1969 – February

((Song: All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix))

"Come out of the building," the man with the bullhorn called. His words echoed down the barricaded street where several police cars sat, lights flashing. "Come out with your hands up. We have a search warrant. Come out with your hands up."

Beyond the police barricade, a small crowd gathered to witness the standoff, drawn after two straight days of nonstop news coverage. Only there wasn't much to witness. Briarcliff was a fortress of barred windows. Nothing behind them stirred.

Inside was a different story. On Dandy's command the facility was in full lockdown. Orderlies shoved inmates into their cells, locking them in without explanation. Those who didn't go willingly were beaten into submission and dumped there. The only patients who weren't locked up were the hand-picked group he trusted enough to turn into his personal militia and counsel.

In the tunnels, the doctors voluntarily locked up their wards, cutting themselves off from the catastrophe in progress. When inmates and guards alike were toting automatic weapons, the safest thing to do was hide.

In the small room off Dr. Thredson's office, Violet hugged Tate hard.

"I've got to go," she insisted. Her top was damp with his tears. "I have to let my dad out."

"But you don't even have the keys," Tate protested.

"I'll get them," she promised grimly. She thought of the scalpel she had stashed down her sock. "Believe me."

"Will you come back?"

She smiled and petted his hair back from his red-rimmed eyes. He looked so painfully desperate, it hurt her heart. "Of course, I will. Just as soon as I get my dad out. If I can't find the keys for your cuffs, I'll...I'll get a bone saw and cut the chains. I promise."

She kissed him then and pulled away. It wasn't easy as he didn't just let go.

"If you see my mother, tell her to come here?" he asked when she pried free.

"Yeah. Sure. I will."

She headed for the door, pausing when he called to her again.

"Violet? Be careful."

She tried to smile, but the din outside the office was intimidating. "I will. I'll be back soon."

She slipped out.

—

In Thredson's office she stopped to do a quick search around, but the man had everything locked up tight. Nothing out where she could reach it was of obvious help.

The hall beyond the office rang with the clamor of people running, shouting, slamming things. Everything was in chaos. It wasn't just the inmates that were being rounded up but some of the staff as well. Anyone who tried to get near the locked front doors was assaulted and dragged away to the wards. Violet paused to look down at the scene in the foyer. She didn't want to go down there, but it was the only way to get to the wards.

She hurried down the spiral staircase, opting to climb over the rail at the midway point and drop to the floor on the side furthest away from the front entrance. No one was paying attention to that area. Though it was noisy down there, she was able to get into the corridor behind the nurse's station without trouble.

The halls of the primary ward were empty when she got there. Eerily so. They were not quiet, however, as trapped inmates howled and shrieked from their overcrowded cells, in a bad state of panic at the unusual goings-on.

Violet hurried to the octagonal room that was the nurse's station and found it empty. It was unlocked, though, so she let herself in. As a precaution she pushed the door shut. She couldn't lock it; the door operated on a deadbolt that required a key for either side. The ruckus the inmates were causing made her want to move quickly. She dug wildly through the mess of file folders and office supplies that were already scattered around the station.

There were no master keys that she found but she did discover the override switches that controlled whether the wards were locked or not. She knew where her dad was being held in solitary, but she didn't know the system well enough to know how to open just one cell.

She found the "ALL OPEN" toggle. Hesitated with her finger hovering over it. If she triggered it, every cell in the solitary wing would be unlocked. That meant releasing everyone there. While she knew people other than her father were wrongfully being kept there, she also knew some of them should be there. Letting a bunch of crazed psychos out into the halls seemed like a bad plan. But what else could she do?

Violet took a breath, whispered: "God help me." Then she hit the button.

—

Upstairs, Dandy prowled the halls of the therapy rooms, flanked by a small retinue of armed guards. He carried an M16, a Colt weapon he had set to automatic. He had gotten it and several of the other firearms he'd stockpiled before President Johnson's Gun Control Act went into effect in October.

"Take point there," he told one of the men with him, gesturing to the large, barred window of the Art Therapy room. "Keep your head down. Out of sight. You don't want those assholes down there to blow it off."

The man, a former prisoner, scuttled to his post eagerly and readied his weapon. He hated the police. He was thrilled to take them on.

"Nobody fire until you're fired on," Dandy called, so the people he'd already stationed could hear. Then, to the next person with him: "Take the window in Music Therapy."

Once he had every window covered, he went back down the hall with three men still remaining. "Remember," he called. His voice echoed magnificently down the empty hall. "Watch your heads. Watch your asses. And above all... Have fun! This is your day, gentlemen!"

Cheers sang back to him from the various therapy rooms. In a personal note to himself, he added: "I doubt we'll see another like it." Then, to the men with him: "Let's head to the PA room. I feel like having some words with that idiot with the bullhorn."

—

The speakers on the outside of the asylum crackled to life. "Go away. We gave at the office."

The police outside shared baffled glances. The man with the bullhorn lifted it again.

"Who is this?"

There was a pause, then the asylum speaker blared: "Will."

"Will?" the officer repeated. "Will who?"

"Will you just go away already?" Dandy mocked.

The bad joke was carried through the asylum's interior PA system as well as on the outside. People on the street could hear wild laughter from different points of the sprawling building, some sounding much like monkeys shrieking in the zoo. It was a creepy spectacle to behold.

"We want to speak to Dandy Mott," the officer with the loudspeaker tried, ignoring the nonsense though the shrieking laughter among the screams was disquieting.

"Present and accounted for," Dandy's staticky voice responded.

"This is Mott? We have a warrant for your arrest," the policeman called back through his horn. "Come out with your hands up."

"You come up with your pants down," was Dandy's careless response. More howls echoed from within the sanatorium. "You have no jurisdiction here."

The man with the bullhorn glanced around at his nearest fellow officers. He had been trained in negotiations, but nothing in his training had equipped him to speak with a clearly insane individual. Sane but irrational he could handle. He had no idea what to do with this.

"If you don't come out, we will break the doors down."

Dandy's laugh piqued the speaker system. "I would love to see you try."

—

Briarcliff was truly living up to the term "madhouse". When the solitary ward opened, many of the patients took the opportunity to vacate their cells and the ward as well, spilling out into the main cross halls and quickly overwhelming the two orderlies that still remained downstairs. Violet, armed the scalpel, made her way toward the solitary wing while the freed inmates flocked to the day room and bathrooms.

One found the nurse's station and pawed at the switches until all of the doors of every ward were opening and shutting randomly, causing even more noise as the metal hinges squealed in protest. Some of the trapped patients took the risk of being squished and left the cells they'd been crammed into. Most were able to time their escape. Some unfortunate souls were crushed when the door suddenly shut on them. Screams of pain mingled with the howls of delight and insanity echoing through the place.

"Violet!"

She had just made it into the solitary wing when her father spotted her. She oriented on his voice. The two met up in the middle of the hall. He was in a viewing gown. It was strange to see him dressed so.

"Dad!" She hugged him, but the embrace was brief. "Dad, the whole place has gone crazy. There's police outside and Dandy's got these guys with him. They have guns. Really big guns. We have to get out of here!"

"My patients," Ben said, his thoughts immediately going to the kids in the ward he'd been overseeing. "I have to get them out. Come on."

He started to tug her toward the back halls, but she resisted. "I have to get Tate. He's chained up in Dr. Thredson's office."

"Thredson, that son of a..." Ben knew he didn't have time to get upset. He squeeze his daughter's hand. "I have to get the kids from the children's ward. I'll meet you at his office."

Violet nodded. "Yeah. Okay. Okay."

"Be careful, Vi," he said seriously.

Her lips twitched in a near-smile. "You too."

—

((Song: If Anything Happened to You – Al Bowlly))

Violet couldn't search any longer. Gunfire was sounding above and around the outside of the asylum, sending the patients into a full-blown riot state. She had found a bone saw in one of the operating suites; that would have to do.

Getting back to Dr. Thredson's office was even more harrowing than getting out. The day room was trashed, the record player on its side. Everywhere people were running and screaming and laughing. Some were naked. She saw one man wearing a curtain like a toga making proclamations though no one was listening. An old woman sitting on the hall floor was happily playing in something that looked like blood, smearing it on her face and bare breasts.

—

Upstairs was no better, where Dandy was. Later it would be debated hotly who shot first: The officers or the armed men holed up in the sanitarium, but someone did. Once the first shot was fired, all hell broke loose.

Dandy continued to taunt the police over the PA, but was curtailed when one of the men outside shot out the speakers on the front side of the building. So, he took to the front line, joining a prisoner-turned-guard at one shattered window to fire out at the officers who were trying to get close to the front of the building with a ladder.

—

When Ben got to the children's ward he found the nurse's post deserted. Fortunately, he knew where the master ring of keys were and used them to let himself into the ward proper. He started down the hall toward the communal bunk room then made a side trip into his little closet of an office. He had a pair of pajama bottoms in there that he kept on hand for when he got stuck there overnight. Hardly proper attire for his patients to see him in, but better than the flapping open-backed viewing gown.

He had barely gotten the pants on when he heard gunfire outside. At first he didn't recognize it as such. It sounded like construction. Then he heard a window shatter somewhere nearby. Then more volleys of gunfire.

Fueled with a sudden megadose of adrenaline, the doctor ran down the hall to the kids' room. He burst in, prompting several of the children to scream. A couple were crying. When they saw him, two of the kids came running to him.

"Doctor Ben! Doctor Ben!" Lucinda, one of his sleepwalkers, exclaimed as she threw her arms around him. "What's happening?"

"Make it stop!" wailed Keith, clutching his hair. He was only eight and suffered from brain damage due to a closed-head injury his family swore was inflicted by a ghost when they dumped him at the asylum. "Make it stoooop!"

"Calm down, everyone," Ben instructed. He was winded from his sprint, so that didn't help. "We'll get through this. I just need everyone to listen."

Shelley, who had been trying to comfort the nonverbal Robert, got to her feet. The 11-year-old refused to let go of her hand.

"What's going on, Doctor Harmon?"

He could tell by the look on her face that she knew gunfire when she heard it. He had never seen the blonde girl afraid until that moment.

"We need to get everyone out of here," he said.

Somewhere down the hall another window shattered. They were out of time.

"Come on, kids," Ben raised his voice. "Everyone, follow me. Shelley, take up the rear. Make sure nobody falls behind. Okay?"

Gone was her typical sass. She simply nodded and started herding kids toward the door. Robert refused to let go of her hand even when she had to flush the feral Ophelia out from under her bed. Together they got the kids moving toward the ward's only exit.

Smoke was filling the hall. It was impossible to tell if it was gun smoke or if something was on fire. Ben and Shelley got the kids to the exit. He shoved the master key ring into her hand and let her take lead, to make sure everyone got out.

"Freeze!" a gruff voice came from behind him.

Ben looked back and saw through the thick haze three dark figures. They looked like they were carrying big guns.

"Run!" he snapped and gave the last child, Marcus, a hard shove out the door.

"I said freeze!" the man behind him barked.

One of the other men with him reflexively squeezed the trigger on his rifle and released a round of shots, three of which struck Ben.

Everything seemed to slow down for him as he sank to his knees, his ears ringing. He saw Marcus duck out and the door swung shut, the lock clicking in place. He couldn't feel anything from the neck down and fell forward, face down on the floor. The light faded around him, as did the shouts of the men behind him. Then came blackness.

—

Author's Note:

I know this one got long, but I couldn't find a good breaking point sooner. Things just got way out of hand. Technically, they still are. You'll have to wait till next chapter to find out what happens with Violet and Tate. Sorry about that.