The Blue Ward was filled with damp abyssal creatures.

The Green Ward had carpet and no visitors were allowed.

A pool table.

“SO,” SHE SAID carefully, as if talking to a child holding a loaded gun, one frightened fingertip on the trigger, frozen with the fear of what they might do next, whether purposeful or by accident. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to have a big sip of that drink, then you’re going to turn around and go into that bathroom. You’re going to take off your disgusting gym clothes and take a hot shower. We,” she motioned to her mother with an extended thumb, “are going to wash your clothes and bring you some clean stuff to wear in the meantime. Then,” she continued boldly, not giving me an opening to counter her plan, “we are going to lay down on that couch, watch a bad movie, and I’m going to rub your back and shoulders until… you… relax.”

If this were a horror movie, this is the part where the audience would be shaking their head in disbelief, am I right? Of course you don’t go into the shower. You put the drink down, politely excuse yourself, and walk without hesitation to your car, where you get in, lock the doors, and drive your ass as far away from those women and that house as you can, never to return. But the thing is, at the time you just aren’t putting it all together. You’re too… involved. You have no perspective. When you’re watching characters on a screen, it’s easy to shout “Get out of there!” at them, because it seems so damned obvious. But when you are in it, when it’s real life, the idea of running seems, well, stupid. Over-the-top. Excessive. Outrageous.

Crazy.

So, I did what I think a lot of men would have done in my situation. I mean, a relatively hot girl in her underwear is handing me a drink, telling me to take a shower so she can give me a back and shoulder massage? There’s a lot there to be argued for. Yeah, of course, it was weird that her mother was sort of lurking around the whole scene. And yes, Crystal was attractive, but sadly not to me, due to her amphibian white skin and nip-and-tucked features, but nevertheless I turned on my heels and allowed Crystal’s cold hands, now pressed firmly into the middle of my back, to push me gently through the open door of the bathroom.

I even took a sip of my drink. Just like she asked me to.

“Get those clothes off so we can wash them,” she yelled through the door. I looked at myself in the wall-length mirror, saw my matted hair, my baggy sweatshirt and knee-length athletic shorts. I set the drink down on the counter, sat on the toilet, and began peeling off my socks and shoes, shaking my head the whole time at what a complete and total idiot I was being.

I put my clothes in a small pile next to the sink, turned on the water, waited a few moments while it heated up, then stepped into the tub, pulling the two sections of the blue plastic shower curtain closed around me.

The water was hot, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good.

“I’m coming in, hide your penis!”

The door opened and I froze. What the fuck?

The room was immediately invaded by the not-so-distant blare of the television. I heard her rustling around just a few inches away from me in the narrow bathroom. She’s getting my clothes, that’s all. Just getting my dirty clothes. I knew I was being stupid. Of course I needed clean clothes. They had said that.

I waited for the sound of her exit. For the door to close behind her.

There was nothing.

I continued to wait, not moving, breathing shallow, as if not wanting her to hear me. To know where I was hiding. The sound of the water hitting the tub seemed explosive, like thunder. I closed my eyes tight. Why wouldn’t she leave?

“Peek-a-boo.”

I turned so fast my heels almost slid out from beneath me. I steadied myself, put a hand on the while tile wall.

Her face hovered there, stuck into the cut of blue plastic, the two sides tucked tightly beneath her chin, as if she were sneaking a peek at the audience from behind the heavy red curtain of a stage. She appeared as the visage of a playful god slipping its broad head through the fabric of space, or a creature rising, pale and bloated, from some dark body of water, surfacing with wide alien eyes, a sharp mouth jammed with ragged teeth.

“Christ!” I yelled, startled and embarrassed.

Her eyes moved up and down my body. Her smile distant now. Not faltering, not exactly… but absent. A melting mask dissolving due to the carelessness of its wearer.

“Crystal, what the hell?” I said, not knowing how to begin to cover myself, only able to turn away to give her a view of more ass than anything else.

“I just wanted to tell you,” she said slowly, “that I brought you clean clothes. They’re by the sink.”

“Okay, fine…” I said, and then, because the thought struck me so suddenly: “Whose clothes are they? Not yours I hope.”

She didn’t laugh like I’d expected her to. Her face just sort of… went blank. Her mouth hung slack. Her eyes continued looking at my body, as if confused. Confused or, possibly, thoughtful. The way you’d look at the photograph of someone, or something, you missed very much.

“No,” she said, finally. “Bobby’s.”

Before I could respond her face disappeared.

More shuffling outside the curtain.

I heard her mother come into the bathroom. They were whispering. I heard the word Bobby more than once. Her mother laughed and I thought if that wrinkled sad face poked itself between the shower curtain and whispered “peek-a-boo” ala her daughter that I would scream and possibly punch that crazy bitch square in her fucking red-toothed mouth.

I turned away from the curtain and looked at the white tiles lining the wall, breathing heavily. Anxiety and panic tightened my chest. I stared hard at the tiles, tried to focus, prayed they’d just leave.

Then something emerged from between those slick white pieces. Where there had previously only been clean, white grout, there was now a seeping blackness. Like spilled ink being absorbed through white fabric.

I lifted a hand, ignoring the women’s scratchy murmurs, and touched the bleeding black with puckered fingertips. When I rubbed my fingers along the edge of one tile, it loosened, as if stuck to nothing but air; as if it were a child’s tooth, dangling by a single thin fiber, ready to leap from the gums with just the slightest tug.

I did so, and watched in amazement as it fell away. Then the black began to spread more quickly, seeping through the grout between a second row of tiles, and then sinking to cover a swatch of ten, now twelve, forming a bizarre mosaic – an image of a white checkerboard. I pulled each one away from the wall, tearing the puzzle apart, carelessly flicking each smooth ceramic piece backward into the tub, where the cooling water still sprayed. The inky dark leaked down the wall in runlets, splattered into the churning water at my feet, blackened it.

When the opening was big enough, like that of a window, I stared through to what lay beyond. I recognized it right away.

The Blue Ward.

It was the rec room, the one lit in dull blue, with the concrete floor and cinderblock walls. I stared at the patients who laid on the floor or were sunk into corners; at the ones who stood facing a wall, hands roaming the porous surface, speaking as if in prayers.