THE PATIENT IN ROOM 13
THE JOURNAL
Wednesday, October 18th – 4:45 AM
Sloane did not stop running until she reached her car.
The parking lot was nearly empty at this hour, just a few vehicles huddled under the pale glow of the security lights. Her own car — a gray sedan that had seen better days — was parked near the back, close to the fence that separated the hospital grounds from the woods beyond.
She fumbled for her keys, dropped them, picked them up, and pressed the unlock button. The lights flashed. The doors unlocked. She threw herself into the driver’s seat and locked the doors behind her.
Her hands were shaking.
Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps.
She looked at the hospital.
The building loomed against the dark sky, its windows dark, its walls gray. The fourth floor — her floor — was dark except for the light in her office. She had left it on. She had left the files on her desk. She had left everything.
She should go back.
She should get the files.
She should not be running.
But the message on her phone had been clear.
“She’s already in the building.”
Sloane looked at the hospital entrance. The doors were glass, reflecting the security lights, showing her nothing but her own terrified face.
She started the car.
The engine hummed.
She put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space.
She drove.
She did not go home.
Home was an apartment in the city, twenty minutes from the hospital, a small place with thin walls and noisy neighbors. It was not safe. The person who had sent the message — the person who knew about the room, about her father, about the memory — would expect her to go home.
She went to her mother’s house instead.
The house was in the suburbs, a quiet neighborhood of winding streets and mature trees. Her mother had lived there for forty years, ever since her father died. She had raised Sloane there. She had grown old there. She had never remarried.
The lights were off when Sloane pulled into the driveway.
She parked behind her mother’s car — a blue sedan, older than hers, well-maintained — and sat for a moment, gathering her courage.
Her mother was a liar.
She knew that now.
But she was still her mother.
She got out of the car and walked to the front door. The key was under the mat, where it had always been. She unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The house smelled like lavender and old books.
She closed the door behind her and locked it.
“Mom?”
Silence.
She walked through the living room, past the couch where she had watched cartoons as a child, past the bookshelves filled with novels and photo albums, past the fireplace where her mother had hung their Christmas stockings every year.
The kitchen was empty. The dishes were clean. The coffee maker was cold.
She climbed the stairs.
Her mother’s bedroom door was open.
The bed was made.
The room was empty.
“Mom?”
She checked the bathroom. The guest room. The attic stairs.
The attic door was closed.
She had not been in the attic since she was a child. Her mother had kept it locked, had told her it was dangerous, had filled her head with stories of broken stairs and weak floorboards and things that would hurt her if she went up there.
But Sloane was not a child anymore.
She pulled the string that released the folding stairs.
The ladder creaked as it descended.
She climbed.
The attic was dark and cold and smelled of dust and old paper.
Sloane pulled out her phone — now at forty-three percent battery, thank the charger in her car — and turned on the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating boxes and trunks and furniture covered in white sheets.
She walked to the center of the attic.
The ceiling was low. She had to duck to avoid hitting her head on the beams. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet.
And then she saw it.
A trunk.
Old. Leather. Bound with brass straps.
The same trunk she had seen in her childhood dreams — the trunk her mother had forbidden her to open, the trunk that held the secrets of her father’s life.
She knelt in front of it.
The lock was old, but it was not fastened. The clasp was loose, as if someone had opened it recently and forgotten to close it.
She lifted the lid.
Inside, books. Journals. Dozens of them, stacked neatly, their spines cracked and faded.
She pulled out the first one.
The cover was black leather, embossed with gold letters.
“Arthur Vance — 1975.”
She opened it.
The handwriting was familiar. She had seen it before, on the back of the photograph of Marian Cross, on the notes in her father’s file.
“January 3, 1975. I have decided to keep this journal as a record of my work. My patients deserve to be remembered. Their stories deserve to be told.”
She turned the page.
*”January 15, 1975. I have been assigned a new patient. Her name is Marian Cross. She is twenty-three years old. She has not spoken in six months. I am determined to help her.”*
Sloane’s heart pounded.
She turned more pages.
“February 2, 1975. Marian spoke today. She said, ‘He’s coming.’ When I asked who, she said, ‘The watcher.’ When I asked what the watcher wanted, she said, ‘To be remembered.’ I do not know what this means. I do not know if she knows.”
“March 10, 1975. Marian has started writing on the walls of her room. She uses her fingernails. She writes the same word over and over. ‘REMEMBER.’ I have asked her to stop. She will not stop. I have asked her what she is trying to remember. She said, ‘The truth.’ When I asked what truth, she said, ‘The truth about what we are. The truth about what we’ve done. The truth about what’s coming.’ She will not elaborate.”
“April 4, 1975. Something is wrong. I feel it when I am in her room. A presence. A weight. A watching. I have started having nightmares. I dream of a door. A steel door. A door that will not open. Behind the door, something waits.”
“May 22, 1975. I have requested that Marian be transferred to a different facility. The request was denied. The administration believes she is making progress. They do not see what I see. They do not feel what I feel.”
“June 15, 1975. Marian attacked an orderly today. She did not use her hands. She used her voice. She screamed. The orderly fell to the ground. He was unconscious for three minutes. When he woke, he said he had heard a voice. The voice said, ‘Remember.’ The orderly has been placed on medical leave. Marian has been moved to Room 13. I will be her sole caretaker.”
Sloane turned the page.
The handwriting changed.
It was still her father’s, but it was different. Jagged. Frantic. The letters slanted at odd angles, pressing hard into the paper.
“July 3, 1975. I hear it too now. The voice. It whispers to me at night. It tells me to remember. It tells me to open the door. It tells me to let it in. I do not know what it wants. I do not know what I have done.”
“July 19, 1975. I have tried to stop writing in this journal. I have tried to forget. But the voice will not let me. It speaks to me when I am awake. It speaks to me when I am asleep. It speaks to me in the voice of my mother, my father, my wife. It knows my name. It knows my fears. It knows everything.”
“August 8, 1975. Marian died today. She carved the word into her throat. There was a smile on her face. The police say it was suicide. The administration says it was suicide. But I know the truth. It was not suicide. It was a sacrifice. She gave herself to the voice so that the voice could live.”
“August 9, 1975. I have been ordered not to speak of Marian’s death. The administration has sealed Room 13. No one is to enter. No one is to ask questions. I am to continue my work as if nothing has happened. But something has happened. Something is still happening. I can feel it. In the walls. In the floors. In the air.”
“September 1, 1975. The voice is getting louder. It speaks to me in Marian’s voice now. It tells me to come back to Room 13. It tells me to open the door. It tells me to let it out. I am afraid. I am so afraid.”
The entries continued for years.
Sloane read them all.
Her father’s descent into obsession. His growing conviction that the voice was real, that it was ancient, that it had been waiting for someone to let it into the world. His attempts to warn his colleagues, to shut down the hospital, to expose the truth.
His failure.
And then, the final entry.
“March 27, 1982. I cannot write anymore. The voice is inside my head. It will not leave. It tells me that I am the only one who can stop it. That I must go to Room 13. That I must open the door. That I must remember. I do not want to remember. I want to forget. I want to sleep. I want to die. But the voice will not let me. It says that if I die, something worse will come. Something that will not stop with me. Something that will find my family. Something that will find my daughter. I cannot let that happen. I will go to Room 13. I will open the door. I will do what must be done. If you are reading this, Eleanor, I am sorry. I love you. I love Sloane. Forgive me.”
The journal ended there.
Sloane closed the book.
She sat in the darkness of the attic, the journal clutched to her chest, tears streaming down her face.
Her father had not died because he was weak.
He had died because he was trying to protect her.
The voice — the memory — had been inside his head for seven years. It had driven him to obsession, to fear, to despair. But it had not broken him. Not until the end. Not until it threatened his family.
And then he had made a choice.
He had gone to Room 13.
He had opened the door.
And he had died.
Sloane heard a sound.
A creak.
The attic stairs.
Someone was climbing.
She shoved the journal into her bag and scrambled to her feet.
The stairs were too narrow to run past whoever was coming up. She would have to hide.
She dove behind a stack of boxes and pressed herself against the wall.
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs.
A figure emerged from the darkness.
Her mother.
Eleanor Vance looked older than Sloane remembered. Her hair was gray, her face was lined, her eyes were hollow. She had not been sleeping either.
“Sloane?” Her mother’s voice was thin, trembling. “Sloane, are you up here?”
Sloane did not move.
“I saw your car in the driveway. I know you’re here. Please. We need to talk.”
Sloane stood up.
“Mom.”
Her mother’s face crumpled.
“You found the journals.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know.”
“I know that Dad didn’t die in a car accident. I know that he died in Room 13. I know that he was trying to protect us.”
Her mother nodded.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
Her mother walked to the trunk. She knelt and pulled out a box that Sloane had not noticed — smaller than the others, made of dark wood, carved with symbols that looked familiar.
Sloane had seen those symbols before.
On the walls of Room 13.
“The voice,” Eleanor said. “The memory. The thing that killed your father. It didn’t die when he did. It went to sleep. But now it’s waking up. And it needs a host.”
“What kind of host?”
“A person. A living person. Someone who can hear it. Someone who can remember. Someone who can open the door.”
Her mother opened the box.
Inside, a photograph.
The same photograph Sloane had found in her father’s file. Marian Cross. Smiling. But this photograph was different. Older. More faded.
And Marian’s eyes were not dark.
They were red.
“The first patient,” her mother said. “She wasn’t the first. She was just the first they caught. The voice has been jumping from person to person for centuries. It lives in the mind. It feeds on memory. It grows stronger with every death.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s in the hospital. It’s been there for months. Patient Zero was its last host. That’s why he jumped. He was trying to escape.”
“But he didn’t escape. He died.”
“His body died. But the voice… the voice is still there. It’s looking for someone new.”
Her mother looked at her.
“Sloane, it’s looking for you.”