Think of the Children

Why do they have a maternity ward in this place? It's what it has always been, a mental hospital -- a sanitarium -- built upon the site of an old brewery that burned down during the early part of the Great Depression after having been abandoned during Prohibition. The wrought-iron gates still say 'Penderghast Asylum' in heavy, ponderous letters only partly obscured by the unhealthy-looking ivy that has swarmed up all around the crumbling limestone gate-posts. But nobody reads that rusty old sign. No one ever bothers to look up as they enter that gate. Most of us arrive here under heavy sedation. If we're lucky we stay that way. Of course, if we were lucky, we wouldn't be within a hundred miles of this forsaken place.

But still, I am here and I try to make the most of it as best as I can. I wander about when I can slip away from the attendents who are always short-staffed and usually fairly lazy. Sometimes I can spend a few hours in one of the libraries like the one in the West wing. They never remember to lock the back door because it's around a corner past an old janitor's closet that hasn't been used by anyone else but me in decades. It's a good place to hide, as long as I don't ever let them find me in there. I always make sure that they can find me in a hallway or some other room, like one of the doctor's offices. It keeps them from getting unnecessarily suspicious.

They're not the only ones who have secrets around here.

Who ever heard of a maternity ward in a sanitarium? It's always been part of the original building. I have a copy of the old blueprints tacked-up in my janitor's closet hiding place. I've studied those plans for as long as I can remember. I know this place better than most of the people who work in it. That part of the asylum has been in continuous use since the Thirties. I found a commemorative scrapbook in the third-floor library behind Doctor Martense's office. There was a big celebration at the time the maternity ward opened, attended by celebrities and everything. They dedicated it to some big-shot high-society widow from out East named Lavinia something-or-other. I forget her name. It's probably not important.

Somehow the tiny cries of babies that come up through the ventilation grates are more disturbing to me than the persistent scratching sounds made by the rats in the walls.