Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story)

by Stephen Kingston

  And then Inga had received an email with several document files attached from one of the people she’d emailed. These files had revealed information that Inga had found even more sinister than what she’d already uncovered. Doctor James Nelson was the son of Doctor Klaus Meyers, a notorious mass murderer convicted in the late 1940s. Doctor Meyers had been performing experiments on African American and poverty stricken women during World War II, attempting to find a way to sterilize women with a single shot while also attempting to force embryos to split into multiple children in pregnant mothers.

  During the darkest days of the war, hidden away in a mountain town in West Virginia, the doctor had murdered over 300 women in his experiments to sterilize those he deemed unworthy of life and caused birth defects in countless other children in an attempt to produce an army of blond white children to continue the fight against the colored people of the world. Doctor Meyers had been a firm believer in Eugenics and an American supporter of the Nazi party from his parents’ homeland in Germany.

  When the war ended and the men started coming home the questions and concerns of mothers and the relatives of those that had gone missing were finally heard. Doctor Meyers had been investigated and a sensational trial was held, drawing crowds from all over the country. His son James changed his name from Meyers to Nelson and went quietly through his life. Or so it appeared from the outside. Inga suspected Doctor Nelson held many of his father’s beliefs and may have even continued some of his experiments.

  Now here she was with these files but no closer to an answer. Inga has always known she was adopted, the fact never made her feel different or unloved, and it simply made her curious. She also wondered about the nightmares she had, nightmares of being strapped down to a table, the crackling sound of electricity coming closer and closer until she woke up sweating and with her heart pounding just before the electricity shocked her. Sometimes there was a large woman present, cackling maniacally as she turned the dial up on some kind of machine. The nightmares still plagued Inga but not as often as they used to.

  Inga had another thought and scanned through the files looking for place names and names of people. She stopped when she read the words “electro-shock therapy” in Anne’s file. The doctor had written up a report on an “accident” when one of the nurses had administered the therapy to Anne without his consent. The doctor wrote that he was concerned about irreparable damage but that perhaps it was for the best.

  Inga sat back once more, stunned that the doctor didn’t mention punishment for the nurse. It was a medical file, though, so perhaps the woman had been punished after all? Inga decided to take another approach and settled into the bed after putting on a pot of coffee. She was going to read through each file, one by one, and then look for answers.

  Inga flipped back to the first page of Anne’s file, noting in a notepad the date when the file started, and taking notes as she read through the file. Inga was astonished to read that the doctor hadn’t bothered to hide his falsehoods to Anne in the file, writing in-depth about the woman’s reaction to his lies and how he’d dealt with her questions. He’d even written how much he’d sold Anne’s baby for and how he’d handed the baby over.

  The most shocking aspect of Anne’s file for Inga, out of whole pile of shocks brought on by the entire file, was Anne’s mother Sophia’s role in the whole debacle. Sophia had demanded a quarter of the money the baby brought initially but then half after Anne was given over to her care. The doctor had noted Sophia’s greed and postulated that the women’s greed and cruel behavior stemmed from her poverty and was a result of a life lived in poverty. Doctor Nelson wrote in detail about how greedy Sophia was and how that kind of greed needed to be stamped out of the white race because it was a sign of low breeding.

  Inga could only shake her head as she tried to take it all in and reached for one of the snack cakes she’d stocked her room with the day before. Eating the cake with another cup of coffee Inga reached for Anne’s file once more. The latter part of the woman’s life had been endless experiments with drugs, both tranquilizers and pain pills on the doctor’s part, and a few more doses of EST to see if they could bring her out of her stupor with controlled applications of the so-called therapy. He’d given Anne a pill in the last years of her life that was known to cause addiction, even in small doses. Doctor Nelson had even deliberately given Anne overdoses at various times over the years to try to “make his problem go away”, as he’d written, but Anne had always survived. Inga had done several reports on the dangers of the pill and couldn’t believe Doctor Nelson had given the drug to Anne.

  Inga soon closed the file and turned to Meg’s file. Apparently Meg had been a preacher’s wife with nine children when she came to Doctor Nelson. As Inga had expected this file was full of the odd notions of Doctor Nelson, mainly that the poor should not be allowed to breed indiscriminately, and the checks the doctor had done on Meg after the birth of her last children. The doctor mentioned that Meg was allowed to keep one of her twins but the other was sold to adoptive parents. The doctor approved of Meg and her life and agreed with the woman when she said she didn’t think she should have any more children. He’d agreed so much he’d sterilized her, disguising the procedure as a C-section without telling her. His notes revealed he knew the woman’s husband, a notorious philanderer throughout the town that hid his sins behind his work, would never approve of the procedure so he’d done it secretly.

  Inga stopped reading near the end. Meg had escaped the horrors that Anne had endured but she had lost a child to the man. A twin. Could Inga possibly have a twin in this world? Weren’t twins so close they could feel each other? It wasn’t a subject Inga knew much about but how wonderful would it be to discover a twin?

  Putting the file down once she’d read through to the end Inga reached for Joan’s file, wondering what fresh horrors awaited her. By the time Inga finished reading Joan’s file she was ready to curl up in a ball on the bed and cry. The tortures the woman had endured at the hands of Doctor Nelson were unimaginable. Inga pushed the file away from her with her feet, trying to decide what to do about the words she’d read in that file. Surely she should call the police, but then she’d have to tell them how she’d obtained the file.

  Joan was dead now, Doctor Nelson old and incapable of harming anyone else. Inga considered her own problem in the matter. She’d stolen the file, yes, the woman was dead now but it was still a medical file, protected by law. She could get in a lot of trouble for taking that file. Inga stared at her mobile phone, trying to decide what to do.

  As a reporter Inga also felt that there was far more to the story than these three women. Inga feared there were many more women such as these throughout the small town of Louisa Falls, perhaps even the surrounding towns, and that this was a much deeper case than she’d originally expected. She’d thought she was coming to reveal the duplicity of the doctor in his dealings with impoverished mothers.

  She hadn’t wanted to tarnish the memory of the parents who had raised her. Francis, her father, had passed away when she was fifteen but her mother, Alice, had been left well-funded through the foresight of Francis. They’d meant no harm, even if Francis had left one morning with $50,000 and came home with a baby in his arms for his wife instead of money. Inga had lived a privileged life with every advantage; they’d done well by her. But what about other children that may have been sold on to adoptive parents? And the mothers that may still be alive that could finally touch the children they’d been told died?

  Inga worried at her lip with her teeth and thought. No, this was much bigger than just her and her parents, this was something that involved a long list of crimes and she would have to involve the authorities somewhere along the line. Twisting a lock of her auburn hair around her finger Inga picked up Joan’s file to continue reading it, promising herself she’d go to the local police department the next morning.

  Joan’s files revealed the exact nature of just how terrible Doctor Nelson could truly be. His notes
recounted the night Joan disappeared, the glee of fooling Joan’s husband oozing through the yellowed paper. Apparently Nurse Pracket had struck again and Doctor Nelson was unsure of how to explain to Scott that his wife had been given too much EST.

  Joan hadn’t died, however. Doctor Nelson simply kept her locked away in an underground facility, one of many from the way the doctor wrote, and used her as a guinea pig for the experiments he’d designed. Doctor Nelson seemed to have been obsessed with his father’s research and carried on those efforts for many years. Joan had lived for five years in that underground facility, a victim to periodic EST and brutal experiments that stole her sight, made all of her hair fall out, made her teeth rot and crumble away, and finally left her deaf and paralyzed. Joan became locked into a world of darkness, silence, and pain. She’d existed in that world for a year before finally passing away from heart failure.

  Doctor Nelson had used electricity, surgeries without anesthetics, and finally chemicals on Joan in a variety of experiments for sterilization and then reversing mental health problems. The doctor’s interest bounced around from page to page Inga noted and poor Joan had been the guinea pig. Putting the file down Inga dried her eyes and looked outside. The sun had gone down now and Inga knew what she absolutely had to do tonight. She first copied and scanned each file with a portable scanner and then put them all into a bag.

  Dressed in black clothing with a small flashlight and her phone in her back pocket Inga drove out to the old hospital to find out what else she could discover before the sun came up. She had to find more proof before she went to the police department.

  Chapter Ten

  Inga parked well away from the hospital, not sure if there was a night watchman on duty or not but knowing if she wanted to sneak in quietly she’d have to walk part of the distance. She took her bag with her but filled her pockets once again with the flashlight and her phone. Those she wanted handy in case she needed them.

  Moving down the road, scrunching down when a car came her way or hiding behind a tree, Inga was determined that no one would see her going into the hospital. She was about to break the law just a little bit and she didn’t want any witnesses. Yes, she was going to get more information but she was also doing this to take those files back to the hospital. Imagine breaking in to return something!

  Inga made fun of herself as she walked, hoping to distract herself from her worries about being caught. And then she was at the hospital complex, hiding behind trees, and darting between bushes until she arrived at the window she’d left unlocked earlier. There were no lights on in the building and none in the parking lot, just a security light over the doors that she was able to dodge around. There were no cars in the parking lot either so she had to assume there was nobody inside of the hospital either.

  Inga scurried to the window and first pushed it then pulled it. Nothing happened so she got a grasp on the bottom part of the window and pushed up instead of out. At last, she had the window open. She wanted to give a victory shout but calmed herself before she did. Grabbing onto the sill Inga pulled herself into the office once more and hid behind the desk.

  Staying still she couldn’t hear anything then quietly moved towards the door. She hoped it wasn’t locked from the outside and worried that might be what stopped her from carrying on any further. Looking back at the filing cabinet she decided to leave the files there and go through the rest first. Inga was planning to go to the basement levels first but thinking about the other files decided against it.

  Pulling open the drawer she’d found the three files in Inga looked through the files it contained. Normal births and gynecological exams with no mention of the atrocities found in the other three. Inga spent an hour looking through the files, using only the bright moonlight to see by, and came up with nothing. Inga knew that there had to be more files, the doctor had alluded to other women being treated the same as Joan. Where were those files, she wondered.

  Giving up on finding more files in the room Inga walked back to the door and cracked it open. The door opened without a sound but Inga realized her shoes were going to make a squeaking noise so she took them off, putting them in her large handbag before shutting the door and heading for the elevator. She thought a security guard, squirreled away somewhere, and might notice the elevator moving so she headed for the stairs instead.

  Inga made her way down the stairs quietly, wondering what she was going to find. The first sublevel held the laundering facilities for the hospital and supplies that would be needed. Inga searched the entire area but found nothing like Doctor Nelson had described so she went back to the stairs, going down to the next level.

  She pushed through a set of double doors, wondering how the staff had ever kept the place secure with all of these open doors, and walked through the dark room she was in, her flashlight flickering back and forth. She knew there wasn’t anyone that could see it down here because there were no windows so Inga wasn’t worried about using the light to guide her way.

  This level was split by a hallway with doors every ten feet or so. She finally came to end of the level and only saw one door facing her. Pushing on the handle she walked into a room that was obviously an office. Going to the desk she dug through it but only found forms and office supplies. She dug around in the filing cabinet but saw it only contained books and more forms. This place dearly loved forms!

  She opened a closet and flashed the light around but found only an old coat and some boxes. Flicking at the coat in anger Inga’s jaw dropped when she saw the wall appeared to have another door in it. Quickly moving the boxes out of the closet Inga was amazed to find there actually was a door hidden in the closet. She tried the knob and found the door opened smoothly.

  Inga paused, terrified there’d be someone behind the door or, worse, bodies that had been abandoned. Inga reminded herself she was a reporter and there’d been no cars in the parking lot. She might find something gruesome but there wasn’t anyone alive here, she hoped. Besides, nobody had been through that door in a while if the dust on the boxes was any indication.

  Inga walked into the vast room she found herself in and looked around for a light switch. She finally found it and flicked the row of switches, revealing quite a few of the bulbs had blown but she could see enough that she turned the flashlight off. Walking around she found the space had been separated with curtains on wheels, the old version of privacy walls in hospitals. Each section contained a bed with either chains or cuffs attached to it.

  Inga counted and found there were twenty beds, an area where a bank of monitors stood, and a proper office with a large Plexiglas window making up part of the wall. Inga assumed the window was to ensure observations could be made from the safety of the office. Heading in that direction Inga hoped she’d finally found what she was looking for. What else could this all be about?

  Going straight to the desk Inga opened the largest drawer and hit the jackpot. Files filled the space and Inga pulled one out at random. Opening the thick file she saw that the patient was named Maureen Grady and had been held in the facility for two years. A heroin addict the woman had no family to miss her or to ask about her, that the doctor knew of. She’d come in off the street, her labor so progressed the baby’s head was visible.

  Doctor Nelson had written that the baby had died soon after birth, the heroin withdrawal more than its tiny body could take. Doctor Nelson had performed experiments on her until kidney failure killed her. Inga pulled out another file and found a similar story. It seemed Doctor Nelson had grown wise over time, going for women that would not be missed instead of those with husbands and family. Inga went through file after file and was astonished to read that the doctor had experimented on women up until three years ago when the last victim he and Nurse Pracket had kidnapped died. At least there weren’t any files after that point.

  Inga closed the drawer and looked through the others, finding something that looked like notebooks full of the doctor’s writing. Flipping through one she found what she�
�d suspected, notes about experiments and reports the doctor had written. Sighing deeply Inga stood up and walked out to the beds. She noticed that one side of the room was dark and moldy smelling. Looking up she saw a pipe had burst and water was still trickling out.

  Then the last few remaining lights started to flicker and went out one by one. Inga reached for the flashlight quickly and flicked it on. She jumped back and screamed as a pale white face, the mouth and eye sockets gaping dark holes, flew at her, a shrill scream filling the air. Inga stumbled and fell, throwing her hands over her face to defend herself but nothing happened.

  Looking through her fingers Inga saw a woman standing before her, three inches off of the ground. The woman moved and pointed at one of the beds. Inga wanted to run out of the place and dismiss it all as a hallucination but the woman with light-brown hair, dressed only in a hospital gown, looked far too sweet and humble to be a danger. And Inga’s reporter instinct simply wouldn’t let her run away.

  Keeping an eye on the apparition Inga moved to the bed, looking at it closely but spotted nothing unusual about it. No hidden compartments or glowing spots, so she looked back at the ghost. The apparition appeared to sit on the bed and Inga joined her. When the woman held her hand out Inga hesitated but then took it. The woman’s hand felt like nothing, no sensation at all but Inga saw the women smile as though she had been comforted just before Inga sank into a blackness so dark she was certain she’d died and this was the blank eternity she suspected death actually was.