Dread the Dark

by A C Utter

  “Hell, I hope so. I was a software developer, and in my first few years I had to do a lot of tech support. I have heard more stupid things than you can imagine. At least I can understand fear, so I can keep it together, even if they say the ghost of MJ moon-walked across the dining room,” I reply with a chuckle.

  ~

  Day two is mostly interviews with eyewitnesses. They speak to several people tasked with maintaining the land who have had weird experiences. Once caretaker speaks of the wailing woman of the south wing, who is said to be seen dressed all in black, cursed to forever roam the halls, mourning the death of a loved one who died of tuberculosis.

  In the east wing people hear the raspy breathing and coughing of the tuberculosis patients. I was given quite the ribbing by the entire crew once we learned that the whispering and laughter of a woman is often heard there in the west wing. While I understand the connection, just because we all hear the same thing, doesn’t mean it’s caused by a ghost. It could be anything, and in all probability, is anything but a ghost.

  The day flies by, and before long the sun is setting and we are preparing to begin our...investigation. Armed with cameras, flashlights, and ghost detecting equipment, Kyle, Dennis, and I head into the now pitch black, Emerald Sanitorium.

  I’ll admit, it’s creepy in here. It’s completely dark, and although we have flashlights, we aren’t using them. All I can see is what will fit on the tiny screen of my camcorder. While some may be afraid of ghosts and ghouls, I’m more worried about falling through a hole in the floor or stepping on a nail.

  So far, this experience has been what I thought it would be. The three of us move quietly through the building, Dennis and I both having cameras rolling in hand. Everytime the wind moves or the building creaks, Kyle jumps, saying that he can tell something is here. He hears voices in every sliding step, every settling brick, every long stretch of silence.

  I’ve watched them use several pieces of equipment, which is at least interesting to learn about. There is solid science behind how some of them work, but the cause of whatever fluctuations they are detecting are assumed to be other-worldly, when really, sometimes a temperature change is just a temperature change.

  “Now we step into the west wing,” Kyle begins, “where yesterday, our very own guest team member, Jordan Ashby, heard a woman whispering and laughing. Now is a good time to mention that Jordan here, he’s a skeptic. He swears those voices came from living human beings, yet he was unable to actually locate anyone who could’ve made those sounds. Jordan, how are you feeling now that we are back in the west wing?”

  Christ.

  “I feel fine, Kyle. I’m mainly concerned about stepping on a nail or falling through the floor,” I reply.

  “So, no concerns about coming face to face with whatever was talking and laughing?” Dennis asks.

  “No, because if we do, they’re just people. I figure this place probably attracts teenagers by the droves. I probably caught them off guard, and they didn’t want to get in trouble for being in here, so they split.”

  We are standing in the same corridor I walked down yesterday, although it looks much more sinister in the darkness. Night vision is an amazing technology, but even on my tiny camcorder screen, it makes everything seem more threatening.

  This place is indeed creepy, they could make a killing turning this place into a haunted house around Halloween. Although, they would have to do a lot of work to make sure they don’t lose any kids through one of the rotting floors.

  I slowly walk forward, keeping my eyes on my tiny screen, when I see someone pass from one room to another, across the corridor up ahead. “Hang on, I just saw someone cross from one room to another, behind you Kyle,” I say, expecting it to be Jessi or Tanner adjusting some equipment.

  “Oh shit, dude, really?” Kyle replies. “What did they look like?”

  “I dunno, man. It looked like a woman with long hair in a gown of some sort. Something like a hospital gown, not a ballgown. She just walked from a room on the right to a room on the left. If it isn’t Jessi or Tanner, it must be those teenagers back from the other day,” I say.

  “You keep telling yourself that, Jordan,” Kyle says with a smile. Turning away from Dennis and I, and toward the movement I saw, he begins to address whatever is there with us. “Hello? Is someone here with us?”

  Silence.

  “Jordan here saw you, and he’s a skeptic. Now is your chance to make a believer out of him,” Dennis adds.

  It didn’t take me long to go from skeptic to target. Good thing I don’t believe in any of this, it would be easy to get super freaked out. I continue to watch the screen on my camcorder when I see a spot of light fly into the frame, hover for a moment, then shoot directly into the side of Kyle’s head.

  “What the fuck?” Kyle says, rubbing the side of his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Dennis asks.

  “Something just hit me in the fucking head, man,” Kyle answers, continuing to rub his head.

  “I saw it, it was probably a moth or something,” I say.

  “A moth? Fuck no. It felt like I got punched,” Kyle elaborates.

  Just as I’m about to tell Kyle that isn’t possible, a pair of eyes appear over Kyle’s right shoulder. I immediately look up and away from the screen, to see if I can see them with just my eyes, but all I see is the pitch-black that surrounds us. Looking back down at the screen, they’re gone. Night vision isn’t a perfect technology, it’s probably just a weird anomaly.

  “Fuck, man! I just saw eyes over your right shoulder, I fucking swear I did,” Dennis says. Kyle spins around, looking for answers in the darkness.

  “I saw them too, but then they disappeared. It must’ve been another moth,” I say. Kyle and Dennis are obviously spooked.

  Jessi’s voice comes over the walkie, “we saw them too! That wasn’t a damn moth. Over.”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes, and I’m glad that it’s dark enough they can’t see me. We continue to walk further into the west wing, moving as quietly as possible.

  “Get...me...out,” a raspy whisper in my right ear. I jump, spinning around and pointing the camera at the spot where the voice just came from.

  “Who the fuck was that?” I ask.

  “What’s going on?” Kyle asks.

  “Someone just whispered ‘get me out’ in my ear. I heard it clear as day. There’s someone else up here with us,” I say.

  “I don’t know how you keep telling yourself that same lie man, but that’s okay, let’s keep moving,” Dennis says.

  The anxiety is beginning to set in. My heart is beating too fast, my hand has the slightest tremor, and I have this humongous sense of impending doom. I can’t tell if I’m being set up or if there just happens to be someone else in here with us. If I believed in ghosts, that for sure would have felt like proof, but since I don’t, I know that even though it startled me, the source can be explained. Maybe this gig isn’t going to be quiet as easy as I thought.

  “Okay, boys. It’s time to split up,” Kyle begins. “Jordan, this is the part of the show where we all split up and go out on our own to different parts of the building. You will stay here in the west wing, I will head to the east wing, and Dennis will go to the north wing. We are going to do a long run this time, but everyone has walkies so we can keep in touch. We are going to stay on our own for an hour. At the hour I will decide whether we should go another hour or not. Stay in your wing unless I tell you otherwise, this way we know we are alone.”

  Lovely. Now when I fall through the floor, there will be no one there to know it’s happened. Kyle and Dennis each take off to their respective wings, and I continue to walk the corridors of the west wing, filming my journey along the way.

  Whew! It just got really cold. I see to have stepped into some kind of cold pocket. Oh yeah, I’m supposed to vocalize for the camera, geesh.

  “It’s really cold. All night it’s been around fifty degrees, but as I came around the corner the temp
erature feels like it dropped ten degrees,” I say aloud for the camera. I’ve immediately begun to shiver, unable to stop my teeth from chattering.

  “Oh fuck, oh for fuck’s sake, what is that goddamn smell?” I say, nose scrunching in repulsion. “It smells like sulfur and rotting dead… something. Oh, it’s so bad.”

  I spin around, looking into the screen of my camera, not knowing what exactly I’m expecting to see. I must be falling for the trick of the environment, but then, I see it. Standing a ways down the corridor is a small child, a little girl. She appears to be around four years old, but she’s obviously sick. She’s thin, her bones clearly defined under her skin. She’s wearing a hospital gown, and there’s what must be blood speckled across the front of it. Just as I register what I’m seeing, the screen goes dark. I freeze, suddenly unable to move. Fear-stricken, now I know I made a mistake coming here.

  “Did you come here, to see me?” A low, guttural, voice echoes across my ears. I instinctively back up a few steps, soon finding my back up against the smooth stone wall. “Listen here, fleshlight, you’re in my territory. I will skin you alive, so you better fucking answer me.”

  There’s no way this can be real. I keep shutting my eyes, pinching my arm, trying everything to wake up from what must be a nightmare. “I-- I am here on a job, that’s all,” I manage to choke out.

  The voice begins to laugh, and after just a few seconds my camera screen comes back on. I pull the camera up, forcing myself to point it in the direction of the voice. My camera quickly finds its target. Just a few feet away from me is the little girl, but I can make out more of her features now. She smiles sweetly at me, then her grin widens to reveal a mouth full of pointed teeth. The moment I see those teeth, I jump, the camera tumbling from my hands to the ground. The screen shattering on impact.

  Searing pain ignites across my back, and I let out a yelp, quickly reaching for my walkie. “Jordan, west wing. Please help me!” I yell into the walkie. I can feel the girl-thing standing over me, pressing closer and closer to me. Not one to be in touch with different energies, I still have the very distinct feeling that mine is being drained.

  “We’re coming! Over,” Jessi says through the walkie.

  “Call for help my sweet bag of bones,” the little girl’s deep voice croons. “But know if you come back here again, you’ll be dead and skinned before you realize what’s happening.”

  “Jordan! Where are you?” I hear Jessi’s voice calling me.

  “I’m here! My camera is broken. Someone, something is here. It’s dangerous,” I reply.

  I can hear Jessi’s footfalls and soon see the light of her flashlight coming around the corner. It looks like her and Tanner heading my way, and if I hear correctly, Kyle and Dennis are not far behind them. For a moment, the light falls across the little girl, illuminating her features and allowing Jessi and Tanner to see what has me cornered.

  The little girl is still smiling, her pointed teeth rubbing against one another, sharpening them to even finer points. Her eyes are black, and without pupils, her hair is long, but covered in gore and plastered to the sides of her head.

  “Holy shit!” Jessi yells as her and Tanner get a quick glimpse of the back of the girl-thing. She flashes me one last smile then peers over her shoulder, giving the rest of the crew a fast glimpse of her horrifying features before vanishing into thin air.

  ~

  Of all the places I’ve been in my career of ghost hunting, Emerald Sanitorium remains the most terrifying. I’ve never in my life experienced anything like I did that first night. In fact, I still have three long scars across my back from where the demon scratched me.

  After what I experienced, Ghost Connections couldn’t just let me go, so instead they added me to the team. Although it’s a long ways from being a software developer, I’ve loved spending the better part of a decade traveling with them and exploring all types of places.

  For years Kyle’s been trying to get me to go back to Emerald Sanitorium, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s this; if I go back to that place, I will not make it out alive. Something there doesn’t like me, hates me, and I’ve been warned. Maybe someday I’ll be willing to go back, but for now, I feel that doing so would be signing my own death warrant, and I have too many places left to explore to leave now.

  Acknowledgements

  A special thank you to the following people for helping making this book a reality.

  Internal paperback fonts: http://www.sinisterfonts.com/

  Cover design: https://www.fiverr.com/oliviaprodesign

  Book formatting: https://jszarmachauthor.wixsite.com/books/book-formatting-info

  Other Books

  When She Sleeps – Part 1

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