Middlebury Sanitarium (Moving In Series Book 3)

by Ron Ripley

  “I know we haven’t,” Brian said. “But we can’t shy away from it.”

  “It’s not shying away,” Jenny snapped. She sighed and dropped into her chair. “Babe, it took you months to fully recover from the beating Paul gave you. And I still have nightmares about Sylvia. I know neither of those happened because you spent the night in Wells, but I don’t like the risk. You were attacked there, not only by Paul but by another ghost too. And, not to sound too paranoid, but you’re talking about spending the night in a sanitarium. So if there are ghosts, they might be insane.”

  Brian nodded. “I know. If there are people who haven’t been able to move on we need to help them, though.”

  “Yes,” Jenny said, looking at him. “But I can’t spend the night, Babe. I can’t.”

  “Okay,” Brian said after a moment. He took a drink. “I’m not sure if I’m excited or nervous about this.”

  “Probably a little bit of both,” she said. Jenny reached down, picked up her crochet work and turned the light on beside her. “When do you want to do it?”

  “Tomorrow,” he answered. “According to the real estate agent, there’s a security guard on for each shift. The third shift guy is the best, I guess. He’s been there for years. I’m planning on talking with him. Figure out if there are any particular hotspots.”

  “And you’ll bring all of the equipment?”

  Brian nodded. “I’ll start packing soon. I want to leave around nine, nine thirty. Just to make sure I miss all the traffic up along route three.”

  “Just make sure you take the backup charger for your cell, okay?”

  “I will,” Brian said with a smile. “I really don’t want to be stuck without any way to communicate with you.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” she said. “You know, I’ve been thinking, we might want to hire someone to help with the tech stuff. I don’t have a problem with the administration stuff, but I don’t think I can really make myself investigate anymore.”

  He looked at her, concerned. “Sweetheart, do you need to stop altogether?”

  Jenny shook her head. “No. I just won’t go in the field with you. I...I can’t.”

  “Okay,” Brian said. “Do you want to look around, maybe get in touch with some of Sylvia’s friends?”

  “Yeah,” Jenny said, sighing. “I’ll send out some emails tonight. I’ll let you know what’s going on.”

  “Okay,” Brian said.

  Chapter 5: Ken, Middlebury Sanitarium, September 2nd, 1969

  Ken parked his pickup in the lot right outside of the guardhouse in front of the Middlebury Sanitarium. Behind the small structure loomed the buildings of the facility. Birds sang in the branches, the air smelled of autumn, and screams cut through the early morning chill.

  Ken stood by the truck and listened.

  He had heard screams before. Plenty of them. But there was a difference between men who were in physical agony from gunshot wounds and artillery versus what Ken was hearing now.

  These cries were full of horror. Terror. Rage.

  The cacophony hurt his ears.

  An older man in a pressed uniform stepped out of the guardhouse and walked to Ken.

  “Son?” the man asked.

  Ken blinked then he looked at the man. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  The man smiled. “No worries, son. No worries. It takes most folks by surprise when they first hear the Factory.”

  “The Factory?” Ken asked.

  “Inside joke,” the man said with a tired smile. “You’re Ken Buckingham?”

  “I am,” Ken said, offering his hand.

  The man shook it. “Gus Delianos. You’re here for the third shift position.”

  “I am.”

  “Come on with me,” Gus said.

  Ken followed him as Gus walked up to the guardhouse where another man around Gus’s age sat with a newspaper.

  “Alex,” Gus said, “I’m taking Ken here on a quick tour.”

  Alex looked up, nodded, and then he returned his attention to the paper.

  Gus chuckled and stepped back onto the main road. As Ken walked beside the man, Gus asked, “So, how long were you in?”

  “Four years,” Ken answered.

  “Regular infantry?” Gus asked.

  “Yes. You know,” Ken said, “you’re the only place to even give me an interview.”

  “Not surprised,” Gus said. “When I got home from the Pacific in forty-seven, people wanted to just put the war behind them. And when they sent me off to Korea, hell, people didn’t even know we were there or what was going on after that one.”

  “How long were you in for?” Ken asked.

  “Two years in the Pacific,” Gus answered. “Then the Corps activated my reserve unit and sent me back for another year in Korea. So, three altogether.”

  “Two wars.”

  “One war and a police action, if you listened to Truman. Which I didn’t,” Gus chuckled. “Anyway, I want to let you know this place gets a little strange after dark.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, for starters, most of the poor folks in here get sedated for the night. Means it should be quiet, but it’s not.”

  Gus came to a stop in front of the small house. The home was built of brick, and the curtains were drawn against the morning sun. The yard was well maintained, an apple tree neatly trimmed and heavy with fruit.

  “This place,” Gus said, gesturing to the house, “hasn’t been occupied in years. Work here long enough and you’ll find out why. My point, though, Ken is you’ll see and hear things when you’re doing your rounds. This house, this is one of the worst. Lights, voices, yelling, fighting. All of it.”

  Gus waved his hand around the campus. “You’ll see people who aren’t here. Might even talk to them. Might even be chased by them.”

  Ken looked at the older man and tried to see if Gus thought Ken was a rube.

  Gus didn’t.

  The sincerity and concern in his eyes were shocking.

  “I do all of the hiring when it comes to security, Ken,” Gus said, looking at him steadily. “There’s a reason why my boss tells me to choose combat vets. They’re steady. They don’t get the itch to bug-out. There’s something bad here, Ken. Something real bad. We protect the residents as best we can. Not their fault they’re loony. Hell, there are some boys here from the war, from Korea, and Vietnam, too. Even got a couple from the Great War. Uncle Sam may have shoved them in a corner, but we’re not going to let them be in the dark if we can help it.”

  Ken looked around the grounds and tried to picture it at night. The lamps along the road would be lit. There would be night nurses in the buildings.

  And Ken could feel something wrong, something bad in the air.

  Something waiting for nightfall.

  Ken looked at the older man. “When can I start?”

  Chapter 6: At Middlebury Sanitarium

  Brian arrived at the Middlebury Sanitarium at almost eleven o’clock in the morning. He let the car run and the heat blast as he stepped out into the cold January air. A skinny young man, bundled up against the cold, opened the door to a small guardhouse.

  “Can I help you?” the young man asked. His voice had a thick, upstate New Hampshire accent.

  “I’m Brian Roy,” Brian said. “I was told you would be expecting me.”

  “I’m not the regular first shift guy,” the guard replied. “Let me check with my boss, okay?”

  “Sure,” Brian said. “I’ll be in the car.”

  The young man nodded and slipped back into the guardhouse.

  Brian got back into the heat of the KIA, picked up his phone, and sent a quick text to Jenny. This place is huge. I’m definitely going to need someone to help me with this.

  He sent the message and a few minutes later, as he still waited for the guard, Jenny’s response came in. Okay. Should be talking with Sylvia’s niece, a girl named Anne. She and Sylvia were close. Be safe. Love you.

  I will. He put the phone away an
d took a drink of water.

  A few minutes later the young man opened the guardhouse door and waved to Brian.

  Brian got out of the car again and hurried up to the guard. “What’s going on?”

  “Come on in,” the young man said, moving aside for Brian.

  Brian squeezed into the small room as the young man closed up.

  “My name’s Derek, Mr. Roy,” the guard said, taking off his glove and offering his hand.

  Brian shook it. “Pleasure, Derek. Just call me, Brian, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Brian,” Derek said with a grin. “So, I just got off of the phone with Carl Reynard, my boss. I guess they got a house set up for you. It’s the head nurse’s old place. They set up a generator so you can have heat and power. You’re staying the night?”

  “I am.”

  “Damn,” Derek said, shaking his head, “you’re a brave man.”

  “Have you ever stayed the night?” Brian asked.

  “Tried to. Once.” Derek’s face paled with the memory. “Didn’t sleep well for a month. Still get nightmares about it. And hell, I went through the Kandahar Valley.”

  “You’re a vet?”

  Derek nodded. “All the security guards are. Kind of a tradition. Carl, his family, has been in charge of security at this place since it was first built. They only hire vets. But only combat vets, you know?”

  “I do now,” Brian said.

  “Anyway,” Derek said. “Place is scary as hell. Don’t know how Ken does it.”

  “Who’s Ken?” Brian asked.

  “Third shift guard,” Derek said, smiling. “Great guy. Retired a couple of years ago, but he still does it. Officially, he only works part-time. Unofficially, guy’s here eleven to seven, seven days a week. I’ve never known him to take a night off.”

  “How long has he been doing it?” Brian asked.

  Derek shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you for sure. My old man, he says Ken was doing it when Carl took over the business from his father back in nineteen ninety.”

  “Hasn’t he ever had a day off?” Brian asked.

  “Nope. I asked my old man why Carl didn’t make him and my father said something strange.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” Derek said, looking out the back window of the guardhouse at the sanitarium, “He said the place would come alive if Ken wasn’t here to keep 'em quiet.”

  Chapter 7: Ken, First Night, 1969

  “Ike Fenton,” the man said, pausing to light a cigarette.

  “Ken Buckingham,” Ken said. He pulled out his new pipe, broke open his tobacco pouch and packed the bowl. He lit the pipe and dropped the match into an ashtray on the desk.

  “Who were you with?” Ike asked.

  “The one twenty-sixth Air Traffic Control,” Ken said. “Crew chief on a Huey.”

  “What’s that, kid?” Ike asked. “Last time I saw any military hardware up close was when they were strapping me to a Jeep in Korea.”

  Ken chuckled. “Huey. Helicopter gunship. You watch the news at all?”

  “When I can’t sleep.”

  “You see the guy hanging out the side of the helicopter wearing a helmet and behind the M-60 machine gun?”

  “Yeah?” Ike asked.

  “Look for me next time they show some old film.”

  Ike laughed.

  “What about you?” Ken asked.

  “Korea. Like I said. Fifth Regimental Combat Team. Best friend stepped on a landmine. Took a whole lot of shrapnel and wore a whole lot of him,” Ike said.

  “Sorry to hear it,” Ken said.

  Ike shrugged, tapped the head off of his cigarette and said, “Well, so much for the basics, huh? Ready for a stroll?”

  Ken looked out at the sanitarium. The screaming of the residents had lessened significantly, as Gus said they would. The medications had been passed out.

  The lights along the streets and paths had been turned on, and the sun was just beginning its descent behind the forest. The doctors had retired to their houses. The head nurse to hers. Orderlies and nurses had gone to their separate dormitories. The night nurses had taken their posts. A few other guards patrolled the grounds, and Ken was paired up with Ike to learn the ropes.

  “Come on, Kid,” Ike said. He took a pair of flashlights down from a shelf and handed one to Ken. “We’ll be out until it’s dark. Lot of ground to cover.”

  They left the guardhouse, and Ken walked alongside the older man. They followed the main road and occasionally caught sight of other guards.

  “Why are they in teams of two?” Ken asked.

  “We have to be,” Ike said. “It’s too dangerous not to.”

  “And not just from the residents?”

  “No,” Ike said, shaking his head. “I mean, yeah, you get the occasional resident who gets out, but it’s the Factory we have to worry about.”

  “Why do you call it the Factory?”

  Ike glanced at Ken, sighed and said after a moment, “Because this place, it makes things.”

  “What?” Ken asked.

  Ike shrugged. “Don’t rightly know how to describe them. Can you feel how the place is a little off?”

  “It’s a lot off,” Ken answered.

  “Exactly,” Ike said in relief. “Was worried you wouldn’t notice.”

  “I notice,” Ken said. “So, what does it produce?”

  “What you’re feeling,” Ike said. “It’s worse at night. On our shift. Keeping the residents doped to the gills isn’t so the night nurses can take some correspondence courses. It’s so they don’t get out onto the grounds. At night, right around three in the morning, we’ve lost some residents before. Even a guard once.”

  “What do you mean you lost them?” Ken asked, confused.

  “Lost. Gone. No trace. Vanished.” Ike stopped at a bench, stubbed out his cigarette on a piece of concrete furniture. “The joke, and it’s a bad one, is this place makes ghosts. You know?”

  Ken nodded.

  “Now, this place is huge,” Ike said, taking out a fresh cigarette and lighting it before continuing on with the tour. “We’ve got a kitchen facility, maintenance facility. Got a small infirmary. Pharmacy. Got a big old cemetery. I think the boneyard scares me the most. Anyway, got a post office and a library. Even a bus what runs to Concord, Manchester, Nashua, Boston, and back again. They get you fixed up with a room?”

  “Xavier House,” Ken answered.

  Ike looked at him for a moment. “What room?”

  “Three, on the first floor.”

  “Aw nuts,” Ike said, spitting on the ground. “Who the hell put you in there, George?”

  “George MacMillan,” Ken answered.

  “He ask if you were Army?”

  “Yup.”

  “Hell, he’s a squid. Navy guy. Hate’s anybody who wasn’t Navy. Well, at least, you’ll be sleeping during the day,” Ike said. “You keep to your new sleep pattern, okay? Don’t you go trying to sleep at night. Not in room three.”

  “Why?”

  “Mary,” Ike said, looking at Ken through a haze of cigarette smoke. “She ain’t overly fond of men.”

  Chapter 8: In the Head Nurse’s House

  The head nurse’s house was a tall, saltbox Victorian with a wide porch. The interior had been cleaned, and the water turned back on. A large, industrial generator hummed around the back of the house and broke the stillness of the air. Brian sat on a folding chair in an empty room and looked out directly through one of the tall thin old windows of the old building. A short but wide heater was plugged into the wall producing an impressive amount of warmth.

  In a few minutes, he would bring in the equipment, take stock, and then figure out where to place them for the best results on the first night.

  Brian looked out the window at part of the grounds. In the distance, trees barren of leaves and interspersed with evergreens spread out to the west. A few other buildings stood off to the left and a disturbingly large cemetery. A tall, wrought iron fence with pilla
rs of granite between each section protected short, squat markers. From what Brian could see, some of the headstones were newer, others looked as old as the sanitarium.

  The graves reminded him of home, of the sparsely populated burial ground in the basement of the house. His skin crawled at the memory of Paul, which dovetailed horrifically into memories of Wells.

  Enough, he told himself, and he pushed the thoughts away.

  He started to get up and paused. He watched as an older woman appeared from behind a headstone.

  Literally appeared.

  One minute the space had been empty, the next the woman walked towards the gate. Brian kept his eyes on her, and he wasn’t surprised when she vanished as she stepped out of the cemetery.

  Guess I’ll be putting recorders out there, he thought.

  He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a cigar and a lighter. As he walked to the front door, he lit the tobacco, and a heartbeat later it went out. Brian stopped in the foyer, and he tried again. Just as the first smoke started to curl up towards the glass globe around the light, the cigar went dark once more.

  The front door opened on its own accord.

  “I’m sorry,” Brian said, looking around the house. “I’ll smoke outside.”

  He stepped out into the January cold, lit the cigar, and was pleased to watch it remain lit.

  And I’ll set a camera or two up in here as well.

  Exhaling a large cloud of smoke Brian walked to the car.

  Chapter 9: Introductions are Made

  Ken hadn’t needed an alarm clock for over thirty years. He woke up every day at four o’clock in the afternoon.

  He never had to worry about being asleep when night fell.

  By four thirty he was finished with breakfast, a shower, and had his uniform on for the night. If he needed to run errands, he did so. If not, he made his way to the Sanitarium’s library. No one had ever bothered to remove the books. A tragedy, as far as Ken was concerned, but a boon at the same time.

  There were over twenty thousand volumes. A large portion was extremely outdated medical and psychological texts, but there was still a healthy selection of literature. Newer stuff, like Brooks’ zombie book, he picked up at the Middlebury tipping station. A small shed served as a place for people to put things they thought could be used again.