Read Online Robert Bloch's Psycho by Chet Williamson - Free Book Online

other patients there. Some may want to talk to you, and some may not. If they do, just be polite. I’ll be on the other side of the room watching, so you won’t get into any trouble, and no one will hurt you. After all, they have no reason to. You’re a nice guy, right?… Right, Norman?”
    Norman nodded. “I’m a nice guy,” he said softly. “I’m a nice guy.”
    When Dr. Reed led him through the door of the social hall, Norman froze. There was too much going on to process all at once.
    The room itself was benign enough. There was a green-and-cream tile floor, and against the opposite wall were several windows, covered by a diamond grid screen. Couches and easy chairs were scattered about the room, and several dozen wooden captain’s chairs stood in lines against the walls. Die-cut, thin cardboard pictures of wreaths, snowmen, and Christmas trees hung on the walls, reminders of the season.
    An upright piano stood at the end of the room to Norman’s right, and a man sat on the bench, pecking at one key in a rhythm so uneven as to seem like Morse code. A few magazines dotted the tables, which in turn dotted the floor. At the end of the room opposite the piano was a large fireplace whose opening had been closed off. The wooden fireplace was ornately carved, darkened by years of smoke, the sole reminder of when the facility had been a sanitarium for the disturbed rich.
    Now the room was filled with only the disturbed. There were perhaps two dozen men there, watched by two attendants, one at either end of the room. Some of the men were playing checkers, some were watching a soap opera on the black-and-white television set next to the dead fireplace, some were talking to each other, and several were talking to themselves.
    One in particular, a lanky man who seemed more bones than flesh and who wore a gray baseball cap with his gray prisoner’s shirt and slacks, stood in the center of the room and babbled loudly and nonstop about Communists and how they were going to take over the country and one day everyone would wake up to find themselves enslaved by Communism. At least Norman thought that was what he was saying, since the man spoke so quickly, and seemingly without ever taking a breath, that Norman couldn’t be sure of all the words.
    Another man stood on his head, his feet leaning against the wall, and was chanting what sounded like a prayer. His shirt had fallen down around his chest, and Norman could see dozens of small scars crisscrossing the man’s belly like the diamond grid on the screens that helped imprison them all.
    An instrumental of “Autumn Leaves” was drifting from a portable record player next to the piano. It sounded like Percy Faith or Andre Kostelanetz or some other easy-listening bandleader, and was background only, there to soothe the loonies, Norman thought. With the music and the smoke that hung in the air, it seemed like a lunatic’s version of a nightclub.
    It was far too smoky for Norman’s taste. He had never smoked, and at least half of the men in the room were holding or puffing on cigarettes. He wondered if all these madmen, possibly including pyromaniacs, were allowed matches, but he was relieved to see one of them go to an attendant for a light. Then he realized that Dr. Reed was speaking to him.
    â€œâ€¦ go over there and read a magazine,” Dr. Reed said. “Or watch the men playing checkers. There are other board games on that shelf. Maybe someone would want to play.”
    â€œI, uh…” Norman cleared his throat. “Maybe a magazine.”
    Walking into the smoky room, Norman felt as though he were leaving behind what little remained of the rational world. These people all around him, with their worn clothing, hacked hair, bad teeth, were all crazy in the eyes of the law. And then he reminded himself that he was crazy too, and, whatever they had done, what he had done was probably worse.
    He