Patient Update

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by Corinne Pollard

“Doctor, how fares my elder brother? He’s been locked inside for five years now. Is he cured? Will he take back his inheritance?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. Your brother continues to show odd behaviour and disturbing symptoms like scratching at walls, screaming, attacking himself and others.”

“Pity.”

“Rest assured, we will find the right treatment for him. In the meantime, sir, have you detected any disturbances of the mind?”

“Me?! None whatsoever. How dare you! You forget your place.”

“Apologies, sir, but we believe it can run in the family and it would explain why you’re here, talking to yourself.”

 

Corinne Pollard

Corinne is a UK disabled horror writer published in Sirens Call and Trembling with Fear. Follow her on Twitter: @CorinnePWriter

 

Doctor Knows Best

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by Mallory Needles

The straps dig into my wrists and ankles. The doctor hums as he sticks the electrodes on my head. His face is hidden under a grimy mask and greasy hat. Only his eyes, wild with glee, peer out from underneath.

“Shall we get started?” he sings. His voice seems familiar…

“Listen Doc,” I cry, wrestling against the straps. “There’s no need for this. I swear I feel better.”

The doctor leans over, pulling down his mask… and to my horror I see my own hideous face grinning back at me.

“Oh, but the doctor knows best…” I giggle to myself.

 

Mallory Needles

Mallory Needles currently lives in Munich, Germany. He likes reading, sleeping, and drinking cups of (far too sweet) tea.

 

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

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by Iseult Murphy

They took Sarah’s phone, money and driving license at intake.

“No need for these here. We’ll take care of everything.”

A nurse stripped Sarah before hosing her down in the shower.

“No need to be ashamed or hate yourself anymore. We’ll make you better.”

Sarah took the oval tablets from the nurse and put them in her mouth.

“No need to worry. We’ll fix you.”

The capsules burst on her tongue, and the slimy hatchlings crawled up the back of her throat into her nasal passageway.

“No need for humanity. Our parasites will do a better job at being you.”

 

Iseult Murphy

Iseult Murphy is a multi-genre Irish author who has won various awards for her short fiction, as well as her debut horror novel 7 Days in Hell, which was an IAN Book of the Year Awards Finalist. Find out more about her, her writing and read her blog at iseultmurphy.com

 

Do You See?

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by  Alden Terzo

Fluorescent light flickered across the cracked, stained walls. The bitter aroma of disinfectant tried and failed to mask the immutable stench of despair. Gary sat, restrained, across from Dr Franklin and another.

“Gary, this is Dr Guhya,” Dr Franklin said.

 “You’re not doctors!” Gary spit. “You’re aliens in disguise!”

 “We’re both aliens?” Dr Guhya asked.

“Yes!”

“And the nurses and orderlies?”

“Aliens!”

“I see.” Behind her disguise, Dr Guhya’s reptilian mouth quivered and drooled with relief. She was the only Klazonian undercover at the facility. The human was delusional, not a seer.

The advance team for the invasion was safe.

 

Alden Terzo

When Alden Terzo isn’t reading, he’s often writing. Or procrastinating. There is usually coffee involved. Find him on Twitter @AmbassadorAlden

 

Field Trip

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by  Kristin Lennox

I’d been looking forward to this tour for months. Every spring, Brookhaven Psychiatric Hospital opens its doors to the public, for PR purposes.

The facility was bright and welcoming on the surface. But a faint sour aroma lingered beneath the lemon-scented air, and the light jazz playing in the sunroom couldn’t quite drown out the occasional disturbing cry.

As the bus departed, I sat by myself, contemplating my visit. We passed through the iron gates, leaving Brookhaven and its mysteries behind…

…and I have about three hours until they discover the tourist I bludgeoned and stuffed into the broom closet.

 

Kristin Lennox

Kristin is delighted to have had several drabbles published by Black Hare Press. She’s also a voice actor, and when she’s not talking to herself in her padded room (home studio), she tries to get the voices out of her head and onto the page

 

No Way Out

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by Tracy Davidson

Which is more psychotic? Doctors in white coats with their hammers and drills, or screaming patients, helpless, in their restraints and straitjackets?

Once, I’d have said the patients. Before I came here, to inspect the place. They’re not patients at all. Nor inmates. They’re prisoners. They come in and never go out again.

I know. My report would have closed the whole asylum down, doctors struck off, arrested. I never got out either.

 “A sudden psychotic break,” they told the authorities. Nobody questioned, nobody came.

Now, I scream too. In tune with those who died here, and those still dying.

 

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, A Hundred Gourds, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.

 

The Doctor is Out

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by Sean Donaghue Johnston

It was late. The only sounds were the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, the moaning of drugged patients, and Dr Laroche’s footsteps.

A swipe of the keycard and Dr Laroche was in the common room, now empty. Another swipe and he was at the “welcome” desk, unmanned at this hour. A retinal scan got him out of the psych ward and into the main corridor of the hospital.

He went down the stairs and out an emergency exit, tossed the orderly’s keycard and eyeball into the bushes, and slipped into the dark city streets to hunt for his next “patient.”

 

Sean Donaghue Johnston

Sean Donaghue Johnston teaches philosophy at Niagara University and Canisius College, and lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, with his wife Caroline and their two children, Atticus and Finula. His fiction has appeared in Tales from the Radiator, Space Squid, Every Day Fiction, and Broken Pencil Magazine.

 

124

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by David Staiger

Dr Reynolds shook his head insistently.

“Some patients, sadly, must be more fully restrained, for their own safety. This one attempted to eat his tongue the other day. Thus the dental guard.”

The reporter and her camerawoman each took a turn peering through the soundproofed safety glass before nodding absently and moving down the row of doors, continuing the impromptu tour.

Patient 124 studied his own reflection, correcting again that same disobedient hair, sparing a bare smile at the well-trussed figure in the room raging back at him.

Then he, too, moved along, leaving the good doctor to his fury.

 

David Staiger

David is an emerging fiction author, always on the lookout for new opportunities to expand his writing. His previous work has been featured in Festival of Fear, from Black Ink fiction and Year Four from Black Hare Press.

 

Spooned

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by Pauline Yates

Beechwood Psychiatric Hospital’s new nurse has a head full of ideas, like “kindness begets kindness”, that sort of shit. I play along. I stop smacking my head against the wall when she asks me, politely, mind you, to take my pills. Now she lets me eat ice cream with a spoon. I want her to eat ice-cream, too, but she won’t…

won’t…

won’t…

And that makes my head hurt like the spoon scoops out my brain. So I make her eat. Eat, and eat, until all her ideas burst out of her head.

I scoop them up and swallow them, too.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates lives in Australia and writes horror and dark fiction.
Website: paulineyates.com

A Song for Dorian

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by Carol Ryles

 

“Ta-da!” Lucinda gestured to her newest creation: a tree adorned with taxidermic hummingbirds, cygnets, sparrows, and ducklings.

Dorian chuckled, then guzzled his third goblet of merlot. “That takes stuffing the turkey to a whole new level. Is it finished?”

Lucinda almost lost herself to his hypnotic gaze.

“What the—” He dropped the goblet, staggered, collapsed.

Lucinda’s camouflage faded, revealing the furry snout, reptilian tongue, and horns of a krampus. She knelt, lowered a talon to Dorian’s eyeball. The perfect bauble!

Detaching the sclera, she broke into joyous, triumphant song.

“On the second day of Christmas my boyfriend gave to me…”

 

Carol Ryles

Carol Ryles hails from Western Australia. Her short fiction has appeared in over a dozen publications, including Eidolon, Aurealis, and The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. Her debut novel, The Eternal Machine, was independently published in 2022. You can find links to her work at carolryles.net