Young Writers Society

“Let me out of here!” I scream at the small window that was my only view of the outside world. I'm not sure how long I've been in this isolated cell or why I'm even in here. If the light outside the small window can be measured in any length of time, it would be a week today that I woke up in this cell with no idea how I got here. Every day I beat on the solid door and scream at the top of my lungs until my throat is hoarse trying to get someone to come and explain what is going on. Most of the time I sit on my bed counting the squares on the walls of my twenty-by-twenty cell. The walls are a yellowed cream color that resembles the remnants of an over chewed piece of gum that you find stashed on the underside of a restaurant table. Lining the lower half of the walls, and especially on the floor, the faint stains from, what I can only guess to be, blood, urine, and God knows what else made them a lighter brown color that smelled of decay. At the center of the ceiling behind a plexiglass window was a dim light, which barely lit anything, that would turn on and off by itself, casting the room in complete darkness. I can only speculate that it is the people that have me imprisoned in this small room. On the wall opposite the door outline is a clock that with every movement of the second hand a barely audible tick can be heard. In the isolation of the room every small occurrence can be heard in it, even the insistent ticking can be heard through the plexiglass window that covers it. It was a plain clock with a white face and black numbers and arms. It seemed to be the only stable thing in the room as it just continued to turn in a circle as the gears inside of it designed it to do.

I know that there are people out there. I can hear their voices echoing faintly on the other side of the door and on occasion I see them pass the small window. My only interaction with people, if you can call it an interaction, is the moment when the narrow slot opens in the door to deliver food and suddenly close again. I know that there are people out there because on the second day that I was here I waited for the slot to open and when it did I reached out and grabbed the person that was there. I screamed and demanded that he tell me why I was here and who they were. A very sharp strike against my knuckles let me know that reaching for the people on the other side of the door was not tolerated.

Of course, the person that delivers the food isn't my only means of human interaction; but, the alternative isn't much better. I'm speaking of my cellmate. I don't know his real name; but, I've just been calling him Scad, which stands for Speaks Continuously All Day. It was a small joke that on occasion I found would amuse me in my boredom. It didn't matter what time it was or what was going on he always had a comment to say, and after a week of the none stop talking I was starting to lose my cool. “Hey,” Scad said in a whisper, like he was conspiring with me on an escape, “you think they'll come and save you today?” He let out a cackling laugh as he sat in his corner. Crooked teeth filled a yellow smile as he rocked a little from side to side. His shaved head and crooked nose only seemed to display the nature of the man on the inside that shone out from his dark eyes that sunk in from lack of nourishment. I'm not sure how I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was malnourished; but, it was the only certain thing that I knew was real. Maybe it was his almost emaciated body that just sat there rocking in time to the ticking clock.

“Shut up,” I growled scratching my nails down the door. His very voice had become like the sound of nails being slowly drug down a chalkboard.

“Come on,” he whined flopping a little like he was a small child. “Talk to me. I'm bored.”

“I said shut up.” I turned from the door and sat down on my bed refusing to look at Scad. Even in the minimal illumination that mostly came from the small window, I couldn't stand to look at him for long. That creepy grin and dark eyes, that almost looked hollow in the low light, just made my skin crawl. It was like he could see into my head and hear every thought that I had. I knew that it wasn't possible for him to be able to do that; but, it was a thought that I couldn't get out of my head. The ticking of that clock, after seven days of listening to it, is really getting on my nerves.

I swear that ticking is getting louder. It's like the clock is right next to my ear. The slot of the door suddenly opened and in came the food. I take the tray, eating with the plastic spoon that they gave me to shovel the slop into my mouth. “I can't believe you're eating that stuff,” Scad said with that sneer. I'm almost certain I can see something worming around between those crooked teeth. “You know what they make that stuff out of right?”

“I'm sure that you're going to tell me.”

“The people that they deem 'lost causes'. Yep, they do that so that they don't have to buy extra food and so that there are always cells available for those that can actually be 'rehabilitated.'” He let out that cackling laugh. I knew that he was just trying to irritate me. He just wanted me to react to him in some fashion that would make his amusement worth the effort. I knew that he was just making stuff up so that I would snap on him. Regardless of knowing all of that, I couldn't bring myself to eat another bite. I just set the tin tray down on the bed and leaned my head back against the wall having completely lost my appetite. “I'm sure that we'll be next. I mean I know that I'm a lost cause and if they put you in here with me then that must mean that you are too.” For some reason this idea was absolutely hilarious to Scad because he was sitting there rolling in laughter.

All I could do was grit my teeth in irritation. I hated Scad's constant talking like there was something wrong with just sitting in silence, his annoying laugh that almost sounded like a hyena's chuckle, and the way that everything he did seemed to be in time to the ticking of the clock; but, most of all, I hated that damn clock, ticking and ticking and ticking. I couldn't take it anymore. The ticking of that clock was like someone slamming a sledgehammer against a car door and I just couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed the tray and with a scream of pure rage I smashed it against the plexiglass covering of the clock. The plexiglass cracked and finally shattered in an eruption of plastic shards. I grabbed the clock and threw onto the floor, only succeeding in making it bounce and roll off to the other side of the room. With a scream that could only be described as the scream of a mad man or some wild animal, I attacked the clock with the dull tin tray in my hand. I shattered the clock face and the small gear box, sending pieces in every direction as I finally destroyed that insufferable ticking. There was finally silence, and I was suddenly set upon by two men from the door. The light from outside blinded me for a moment and I wasn't able to see who they were before they pinned me down and, at the time, I really didn't care. I just wanted to make sure that that damn clock had finally stopped ticking. With a relieved sigh, I laid there thankful that, apart from the heavy breathing, there was quiet.

The two large men held me on the floor with my face pointed toward the wall. I can only assume that my cellmate was in a similar situation. Then a thought occurred to me. With such a violent outburst they might just take Scad out of here and leave me alone in the cell. I never believed in God; but, I was praying for a miracle at that particular time. I heard someone cursing about having to clean up the mess as they gathered the pieces of my vanquished foe and a small part of me was a little sorry at the fact that I was making their day a little more difficult; but, another part of me, a much larger part, was enjoying it.

When the two men got off me and left the room I slowly rolled onto my back rubbing my wrists from where they were holding me tight. I didn't hear anything and a smile spread over my face at the silence that enveloped me like a blanket from the removal of the clock and the lack of Scad, the most annoying cellmate in the history of the wor...

“That was awesome how you just lost it there,” Scad said from his corner in the room. I looked over to him a little shocked; but, at the same time I wasn't surprised. I wasn't that lucky. Never had been. The light turned off in my room and it was a welcomed sight since I didn't have to see Scad's emaciated form sitting over in that corner anymore. “Were you ever scared of the boogeyman?” Scad asked with a small snicker. I sighed and rubbed my temples from the headache that was slowly starting to surface. “I mean every little kid is scared of monsters under the bed, but you never hear of anyone scared of the boogeyman. Don't you think that's weird?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up,” I said, almost like I was chanting in the hope that it would actually make him stop talking for the night. Of course, it wouldn't work. Scad would keep talking until Judgment Day and I would be stuck in this room with him until then. I just wanted to sleep and all he ever did was talk and talk and talk.

“But we never talk. I want to have a conversation with you.”

“Well, then we have a conflict of interests. I don't want to have a conversation with you. I just want you to leave me alone.”

“Come on man, Just one little talk. Give me something. I'm bored.” Scad just kept prodding and poking, asking and pleading, and every time his voice rang in my ears I felt my headache getting worse and worse; until, I couldn't take it anymore. Just like with the clock, I let out that same scream, that scream that I had completely lost control and I leaped at Scad. The men had taken the tray that I had used before and so I was going to strangle the life out of him. I felt my hands grab a hold of something and I just started to squeeze and I have to admit, I was enjoying it. The feeling of his throat in my hands as I slowly crushed it between my fingers brought me such satisfaction that I laugh as I screamed. As I squeezed tighter and tighter I could still hear him wheezing out that hyena-like laugh, which only made me squeeze even more.

I screamed and screamed like a wild animal before the men came back in again, pulled me away, and I lost my grip on his throat. “No! No! I'm gonna kill him! I'm gonna kill him! Let me go!” I screamed as they started to roughly shove my arms into the sleeves of a straitjacket. I fought against it with everything I had; but, the overly muscled men still strapped up the jacket and got me completely tied up.

I was removed from the cell and taken out into the hall with my bare feet dragging on the smooth, waxed tiles of the hall that was lined with white doors on both sides. I didn't know where they were taking me. All I knew was that it was away from Scad. The men dropped me into a wooden chair where they used a few more straps on the straitjacket to tie me down. In front of me was a man dressed in a brown suit and a striped blue tie. He slowly pushed a set of thick black rimmed glass further up on his thin nose. A black beard and mustache wrapped around his jaw like some fur mask that was meant to keep him warm. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this guy. Maybe I had seen him pass by my small window before. I really wasn't sure how I knew him.

“So how are you feeling?” the man asked me.

“I'm ticked off! I can't stand the guy you celled me with. I swear if you put me back in there with him I will kill him,” I said glaring at the man.

“What's the name of your cellmate?”

“I don't know his name. I just call him Scad. I want out of here. Who are you people? Why do you have me imprisoned here?”

The man in the suit only nodded and sighed before pulling off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Alright,” the man in the suit said returning his glasses to his eyes and leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his knees. “My name is Dr. Chris Magill. I specialize in mental disorders, specifically personality disorders. You are here because you suffer from schizophrenia and you have murdered eight people using your skills as a surgeon and medical practitioner.”

I felt the blood in my face just drain out. I was in shock from what I was hearing. I looked from one face to the next of the men, that I could now see were dressed in white, in the room and shook my head. “No....no, no,no,no,no. I didn't kill anyone.”

“Yes you did. You suffer from both schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

“Your personality split after you caught your wife cheating on you. She and her lover were your first two victims.”

“You're insane. I don't have multiple personalities.”

The man in the suit stood up from his chair, walked to a TV on a trolley, and wheeled it over in front of me turning it on. On the screen I saw a video of myself standing at the door and yelling in the small padded room. I knew for a fact that it was me on the screen, but everything else didn't make any sense. The padding in the room was clean and neat and I was the only person there. I would turned from time to time and jab my finger at something in the corner that just wasn't there. “Scad, as you called him, is not your cell mate. You never had a cell mate.” I watched myself suddenly go nuts and destroy the clock in the wall before being tackled in the room and then watched as I strangled my pillow instead of the man in my cell.

“Where is the guy in my cell?! Why isn't he there?!”

“Scad is the name of your alternate persona.”

“No. Scad is real! He was in there with me just a moment ago. What the hell is this?!” Despite the proof that was being forced upon me, I still couldn't believe it. “Who the hell are you people?! What are you trying to do?!” I could feel the panic rising again and all I could think about was why Scad wasn't on the screen when I knew he was in that cell with me. Then suddenly everything went black.

Dr. Magill looks at the man sitting in the chair watching as his head had suddenly slumped forward and with a small groan the man's head lethargically rose again. The man looks to the doctor and a wide sneer spreads across his face. “What's up, Doc?” the man says before releasing a hyena-like cackle as he rocks side-to-side to ticking of the clock on the wall.