Make a wish when a Blackbird flies

“I was right, keep driving.” I said from the back of the car.

After we left the carnival and piled into the car, I pulled out all the pictures of all the murders from the same case. I grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil and started writing down all those letters, things we thought were so trivial.

“Where are we going now?” Matt had asked from the front seat.
“I'm not completely sure, but I think I know where he took him. This might take a while so start driving.” I told him.
“Where to?” He asked starting the engine.
“You know where.” I said and with that he drove off.

If he was taking Frank where I thought he was taking him, it would take a while to catch up; I figured they had about an hour's head start, but it would take us each at least half a day to get there, providing I was right.

Like Frank said, if you joined all the letters together and just moved them around like an anagram, they formed other words and sentences. The first few were just simple tauntings like catch me if you can, follow me and come and get me; then they got a little more helpful like you're getting warmer, closer and closer, until finally after a few hours of working in the same way I got He's in Septon Hall, you idiot. Which was what I thought in the first place, minus the last part.

As I spoke I climbed into the passenger seat. We still had a long way to go. The very last time I went to that hospital, it was a situation much like this one, I was rushing to save him, to save everyone really.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - Flashback - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

We burst through the main doors of the first building, Matt, me and a few other police officers. The nurse at the desk jumped at our sudden entrance and stood up, ready to shout us out when I dropped my badge in front of her.
“I'm officer Way, I'd like to speak to whoever's in charge here. We're shutting this place down.”

Several hours later we were escorting every patient into the buses we had driven over. We were doing the same with all the doctor's and nurses, except they were in handcuffs and being escorted into police vans.

I stood by the entrance watching every face carefully, looking for someone in particular. The last two people passed by – a young woman holding a teddy bear tightly to her chest, and an older man who couldn't stop laughing at me – and I still hadn't seen him.

“That's the last of them.” Said a paramedic beside me.
“Wait, no, that can't be it; there's got to be someone left.” I protested.
“Sorry.” He shrugged and walked off. Matt came up to me. We were friends now, but it took some time, and I still held a little grudge against him.

“What's going on?” He asked.
“He's not here.” I murmured.
“What?”
“He's not HERE!” I yelled, kicking a nearby chair over.
“Whoa ok, calm down.” He said with his hands raised a little.

I rubbed my face and pulled my hair a little then walked away, towards the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Matt ran after me.
“I need to find him, he has to be here.” I said, walking down the hallway. I had studied the blueprints of this place before coming, so I knew my way around.

I arrived at his room where I was greeted by a very surprising scene. There was a large stain of blood near his bed and a trail of small bloody footprints leading out.
“What happened?” Matt asked from behind me.
“I don't know. But see that?” I pointed to another footprint I saw, this one was leading into the room. “He came back...why would he come back?” I asked myself.

I moved on, this time opening every door I could find. Matt just followed me, watching me a little helplessly. After a while I came up to a door that was locked; it was an ordinary wooden door, like a storage closet or something. I would have left it alone if it wasn't for one thing I noticed.

“Do you smell that?” I asked. Matt sniffed the air.
“Is that...bleach?”
“It's all over this area.” I said crouching down in front of the door and running my finger under the gap between it and the floor. It came back red. I stood back up and kicked the door open. The lock broke with a loud crack and snapped back against the wall.

Immediately me and Matt had to jump back and cover our faces against the stench that we were suddenly hit with.
“Ugh, what is that?” I exclaimed; covering my mouth an nose with my coat I inched closer to the small room. There was a dead body in there, a doctor by the look of it, with a large bloody hole in his chest.

“How long do you think he's been in there?” Matt coughed.
“I don't know.” I said looking around; I found a pair of keys on the floor; how could the door be locked with the keys still inside? I stepped back closing the door so we could breath. “Call someone up here, get this thing out of here.” I told him and watched as he spoke into his radio, describing where we were and what we had found.

“Why would they clean the outside, and not move the body?” Matt asked after he got a garbled response, referring to the people that worked here.
“Maybe they just couldn't get it open and figured there was nothing there.” I said.
“You think it was him?” He asked me after a brief pause.
“I don't know; could he have gotten out?” I asked.

He didn't answer and in that moment two paramedics came running towards us carrying a stretcher between them. After about fifteen minutes the body had been checked over and zipped into the black body bag.
“Looks like a gunshot to the chest, he then bled to death a few minutes later. I'd estimate the time of death to be around two weeks ago, two and a half maybe.” One of the paramedics told me, handing me a small plastic bag before wheeling the body away.

I looked into the bag and saw a bullet, crushed a little from the force of the impact. I still recognized it.
“That's from my gun.” I said, still staring. “He had my gun.” I stuffed the bag in my pocket and walked back the way I came, following the paramedics.
“Where are you going now?” Matt asked, having trouble keeping up.
“I want to see if they have some kind of record for the patients. I want to know what happened two weeks ago.” I said and practically ran down the stairs when I found them.

Once I was on the ground floor I veered off to the left and walked on with determination. How could someone just disappear? There had to be some kind of sign, a clue. We arrived at the main office; it was a huge room filled with filing cabinets.
“Help me look.” I said to Matt and opened the first drawer that was closest to me.

The cabinets weren't marked on the outside, so we would be doing this the slow old fashioned way. I soon discovered that not only did they have the files for every patient who had been currently living here, but they also kept the older ones, of people who had died or on the rare occasion been released; all since the hospital had re-opened.

It had almost been two hours when I finally found a file named Iero, Franklin.
“I found him.” I said and pulled it out, placing it on the small desk in the corner of the room. I opened it and on the first page was a report of his examination.

“Patient suffers from various delusional visions, he refuses to believe that the voices he hears aren't really there. Course of treatment...excessive...medication: Thorazine, Serentil and Metyrapone...these were taken off the market years ago.” I read out loud.
“What's Metyrapone?” Matt asked.
“It was used to erase unwanted memories, for PTS disorders.”

We stared at each other for a moment, then I quickly flipped through the rest of the file. It was like reading a horror story, all the treatment he had to suffer through, and notes about his therapy sessions. The very last page was dated Two weeks ago.

“Here we go. He was apparently scheduled for a lobotomy after he attacked one of his doctors...” I said and snorted.
“What?” Matt asked.
“He bit the guys dick off.” I said then turned serious. “Doesn't say anything else.” I said with a sigh and closed the file.

“Mister Way, we found something.” Said a breathless officer from the doorway. We were quickly led out of the office and down another hallway into another room that was so cold I could see my breath come out in puffs. It was a circular room, it looked like some kind of laboratory with a high metal framed bed in the middle and medical equipment spread out on two desks on either side of the room.

There was another team of officers and paramedics on one side of the room, crowding around yet another dead body in a sitting position slouched against the desk. This one looked more fresh, like he was killed in the last few days. One of the paramedics saw me and stood up to face me.

“I know what you're thinking, but he looks that way because of the temperature. The cold preserved his body. It'll be difficult to determine when he was killed, but it looks like someone shoved a bunch of spikes in the main artery in his neck.” He told me. I looked around on the floor, it was covered in long and pointy metal rods some covered in blood.

“What are those for?” I asked pointing at them.
“Those are used to safely lobotomize patients. We found pictures...” One of the officers trailed off, meaning that whatever was in those pictures wasn't a pretty sight. Frank was supposed to have a lobotomy, this must have been him. But what happened to him then?

I couldn't stand staring at the mess on the floor so I walked out, Matt as always by my side.
“You're thinking it was him.” He stated.
“Of course it was him; what else was he supposed to do?” I snapped at him.
“In that file, it said nothing about a shooting.”
“So?” I asked impatiently.
“So it must have happened after the laboratory. We're looking at this in the wrong order.”

I thought for a moment. Why would he go back to his room.
“He knew...everything that happened, he knew what to do.” I said. I started pacing the floor. “He had my gun. When he got caught after he attacked that doctor, he couldn't get caught with it, they would have taken it away. So he left it and came back for it; that must be when he met the second doctor, and locked him in that closet...” Something did anyway.

“So, you're saying he got out? Like, he escaped?” Matt asked. I stopped my pacing and took a deep breath with my eyes closed.
“I hope so.”

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ Now ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ -

Soon after that we found the furnace in the cellar, were dead patients bodies were being burnt. We just kept finding more and more bones, it was endless. For the longest time I had this deep secret fear that he hadn't escaped that day, that his body was among the countless other ones in that place.

That was the case that got me promoted to detective, though I didn't see it as an accomplishment worth boasting about. I never really stopped looking for him; in a way his disappearance was a good thing, he was away from me, but he wasn't suffering in that place. He was safe. I would take that option any day.

The car stopped and I looked up at the looming dark building of Septon Hall.
“You stay here, try calling for help.” I said as I got out of the car.
“It's not safe in there, I should come with you.” Matt said, trying to stop me.
“I have to go alone Matt, that was the point of everything.” I said.

“It'll be okay.” I then said, trying to reassure myself as well as him. He nodded hesitantly and I took that as permission to go. I walked up the stone steps and just before opening the door I drew my gun out. I took a deep breath and made my way in. To Frank.

Notes

I'm sick, again. This is my favourite chapter along with 27, because of all the dead bodies. Once again, I'm not crazy.
So let me know what you think, please comment, I loved the last ones.