“I’m sorry, he’s gone...” the doctor informed the police officer sitting on a chair in the dully lit high risk ward.
“You sure, doc?” came the reply from the frustrated officer. Everyone wanted to see Adam Mitchell brought to justice; no one more than Detective Mendax, as Mitchell’s crimes had shocked the small town of Castle Rock.
Mitchell had been a writer, whose writing had tipped him over the edge. One night, the author had simply cracked – or so the witnesses claimed that the neighbor said. He locked his small daughter in her room, then took a knife to his wife and sliced her in ways that would impress even a surgeon before carving strange markings into each piece of his wife. He’d left her dead as he went back to typing the end of his story. The courts heard that when the police came, he was just sitting at his typewriter, waiting, with only one word typed on the manila paper over and over again was one word: Damnatorum!
It was clear at his trial that he was clinically insane, as his defense for his crimes was one simple statement: “Years ago, I bargained with something dark to make me a success and I had to fulfill my end of the dark bargain: success for the lives of my two dearest.” If I didn’t, the dark Damnatorum would claim them as well.
These were clearly the words of a deranged man, the court felt, and as such, it saved him from the chair. Instead, he was put in an induced coma until the state decided what to do with the broken horror writer. That was six months ago and, with only a regular visit from an orderly and an occasional beating from Detective Mendax, that was where Mitchell lay in his own chemically induced prison.
“Hey, doc? You got any clue what could have killed him? I thought you said this coma thing was safe. You told me it would stop him hurting himself – or worse! So spill, professor. What killed the nut?”
The doctor seemed rather put out. How dare the detective question him? Who did he think he was? He was a doctor; not a loon like, well, Mitchell!
“Well, detective, if I was to take a stab at it, I’d say it was one of two things: his body reacted to the drugs we were pumping into him, or his mind just broke. It’s not uncommon for patients to arrest when put under for long periods. We won’t know more till the M.E does her job. Sorry, Flatfoot, that’s the best I can give you.”
After the doctor’s parting blow to the detective, he exited the small ward, leaving the deceased and Mendax to say their farewells.
“Well, Mitchell, you seemed to have almost beaten the system: killing your wife and almost getting away with it…almost!” As Mendax looked at the cold body of Mitchell, his eyes grew a cold blue and he smiled. “Like I said, almost no body tries to swindle the Damnatorum. I will see you soon, my friend, in Netherspace. Goodnight!”
With that, Stine buttoned up his coat, pulled up his collar and let the room’s darkness envelop him as he disappeared from the hospital and this plane, on the hunt for his next dark business deal...