Sin... Halloween

It's Halloween in a few days.

I know this because they hung a glow-in-the-dark skeleton from the ceiling above the door. It was, deliberately of course, placed right where it brushed your head as you walked in beneath it. Four patients freaked out. One cowered in the Cornercopias' corner, two ran round screaming (one pulling the hair out of the other's head) and the fourth ran straight for the window and attempted to throw herself out of it.

The window is fine. Not even a cut or bruise.

Kristy is in the infirmary now. Concussion. And half a tongue seeing as the other half was bitten off upon impact.

The severed part wasn't found, so couldn't be re-attached. Although the butchers here would probably have put it on backwards. Or served it up for lunch. I suspect someone dines on it for a snack anyway.

The fifth person to come through the door and suffer the skeleton's touch was Abbie. She was like the two sides of a certain famous coin. Calm one moment and a whirlwind the next.

She looked up and batted the swaying foot with her hand, causing it to swing like a hangman's corpse. Then she simply sat down and stared at the TV.

She stayed that way for about half an hour. Then she flipped and not even I could catch her. I've not seen anyone pull one of the chairs from its bolted fixings before. She didn't seem to notice the bolts at all. She kind of shrugged the chair from the floor and waved it aside as if she were the Queen greeting her subjects.

She's in the infirmary too, I believe. Broken collarbone from the impact of the orderlies as they jumped on her to hold her down.

Who needs pumpkins? Who needs fake headstones or webbing? Who cares if Jason or Freddie are going to drop by and disembowel you?

We have our own demons here, and they're not entirely of our own making.