RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM, OXFORD
D r. Tom Truckle could not believe what he saw on national TV. People had come out on every street in London to stir all kinds of chaos.
He saw a man in his underwear with a baseball bat chasing his family out on the streets. Another maniac woman had gone into an unexplained episode of road rage, chasing her co-workers with her damaged car. The owner of Tom’s favorite soup shop had locked everyone inside, confessing to serving them frogs and now forcing them to drink his soup until they puked.
Tom watched the BBC’s TV host, and her crew abandon their camera and run away, leaving it to record all of the mayhem.
This must be the end of days, Tom thought. He hadn’t dared switch on the channel to take a look at what was happening in America or the rest of the world.
What troubled him deeply was everyone in Oxford had gone just as mad, which suggested his asylum was in danger now.
“Lock up the asylum!” Tom shouted at his guards. “And by that, I mean use the Plan-X system.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” the guard asked on the other side.
“I am sure. The time has come to lock every one of us within these steel walls inside,” Tom said.
Running down the stairs, he entered the underground ward and walked among the Mushroomers on both sides. They were panicking, afraid of the world outside. Tom couldn’t help but remember all of the Pillar’s warnings about the world outside the asylum, how they were the real mad ones, not the Mushroomers.
“You’re going to be okay,” Tom tried to calm them down, looking for Waltraud.
“We want Alice!” the Mushroomers said.
Tom had no idea what to tell them. Alice and the Pillar had left on one of their crazy missions. As much as he loathed them both, he also felt sorry for them, having to deal with the mad world outside.
“Waltraud,” Tom called upon seeing her, mushing the brains out of a patient. “Stop whatever you’re doing.”
“Why?” she said in her German accent.
“Why?” he roared at her, his hands reaching for his pills already. “Apocalypse is why! The world is ending outside. I am issuing Plan-X. We’re closing all doors and will self-contain ourselves inside.”
“But—”
“Stop interrupting me! I’m only waiting for my children to arrive, and then the doors will seal shut. I want you to order our people in the kitchen to open up all the reserve refrigerators and start pulling out all food and supply.”
Plan-X had been the asylum’s contingency strategy since long ago. Actually, it had been Tom’s father’s idea. The old man, now in his grave, had predicted the end of the world long ago. Thus, the asylum was pre-prepared with food and living supplies for one year.
And the time has come father, Tom thought.
But Waltraud Wagner stiffened in her place. She couldn’t pull her eyes off the TV. Something about what was happening outside seemed to appeal to her.
Tom had no time to argue with her. He should have shoved her in a cell long ago. After all, he’d only hired her because she had killed her own patients back in the day when she was a nurse in Vienna.
Tom turned to the bald Ogier and ordered him to speak to the people in the kitchen.
Ogier nodded obediently and issued the process.
“Don’t worry,” Tom addressed the panicking Mushroomers. “You will be safe in here.” He couldn’t believe he’d just said those words. Never had he loved the Mushroomers, but with the world going down in flames outside, he saw how weak they were. He suddenly began to relate to them.
Then Tom remembered something he’d forgotten upstairs. Two stairs at a time, he dashed into the VIP ward, finally standing before the flamingo’s cell.
“I couldn’t leave you alone,” Tom said, wondering why his heart began softening toward the animal. Maybe it was the end of the world’s effect on him.
He pulled the cell’s door open and let the flamingo out.
“You have two options,” he told it. “Go back to your Queen in the mad world outside or stay with us...well, in the mad world inside.”
It was clear the flamingo wanted to stay, but it also looked puzzled, as if awaiting an answer from Tom.
“Okay,” Tom waved a hand. “I will tell you one of my biggest secrets, and I will only tell you.”
The flamingo’s eyes bulged out with curiosity.
“I’m not who you think I am, but I will not tell you about it, at least not now.” Tom swallowed another pill. “What I can tell you is that I was told about this by my father long ago. He called it the last days before the War. And by this, I mean he told me about the end of times, the appearance of the Wonderland Monsters, the end of the world, and how to build a safe house, a bunker to survive it. Only I was asked to disguise it as an asylum and gather as many mad people as I could because those are the ones who’re going to save the world.”