A Night at the Asylum Read Online Free

sidewalk
below.
    Just across the street from me now, he heard
the noise and seemed to notice me for the first time. The metal
object in his hand moved menacingly. I swore under my breath when I
realized it was a long, slender kitchen knife.
    Time was moving at half pace. A million
thoughts were coursing through my veins, but somehow the violence
of those thoughts did not set my body in motion. Some robot part of
my mind began to take inventory, filing facts that might serve me
later. He was taller than me, but barely, with broad shoulders. He
was wearing a hood that blotted out his face. He stumbled a bit; he
was mumbling to himself. And I, perpetual idiot that I was, could
only stand there as he approached to a point of a few feet in front
of me. He was definitely leaving the sidewalk, definitely headed
right for me. It was then that I recognized the peculiarity of his
walk as being that of intoxication. I didn’t know whether to be
more scared or relieved.
    This guy was drunk off his ass.
    Yes, I knew this person. The way he moved
gave it away first, now that I could see him more clearly, now that
he would soon be close enough to touch. He was guarded, his arms
drawn close to his chest, almost as if he was holding the knife to
fend me off rather than threaten me. Unkempt, rust-colored hair
stuck out from beneath his dark hood. He reached for me. I called
his name.
    Just as he was stepping onto the sidewalk, he
stumbled over a pothole in the road and went down like a tugboat in
an undertow. He didn’t even try to catch himself. His chin hit the
pavement, splitting open like a second smile. The knife he was
carrying skittered away from him and landed at my feet.
Instinctively I picked it up. He made an odd gurgling sound and
then he was quiet, apparently passed out.
    I stood in the middle of the sidewalk like a
moron, waiting for my legs to work again, watching everything
happen with astonishment and detachment. My sneakers crunched on
loose gravel as I crept closer still. My breathing was shallow,
heart galloping insanely. Where was the sense to run now that I
could? I crouched down, my mind screaming at me incredulously.
Ahead of all the other things I should have been thinking, I only
wanted to see his face. I only wanted to be sure it was him. His
chin was bleeding freely now, painting gory polka dots on the
pavement. I pulled back his hood and he moved, groaning in pain. I
recoiled automatically, sticking the knife out in front of me.
    Irony always has a way of making me its
bitch. This night was not going to be an exception. Poised over a
bleeding, unconscious man, holding a knife, was exactly how I was
standing when the headlights of the police car washed over me.
     
     
     
    ****
     
     
     
    Two O’Clock
     
     
    The room where I was held was white, square,
generic.
    I’d never seen this part of the police
station before. Apparently this was where they brought all the
hardened criminals that had earned the privilege of a shakedown,
which explained why it looked mostly untouched. My eyes burned from
the unsympathetic fluorescents overhead and I steadied my trembling
hands around my complimentary can of soda. In spite of all the
caffeine I’d consumed over the last two hours, my eyelids were
fighting the good fight. Cold, stark fear was helping, but even it
would run its course eventually.
    What a perfect microcosm of my stupid life
this mess was turning out to be. I felt ill thinking about my
parents. Were they really getting another call from the police in
the middle of the night? That’s the thing about legal age: it’s but
a useless technicality in a town where news spreads like wildfire
and you have no one else to post bail.
    I didn’t know how much time had passed or how
long I would be here, consigned to this chair. What I did know was
that it had been Emmett Sutter, son of the police commissioner, who
had gone from drunken Gas N’ Go terrorist to my own personal
knife-wielding maniac. He might have