A Night at the Asylum by Jade McCahon Read Free Book Online Page A

was
immensely irritating. I struggled to put my exasperation into
words. “He was my brother. He could tell me anything. So why come
to me in a dream? Why not right in front of my face while I’m
awake?” This whole conversation was provoking another round of
goose bumps on my arms.
    “Maybe he’s tried that. Maybe you didn’t
notice.”
    Now she was just being ridiculous. “No. No. I
definitely would have noticed.”
    “And by the way, you shouldn’t talk
about him like that .”
    “Like what?”
    “You said was . You shouldn’t say he was your brother. He still is.”
    In spite of the boundaries she was straddling
with that one, it felt wrong to argue.
    “Look, the fact that there’s a spirit world
that overlaps our own is practically common knowledge now,” Jamie
said. “It’s part of pop culture. All over television, movies, the
internet…you need to get with the times. This isn’t 1984. The
science is way ahead of you on this.”
    I snickered. “Yeah, well, what you call
science is what I call theatrics. And how has that changed since
1984?”
    “You are so cynical,” Jamie murmured, her
eyes narrowed at me. “I can’t believe it. At twenty. It’s really a
shame.”
    I ignored her. “Look, I’ve told you before, I
just don’t get into that stuff. Tommy…Tommy was totally into
it. He and his friends would go on ghost hunts together. He was
always taking pictures…he tried to catch their voices on that
little tape recorder thingy he had…”
    “So…what, it scares you?” Jamie asked. “Don’t
tell me you’re like my grandmother and you subscribe to all that
religious stuff that says it’s wrong to peer behind the
curtain.”
    “No…” I shrugged. “It’s not that. It’s that I
don’t really believe in anything anymore. Not God…not…
organized religion…especially not the ‘spirit world’.” The words
were a bit of a revelation, and a strange sadness enveloped me. I
hadn’t fully understood my feelings until speaking them aloud.
    “Maybe that’s why he has to come to you in a
dream. Because you don’t believe in it.”
    My exhausted brain was not capable of
analytical thought or arguing with Jamie. “Okay, can we
just…change the subject please?”
    For a few minutes we drove, randomly
conversing. We were nearing my street now, and she deliberately
interrupted a rant I was on about Ead to ask if she could stay at
my house. It was strange – Jamie’s reaction to talk of the
Perverted Patrolman was similar to mine when she brought up the
topic of the paranormal. How could I blame her? We all have our
threshold of fear. Ghosts she could talk about all night, but that
guy…that guy was really scary.
    “They’re tearing it down in the morning you
know. The asylum,” Jamie said suddenly, and it took me a second to
realize that she’d abruptly changed the subject again.
    The asylum…it was one thing about this town
unlike most others. On the outskirts of the city, where the
streetlights are few and far between, stood a huge, decaying,
vacated hospital. Before the 1980s it had been used as a mental
institution; the decades thereafter a partying ground for unruly,
curious teenagers. There’d been a debate about having it destroyed
for quite a while, and when the decision was made by the city
council only two days ago they’d wasted no time scheduling the
building’s demise. A group of protesters was trying to stop the
demolition – some sort of historical society thing. Raymond had
told me he might join the cause. Remembering Raymond made me feel
sad and dumped again, and thinking of the asylum being torn down
reminded me of losing my brother.
    What a suck-fest this night was turning out
to be.
    So I’m not sure why I decided to make it
harder on myself. “Drive past Raymond’s house, will you?” I
asked.
    Jamie groaned. “Why? He called you back…why
don’t you just call him?”
    My overtired mind didn’t care how she knew
he’d called me back when