Silence Falls

“I got it!” A voice whispered in the pitch black darkness of the room.

Connor and Cris both sat up in bed, listening for the sound of Bert’s voice again in their cage of silence. Tonight they were all finding it challenging to get a good night's sleep and it all had to do with Bam Margera. Unitedly they were paranoid that if they closed their eyes for too long he would inaudibly perish in his sleep from having been forced to undergo a session of Electroshock Therapy, or that the Orderlies would decide to come back to abuse him again to gratify their morbid pleasure.

How could anyone sleep in a place like this with all the peril lurking about waiting to pilfer you from the confines of your room and cram the rest of your night with blinding pain and infinite agony?

“Whoa, hold on! What are you talking about over there, Bert?” Connor groaned, rubbing the fatigue from his eyes that stubbornly refused to induce him with sleep.

How could someone be so sapped and not pass out from it? It didn’t make any sense to him, but he was evidence it was a possibility.

“I’ve been thinking about our escape plan.” Bert answered back faintly, not wanting to be heard by the patrolling Orderlies still frequenting the halls of the Male Ward. He had sat up in his bed after the first two patrols stopped unlocking the doors and glimpsing in at the patients with their flashlights. Whoever patrolled after that first guy wasn't so devoted to checking in on any of them because they had been left absolutely alone since. While the seconds clicked by, he’d been deliberating in utter silence with himself on their present situation, and their newfound semi-ally Orderly Jack. Bert had managed to forge a new plan to get out of this Psychiatric Hospital.

“And?” Cris wheedled from him, his feet hanging off his bed as he too listened faithfully for his next words. He was literally on the edge of his bed in suspense, his blue eyes so wide that he wouldn’t be disturbed at all if they popped out of his head and rolled away under his bed. “What’s the plan? How are we getting out of here, Bert?”

“Jack.” Bert stated with a wicked grin that no one else could view. The sight of it would make them very restless and anxious at the same time.

“Jack?” Connor restated with skepticism in his voice. He blinked a few times, trying to make sense of it. Their Orderly was their way out? “Are you fucking with us?”

“No, dude! I’m being serious.” Bert answered, swallowing back a laugh that wanted to come out. He didn’t want them thinking he was losing his mind, because he wasn’t. It sure did sound like he was, he could admit to that, but he wasn’t losing his mind. “Our answer to all our problems is Jack!”

“And how exactly is Jack going to help us get out of here?” Connor inquired, no longer believing this senseless babble. Lying back down, he folded his arms under his head and closed his eyes. He wasn't able to doze off anyway so he might as well entertain Bert’s nonsensical proposition since Bam hadn’t done anything but sleep since he was returned back to them. “I doubt asking him politely to hold the doors open for us on the way out isn’t a part of your plan.”

“YES, I said Jack is our only way out, you guys, but no, asking him is not a part of my plan.” Bert clarified, turning his head in the direction of their voices. “Look, I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not sure if you do, Bert, if your idea of escape involves our Orderly.” Cris whispered in a contrite tone. “Need I remind you he’s the very person who’s literally being paid to keep us locked in here.”

“Let me finish.” Bert hissed at them, pleased when he received no further backlash. “You both know I’m not the superstitious type at all, but...I think Jack was given to us for a reason.”

“Oh please!” Connor groaned, covering his face with his hands. “You fucking sound like your old man!”

“Hey, I resent that!” Bert snapped a little too loudly. Anything that had anything to do with his father was an affront to him. They may share the same blood, but that’s where the similarities end. As far as he was concerned, his father died a long time ago. Whoever this Dr. McCarter was before...he wasn’t a damn thing but a stranger to him now. “I’m nothing like that bible humping prick!”

“You’re right, you’re not!” Cris calmed him. “It’s just...that’s something Dr. McCarter would preach.”

“What are the odds we were put under the control of the ONLY nice orderly in the entire male ward?” Bert grilled them, changing the subject as he glared out into the darkness at the faces he could only picture in his mind since he couldn’t see. “C’mon, you guys, think about it! What are the fucking odds we’ve survived this long on our own in a swamp filled with murdering patients, and soldiers? Hmm?”

Cris and Connor jointly contemplated on it only because Bert asked them to and they were loyal to him for all he’s done for their group. What happened inside the Medical Facility and afterwards seems to all be spritzed with luck...a little too much luck for the average person to be blessed with. They were too safe when they shouldn’t have been, and they were still alive when they couldn’t have been. Bert had a point there that it was a considerable miracle that they made it this far, but...to believe that Jack was their ONLY ticket out of this Psychiatric Hospital was still a very hard thing for them to accept blindly.

“I hear what you’re saying, Bert, but what I don’t get is how we’re ever supposed to convince Jack to help us escape this shithole. How do we know he won’t go blabbing off to his Orderly buddies about our plan the minute after you tell him?” Connor whispered. Sitting back up in bed, he stared in Bert’s direction, needing him to persuade him that this was a risk worth taking. “Is that really a smart move to make right now?”

“I don’t see any other options.” Bert told him, throwing his hands up in defeat. “The vents are too small for me to crawl through to investigate this place down to its inventory of paper clips. I doubt they have a blueprint of this Hospital in any of the Wards on this floor so if I were to try and fine one I’d have to go up, and I have no way of doing that undetected. But Jack can. He’s one of the Orderlies so no one will ever question his movements.”

“Backup you two.” Cris cut in. “We still need to figure out how we’d get Jack to align himself with us?”

“Now that is the complicated part, I have to agree with you.” Bam permitted with a sigh. “Jack obviously doesn’t agree with how things are done around here, but that doesn’t mean he’ll have the balls to stand against it with us. He’s been working here for God knows how long and and as far as we know has never said a peep in retaliation.”

“If we decide to trust him, it’ll definitely be taking a chance on our lives.” Connor reiterated. “It’s practically throwing a dart in the dark, praying it’ll have met the target when the light comes on.”

Cris finally spoke up again, having already made his own settlement on this. “I vote we should try it anyway. If Jack is all we have to get out of here, then we should take the risk because remaining here will kill us all in the end anyway. All we have to do is befriend him and earn his fealty. Maybe then he’ll find the strength he lacked before to turn his back on this place alongside us.”

The other two mutely nodded in solidarity. That was their only way out, and with how turbulent this place was they needed to grab on to whatever they could find that could unlock these doors for them so they could get back outside into the swamps again. But in order to do that, they needed Jack White.