My Version of Hell Was Much Funnier

“Hello, doctor.”

Doctor Kats dropped his keys where he stood in the open doorway, starring ahead of him to where Sim sat, her legs crossed as she waited in a high back wooden chair. Suddenly the door closed, a figure standing before it wearing a smile feigning sympathy, underlain with malevolence.

Sim really did love Squid.

Doctor Kats’ Adams apple bobbed as he gulped; an audible noise in the silence. He switched his unworn jacket from one hand to another.

“Hi, Jane,” his voice manages to squeak

She uncrossed her legs as she stood, allowing her bare feet to sweep across the cold wood flooring in soft, elegant steps. Her hands were folded behind her back, clasping between them a long, metal baseball bat Squid did the service of finding for her. “I believe we’re to a point in our relationship where we can use first names, don’t you Samuel?” Her supple pink lips were stretched in an iniquity grin, allowing her teeth to bare themselves.

His lips twitch to a hesitant smile, a brief sigh flowing between them. “Yes, Simplicity.”

She crinkled her nose in wit. “That’s what I thought.” One arm stretched behind her as her body angled back. “Care to sit?”

Samuel’s head began to jerk from side to side. “No, no, no, I’m fine standing.” Again he switched his jacket to his other hand.

“I think you should sit, doctor.” He began to protest. “Sit.”

Samuel Kats walked forward until he was arms length away from Sim, angling his body to never have his back to her until his legs hit the seat of the chair and he sat.

“So, I seen your appearance on television.” Her legs swept her before him as she began to pace, her eyes looking to the ground. In her right hand the metal baseball bat was being flipped and turned, a habit she had very recently picked up and a skill she had even more recently perfected in the time waited for the good doctor to come home. “You should always get your facts straight before reporting anything worth while, don’t you know that?” she teased.

A nervous chuckle flowed from him. “You – you saw that did you?”

“Enough of it, yes. It appears though,” she checked her nails while still flipping the bat, as if she were mocking him. “I’m no longer worth The Joker’s time. The ‘Duo of Destruction,’ as we were called, has been split. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Is your office in the same place, doctor?”

He nodded, afraid to speak.

“And do you have the keys to that place?”

Again, he nodded.

A few seconds went by. She stopped in front of him, holding the dowel at her side.

“Can I have the keys?”

“Oh – sure, sure.” Standing he dug his hand in his pocket, filtering the sound of jingling keys until he threw them at her. She flinched back, barely catching them before they struck her, and hissed through her teeth, rolling her eyes to Squid.

“Watch him.”

_-_

She recognized everything about it just standing at the door; the frosted class displaying his name in thick, black lettering.

Dr. Kats, female psychiatrist / therapist

On the other side of the wooden frame stood all the furniture; his beautifully colored couch and loveseat with the over stuffed cushions, making you sit and sink in and never want to leave; the long couch with the one arm rest just for looks; his strangely different lamp which clashes yet somehow sets itself into the décor; and his wooden end table with the one locked drawer.

Wait a minute, she thought, I broke the lamp last time I seen him.

Shrugging her shoulders she jammed the key into the lock and turned it, shoving open the door. The room even smelt the same as it did last time she was here; a smell of freshness failing to completely mask an odor of musk and spoiled debris, a medicinal smell of the small blue pills locked away in the wooden desk, and a trace amount of sweat.

Her spine tingled with a shudder.

The room was spotless, seemingly void of new breath until Sim graced the area with her presence, when in reality just the night before last it had been teeming with life, screaming with it actually. Her fingers curled themselves to a quick fist as a wave of memory engulfed her, occupying themselves instead by stretching around the smooth wood of the drawer, but it wouldn’t open.

She pursed her lips and blew a raspberry, wishing she had kept the bat instead of lending it to Squid. No matter, she’d make due with what she had. Her hands locked themselves around two of the four legs supporting the end piece, and with some difficulty she lifted it, walking until she was inches from the nearest wall and smashed it into the sheet rock, creating quite a ruckus.

The wood, however, shattered on impact. Ah, the joy of Fred Meyer furniture.

She ducked behind her outstretched hand, blocking stray fibers of pressboard as they shattered her way. When the metaphoric dust had settled she crouched, hearing the sounds of her knees as they protested, and sifted through all of the documents stored away until her fingertips swept across the small package bursting at the seems.

She frowned.

Inside his room there was yet another smaller room, his personal office, and there were far more shelves of paper in there. Using the same key for the other door she unlocked this new one and opened the center drawer of his desk, finding exactly what she wanted in abundance.

_-_

“Will you please state your name for the presiding jurors?” Sim commanded in a stiff voice, the tip of her baseball bat within inches of Samuel’s face. He shifted on his knees, trying to free his wrists of their bondage behind his back. Squid had done a good job at restraining him, though; he was in boy scouts as a kid.

She watched, intrigued, as his Adam’s apple bobbed again. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. “Samuel Kats,” he stuttered.

“And your occupation?”

“Female psychiatrist and therapist.”

She wanted to get her own answers, as well as expose this doctor for who he really is. Her voice softened considerably as her interest was piqued. “Is there a certain reason you picked women or -? I don’t understand why you did that.”

He nervously smiled where he kneeled. “Women just intrigue me more.”

“Is it their minds or their looks?” she shrieked, hitting him across his back with the metal rod. He gasped, falling to his stomach across the wood flooring. Sim’s hands found the side of her skirt where the made in slit was located and she tore it even more, allowing her the ability to kneel if needed.

“Next question!” she began pacing in front of him again, twirling her weapon of choice. “Please name off the five female patients you have had for the longest amount of time.”

“Angela Weld, Eve L – Larson, Laurel Kent, uh…” his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to remember. Sim advanced on him, her footsteps loud and booming. “Ash – Ashland Eberly!” he screamed. “And Simplicity Scavetto.”

“Age range and reasons for being in therapy?”

“All nineteen to twenty three, reasons being they h – had some sort of traumatic experience in their life.”

“Mmhmm,” she contemplated the information she had, still pacing a short distance before him. She stopped and looked to Squid suddenly, remembering he was in the room. Her eyes were wild, as if she were a child being caught with a lit cigarette.

“This has a point, Squid, I promise,” she rushed. He nodded his understanding.

Her hands clenched. “I just though you should know why I am like I am.” Her feet twisted easily across the freshly polished wood, giving her a quicker speed, which accentuated the precision aim she had, allowing a solid ‘thwack’ to sound as her baseball bat was smacked across Samuel’s face. His body thudded across the floor loudly, blood pouring from his mouth.

“Oh, I know you’re not dead yet,” she sneered. She crouched behind him, gathering a handful of his thick gray hair and pulling his up. “Haven’t you seen the movies?” she laughed bitterly. “The creepy guys never die. Like Robert DiNiro in Cape Fear,” her eyes focused on something in the distance. “God I hate that movie. But I digress.” Grunting as she stood, her arm held the good doctor in place where he kneeled.

In a pool of red to her right sat three of his teeth.

“Do you think it’s... strange...doctor… that girls – just girls,” she shrugged innocently, “who have had pretty serious events unfold in their life get assigned to you?”

“Not,” blood blurred his words as it spilt down his chin, “not really.”

“Ah, ah, ah, let me finish.” Each word was stressed with hits in the back of the head with her major league weapon. “Any way, do you think it’s weird that those same girls, put in there for traumatic event involving their family, are kept in there because they receive other traumatic effects, including – well, I’m just guessing here – sexual assault?”

Folded packets smacked against the ground, spilling their contents face up. Sim inhaled swiftly, looking away for a brief moment before collecting herself.

“In your sessions with all five girls, was there a set routine?” He nodded his head. “What?”

“Yes!”

“And what was this routine?”

“S – Simple, every day questions, you know-”

“Liar!” Her bat swung against his body again, hitting his side and cracking three ribs. He screamed.

“Hey, Sim, somebody might hear this,” Squid interjected.

“Turn the T.V. on mute,” she growled. “Which girl have you been with the longest, doctor?” The once dimly lit room was alive with dancing colors, the television station set to a slasher flick.

He chuckled once, cut off by a groan of sharp pain. “I had you the longest Sim. I always liked you the best-”

Her bat came into contact with his shoulder, crushing the bone with the amount of force she put into the blow. He screamed again.

“Shut up, shut up!”

Squid watched with newfound interest.

“What were those pills you gave every girl five minutes in to the session?” she screamed in a rush.

“They were dow – downers.”

“Downers for what?”

“So they’d pass out quickly.”

“And what would you do after they passed out?”

“Look at the pictures!”

She fell to her knees, grabbing a handful of pictures and throwing her arm behind her.

“Look at the pictures, Squid! This is what my doctor – what my psychiatrist would do to me!” Her weapon imprinted itself into his jaw, knocking out a few more teeth and busting his lip open, spraying blood again to the floor.

Squid bent to the ground, picking up what Sim had dropped. He listened to her panting in the background.

“If you were a normal psychiatrist I would be a regular person!” She hit him again. “I wouldn’t have these weird obsessions! I wouldn’t be fucked up!” She hit him again. “None of this would have happened, I could’ve gotten out of this town when I had a chance!” Again, she hit him.

Squid covered his mouth with his hand, keeping down the bile as the pictures were again dropped to the ground in haste.

He understood now. This whole thing did have a reason; Simplicity was blaming her doctor. The anger she had recently been storing was releasing on him, his already dead body being mutilated even more as she kept attacking. Her heartbreak, sorrow, disappointment; it was all being let out. He just happened to be the victim.

Tears streamed down her face, mixing the salt with the metallic zest drenching her cheeks, her clothes.

Raising her bat once more, she let her arms fall, the weapon slipping from her grip, and dropped to her knees. Squid rushed to her side, sliding over the ground on his legs until he was at her side, comforting her as she cried into him.

Her words were muffled as she spoke into his clothes. He pushed back her dripping hair, covering his palm with red death.

“I hate him, Squid,” she cried, “I hate him so much.”

“Shh, shh,” he cooed, petting her hair, “it’ll be alright.”

She shook her head against him. “No it won’t, it won’t anymore-” her words were cut off by sobs.

“It’s okay, shh, you and I will be alright.”

She pushed herself away to look at him, her head shaking wildly.

“No, no Squid, you can’t stay. You have to get out. I’m going to get you out.”