Hanging Madness
By J.M. Francis
Book 1: Back to Hell
CHAPTER 1
“I want to stay mad. They take care of you. They feed you and let you eat ice cream all day. And pills. Oh-my-God. The pills!” Alice Amy laughed, looking at Zebra across the table. It was a round table, enclosed by several walls, where you occasionally could see people playing ping pong in the other room; sometimes there would be a movie on and she always had the best angle to the TV in the corner. But who was Alice Amy, really?
#
Paul Light walked into his parent’s—his father’s—home and yelled out. “Hey dad, where’s the damn music and beer for your son?” After walking into the living room he stopped, dropping his bag, the cigarette falling out of his mouth and hitting the cheap carpet. Christopher Light, his father, was sitting in a pool of blood with a gun on the table and a note scrawled in crayons on top of it. From here, Paul could see the big letter A on the paper, but little else. He stepped forward, his heart racing, only to fall flat on his face in tears. He wept for several minutes, but this day had always been on his mind. He grabbed the paper, put it into his bag carefully without even glancing at it, pacing himself all the way; he then went to the phone and called the East Lansing police.
“911 emergency.”
“Someone died on Cedar Street,” and he dropped the phone in time to see a reddish figure, at the top of the stairs, appear and disappear. At that moment he didn’t mind his eyes playing tricks on him, because now that his father was dead and mom long gone, back in the glory days she passed, he knew he was finally on his own. “It had to happen, it will happen, it happens.” And he laughed for a moment, scared and hopeless at the same time.
He sat down, pulling a cigarette to his mouth and lighting, only to throw it to the ground. He went back to his father’s swollen body, and saw something in the color of the blood which immediately reminded him of the figure he saw upstairs. “No time for chasing ghosts,” said to himself, but couldn’t get past the letter. Finally, he pulled it out, noting a picture of exactly the creature—creature?—he had seen waiting for him at the top of the stairs. The words above it were scribbled in haste with a blooded hand, and looked quite like another language. But it was English. It said “Tell no one my secrets, and my ideas, for ideas are the true beasts.”
“What did you mean—“ A knock at the door.
2
Paul Light watched them leave, taking the body, asking little if any questions. All he could think of was why, why he died, why they didn’t even same to scare. Did they expect it as much as he did? This could have been a murder; the figure at the stairs might have been--
And—
Slow down. Slow down.
He stopped thinking and went to his bag, passing the table without thinking. He wanted a cigarette so bad, but they were quite unhealthy especially when you smoked 2 packs a day. Disgusting. Remembering the red image dashing, he slowed at the stairs. This house, built back when building was the A-Business in Mid-Michigan, had an odd arrangement. Its stairs were right there when you opened the front door; they happened to be next to the phone as well. You went up, two bedrooms, one for mom and dad, one for the best son who-did-some-dope-but-recovered Paul Light. He almost laughed, thinking of the apparition. It came down to mom: neither of them could ever let go, but Paul was better at blocking it out than dad.
He went to the bathroom and washed his hands, spotting his somewhat dirty complexion in the mirror, remembering so long ago putting water on the toothbrush so dad would think he did in fact brush his teeth. It was quite the ruse.
Again he laughed, and surveyed his father’s bedroom, or what was left of it. There were books all over the bed; barely enough space to lay. The TV, oddly, was on with MSNBC filling the screen; dad liked news. The radio was rewired and the rest of the clothes were tossed all around, dirty or clean Paul could only guess.
He went to the books on the table. “Madness in Babylon.” “Secrets of Madness.” “Hanging onto Guilt.” “Handling Schizophrenia.” “Send Down Fire.” “Artists and Their Worlds.” A different compilation of books; what was dad searching for? Again, movement with a dash of red to it, but again he second guessed himself looking at the TV screen and seeing a Child Alert hitting the screen; a six year old missing. Amber Alerts always disturbed Paul.
He repositioned the books, but kept them close. A writer, but failed college student, Paul worked as a part time journalist and aspiring non-fiction million dollar bestseller; he knew good books. Who better to teach him than dad? Dad would send him boxes full of arcane books by oddly named authors like Lovecraft and Jung and Rand; he had different tastes. Laughing at this, he stepped on another book on the ground and picked it up. It was almost finished, the bookmark on the last chapter; “The Demons Within Us.”
“Odd.” And he put the book on top of the others.
3
The police came back on a rainy night—it was so cold at night in Michigan rain—and Paul could hear them walking up the stone steps to the solid oak door, pounding it and making jokes to themselves. “Kid couldn’t kill a fly.” “What if he did kill a fly?” “No jokes, bro, he’s had it fucked.” He opened the door, pretending pain when in fact he was feeling downright happy.
“Hi. “
“Paul, may we come in?”
He recognized him. Joe Santiago. Went to school together. But he didn’t know the other one.
They sat at an old gold and white couch, the kind you hang onto and make sure stays in good shape; Paul went to work. A cup of hot black coffee for Joe, and the partner who never gave a name asked for nothing.
“Paul Light. Resident non-fiction writer. How you been, bro? Ah shit, man, that was stupid.”
“No, Joe, I’ve been good. My dad really hasn’t been alive for a decade.”
“So you’re a writer now?”
“Journalist, just a typist.”
“Any books? Any big deals? Movies?”
“I am thinking of writing a book. Actually, no, I am going to write it.” He lit a cigarette, which seemed to disturb the quiet partner; he dragged anyways. “On mental institutions.”
There was silence for a moment, a small window to escape; he should have made a joke, but he didn’t.
“Insane asylums?” Says the quiet partner. “Like your mom?” He dropped the cigarette, raging, wanting to punch him right in the face … or take the gun away and fire … but Joe did it for him, smacking the rookie on the side of his head.
“He’s a newbie. You can hit him; I’ll look away.”
“No.” And he quietly stands. “But I think you should both leave.”
“But we came to tell you something.” Joe pulled out a pad of paper, then flipped a few pages in. the partner quietly walked out the door before any further incident. “Listen, I told him about your mom. It’s in the file, but the dude hates reading so I told him. Now, he’s in my dog house, but I want you to know, and I know you don’t like many people here, but I’m a friend. You can call me.”
He opens to the page he wanted, and quietly reads it to himself again. “He died of pills and blood loss. The gun was never fired. It had no prints on it, oddly enough, as though he cleaned it first then cut his wrists and taken—“ he stopped. “Gosh. I am trying to tell you the gun is something we should consider.”
“He had the gun for 10 years. Never fired it, said it would deafen you. I would have smelled gunfire.”
“So what did you think?”
“The blood, the pill bottle, I’m not a detective.”
“And why?”
“I am going to find out.”
He woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching and then screams; first he had the odd thought some poor lady had broken her nails down to the cubicles while climbing up the stairs. “And why was she climbing, and in this house, and why are you a headcase.” Smiling, he decided to dream some more until the scratches on the door, the feint whisper, the voice overcoming him. “Who are you? What are you?” He didn’t say it; she said the words and there was pain in her voice. Speaking to him, she freed him of his fear for only a few moments. He called the police, eyeing the door and holding onto a slightly small wooden baseball bat he liked carrying in Chicago (way back when).
“911—szzzz” and the phone cut out, and he looked at nothing but a smear of blood, formed as though by fingers, on the door. To the door, to the stairs, down, to the front door.
She got in here, he thought to himself, and just left. Or maybe I need my meds, and maybe something is in this house.
The next day, a shower and some coffee. A desperation in his voice upon calling Joe, he let out his slightly insane thinking.
“That settles it. You’re dad just offed himself, damn I’m terrible with words, well he did it and you need some professional help. I know a damned good doctor who can help.”
“I have pills.”
“I mean the one who sits down on the couch with you.”
“They sit across from you with a notepad.”
Joe laughed. “Sorry, I don’t know why I talk funny round you. Would a beer work?”
“A beer would work, or an apple juice. “
“Do not tell me you quit drinking. Oh my god. You quit drinking.” Joe’s breathing rushed, but there was a pleasant happiness in his voice. “Before or after?”}
“Before. My only job for about 6 months, according to my dad, was to get sober.” And if only I could have helped him. He smiled and told him of a place to meet. He paced around the living room for a few moments staring at the television which no one had bothered to turn off. MSNBC. There was a hot anchor woman on, and he sat down for a moment, the volume down, and watched her move words through her tongue and make small, calculated gestures with her hands. He remembered the kind of girl she was, the kind he dated. The pretty eyes, but a more tom boy appearance with the lacking breasts, but a bit of phoenix in her too. Like the girls from school who laughed at his jokes but little else.
Walking to the bar, aptly ‘Irish Grill’, and walking the streets of East Lansing early in the morning. Joe said something about taking the day off, and Paul figured this meant he’d get plastered. But Paul Light didn’t get plastered anymore, and if he wanted, he could do nothing but sit in a chair for the rest of his life and be happy doing nothing, but staying away from the hard rocks and avoiding cocktails and hops. He grimaced, walking in the door to find the small pub looking like some medieval parlor, with a few scant knights sitting around, mostly kids who just grew up, and the rest of the seats empty. At a booth, Joe Santiago. He sat down and whispered his fake drink to the pretty waitress, the one with the fake breasts or lively breasts, and she smiled and walked away knowing Paul Light was likely an alcoholic.
“Or maybe just a sprite and a kiss.”
She laughed.
“Don’t sound crazy to me. I said my best pickup to her six months ago; almost took my eye out with the drinks she poured down my face.”
“Women are crazy sometimes.” And he meant it all too seriously.
Joe leaned in. “I’d leave that house.”
“Oh, it’s a haunted house.””
“Let me be straight with you, Paul. That house held an insane women who, well you know what she tried to do, and it held a man who killed himself. If there is a heaven and hell, and I believe in this shit cuz I’m Latino and we’re almost 99 percent Catholic, there are spirits who don’t entirely leave. Your dad offed himself, and karma says bad things happen in threes. Mom, dad, you. Get the hell out of there.”
“So you think there is an unhappy spirit there, Joe?”
And she placed the sprite in front of him, in time to hear it. “Oohh, ghosts and goblins,” she mentioned. “I loved Amityville. Oh my god.”
As she walked away, Joe leaned in. “If you’re writing a book on mental institutions, I’d consider the theory of spirits.”
“Phenomena in Institutions.”
“Your title?”
“Maybe, but the topic.”
“Wait, that’s the plan? Write about this? Dude, let the dead rest. It’s way too messed up in those places.”
“I have to do this,” sipping his Sprite, sweet and good, he leaned back. “I have to do something to remember her.”
“She was insane, man! She almost killed you and your dad.”
“It wasn’t her. “
“What do you mean it wasn’t her?”
“My dad didn’t press charges; you know that.”
“Wife, husband, wife tries to hurt husband who maybe has beaten up on her—“And he stops. “Dude, I hate talking about this stuff, but the reality is you need be far from that house and sure as hell far from Michigan mental institutions.”
“It’s an argument,” replied Paul.
“An argument.”
“In what you just told me. There are certain unnatural things which cause conditions like schizophrenia. There are mysteries of the brain and spirit.”
“Your theme, thesis, hook.”
“Her story, all of it, will be for her eyes to see when we meet again.” And he knew this came out mad, but he said it anyway and sipped on his Sprite. Joe immediately downed him drink.
“Where do you start?”
CHAPTER 2
With eyes set to steel, the power of words on the page pushed him into the idea: yes, I can do something. He put himself in front of the page for a few days, typing nothing and scribbling and occasionally sketching out dreams with dollar signs and press interviews attached. But he knew where the true story was, he understood horror has its place in the minds of the slightly crazed. After all, what mom did, what mom did to him and dad, that was wrong but also crazed. No one tries blowing up a house with the gas going; no one tries suicide that many times, continuously, over the course of one boy’s childhood.
He stopped, realizing his thoughts had rambled, his mom trying to burn down the house, mom with the angels now. Frustrated, he threw the fiction in the garbage where it belonged and went to his father’s books. They had been sorted and ordered; the spiritual, the godly, the righteous, the mad ideas and the good ideas. He pulled out “Send Down Fire,” and realized it told the story of a man who thought he was an angel.
“Exactly,” he said, realizing this author, some odd by-line that sounded like an African name, had done exactly what he wanted to do. Probe the mind for the power of God—his mind, other minds, and dark ideas. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe this story meant—
“Who—Are—You.” And the voice leapt up the stairs and reached him at his father’s office.
“Fuck you.” And he began taking notes. “Angels came down from heaven, they whispered to Abraham to let his son live, they said things God’s voice could never say.”
He went to his own texts, the two separate books he’d chosen to research for his books; there were dozens of other possibilities, but he disliked the aspects of broad research and wanted to be more direct. “Ghosts of the Buildings” was a 50 year-old title about phenomena in certain buildings across Michigan. Michigan did have a good number of mental intuitions, especially when considered to warmer states; people got Cabin Fever when Canada’s cold rushed down and things started going wrong.
Another title: “Spirits of the Dark,” a coy idea, but one he didn’t agree with. Yet it had the most potential for his thesis: demons did in fact walk the Earth.
He laughed again, akin to a mad laugh, and the echo went down the stairs. He thought of the voice—who are you—and realized that he reacted with no fear to it.
To the stairs, down to where he heard the voice, he opened a closet slightly open, and looking into the dark. “I am Paul Light,” and he almost laughed again, a poor sign, and went to the table for a moment. When he looked up, he saw a red apparition looking across from him. “Call it 7.”
“What? What are—“ he stopped. A good view of this red figure, almost like something from a vampire story; long nails, skinny, red eyes, somewhat black in the body, with patches of light escaping it. Not human. Not an angel. Just something in his mind.
