THE PATIENT IN ROOM 13
THE LAST PATIENT
Wednesday, December 13th – 9:00 AM
The letter arrived in a plain white envelope, postmarked from a town Sloane had never heard of. There was no return address. Her name was typed on the front, the letters slightly uneven, as if typed on an old machine.
She opened it.
Inside, a single sheet of paper.
“Dr. Vance,
My name is Eleanor Cross. I was a patient at Meridian Psychiatric Hospital in 1980. I was in Room 13. I survived.
I have been hiding for forty years. I have been afraid that the Watcher would find me. I have been afraid that the hospital would come for me. But I am tired of being afraid.
I want to tell my story. I want to be remembered.
Please come. I don’t have much time.
— Eleanor
P.S. I knew your father. He tried to save me. He was the only one who believed me.”
Sloane read the letter twice.
The voices in her head stirred.
“Eleanor Cross,” Marian said. “I remember her. She was on the third floor. She was… different.”
“Different how?”
“She could see the Watcher. Not feel it. Not hear it. See it. She described it as a child. A little girl with red eyes.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Nothing about the Watcher is possible. And yet here we are.”
Sloane folded the letter.
She needed to find Eleanor Cross.
The town was called Millbrook.
It was a small community in the mountains, two hours north of Ravenwood. The roads were winding, the trees thick, the air cold and clean. Sloane drove slowly, following the directions Eleanor had included in the letter.
The house was at the end of a gravel road, a small cabin set back from the street, surrounded by woods. Smoke rose from the chimney. A car was parked in the driveway, an old sedan, covered in dust.
Sloane parked behind it.
She walked to the front door.
She knocked.
The door opened.
The woman standing in the doorway was old.
Her hair was white, her face lined with wrinkles, her body thin and frail. She leaned on a cane, her knuckles white. But her eyes — her eyes were sharp.
“Dr. Vance,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”
“Mrs. Cross?”
“Please, call me Eleanor.”
She stepped aside.
“Come in. There’s much to discuss.”
The cabin was small but warm.
A fire burned in the hearth. Books lined the shelves. Photographs covered the walls — old photographs, sepia-toned, of people Sloane did not recognize.
Eleanor sat in a chair by the fire.
Sloane sat across from her.
“How did you survive?” Sloane asked.
Eleanor looked at the flames.
“I ran. When your father opened the door, when the Watcher was distracted, I ran. I didn’t stop until I reached the mountains.”
“You’ve been hiding here ever since?”
“I’ve been hiding here ever since. Forty years.”
“Did anyone know you were alive?”
“No one. I changed my name. I stayed off the grid. I didn’t use phones or computers. I didn’t talk to anyone about the past.”
“Until now.”
“Until now. I saw you on the news. The trial. The hospital. The bodies in the cold storage room. I knew it was time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to tell the truth. Before I die.”
Sloane leaned forward.
“What truth?”
Eleanor looked at her.
“The truth about your father. The truth about the Watcher. The truth about Room 13.”
She spoke for hours.
She told Sloane about her time on the third floor, about the other patients, about the doctors who treated them like guinea pigs. She told her about Room 13 — the cold, the darkness, the whispers. She told her about the Watcher — the child with the red eyes, the one who spoke to her in dreams.
And she told her about Arthur Vance.
“Your father was different,” Eleanor said. “The other doctors, they saw us as experiments. They wanted to study us, to document us, to publish papers about us. But your father… he wanted to help.”
“He believed you.”
“He believed all of us. He knew the Watcher was real. He knew the children were real. He knew the memories were real.”
“And he tried to stop it.”
“He tried. He failed. But he tried.”
“He opened the door.”
“He opened the door. He went into the room. He faced the Watcher. He gave me a chance to escape.”
“He sacrificed himself.”
“Yes. He sacrificed himself. For me. For the other patients. For you.”
Sloane’s eyes filled with tears.
“I never knew.”
“He didn’t want you to know. He wanted you to be safe. He wanted you to live a normal life.”
“I became a psychologist. I work at the hospital. I found the room.”
Eleanor smiled.
“He would have been proud.”
Sloane stayed until sunset.
They talked about the past, about the future, about the memories that had been buried for so long.
Before she left, Eleanor gave her a box.
“What is this?”
“Your father’s things. He left them with me. Before he died. He said to give them to you when the time was right.”
Sloane opened the box.
Inside, a journal. Her father’s handwriting.
“For Sloane.”
She closed the box.
“Thank you, Eleanor.”
“Thank you, Dr. Vance. For remembering.”
Sloane drove home.
The box sat on the passenger seat.
The voices in her head were quiet.