Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Retreat
    The Retreat
    The Retreat
    Ebook143 pages3 hours

    The Retreat

    By Erin Lee and Olivia Marie

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Trigger warning.

    That's what the front entrance should say. Instead, it lies the same way the outsiders do. Week after week, it cheerfully ushers unsuspecting loved ones and visitors to the registration desk where they'll sign day passes to visit us: the broken girls. The lost. The forgotten. The damaged. The twisted.

    Every Saturday—Sundays on holidays too—outsiders will visit with no clue what really goes on in the place they've sent us to where nothing ever changes. With dull eyes and plastic smiles, we'll nod, grin, and take their hopeful offerings of trinkets from a deceitful world they don't believe we're ready for.

    When the visit concludes, we'll return to the perverse happenings that go on seven days a week inside The Retreat. Only now, we'll do it with new rules because they've taught us so well what it is to be cruel, broken, and even triggered. We have secrets too.

     The difference is, unsupervised, we'll be honest with you.

    Welcome to The Retreat.

    We're waiting for you…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrazy Ink
    Release dateOct 4, 2019
    ISBN9781393635901
    The Retreat
    Author

    Erin Lee

    Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

    Read more from Erin Lee

    Related authors

    Related to The Retreat

    Related ebooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      We All Live in Uncertain

      Jul 30, 2020

      “Think of Caddo as a maze of lakes within lakes,” says John Winn, proprietor of Caddo Outback Tours, as the two of us settle into a small Go-Devil boat roped to a dock in Uncertain, on the border of northern Louisiana. For two decades, Winn has given

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Whistling

      Oct 6, 2021

      RELEASED 14 OCTOBER 400 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Rebecca Netley Publisher Michael Joseph Being employed as a nanny or governess in the late 1900s must have been the worst job ever. The wages were terrible, the children were worse – and

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How to Buy a Used Car During a Wildfire

      Jan 14, 2019

      I do not laugh but the children do. “I hate these fucking places,” I think again, turning the radio back on. The post How to Buy a Used Car During a Wildfire appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Hauntings

      Jul 5, 2023

      Hauntings
      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      In Defense Of The Harvest

      Nov 10, 2021

      I know what you will all be thinking. It is true that I was asked to write this story by members of the current government. A government pertaining of a few politicians, lawmakers, and others who are currently subject to public scrutiny as possibly b

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Other people’s SEX LIVES

      Jul 15, 2019

      Other people’s SEX LIVES
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Empire Of The Vampire

      Sep 8, 2021

      RELEASED OUT NOW! 736 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Jay Kristoff There’s a real thrill at the Publisher HarperVoyager Empires are made up of many nations, and Empire Of The Vampire is made up of many fairly easily identifiable parts. The wo

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Paul Tremblay

      Jun 17, 2020

      IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS that I would live to see the end of everything,” says Paul Tremblay, speaking to SFX from his Massachusetts home in the middle of lockdown. It’s a singularly peculiar time, and a peculiar interview for him to

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Get Into Bag Of Bones

      Apr 7, 2022

      Established in December 2021, Bag of Bones Press aims to ‘champion and publish budding writers of horror and dark fiction who may not have had a traditional or formal education in the literary arts’. Submission calls are open to anyone and everyone T

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Noah Hawley

      Mar 23, 2022

      HOW DO YOU GRAPPLE WITH WRITING about contemporary America, a place where fantastical events seem ready to intrude on day-to-day reality at any moment? For Noah Hawley, his answer was to embrace the fantastic. “It became clear over time that Anthem h

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Hide

      May 18, 2022

      RELEASED 24 MAY 256 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Kiersten White Publisher Del Rey “The book you need after Squid Game!” yells the hype for Kiersten White’s latest. Well, sort of. In fact this well-written horror novel feels closer to The C

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Soundtrack Of My Life

      Jul 23, 2019

      The Soundtrack Of My Life
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      George R.R. Martin Returns To A Whole New World With 'Nightflyers' On Syfy

      Nov 28, 2018

      LOS ANGELES - Only a few days removed from this year's Emmys, George R.R. Martin was feeling a bit tired. It had been another big night for the "Game of Thrones" writer, whose intricate "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels continued their run of prestige

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Andy Weir Visits the Moon

      Nov 16, 2017

      World building is the best part of writing,” Andy Weir tells me. The software engineer turned writer is getting his practice in. In his 2011 novel The Martian, he built a Mars base, complete with carefully calculated Earth-Mars rocket schedules and c

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      WIL WHEATON on Stand By Me

      Nov 18, 2022

      WIL WHEATON on Stand By Me
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Retreat

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Retreat - Erin Lee

      Dedications

      For the broken ones.

      May you find strength in the darkness.

      Your only warning...

      Trigger warning.

      That’s what the front entrance should say. Instead, it lies the same way the outsiders do. Week after week, it cheerfully ushers unsuspecting loved ones and visitors to the registration desk where they’ll sign day passes to visit us: the broken girls. The lost. The forgotten. The damaged. The twisted.

      Every Saturday—Sundays on holidays too—outsiders will visit with no clue what really goes on in the place they’ve sent us to where nothing ever changes. With dull eyes and plastic smiles, we’ll nod, grin, and take their hopeful offerings of trinkets from a deceitful world they don’t believe we’re ready for.

      When the visit concludes, we’ll return to the perverse happenings that go on seven days a week inside The Retreat. Only now, we’ll do it with new rules because they’ve taught us so well what it is to be cruel, broken, and even triggered. We have secrets too.

      The difference is, unsupervised, we’ll be honest with you.

      Welcome to The Retreat.

      We’re waiting for you...

      Prologue

      Within the outer reaches of Burlington, Vermont, there was at one time a massive expanse of land inhabited solely by the imposing main edifice of the Brattleboro Retreat Hospital and Home for the Mentally Unwell. Once seen as the height of civility and generosity, the Brattleboro Retreat played host to both the destitute and the insane. Massive gothic architecture cast shadows over the vacant fields that surrounded the facility and all of its dozen less-secure buildings. From every part of the city, a person could look up and see its majestic stone and metal frame standing tall as a symbol of hope that everything was okay. Only, even back then, many townsfolk were sure things were not. That is, long after The Retreat’s residents had departed, rumors of what went on in the main hospital during its long occupancy stretched further than its gratified shadows ever could.

      In the dark days of psychology, human experimentation was not only acceptable but was considered the norm. Ghastly procedures meant to push the boundaries of the human mind and chase off the spectacle of insanity were distressingly common and the Brattleboro Retreat was no exception. It was just the way things were done.

      Donated in the will of one Edwin Winslow, an eccentric, wealthy man who sought to secure a legacy, the Brattleboro Retreat had one feature that set it apart from its peers: an eight-foot stone wall that completely encircled the property. It was unclear, and still is, if the Winslow North Wall was meant to keep the local townspeople out or to keep its residents in.

      Psychologists also teach that there are always two deaths – the one people see and the one they do not. The latter comes first. Although the practice of keeping the poor and the ill apart from society was already starting to decline, the first death bell of the Brattleboro Retreat House was sounded on the evening of February 13, 1953 after more than a hundred years in service. Late into the night, the alarm was raised when smoke poured from the lower levels of the main high security building. Within minutes, much of the building was in flames and, although the staff fought valiantly to rescue as many of the patients as possible, more than 150 residents lost their lives.

      Although stories run rampant of a revolt by patients, a formal inquiry was convened and it was determined that the fire was the result of a malfunction of the building’s crematorium; a convenience, of sorts, which rested in the heart of the building. With the main hospital ravaged by the fire and ultimately unsuitable for further occupancy, the doors to the Brattleboro Retreat Hospital were closed for good.

      Although its dusty remains sat in the gut of an enviable piece of real estate, the building slept abandoned for nearly sixty years as life for those deemed insane, unfit, or even just different carried on around it. Still, the charred bones of the facility cast long shadows through the tiny city with people wondering what might have been and even what might be behind the looming Winslow Wall. Even then, life went on.

      Even in its infancy, the Brattleboro Retreat was comprised of many facilities. The doors to the lesser damaged ones remained open, bringing in not only the memories but also the legacy of a place the sleepy town would prefer to have forgotten or simply sold off. And among the rubble of the original and most prominent building’s charred remains has since grown a legacy much more sinister – darker. Even now, nearly seventy years since The Retreat’s first death, and with the entire field of psychology in a whole other space, very little has changed... Inside, it is said that not only the people—but the place itself—are broken.

      Chapter One

      Jessie

      L ullaby. Lullaby.

      Jesus, Amber! Shut up already! I screamed at my roommate. Do you have to sing the same thing all the damn time? 

      Lullaby, Jessie, she sang back in her toddler sounding voice, looking toward me briefly but never making eye contact. Sitting in the corner of the room on the hard, concrete floor, she hovered on her feet and sat rocking the ratty baby doll she had.

      God! Grow up! If I wasn’t already crazy, you would make me, I shouted back.

      Grabbing the pillow off my bed, I threw it at her. She lost her balance when it smacked her right in the head and she dropped her baby.

      AHHHH!

      She was wailing like a dog that was being skinned alive. I covered my ears and crouched in the corner of my bed. Amber grabbed her hair and began to pull. Ripping out clumps by the roots, blood was starting to run down her face. She turned to face the wall and smacked her head repeatedly. The thump it made on the last smack and the pop of her nose breaking was more than I could handle. I hid under my blanket and pulled it over my head as she fell to the floor.

      Keys jingled outside as the orderly tried to find the one to our room. In the panic, he kept grabbing the wrong ones. Finally finding the right key, our door flew open. My heart jumped into my throat when I saw Jasper.

      What the hell happened? he gasped looking around at all the blood smeared on the wall and floor. Then he saw her. Amber was folded into a crumpled mess, blood oozing from her wounds.

      He ran over to her to make sure she was still alive before he snapped his attention back to me.

      What did you do? This is the third roommate you have had that hurt themselves! He stood up and walked over to me. His crooked index finger was pointing the way as he inched to my bed.

      Jasper climbed up and straddled me. Pinning me down with my blanket, he got right in my face.

      You know I will have to punish you again now, he said. The smell of morning breath, garlic, and tuna fish assaulted my nose. I tried to pull the covers up to block it, but he held them down tight.

      I didn’t do anything, I said. Sounding braver than I felt, I stared him in the face.

      No? Nothing huh? Just like the others? He was so close I could see the bits of food stuck in his teeth from the last two days easily.

      Jasper! What the... Gretta, the head orderly, asked as she made her way into my room.

      At first, she only saw Jasper hovering over me. It wasn’t until she turned around that she saw Amber collapsed on the floor, hidden by the door she lay still and unconscious.

      The old cow was too fat to bend down low enough to check on Amber. It always looked to me like she had pillows stuffed in her uniform. None of her fat lumps matched and her right hip was double the size of her left. She had short jet-black hair that was now peppered with white and her thick rimmed black glasses did nothing to help her look younger.

      Jasper, go get help, she barked in her raspy deep, manly voice. As soon as he left the room she turned her attention to me. What happened?

      She placed her hands on her ample hips and glared. Her breath was coming in short puffs and with each intake, I waited for the buttons on her shirt to give up and pop open. Her E cups heaved as she tried to restore her breathing to normal.

      She wouldn’t stop singing. She wouldn’t stop singing, I repeated over and over. If I played this out right, I would only get the padded room for a few days. If not, it would be electric shock or worse.

      Shaking her head, she began to walk my way when Jasper returned with a stretcher and Nolan, another orderly.

      Get this girl up now, Gretta said pointing at the heap that was Amber. "I will be back for you in a minute. Try to figure out words until then. I want answers on how this mess happened."

      On how this happened? I was locked in here with a bunch of psychos and I shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t my fault that they, along with my parents, were weak. Why should I always be in trouble for what they do?

      I liked blood and the way it felt as it ran from my body. Taking the blade to my skin was better than sex. I could control how deep it went, how fast or slow the blade would dig in. Even the taste was erotic and calming.

      The day I landed in this hell was forever burned in my mind. It wasn’t so unusual, I was picked on daily. But this time was different because it was Owen.

      I loved him in spite of knowing I shouldn’t have. He wasn’t the first boy I had sex with, but he was the first one I cared about. In some ways, he was a lot like me in the fact he slept with as many people as he could to feel something other than the empty void of life. Only he was praised for it, I was shamed.

      When Owen had enough with me, he started to spread rumors. At first I ignored them, but that day, I couldn’t. He cornered me with a few other boys, and they took their turns grabbing my

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1