They were here first.

This diary was filed as evidence at the New Jersey Police Department. It’s author, one Dr Joseph Steinbaur, formerly Chief Pyschiatrist at Carisbrook State Mental Institution is still missing and the case is currently under investigation.


Monday, July 10th.

Dear Diary.

A relatively uneventful day at the madhouse, if any of the days at our fair institute can be said as such. Mr. Smith managed to escape once again, though in truth this is almost a weekly occurrence. Surprisingly he only managed to get as far as the boat sheds before the guards bought him down this time.

We also had a new arrival bought in this afternoon. Shiela Tepes, age 27, red hair, green eyes, moderately attractive, married once; divorced now and no children. Her file says she had lived an apparently normal life until just three weeks ago, since then she has devolved into a state of paranoid delusions. She is apparently quite lucid but is so far absolutely unwilling to be shaken from her beliefs in this new fantasy world she has created for herself. It also seems that she is potentially dangerous. She was bought here after neighbours found their missing dog in her back yard... she had dismembered the poor thing. The report says she must have spent hours carving the animal to pieces. Yet despite the fact that she was covered in its blood when they found her the next day, she said that it wasn't her. Don’t they all?


Tuesday, July 11th.

Dear Diary.

What a horrible day. One of our patients, a Mr. Sumak, committed suicide; I honestly thought he was getting better. I’d signed transfer papers for him just two weeks ago and fully expected to see him soon moved to a somewhat calmer institute than ours. I still can’t explain it, he had never shown predilections to self harm before and quite frankly this was entirely out of character for him. I fear this will be a stain on my record and I do not look forward to speaking to the superintendent tomorrow.


Wednesday, July 12th.

Dear Diary.

Dear lord another dreadful day. It was absolute bedlam at work. No suicides but no less then three of our own guards put into the infirmary and it seemed like we had to sedate at least half of our patients. I have no idea what has gotten into them. It’s not unheard of for one of our patients to insight others to rebel, but this is far too widespread for that and far too numerous for mere coincidence. I will have to investigate into the food and drug supply. I fear it might be a problem with their medicines. I shudder to think that something of that nature may have been the cause for Mr. Sumak’s suicide.

To make matters worse, the superintendent came for his monthly visit and report. He was none too impressed with the state of the facility when he arrived and was quite terse with me throughout the interview. He made it quite clear that Mr Sumak’s suicide so shortly after my report commenting on his improving disposition did not sit well with him. In fact he even went so far as to suggest that he may bring outside investigators in to the case. I had no time to do my usual rounds at all today and I hope that tomorrow is somewhat calmer so that I may attend to my normal duties.

Thursday, July 13th.

Dear Diary.

A thin veneer of normality appears to have returned to Carisbrook today. While the orderlies all reported recalcitrant and difficult patients, there had at least been no serious injuries. I assigned two of the guards and the head nurse Mrs. Stark to investigate the cause of the recent disturbances. This relative calmness allowed me to begin my rounds.
Both Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Darstariel were too heavily sedated for any form of meaningful progress but I did manage to have what I felt to be a very productive session with Mr. Barnsley. He seemed agitated throughout but I believe our talk did him some good. He spoke mostly of bad dreams and recent feelings of anxiety. I’m not sure if these were a result of the recent disturbance or if he was affected by whatever had come over the other patients. Nevertheless he did appear visibly mollified by our session today.

I also finally got to interview our new patient Miss Tepes. I believe our first little chat went relatively well. As reported she is quite calm, though extremely suspicious and I fear that her problems may run deeper than mere paranoid delusions. At times during our session I caught her looking at me in a most disturbing fashion. For someone who works in a mental institution, it takes quite a look to disturb me.


Friday, July 14th.

Dear Diary.

I am determined to continue my normal duties at Carisbrook. I fear however that in light of recent circumstances this may not be possible. Our patients seemed to take a collective turn for the worse today. The halls have been ringing with their cries and nothing we do seems to be able to calm them. In addition we had no less than four patients attempt to take their own lives today. It’s fortunate that the staff has been especially vigilant since Mr. Sumaks suicide; otherwise they might well have been more than just “attempts”. Nonetheless I am considering requesting some emergency staff from the superintendent. Whatever has gotten into the patients at this facility is starting to frighten not just the nurses and guards, but also myself.

Despite the disturbances I still managed a couple of sessions today. None of them eased my mind in the slightest. All of the patients I talked to today were extremely edgy, even Miss Constance. A woman who is normally of an extremely pleasant demeanor. Unfortunately even Miss Constance had been disturbed by the recent events. I asked her if she suspected it might be the medication but she seemed to indicate that her doses where having the same effect they normally had. Instead she complained of strange dreams. She said she was unable to remember the specifics of the dreams but that they were very disturbing all the same. She said that despite the extra sleeping pills she had been requesting the past few days she still woke multiple times throughout the night. Drenched in a cold sweat and shivering in fear of whatever it was she had experienced.
Miss Constance was not the only patient I had a session with today

I also managed to schedule in another visit with Miss Tepes. It is customary for me to spend a few weeks seeing our new patients almost daily to help them settle in at the facility. Though she was unwilling to talk about her delusions, we still had a fairly lengthy conversation. I already knew from the report that she claimed to be in contact with beings from other dimensions. That she had been chosen to help them reach into this world. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, which was why I was not particularly bothered by her recalcitrance in this matter. I was far more interested in talking about the recent disturbances and how they were affecting her. She said and I quote, “No actually I find everything here very soothing”. As I said, there is something about this particular patient that I find quite disquieting. Even worse she seemed most pleased when I asked her whether she had been having any bad dreams… going so far as to ask me how many of the other patients were having them. She has obviously been talking to some of the other people here.

Saturday July 15th.

Dear Diary.

Due to recent events I felt compelled to go to work this weekend. Even though I am convinced that now more then ever my presence is required there, I wish it were not. Today I saw the single most disturbing sight of my life. I have been a psychiatrist for over twenty years and worked in institutions like this for fifteen of those years. Contrary to what you might see in the movies I had until today never once seen a word written in blood. Today, I saw walls covered in them. Mister Andrew (Brother Andrew as most of us called him) took his own life today. He tore his wrists open with his teeth and then used his own blood as ink to inscribe verse after verse of the bible. His cell was completely covered, all four walls, part of the ceiling near his bed; he had even draped his blanket over the window and written on that. I hadn’t realized the human body had such an amount of blood in it. What could have possessed him to do such a thing? Brother Andrew had his delusions but they centered on him being a messenger for God, blessed and protected from all harm. That was the reason he was in this institution. Without supervision he would walk across a busy freeway, or drive a car the wrong way down a street, totally confident that his God would protect him. Though he was harmless to others, he had one of the most unshakeable beliefs in his own divine sanctity that I have ever come across. Was his suicide part of this delusion? Perhaps he imagined a vision from God urging him to do such a thing? Or was it something else? What has happened to our facility? Something is terribly wrong here, of that I no longer have any doubts.

Sunday, July 16th.

Dear Diary.

Despite my misgivings and worries I decided to stay home today. The weekend staff at Carisbrook is very competent and quite frankly I feel that I am in need of a rest. It has been an extremely trying week at the institute and I feel that I will be more effective given a day off to recharge my batteries. Perhaps it is the stress of the recent suicides but I have not been sleeping well off late. Like Miss Constance, I find myself waking in the middle of the night, plagued by intangible memories of strange and disquieting dreams.

Monday, July 17th.

Dear Diary.

The extra staff I requested arrived today. With their help we managed to bring about a semblance of order to Carisbrook. It took some doing but the extra hands and fresh faces were a great help. That is not to say we had no problems. All the patients were still extremely combatitive and we were forced to suspend visitation rights, but for all this there was only one major incident. That was a near riot in ward C. It seems that a large number of the patients have taken a dislike to Miss Tepes and at the urgings of Miss Constance no less, they attempted to lynch her. Though Miss Tepes suffered no serious harm I felt it best to move her to the hospital for the night and was forced to sedate almost the entire population of ward C. I would like to write more about today’s events but I’m afraid I am exhausted. The stress of the past week is wearing me down. Despite my day off yesterday I find myself even more tired then before, sleep came no easier last night and if possible was even less restful. I will endeavor to make a more complete entry tomorrow.


Tuesday July 18th.

Dear Diary.

Miss Constance is dead. One of the nurses went to wake her up this morning and found that though she had her eyes open she was not responding. Upon pulling back the covers the poor nurse discovered that though Miss Constance’s head was facing the ceiling, her body was lying on its stomach. Her head was twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees around, the skin on her neck coiled up and twisted so it looked like a spring, like some ghastly jack in the box. I gave the nurse the day off.

It was obviously murder, yet it seems almost impossible. The cells are not videotaped but the corridors are and there were no visitors to Miss Constance’s room that night. Naturally we informed the police but they seemed as lost to explain it as we were. They informed me they would launch an investigation and get back to me… I received the impression however that the fate of an old mentally disturbed inmate of a facility like mine was not high on their list of priorities.

I on the other hand am determined to find the cause. Because of yesterdays events I elected to talk to Miss Tepes. Miss Tepes had been in the infirmary all night, the nurse on duty was quite certain of that. But I wished to interview her all the same.

The interview did not go well. Though Miss Tepes expressed remorse, sympathy and assured me that she had no ill-will towards Miss Constance; her smile mocked her words. She practically radiated satisfaction and she wore a rather hideous smile that faltered not once throughout the entire conversation. I was even more disturbed when at the end of the interview, Miss Tepes asked me how I was sleeping at night.

Wednesday July 19th.

Dear Diary.

Carisbrook is on the verge of collapse. Another suicide, more injuries and half of our usual staff did not show up for work today. If it were not for the extra help the superintendent sent we may well have had a major incident there today. As it stands, I am seriously considering recommending the temporary closure of the facility. What has been affecting the patients there has begun its toll on the staff. Mrs. Stark the head nurse came to me today. She explained that for the past week she had been growing increasingly concerned about how the staff was handling the stress. She admitted that she had observed increasing indications of staff dissatisfaction. Sick days had been increasing throughout the week and the staff that stayed had increasingly disturbing demeanors. She told me that many reported bad dreams and that she noticed that some were had been growing aggressive towards the patients. She was prompted to speak to me of this because of an incident today that required the termination of two of our staff. A guard and orderly were found almost torturing two of the patients. When Mrs. Stark entered the room, she reported that she found the pair of them looming over two of our patients, both of whom where strapped to their beds and gagged. The orderly had a bottle of acid in one hand and cotton swabs in the other and the guard was whispering into the ears of one of the patients. The pair of them claimed that they had merely planned on “frightening” the patients into submission, but given the circumstances she felt she had no choice but to immediately terminate their tenures.

It was not just the staff that Mrs. Stark came to talk to me about. Mrs. Stark has been at this institution for longer then I have and in all the time I have known her to be anything but level-headed, efficient and extremely competent. It was for this reason, as well as my own observations that I found myself taking her very seriously when she spoke of her concerns about Miss Tepes. Mrs. Stark seemed to feel that Miss Tepes was having an adverse affect on the population of Carisbrook. Despite the fact that she had been in no trouble besides the attempted lynching; of which she was the victim, Mrs. Stark found that many of our problems seemed to lead inexplicably back to Miss Tepes. Mr. Sumak our first suicide had been located directly across the hall from Miss Tepes cell. Most of the trouble we were having originated in or was most pronounced in Ward C, the ward Miss Tepes was located. The guard and orderly, who were fired today, were also assigned to ward C. Though this evidence seems circumstantial, I have never found Mrs. Stark to be giving to superstition or flights of fancy and it was her explicit opinion that despite tangible proof, Miss Tepes was somehow behind the problems we were experiencing.

I will admit to having felt unease around Miss Tepes before my talk with Mrs. Stark. That talk however left me almost convinced that she was somehow involved in all this. I did not know how exactly, but I was determined to investigate as to the possibility. I proceeded immediately to Miss Tepes cell to interrogate the young woman. That interview was one of the more disturbing ones of my entire life. In contrast to our previous talks she had given up all semblance of innocence. It was with great glee and a gloating countenance that she informed me of just what it was that had been happening here at Carisbrook. A part of me wished not to believe her; the things she said were too horrific and too outrageous to be true. Yet I found a part of me terribly frightened that she was not lying. Her words seemed to awake some ancient dread within me, like a race memory long since buried and forgotten that had suddenly been unearthed.

She spoke of the earths previous inhabitants. The ones who were here before us. Ancient demons, old gods, beings which had been at the zenith of their powers long before the dawn of man. Creatures which had left this planet eons ago and had since changed to suit their new environments. Timeless monsters of distant ages who still remembered their home and whom now wanted it back. A desire which, with her help and indeed the help of the pour souls and minds here at Carisbrook they would soon achieve.

Of course I laughed at her when she told me this, that was a good as indication as any of how much what she said had affected me. A psychiatrist never laughs at his patients, but I found it to be my only defense against the things she told me. Perhaps it was because while she spoke, I could feel a presence in the room with us. It was something intangible, not able to be sensed by normal means, it flittered in and out of my awareness, the memory of a shadow. Something which hovered near Miss Tepes, seemed to be almost a part of her. When she talked I could feel it come and go, suddenly expand, loom larger, then seemingly shrink back in on itself for no apparent reason. I know not if it was her words or the result of that unearthly prescence but as time went on I found myself suffering from strange visions. Images which seemed to somehow seep into my conscious mind. I had imaginings of vast ancient creatures plaguing our facility, invading the minds of its inhabitants. Timeless alien monsters twisting the head of Miss Constance one hundred and eighty degrees around, feeding of her pain and suffering; driving Brother Andrew to cover every surface of his cell in biblical warnings all the while whispering in his ear and laughing as they destroyed his faith; causing the suicide and injuries of countless other patients then taking great delight in the chaos and entropy they fostered. The scientific, rational and reasoning part of my mind refused to believe all of this. But sometimes, reason and rationality simply do not suffice. I’m afraid to say that I began to believe.


Thursday July 20th.

Dear Diary.

Morning Entry: Before I go to work.

I slept not a wink last night. I could not drive the images I saw while listening to Miss Tepes out of my mind. I stayed up all night pondering what I was to do today. I had hoped that given time I would be able to dismiss the things she had told me as merely the ravings of a sadly insane mind. But the mystery of Miss Constance death, the suicides, the general demeanor of not just the patients but the staff at Carisbrook, it was all too much. I have been there for fifteen years and in all that time there were only four successful suicides. There have been over half that number in a week and more attempts then we would normally have in a year. Something is happening there and it pains me to say that I can think of no rational explanation.

Evening Entry: After Work

Tomorrow I will call the superintendent and recommend the temporary closure of Carisbook Mental Institution. Today when I arrived at work it was as if I stepped into a a different reality. Less than a third of the staff had turned up to work today and those that were there had a manic look about them. The patients could quite likely have taken over the place if it were not for the fact that the majority of them were refusing to leave their quarters. I admit however that all this was the least of my worries.

I went to see Miss Tepes again, determined in the cold hard light of day to tell her that she was mentally disturbed and that we would do our best to help her while she stayed with us. Perhaps I did it for my own piece of mind as much as anything else. I never made it into her cell. As I stood on the outside of the door looking in through the glass I witnessed something for which I have no explanation. She was standing in her cell with her back to the door and appeared to be talking rather animatedly with the empty space directly in front of her. I went to open the lock with my key when I caught a flash, an inexplicable glimpse of that which she was talking to. That brief glimpse, a sight which lasted no more than a fraction of a second destroyed the fragile equilibrium I realize now that I had been operating under. I have no recollection of returning to my office but I spent the rest of the day there. The bottle of bourbon I keep in my office at my side; I am not prone to drinking but it seemed to be the only course I had left to me. I no longer have any doubts as to the veracity of Miss Tepes claims. What I witnessed for that brief moment in her cell was in no way, shape or form human. It was some “other”, a creature the likes of which, was not meant to be seen by human eyes. I struggle to describe what it was; in fact I find that I have no real wish to do so. Suffice to say that it was amorphous, intangible in parts yet hideously familiar and solid in others. I saw no limbs, just strange protrubences and ghastly flesh. I think that my mind has done its best to remove the memory of exactly what it was that I saw. Yet I find that even the lingering impression, the imprint of it. That hideous and blurred recollection of it which I still have in my mind, it is enough to wear at the edges of my sanity.

The rest of the day passed in a sort of daze for me, I recall being given reports, having another conversation with Mrs. Stark. But in truth I knew that all that I had thought important, now no longer truly mattered to me. That briefest glimpse of that “other”; it has changed me irrevocably, whereas once I was a skeptic I am now a believer. Today I looked on the face of that which is evil and I knew despair. I know not if there is a God, a force for good in the universe but I know that the devil does indeed have his minions.

Tomorrow I will confront Miss Tepes, attempt to reason with her. Perhaps she still has the power to send these creatures back from whence they came. I fear however, that neither she, nor the creatures she communes with will be satisfied by such as a result. If it is so, then I will do all within my power to ensure that she does not survive the day. I pray that without their link in this world, they will be forced back to their own. As far as I am aware she is still trapped in the facility, I do not know the powers of the creatures that she so obviously serves but they appear for the moment to be content with limiting themselves to the confines of Carisbrook. If I am not able to reason with Miss Tepes, then I will do what I can to stop this atrocity from spreading further.

Carisbrook is an old institution, constructed around the turn of the century and it is made entirely of wood. In addition I posses the ability to turn off both the alarms and the sprinkler system, it is my hope that a fire started outside her door will prove to be inescapable. I do not think I have the means to end her life in direct confrontation, I fear these creatures would not countenance such an event. Instead I will start a fire as close as I can to her cell without being detected and let the good facility of Carisbrook do the rest.

If I am not successful in my attempt today, I would urge anyone reading this to do all they can to end this menace before it is too late. I am posting a copy of this diary to the local police department. I am sure that I will not be believed but I can in good conscience do nothing else.

I pray, that I have the strength and courage to do what I must. I pray, that I will still be here to write an entry tomorrow. For the first time in my life, I pray, for I know of nothing else that can help me.