Brimstone

by Tamara Thorne

  Suddenly, Holly stiffened under his hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t you see her?”

  “See her?”

  “She’s right there in the elevator. She’s looking at us. I think she wants us to open the gate.”

  Her? Goosebumps prickling up, Steve stared into the darkness. “I don’t see anyone, Holly.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. Not a soul.” The lobby seemed to be chilling, as if the elevator car were a refrigerator with an open door. “Maybe it’s Jack Purdy.” His words sounded lame.

  “No! It’s a woman. A nurse, I think. She’s wearing an old-time black dress with a white apron and a little red cross.” Holly crossed her arms, hugging herself as she glanced at Steve. “She looks kinda mean. I don’t think we should open the gate.”

  “I don’t either.” He hesitated, peering into the chill darkness, seeing nothing. “Is she still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holly,” he said softly, “we’re going to turn away and go sit behind the desk. She doesn’t sound nice and I’ve read that paying attention to a ghost can feed it. I don’t know if that’s true, but we’d better ignore her.” He pressed Holly’s shoulder and she took the hint.

  Hidden behind the tall lobby desk, they sat in two chairs by the elderly switchboard. No elevator lights blinked; it was completely dark except for the dim glow of the overhead lights. The lobby was cold but he could still smell the rubbing alcohol. A hospital scent, he realized. Holly shivered and stared up at the countertop, no doubt waiting for the phantom nurse to peer down at them. Brave kid. Steve kept his eyes lowered.

  All at once, the elevator came to life. Gears engaged. Steve and Holly stood up, staring as the doors shut on darkness and the elevator began to rise. It ascended for a few seconds then the sounds faded and the elevator landing lights dimmed to nothing as if it had all been an illusion. Even the chill was gone.

  “Steve? Can I ask you a weird question?”

  “The weirder the better.” He spoke lightly, not wanting Holly to know how unnerved he was.

  “Okay, well … Where do you think the elevator went?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  “I mean, the way it just sort of faded away, it seemed like a ghost elevator. You know, like a ghost train? But different.”

  “That’s a good theory, Holly. And it makes sense since the elevator has no power right now. If it happens again, I’ll see if I can touch it to see if it’s really there.” He grabbed a couple of root beers out of a cooler under the desk, uncapped them and handed one to her.

  “Thanks. That lady,” Holly said. “I wish you’d seen her, too.”

  “So do I.” He rose. “Wait here for just one minute, Holly, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  He raced back to the copper-clad door, entered the utility room and trotted to the elevator shaft. Peering up, he saw that the elevator remained moored on the penthouse level. Satisfied, he returned to Holly and told her she was right about it being a ghost elevator.

  “I want to show you something.” He pulled a large photo album from a shelf beneath the ancient switchboard and laid it on a low desktop between their chairs.

  The switchboard rang. “Hang on.” He turned to answer it, then stared. It was room 329.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  “Come here.” He crooked his finger then held up the headset between them. He hit the switch. “Lobby. May I help you?”

  They heard nothing, not even static.

  Holly looked at him as he broke the connection. “You waited too long. They hung up.”

  “There’s no one in there.”

  Holly’s eyes widened. “It’s haunted?”

  “I think so.”

  “Have you ever gone inside?”

  He nodded. “There’s never anything there, but it’s always kind of chilly. Guests don’t like it. They have nightmares, and a few have reported hearing voices.”

  “Can I answer if it rings again?”

  Steve grinned. “Absolutely. Now, I want you to look at some photographs.”

  Holly scooted closer and watched as he carefully opened the old book.

  “These are early shots of the hospital,” he explained as he turned the first pages.

  “I’d love to look at all the pictures.”

  “You can whenever you want, but right now, I want to show you some people.” He turned pages until he came to faded photos and portraits from the days of the hospital. “Check these out, Holly. See if anyone looks familiar.”

  Holly turned a few pages, examining the photos, then looked up at him from beneath her brows. “Is my great-great-grandfather in here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one is he?”

  “Here.” Steve turned a couple more pages and stopped. The glowering portrait of Henry Hank Barrow took up an entire page. The man was middle-aged in the portrait, his dark hair only salted at the temples. “That’s him.”

  “He doesn’t look very friendly.”

  “Back in those days, it was the fashion to glare at the camera. You had to sit for a long time without moving to have your portrait done. Maybe it put people in bad moods, though from what I understand Henry Hank Barrow always looked angry.”

  “I think he was mean for real.” Holly spoke with certainty.

  Steve shifted, uncomfortable; it wasn’t his place to put down Henry Hank to his great-great-granddaughter. “Well, he was a hardcore businessman and they can be pretty mean.” He turned the page.

  “That’s her!” Holly pointed at the woman standing beside a line of nurses like a drill sergeant. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and pulled severely back.

  “That’s Pearl Abbott, the head nurse in Henry Hank’s day. They were … friends.” Goosebumps rose as Steve studied the photo. Everything about Pearl Abbott was so severe that even her hourglass figure and white pinafore apron couldn’t soften her looks. “She does look kind of mean. It’s said she ruled the nurses with an iron hand.”

  “She saw me,” Holly whispered, still staring at the photo.

  “I wouldn’t worry about her - she’s just a ghost.” He paused. “And you’re the first to ever see the elevator ghost - at least now we know who it is.”

  “I know.” Holly turned more pages. “But she saw me, and that’s kind of creepy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve seen ghosts before and they never saw me. There was this little girl I used to see at the park sometimes, but she never saw me; it was like she looked right through me. She was there, but she was sort of like a movie or something, you know? That nurse really saw me.”

  “Well, Holly, maybe it just seemed like she did because her eyes were looking in your direction. Could that be it?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

  They sat there, sipping their root beers and looking at photos until the electricity came back on. Steve tried to lose himself by telling Holly some of the history of the hospital, but he couldn’t quite get past the fact that the girl had identified Pearl Abbott, R.N., Henry Hank Barrow’s lover, and companion - a woman who understood poison and was likely behind many deaths, including Henry Hank’s wife, and Delilah’s mother.

  22

  The Day They Died

  Ben Gower, unable to sleep after the quake, sat in darkness at the writing desk in his apartment above the drugstore. From here, he had a perfect view of Main Street, but there was little to see. The power outage had gone on for some time now and the dim glow of candlelight and oil lamps flickered softly in a few of the homes and businesses. A generator noisily chugged over at the glassblower’s where Sid was undoubtedly sweeping up broken trinkets. Otherwise Brimstone’s main street remained utterly dark.

  The drugstore hadn’t suffered much in the quake - it was nothing he and Eddie couldn’t straighten up in the morning, but the power had been off long enough now that Ben was worried about the ice cre
am; although tightly packed in the freezers, it would start melting before morning. If the power didn’t come back on in the next few minutes, he’d go back downstairs and start his own generator. Ben raised his reluctant gaze to Hospital Hill where the Brimstone Grand, a crouching gargoyle, surveyed the town through a few dim eyes. Only the fifth floor, where Delilah lived, was well lit. She must have turned on every lamp she could. Ben hoped for her sake that her generator wouldn’t run out of gas before dawn. He recalled that even as a little girl, Delilah wasn’t fond of the dark. Carrie had told him. Carrie. So long ago.

  Can’t risk melting my inventory. But as Ben made to rise, streetlights jittered to life outside and the turquoise case glass desk lamp glowed. Relieved, he settled back down. Then his gaze returned to the former hospital high on the hill.

  He shivered. The last time he’d visited the Clementine Hospital, he’d been ten years old, working as a delivery boy for his father and grandfather, owners of Gower’s Pharmacy and the Brimstone Telegraph Company back at the turn of the century. He was a newly-minted, very proud delivery boy. He wore a uniform his mother had made him that was modeled on the Western Union uniforms that bicycle delivery boys wore back then, and rode a new bicycle his parents had given him in honor of his first job.

  He was barely big enough to ride the tall bike and, back then, all the roads were dirt or gravel, but ride he did, delivering telegrams and drugs and other purchases to people all over Brimstone. Now, Ben closed his eyes, remembering the good times, how proud he was in his navy uniform, riding his bike - and rarely falling. Back then, Brimstone was yellow-skied and a little wild, at least on Saturday nights. He delivered to mining company executives, to churches, shops, and private homes. He delivered to the busy red light district, to ladies in fancy robes who smelled of powder and perfume. And he’d regularly delivered to the Clementine Hospital.

  He’d liked cycling up to the building, even though it was so hot in the summer that he’d get off and push the bike up the steep dirt road. From the outside, the building looked much as it did now. Inside, it smelled clean like rubbing alcohol and the nurses wore starched pinafores over blue and white striped dresses with puffy mutton chop sleeves and high collars. Their white mob caps were charmingly ruffled. He remembered watching them in their long dresses, gliding through the halls with their trim hourglass figures accentuated by the way the big bows of the pinafores lay over their behinds. They always smiled at him and his first awareness of the gentler sex came courtesy of those nurses.

  And then, one day, everything changed.

  It was early on a March morning in 1900. He’d been tasked with hand-delivering a telegram to Henry Hank Barrow himself. The hospital’s chief administrator inspired fear in all children and many adults, and Ben was nervous but doing his best to hide it. It didn’t help that on his way up, a riderless horse came barreling down the road, barely missing him. And when he arrived, he noticed all the horses - saddled and those pulling carriages - were uneasy. They stood at hitching posts, ears swiveling, some pawing the ground, others snorting with heads held high, nostrils flared, eyes darting. Patting his pocket to make sure the telegram was safe, Ben swallowed and entered the hospital lobby.

  It was as silent as a tomb; no one was in sight, not a doctor, nor a nurse, or even a patient. Curious, but not alarmed, Ben went to the nurse’s station and dinged the service bell.

  No one came.

  “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone here?”

  Silence. Silence so thick that goosebumps traveled up his neck and arms. Ben circled the nurses’ station, going to the side gate, thinking he could leave the telegram on the desk inside.

  That was when he saw the nurse. She was sprawled face down on the floor, her blue and white dress rucked up to her knees, her mob cap and a clipboard beside her. Ben stared. “Ma’am? Are- are you all right?”

  She’s on the floor. She’s not all right! He opened the gate and went to her. He touched her hand; it was warm. “Ma’am?”

  She didn’t respond. Ben shot to his feet and ran out of the station, past the elevator and into the main corridor of the hospital yelling, “Help! I need help!”

  The words died on his lips. He saw more nurses collapsed on the floor, and doctors, too. A patient in a maroon robe sat slumped in a wheelchair, his face hidden, a nurse sprawled behind him. She was on her back, eyes open, mouth slack, a thin drool of blood at one corner. A single drop suspended from her lips plopped to the floor as Ben stood frozen in shock.

  He yelled - no, I screamed! - and as he ran for the doors he imagined he heard faint rumbling laughter coming from all around him. He’d raced out and, blinded by terror, made for his bicycle.

  But a hand clamped onto his arm like an iron pressing into his flesh.

  “What’s the hurry, boy?” He looked up into the eyes of Henry Hank Barrow. His dark suit and arched black eyebrows accentuated the unreal blue of his eyes and the gold stain in the left one seemed to throb. Though Barrow’s lips smiled, his eyes did not. Beside him was Pinching Pearl Abbott, the head nurse, in her black dress and white apron with the little red cross pinned above her bosom. She was the one holding his arm, her nails stabbing into it so hard now that it felt like knives. Her charcoal eyes glittered as she smiled down at him.

  He’d never seen her smile before and he never wanted to again.

  “T-Telegram, sir.” He yanked the envelope from his pocket and thrust it into Barrow’s hands, staring at the man’s big gold ring. A smooth, round lapis, bluer than blue, was set into it and in that was embedded a strange copper symbol tipped with tiny brilliant rubies.

  “Let the boy go, Pearl,” he rumbled then before turning his awful gaze back on Ben. “Off with you, boy!”

  He mounted the bike, wobbling, nearly falling as he began pedaling. Barrow’s laugh - and Pinching Pearl’s cackle - followed him.

  When he arrived back at the pharmacy’s telegraph office, his father smiled and rose from his desk. Then his smile faltered. “What’s wrong, son? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Ben shook his head. “It was worse than that.” He told his father what he’d seen, and then Dad called Grandfather in and had him tell the story again. After that, Dad went to fetch the sheriff and Doc Peyton.

  When his father returned, hours later, he barely spoke, but he hugged Ben close. Later that night, he overheard him telling his mother what had happened. “They were dead, Maude, all of them, on every floor. Doctors, nurses, patients, everyone. And not a mark on them. Doc Peyton is baffled. He thinks maybe they all suffocated.”

  “John, that’s horrible. Was it a gas leak?”

  “Likely. He’s not sure of anything except that there were no survivors. I think maybe Ben was real lucky he didn’t get there any earlier than he did.” His father’s voice cracked. “Maude, even the babies in the nursery were dead. And their mothers.”

  Ben’s mother gasped. A few moments later, she came into his room and he pretended to be asleep as she bent and kissed him, one hot tear splashing his cheek. At last, she wiped it away and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Everyone in town had been baffled. Everyone who’d been in the hospital, including the head surgeon, the chief of staff, and most of the hospital board died that day. But many lived - a good number of the staff had been off duty.

  That incident, Ben reflected, like the other, smaller ones that happened over the next decade or two, was quickly forgotten. Hushed and covered up is more like it. Or maybe people just didn’t want to think about such things. He never knew and rarely wondered, except after one of the damnable nightmares he’d suffered for evermore.

  And in all the years that followed, Ben Gower never set foot inside Clementine Hospital again.

  23

  2 a.m

  After helping Steve put out-of-order signs on the elevator landings, Holly had reluctantly returned to her room. There she picked up the cracked cobalt bowl and the red apples, and straightened the crooked painting
s. It was after two a.m. when she finished. She’d rarely been up so late and she loved it.

  Now, cozy in her new robe, she leaned against the balcony railing and stared down at the sleeping town. Beyond Brimstone, the lights of the Lewisdale Cement Plant glittered. It looked like a lit-up Tinker Toys tower.

  The chill night wind kissed her face and blew strands of hair across her eyes as she thought about the ghostly nurse in the elevator. Holly knew the spirit was aware of her. When she’d locked eyes with her, it was everything Holly could do not to turn and run - but she hadn’t because no way did she want Steve to think she was a coward. No way! And I’m not! I’m not afraid of ghosts, or anything else!

  But Pearl Abbott had given her the creeps. Big time.

  “You feel better, Missy Delilah?” Frieda Mendez adjusted the shawl over her employer’s shoulders. “More chamomile tea?” She’d found Delilah clinging to the balcony in abject terror after the quake and coaxed her in, then made her rest in her rocking chair, knowing the movement would soothe her. The power had been out and even though Frieda opened the drapes to let in the moonlight, it had been too dark and her mistress hadn’t been able to stop trembling until Frieda lit every oil lamp and candle in the penthouse. Even then, Miss Delilah hadn’t spoken until the generator started. Now the power was back on, but Delilah still wasn’t herself. “Missy Delilah?”

  “I’m fine, thank you, Frieda. No more tea, but perhaps a dollop of sherry will help me sleep.”

  Frieda fetched the sherry and a glass.

  Delilah sipped. “That’s better. Have you heard anything about the earthquake? Is everyone here all right?”

  “As far as I know. Steve said there was no damage. And Miss Holly came to ask after you shortly after it happened.”

  Delilah looked up. “Was she frightened?”

  “I don’t think so. You know how kids are.”

  “They all think they’re immortal.” Delilah held out her glass. “Just a tot more. Holly seems especially fearless, don’t you think?”