THE GARGOYLE

 

The screams of the asylum rang out long after the building was abandoned. The only thing that could have made the noise was the wind, as it whistled through the mouth of the Gargoyle. 

I lived across the road from the rotting asylum. I heard the screams one night when the wind was strong. I saw the Gargoyle staring back at me, lit up by the orange street lamp. The silent dread of asylum clung to the air above the soil. The feeling of unease grew thicker, as winter brought its cold damp air in from the Atlantic.

I resolved to get the better of my fear. I had managed the impossible. I had a job during a nationwide period of mass unemployment. I moved out of the family home, and for the first time in my adult life, I was able to breathe. I couldn’t let the funk of the asylum ruin my independence. I rented the studio flat above the newsagent. My job paid just enough to live without starving and freezing. I was driven to work by a need to be free from my mother. If I didn’t keep fighting, I would have to go back to her house ashamed. I would have another failed attempt to fly the nest for her to smirk at. All the things I’d worked for kept me independent and content. My days were spent at work. When the night came the thought of the asylum drifted into my lungs. It kept me awake. It was as if the whole building was filled with ghosts, patients long dead. I felt their eyes peer out of the stone-smashed windows. I shut the curtains. But I could still feel their gaze. Sleep was out of the question. I got up and went down to the news agent to get something to drink. It stayed open till one AM.

‘Hello boss, it’s a bit late for whisky?’

‘I can’t sleep. Can I have a packet of cigarettes as well please?’ I said.

Mr Chowdhuri stared into my eyes, and then smiled, a real warmth of a smile. 

‘Something is troubling you.’

‘It’s the buildings over the road.’

‘The Fountainhead asylum?’ He said, I nodded.  ‘There’s nothing there but bricks and mortar my friend, bricks and mortar, and broken windows. You’ve seen too many scary movies.’ Then he laughed and said goodbye.

He didn’t reassure me. If anything, his attempt to calm my fears made it worse. Did he feel it too? Or maybe he didn’t. Was my mind bringing my fears alive? Was it my Hollywood notion of a haunted house coming to life inside my imagination?  Whatever it was, I was going to drown it with cheap blended whisky. I had been sober for a long time. It was a one time drink to calm my nerves. I’d face it in the morning.

The next day was my day off. I took a walk to the local library and took out everything they had on the Fountainhead Asylum. It was built in 1889 and remained open until 1966. It was women only, and specialised in treating severe cases of brain fever and murderous intent. Reverend Castleford, its founder and resident doctor, was a great philanthropist. He believed that the women could be cured with a renewed faith in God. He pioneered many now outlawed forms of treatment including: fasting diets and daily scripture, and whipping punishments if rules were not obeyed. It was he who had the Gargoyle mounted on the entrance tower. It was brought across the sea from a medieval church in France that had been torn down. The gargoyle was 13th century, far older than the bricks of the building. There were numerous cases of patients looking up at the carved stone beast and shrieking. The Leering gargoyle had no place in an institution that claimed to treat those with mental illness. Yet it remained on its perch up to and after the asylum was shut down in 1966. The intimates believed the spirit of Reverend Castleford peered through the eyes of the Gargoyle. Watching over the women admitted to Fountainhead. My research uncovered a newspaper article dated 1905, it read:

Massacre at Fountainhead asylum

 In the early hours of September 16th Mary Maldon, a patient at Fountainhead, escaped her restraints and butchered three night porters, before she hung herself from the Gargoyle.

As I sat in the hot air of the public library. I glanced round to see if anyone had noticed my shaking wrists. It was empty, bar one librarian in a purple shirt, who scanned a pile of books left in the overnight box. I read on and found Governor Haltom’s statement: “We are devastated by this tragedy and will do everything within our power to help the grieving families, and ensure this will never happen again.”      

I had read enough. I left the library as the sun was going down. I picked up a dying sandwich from the newsagent and went up to watch T.V. There was nothing on. I drunk a large glass of whisky and lit a fag. The combination dulled my thoughts. The cigarette did nothing but aggravate my nicotine addiction. It cut the oxygen to the brain as the whisky dulled my thoughts to sludge. I soon forgot the fear and drifted off to half-sleep. 

I woke up to the news. The presenter rambled on about another war somewhere I had never heard off. It was strange. I was desensitised by war. So many wars, all merged together, images of death, destruction and pain, condensed to a five second news reel. The whisky was gone and I was out of cigarettes. I went down for more, but Mr Chowdhuri had closed.  I had no other option than to go to bed. 

As soon as I lay down, the fear I had numbed away returned. I rose up defiant. The room was dark. An orange hue burned through the curtains. I fought with my childhood fears of the dark. I cleared my mind but sleep didn’t come. I heard the wind pick up. Then I heard the whistling noise, the screams of the asylum.  The Gargoyle came into my thoughts. The more the wind blew the louder the screams. The wind began to die. The screams stopped. 

I got out of bed. I pulled the curtain back from the window. I recoiled. The gargoyle peered back at me. It smashed open the window and climbed into my room. I screamed as it crossed the floor, dripping from the rain. It came up to me and put its stony claws around my neck to silence my screams.

I woke up to the face of a paramedic. I was in a bright lit ambulance. 

‘Where are you taking me?’ I said. 

‘It’s alright Mr Helmsley, you need to calm down.’

‘Where are you taking me?’ I said again.

‘We’re going to the hospital; everything is going to be fine.’

‘What hospital?’

‘The Fountainhead psychiatric hospital.’