we direct your attention
to the man with the sleek leather briefcase.
his name: dr. mallory craig.
psychologist
newly employed by the crest ridge sanitarium.
for the last two weeks, he's been visualizing his first day,
looking forward to it with eager anticipation.
but there's a terror behind those cold, institutional walls
that nothing in his education has prepared him for.
dr. craig?
yes.
rebecca robb.
everyone calls me becky.
i'm the catch-all head nurse,
good cop, bad cop,
advisor on policy,
and tracker-down of missing paychecks.
glad to have you aboard.
thank you, uh, glad to be here.
this place has a fine reputation.
i only hope i can live up to it.
i'll get you the files on your clients.
you'll be taking over
dr. parnett's group—
about six or seven people.
i think you'll find them all quite fascinating.
thank you, uh... becky.
becky, can i see you a second?
sure.
what can you tell me about this patient...
name of sharon miles?
it says here she committed herself.
that's correct.
although dr. parnett
thought there might also have been
some family pressure to check in.
it also says she refused to leave the house,
was constantly rearranging the furniture in strange ways,
and refused to sleep anywhere but in a plain, white room.
still does.
since she's been here, she's repainted her room
oh, i guess about half a dozen times by now
anytime there's a spot or a crack.
dr. parnett said to let her do it.
it might be good therapy for her.
she dresses only in solid colors and refuses
to leave her room
except for meals and counseling sessions,
and then only with difficulty.
i've never heard of anything like this before.
what's her attitude?
frightened.
doctor,
in my ten years as a nurse, i've never seen anyone
so completely, utterly terrified.
of what?
i don't know.
even dr. parnett couldn't find out that one.
good night, doctor.
hi.
i know it's a little bit after office hours,
but i thought i'd pop by and say hello
if you don't mind.
yours?
nice work.
i'm afraid arts and crafts are pretty much beyond me.
i tried to make a bookcase once.
it ended up as a napkin holder.
nice room.
spartan, but very nice.
thank you.
i've been going over the caseload
and yours is very interesting.
i noticed you graduated to therapy on a voluntary basis.
dr. parnett decided not to push matters.
if there was something i wanted to talk about,
i'd talk about it.
but you haven't.
you haven't been to therapy
in nearly two months.
i'm sure if you were to try again,
i could arrange a field trip...
no.
i don't think that would be a good idea.
not yet.
when i'm ready, maybe.
all right.
but if you should ever feel like talking,
you know where to find me.
good evening.
good. There you are.
i've been looking all over for you.
before everyone went home for the night,
i wanted to introduce you to the rest of the staff.
fine. That'll be all right.
get it away from me!
i told her we don't have any other heavy blankets.
it's getting colder...
i don't care.
get it away!
i don't want patterns.
look, just go and get two or three light ones.
that should be all right, don't you think?
as long as they're plain—
one color, no patterns.
no patterns, i promise.
go on.
guess i didn't make a very good impression last night.
i want to thank you for what you did.
the staff gets impatient
with me at times.
all forgotten.
thank you.
but it would help me tremendously in the future,
if i understood why you were so concerned.
hey, doc, haven't you heard?
nobody in here
but us loonies.
we don't have to have reasons for what we do.
i disagree.
and for what it's worth,
i don't think you are a loonie.
scared, yes.
i'd like to try and help, talk to you for awhile.
all right.
just move that
for the time being.
after i finished college, i met jeff.
we got married about a year later,
and we had a boy—
bobby.
he's seven years old now.
and i don't hate my mother
or my father,
and i never wanted to sleep with my brother.
and i wasn't frightened by a checkered sheet
when i was a little girl.
but you were frightened last night.
i saw you.
you were terrified
by that blanket.
not the blanket.
the patterns.
why?
don't you want to leave this place?
i can't imagine you'd want to stay.
why don't you tell me?
you wouldn't believe me if i told you.
try me.
did you ever look closely at patterns, doctor?
i mean, the kind of patterns you find in wallpaper,
cracks in the ceiling, linoleum floors...?
i suppose so, yes.
ever see faces in those patterns?
the way the cracks and colors come together,
so that if you look at it—
just so—
you can swear you see a face?
of course.
we had a linoleum floor when i was a kid.
i'd spend hours looking at the patterns,
trying to make faces out of them.
that's the way the brain works.
it tries to find order in chaos.
given the chance,
the mind plays a game of connect-the-dots
with whatever it happens to be looking at at the time.
yes, but did you ever wonder why you see faces?
not animals, or plants, or buildings,
but faces?
no, actually, until you mentioned it,
it hadn't occurred to me.
it didn't occur to me, either.
at least, not at first.
it was sunday.
i was looking up at the wallpaper.
it was covered in abstract patterns.
you know the kind.
and i was looking up at the wallpaper,
looking into the patterns...
and i saw a face in it.
doctor, i swear it looked back at me.
right at me.
i caught it off guard, i guess,
because i got the most terrible, horrible feeling
that it knew i saw it.
then i looked away.
it was gone.
perhaps you onlythought
the face was looking at you.
no.
no!
you know when you're crossing the street
and you make eye contact with the driver,
the way everybody tells you to?
and even though you can't see them clearly,
you can feel when you've met their eyes.
you know they're looking at you.
this face was looking at me just like that.
why did it suddenly disappear?
you said yourself you looked away.
at that moment, your mind rearranged the dots
into a different pattern, one without a face.
no, there was something there, doctor.
i saw it and it saw me.
it's trying to kill me.
and i saw a face in it.
doctor, i swear it looked back at me.
right at me.
i caught it off guard, i guess,
because i got the most terrible, horrible feeling
that it knew i saw it.
then i looked away.
it was gone.
staying late?
uh... no, no.
i was just leaving.
i hope you brought your coat.
looks like we're heading into the rainy season.
good night, doctor.
good night, becky.
you said yourself you looked away.
at that moment, your mind rearranged the dots
into a different pattern, one without a face.
no, there was something there, doctor.
i saw it and it saw me.
it's trying to kill me.
after i saw the first face,
i started seeing more of them.
they were watching me.
peering out of the patterns of carpet, ceilings, wallpaper.
i tried to paint over them, but they kept coming through.
faces in the pile of leaves next door.
faces in tree trunks, brick walls.
faces in the doodles of my seven-year-old son.
my clothes— i had to stop wearing patterns.
that's why i don't allow patterns in my room.
that's how they come through.
so long as they're out of range, i'm safe.
sometimes i get the feeling
that i hear them talking,
whispering... about me.
trying to decide what they're
going to do about me.
you keep saying "they."
who are they?
i don't know.
sometimes i get the feeling
that they're looking in from someplace else.
someplace parallel to this that only intersects us
at certain points.
i get the feeling they're old.
very, very old.
what do you think they would do to you
if they got you alone?
i don't know.
i try not to think about it.
and i'm not going to give them the chance
to find out.
did this have something to do with your decision
to commit yourself?
i'm awfully tired.
could we pick this up...
will you tell me tomorrow what happened?
damn.
don't resist us.
come with us.
come here, come.
come with us.
sharon...
come with us.
don't resist.
come with us.
sharon...
don't resist.
bobby!
no... no.
no!
hello?
it's me, sharon.
i've changed my mind.
i can't live like this anymore.
someone has to know in case something happens to me.
tomorrow, i'll tell you everything.
i'm glad to hear that, sharon.
and, doctor, i lied to you.
i think i know what they are
and what they're trying to do to me.
i can't trust them not to.
doctor, please, if anything happens to me,
promise me you'll protect them—
jeff and my son.
promise me?
i promise.
good morning, doctor.
pardon the bucket.
we had the roof fixed last winter, but it still leaks.
we've got buckets all over the place.
a storm that big always agitates the patients
and last night was a doozy.
around midnight, we had everyone quieted down
except for your favorite patient.
sharon?
what happened?
she just started screaming
in the middle of the night,
screaming and pounding on her door, trying to get out.
kept saying she wanted another room,
that she had to get out.
did she say why?
well, she was hysterical.
any other night, we'd have given her another room,
but you know how crowded we are.
she was too disturbed to let her wander around,
so we had to lock her room.
i called for another nurse to help sedate her.
she really fought us, too.
why didn't you call me?
well, we were going to, but she quieted down.
we didn't want to disturb you.
good morning, doctor.
i hear you gave our nurses quite a night.
i was being silly.
i realize that now.
storms frighten me.
actually, thanks to you, i realize i've been silly
about a lot of things.
such as?
such as being here, committing myself,
abandoning my son and husband
just because of some perfectly irrational fears.
it's wrong and i can see that now.
i guess all i really needed was someone to talk to.
i... i fear you give me
way too much credit.
that's a very pretty outfit.
very intricate patterns.
i thought...
just one more sign that all is well.
i called the front office
and had it brought to my room.
with some luck, i sign the release forms
and i'll be leaving here
this afternoon.
so soon? i thought we could at least...
we did.
and again,
thank you.
your cab's here.
i thought i'd help you
with your bags.
thank you.
besides, i couldn't just let you go...
without saying good-bye.
no, i suppose not.
all the help is appreciated.
did you hear something?
no. must have been the wind.
that's not me.
that's one of them.
that's not me!
please, god.
next time you're alone,
look quickly at the wallpaper
and the ceiling, and the cracks on the sidewalk.
look for the patterns and lines
and faces on the wall.
look, if you can, for sharon miles,
visible only out of the corner of your eye,
or in the twilight zone.