Visiting Day

A Chapter by The Protagonist

This is one chapter from a novel I'm currently working on. I would just like to see how it's received. Please review.

“Wake up, Hunter. Oh Haven’t we got a surprise for you?” Conrad shouts mockingly, turning to Gamble and laughing as he slams open my cell door. Gamble stands with his broad shoulders back and his thumbs looped into his white scrubs. His big belly quivers as he giggles. “Oh yeah, Hunt, big one for you. Never thought we’d see the day, eh, Conrad?” He mocked.

“Not at all, Gamble. I’m sure she’ll be just as shocked as we are,” Conrad laughed as he fiddled with the keys in the cell door.

“Well, it’s all good and well to know that you two pricks have had your caffeine this morning, but some of us are trying to sleep here. Isn’t this place punishment enough?” I sighed and wriggled on the hard sponge they call a mattress.

The two of them exchanged a look and laughed. Something’s up, I know it. Something bad for me, judging by how much they seem to be enjoying the honour of giving me the news.

“You wanna give her the good news, Gamble?” Conrad chuckled obnoxiously and punched Gamble playfully.

“Nah, nah, Conrad, I insist.” He punched him back, then laughed with his hands on his belly. He reminded me of Santa. You know, if Santa had type 2 diabetes and apparently had his hair cut by a blind guy with Parkinson’s disorder.

“Now, Gamble, I got to tell her when she was getting paired with the Jesus freak for arts and crafts. It’s only fair.” Conrad served another playful punch.

“But, Conrad, I got the last bagel this morning. You take this one, you’ve earned it” Gamble replied as he placed one hand on Conrad’s shoulder, the other on his heart.

“That’s very kind, Gamble, but ""

“A******s!!” I interrupted. By now I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my chin in my hands, eyes half-open, patiently watching the rally. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Can’t do that, Hunt, you’ve gotta get ready,” Conrad smiled.

“Yeah, Hunt, you’re on the list today.”

I raised my head, hands still open towards the fluorescent lights as if they were just waiting to catch my head again. “What? The visiting list? I have a visitor? Who?” I asked, shocked, scared and anxious all at once.

“A Victor Creed it says. Now, hurry up, visiting opens at 12,” Conrad orders as he leads Gamble out of my cell. “See you here at quarter to.”

I straightened down my clothes as I paced my cell, glancing at 5 second intervals through the Plexiglass window in the door at the clock on the wall opposite. My palms were moist and there was a heat in the room I’d never noticed before, in all my 2 years being there. It had left 5 to 12 and there was still no sign of Dumb or Dumber. I began to wonder if they were just playing with me. Victor Creed. Could've been a made up name.

“Sorry about the wait, sunshine. Someone said the big kid’s name, you know how it goes.” I swear it was the happiest I’d ever been to hear the sound of Conrad’s voice. Not so happy to see his beady eyes and ugly hooked nose peering through the Plexiglass. “Aw, pet. You look worried,” He sang to a backbeat of sarcasm.

“I was worried. Worried that one of the crazies tried to stab you in the jugular and missed.”

He laughed. “Crazies …” He paused to open the cell door. “You say that like you fall in a different category.” I didn’t answer. He walked over to me, armed with a pair of handcuffs and just looked at me, waiting for something. Then widened his eyes and held out his wrists mockingly.

“The other kids don’t get cuffed when they get visits.” I said, sounding like my mother had just given my brother more ice cream than me.

“The other kids get visits regularly. You haven’t had a visitor the whole time you’ve been here. We don’t know how you’ll handle it. You gotta earn free hands they say. Y’know, Doc’s orders.” I rolled my eyes and begrudgingly held out my wrists so to save wasted time.

Conrad led me through to the common room. I saw Cassia at the back of the room with a middle-aged man and a younger girl. I assumed the man was her uncle, considering. And the small girl, her younger sister. I doubt her mother would ever visit her after what she did. It took them long enough to let her sister come here. But I don’t see the problem with that. After all, the last memories she had of her big sister were good ones. It would be much harder to explain why she’s just been erased from her life than to explain why she’s in a mental hospital for the criminally insane " an incorrect term by law, I know, but nonetheless an accurate description.

Everyone’s in here. And it hurts to know that I’ve been missing out on this for 2 years. There’s laughter and smiles and happy tears everywhere. These kids all have people who miss them.

And there was Miles. Smiling, fiddling with a dice in his hands on a table directly across from the most fragile-looking woman I’d ever seen. She had a tube in her nose, attached to a tank sitting on the floor beside her on its wheels. An Oxygen tank I gathered. She was sick. I wanted nothing more than to go over and sit next to him. To take his hand. But my hands were cuffed. And I had a visitor today.

That’s when I sighted him. The only face I remember better than my mother’s. Her killer. And now I’ve finally found a name to match. Victor Creed.

Conrad led me over to the table that the b*****d sat at. He raised his stained blue eyes to meet mine and smiled " like he was happy to see me. “I’m starting to think the cuffs were the best idea the Doc’s ever had,” I growled to Conrad. He snickered, pushed me down into the chair opposite Creed and winked. “Play nice, kid.”

“Hello …Adley,” he mocked as he leaned forward in his chair, grinning like a child, hooking his filthy hands together on the table, blood dripping from his fingers. He moved closer. Somehow I don’t think he realised how dangerous I am " how dangerous he made me. He waited patiently for a reply before accepting he wasn’t going to get one. I stared him out through hateful eyes. Hateful eyes that were burning in my skull. Burning at the image of a face I never thought I’d see again. Not under those circumstances anyway. He studied me while I studied the room. There was a guard on the door at the back of the room beside Cassia, two on the left of me. Too many. I yanked at the chain between my cuffs, restless. “You seem agitated,” he says, interrupting my thoughts, the ignorant prick.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I replied through gritted teeth, muted and vicious.

“I half-expected a rehearsed speech about how I ruined your life, stripped you of your childhood, blah, blah, blah, so on and so on. God knows you’ve have plenty of time,” he taunted, looking around the room and snickering to himself.

I decided to change my demeanour. A child scorned is too typical " too predictable. Instead I returned his impudent smile. “I spent more time rehearsing how I’d kill you and, to be honest, I’m a little disappointed you decided to show face while I’m supervised and inopportunely …” I held up my wrists and shook the chain on my cuffs, “… indisposed.”

He laughed and held up his hands, mockingly surrendering. “I do apologise, Ad. Forgive me if I don’t jump at the opportunity to sit in a room unsupervised with a crazy person.”

“I’m not crazy. Well, at least, I wasn’t …’til. What am I thinking? You know the story.” I rolled my eyes mockingly then giggled. I hoped it would menace him. He shuffled, uneasy, on the hard plastic.

“You don’t think you’re crazy,” he mocked, leaning in with a half-smile that made my wrists burn, bloodless in the metal cuffs and his eyes crept towards the back of the room. I didn’t have to follow them to know who he was looking at. “What about your little friend?” " his eyes still on the bald little girl shuffling a deck of playing cards. “What about little…” his eyes returned to mine as he hissed her name. “Cassssssia.”

I stared him out for a bit. Motionless and emotionless. His eyes were a stolen ocean blue. A true thief’s eyes. He made them purely complacent and unwavering but it was forced " I know it. He was used to putting on a façade of strength. But I could see how fragile it really was. Men are naked when they murder an innocent after all, so I believe I’ve seen him at his most vulnerable. And what’s better " I’ll never forget it.

I tore my eyes off his and smiled at my bound hands in my lap, silent. He moved and slouched against the back of the chair, patiently waiting for my reply. He grinned, thinking he’d stumped me. Really, I just needed a moment to convince myself not to strangle him with my cuffs. Oh, how I itched at the thought of leaping at him.

“Cassia? Crazy? Not the word I would use. Misunderstood, that’s the one. What she did " it was a… public service, y’know?” I smiled, leaning forward, mimicking his condescending demeanour.

He raised both hands, laughing, palms toward the cracks in the ceiling. “And what did she do?” He said still laughing.

I dropped my smile like it no longer had any use. Tilted my head to the side, holding his amused gaze. “She murdered her step-father. Slashed at his throat four times with a Stanley blade.” As I spoke I slowly drew my thumb across my throat, my eyes still on his. “Made a damn mess, her mother wasn’t even slightly impressed.”

I could tell he was uncomfortable now. The humour faded in his eyes as they dropped to the floor. He gritted his teeth and cracked his knuckles, but still held the slightest grin. Like he just wasn’t buying it. “And you consider that a public service?”

I giggled. “Well yeah. The c**t had it coming. The way I see it, if you can sneak into your 13 year old step-daughter’s room every night and rape her, you can certainly do it to another innocent girl. You can rape no daughters when you ain’t got no throat.” My chuckles made for quite an uneasy 30 seconds or so. He stared at me for the first 15, Cassia for the next. I’m not sure if what I saw in his eyes was empathy or disgust, but it was much better to see than that sly f*****g grin.

“And what about Sh-- …”

“Don’t call him that. He hates that.” I interrupted, nervous. The last time that boy heard his real name he stabbed a nurse with a pair of pattern cutting scissors at the crafts table. And as much as I would love to watch Scoop beat this prick to death, I hate to see the kid upset. He’s the sweetest big lump there ever was until you say that goddamn name.

“Okay, what should I call him then?” He asked.

“We call him Scoop.”

“Scoop?” He started into a fit of laughter. “Why the f**k ...do you call him ...” he paused to laugh, “...Scoop?”

“Cause the last time someone called him by his real name he gouged out their left eye with an ice cream scoop.” I said bluntly. It was a lie but he has the most obnoxious cackle, I had to say something that would stun him into silence. His chuckles quietened, but he wasn’t stunned. The story seemed not to faze him at all.

“Alright. So what’s his story?” He asked with slight intrigue. He looked over at Scoop sitting playing some board game with two other boys " significantly smaller " possibly his younger brothers. One of the boys just made a move on the board and Scoop piped up, sounding cheated “You moved two extra places! You’re not playing fair!” He stood up leering over the boy who’s now wearing a cheeky smile as he glances at the other boy. And he started, “Take it like a man, Sh"“

“Don’t you f*****g dare,” he growled and flipped the board, game-pieces and cards making their way to the floor. Creed raised his head, impressed. His eyes followed Scoop as two orderlies removed him from the room.

“Can I ask why you give a f**k? What are you even doing here? I thought I was just here to get the cops off your back. Why would you even show face?” I have many more questions but I’d much rather beat it out of him.

“You are. That’s all you are. Don’t you forget that. And don’t go thinking you’re something special just ‘cause you got a visit from me.” He pointed in my face sounding disrespected. He stroked his black goatie and leaned back in his chair.

I sat still, unfazed. I wanted him to think I was a match for him. I may only have been 17 but I’d been through a lot. I reckon I could’ve killed him if I got the chance. “You didn’t answer my question, a*****e.”

He slammed his hands on the table and pushed himself onto his feet, leaning over the table above me. “Call it a guilty conscience.” He snarled then turned and left, spitting into the bin as he passed.