Ghostland

by Duncan Ralston

  "Careful," Allison said.

  Lilian ignored her. The orb spun around her outstretched hand, leaving a fiery orange trail like the end of a sparkler and making her cupped palm glow for a moment, before it fluttered off to meet the others.

  A light blue orb floated past Ben's face and fluttered down toward the concrete. It landed on a crumpled Milky Way wrapper, which began flattening itself out with a crinkly sound. The flattened wrapper rose an inch or two into the air and sailed for about a foot like a leaf on a breeze, then dropped back to the ground. It glowed bright blue for a moment before the orb withdrew from it and caught up with the rest.

  "They're almost like poltergeists," Ben thought aloud.

  "Imagine what more than one of them could do," Allison muttered.

  "I think they're kinda cute," Leonard said. The others looked at him, surprised by the sentiment. "You know, for ghosts," he explained with a shrug, and everyone laughed. It felt good to relieve the tension. But Ben knew their relief was temporary. Death was waiting for them just around the corner. He was certain they would have their fill of it by the time this day was through.

  They continued their game of duck and cover heading north, leaving the orbs dancing behind them. Within a few minutes Ben and the others stood beneath the asylum, looking up at its brick towers, its parapets, and tall, darkened windows behind black iron bars.

  "Entrance is around the other side," Niko said, pointing off to the right.

  They followed him around the corner of the building, through an arched walkway and up a set of wide steps. The cemented seams were visible where the building had been cut into portable pieces and reassembled, fitted with steel rebar for support. The entire process to disassemble, transport and reassemble these buildings must have cost a fortune. Garrote's estate had been worth several million when he died, but it wouldn't have been nearly enough to bring a place like this to life. Ben knew very little about Ghostland's partner company, the Hedgewood Foundation, aside from the fact that they were a Fortune 500 company who seemed mostly interested in industrial software and green technologies.

  Large columns stood on either side of the wide, arched double doors, the words BRIGHT FALLS SANITARIUM etched into the stone above. A golf cart had crashed and tipped partway up the steps. The driver lay sprawled beneath it. Lilian didn't seem concerned with the dead body. She was looking up at the doors, and when she looked back at Ben her eyes were wide and wet with fear.

  "It's gonna be okay," he said. "If he's in there… we'll hit him with a blast of electroshock therapy. Light him up like the Fourth of July."

  "I don't know, Ben. I feel like we're about to walk into a bloodbath. I mean, we don't even have a plan…"

  "Like a young Leeroy Jenkins," Ben said, forcing a grin.

  "Yeah," she said, unable to keep the dread from her voice. "Only everybody on his campaign died. Including Leeroy."

  "Let's get this over with," Allison said, slipping past them and ascending the steps. She grasped the handle and pushed on the door to the right. The hinges groaned as it disappeared into the darkness within and Allison looked back with a nervous chuckle. "I guess nobody's home."

  Niko stopped alongside her. "Probably best if I take the lead," he said, holding up his stun gun and waving it. "Leonard, watch our six."

  "Roger that," Leonard said. He saluted Niko with a childish giggle that made Ben wonder if he was stoned. But he was probably just scared, like the rest of them.

  Niko stepped into the darkened interior. Allison followed close behind. Ben and Lilian entered side by side. When Ben turned back, expecting the door to slam shut on them, he saw Leonard scanning the courtyard briefly before stepping in behind them.

  "All clear, my man," the ex-Marine said, pushing the door closed.

  The foyer was a wide and tall, a full three stories, and several degrees cooler than the outside. The walls and arched ceiling were dark-stained wood. The floors were checkered black and white. A circular administration desk stood in front of the doors. Beyond it lay narrow tracks and an operator platform for a train the size of a roller coaster. The tracks lead own the long, arched corridor to the left, where sunlight filtered into the foyer. On either side of the foyer stairwells rose to a second story. The tracks returned down a low slope alongside the staircase to the right, closing the loop.

  "I did my residency in a place like this," Allison said as she headed cautiously around the desk, fingering its surface. "Back when these places were still common. It wasn't what I expected, not like in the movies. It was… quiet. Everyone heavily medicated. The night shifts were a little nerve-wracking with the whole hospital practically to myself, only a few others on duty. One night, I was consoling one of the patients after he'd had a particularly bad night terror. He was delusional but he'd never been violent. Always very meek."

  She gave Ben a sad smile. He wasn't sure where her story was going but she seemed to need to get it out, likely because of their brush with death at Guest Services.

  "Somehow," she said, "he'd gotten hold of a sharp piece of metal—a hinge of some sort, I believe. Before I knew it, he'd slashed both of his wrists. Blood everywhere, on the bedspread, on my clothes. I tried to stem the bleeding, I called for help but the building was just so large. So empty, just like this place. I had to leave him there bleeding to run and get medical supplies, and by the time I'd returned with the overnight nurse who'd been on her smoke break he'd already bled to death. It was the first time I'd seen someone die. One of my patients, I mean."

  Lilian looked at her curiously. She opened her mouth to speak, maybe to comfort her, but a long groan of wood from the second floor interrupted her, followed by the hurried step of hard soles on tile, approaching from somewhere deep within the asylum.

  "Maybe it's our mechanic friend," Allison suggested cautiously.

  "Probably shouldn't wait around to find out," Niko grunted. "I don't know about you guys, but I've seen enough ghosts for one day."

  "That sounded like lady steps to me," Leonard said. Allison flashed him a look of vague annoyance. "But he's in here somewhere," he added. Then he nodded as if to confirm this to himself. "Yeah, he's in here. Let's head down that hallway, huh?"

  Ben peered into the small operator platform as they stepped over the tracks. A man in a red Ghostland T-shirt was slumped over the controls, blood crusted beneath his eyes and open mouth. Something had sliced his forehead cleanly from temple to temple and peeled back his scalp and hair, revealing the skull beneath, a trench carved out of the bone if someone had used a very sharp tool, possibly even a bone saw.

  Beside the operator platform was a bin filled with VR controllers. Ben grabbed one and flicked it on, and the plastic bulb on top glowed red. It left trails on his glasses as he swished it back and forth. There had likely been a mini-game on the roller coaster where the controllers could interact with ghosts. He wished he'd been able to enjoy it before all hell had broken loose.

  Leonard and the others were already following the tracks to the left. Ben hurried to catch up, tucking the controller into his backpack. He met them at a glassed-in corridor through the middle of an outdoor garden. Small neatly trimmed hedges stood around a large apple tree and rows of multicolored flowers, and carved stone benches were placed strategically in front of birdbaths, fountains and statuary. They could see both wings of the asylum on either side of the quadrangle. It just looked like a whole lot of doors on either side, probably patient rooms.

  As they headed down the corridor, the vines draped over the tunnel made light scrabbly sounds like fingernails against the glass. The apple tree swayed in the same light breeze. Several apples fell from its branches with soft thuds.

  Ben was watching the gnarled branches sway when a pale woman wearing a nun's habit stepped out from behind the tree, stooping to pick an apple from the ground. She was naked from the shoulders down, her nipples as red as the apple and pubic hair as dark as the tree. She brought the apple to her nose, her forearm pressing her breasts toget
her momentarily, and she inhaled deeply. As she bit into the apple, she looked up suddenly and stared directly at Ben. He felt his shorts getting tighter, his penis beginning to throb with the beat of his heart. He swallowed hard.

  "Do I tempt ye?"

  The voice, with its Scottish lilt, seemed to come not from her mouth—chewing slowly as she spoke—but from inside Ben's head. He looked at the others. They hadn't noticed her. The nun's crazed eyes followed him as he hurried ahead to catch up.

  "Did you guys hear that?"

  "I think it's just the vines," Lilian said.

  Ben peered back through the cracked glass. The nun was gone. The branches of the apple tree swayed in her absence.

  They passed through an archway into a dim corridor with battered lime-green metal doors set in its stone walls. Their footfalls echoed hollowly as they moved past a rusted wheelchair tipped over in the corner, a wheel spinning with an incessant rusty squeak. As Ben glanced back into the garden, Leonard eyed him with curiosity.

  "Something on your mind, bud?"

  "You didn't see a woman back there, did you?"

  "What woman?"

  "What woman?" Allison echoed.

  "I thought I saw a nun in the garden," he muttered. "Eating an apple."

  They all paused to look at him. Allison had raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's rather suggestive."

  Ben blushed.

  Niko said, "Hey, what's that?"

  The group's attention shifted to the security guard, and Ben breathed a sigh of relief. They'd been looking at him like he'd experienced some sort of perverted hallucination. After everything they'd seen it hardly seemed fair to be skeptical.

  Niko crouched to look at a dark heap on the grimy green linoleum, tucking the stun gun into the holster on his belt. He picked up the pair of dark blue coveralls, and gave Leonard a worried look. "These are Joe's."

  "Dang," Leonard said.

  "At least that means he's here somewhere," Niko said, folding up the coveralls and tucking them under an arm.

  "Runnin' around butt-ass naked?"

  The survivors shared a wary look before continuing down the hall.

  "It's cold in here," Lilian said. She was shivering, hugging her arms to her chest.

  "It is," Ben agreed.

  "I run hot," Leonard said with a shrug, and Niko laughed.

  "Look there. Those must be his boots." Allison pointed to the end of the corridor where it turned to the right, where a pair of boots lay haphazardly in the light of a dirty window, as if the mechanic had kicked them off in a hurry.

  "Are those Timberlands?" Leonard asked. "Size twelve?"

  "You're not stealing Joe's boots, Leonard."

  "I wasn't going to take 'em." He turned to Ben, giving him an innocent shrug. "Just making sure they were his."

  Ben wasn't sure he believed the man but he didn't care. All that mattered was finding the man who owned them and getting the hell out of this place. They had to reach the mechanic before it was too late, if it wasn't already. They needed that security code.

  "Ah, Christ, here's his clipboard," Niko said, stooping to pick it up.

  "You sure that's his?" Leonard asked.

  "Who's else's would it be?"

  "I dunno. Don't they use clipboards in hospitals?"

  "This ain't a hospital anymore, Len. It's an exhibit."

  "Right. Well, maybe it's like a prop."

  "'Fix mechanical door wiring in asylum,'" Niko read. "'Crane Gardens fountain requires adjustment. Angel Knives machine eating quarters again.' Still think it's a prop?"

  "Guess not."

  Lilian shivered. "You guys, it's freezing in here. Like, seriously. I can see my breath." She demonstrated, exhaling sharply. Ben did the same. Their breath plumed out in front of them.

  While they marveled at this, like kids out making snow angels, a door at the far end of the long hall swung open and slammed against the wall. The sound echoed throughout the asylum—BANG-bang-bang-bang.

  The five of them stopped in their tracks. Listening. Waiting.

  With a high-pitched shriek, a hairy man in tube socks and tighty-whities staggered out of the room, visibly trembling. White flakes fluttered out behind him, caught in the light from the garden windows.

  Lilian blinked rapidly, as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "Is that… snow?"

  "Joe?" Niko called out. His voice resounded off the cold stone walls. He made no move to help his friend, looking nervous as he drew the stun gun. "Are you all right, brother?"

  The man at the end of the hall, hugging himself and shuddering in his boxer shorts, turned at the sound of Niko's voice. He opened his mouth to speak, managed only a slight whimper before his legs seemed to be jerked out from under him, and he struck the floor face-first with a slap of flesh and a cry of pain. He rolled onto his side, staring back into the room. "N-no," he said, shaking his head in absolute terror. "No, please—!"

  The unseen force yanked him back into the room, his flesh squeaking on the linoleum floor. For a moment his screams of agony echoed down the empty corridor. Then the door slammed shut behind him, muffling them.

  A woman's high, throaty laugh, taunting and malevolent, pealed out.

  Niko broke into a full run, calling out his friend's name. Reluctantly, hiking up his pants by the belt, Leonard chased after him.

  Ben turned to the others. Lilian seemed as frightened as he felt, twisting her beaded bracelet around and around her wrist and moving her lips. She caught his look and shook her head, a small, almost imperceptible movement that barely moved a strand of hair. "It was snowing in there," she said. Allison was looking behind them, back down the hall the way they had come, as if she'd seen or heard something the rest of them hadn't.

  Ben followed Niko and Leonard, heading down the middle of the hall, wary of the windows to his right and the doors to his left. They were closed, but he fully expected any of them to burst open at any moment. He peered into the garden, certain the nun would be standing under the apple tree, juice spilled down her chin and running down her breasts. But the quadrangle was empty. The apple tree swayed gently and a fine mist from the fountain, with its green marble cherub pouring water from a jug into the murky pool below, swirled in the breeze.

  A hand fell on his shoulder, startling him. He whirled around to find Lilian standing beside him with a look of worry. "Did you see something?"

  He shook his head. "No. It's nothing."

  Ben and Lilian approached Niko and Leonard. The two former Marines still stood by the room their friend had been pulled into, staring at the door, seemingly afraid of what they might encounter within.

  "I don't hear anything," Niko said. "You think he's dead?"

  "We gotta go in there, man," Leonard muttered. He didn't sound confident. "I know you're scared but he could still be alive."

  Niko nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I can't open it, brother. You gotta do it."

  Leonard huffed and reached out to grasp the handle. The second his fingers curled around it he withdrew the hand with a wince. The metal had left an angry red print on his palm. "Jesus, it's ice cold," he said, clenching and unclenching his fingers in a vain attempt to soothe the pain.

  "Ouch," Allison said.

  Tucking his left hand into the hem of his T-shirt he tried again, twisting the handle quickly and jerking the door open. He stepped out of its arc as it swung out violently and struck the wall.

  More white flakes eddied out into the hall. At first, Ben thought it must be ash or pillow stuffing, until one of them landed on his forearm and melted, leaving a cold wet spot on his skin. Lilian was right. There was a blizzard inside the small room.

  "Joe? You in there, brother?"

  Fear in Niko's voice. Fear in his eyes. The hand holding the stun gun quivered, just enough to be noticeable, rattling the plastic parts. No reply came from within, just the wavering howl of a phantom wind as the giant snowflakes whipped in a frenzy, blotting out whatever lay inside.

  "Do ye fancy me?"<
br />
  Ben spun on his heels at the sound of her voice. The nun. She'd followed them. Followed him.

  "Aye, yer a shy one, aren't ye?"

  She uttered another high, throaty laugh, the same laughter he'd heard when the door slammed behind Joe. Ben looked around wildly, seeking its source. Was he the only one hearing her? Lilian looked at him apprehensively. He didn't know what to tell her. Whatever was happening to the man inside the room was more urgent. His life hung in the balance. So Ben said nothing, just shook his head and looked out the windows through the corner of his eye.

  Inside the room the blizzard had thinned out. He could make out a cot and a small shelf, the walls painted salmon, flaked in places, cracked elsewhere, with huge chunks of plaster missing. A few drawings had been tacked to the walls, crude sketches of gaping vaginas and giant penises dripping great gobs of semen had been etched into the plaster.

  The mechanic lay against the wall in his underwear, slumped over his hairy gut, his legs spread wide. A trail of blood led from his groin all the way to the door, the crotch of his boxers stained black with it. Ben shuddered to imagine the sort of injury that would have caused so much blood, especially where it was.

  "Is he dead?" Lilian asked.

  "Ah, Christ, I'm going in." Leonard stepped into the room. He followed along the path of blood as snow swirled lazily around his head. "Hey, Joe, buddy. You alive? C'mon, wake up, man."

  Niko stepped in behind him in a quick movement that seemed as if he'd had to force himself forward, like someone wearing a shock collar trying to cross an invisible fence without getting zapped. "Is he okay?"

  "It's not him," Leonard said, looking back with alarm.

  The nun's laughter rattled in Ben's mind. She stood in the garden just beyond the windows, still naked from the cowl down. Black varicose veins radiated from her wide, delirious eyes, tracing their way below the cowl and along the slope of her breasts. His gaze fell upon them, hanging like withered fruit below the cowl, marked with bruises and bite marks. Her cracked and bleeding lips parted in a maniacal smile full of rotted teeth and mushy apple.

  "I've come for you, my shy boy," she said.