Descension

by Shani Struthers

  “Of course I’m here for you,” said Cash. “But this Brookbridge business, going to meet a total stranger at an abandoned building, it’s not on.”

  “Look, Cash, I’m not stupid, I’ve thought about the dangers involved. I’ve got you on speed-dial as well as the rest of the team plus I’ve asked Kelly Watkins who lives really close by if she’d be on standby too in case of an emergency. She said yes. I’ll meet Eclipse on the street in front of the building first, in plain sight. Any suspicions and I’ll hightail it.”

  “Kelly’s on standby?” Cash checked.

  “And her husband. They can get to me in minutes.”

  “I’d prefer seconds.”

  “Cash, I think Eclipse is all right; we’re singing from the same hymn sheet.”

  “You hope.”

  “It’s my instinct. Besides, I’m not going to do a thorough investigation, not tonight, I just want to get a feel for what’s going on, that’s all.”

  He sighed. “There’s no stopping you sometimes, is there?”

  “I won’t take any chances, I promise.”

  “Just stay in touch.”

  “I will.”

  “And Ruby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Make sure you are quick, okay? I’ll see you at home.”

  Their home, the flat in De Montfort Road. Not officially, not yet. But it may as well be.

  * * *

  As Ruby drove into the Brookbridge estate, the day was definitely on the wane. She parked her car outside the Watkins’ house before walking the short distance to the fenced-off building. The beginning of September, it seemed any summer warmth had finally departed, the chill in the air a sign of what was to come. To be endured thought Ruby, but not unhappily. Certainly, autumn and winter in England could be miserable at times with day after day of grey sky, but there was a flip side. It was the season for jeans and boots, her preferred attire. It was also the time to snuggle up with your man and a good film in the evenings with a bottle of spicy red on the go as opposed to a chilled white. Yes, she decided, there were definite upsides, the prospect of which created a feeling of contentment in her stomach. Life was coming together – in ways she expected and in ways she had not dared hope for.

  Excitement and apprehension causing her pace to quicken, she approached the abandoned building. As she’d told Cash, she’d agreed with Eclipse to meet at the front of the building, and it was here she waited, her phone secreted in her jacket pocket, staring into the distance to see if she could spot anyone.

  “Ruby Davis?”

  She spun round, coming face to face with the name’s bearer at last – a man, a tall man, with blonde hair tied back in a short ponytail and ice-blue eyes. Rugged, handsome and Nordic, were all words that sprang to mind. Dressed in a patchwork coat and jeans, he was also, as Cash had feared, hippyish – but Ruby didn’t mind hippyish; she quite liked hippyish. Hippyish felt safe.

  “Eclipse?”

  “That’s me,” he confirmed. “It’s really good to meet you.”

  About the same age as Ruby, twenty-six or twenty-seven, maybe a bit younger actually, he moved towards her and held out his hand. She proffered hers too and as he grasped it, she registered the warmth of his skin and the firmness of his grip. Just as her emotions were in a heightened state, so were her senses – everything about him as vivid as his coat. Releasing her hand, he took a step back.

  “That picture on your website doesn’t do you justice.”

  Ah, he was a hippy with a smooth tongue, now that was something to experience.

  “I didn’t know what to expect with you,” she confessed. “Whether you’d be a man or a woman. What’s your real name?”

  “It’s Eclipse,” he said, his wide smile nothing less than dazzling, “my parents, they were a bit out there, you know? Actually,” he quickly backtracked, “they were very cool, my mum and dad – very open-minded. Not religious people, but spiritual.”

  “Were?”

  His smile faded. “Yeah, that’s right. They’re gone now, it’s just me and my sister, Luna.”

  “Luna? That’s such a lovely name.”

  His smile was back. “I hope you like Eclipse too.”

  “I do. Very much.”

  He turned to face the building, and so did Ruby, glad of having something else to stare at.

  “Well, there she is,” he said, “due for demolition very soon.”

  “How soon? Do you know?”

  “It can only be weeks. That’s the word on the vine.”

  “What vine?”

  “I’ve got a friend that works for Rob Lock, the site owner. He told me.”

  “Friends in high places, eh?”

  “They can come in useful.”

  “Is he a… sympathiser?” She didn’t know what else to call his friend.

  “Yeah, he is, and he knows as well as I do, erm… as you do too, about the activity on the estate. You’ve got to feel sorry for the poor bastards, haven’t you?” he said, meaning those in the building.

  “Have you done your research on the place?”

  He turned towards her, the blue of his eyes so intense. “Oh yeah. I’ve spent a lot of time researching Cromer. The original asylum was split into two. On one side was where the women were housed and on the other were the men. This building is one of the largest, but it’s also unusual ’cos as well as a mixed dayroom, it had both female and male wards under one roof. There were also private rooms, which were more like cells. But get this; it had a ballroom! Weird, huh? Freakiest of all, though, is the nursery. Can you imagine babies in this place?”

  “A nursery for the babies of the women incarcerated because they got pregnant outside of marriage?”

  “I guess,” answered Eclipse. “And those babies, some of them spent their entire lives in the asylum, the only reason being they were born here.” He shook his head as did Ruby, both of them contemplating such a dark fate. “Did you know,” he continued, “that in Cromer, like in loads of other English asylums, the discharge rate was only thirty to fifty per cent? So many who came here never got out.”

  There was anger behind his words, anger that Ruby responded to. “Why were there both male and female wards in this block?”

  “As far as I can make out, some of the patients were old, some of them young mothers, of course; but most, well… most I think were lobotomised. They had no interest in anything, certainly not each other. They were like… vegetables.”

  “Or the walking dead,” Ruby offered.

  “Yeah, real life zombies. In the doctor’s office – the desk is still there, a tall cabinet – and, get this, a pair of spectacles, honestly… they’re just lying in one of the desk drawers, untouched. From what I can make out, people, you know, voyeurs, don’t hang around in the doctor’s office, and they don’t tend to hang around in the operating theatre either. That’s still got a gurney in it as well as some ancient-looking gear, although most of it’s been smashed up. Stuff’s been nicked from there – syringes, bowls, that kind of thing – but you’ll find it abandoned in the corridors, people dropping it on their way out in a sudden change of heart, like it suddenly hits them that no one needs shit like that, not even the most ghoulish of bastards. The walls are full of graffiti; no doubt you saw it on the Forbidden Places site. It’s…” and here Eclipse paused, lifting his hand to his temple to knead the skin there, “disturbing, like… sick. I can’t see spirits, not like you can, but sometimes I can hear moaning and crying, far-off sounds being carried towards me on a breeze, or sometimes blasting by in an instant. It happens even when the air outside is as still as anything; when these trees that surround us are completely still. This building was shut in 1994 and the first time I came here was in 2009 when I was sixteen. Initially, I was coming back all the time, like kids do, but there was a time I didn’t come. I never forgot it, though, and lately it’s been on my mind more than ever. I feel bad for the people grounded here. I’ve sat in that building, on my own, in various rooms, som
etimes all night, trying to get someone, anyone, to communicate with me. I’ve done my best to let them know they’re not alone; that I want to help however I can. I’ll admit, sometimes the atmosphere… it can like close in on you, and I’ve had to get up and leave. That’s happened several times actually and believe me, I’m not easily scared.”

  She did believe him – wholeheartedly. It’s not many who’d volunteer to hold a lone all-night vigil in a building of this type. Even she’d think twice about doing that. She’d want her team with her, at least one of them, or Cash, injecting humour into an otherwise humourless situation. And Jed, she’d definitely want him – where was he? Was he going to show up this evening? There was no sign of him yet, which in a way was reassuring. It showed he trusted Eclipse, that he didn’t consider Ruby in any danger – imminent danger anyway. Despite this, she explained to Eclipse the precautions she’d taken, and that she had friends who lived a few streets away, who’d come running if she needed them or hadn’t checked in by a certain time.

  “I’m not going to harm you, I promise,” Eclipse declared.

  “It’s just so you know.”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  Eager to get back on track, she asked him to explain what happened when it got scary inside.

  A frown darkened his otherwise golden features. “Nothing, not really, that’s the thing. A few more bangs and cries than normal perhaps, but a door banging in the wind or a loose piece of guttering can explain that stuff. Some of the cries too, they must be from animals in the woods behind us. We have to remember where we are and how rural it is, or used to be. Yeah, I know all that, I accept all that. I look for a logical explanation first, but sometimes logic defies me. Like I said, it’s more the atmosphere and how heavy it gets, how I feel inside too – the effect it has on me emotionally. The reason I have to get out is because I just can’t take it anymore.”

  Ruby understood, completely. “I think you do have mediumship qualities, Eclipse, but perhaps you’re at the start of the journey. Empathy is the key and you certainly seem to have bags of that. Has it always been like this for you?”

  His smile was shy. “I think it could be said I’m sensitive by nature. I just… yeah, feel for others, you know, those who’ve been shat on by society. Tearing down those walls, it’s like leaving them naked. It won’t represent freedom; it’ll cause more terror and more confusion, because the walls they’ve built in their mind, that they can see, will still be there, as strong as ever.” He sighed heavily. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t know about Psychic Surveys. Where’ve I been living all this time; under a rock?”

  “You know about me now,” she said, her smile widening.

  “But what about costs?” he questioned. “I mean, I can pay something for your time. Don’t get me wrong, but I work in a record shop in Bexhill; I don’t earn loads.”

  Ruby waved a hand in the air, embarrassed by talk of fees. “I’m not going to charge anything. This isn’t going through Psychic Surveys, this is a private case.”

  “A private case? What, yours and mine, you mean?”

  “Yours and mine,” she said, holding out her hand again so that they could shake on it – it was another ‘gentlemen’s agreement’, a promise made. “Besides, I contacted you, remember, so, really, no talk of money.”

  Retrieving her hand, she turned back to the building, as did he. For several silent moments they stared ahead, at windows covered in plywood, at a shell that was far from empty, and at a sky that was now fully dark.

  “Are you ready?” Her eyes were still on Cromer’s last bastion.

  Digging around in his coat pocket, he retrieved two torches and handed one to Ruby. “Yeah… as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Around the back, at the edge of the woods – the dark woods, in their own way concealing as much as the building in front of them – there was a place in the chain link fence where the mesh was torn slightly. Eclipse lifted it as far as it would go whilst Ruby hunkered down, having to crawl through on her hands and knees. Once she was on the other side, she returned the favour, the wire cutting into her skin. As soon as she could she retrieved her hands to rub at them.

  “You all right?” Eclipse checked.

  “Fine,” she assured him, not wanting to make a fuss.

  “There’s a low window, just over here, we can get in that way. Don’t worry about the window, I cleared the frame of glass a while ago.”

  Eclipse hopped through first, making it look so easy. Ruby struggled, her jacket snagging on a piece of splintered wood and having to be unhooked, something she tried to do herself, swearing a good few times whilst she was at it. Again, Eclipse helped her, releasing the snag with very little difficulty and certainly no swearing.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, her cheeks flaming.

  With no sun or moon daring to intrude, it was darker inside than out. Ruby shone her torch around, although its reach was not as impressive as she hoped.

  “What is this room?” she asked.

  “It’s a utility room. You see over there, there’s still a sink and an old counter.”

  So there was – a vast sink, at least triple the width of hers, and far deeper. The walls were tiled in a brickwork pattern, and below her feet, covered in detritus, were ceramic tiles. She inhaled. It smelt as sour as the cellar of The Waterside Inn, and the atmosphere was leaden. Quiet too, so quiet. Visualising white light, she surrounded them both in it. Cash had asked her to keep her phone on and she did, on vibrate. A loud ring in the midst of this would be too startling.

  “Where do we go now?” was her next question. It was handy having someone who knew the layout of this place to guide her.

  “I’d like to show you something that’s in the doctor’s office. That and the theatre are both on the ground floor, although right down at the far end.”

  Ruby gulped. He didn’t muck about, this man. He aimed straight for the jugular. Asking her to follow him, she duly complied, shining her torch directly in front, in case she caught her foot on something and tripped over.

  In the corridor, she was mostly aware of the walls and how narrow they felt. There were probably crude depictions adorning them, but she couldn’t look; she really needed to keep the ground in front of her illuminated, and she needed to keep up with Eclipse.

  Despite focusing so intently on the way ahead, she spied a door to the left. “What’s in there?”

  “The gym, although don’t expect to see any equipment, it’s all been stripped. It’s just an empty room now.”

  Making her way over to it, she stood in the doorway – he was right, it was void of all but darkness. Ahead, she could make out another door.

  “That’s the dayroom,” he explained.

  “The dayroom? Actually, I’d like to have a proper look in there before we head to the theatre, just so I can acclimatise myself. Is that okay?”

  “Acclimatise? Shit, sorry. I’m used to this building. Sometimes I forget—”

  “It’s fine, honestly. I’d just like to take it a bit slower, that’s all. There may be a huge spiritual presence here, but even so, it can take time to tune in.”

  He peered at her intensely. “Have you picked up on anything?”

  “Surprisingly no, but like I say it’s not the immediate process some people imagine it to be. Of course I can feel the weight of the atmosphere, just like anyone would be able to, but spiritual contact – there’s been none of that yet.”

  Eclipse went from fascinated to sombre. “Yet being the operative word.”

  Walking slightly ahead of her, he pushed the door open to the dayroom. It swung on its hinges, the creaking reminiscent of the old Hammer Horror films in which a thousand doors had done the same. She entered after him, receptive but cautious. Within madness, boundaries were often blurred. These patients had been disturbed in life, for a variety of reasons, such behaviour perhaps continuing in their spirit form. She mustn’t fear it, though. She had t
o try and understand it, remembering that at the core of each and every one of them was something that remained untouched by the human experience. Whatever they’d been, whatever they were currently, they’d be magnificent again in the light. An idealistic view perhaps? There were plenty who’d say so and understandably. But it was a psychic’s view too. You couldn’t do this job – you shouldn’t – unless there was a willingness to believe that. And she was willing, despite her experiences and actually, because of them. No matter what acts someone had committed, there was always a way back; a chance to evolve.

  The dayroom was large – cavernous – and so black around the edges.

  “It would have been handy to have taken advantage of the daylight,” she mused.

  “I agree, but there are too many people around then. The police…”

  “I thought you said no one cared.”

  “Yeah, but if the police have got nothing better to do, they might mosey on over if a resident complains.”

  “True.”

  As her eyes adjusted, she could make out random items of furniture. There were chairs, those of the stacking variety, just a few of them, scattered around. One wall seemed to be covered entirely in a mural. She edged closer to it – more graffiti; quite brilliant actually, if predictably demonic, its various depictions of hell reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno. As good as it was, it dismayed her. This kind of thing encouraged people to feed on fear, to gorge on it, blinding them with fantasy rather than reality.

  Eclipse had edged closer. “Anything?” he asked, still full of curiosity.

  “Not really, it’s all very subdued, which could be relevant actually, considering what you said earlier.”

  “Oh yeah, before drugs became more widely-used, lobotomies were regarded as a miracle cure.”

  “When was this? What decade are we talking about?”

  “The early 1940s. During that time, surgeons in the UK performed more lobotomies than in the US, proportionately speaking. I think at its peak, more than one thousand operations a year were performed.”