The Warden Read Online Free PDF Page A

pointed out. “As far as I know, you said nothing to anyone, despite witnessing something rather unorthodox .”
    â€œI didn’t understand why patients were put down here—I still don’t—and frankly I was going to ask you about it today. In your office.”
    â€œWell, this should suffice for an explanation, then, mm?”
    Jocelyn watched the doors going by, shocked by how many there really were. The daylight hours did nothing to banish the sad, abandoned ugliness of this lowest level. The staff could paint the walls yellow and put teddy bears in every corner and it would still feel like a hidden, shameful hell. The damp remained oppressive during the day, and while the floor was swept, it didn’t at all measure up to the rigorous hygiene standards of other hospitals.
    And the hospital smell was gone. She hadn’t noticed it until now, but all at once it became offensively apparent. There was a distinctly unwashed-human-being smell that wafted in intervals from the closed doors, like the rooms were ovens, heating up bodies and churning out their humid sweat stench.
    â€œBasements. Experiments. I’m not sure I like this,” Jocelynsaid. She stuck her hands into the pockets of the clean, tailored coat buttoned tightly around her. “Are these the most troublesome patients?”
    â€œThey are, yes.” The warden paused outside a door toward the end of the corridor. He rocked up onto his toes and pulled open a slot in the door, peering inside before producing a giant set of keys from his pocket. “They have resisted known treatments. I never would have said this when I was just a young, green orderly, but some of them seem to prefer their madness.”
    â€œThat’s not possible,” Jocelyn said, frowning. “It’s a prison they don’t even know they’re in, how could they prefer it?”
    â€œPerhaps it’s an intuition that comes with age and experience,” he replied, unlocking the door. “You’ll see.”
    I doubt that.
    But she kept her mouth shut, aware that she was sliding closer to the answers she wanted out of him. Why hide these people away? Were the orderlies down here part of his strange new project? And just what did he expect from her. . . .
    She could still leave, she reminded herself. Jocelyn still hadn’t technically agreed to be part of his new program. As she stepped through the open door and into the room beyond, she noticed Warden Crawford watching her intently, scrutinizing her for the tiniest reaction.
    The room, small but tall, padded floor to ceiling, resonated with cold. A single window let in a pale shaft of sunlight from high, high above, with bars obscuring the view, just like in her room. Jocelyn took a single step into the room, trying to orient herself. That window probably looked out the same way hers did. She slept the night before floors and floors up, possibly situatedon top of this very cell. And taking one look at the patient inside, a baby-bird fragile girl in a threadbare nightgown, Jocelyn knew she was the one who had roused her with screams.
    â€œDo . . . do you have her chart?” Jocelyn asked. She spoke softly, afraid to startle the girl.
    â€œYou can review it later.”
    â€œI’d like to review it now,” Jocelyn said, turning and standing to face him. “I shouldn’t even be here with her, not without knowing her history.”
    â€œI’m giving you special permission.” She heard the irritation, the impatience , in his voice.
    The girl, previously facing away from them, finally noticed their presence. She turned, slowly, bare feet slapping on the floor as she shuffled around, arms at her sides, hair darkened with grease and grime hanging lank down her back.
    â€œThese conditions . . .” Jocelyn began, stuffing down an urge to spin and throttle the man behind her. How could he let a human being live like this? It wasn’t right. Her