THE FREQUENCY OF DEATH

—MARTY YOUNG—

“It’s almost like there’s something else here, staring at us, but no, even that’s not right. It’s more like...”

Doctor Susan Raymond wanted to say something when Peter ran out of words, but she wasn’t sure what to say, so she sat in silence, waiting for him to get going again. 

“It’s more of a sound,” Peter finally said, turning his semi-vacant eyes her way. They had been staring out of the small window that overlooked the car park. The emptiness that seemed to have expanded every time she stared into them was held at bay, by sheer concentration or perhaps by the new drug, she didn’t know, but it gave her hope. 

“Like there’s something just out of our hearing, but we can just pick up on it, anyway.”

“Like how dogs hear an approaching earthquake?”

“I have no idea, I’m not a dog.”

“No, what I meant was—”

“We don’t want to do this anymore. It’s making us...” And here that spreading ink stain of forgetfulness spilled across his consciousness a little more and he lost his words. Susan waited, her hands clasped in her lap.

“We just don’t want to take the drugs anymore. They’re not safe.”

“I think what you’re experiencing are the side-effects you were told to expect at the start of this trial. I know you’ve been suffering nausea and headaches, even dizziness and anxiety. You were told that might happen, and the apprehension caused by some unheard sound. Audio hallucinations.”

“You think so?”

“I do. I also think you’ll be fine. We’ll monitor the effects and ensure they don’t get worse; that’s part of the reason we’re all here. If they do, we’ll stop the trial, but we’re close, we’re so close to having something that cures the disease. Doesn’t that make it worth persevering with? Just think of the reward at the end of it.”

“Sometimes,” said Peter. “I think that’s all you ever think about.”

Dr Raymond glared at the volunteer before her and found herself shocked at the horrible thought that exploded through her head at his expense. 

“That’s not true at all, Peter,” she said, trying to feign concern. “You know I’m here for you. You know that. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re all okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. If it gets too dangerous, I’ll be the first to call it off.”

“Answer me one more question and then I’ll go back to the others and tell them we’re continuing with the trial.”

“Okay.”

“Why is it that the two times our ‘side-effects’ have been at their worst coincides with the two deaths that happened here?”

“The two...?”

“Deaths. An elderly man and an elderly woman, both mid-eighties, they died this past week. They lived in this building, down on the first floor where they have resident rooms. They both died in the night, going out peacefully.”

“How do you know that? I don’t even know that.”

Peter said nothing for a moment and Susan worried that the spreading forgetfulness had spread a little further and taken what he was about to say, but just as she was going to prod him in the hope of saving that lost memory, he went on;

“Because we heard them die.”

*    *    *

“He said that?”

Susan nodded, watching her assistant closely. Clara was young and bright, and determined. She was two years into her PhD on the chemical inhibitors of virus mutations, not something Susan thought important, but then, what did she know? 

“Did he tell you what it sounded like?”

“No, just that what they heard was muted, a whisper of the true sound, but even that was enough to freak them out. Now they’re living in anxiety, waiting to hear it again, and worrying that when they do, it will be louder, more intolerable. They’re scared they’re going to start hearing ghosts everywhere.”

Clara whistled. She reached up and pulled her ponytail tighter, then smoothed down her hair. Done like that, she looked a decade older than her twenty-seven years. Her father, a pastor at a local church, had tried doing bad things to her when she’d been young, so it was no wonder. “What do you think?” Clara asked her.

“I think we should look into it. I’m not sure they’re hearing what they think they’re hearing, but I do think this is a potential side-effect we were warned about.”

“Audio hallucinations.”

“Yeah, or even hyperacusis. I don’t know yet, but we need to look into it.”

Hyperacusis was the over-sensitivity to certain frequency ranges, and Susan thought it was possible the noise they were hearing was a more natural sound, but one most people are deaf to. Maybe something to do with electricity humming through wires, or electrical discharges in the atmosphere related to an approaching storm. How that fitted in with the two deaths, she didn’t know. Coincidence, perhaps? Maybe. 

“One thing to check is weather patterns at the time of those deaths,” Susan said, explaining her thinking.

Clara nodded. “Good idea. I’ll also get in touch with Optimax Pharmaceuticals and ask them for confirmation on who the test subjects are and who the control group is. 

This was initially a double-blind phase II trial, with neither the volunteers nor the investigators knowing who was receiving CIN994 and who the placebo, but with such clear and evident side-effects—if that’s what it was—then it would be best to know the details and perhaps revert to a blind study with only the volunteers kept in the dark over their treatment.

“Have you had much involvement with Optimax?” Susan asked as a sudden thought came to her.

“No, only through emails when they hired me for this trial.” 

“Same here, and they’re not exactly very personable.”

“They told me they value their privacy.”

Susan cast a glance over her shoulder, up at the security camera mounted in one corner of the ceiling. Then she leaned in close and said in a quiet voice. “Don’t you think it’s kind of a weird coincidence that there have been two deaths this week when there were none here in over four months before that?” 

Clara also glanced over to the camera. “Do you think they’re somehow responsible? That it’s all part of the trial?”

“No, of course not. That would be...” 

She didn’t finish, but then such a heavy sentence didn’t need a conclusion. 

“I’m not sure you should be thinking those thoughts out loud,” said Clara, and Susan forced a smile.

“You’re right. Sorry, it’s just my natural curiosity. Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you get started handing out the afternoon medication and I’ll join you shortly?”

Clara nodded, but she gave the security camera a fleeting look before leaving the room. 

Susan wondered how this conversation would be received at the mysterious headquarters of this trial’s sponsor—but then really, if Optimax didn’t want them gossiping about it, the company wouldn’t operate in such a clandestine manner. 

Still, she thought, getting ready to help Clara with the afternoon dosages, it wouldn’t hurt to be a bit more careful in their chatter.

No point in biting the hand that fed them, as the old saying went. 

*    *    *

“No, I don’t want to take it anymore,” said Mary, shaking her head and folding her arms. 

“Did Peter speak to you?” Susan asked the old woman, and then after she nodded, went on with, “I promised him I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“Peter, I think he did say that. I’m not sure. I’m getting a bit forgetful these days.”

“I know, and this is going to help. I promise.” Susan offered up the small paper cup with the two red pills in it. She held a plastic cup of water in her other hand.

But Mary still hesitated.

“Please,” said Susan. 

Mary took the pills and stared at them. “But they look... so dangerous.”

“They’re not. They will help you remember things. Now, drink them up,” she said, handing over the water. She watched the old wrinkled woman reluctantly swallow the pills and water, then collected the cups. 

“Thank you, Mary. I’ll be back to check on you in a short while, but if you feel funny in any way, let me know. Right away, okay?”

“Is it true what they say about this place? You know,” Mary leaned in close, peering up and down the hallway as she did so. “What they used to do to patients here?”

“It’s just campfire tales told to scare people, that’s all.”

The stories of Parkton’s madhouse were well known. Terrifying tales of electroshock and insulin ‘therapy,’ experimental psychotropic drugs, forced sterilization upon patients, even stories of ghosts haunting the crowded graveyard sharing the hospital grounds and the night-time release of certain patients. 

The old hospital was a little over thirty minutes north of Parkton, up in the foothills of the Coast Range. Those hills were forested with firs and maples, pines and oaks, but the building perched in clear view of town like the keep of some ancient monarchy that had kept too long to itself. 

“Well, I wonder if those spirits are still here,” Mary said. “There are a lot of screams left in this place. The walls bleed with them. 

Susan didn’t know if the shiver then was theatrical or real, but she smiled and put what she hoped was a reassuring hand on Mary’s arm. “Just silly stories to give this place a bit of character, that’s all. Nothing for you to worry about, okay?”

Mary nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’re right, dear. Anyway, I think I’m going to go back to my tele. It’s far less taxing on an old system than conversations about ghosts.”

Susan held her smile until Mary was out of sight. She only knew the volunteers’ first names, and not much about their background other than what Optimax had passed on. It was best that way, she thought, heading back to the main office. The less she knew about these people, the better.

*    *    *

“Benjamin wouldn’t take his,” Clara said, dumping the small plastic cup of pills and its partner water on the desk. “And I had to promise Phillip I’d keep a close eye on him. He thinks this place is haunted.”

Susan sighed. This was getting out of hand; if they refused to take the medication then the trial couldn’t continue.

“Well, how about I go see Ben right now. These people have to take their course of drugs; they can’t afford to miss a round.”

“Maybe we should stop the trial until we have a clearer idea of what the problem is. I don’t think it’s very ethical forcing volunteers to take something that they’re not entirely comfortable taking.”

“Why do you think we’re here? That’s what we’re trying to do, isn’t it? We’re trying to make them feel comfortable taking these drugs, doing it in a controlled environment where we can keep a close watch on them.” She closed her eyes and remained silent for a moment. Then she opened them again and said, “This is important, surely you can see that? This drug, it might be the one to cure Alzheimer’s. Don’t you want to be part of that?”

“You need to think of the people involved more than yourself.” Clara’s cheeks were red, her lips pressed tight together. 

“I am, Clara. More than you, it seems.”

Susan Raymond stood and grabbed Ben’s medication, then left the office. She didn’t need to hurry because Clara offered nothing more. The door closed behind her, leaving her alone in the quiet hallway. 

She stood there, collecting herself. And in that silent place, with the shadows gathering in the corners where the light didn’t quite reach, she couldn’t help but think about what Mary had said. 

The hospital used to have two main sections, the well-spaced buildings of the larger general hospital area, and the smaller, isolated—and at one time heavily guarded—Ward 16, the ward for the criminally insane. While the general section was landscaped with rich gardens, lush lawns, and walking paths for the patients, with a barbeque down by the small man-made pond where Sunday afternoons were spent during summer, Ward 16 had comprised of ten buildings set within a twenty-foot high brick wall. It was an enclosed community, one in which madness and lunacy was rampant, where screams and screeches ripped apart the day as much as they did the night. 

That ward had been shut down in 1990 after sixty years of turbulence. The worst stories centred on that diabolical place where violent madmen had been kept and experimented upon. Where now only ghosts were left to tell the tales—and told they did, if you listened to their screams. 

If you wanted a place that would scream late in the night, then this would be it. 

Now she felt a shiver run the length of her spine, and that got her moving. Thinking of ghosts was easy when you were on a floor with sixteen people prone to forgetting you were here with them. It was easy when you were locked away from the rest of the world, surrounded by a dark history. 

But that didn’t make any of it true. 

Susan made her way to Ben’s room and rapped on the door. Each volunteer had been assigned a small bedroom on this floor. The rooms were comfortable without being luxurious, each with their own bathroom. There was a common room down one end of the floor, and a reading room down the other. 

She didn’t wait for him to answer.

“I didn’t welcome you in,” he told her in his clipped words. He had Peter with him, the TV on and tuned to a hockey game. Both men were sitting side by side on the bed. 

“If you’re not taking your medication then there’s no reason for you to remain here,” Susan said, ignoring Peter. “You might as well pack up and go home, and wait for your disease to take you apart piece by piece.”

Benjamin stared at her, his veined eyes wide with surprise. He’d been a heavy drinker through life; that much was evident just by looking at him.

“I’m sorry to be so rude, but it’s important you take this. We need to know exactly what the side-effects are so we can do our best to guard against them in the future.”

She held out the cup of pills and the water, and smiled, even though she felt like cramming the damn things down the foolish old man’s throat. “So please take them.”

“Only if you will, too.”

“My job is to—”

“I know what your job is. But if you want me to keep taking these, and if you want the rest of us to do so, then you take them, too.”

Susan didn’t move. She was aware of her hands held out and she felt silly in that pose, but she didn’t move, and she didn’t know what to say, either. She looked at Peter but he stared back without emotion, only expectation. 

“If the side-effects aren’t dangerous, then you have nothing to be scared of, right?”

“Only losing my job,” she said, finally finding something to say.

But Benjamin laughed. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

She said nothing and he stopped laughing. “I’m serious; it won’t take much for me to get others to stop taking these drugs, and I know how much a successful trial means to you. Something’s not right, and don’t just blame it on side-effects or what-have-you. Pete’s already told you about the deaths and I doubt a scientist like you can put that down to coincidence.”

“He’s right,” Peter said. “Several of the others are of the same mind; if the drugs are so harmless and what we’re experiencing is only a side-effect, then we want you to take them, too.”

“Do you know how many rules that would break? It will make the whole trial null and void.”

“If you don’t take them, then the trial is over anyway. And I doubt the sponsor company will hire you again with one failure on your record.”

Susan looked down at the pills in her hand.

*    *    *

Day one

“How do you feel?” Peter asked her as she delivered his medication that afternoon.

“Fine,” she replied. “A little nauseated, and I have a slight headache, but that’s it.”

Peter raised his paper cup to toast her, and she met his with her own. They swallowed the pills in unison, then drank water together. 

Day two

Susan held a hand to her chest and felt her heartbeat racing like she had finished a workout. She was sweating, too. 

“You okay?” Clara asked her, paused on her way to the main office to begin on the day’s report. 

“I think I’m coming down with a bit of a cold is all,” she said. 

“Well, take it easy and if you need to lie down, then go for it. I can manage things here, now that everyone has decided to take their medication without fuss.” Clara frowned, her head cocked to one side. 

“What is it?” Susan asked. The room was spinning, the floor blurring past, collecting shadows and darkness like dust, and building up its collection in the corners. She shook her head, causing the motion to increase—but then it slowed, then stopped, and the way it did so brought to mind a cat catching sight of its prey and slowing right down, dropping to the ground, all the better to creep close enough to pounce. 

“Oh, just, I was wondering what happened to make everyone so eager to take their medication.”

Now those shadowy corners and darkened spots held menace they hadn’t held before, and Susan couldn’t take her eyes from such places along the hallway. Places where maddened ghosts might lurk should this place be haunted.

“Do you have any idea?”

“No,” she said. “None.”

“Hmm, I wonder,” said Clara, going on her way.

Day three

Susan took some aspirin. The headache was like a companion, there in the morning and there in the evening, wandering off for a jaunt elsewhere every now and then but never far away. 

The periods of dizziness had grown less, and her heartbeat had steadied. 

It was those shadows that got her; those corners collecting darkness like spider webs collecting bugs, and just like spider webs, she knew that those darkened corners held their own spiders, lurking out of sight but watching her, waiting for her to come closer, closer, and then they would leap and catch her—

Susan shook her head. 

“Rubbish,” she muttered. She knew nothing of the sort existed in the dark corners anywhere on this floor of the hospital. 

Outlook chimed, alerting her to new email. Glad of the distraction, Susan went to the main computer, but reading who the sender was caused her heart rate to accelerate again. It was Optimax. 

‘We know you are taking the medication yourself, and while this breaks protocol and impacts on the study, we acknowledge you did the right thing by agreeing to take it. Do not tell your assistant. We will monitor your situation, but you are to report to us daily on your condition, while ensuring the trial continues.’

The spiders hiding in the corner of the rooms must have caught her then, because she could feel little shivers running all over her exposed skin.

Day four

Thus far, she typed, the side effects have been tolerable. The anxiety is perhaps the worst but even that can be managed. I haven’t experienced any of the anxiety the other volunteers claimed to have experienced, the threatening swell as if in the atmosphere itself that portents to something terrible about to happen; my anxiety stems from dark places and things waiting there to pounce—perhaps, in hindsight, what I am experiencing is similar to theirs after all? It sounds it when I type it. Anyway, speaking with Peter yesterday, he said he still felt the raw expectation all about him, as if at any moment he would hear the sound of death again, because, really, when you think about it, we’re all surrounded by constant death, aren’t we? He said the rest felt the same, although they’re not open with me or Clara and won’t discuss their feelings other than by simple sentences. They seem to go to him instead, almost like we’re their captors and are enforcing upon them human experimentation of the most diabolical kind. 

Are we?

She hit send and then stood from the computer and went out into the hallway, ignoring the swelling patches of darkness that had spread from the corners and were now affecting the roof and walls, and headed towards the recreation room at the far end of the hallway.

Parkton Hospital was silent around her, and she found it hard to believe she was on the same grounds, let alone in the same building. It sometimes felt like they were alone in the world, alone and forgotten here on this floor, amongst the shadows and shade of lunatic ghosts.

Sometimes, as she walked the hallway between rounds, she could hear noises from the rooms she passed, usually the sound of a television, or someone on a phone. On several occasions, one of the volunteers would whip open their door and peek out as she passed their room, but then quickly duck back inside and close their doors again. 

That was happening more often lately. Especially today. The volunteers all seemed to be on edge.

The whole place felt like a storm hovered above it, about to break. 

She walked that hallway now, keeping to the middle of the floor, keeping as far from the walls as possible, and even crouching forward a little so her head was further from the ever darkening ceiling. She did all of this without knowing she was doing any of it.

She was thinking about that email, and what it meant. Optimax wanted this trial to continue, regardless of what happened—but why? CIN994 had proven very successful in trials to date, so there was a lot of hope and expectation, and no doubt money, caught up in its success. 

But if the side effects were as serious as the other volunteers were claiming, then wouldn’t Optimax know this coming into a phase II trial—and when you sat on down and thought it all through—how had they been allowed to conduct a phase II if that was the situation? She couldn’t help but wonder if there was more going on here. Was there an ulterior motive for the trial, and the determination for keeping it going? 

Maybe she was just another volunteer, and not the principal researcher? 

She laughed, then quickly stopped. She glanced up at the steady eye of the small camera nestled like one of those hidden spiders in the corner of the hallway.

Who sat at the other end, watching her? Was it a low paid servant of Optimax, or a demigod, a demon, sitting there with his plan outlined next to him, her name ringed in red?

Did they know what was going on, or was this the first time someone taking the medication had been near someone who had died? 

She looked away from the camera, not knowing what to think. Her brain was a mess; she knew that much, but she didn’t know which direction to go. 

In the recreation room, she found Peter and Benjamin playing cards with two other volunteers, a man called Jeremy, and a woman by the name of Nancy. Both were in their sixties and had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s this year. Jeremy reminded her of her uncle by the smell of cigars that seeped from him, and his bushy eyebrows, while Nancy looked English, like the traditional grandma, complete with rollers in her hair. She was frail though, and pale, too.

None of the four were speaking. They sat there rigid, strangers shocked and uncomfortable at the presence of the others next to them. 

“Peter,” she said, trying to smile at the group. “Can I speak with you, please?”

Peter studied her face for a moment before placing his cards face down on the table and pushing back his chair. 

It was then that her world tore open and unleashed its terrible scream. 

The scream began at full volume, like a throat being torn apart under the pain of the cry, the necessity of unleashing such anguish driving the hideous noise on.

Susan cried out herself and clamped her hands over her ears, but that gesture was futile. The sound tore across her head, seeking out her sanity. 

She fell to her knees, then over onto her side, her hands pressed tight to her ears and her scream continuous yet mute under that barrage.

It was a sound to end the world, a sound like complete despair, complete and as black as the primal night. There was no hope in that sound. 

And when she thought it would never end, the scream was torn apart itself, pieces thrown in all directions, and the sound, in its thousand pieces, ended.

*    *    *

Darkness ended, too, and light began. With that brightness her sanity crept back, but it was a flighty beast. Her eyes went wide as consciousness returned and she cried out and thrashed about, feeling arms on her and desperate to throw them off but they held her, or something did, and voices spoke to her, trying to calm her down.

“Susan, Susan, it’s me, Clara. You’re okay. Relax, just relax.”

The young woman’s face filled her vision but when Susan tried to reach out to clutch her, she found her hands wouldn’t move. She was tied to the bed. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay.”

She turned her head to stare about the room; she didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t one of the volunteers’ rooms, nor the medical clinic. 

“Where am I? What’s going on? Why am I restrained?”

There was one other bed in the room with her, and on it, asleep, an elderly woman. She had tubes connected to her, and a monitor next to the bed.

Susan tugged and pulled but the restraints were secure and unrelenting. 

“Susan, calm down,” said Clara, her face big above the bed. “You’ve really put yourself in it now. I can’t believe you’ve been taking the drug! That’s stupid, so stupid.”

“I heard it,” she said, her words trembling and delicate, weighted down with the memory of that infernal noise, and it was a weight she knew they wouldn’t support for long. “It was horrible, so terrifying.”

“Listen to me,” Clara said, taking hold of her by the shoulders and giving her a shake. “Optimax have put me in charge. They want to monitor you, to record what happens.”

Susan stared again at the unmoving woman in the bed next to her. “What’s going on? Please, undo me.”

A flash of humanity stole into Clara’s eyes then. “It’s your own fault! Why, Susan? Why would you do something so dumb?”

“Clara, let me go.”

And then it was gone, and a cold determination was back. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“We have to stop this trial. It’s not safe.”

“No,” said Clara. “It’s too late for that.”

“You said it yourself! It’s not ethically right to carry on. Think of the people—”

“Oh, I am, just like you taught me to. This is far bigger than just you and me. Optimax explained it to me; what we’ve discovered far surpasses a simple cure, don’t you see? And we’ve been offered a perfect opportunity, Susan.” She indicated to the other woman. “That’s Nancy, from the trial. Do you remember her? Sister Nancy Jennings. She had a stroke last night. She’s in a bad way, probably won’t last the night.”

“Please...” 

“But if it’s all true, CIN994 is the most important discovery in human history. Not just a cure to a terrible disease but a cure to the root of all evil. It will allow us to truly move forward without the baggage of our old beliefs.”

“What are you saying?”

“The way their Alzheimer brains are wired means they only get a muted version of that scream, a harrowing echo, hence their anxiety. They don’t cop the full blast and they don’t see the truth. But you, you don’t have Alzheimer’s.”

“Please, Clara, let me go. This is madness!”

“Oh Susan, you always wanted to be famous, didn’t you?” 

The young woman turned and walked from the room. Susan called after her but it did no good, and then the door was being locked and she was alone with the other woman. Sister Nancy Jennings, not predicted to last the night...

The monitor tracked the old woman’s heartbeat, a stuttering weak beeping that threatened to stop at any second. Occasionally, Nancy would moan, sometimes cough, but she didn’t move. 

In the dim light of the white room, with the small dusty bulb in the middle of the ceiling, Susan could see the wrinkles in the woman’s face, and worse, her deep frown and twitching facial muscles. Hanging on the wall above the woman’s head was a small crucifix, a symbol indicating how little Susan knew about her. “Hello?” she called. “Nancy, can you hear me?”

But Sister Jennings didn’t reply, and time ticked on...

“Let me go! Untie me, damn you!”

She pulled at the restraints, jerked at them, thrashed about on the bed, but she couldn’t break free. She sought out and found the small camera mounted in one corner of the ceiling and stared into its solitary eye.

“Clara! Don’t do this, don’t you dare!”

But no one came to visit her, or to set her free.

The old woman’s coughs grew heavier; meaty wracking things that would surely tear open her chest. The monitor beeped ever onwards but that too was more erratic now. 

Nancy moaned in-between coughs.

And then she fell silent. 

“Let me out of here! Please, oh God, don’t do this—”

But it was done. 

The woman was dead. 

Susan saw a shadowy image peel from the woman’s lifeless body, and a tearing sound accompanied it, along with the soul scream.

It was a sound that stole her own scream, a sound that pulled open her mouth and sucked out her breath. It tore tracks down her back, gouging her flesh and letting the blood flow. 

The soul tore free from its newly deceased host, feeling the agony of that separation. A scab being pulled from a wound, one that wasn’t ready to come off. 

The ghostly thing didn’t even look like the old woman; it was insubstantial, with a blurred outline. Skeletal, with an oversized head. The only clear part of it was its face, with its mouth open wide in a rictus scream. 

She could see it turning this way and that, its eyes growing wider, wider, the mouth the same, knowing it had been duped, and feeling the terror and pain of real death. 

And then she saw the other shadowy things coming for it. They looked like giant spiders, multi-legged with swollen abdomens, and huge claws hanging from their lower jaws. They came from all sides, moving into sight as if coming in from out of the dark. 

The spiders fell upon the naked soul and tore it apart, while its screams filled Susan’s head, drowning any hope she had of screaming herself.