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Roanoke mental hospital

The Roanoke mental hospital is the psychiatric facility in Roanoke, Virginia, where Wilbur Whateley is held, catatonic, after the events of The Radford Horror, and where Andrew Howard wakes him in The Radford Horrors.
Type Location (psychiatric hospital)
Aliases the Roanoke hospital; mental hospital in Roanoke
Region Roanoke, Virginia, most of a day's drive from Radford, Virginia
Notable inhabitant Wilbur Whateley
First appearance Mentioned in Radford Horrors 02; visited in Radford Horrors 04

Description

The hospital appears in one scene. The woman at the front desk tells the team the hospital closes in an hour, and warns that Wilbur is catatonic and that visitors must observe a "no touching" rule. Wilbur sits in a wheelchair staring out a window, in a room decorated with his bugs, with a Jeopardy! marathon on the TV (Radford Horrors 04).

History of events there

Before the visit

At the end of the first Radford case the police theory makes Wilbur a serial killer who impersonated his brother's departure (see Radford Horror 08); he is catatonic after the church fire. In Radford Horrors 02, the sheriff tells the team that Wilbur is in custody at a mental hospital in Roanoke, "back to it," either catatonic or pretending to be (Radford Horrors 02).

The visit (Radford Horrors 04)

The team spends most of a day driving to Roanoke, eating at a Taco Bell by the airport, and reaches the hospital with an hour before closing (Radford Horrors 04).

  • Kurt tries to talk to Wilbur (Manipulate Someone with -2 forward, 9) and gets only a flicker in his eye. He then holds a sample of the moth's pearlescent goo (see Pearlescent goo) under Wilbur's nose; Wilbur's muscles stiffen, his eyes go waxy, and his fingers grip the wheelchair handles.
  • Andrew uses his Use Magic move (Weird +3, a 13) and chooses to "heal one harm." He lays a hand on Wilbur's shoulder despite the "no touching" rule and senses that Wilbur is not currently controlled but has a badly damaged mind from years of being "ridden shotgun" and of faking catatonia. The "crooked mental knots" loosen and Wilbur wakes, asking, "Where's my brother?"
  • Wilbur recognizes the team "from the church." He says he dreamed of "drowning in blue," that something was "wearing" him, that there was a fire, and that he found an oversized Morpho menelaus caterpillar in the woods that did not belong in Virginia and may have killed the dog.
  • Pressed further, Wilbur panics and says it was "like the ocean" and "like a mother," that it was "in the basement," that "it was pregnant. It needed to breathe," and that "it needed hosts, like a parasitic wasp. Those women—" As the nurse escorts the team out, he adds, "I found it under a white oak."

The nurse is stunned that Wilbur woke at all. On the drive back, Webster asks whether they have just tortured a mental patient; Kurt answers that they may have woken a man from a years-long catatonia (Radford Horrors 04). At the table, Dante remarked that "faith healing Wilbur Whateley was not on my bingo card."

Inhabitants

What remains unknown

  • The episodes do not explain what the "white oak" and "the basement" refer to, or whether Wilbur's recovery lasts (Radford Horrors 04).

Trivia

  • Andre says Wilbur had been "ridden shotgun" and pretending to be catatonic for "like five years," although the first arc is set only about a year earlier (Radford Horrors 04).

Appearances