THE ASYLUM CONFESSIONS

WHO AM I?

My name is Jack Steen. 

That name shouldn’t mean anything to you. But it does to others and that’s what counts. 

I’m a nobody, really. 

I’m not a writer. I’m not a storyteller. I’m not a goddamn thing.

I’m just a man who wipes the asses of that society couldn’t give two shits about. I give them their medicine, change their diapers, and provide something no one else has… 

An audience.

I work as a night nurse in the Asylum. 

Which one? Doesn’t matter – they’re all the same. After you read the stories, you should be able to figure it out, but apparently, I might get sued if I actually say the name, so I won’t.

You picked up this book because of the title, right? Deathbed Confessions of the Criminally Insane. That’s exactly what you’re about to read. 

That’s what I do. I take their deathbed confessions. The ones no one else has heard. The ones everyone wants to hear.

My patients tell me their stories, they confess their messed up lives because I do what no one else in this fucking asylum does.

I listen. 

I’ve worked here the longest out of anyone on my floor. I’ve got the scars, the stitches, the broken bones to prove it. I worked my way from the shittiest jobs here to the one I have now.

I used to think being a nurse was my calling. My passion. 

I thought I could make a difference, that what I did was important. 

I was stupid to think anything in life was worth this shit. 

I used to work in a hospital full of people who had lives and loved ones that cared about them. Most of my patients here have been discarded, forgotten about, left to spend their final days alone. 

I won’t tell you which hospital I work at. 

I won’t tell you the names of those dying.

But I won’t lie to you.

You’ll read exactly what I’m told. 

Instead of their real names, I’ll tell you the names I gave them. The names I whisper in their ear as they fall asleep. Sometimes they hate these names, but I don’t care. 

If you’re smart, if you can read between the lines, you’ll know who is telling the story.

I can’t say all the stories are one hundred percent true but like every tale ever told, there’s always a nugget of truth – but then, what the fuck do I know?

These sadistic bastards could be playing their final game with me by messing with my head and now, they could be playing with yours.

THE CHEF.

He’s dead now. Died in his sleep at 5:23 am.

I can tell you he died with a smile on his face, a smile I put there. 

Seconds before he died, I whispered a promise into his ears, a promise I knew he’d appreciate.

I actually liked Chef. 

Of all my patients, he’s the one I didn’t despise – and considering it’s rare for me to admit I like any of them, that says something.

He was a class act. One of the good ones. Poised. Friendly. Cheerful even on his bad days. He’d be the first one to bend over and pick up a pen you accidentally dropped and then say sorry, even before you got the chance to say it first. 

Chef, as I liked to call him, wasn’t a man you’d expect to find in the asylum but he was someone who deserved to be here, just like many others.

He used to be a funeral director, before coming to the Asylum. 

I’ve heard of family vocations being passed down from father to son, but never have I heard someone so proud to be a funeral director like the other men in his family. 

Proud. Proud of being the caretaker of the dead.

One of his prized possessions was a visitor’s book from his family’s funeral home. I saw it once. The first date in the book was 1913 and I could barely make out the signed name but he knew it. Burned in his memory, he’d said. Burned like the family member it belonged to.

His family proudly owned one of the first crematoriums in North America in 1913. He claims there were only fifty-two such places then, but their funeral home held more services than the others. 

He was proud of this. 

What fucker is proud of burning bodies? I shouldn’t be surprised by this and yet, because it’s Chef…I am.

I promise you this. Chef’s tale will be the nicest one I’ve ever told. 

It’s also entirely possible you’ll recoil with disgust when you realize why he’s here and not back at home attending the funerals like his family before him.

If I could give you one piece of advice to remember for the rest of your life, it would be this…

Never eat the food provided by a funeral home. 

Ever. 

KEN.

You know the story of Bonny and Clyde, right? Outlaws from the mid-thirties who ran from the law robbing and killing along the way. There have been a few movies about the couple, a famous ballad and numerous stories told in one form or another.

There have been few partners like them since then, some famous, some not so much. 

We had one such couple here within our walls – one of the famous ones. The staff called them Barbie and Ken.

I’m going to warn you upfront – you might not like this story too much. 

Some people can’t be redeemed, no matter how close to death they sit. 

Barbie and Ken…they disgust me if I’m being honest.

On that note of honesty, I have a confession to make.

As much as I like to say that everything you’re about to read in this story is one hundred percent all their words…I did have to edit it slightly.

The gore, the descriptions…it wasn’t all necessary and I figured if I had a hard time stomaching it, you’d have an even harder time reading it. 

The essence of the confession is all here along with the majority of the descriptions. 

You’ll see. 

But back to Barbie and Ken.

Barbie is dead. Died years ago, thank God. 

I had her in my care for a total of three days. I didn’t bother to offer her a deal – she came to me unconscious and only awoke fifteen minutes before she died.

Those fifteen minutes she talked non-stop, like a fucking chatterbox, except you had no idea what she was saying. The woman cut out her own tongue just before she was captured.

Literally cut out her own fucking tongue.

I’ve seen a lot of disgusting things in my time but having to look at her stump of a muscle while she jabbered away like a fucking monkey was revolting. 

I still have nightmares about it, so that’s telling you something.

Those nightmares are always the same: I’m tied to a chair and she’s coming toward me, her mouth wide open, claws reaching out and all I focus on is that ugly purple stump in her mouth. The more I look at it, the more grotesque it becomes until it oozes with puss and black wisps of smoke escape her mouth until it wraps around me and smothers me to death.

I wake up gasping for air. It’s crazy, this dream. 

Before her capture, I’m sure she was every young male teen’s wet dream. Afterward, aged and prison weary, she still kept her killer looks.  

Since I couldn’t understand what she was saying, I handed her a crayon and my pad of paper. She wrote five words that left me with more questions than answers.

Tell him I’ll be waiting.

I assumed the him she referred to was Ken.

I’ve never told him her final message. 

I’m still not sure if I will or not.

Ken is an asshole. I can’t stand the fucker and he knows it.

I almost didn’t offer Ken a deal. 

I didn’t want to, that’s for damn sure. 

The asshole didn’t deserve it.

But he had stories to tell and obviously I want those stories. 

Remember how I said these bastards like to play mind games? Ken almost had me. 

Almost.

Until I played the final game and watched him die with fear in his eyes.