The Sanatorium of Murcia

by Claudio Hernández

  In any case, her skin turned pale.

  Kevin was the first to go out to the hall. The first floor was composed of a large reception room and two long corridors with bedrooms on the sides, each one by his side. There were numbers on every door and in all of them, there was a small window with broken or cracked glass. They were now in the center, and the guy who killed Gianna would have entered on the left side. Therefore, his eyes turned in that direction.

  At first, Kevin saw nothing, but a few seconds later the figure moved into the shadows at the end of the corridor. The vague form of the crossbow seemed to shine in the darkness, and for a moment, everyone thought of a bald being with a lost look and black teeth, clenched as blood came out of their corners.

  There was in them a mixture of sensations that ran vertiginously, making them weak. Vulnerable to everything.

  -You left me abandoned here, and you left.

  Now the voice was crisp and clear and ran down the hallway, bouncing off the walls and rusty doors, as they were metal as if they were shock waves from an explosion. And Kevin raised his eyebrows.

  - "Is that the idiot who speaks?"

  But nobody answered Kevin.

  The silhouette drew the face of a robust man holding something in his hands. Kevin supposed it was the crossbow. Then he was in front of the madman who pierced Gianna's skull. And he was standing there as if it were the fixed shadow of the profile of an open door. Behind, the low light of the moon drew a greyish shadow that allowed Kevin to see a few lunatic eyes with the in-depth look. Even in the long distance that separated them, he could see them. Kevin had the sight of a lynx, which always reminded him of Leah, his girlfriend. When they were in Square Park in Florida, Kevin still saw her first, even though her silhouette was no bigger than the body of an ant. Kevin was now rigid, his gaze fixed on the end of the corridor.

  - "What happens dear?" -Leah asked, stroking his arm.

  - "He is there., watching us" -Kevin's voice was low and lost in the depths of the corridor.

  Right at that moment, the others saw that shadow and two others on either side of the man's. These, were much more elongated and moved among the darkness and at one end of them, seemed to be a claw.

  - 'She was next to her. I shot her without intending to make a mistake. She deflected the arrow." -Carlos's voice bounced off the doors and crossed the hallway like soap bubbles.

  - "And shit! You're a fucking son of a bitch! Assassin!"

  -Riley screamed as he moved the lantern up and down. He was tempted to throw it at him, but he realized that they were so far apart.

  - "They are here, next to her." -Carlos's voice, though slow, was still grave. - "You are in danger."

  Everyone looked at each other with inquisitive eyes.

  - "This guy is really crazy," -Kevin said, sweat running down his neck and chest as if the contents of a bottle of water had been poured out.

  Suddenly another voice was heard clearly coming from the right side.

  - You forgot us here. Like the beds. As simple objects.

  Kevin looked away and saw a gloomy figure in the dimly lit. This one was more hidden among the shadows. The brightness of the moon was conspicuous by its absence. The silhouette moved agilely and mingled with total darkness.

  - "There are several," -Kevin said. - "There are several madmen and murderers, in here."

  But he was wrong.

  - "I'm the only one here, and I'm here to help you," -Carlos said, holding the crossbow tightly. He took an arrow with one hand and placed it on the crossbow. A noise like a squeak indicated that the rope was tensing.

  - "You, son of a bitch! Above all, he lies to us!" -Kevin was losing his nerve, while the others, huddled together, were incredulous. - "You are all crazy!"

  - "The most dangerous is the lady in black." -The voice was heard with a certain tone of concern.

  - "You're like a fucking goat!" -Kevin shouted, showing the carotids on his neck.

  - "Come here. You are welcome." -That was a woman voice. Far from being a lament, came from the right side.

  Kevin and Chase looked to that side.

  - "Who has said that?" Chase asked, his heart on the tip of his tongue.

  - "There's a woman with them," =Kevin said, tighten his teeth.

  It's her. She is perverse.

  That voice had sounded like a lament. From the top floor. It was a torn voice, full of sadness.

  - "What the fuck! what does it happen here?" -Kevin would have liked everything to be a bad nightmare and then now wake up bathed in sweat, and everything would go to hell. A fucking horror, that you think everything is real until you wake up and discover with a stupid smile drawn on the face, that everything has been the product of your fucking head.

  Everyone was absorbed.

  - "They are, the forgotten ones," -Carlos said, still motionless like a statue, now pointing to them. - "I can see them," -he whispered.

  - You're like a fucking goat. That woman is like a fucking goat and sure that more crazy ones simulating those voices that sound like the horror.

  - "You're wrong," -Carlos said, and his index finger pressed the trigger.

  The arrow went like a rocket whistling in its path, as straight as precise and Chase felt only a moment later a lacerating pain in his left shoulder. He put his hand on his shoulder and found that the arrow was stuck and blood gushed out, slipping livid, arm down, mingling with sweat.

  - "He has shoot me!" -Chase cried as he thought he fainted.

  Kevin light up on his shoulder.

  The arrow had done a good cut, and luckily it was not nailed all, but it had broken and only had stuck the final part of it. Kevin took his arm.

  - "Hold on a little boy," -Kevin said, and his long fingers circled the end of the arrow.

  - "What the fuck, are you going to do Kevin? Ouch!"

  With the movement of a conjurer Kevin had taken the piece of the arrow that came out through a clean hole, but blood, gushed out of it, in abundance. Chase saw all the blood that came out of his shoulder and thought that all his more than a hundred kilos would collapse in a rough floor full of leaves and dirt. Fortunately, it was not like that. Chase had a somewhat blurred vision and smelled all the sweat of his companions, now more than ever, he felt how the fabric was breaking. It was Kevin who had taken off his shirt and ripped it in two to bandage the wound.

  With the impressed speed that urges them all for the situation, he twisted one half of his shirt over his biceps and shoulder like a dishevelled and curled hair, making a knot at the end, even knowing that the crazy man was still there, although still, but preparing another arrow. He knew they had to run, but at the same time, he felt obliged to give help and give quick solutions. They were trapped in the middle of a mountain range in which all the wisdom was in Riley and a little wiser than explained.

  That man seemed so strange, that at some catatonic moment he felt pity for him. But the presence of more shadows and those distant voices put him on the warpath, and his instinct spoke only one language, one word; survive.

  - "Let's go from here!" -Kevin yelled. - "Sadie, help your boyfriend, Riley and Jackson, you too. We're going upstairs."

  - "Are you okay, honey?" -Sadie asked. Chase opened his mouth to say no, but he did not say it. Between the three began to move that mass of more than one hundred kilos of weight.

  Kevin was the first, with the headlight of the lantern licking the dirt from the floor. Through the windows and the small gaps in the doors, the vague light of the moon that shone in all its splendor out there was filtered, but here inside everything was darkness. Their feet crawled and tapped the ground at once.

  The man moved and was preparing another arrow.

  - "It was next to him!" -He shouted, and his hollow voice travelled through space on the first floor.

  Alaina did nothing but tangle her dark fingers in the most brunette hair at the end of the group. Her eyes were exorbitant. Leah was looking at the cell phone she had brought with her.
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  - "There's still no coverage," -she said.

  - "The ones that have your mobiles on top of you throw them; they are not worth anything," -Kevin said as he reached the first step of what was the longest staircase in the world in those moments of uncertainty and despair.

  - "Be careful; they are at your side!" -Yelled Carlos, pointing with the crossbow a dark silhouette that seemed to have long hair and long hands like open claws. It was next to Violet's side.

  - "That guy is crazy," -Taylor whined, holding his hands to his face. His flashlight pointed toward the ceiling and what he saw was an inert rustic lamp, hanging like a bat in torpor, but he saw nothing else.

  In front of them, there were at least forty steps, and Kevin imagined them covered by a long red carpet of having been a hotel. A trendy hotel in his country thanks to a horror writer. But soon he came back to reality. His right foot stepped on the first step, hard and stony. He expected to feel the wood crunch under the weight of his foot, but the step was not made of wood but limestone. A tremor ran up his leg until it ended with a slight cramp. He climbed the step and the others, squeezed together, did the same as if it were an army battalion.

  The arrow whistled in the air and stuck in the old wooden handrails with a sound like a broken spring. The arrow moved energetically like a vibrator and then remained motionless. The man, Carlos, that although they did not know that he was called like that and that he was on medication, except for the last three days, he started walking down the long corridor talking to himself.

  -You abandoned me and, now you come back?

  - "Fuck! What are those voices?" Jackson was deeply uneasy. - "Have you heard it?"

  - "That will be his lackeys, who are everywhere," -Kevin said as he climbed the stairs, counting them as a little kid. - "There are several, of that I am sure."

  - "We will not get out of this," -Taylor said as he climbed up behind Chase and Sadie. His heart was pounding in his temples. It was a constant pressure, and he already believed that his right eye had turned red because it was prone to blows of the veins of the eye when the tension rose.

  - "Do not be pessimistic," -Kevin said as he counted step number thirteen.

  The steps of that man heard like small blows on the ground. He was getting closer and his voice was like a whisper. Outside the wind howled in the corners of the west wing and inside those fucking voices.

  Kevin's homemade solution had stopped Chase's bleeding, but he was dizzy from just thinking about the blood. Riley, who had his enormous arm around his neck like a Boa, could not repress the desire to look back, where he had left her beloved Gianna on the floor. Had he said goodbye with a kiss? He did not remember it, and that made him even sadder, but he took courage for the desire to kill with his own hands that aberrant murderer who was approaching with giant steps towards them.

  The light of Kevin's lantern focused on the end of the stairs that still stood above their heads, and he saw something. He thought he saw a pair of hunched men, in their pajamas, their bodies deformed and bent like the trunk of an old tree. They suddenly hid in the blackness of the night. Kelvin raised his eyebrows. Was it real what he was seeing? Would it be the other servants that accompanied the man of the crossbow?

  Whatever the answer was, he led the group to the end of the stairs. Huffing and puffing, Chase moved slowly and whining while Sadie filled him with kisses on his face. A sweaty and icy face. Up there it was cold at times. They were gusts of air that left as suddenly as they came. I was bewildered.

  Finally, they reached the second floor. There they found more of the same. Two corridors so long as an endless road that crossed from right to left and every two meters there was a rusty door, open or closed, with or without glass. Riley had said there were two floors and even a basement, and Kevin was glad there was so much space to hide from those madmen of Espuña Mountains. But he noticed that there was a small staircase leading to a door. Was that a third floor? Was it an attic? Undecided, he lit the corridor on the left and continued walking with the others behind, clinging to his ass, like children.

  - "Will we be safe here?" -Sadie asked, her eyes wide. A flashlight focused on the interior of one of the open rooms. Inside, there was a bed of metal bars on which a filthy, yellowed and crushed mattress are supporting on an old crumbling wall, all covered in dirt. Next to the bed, there was a metal table with a single drawer and over it was a glass that had lost its shine due to the passage of time. This one did not shine in the light of the lantern.

  - "What we're not going to do is lock ourselves in the first room we see open," -Kevin explained in a whisper. His flashlight now light up on one of the many closed doors, and through the gap in the small window, he thought he saw bones on the mattress. He removed the flashlight to walk more toward the west wing.

  Behind them, they felt the presence of something frozen in his neck. First, they thought that it would be the presence of those crazy people, that they did not exist and they verified it when turning around. There was no one. However, the temperature dropped suddenly, freezing the sweat on his skin.

  - "This makes me feel uneasy," -Luke said, touching his glasses repeatedly. Now his fixation reached unexpected levels and could travel in his imagination with ease because the situation requested it.

  They walked dragging Chase to the end of the corridor. The man of the crossbow looked like had reached the end of the stairs. They had listened to his steps., they were heavy boots, and had seen shapes, silhouettes of people, but they did not make noise when walking, something that disturbed them greatly. Everything looked like a fucking nightmare that would soon they would wake up. Yes, that was it. But it was not like that.

  The last room in the hall was open. The lanterns illuminated on the old shattered wall. The plaster was piled on one side of the floor. There were things written on the wall, with something dark. It looked like mud, but that would be impossible. Someone thought that was shit; Alaina thought that, but she did not say anything. Kevin tended to believe that those letters were written in blood and that had darkened over time.

  "You have left me alone", said one of the sentences. And then the word "Forgotten" was repeated a lot. Kevin illuminated them all, while the rest of the group entered the room. There was only an iron bed with broken springs in there, and there was no mattress. Neither table and the floor was full of dust, leaves and pellets of rats. Violet grimaced at the sight of them. She thought that the thing that terrified her so much could be present in hundreds there.

  - "The first thing we have to do is turn off the flashlights, so they do not see the lights," -Kevin explained.

  - "That does not matter, sooner or later they'll discover us, because they know we're here," -Chase agreed with his hand on his aching shoulder.

  - "It all depends on how many they are," - Supposed Alaina.

  - "I'm sure there will be more than two. I say it for the voices, " -Kevin whispered.

  - "Why are you talking so low?" -asked Sadie already with the lanterns off.

  - "Because they can hear us," -Kevin replied.

  - "That son of a bitch has killed my Gianna," -Riley growled, clenching a fist that was no longer visible in the darkness.

  - "Sorry colleague," -said Jackson.

  - "She has died like a dog. In the most brutal way." -Riley remembered the arrow piercing her head and all the blood sliding down her cheek.

  -Now you come back?

  - "Fuck, they're close," -Leah announced, whispering. - "Have you heard the voice?"

  "Yes, darling," -Kevin admitted in the darkness.

  - "But, why the fuck they always talk about "forgotten"? -Jackson said. For a moment, his eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.

  - "I do not know," -Kevin said. His voice was broken when he spoke low.

  - "We're fucked," -Sadie said.

  - "We're all going to die," -Violet repeated.

  - "Don't be negative. We'll get out of this one," -Kevin said.

  And they abandoned us with her. />
  The voice sounded as sharp as the knocks of the shoes ringing on the hall floor. The man was approaching. Carlos was walking down the hall, while he was saying something. Something very confusing.

  - Fuck! They are here. Again, that damn voice, but this one was different from the previous one, so it could be more than two," -explained Kevin grabbing Leah. - "But where the hell are they? On the walls, it cannot be. I have closed the door, and the squeaking of the hinges has not been heard."

  - "They'll be in the opposite room," -Jackson suggested in a tremulous voice.

  - "Still, it could not be heard so clearly," -Kevin said.

  - "Fuck, we look like fucking kids talking all the time," -Riley agreed. - "We just have to be together and make decisions."

  - "We are on that, Riley," -Kevin said. - "But it is inevitable to ask about everything. Something strange is happening here inside. I feel it."

  - "What do you suspect, Kevin? -Chase's voice sounds like ringing.

  - "I do not know for sure."

  - "Since we've arrived here, you always say, I do not know," -Riley complained loudly.

  - "Lower the tone of the voice," -Kevin replied.

  Riley imagined him leaning forward with his index finger across his full lips.

  They were in the dark.

  - "This is crazy," -Jackson croaked. First, the van broke down, and now a madman or several, want to kill us. Is this the way how Murcia welcome to the tourists?"

  But he was speaking alone because nobody heard his voice, but the other voice. This time a woman's voice.

  -The forgotten here will suffer until they agonized in the death, -said.

  It was heard clearly and precisely throughout the length of the sentence. The cold sweat ran through the bodies of almost all of them, except Jackson who was talking like a parrot and had not heard anything. The heart of the four could be felt in the air, next to that woman's voice, bouncing on the walls of the dark room.

  Kevin felt to turn on the flashlight to see who it was, but he did not. Instead, he guessed that the supposed woman was speaking from the little hole in the door. And they were fucked up because Jackson with his voice would have revealed the hiding place. But he was wrong. In the distance he heard another voice, of the man with the crossbow who said;