The Mephistophelean House Read online

  It was Jonsrud.

  “Ben?”

  Jonsrud jumped to his feet.

  “Is it you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Are we in hell?”

  “No.”

  “This is hell, isn’t it?”

  “No. Listen...”

  “Ben, you’ve got to get me out of here. I failed the metaphysical. They’re going to have to operate.”

  The hulking giant tapped my shoulder.

  I whispered.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”

  “This way,” the rube reprimanded. I looked over my restraint.

  Jonsrud pawed the window slit.

  Was he right?

  Were we in hell?

  We crossed the exedra. Pandemonium broke out, bandages on shaven heads stained with blood and marking pens, men on gurneys, twins in chairs, dented heads with chopped off hair, screaming came from down the hall and touched off screaming from them all till white coats burst onto the scene and clubbed the screamers into dreams.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  The rube brandished his straight stick, cleaving a man’s jaw and hoisting him across his back. The twins circled the man with big ears fleeing the clutches of a whale. The hulking giant ushered me through the checkpoint down an anterior walkway back out in the storm.

  It was raining so hard I had to shout.

  “Who are those people?”

  “Dullards. Cripples. Epileptics.”

  “You lock them up just because they’re different?”

  “They are wards of the State.”

  The red brick path linked the refectory to the building with Palladian windows. The asylum was a castle in a cloud, quoins and tourelles, double pitched roofs with gabled dormers, copper hips and iron cresting, eyelid garrets and corbeled gambrel.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “They have to believe I’m taking you to the Bolgia.”

  We walked brusquely. The straight jacket cut into my skin like a drowning sack. Runoff spilled from the Pent roof of the refectory, fog swallowing the asylum in a cauldron of mist. The broad slope swelled, the brick path welted in phantasms. Adjacent the hedge I could see Northgate. In my straightjacket I could cause a disturbance at the turnstile, but with no way to operate the controls, I had no way out.

  What if I did escape?

  What if I returned to the Mephistophelean House?

  A high wall was barbed in wire coping. We followed the red brick path to a little door between the refectory and hedge. The hulking giant unlocked the door and pointed to a boiler room.

  “It’s safe to talk here.”

  Rolled plate boilers roiled wrought iron vents. High pressure steam fueled fulsome sulfur jets. There was a cot, locker, and mirror. The hulking giant sank on the cot, looking like a man possessed.

  “Now is the time. We must strike before he is the wiser. Although he is beginning to piece it together, he does not recognize you. I’ll expedite you to the Bolgia in a rigged jacket. It is our only chance. Once he’s gone, we can get the key.”

  “The key?”

  “To the red box.”

  “The red box?”

  “Don't concern yourself with the red box. Remember, he is a tempter. He is not to be trusted, even for an instant. He will tempt you with the red box. It is the source of his power. Do not look inside, even for an instant.”

  “The source of his power?”

  Quantum interference issued from the very same red box I had seen in the Doctor’s study and the windowless chamber. It was the source of the nadir.

  And my absolution.

  “What's in the red box?”

  “A cathexis. It is like a mirror. Once you look into it, you see things as they really are.”

  “What do I do?”

  I hesitated, trying to envision myself strapped to the Doctor’s operating table.

  The hulking giant drew to his full height. “The scourge of man, he works alone inside the Operating Theatre. Wait until he turns his back. Then strike. Be careful, though. Don’t listen to what he says. In devils haven you must sojourn, lock the door, and make him burn.”

  “How can I trust you?”

  “How can you trust yourself?”

  The mirror hung on the wall.

  The straightjacket dripped on the floor.

  “Take off the restraint.”

  The hulking giant was right.

  How could I trust myself?

  “There are nine wards here at the House on the Hill, nine levels of hell just to face him still. A forest of sand and a skeleton key unlocks the box to the Weeping Tree.”

  “The Weeping Tree…”

  “But if you listen to the lies that he will tell about himself, you will wake up in a dream believing you're somebody else. Do not listen to the things he says, pay his words no heed, for your parts won't fit together and your eyes'll start to bleed."

  “What if I can’t ignore him?”

  “Trust me."

  "What will happen?”

  “You will leave with less than you came.”

  I peered at my reflection in a pond, stone in hand.

  “Once inside the inner chamber you will face a greater danger. Through the center you must pass to step inside the looking glass. Things will all be upside-down, bones of traitors on the ground, and he’ll be there alight on wings, the witch doctor, the fallen king.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Do what you must.”

  The hulking giant unfastened the restraint.

  The straightjacket fell on the floor.

  “Jonsrud's here.”

  The hulking giant stepped back.

  “Your other friend’s here, too.”

  “Matthew?"

  The hulking giant nodded.

  "Give me your keys.”

  “Keys? Yes. Hmmmmnnzzzzzzz. There are a lot of doors that need locking…”

  “How can I free my friends?”

  “First the Doctor. Then your friends.”

  “No."

  “You don’t get it, do you? Have you looked at yourself? There. Look,” the hulking giant pointed at the mirror.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look!”

  I seized the hulking giant by the shoulders.

  “Help me!”

  “The Doctor keeps the key inside his cursed locked red box, but if you want to take it from him be the one that he forgot.”

  “But you’ve got to help me!”

  “You’ve got to go, you’ve got to try, you’ve got to take him out, pretty soon a weaker fever starts to set you out, you may try to run away but in the end you’ll be found out, for the Doctor never lingers over those who would cast doubt.”

  “Why don’t you help me?”

  “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

  “What don’t I know?”

  The hulking giant pulled a straightjacket from the locker and a bottle from his pocket. “Take this laudanum. I’ll expedite you to the Bolgia. You will not be forced to dwell upon the misfortunes of others although you’ll hear grisly screaming from ancient ghosts howling over their second death. The Doctor paints in pain. Look,” the hulking giant peeled the restraint, “the arm-locks have reverse catches. You can free yourself with a flick of your wrist. We'll try it out before we go.”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “The Doctor and I went to school together. I was the pessimist. He, the optimist. I set out to prove what I believed. He set out to believe what he proved. Somehow, over time, our roles reversed. We meant to meet up in the middle, but ended up going our own way.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “One day I looked into the mirror and beheld that which I feared.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “For that which I feared possessed me. I saw It in the mirror. It was always there. To be conscious of It is to be cursed by consciousness. Free will is not an illusion
. Free will takes over your life. You dream you are free. But you are not. Free of dreams you are not free at all. Free will is a paradox. Call it what you will. To Hell we must him send, or else this day will never end, things will always stay the same, it will never cease to rain.”

  And the hulking giant, Roland Andrews, pointed to the clock on the locker.

  “When did you arrive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has night come?”

  I rubbed my eyes.

  I couldn’t believe it was day.

  “And do you not grow fatigued?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s only one left, now.”

  “One?”

  “One of 174.”

  “174?”

  “The last piece in the puzzle. The only thing standing in his way. One missing piece. 1 of 174.”

  The hulking giant offered the straightjacket.

  An icy twinge mid-lined my gut, the hulking giant’s face splintering in boils, eyes rolling back in his head, the boiler room bursting open, a cacophony of lightning and thunder.

  “Number 174.....number 174, have you found what it is you were looking for?”

  “What do you mean, number 174?”

  “Do you abhor, number 174, what it is, you’ll be made to account for?”

  “What can I do?” I screamed.

  “A surgeon’s knot, a secret plot, involving X which marks the spot, a hangman’s noose tied too loose by hands he used and then forgot."

  The peeling wall.

  The cot.

  The mirror.

  “Number 174, Number 174, are you sorry for the things that you left on the floor?”

  “Things? What things?”

  The broiler.

  The laudanum.

  The straightjacket.

  “What did I do?”

  Pebbles of hail bounced on the goblin-green grass, grape stumps, fern wedges, sitka and laurel, tanoaks with star shaped piths disemboguing an invulnerable wall of thorns. The red brick path was dirgelike through the careworn, waxy trees.

  “What reason do I have not to trust him? He could have just as easily delivered me to the Doctor. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  I looked down.

  There was blood on the grass.

  “If I can find a way over the fence we can make a break for the House, back to the windowless chamber.”

  I followed the hedge. There was a bosk next to the refectory. I scanned the grounds like a madman breaking in for some inane reason to very same asylum he was escaping from. White caps jutted across the gust front, squall line cleated in bands, the branch strokes of an anvil crawler pleating the vort lobe.

  The refectory door opened. Two men in white coats kicked up fields of rubicund flecks, spotting their coattails and ties.

  I dove behind the archivolt.

  The footsteps circled.

  Rain fell in sheets. I brought my hands to my face. I had to get out of the storm. Water gushed off the cooper roof of a chapel. A pipe organ played softly. Stained glass windows depicted a lonely figure assailed by beasts.

  A concussion throttled the viaduct.

  My outline was inflamed.

  I looked through the trees.

  All was still.

  Nothing stirred.

  A deluge erupted. The buildings at the end of the copse faded, rivulets forming fast flowing streams. The white coats disappeared inside the building with Palladian windows. I abandoned the archivolt and gamboled over the embankment, falling face first in a pond.

  Lightning struck.

  The water was electric.

  My pulse coruscated.

  “Oh god.”

  I scrambled to my knees and ran down the brick path. Northgate was adjacent the chapel. I approached the guardhouse and looked inside.

  The ugly man sat on the stool.

  I knocked.

  Nothing happened.

  I rattled the bars.

  The guardhouse remained under lock and key.

  “How am I going to get out?”

  There was no way over the fence.

  “I have to find another way.”

  A three story annex with transom fanlights and mulled windows overlooked Madison Avenue. I noticed a gap between the foundation and fence permitting access to a crawlspace, the water-poked boughs of the hedge tinseled in razor wire. I cleaved the thorns, hoping to find a weakness, barbed halos like rain-glossed spider webs.

  The crawlspace opened up and I found myself able to stand. I searched for a sturdy foothold and hoisted myself up the pleaching. The branches thinned out, revealing the upper floors of the annex.

  The silhouette of a man stood in a third story window.

  It was Matthew.

  “Matthew?”

  I could not tell if he saw me.

  “Ah!” I pricked my finger. Pain shot up my arm. I stuck my finger in my mouth. My tongue constricted.

  “What the.”

  I hallucinated. The hedge was melting. Thorns barbed my knuckles and embedded in my bones. The hedge appeared to shear into the downpour and the loam. I shimmied on the V-shaped post where sleeve and ring were split, a man-sized hole just big enough through which someone could fit.

  “There is a way out!”

  I tested the footing.

  It was solid.

  I hesitated.

  “What if that which grants salvation guarantees annihilation?”

  From far away I heard a scream.

  The hole in the fence teetered in the wind.

  Chapter 10

  Elysian Fields

  My finger discolored. A necrotic paralysis anesthetized my extremities. Viscous fluid bubbled down my chin. I touched my face.

  My eyes were bleeding.

  I poked my way back through the thorns, rubbing my shoulder in agony. The wind sheared the crawlspace. Thorns scuffed my jacket like poisoned plantains. I emerged from the hedge and climbed annex steps.

  There was a sign on the rivulet.

  Elysian Fields

  'lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate'

  I tested the entryway. It was unsecured. An enameled fresco depicted forests, castles and lakes. A knotted pile carpet reeked of ether and nitrous oxide. At the end of a hall was a stairwell, doors on both sides.

  I heard voices.

  A door opened.

  A nurse appeared.

  I pressed against the wall.

  How could I have gone unnoticed?

  Surely the nurse had seen me.

  I peeked around the corner. The nurse unlocked a utility closet, filling a bucket with water. I hastened noiselessly, the green carpet eating my footsteps.

  “…dirty as the dead…dirty as the dead…you’ll see what I mean when you’re dirty as the dead...”

  I headed upstairs. The third floor was unattended. A cell midway down the hall had a chair, a bed and a table. The hedge was visible through the window.

  I opened the next door.

  It had the same view.

  I checked the next cell.

  And the next.

  They were all the same.

  “If the House on the Hill is a paradox, a reality onto itself, wouldn’t the outer wall really be the inner wall? Regardless of the view outside?”

  I fingered the median door on the inner wall, fumbling in the dark for the light switch.

  “Matthew?”

  Matthew sat up in bed.

  “It's me! Let’s go. We’re getting out here!”

  Matthew got out of bed.

  A blank spot besmirched the bedcover.

  “It’s not so bad here. Places are the same. People, too. Just arranged differently. There are voices upstairs. There are voices downstairs. But it doesn't matter. They’re there, and I’m here. To tell you the truth, I like it when they lock the door. Keeps the crazies out.”

  “But the door isn’t locked! Only in your mind are you imprisoned. Quick. We don’t have time. We’re getting out.”


  “I’m not leaving,” Matthew said.

  “Escape is no farther than your window. Look! Can’t you see? There’s a hole in the fence. I know the way back, back through the black X and pink circle.”

  “It’s no use. You’ll end up where you started. All places are the same. People too. Just arranged differently.”

  “Look. If you won’t come, at least point me to the Doctor.”

  “You want me to take you to…Him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s a lot like you, you know…just arranged differently.”

  “Where is he?”

  Could I trust him? Could I trust him not to betray me?

  Everything seemed hackneyed.

  A staged event.

  “Jonsrud. We have to get Jonsrud. He’s here, in the building with Palladian windows.”

  “Menos Hall.”

  “Let’s go to Menos Hall.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” I cried.

  “We’ll be caught. If were caught, we’ll be put in the hole.”

  “The hole?”

  Matthew scratched the blank spot.

  “I’m staying here.”

  “Staying here? Are you crazy? If you don’t come with me, save yourself.”

  Matthew melted from my grasp.

  “Don’t you want to save yourself?”

  “There is no salvation.”

  Before I could catch him he was through the door and down the hall.

  “Matthew,” I yelled, pursuing muffled footsteps down the green carpet.

  “Matthew!”

  The door swung on the hinge.

  Matthew was gone.

  “Matthew!”

  The door creaked. The nurse was gone. I slunk across the carpet fixated on the muffled voices down the hall, knowing that at any instant the door might open and there would be nowhere to hide. Luckily the door did not open and I traversed Elysian Fields undetected.

  Horsetail and sitka sledge moated cinders, toad rush, and ash. I stood ankle deep in the mud, my disappointment ebbing. In losing Mathew I lost nothing.

  “Jonsrud.”

  Chapter 11

  Menos Hall

  The turnstile torqued like a man catcher. Northgate was a roping shoot. The gabled roofs and archways were bedizened in the lightning. From my vantage point I could see the red brick path leading through the trees to the building with Palladian windows. Beyond the refectory the red brick path terminated in the courtyard. A drain gurgled next to a rock pile. Pine cones floated in a can. A placard read,