and tears poured down my cheeks.

"Was that the puzzle I had to solve, remembering who I am? If it is, nothing's happened. What am I missing?"

Whoosh, clink, clunk. "Trick-or-treat." The voices were getting fainter.

"What is that sound? I've heard it before at the hospital."

I stood up and walked around the room, pushing against all the walls and jumping on the floor, but nothing was there. The only exit led back to the path.

"Is there a different path I need to take?"

I sat back down and recalled my entire journey until I sat in this chair.

First, the green room where the voices were the loudest and the torture with a hatpin.

Then, the metal box section that vibrated and bounced, followed by the dark metal bars rising to the sky.

Then the operating room with the torture and rape, followed by the dark.

Then the bars? Bars, like on a hospital bed, and all the pricks of needles, pokes, and prods. Just like an examination by a doctor.

Lastly, this room. "What have I missed?"

"THE DARK! I never went through either doorway in the dark. I stepped into a hole once but went back to the beginning. I was too afraid of what was behind the doorway to go in. But nothing ever came out of either door and grabbed me like the rest of the trail."

I was excited yet fearful.

"So that has to be the solution. I must go through a doorway in the dark."

Whoosh, clink, clunk. It repeated every three seconds and sounded like a mechanical device, but what was it?

The children's voices saying, "Trick-or-treat," were almost inaudible.

I took a deep breath and began retracing my steps toward the dark. When I reached the silver bars at a 45° angle, I relaxed and let the hands take me and do whatever they wanted as I focused on my goal.

I was right. This place looked and smelled like a hospital, and everything done to me was familiar to me by my profession. Soon enough, I was released, and I continued until I reached the edge of the dark.

I closed my eyes to avoid the holes in the floor and walked to the opening on my right.

"Here goes nothing."

Everything went black when I stepped through the doorway, so I opened my eyes. I was alone in the operating room.

I walked through a double door into a hallway with many doors on both sides. Some were open, but most were closed. It seemed like a hospital, but I knew it was an insane asylum.

I heard screaming and followed the sound to a closed door. I immediately opened the door to see the snake woman with black hair.

She was on top of an older man. Her hands wrapped around his neck were choking the life out of him.

I looked around for something I could use, and all I found was a mop. Nervously, I picked it up with both hands and approached the bitch. She turned her head and growled at me.

Remembering all the pain she inflicted on me, I viciously jabbed her in the ribs with the end of the wooden handle. She fell off the man onto the floor and curled up on her stomach. I raised the mop and began striking her on her head.

When she stopped struggling, I rolled her over on her back. She was still breathing, so I pressed the end of the mop down on her throat. Her eyes opened, and she struggled to push the handle away. I was angry, and nothing could stop me from carrying out my revenge.

Pushing down with all my weight, the mop end tore through her larynx with a squirt of blood. I watched the life in her eyes disappear.

I turned to see if I could help the man, but he was gone as if he had never existed. I returned to the hallway and continued looking for a way out.

Whoosh, clink, clunk, only it was a little louder now, and I felt something moving in my chest.

The next room had an open door, and I went in. The doctor with dead black eyes was watching something on TV with his back to the door.

I found a scalpel on a cart and without any remorse, I stabbed him in the neck. Blood splattered everywhere, gushing out in streams.

He was still able to stand up and stagger toward me with his arms out. As his black eyes clouded over, I backed away, laughing. I was in the hallway when he finally collapsed, and the blood stopped squirting.

Whoosh, clink, clunk. "Trick-or-treat." The voices were almost gone this time, and the sounds were louder.

I didn't feel like I was breathing, even though I could see my lungs expanding and contracting.

I didn't see anyone else before reaching the end of the hallway. Another hallway created a T-shaped intersection.

To my left was a door with a sign above it that read EXIT. I pushed the bar to open it, but nothing happened. I wasn't upset because I felt I had one more thing to do before I was free.

Whoosh, clink, clunk.

Turning around, I went down the other way until reaching a door with a large pane of frosted glass. Printed in gold leaf on the glass was a name, Dr. Finkel. I opened the door, and the office was empty.

I was about to turn around and leave when I heard yelling from the hallway I had come from. I closed the door and hid in the closet.

Leaning against the wall next to me was the double-barrel shotgun I gave Lane for his 30th birthday. I paid extra to have his name carved into both sides of the wooden stock. I picked it up and must have handled it in the past because I knew how to open the breach. Both chambers were loaded, so I closed the closet door and waited.

I was excited now, and mentally I tried to draw Doctor 'Red Eyes' into his office.

It wasn't long before the office door opened, and I heard nervous footsteps accompanied by incoherent mumbling. The sound of him picking up the telephone was my cue, so I opened the door and cocked both barrels of the shotgun.

The scary creature with red eyes who tortured me turned toward me, and he looked terrified, and he hung up the phone and began pleading hysterically.

I put the first shot into his midsection, and he fell back against the wall bleeding heavily from his wound. He started to beg for his life as I stepped toward him and inserted the barrel into his open mouth.

"Now, it's my turn. Can you give me what I want, Doctor?"

He blubbered and cried, so I growled, "Wrong answer, Doc," and pulled the second trigger, blowing his brains all over the wall.

I felt faint, and all my anger was gone, so I dropped the shotgun before collapsing across the desk. Somehow the phone made its way into my hand, and I dialed my phone number.

I tried, but I couldn't speak. I could hear a voice on the other end saying hello repeatedly, then calling out my name.

"Lucy, is that you? Don't hang up so we can trace the call."

I couldn't speak or move.

Whoosh, clink, clunk.

I cried out in a whisper, "I don't understand. Is there something else I have to do?"

The voices were gone, but the noise remained, and my breathing was mechanical, keeping time with the noise.

Whoosh, clink, clunk.

I closed my eyes, and a picture I hadn't seen on this journey appeared to me. I was standing next to Lane, with Will and Betty standing in front of us.

I realized that being reunited with my family in the photo was part of the puzzle I had to solve.

Now I had to reunite with them physically.

I stood up and felt incredibly light as I walked toward the exit door, but when I looked back, I could see myself slumped over the desk, with the doctor on the floor covered in blood.

Whoosh, clink, clunk.

I tried to push the door open, but it didn't move. For a second, I gave up.

What did I miss?

Whoosh, clink, clunk.

The rest of my memory returned.

I have been in a coma for years; I'm not sure how many.

Of course, ten years have passed. That's what the chalkboard was for.

How do I leave?

My voice sounded different as I answered my question out loud.

"I have to return to the end of the path."

As I retraced my steps toward the end of the path, the shiny bars were gone. Of course, I didn't need them any more. I was done with hospital tests.

I felt nervous and excited at the same time, wondering if something else would slow down my journey.

As I re-entered the circular room, the table and chair were gone, replaced by a hospital bed with a woman lying in it. I recognized the room; it was my room growing up.

Whoosh, clink, clunk.

Something pulled me to the bed, and our bodies merged when I touched the woman. I saw Lane and my children beside me, and the rest of my family gathered around the bed, laughing and crying and reaching toward me.

A somber voice I didn't recognize spoke to me, "What imprisoned you on All Hallows Eve has released you on All Hallows Eve."

I smiled at my family with my eyes open and raised my hands above my head as I heard that sound, Whoosh, clink, clunk, for the last time.

*****

A story appeared in the obituary section of the Washington Post on November 1, 2016, and dealt with a tragedy that began on Halloween night ten years earlier.

'Yesterday, October 31^st, Lucille Bennett Sinclair-Thomas, age 38, died in her mother's home at 6:06 PM. She is survived by her husband, Lane Thomas; two teenage children; her parents, Arthur and Lindsay Sinclair; three brothers, Russell, James, and Joshua and one sister Laura.

Many residents of the area may remember that on Halloween evening ten years ago, intruders broke into the Thomas home through a downstairs window. Mrs. Thomas was alone in the house while her husband and children were trick or treating at her parent's house.

When the burglars left the Thomas household, they took Mrs. Thomas and over $24,000 of property from the house.

After the police were notified, hundreds of volunteers searched the immediate area, knocking on doors and searching the forest. After seven days, a phone call led police to Riverside Asylum in the next state, where Mrs. Thomas was found unresponsive and showed signs of unspeakable torture. Three bodies were found inside the asylum, two men and one woman, who were identified as the perpetrators of the burglary and abduction of poor Lucy.

All employees and inmates were interviewed, yet only one spoke up and told a story that shocked seasoned investigators. The inmate, who had been a patient for ten years, revealed the secrets of the three dead.

With information he provided to police, a search was conducted on the asylum grounds, and the bodies of 11 women were found buried at the rear of the property. DNA testing confirmed that nine of the women had been reported missing in the previous two years. The remaining two bodies were never identified.

Authorities never connected them together because they were scattered in seven different jurisdictions.

Mrs. Thomas was diagnosed as comatose and unresponsive when examined following her rescue. For two years, doctors ran every test possible, and many treatments were tried, with no success in waking her up. When nothing more could be done to help poor Lucy, she was released into her parent's care at their home. While Lucy's husband, Lane, raised the children, Mrs. Sinclair and round-the-clock nurses took care of Lucy.

Shortly after arriving at her mother's home, Mrs. Thomas had a stroke and had to be put on a ventilator. Despite round-the-clock nursing care and physical therapy in her parents' home, Mrs. Thomas has never shown any signs of waking up except one day a year.

This reporter learned through an unnamed family source that for 364 days of a year, Mrs. Thomas's EEG showed stage 4 brain activity, or deep sleep. But on Halloween each year, her EEG showed increased brain activity, even though she never moved or spoke.

An anonymous source in the neurology department at State hospital, who was familiar with Mrs. Thomas's case, told this reporter, "The brain activity recorded on Halloween every year was exactly like that of any person who was wide awake. I can only speculate that her cerebral cortex woke her up every Halloween and then put her back to sleep for the rest of the year."

Last night when I heard of her death, I called my family source and asked if she woke up before passing?

I was told, "Yes, her eyes traveled around the room and looked at everyone before stopping and looking at her husband and two children. In addition, she appeared to smile even though the ventilator was still in place, and for the last time, she closed her eyes."

We will never know what happened during her seven days as a prisoner, but she is at peace now.

Ernest Amway

Star Staff Reporter

*****