Mary Hades: Beginnings: Books One and Two, plus novellas

by Sarah Dalton

  When Lacey teases him, he sucks air through his teeth. “Addiction is addiction, yeah. You take the piss all you want, I know my struggle. I know what’s real.”

  Lacey nods as though she’s finally found some respect for Marcus. The others nod too.

  “Mo, you’re up.”

  He shifts next to me and it could be the vodka but I’m very aware of his body so close to mine. My knees tingle.

  “Dare,” he says.

  Lacey twists her mouth to one side with a hint of disappointment. I know she wants to grill him about what happened with Yasmeen. I’m a little curious myself.

  “Fine, tell the most frightening story you can,” she says. “And if you want to use some of your psycho business, that’s even better.”

  “You serious? We’re up in the dark disused part of the hospital and you want me, of all people, to tell a scary story? Surely that’s a dare for you lot, not me. I’ve been to the dark—I know what it’s like.” Mo’s eyes flash.

  For a second, Lacey seems a little unsure of herself. Anka’s furtive eyes glance back and forth between Mo and the others. Yasmeen shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

  “We’re not afraid of you,” Lacey says with a forced laugh.

  “Just don’t scare the girls too much,” Tom warns.

  “So chivalrous,” Helen teases. “Fuck that, I want the crap scared out of me. Not that you’ll be able to, I’ve seen all the Saw films, and those Japanese horror films.”

  “I blow all them out the water,” Mo says. “Well, all right, if you’re sure. It takes place in a hospital.”

  Marcus snorts. “Original.”

  “It was way back before we had TVs and phones, before the First World War when needles were like torture devices and they didn’t pussy-foot around. It was when they had blood-letting devices and crude instruments that look like something out of a slasher movie.

  “The corridors were dark at night. There wasn’t proper electricity—they used candles and lanterns to light the wards. Shadows flickered up the walls. It’s easy to sneak around a hospital like that. You could get by unseen, like an animal hidden by the dark of a forest.”

  “When’s the scary bit going to start?” Marcus asks, mid-yawn.

  “I’m getting to it,” Mo snaps. “It was a big hospital, with lots of doctors and nurses, plenty of patients. They all went about their daily business until one day, an old guy in his 80s went missing. He disappeared from his bed one night—without anyone noticing. The doctors searched high and low, but they couldn’t find him. His room faced the nearing woods so they guessed he’d run out in the middle of the night. Search parties combed the forests but they never found him.

  “Almost exactly a week later, another patient went missing—a young girl this time. Her parents were distraught; they never thought their little girl would disappear like that. In a hospital, of all places. People are meant to be safe in hospital. That’s how things work. But they never found her. Then a young guy went missing, and the same thing happened. They never found him. They never found a body. The police were dumbfounded. They could only conclude that the patients had run away, but no one had seen people running around in their hospital clothes. It was like they’d disappeared into thin air.

  “After the patients disappeared, everything calmed down. The hospital had a brand new wing open and everything eventually went back to normal. But there were still the legends and whispered tales. They never found the bodies and that created this huge mystery, the kind people tell each other at night. For years, different tales and theories spread through the wards. Some believed they were eaten by wild animals in the woods, leaving no carcass behind. Others thought the three of them ran off together and left the country. Maybe one of them was rich and they’d agreed to share the money together. There were tales spun of evil doctors murdering patients in their sleep and taking the bodies to the river to dump. In some, the nurses dropped acid on their faces to disguise the bodies, and then delivered them to the medical students for practice.”

  “Ew!” Yasmeen exclaims.

  “What really happened?” Lacey leans forward, her blond hair hanging over her face so only one eye is visible.

  “I’m getting to it.” Mo grabs the torch in the centre of the circle and angles it under his chin. “Some ambience first.” He grins. “For years, the new wing of the hospital was used by medical students and they were only in it for a few hours of the day, going home at night. But they had a re-shuffle, moving everything about for ‘optimisation,’ which meant putting the psych ward in this particular wing of the hospital.

  “One of the patients was pretty disturbed. She had her first ever episode and thought that her parents wanted to kill her. She was called… Bianca—”

  “You just made that up!” Helen interrupts.

  “Shh, let him finish,” Anka says.

  “Bianca got a room to herself because she’s in a mess. She went at her mum with a knife and ended up stabbing the cat when her mum ran away. They kept her in a white room, like ours, and they doped her up to stop her being a danger to others. Every afternoon she met with her doctor, and every afternoon she told him the same thing: the walls whisper to me.”

  A shudder runs down my spine.

  “The doctors increased her medication again. They sent her for ECT and electrified her skull. Sometimes they restrained her. She spent hours with her therapist, discussing how psychosis makes you see things that aren’t there—hear things that aren’t real. Yet still she said the same thing over and over again: the walls whisper to me.”

  Anka wraps her arms around her knees. “What happened to her?”

  “Every night, before Bianca went to sleep, she heard the whispering in the walls. At first it was just a noise, like the wind through the trees, or the sound of the sea, but gradually, the whispers got louder and she heard what they said: We’re stuck, stuck in the walls. Free us! Free us!

  “When Bianca heard the message she freaked out and shouted for them to let her out of the room. She didn’t want to be there anymore. But the nurses restrained her, so she had to listen to the messages all night: We’re trapped. Let us out. Let… us… out…

  “One night, Bianca decided she had to do something about the whispers. She couldn’t take it anymore. She made a resolution to herself that from then on, she would fix it. She’d stop it for good. So she stopped mentioning the whispers to her therapist, she behaved normally and quietly. She was polite and respectful to staff. She began to socialise with the other patients and she said more in her therapy sessions. She put on an act of sanity for the staff, while at night she talked to the whispers. She told them that she would get them out. She would.

  “At night, Bianca pulled a corner of padding from the walls, prising it apart with her fingertips. She stole a knife from the kitchen and worked at the mortar, hiding the dust behind the padding. Every night she worked at the padding and the mortar, loosening the bricks. And as she did, the whispers got louder and louder: Help us! Get us out!

  “They were like screams in her mind. All she wanted to do was to shut them up, to have silence again, to be at peace. As she worked out the bricks she mumbled to herself, talking back to the whispers: Not long now. Not long until you leave me alone.

  “One night, after she’d loosened many of the bricks on one wall by the light of the moon drifting in through a high window, Bianca pulled away her slackened padding and discarded it on the floor. She slipped the knife through the new gaps in the bricks and let them tumble into her room. She wasn’t careful anymore. She wasn’t afraid of being caught. She simply wanted the release, the release of her mind and soul. Her fingers clawed at the bricks, pulling them away into the room, brick dust clouding the air. In a fervour she ripped the padding away from the wall and stood up to scratch and slash at the bricks higher up.” Mo’s arms flail as he mimics the frantic motions. “Sweat poured down her face and her fingers bled with the effort. She forced the knife into the firmer bricks, tearing it all
apart, leaving rubble by her feet. All the time the whispers got louder and louder ‘til they shouted in her mind: GET US OUT! GET US OUT, NOW!

  “Before long, Bianca had torn down most of the wall and her face was covered in dust. Sweat and blood coated her clothes. Her bloodied fingers reached into the cavity of the wall and found something unexpected… cold to the touch. She stopped.” Mo pauses and licks his lips. “She was perfectly still, for a fraction of a second, catching her breath after the exertion of removing the bricks. And then she started laughing. She laughed because the whispers stopped. She was at peace. Bianca tipped her head back with joy. But it didn’t last, because what was left of the wall fell forward. Before Bianca could get out of the way, something collapsed against her, knocking her on top of the broken bricks below. She coughed and closed her eyes against the mortar dust, and a putrid stench filled the room, sour and rotten and so strong she could taste it. Blindly, in a panic, Bianca pushed at the thing on top of her. It was only when she opened her eyes that she saw what it was.” Mo leans forward and pulls the torch closer to his face. “On top of her… was a disgusting, disintegrating, skeleton, its fleshless skull grinning lifelessly back at her.

  “Bianca screamed and screamed until her lungs ached. The nurse came running into her room and saw the bricks and the body and Bianca’s bloodied fingers. She backed away and got security. After removing the skeleton from Bianca, the police pulled down the walls. They found three bodies: a young man, an old man and a young girl.”

  “The missing patients,” Tom breathes. “What happened to them?”

  “No one knows,” Mo says. “But they found finger nails missing and dust in their lungs. They were buried alive in the walls.”

  A wave of nausea passes over me. For a minute I feel like the story is real and those people really suffocated, trapped in the walls.

  The group is quiet for a moment. Lacey lets out a nervous giggle. Yasmeen stares at her empty cup.

  “Man, that was effed up.” Marcus shakes his head.

  I sip my vodka, attempting to warm the chill that’s spread around my body. “That was a story, right?”

  “I did warn you guys!” Mo says with a laugh. “Come on, it’s just a story. Cheer up!”

  “You’re a good story-teller, dude.” Tom laughs. “I felt like I was there or something. I got goosebumps!”

  “Hey, do you reckon someone’s bumping off all the patients in palliative care?” Helen says. “There’s been so many people snuff it in the last few weeks. It’s weird, don’t you think?”

  “Could be Granger. She’s got a nasty streak, innit,” Marcus adds.

  “As if,” Yasmeen says with a laugh.

  “No, I’m serious,” Helen continues. “I really do think it’s weird that so many people die over there. It never used to be like that.”

  “Maybe they’ve had lots of patients on their last legs, recently,” Tom suggests. “It’s all budgets and stuff with them. When they get a bigger budget they get more beds and more people.” He shrugs.

  “I get a weird vibe when I look through them doors,” says Yasmeen. “Like my body goes cold from top to bottom. There’s a bad energy, man. Summat’s wrong.”

  It’s one of those moments where someone says something no one has wanted to admit. It’s then that I realise I’m not the only one who feels it. The bets, the silly stakes for crisps and chocolate, they hide the fear beneath. Like in Mo’s story, there is malevolence lurking in the hospital. Maybe it’s in the walls. Freezing molasses spread through my veins.

  “Truth or dare, Mary?” Lacey asks. She sloshes more drink into our cups. “Your turn!”

  My heart still hasn’t settled from the story and I really don’t want to do either. But there’s no way in hell I’m letting Lacey quiz me about the reason I’m at Magdelena, so I say, “Dare.”

  Lacey rubs her hands together. “I have an awesome idea. Seeing as we’ve had Mo tell a scary story, I think we should make Mary spend fifteen minutes in the dark room on her own.”

  “No,” Mo says. “Absolutely not.”

  It’s only then I realise he hasn’t had a single sip of his vodka. He’s the only one who doesn’t slur when he speaks.

  “Oh, come on, we’ve all done it,” Lacey says. “It’s an initiation.”

  “But Mary has issues,” he continues.

  “I have my own opinion, thank you.” I flash him a glare. The group break out into a high-pitched chorus of ‘ooooooh’s.

  “Lover’s tiff,” Anka says, snorting into her cup.

  Mo turns away from me and shrugs. My eyes stay on the back of his head for a few moments, but he doesn’t look back at me. He’s clearly pissed off.

  “So, are you gonna do it or what?” asks Lacey. “We’ve not got all night.”

  “All right,” I say. Adrenaline courses through my body at the thought of doing something so risky. After weeks of being in a fog, I’m finally alive. “I’ll do it.”

  Lacey jumps to her feet and claps her hands together. “Then follow me.” She grabs the torch and we follow her into the darkness.

  Chapter Nine

  The door drags against the floorboards. Over the years it has sagged on its hinges. There are no windows. It’s simply a square room with the remains of padding on the walls.

  “It used to be a white room,” I say.

  “Yeah, probably,” Lacey says. “Get comfy. You’ve got fifteen minutes.” Lacey turns to leave with the others. “Watch out for the bodies in the walls.”

  Marcus makes ghost noises and dances in front of my face. I push him out the way and move towards Lacey. “Wait, don’t I get a torch?”

  She laughs. “It wouldn’t be much of a dare with a torch!”

  The others leave the room, each making scary noises, the kind you get on really old horror movies: a slow laugh, the woo-ooo-ooo of a ghost, the screeching of a cat. The door slams shut. I’m in complete darkness.

  Mo didn’t come with the others. He’s definitely mad at me. I shouldn’t have snapped at him like that, not when he’s trying to look out for me. It’s just that he’s such a fixer. He wants to make you better. He’s like the male equivalent of a girl who loves bad boys. It’s pretty cute, when you think about it.

  I make myself comfortable by sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. It’s not so bad. It’s a bit cold; the floor is dusty and I can’t see a thing, but I’m okay, I can keep it together, if I keep reminding myself that there’s nothing in the dark that isn’t in the daylight. I see monsters everywhere, anyway. What could possibly scare me? I’ve seen skull-men and zombie things. They help me. I don’t know why, but they do.

  I lean my head back against the wall. Why did Johnny say I was afraid of the darkness? It was the way he said it: afraid of the darkness. Like it wasn’t the dark, it was something else. Where had he gone?

  When I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes, I hear a scratching sound coming from the walls. It’s like fingernails running against a door.

  “Ha, ha, very funny,” I call out. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to freak me out.”

  I expect sniggers on the other side of the door but there’s nothing. The scratching stops, though. Maybe they got bored. It’s probably Lacey.

  I settle back and shut my eyes again. If I can make myself relax, the fifteen minutes will fly by.

  The scratching comes back.

  Then a shuffling noise.

  My heartbeat quickens. “I said, very funny. You can stop now.”

  More shuffling, like someone is dragging their body along the floor. Every arm-hair lifts as the noise gets louder, almost like it’s coming from inside the room. It can’t be. But what if it is? What if I’m not alone?

  “Who’s making that noise?” I stand up and bang on the door. “Stop it now, it’s not funny anymore.”

  My eyes have adjusted to the dark but I still can’t see anything at all. I have to be alone. I must be. Tell my heart that. It hammers again
st my chest.

  “I-is it fifteen minutes yet? It must be pretty close. Y-you know, you can let me out now. I’m done, honestly. I’m done.” I beat on the walls.

  The shuffling stops. Somehow, silence is worse.

  “Who’s there? Is someone in here? Mo?”

  Silence.

  “If there’s someone there, please tell me. Please.” I back up against the wall. “Skull-man? Is it you?” My voice comes out in a whisper.

  A clattering of metal causes my heart to leap into my mouth. Every muscle in my body tenses.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  The shuffling starts again.

  “Oh God! Get me out!” I beat the walls, door, anything. “GET ME OUT. Please. Please let me out!”

  The tears start to flow. I can’t stand it any longer. I’ll never say I’m not afraid of the dark again. I am—I am afraid of the dark. I hate it. I want to get out so badly.

  “Mary?”

  I stop banging on the walls. The voice sounds so familiar. “Who is it?”

  I hear a footstep. Someone is in the room with me. They step forward. “It’s Johnny.”

  I want to punch him, to pounce on him and beat him to the ground. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He turns on a torch and it really is him. He has his hoody up, as usual. My eyes complete a quick scan of the room. We’re alone.

  “I come up here to sit alone sometimes.” He directs the torch towards a corner of the room. “There’s an air vent I crawl up. I can chill out here.”

  “Why?” I breathe. “It’s horrible.”

  He shrugs. “I kinda like it.” His expression changes as he flashes the torch in my direction. “Are you all right? You seem upset.”