Judy Martin sat on the couch in the common room. Seeing it this way, up close as a patient, she noticed, had a completely different affect on her. When she was Sister Jude, the frigid nun that would march into the room and blow that whistle, she only saw patients. She saw the people that she would have to correct. She saw the success rates of setting people straight and being thanked by Monsignor Timothy Howard when people asked him about his success.
Now those people she saw, they were almost like lost little children. Worse. They had no where to go, no reason to really be alive. There was a feeling of desperation in the air from some of these people, the ones still hopeful enough to get out someday. The others though, she caught on, just didn't care anymore. They lost hope in everyone and everything.
Their loss of hope made her feel guilty, made her feel worse about what she had done to them. She cringed as she thought back on the caning and the solitude.
All this time, she had been going out of her way to protect this man, to maintain a dream with him. When ever she found out something bad, like Doctor Arden being a Nazi or Doctor Thredson wanting to get them in trouble, she did what she felt she had to do to keep him out of trouble. Her loyalty though, proved fruitless. As a matter of fact, it came back and slapped her in the face. First off, she was the one who had helped bring about the demise of these people. Second, Timothy stabbed her in the back and left her out in the cold. He might not have known that she was right, but at the same time, she felt that he had never taken the chance to actually listen to her.
At one time, she was naïve enough to think that maybe she mattered here. Maybe she could turn her life around and make a difference. That was nothing but a mere thought though. A theory shot to hell.
"What did they get you on?" Lana inquired from the chair. Jude had made the promise to her to get her out of here, but that was the only real conversation that they had had. Even though this place had beaten her down, she still hung onto that natural curiosity that she came in with.
Jude looked to her, trying to figure out whether or not it really mattered anymore. It didn't make a difference as to whether or not she was really a good person here, not in this place. As she said before, she was still just a drunken whore, and nothing was ever going to change that. Now, she was just working on accepting it. Accepting the fact that over a decade of her life had been one huge charade getting her no where. "I tried to kill Santa Clause," she answered, getting some self amusement from the absurdity of the idea.
"Better story than mine," Lana replied. She leaned over and put the cigarette out in the ash tray.
"How did you end up back here?" Jude questioned. It didn't really hit her until after she had talked with her in the common room her first time. When she had walked in there, she had been so drugged and beaten, there could have been a giraffe in there and she wouldn't have given it a second thought.
"Car crash," Lana started. She pulled out another cigarette. If they were about to swap stories here, she was going to need it. "The paramedics found me and the driver. Once I was identified, I was brought back here."
Jude softly laughed as she grabbed another cigarette and removed the filter. "If the one who snuck in here can't even find a way out, I guess there's no hope for the rest of us," she remarked before lighting it.
"There is a way out of here, it's a tunnel," Lana told her. This time, she wasn't planning on this information being used though. "I've even gotten out through there once, but we had to come back in. Whatever Sister Mary Eunice was feeding out there wanted us."
Lana looked down towards the floor, a glimmer of fear in her eyes as she thought back to that night. She never did find out what those creatures were, and something told her that she would be happier if she never did.
Jude offered a look of skepticism. "What was out there?" she implored. She knew that Arden was a Nazi, but that was it. Up to this point, that was all she had gotten on him. Part of her still even believed that he could be the Bloodyface killer.
Lana shook her head. "I don't know. They were deformed and hungry," she answered, lifting her head back up to Jude. "Did you know anything about what was going on with Doctor Arden and Sister Mary Eunice?" she inquired. It was odd to her how this woman could have been so fierce and controlling and somehow lose track of half this place.
Jude sighed. Maybe now she could get someone to finally listen to her and believe her. She leaned in towards Lana, getting Lana to oblige and lean in towards her. "That's not his real name. He's a Nazi. He worked over in a concentration camp. Afterwards he was sent over here with a fake file, identity, life, everything," she softly explained.
Lana sat back in the chair, blankly staring to her. She didn't know what scared her more, the fact that she believed her, or the fact that she was now in the care of a man who worked in a concentration camp.
Jude could see it in her eyes, she struck fear. Although she wasn't here to torture her more than she already had, she did find comfort in the fact that someone finally listened to her. "Even worse, I think he might be the Bloodyface killer. Patients have been coming up dead for no reason, each person written down as natural causes," she cautiously added.
Lana just stared at her. No. That was where she was wrong. It even hurt her a little that this woman here thought she had the real murderer while she herself had just spent time locked up in his basement. "He might be a killer, but he's not the killer," she flatly stated.
"What? You think that Mr. Walker is really the killer? I've seen him. He can't even bare to watch someone being taken off to get spanked," she argued. She was thinking back to an incident where Grace had talked back to her and she had to take her off, and Kit started fighting for her, again, taking the blame.
Lana took a final puff of her cigarette before placing it with the countless others in the ashtray. "Doctor Thredson," she announced, looking straight to Jude's eyes. She could see that there was some disbelief. She sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "How do you think I got out of here? That man walked me out of here and took me in his car. Once I got to his house, I saw everything. He locked me up down in his basement, more of prison. He tied me to the bed, showed me his tools, told me about his life and violated me. The reason I was in the car crash was because once I got free from the chains, I ran out and stepped in front of a car. The driver happened to be suicidal and shot himself," she told her.
Lana sat back and sighed. "And here I am, back here pregnant with his baby," she told her.
Jude looked to her with sympathy. "Nothing's gone right for you has it?" she questioned, knowing that that was most likely the understatement of the year. "Have you told anyone?"
"No one listens to you when you're insane," Lana flatly replied.
Jude softly laughed, thinking back on how many times man have argued with her. "There's always going to be people who won't listen whether your sane or insane."
"I was the top of the class in high school and no one listened to me, and then I was a drunken whore and no one listened to me," she reflected.
"What did you do then?" Lana asked.
"Became a nun. Didn't help though, no one listened to me then either. Hell, look at you for example, you came in when I told you not to, you tried to sneak out when I told you not to," she responded.
There was that damn whistle that Jude knew she should have gotten rid of a long time ago. "Attention everyone!" Mary Eunice called.
"She's mocking me you know," Jude mentioned.
"If it means anything, she's worse than you," Lana said.
