Kenny vs The Devil

[Illustration by Iselma Sosa.  Charcoal on White Paper]

There were a lot of things Kenneth didn't understand. Half the time he had to be verbally reminded that he wasn't home, but that the bed he slept on, the plates and cups he ate off of, the tweed recliner and sixteen inch color television that he sat and watched were all the property of the Rockview Hospital for the Mentally Ill. It was a concept he had trouble with, primarily because of the fact that between the confused, over medicated saps that ran around the place and the insane, maniacal bastards that ran the place, everyone was either trying to steal his stuff, or poison him.

Paranoid Schizophrenia, the doctors told them. Them being the traitorous people that put him there, the people he thought were his family. He didn't quite understand what that meant. Hell, it probably didn't mean anything, just a reason to keep him in this hell hole. Nurse Leslie was a homely woman with short, trashy hair and a formidable ass which she'd threaten to crush patients with. Rumor had it that she'd already killed a man after sitting on his chest, though he'd slit his own wrists a short while prior and was threatening others, so they couldn't really be sure. It had caused a bit of controversy, but eventually it blew over, like it always did. No one wanted to cause too much of a fuss about things that happened here. It had been placed a good thirteen miles in from the main road, where no one could see or be bothered by the mad ravings of the patients.

There was one thing that Kenneth had to give her credit for. Sure she was evil, sure she wanted him dead, but she didn't lie or try to sugar coat any of it. "You're bloody crazy that's why they have you in here," she told him once as he paced back and forth in front of the far fence to the rear of the compound, desperate to get out. "Too damn crazy to be let out. You can't go home, you might hurt somebody. Hell, you might hurt yourself. You're too damn crazy to be left alone. Now bring your crazy ass back here and take your medication."

It wasn't just the things he felt that left him confused. There were things he saw that other people insisted he had not seen. He'd come up to nurse Leslie after a rather disturbing night spent tossing in his bed, half asleep, half awake, and completely terrified. He was chewing away at his lip, afraid to speak for fear of either being laughed at or tied down and heavily medicated. So when the nurse, feeling his lurking presence there, turned to him and indignantly declared "What?", all he could manage to say was "The devil was in my room last night." And then he crept away embarrassed.

"What the hell are you talking about this time, Kenny?" He didn't really know himself, but he'd seen and heard enough to know that nurse Leslie didn't like talking to people's backs. Not wanting to be sat upon, he turned to face her, stood stiff as a board, and remained just as silent. She stood just out of his reach, but Kenneth knew that was just a ploy. She may have seemed like a swollen, bumbling woman, but she could strike at any moment, and squeeze all the air from his lungs. And like some dangerous creature, she gave fair warning in her strike posture: hands at the hips and an impatient look in her eye.

"A ghost came into the room last night." He finally said.

"Then what's this about the devil?" Her foot tapped, the final sign that she would attack.

"Joan said it was the devil." And his eyes lifted from the ground over to the woman cradling a cold, plastic doll. Due to a simple genetic fluke Joan was physically incapable of carrying a child to term. Of course, neither she nor her family knew that, or sought to find out. Not even after her fifth miscarriage somehow brought on the compulsion to cradle, speak to, and generally care for the cold, hard, plastic doll she presently held to an exposed breast. There were medications and special care that might have helped with the previous problem, and counseling coupled with support from her family might help free her of the dependency on her plastic surrogate child. Technically she would get neither. That she had "gone crazy" was diagnosis enough for her family to plop her here where she belonged. That is, with all the other crazies, and away from the public, hidden away where she wouldn't embarrass them.

"I saw when the devil went to her" Kenneth continued. "And now she says she's going to have his baby." Nurse Leslie pursed her lips at this. Later, while re-telling the story to the other nurses with more of a sane, logical twist, she would sigh and shake her head, but nothing more.

"Well, you just leave Joan and the devil to their business."

"No. He's hurting her. I see it."

"Close your eyes."

"I hear it!"

"Calm down, Ken."

"He's fucking her!" He screamed so loud he startled himself as well as a few other crazies. The sudden excitement attracted the attention of two burly orderlies. Kenneth knew it was time to move on about his business.

Later that evening as he sat against the far fence at the rear of the compound, which was where he usually spent his yard time, Kenneth struggled against his chemical restraints to clear his head. As he did he came to a conclusion: It was hopeless. The nurses thought they were all crazy. The doctors would probably just increase his dosage. No one would stand up for Joan; no one would protect her from whatever it was. And Kenneth had nothing to offer. No comfort, no help, he didn't even have shoelaces. All he really had here were the clothes on his back, his shoes, and his socks. He knew how to defend himself from the insane bastards that were always trying to kill him, but all that ultimately earned him was a reputation for being "harmful and disruptive", so he had the courtyard to himself. Or at least the little corner by the fence where the grass encroached on the gravel and pebbles. And let's not forget, he had a reserved bed and a room. A room shared by several other restless maniacs, including Joan, who would be visited by Satan himself again tonight.

That night Kenneth had trouble sleeping. He wasn't supposed to have any problems falling asleep; they had pills that helped 'problem patients' such as him. Only a short while after he'd swallowed those pills Ken had taken advantage of his natural gag reflex and brought them back up, along with any other poison or drug he was certain they slipped into his supper. Now the smell of the hidden evidence under his pillow was starting to affect his stomach. The warm, moist feeling against his neck and creeping down his back wasn't helping matters either.

At lights out the entire wing was swathed in black. Ken could hear the creaking bed springs and troubled moans and whispers that came every night as the other patients drifted off to a fitful, medication induced slumber. The little bit of light that danced through the curtains cast irregular shadows on the ceiling and walls across from Ken's bed. As he stared at them the shadows began to swim just in front of his face. The random, angular shapes molded themselves into soft, muted curves. They reached for him and he made out the clawed hands lunging and scraping at him. He flinched away as they came at all angles, and suddenly the world lurched forward and the grasping hands had somehow stood him up on his feet. For a moment Ken questioned the wisdom behind not letting the cocktail of pills just dissolve into his bloodstream.

That's when he saw it. It looked as if one of the shadows had somehow coalesced through wrath and sin and had managed to swing the ward door slowly on its hinges. He fell back to the ground and crept crablike; sideways and vigilant; under the edge of his bed and stayed deathly silent. The other patients hardly stirred, no doubt dreaming of Benzodiazepine gumdrops and Barbiturates suspended in green gelatin. Kenneth was most certainly not asleep. His heart beat as he watched from under the bed, and he could feel it in the hollow of his now empty stomach as the malevolent specter crept across the room, around the beds, and loomed over the spot where Joan lay sleeping deeply. Though the ghost seemed intent on ruining her sleep and it made itself just solid enough to unceremoniously yank the sheets off her probe body. "Shhhh..." hissed the shadow like a cluster of snakes. It even writhed as a snake, twisting its way into the bed beside her.

Now it is important to note that Kens shoes were neatly arranged side by side next to his bed, with his left sock in his left shoe. And so he made hardly a sound as he crossed the floor barefoot. As for his right sock, that was in his right hand and heavy with the larges rocks he could find in the yard. Slowly, he raised the sock high above his head.

"No!" Joan moaned as the shadowy fingers undid her blouse and squeezed at her breasts. "Shh-sh-sh..." it hissed again. The sock came down much faster than it had been raised and made a dull thud on the shadow's solid skull. Again Ken raised the sock high and brought it swiftly down. The shadow fell limp on top of Joan, but still it was solid. When Kenny smote the wicked demon a third time Joan let out a piercing, hysterical shriek. All she felt was something heavy on top of her, pinning her to the bed, and something wet and warm dripping on her face.
Kenneth would have swung that sock, clobbering the malicious shade until it dematerialized or was banished by the light of the rising sun. The sock, however, had other plans. By the fifth swing it tore its seams and sent its load of rocks scattering around the room. It wasn't enough. Joan was still screaming and still pinned to the bed by the figure which Kenny was now certain was the Devil himself. Finding himself suddenly unarmed Kenny grabbed for its head, intent on taking hold of the beast's horns. The only thing he managed to grasp as he dragged it off the bed felt an awful lot like hair wet, greasy hair.

They'd told Kenneth that there was something wrong with his brain. Split mind, they said, was what Schizophrenia really meant. Of course he'd never believed them until just then. It was as if Kenneth had shirked away in some protected corner of his own skull and could only watch in horror as something else took control.

"Stop, stop now!" he cried from within his own head-space. His body kept moving. It dragged Joan's molester off the bed and halfway across the room before the hair broke from the roots and came off in Ken's tightly clenched fists.

"We're going to get in trouble" Kenny whined, but he couldn't stop his body from driving fists into what he thought was a face.

"They're coming!" He whispered. And they were. Roused by the screaming and hollering, he could hear the footsteps of the hospital staff dashing through the halls toward the ward.

"They're coming, we have to stop! We have to hide!" It would have been a simple enough task if he was in control his senses. If he could actually feel his hands slamming down onto flesh, or could move his feet to feed off his fear. But the other half of his mind refused to let go; and didn't let go until someone ran up from behind and struck him over the head, leaving Kenneth to deal with the headache and the force of Nurse Leslie sitting on him.

Later they'd pump him full of drugs that made it hurt to even think. They'd sit him in their psychiatrist chairs, in front of their doctors and ask him why he did it. What had caused him to crack so violently? Why after months of therapy and impressive progress, did he attack an orderly from behind and beat him unconscious. Why had he continued to beat him after that, even to the point that he hurt his own hands on the bones of the orderly's face? In a single moment of semi-rational thought he'd managed to clear the drool from his mouth and give them an answer. "Someone had to" he said. "Someone had to stand and face the devil."