Read Milo's Story: Stories from The Gateway: Companion tales to The Gateway Trilogy for Free Online Page B

staff.”
    She drew herself up a bit with pride. “I’ve dealt with some very challenging patients, yes.”
    “Of course you have,” I said, shamelessly stroking her ego. “So, what’s the really juicy stuff? Electroshock therapy? Hydrotherapy? Lobotomy?”
    She looked shocked. “We don’t do those kinds of things here. That would be illegal!”
    The light was really flickering now. It caught her eye for the first time, and she watched it curiously.
    “Oh, come on,” I said waving her off with my hand. “The suits don’t know the reality of what you all deal with here. Come on, spill. Do you use surgical measures? Sensory deprivation? There must be a back room, a secret ward down in the basement.”
    “No, of course not!” Coffee-breath said, trying to give me an indignant look, but the light, flashing madly now, had completely captured her attention. She walked over to it and tapped on the shade, peeking into the top and adjusting the bulb as she said, “I don’t know what gave you that idea, but we’ve never condoned practices like that here.”
    “Oh sure, not on the record,” I said, raising my voice to make sure Jeffrey was paying attention. “I’m talking off the record.”
    “Milo, that’s quite enough!” she said sternly, reaching down and unplugging the light from the wall. It continued to flash and blink like a strobe light. “What is going on with this light?” she muttered.
    An energy was building in the room, a sort of static electricity. I could feel it raising the hairs on my arms and tingling across my skin. Jeffrey was going to make himself known at any moment, I just knew it.
    Just a little bit more…
    “Just between us girls, Margaret, come on! What do you do to the really screwed up ones?” I cried.
    She opened her mouth to answer me but screamed instead. Every light, inside the room and out of it, exploded at once. The lamp in her hand flew from her grip and smashed into the ceiling before falling to the ground. I heard the shouts of the nurse out at the desk as all of the recessed bulbs in the hallway popped and went out in the same moment.
    In the darkness, silhouetted by the only light left, the glow of the street lamp outside the window, her crouched and shaking form rose to a standing position.
    “What… the hell… was that?” she whispered between terrified gasps.
    “That was what happened to that lamp a few days ago,” I said. “I told you I didn’t throw it. It’s also the reason I’d like another room, please.”
    She looked at me. Her expression was hard to decipher in the newly minted darkness, but then she said, in a tremulous voice, “I’ll go make the arrangements now. Make sure you don’t leave any of your things.”
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t.”
     
    ~
     
    Three days later, after settling into a new room and acclimating back into the general population of Foxes, Look-At-Mes, Periodics, and Fixer-Uppers, I walked into the cafeteria for breakfast to find Hannah sitting at a table in the corner. No one was sitting within two tables of her; it was as though someone had drawn an invisible line that they all knew not to cross, lest her special flavor of crazy be somehow contagious. I got my tray of food and walked over to her table.
    “Hey.”
    “Hey, yourself.”
    “Well? Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?” I asked.
    “I don’t need to. I saw Jeffrey already, and he’s very happy to have his room back.”
    “Oh. Well don’t you want to hear the details? It’s a pretty thrilling story. And the best part is, Coffee-breath is totally terrified of me now.”
    “It’s nice to have them scared of someone else for a change,” Hannah said, smiling. “Okay, tell me all about it.”
    She pulled out the chair beside her and I sat down in it. And it felt right, sitting beside her.
    Beside her, I decided, was my new place to be.

About the Author
     
     

     
    E.E. Holmes is a writer, teacher, and actor living near Boston, MA