(intense ominous music)
- [Narrator] The doctor had never encountered
a patient like this one before.
While most of the patients in the asylum
heard voices whispering to them from the dark,
or saw imaginary of monsters and demons circling them,
this patient, Wallach,
he always appeared to be calm and collected.
A pen in hand, scribbling, keepin' to himself
never causin' any trouble for the nurses.
Of course, when Dr. Eccleston imagined Wallach's drawings,
it wasn't the prettiest sight to behold.
The man loved to draw, spiders, thousands of 'em,
crisscross and over each other, infesting the paper
their eight eyes gleaming, their fangs wet with venom,
their clawed legs, over and over
large and small
that's all Wallach drew.
But as long as the patient
didn't share his disturbing artwork with other patients,
Dr. Eccleston didn't see any harm in it.
Until today.
Today, when the doctor entered Wallach's room,
his mouth dropped in disbelief.
Every single inch of the room was covered in marker,
drawings of spiders were on the walls,
the floor, even the ceiling.
He had apparently been stealing and hoarding pens
from the nurse's station for weeks,
all so he could leave his mark on the asylum.
But, why?
The drawings reminded Dr. Eccleston of the old nursery rhyme
his mother used to sing him when he was just a child,
trailin' her fingertips up his arms, givin' him goosebumps,
she would softly sing
♪ The itsy bitsy spider ♪
♪ Went up the water spout ♪
Then at the next word, his mother would lower her voice
and grab him.
Down!
It always scared him,
it always made him jump.
Even now, he felt like he could hear her voice
reverberating in this patient's room,
feel her fingertips like the legs of spiders
crawling up his skin all theses years later.
The doctor felt an itch and looked down at his hand
he saw one, a spider,
and he yelped in terror slapping his wrist,
but it was just a black smudge of marker.
Huh, how had that gotten there?
No matter, Dr. Eccleston knew it was just a coincidence,
marker on the walls, marker on his skin.
His mother's old nursery rhyme couldn't hurt him now.
He would get to the bottom
of this patient's acts of vandalism.
After the nurses removed Wallach,
taking him to the ECT room for treatment,
the doctor examined the patient's room more closely.
At first, nothin' else seemed amiss,
but then the doctor felt it,
a prickling along the nape of his neck,
like he was being watched.
Every time the doctor turned his head,
it almost felt as if the spiders on the wall behind him
were moving, creeping, crawling.
But when the doctor spun around to catch them,
they were still.
Simply theses scribbles of a raving lunatic.
Heh, who's going mad now?
And then he noticed it.
The sketched spider right in front of him,
a tarantula from the hairy look of it,
appeared to be bleeding.
Dr. Eccleston squinted, stepping forward,
bringing a finger to the droplet of blood,
wondering if somehow Wallach had cut himself.
But as he touched the blood, the wall cracked open
and more blood began to drip down.
Down! (intense ominous music)
Again, he heard his mother's distant voice signing,
screeching that word
as the blood poured out the wall gushing.
The doctor backed away, horrified,
as the floor became covered with blood,
rising, developing his feet, then his trousers
up to his knees.
Soon, it would swallow him whole, he realized,
he would drown in the blood.
He opened his mouth to scream when...
"Dr. Eccleston, are you all right?"
He blinked, turning to see one of the nurses
looking at him funny in the doorway.
When he returned his gaze to the drawing of the tarantula,
the blood was gone, but how?
He wasn't insane, he wasn't!
No, Dr. Eccleston was the one who helped the insane
and this, this vision of blood, whatever it was,
must have just been his imagination
getting carried away, that's all.
"I'm fine."
Dr. Eccleston muttered, shaking it off.
"Is the patient ready?"
The nurse nodded.
It was time to see to Wallach for himself.
When he stepped into the ECT room,
he found Wallach on a gurney, his hands and feet bound,
his head already covered in wires,
prepared for the treatment.
He looked at the doctor, pale and pleading,
"I need a pen, doctor."
He said, "Please let me draw, I need to draw."
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Wallach."
The doctor said walking over to the machine
and making sure the levels were correct.
"We're going to administer electric shock therapy
"to calm your nerves."
Dr. Eccleston took the rubber bite block
and was about to force it inside Wallach's mouth
when he noticed the marker smudge on his hand again,
moving, withering on his skin.
Down!
His mother's voice screamed again.
The doctor jumped dropping the rubber bite block
he took a breath.
It was just a simple smudge, the song was just a memory.
"Are you all right, doctor?"
Wallach asked eyes wide.
He picked up the rubber bite block
and forced it inside the patient's mouth, silencing him.
Then he turned to the machine and slowly turned the knob
raising the voltage to a low level.
He never enjoyed this part, watching the hands spasm
the feet kick, the eyes pop out of their heads,
the muffled screaming. (Wallach screaming)
But he knew it would be worth it.
The patients always felt at peace afterward.
He turned the knob down
and removed the rubber bite block
allowing Wallach to pant and regain control
of his motor functions.
"Do you feel better, Mr. Wallach?"
"There's something on your coat."
Wallach said breathly,
pointing with his bond hand at Dr. Eccleston.
The doctor frowned and looked at his shoulder,
his heart nearly stopped at the sight,
a spider was crawling on him, a real spider this time.
He jumped and yelled and brushed it off his coat
as quickly as he could, then he looked at Wallach again,
his eyes were glassy and calm, a small smile on his lips.
"I'm starting to remember why I love to draw now, doctor."
"Why?"
The doctor said still a bit spooked,
twitching, trying to make sure
there weren't any other spiders crawling on him.
It felt like too great a coincidence,
finding a real spider on his coat
after seeing all those drawings, those visions,
hearing his mother's voice singing to him from he past,
but what else was he supposed to make of it?
"I draw the cycles."
The patient replied.
"I draw the same thing over and over
"to remind myself that everything repeats.
"What goes up, goes down.
"Once a healer, now the healed and so on.
"The same way you always sing that song."
The doctor frowned,
what the hell was Wallach talkin' about?
Clearly, he needed another jolt of electricity
from the machine,
but as he brought his hand to the knob again,
he saw another one,
a spider crawling from his shirt sleeve to his hand,
sinking its fangs into the skin of his palm.
The doctor shrieked, slapping it.
All that remained was a dollop of blood.
"You see it now don't you, doctor?"
Wallach asked.
"Why you've really brought me here."
"I don't see anything!"
Dr. Eccleston shouted, unable to control himself now.
"You're the one who sees things, you're the patient!
"Not...
"Not..."
The doctor felt like he was spinning out,
losing track of what was real, because the spiders
seemed to be materializing everywhere now,
from every corner of the room,
from every seam of his clothing,
from the patient's smiling mouth, all creeping towards him.
His mother's song began to grow louder and louder,
echoing, sounding off key and demonic now.
♪ The itsy bitsy spider ♪
♪ Went up the water spout ♪
"It's all right, Dr. Eccleston."
The patient said as he opened his fist,
revealing a massive tarantula, just like the one he'd drawn.
"I was where you are now when I was Dr. Wallach
"and you were the patient, don't you remember?"
Eccleston shook his head refusing the believe it,
but now the spiders were surrounding him,
crawling up his legs, too many to shake off, everywhere,
like his mother's fingernails all those years ago
sinking into him, making him bleed.
Her violence, the reason she was thrown into an asylum
and never heard from again.
"My drawings, your visions,
"they're simply a manifestation, Dr. Eccleston."
Wallach said calmly.
"A manifestation of the past repeating."
"It's not real!"
Eccleston cried out,
collapsing onto the second gurney besides Wallach's,
trying to fight off the swarms of arachnids
descending upon him, biting and crawling
and slipping into any orifice they could find.
"What is happening to me!?"
Wallach sat up, his hands and feet miraculously unbound.
He stepped over to a coat rack and put on a doctor's coat
grabbed a clipboard
and looked at Eccleston with genuine pity.
"Don't worry, Mr. Eccleston
"I'll finish the drawing this time.
"I will end the song."
♪ The itsy bitsy ♪
The drawing.
♪ Spider ♪
Dr. Wallach stood over him, watching,
holding his clipboard
as the patient, Eccleston,
kicked and screamed against his restraints.
He was the one tied down now.
He was the one with the wires attached to his head.
He was the one about to be electrocuted.
"I promise you'll feel more at peace after this."
Dr. Wallach said gently turning to the machine.
"Down!
"Down!"
Eccleston shouted, but as his mouth opened wide,
the spiders poured down it, filling his insides,
eating him from the inside out.
He could feel the ones all over his skin,
wrapping him in their web now,
until he was nothing but a cocoon
with only a mouth left to scream and eyes to see.
He saw Dr. Wallach turn the knob on the dial
and as his whole body spasmed and his brain went quiet,
he remembered, he so loved the sound of his mother's voice.
Dr. Wallach looked down at the patient completely unharmed,
not a single spider bite anywhere to be seen,
blinking up at him, humming a familiar tune
a nursery rhyme, the one about spiders,
the one that repeated over and over like madness itself.
No more, today Dr. Wallach was going to end this cycle.
He turned the voltage to its maximum point
and watched as the patient shook uncontrollably
a blur frying, his skin burning,
shrieking 'til at last he collapsed upon the bed
still, a smokin' husk,
never to be frightened by a delusion of a spider again.
With that, Dr. Wallach grabbed a pen,
gave it a double clicked and left the ECT room.
There was more work in the asylum to be done.
(ominous music)